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To be fair, a democracy with open media and protections of free speech will always be harder to defend against foreign psyops attacks. Instead of having to infl

To be fair, a democracy with open media and protections of free speech will always be harder to defend against foreign psyops attacks. Instead of having to influence enough people to revolt, you only have to influence enough to change the election outcome, which typically is close to parity anyway. And with non-state-run media and free speech protections, you have many pathways. So democracies have to harden themselves. And I think the only way to harden the populace is education. General education. Education in the scientific method. And also education about psyops.

nonrandomstring 3y ago
> harden the populace is education I agree. But it is not the only requirement. Restoring control of technologies to the people is vital too. Intellectual self-defence requires a sceptical stance, but it also requires capability (other than simply switching off and opting out) Five giant websites plus endpoint computing that is neither owned nor controlled by passive "consumers" is a grave step in the wrong direction. In the "West" we've allowed this for reasons of private profit and government control, and I think in doing so we've created the very conditions for malign influence.
jstarfish 3y ago
"Education about psyops" is impossible. Until recently this amounted to "don't trust the media, and verify everything the government says [using media sources]." Reddit is currently being used to poison future training data for LLMs while laundering the source of the beliefs, to make it look like "everyone" believes a single narrative. Whoever "controls" the content on Reddit (and the media, while it lasts) controls what will be the Truth in the future as it's all absorbed into a attributionless knowledge pool. So Joe Sixpack thinks he's smart, puts on his anti-media tinfoil hat and just asks WhateverGPT his question, which has been tainted by...poisoned Reddit data and media sources that draw from it. Fuck pipe bombs and meth-- this is the real danger of local LLMs. They challenge the monopoly on knowledge itself. There is no dissent. It's currently impossible for outsiders to launch a psyops campaign on Reddit. VPNs are blocked. Those that took control of the treehouse quickly moved to pull the ladder up. The party line and public perception of it is now meticulously groomed (pun intended).
- davrosthedalek 3y ago
  I am sorry, but what? "Education about psyops" is not "don't trust the media". Education about psyops is "These are the methods that people use. These are examples where we know it was used. These are techniques to detect it." and much more. If your psyops game plan is foiled by "vpn detection" of reddit, I don't think you should be playing.

nonrandomstring 3y ago

> harden the populace is education I agree. But it is not the only requirement. Restoring control of technologies to the people is vital too. Intellectual self-defence requires a sceptical stance, but it also requires capability (other than simply switching off and opting out) Five giant websites plus endpoint computing that is neither owned nor controlled by passive "consumers" is a grave step in the wrong direction. In the "West" we've allowed this for reasons of private profit and government control, and I think in doing so we've created the very conditions for malign influence.

jstarfish 3y ago

"Education about psyops" is impossible. Until recently this amounted to "don't trust the media, and verify everything the government says [using media sources]." Reddit is currently being used to poison future training data for LLMs while laundering the source of the beliefs, to make it look like "everyone" believes a single narrative. Whoever "controls" the content on Reddit (and the media, while it lasts) controls what will be the Truth in the future as it's all absorbed into a attributionless knowledge pool. So Joe Sixpack thinks he's smart, puts on his anti-media tinfoil hat and just asks WhateverGPT his question, which has been tainted by...poisoned Reddit data and media sources that draw from it. Fuck pipe bombs and meth-- this is the real danger of local LLMs. They challenge the monopoly on knowledge itself. There is no dissent. It's currently impossible for outsiders to launch a psyops campaign on Reddit. VPNs are blocked. Those that took control of the treehouse quickly moved to pull the ladder up. The party line and public perception of it is now meticulously groomed (pun intended).

davrosthedalek 3y ago
I am sorry, but what? "Education about psyops" is not "don't trust the media". Education about psyops is "These are the methods that people use. These are examples where we know it was used. These are techniques to detect it." and much more. If your psyops game plan is foiled by "vpn detection" of reddit, I don't think you should be playing.