7 ms·

Memetics – A Growth Industry in US Military Operations (2006) [pdf]

66 points by lawrenceyan 1y ago

globalnode 1y ago
lol, if it wasn't so dangerous I'd find this hilarious.
- bikamonki 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - trod1234 1y ago
    That's a stretch.
    - energy123 1y ago
      It was an example of memetics, just not a centrally controlled one.
      - trod1234 1y ago
        You seem to be conflating early propaganda, and ideology with memetics. While it has some of the same elements and is focused on ideology, memetics is quite different. Its improper to say they are the same, or even that Nazism is an example of it (it wasn't). They also don't properly define the term. Memetics is 5GW. There is a whole host of other material not under that name turned towards the same purpose which is Counterinsurgency (COIN). Variations on the idea have been used in the private sector, and public sector for decades to control narrative, target activists, and destroy cultural identity. Further material can be found on COINTELPRO, and its later derivatives (which were published prior to this), as well as the MKULTRA experiments, Stasi's Zersetzung, etc. Some have said the COPS act passed by Clinton in 94 includes a continuation of the former (COINTELPRO), informally, and it was just reauthorized in 2023. The TL;DR of memetics is its about gathering experts for the purpose of reducing, eliminating, and manipulating objective reality in people towards subtle brainwashing and thought reform. It leaves nothing off limits, and centralized empires always devolve to abusing and using weapons they build on their own subjects. An adaptive system (person), uses feedback to adapt. A creature that cannot adapt, or more accurately is made so they cannot adapt, fails Darwin's fitness when the environment becomes chaotic. In other words, extinction, and memetic's focus is cultural contagion, which jumps from person to person across communications mediums. Its entirely possible to break people reducing them to simplistic automatons incapable of rational thought, and inducing disassociation or psychosis. Mao proved this in the 1950s, its only gotten better with time, and this methodology aims to create structures that self-propagate such things. Wouldn't it be horrifying if people en-masse just started to go insane. The thought reminds me of a fictional book I read, a series called Weapons of Chaos by Robert Vardeman, where an extinct race created a similar weapon, and its why they went extinct. Evil people are quite often blind people that are more focused on whether they 'can' do something rather than whether they 'should or ought' to do something.
        energy123 1y ago
        > The TL;DR of memetics is its about gathering experts for the purpose of reducing, eliminating, and manipulating objective reality That's not the original definition of memetics, though. Memetics refers to an evolutionary process, not to a top-down concerted scheme. In its original definition, many elements of Nazism are a result of memetics. The same can be said of religions and any ideology really. These things aren't cooked up in a vat, they're a byproduct of the evolution of ideas in a certain context.
        trod1234 1y ago
        > not a top-down concerted scheme. What I said is an outcome oriented scheme... > Memetics refers to an evolutionary process. No it doesn't. It makes comparisons to the self-propagating aspects of viruses which is an evolutionary process, the two aren't the same. It was first used 1977 with reference to meme, and was poorly defined in dictionaries 1984 according to Oxford Dictionary. > The same can be said of religions and any ideology really. You seem to have overgeneralized past the point of absurdity. These things have been cooked up in a vat since the 1950s under Mao. They are not natural, they are distorted for purpose. There is plenty of established literature which I've already mentioned.
  - qoez 1y ago
    Someone can just make bot replying this to arbitrary replies and it'd get votes
ta988 1y ago
There is no antimemetics division.
- riffraff 1y ago
  New book coming out soon, for those unaware
  - dmazin 1y ago
    Ooh, thanks for saying this! I’ll look out for it. Their collection “humans in transit” is real good.
    - riffraff 1y ago
      It's a rework of the old SCP story, I asked him what changed and he said "too much to mention". I read the original online so I'm looking forward to pay for a book just to give back. Agreed on hist short stories too!
- tandr 1y ago
  https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub
- shantara 1y ago
  The U.S. Army was secretly developing antimemetic weaponry as early as the 1940s.
- JoeCortopassi 1y ago
  I read this book because I misunderstood a recommendation and thought it was a business book talking about how companies get people to forget negative information (e.g. dump news on Friday etc). Boy was that first chapter a wild ride until I figured out it was not in fact a business book Fun story, strong recommend
  - kmeisthax 1y ago
findalex 1y ago
...must function unfastened from current PsyOps doctrine which prohibits communicating any PsyOps type message or meme to US domestic audiences. PsyOps doctrine is an interesting way of saying "the law"... at least until NDAA 2012: https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/5736 https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/5736.
aspenmayer 1y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20250518031649/https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA507172.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20250518031649/https://apps.dtic...
endoblast 1y ago
>Managing, employing and leveraging memetic power This is propaganda, or advertising, not memeing. Propaganda is used to promote specific ideologies; memes arise spontaneously to counter them. Since all ideologies/-isms are by nature wrong, memes are generally-speaking a good thing. They're on the side of reality. They use rhetoric and fiction to point to the truth, often via some form of reductio ad absurdum. By contrast mainstream propaganda uses facts selectively in order to distort the big picture, mislead or simply distract people.
- OmarShehata 1y ago
  memes are not "on the side of reality". memes are on the side of whatever resonates. What resonates is what aligns to your model of reality (which is shaped by the ideology you're inside). There's no clear distinction between propaganda, advertising, and what you call "meme-ing". Companies can and do create campaigns that look organic, that do takeoff as people feel they are organic (and then they become actually real as people take them further than what the company is pushing) For example: Barbenheimer was a meme that got people to watch two movies in one weekend (not a typical behavior for most people). Was that an organic meme, or a marketing campaign? (If anyone is curious, I keep trying to write a good intro to this rabbithole, see my writeup on the New York Times explaining how a psyop works, which itself very significant for them to be spelling it out like this: https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/new-york-times-is-trying-to-explain https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/new-york-times-is-... )
  - endoblast 1y ago
    Not everyone is an ideologue. Some people are just on the side of what is, or what is real.
    - mecsred 1y ago
      Everyone is an ideologue. What _is_ is too complicated to fit in a human brain, so we compress it. Thinking you're a free thinker is a type of ideology you can subscribe to.
webdoodle 1y ago
One of my last posts on Reddit before my account was suspended and all my 15 years of posts, comments and private messages were deleted without my approval, was about memetic chaining. I've reposted it on Substack for those interested: https://webdoodle.substack.com/p/memetic-chaining-and-the-new-censorship https://webdoodle.substack.com/p/memetic-chaining-and-the-ne...
- moneywoes 1y ago
  why was everything deleted delete
- amy214 1y ago
  >last posts on Reddit before my account was suspended and all my 15 years of posts, comments and private messages were deleted Ironic, you post in depth about the dreadfulness of psyops and yet you complain about reddit having wrongfully deleted your account, reddit, a perfect thought molding garden which rewards righthink with updoots and punishes wrongthink with downdoots. Seems to me is that they liberated you. Reddit is a strange game. The only way to win is not to play seriously, but rather to troll.

66 points by lawrenceyan 1y ago

globalnode 1y ago

lol, if it wasn't so dangerous I'd find this hilarious.

bikamonki 1y ago
[flagged]
- trod1234 1y ago
  That's a stretch.
  - energy123 1y ago
    It was an example of memetics, just not a centrally controlled one.
    - trod1234 1y ago
      You seem to be conflating early propaganda, and ideology with memetics. While it has some of the same elements and is focused on ideology, memetics is quite different. Its improper to say they are the same, or even that Nazism is an example of it (it wasn't). They also don't properly define the term. Memetics is 5GW. There is a whole host of other material not under that name turned towards the same purpose which is Counterinsurgency (COIN). Variations on the idea have been used in the private sector, and public sector for decades to control narrative, target activists, and destroy cultural identity. Further material can be found on COINTELPRO, and its later derivatives (which were published prior to this), as well as the MKULTRA experiments, Stasi's Zersetzung, etc. Some have said the COPS act passed by Clinton in 94 includes a continuation of the former (COINTELPRO), informally, and it was just reauthorized in 2023. The TL;DR of memetics is its about gathering experts for the purpose of reducing, eliminating, and manipulating objective reality in people towards subtle brainwashing and thought reform. It leaves nothing off limits, and centralized empires always devolve to abusing and using weapons they build on their own subjects. An adaptive system (person), uses feedback to adapt. A creature that cannot adapt, or more accurately is made so they cannot adapt, fails Darwin's fitness when the environment becomes chaotic. In other words, extinction, and memetic's focus is cultural contagion, which jumps from person to person across communications mediums. Its entirely possible to break people reducing them to simplistic automatons incapable of rational thought, and inducing disassociation or psychosis. Mao proved this in the 1950s, its only gotten better with time, and this methodology aims to create structures that self-propagate such things. Wouldn't it be horrifying if people en-masse just started to go insane. The thought reminds me of a fictional book I read, a series called Weapons of Chaos by Robert Vardeman, where an extinct race created a similar weapon, and its why they went extinct. Evil people are quite often blind people that are more focused on whether they 'can' do something rather than whether they 'should or ought' to do something.
      - energy123 1y ago
        > The TL;DR of memetics is its about gathering experts for the purpose of reducing, eliminating, and manipulating objective reality That's not the original definition of memetics, though. Memetics refers to an evolutionary process, not to a top-down concerted scheme. In its original definition, many elements of Nazism are a result of memetics. The same can be said of religions and any ideology really. These things aren't cooked up in a vat, they're a byproduct of the evolution of ideas in a certain context.
        trod1234 1y ago
        > not a top-down concerted scheme. What I said is an outcome oriented scheme... > Memetics refers to an evolutionary process. No it doesn't. It makes comparisons to the self-propagating aspects of viruses which is an evolutionary process, the two aren't the same. It was first used 1977 with reference to meme, and was poorly defined in dictionaries 1984 according to Oxford Dictionary. > The same can be said of religions and any ideology really. You seem to have overgeneralized past the point of absurdity. These things have been cooked up in a vat since the 1950s under Mao. They are not natural, they are distorted for purpose. There is plenty of established literature which I've already mentioned.
- qoez 1y ago
  Someone can just make bot replying this to arbitrary replies and it'd get votes

ta988 1y ago

There is no antimemetics division.

riffraff 1y ago
New book coming out soon, for those unaware
- dmazin 1y ago
  Ooh, thanks for saying this! I’ll look out for it. Their collection “humans in transit” is real good.
  - riffraff 1y ago
    It's a rework of the old SCP story, I asked him what changed and he said "too much to mention". I read the original online so I'm looking forward to pay for a book just to give back. Agreed on hist short stories too!
tandr 1y ago
https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub
shantara 1y ago
The U.S. Army was secretly developing antimemetic weaponry as early as the 1940s.
JoeCortopassi 1y ago
I read this book because I misunderstood a recommendation and thought it was a business book talking about how companies get people to forget negative information (e.g. dump news on Friday etc). Boy was that first chapter a wild ride until I figured out it was not in fact a business book Fun story, strong recommend
- kmeisthax 1y ago

findalex 1y ago

...must function unfastened from current PsyOps doctrine which prohibits communicating any PsyOps type message or meme to US domestic audiences. PsyOps doctrine is an interesting way of saying "the law"... at least until NDAA 2012: https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/5736 https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/5736.

aspenmayer 1y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20250518031649/https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA507172.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20250518031649/https://apps.dtic...

endoblast 1y ago

>Managing, employing and leveraging memetic power This is propaganda, or advertising, not memeing. Propaganda is used to promote specific ideologies; memes arise spontaneously to counter them. Since all ideologies/-isms are by nature wrong, memes are generally-speaking a good thing. They're on the side of reality. They use rhetoric and fiction to point to the truth, often via some form of reductio ad absurdum. By contrast mainstream propaganda uses facts selectively in order to distort the big picture, mislead or simply distract people.

OmarShehata 1y ago
memes are not "on the side of reality". memes are on the side of whatever resonates. What resonates is what aligns to your model of reality (which is shaped by the ideology you're inside). There's no clear distinction between propaganda, advertising, and what you call "meme-ing". Companies can and do create campaigns that look organic, that do takeoff as people feel they are organic (and then they become actually real as people take them further than what the company is pushing) For example: Barbenheimer was a meme that got people to watch two movies in one weekend (not a typical behavior for most people). Was that an organic meme, or a marketing campaign? (If anyone is curious, I keep trying to write a good intro to this rabbithole, see my writeup on the New York Times explaining how a psyop works, which itself very significant for them to be spelling it out like this: https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/new-york-times-is-trying-to-explain https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/new-york-times-is-... )
- endoblast 1y ago
  Not everyone is an ideologue. Some people are just on the side of what is, or what is real.
  - mecsred 1y ago
    Everyone is an ideologue. What _is_ is too complicated to fit in a human brain, so we compress it. Thinking you're a free thinker is a type of ideology you can subscribe to.

webdoodle 1y ago

One of my last posts on Reddit before my account was suspended and all my 15 years of posts, comments and private messages were deleted without my approval, was about memetic chaining. I've reposted it on Substack for those interested: https://webdoodle.substack.com/p/memetic-chaining-and-the-new-censorship https://webdoodle.substack.com/p/memetic-chaining-and-the-ne...

moneywoes 1y ago
why was everything deleted delete
amy214 1y ago
>last posts on Reddit before my account was suspended and all my 15 years of posts, comments and private messages were deleted Ironic, you post in depth about the dreadfulness of psyops and yet you complain about reddit having wrongfully deleted your account, reddit, a perfect thought molding garden which rewards righthink with updoots and punishes wrongthink with downdoots. Seems to me is that they liberated you. Reddit is a strange game. The only way to win is not to play seriously, but rather to troll.