That was awesome. I am going to go through it again. I learned a lot. I have never been on Twitter either, I thought briefly if Musk buys it...but, nah. There are no shortage of folks ready to unleash holy hellfire upon the snowflakes, I'm not needed there.
Thanks, brother. I think there needs to be some kind of (privately funded) "Just Say No" campaign for social media, perhaps in the form of those old G.I. Joe post-episode spots. "And knowing is half the spiritual battle." Yo Joe!
When I quite Facebook in 2017, though I had been spending three hours a day scrolling and posting, real life I realized was so much more fascinating I didn't miss FB at all!
I keep telling my nephew though, he is addicted to Tiktok, but he admits it and is quite proud in fact. We might actually need the really big 🧲
TikTok is the worst of a very bad bunch. Their own TOS language openly admits to being a spy device. The notion that it's even legal speaks to how demented and corrupt our gerontacracy has become.
On the one hand, having watched people on tiktok I want to celebrate how creative people can be. On the other, like borigato says, if you aren't paying for it, you aren't the client, you are the product. And another sign our elite including Trump don't really care about the implications, only who controls it.
Here's a good 'un, from their updated TOS last June (EMPHASIS mine):
"Image and Audio Information:
We may collect information about the images and audio that are a part of your User Content, such as identifying the objects and scenery that appear, the existence and location within an image of face and body features and attributes, the nature of the audio, and the text of the words spoken in your User Content. We may collect this information to enable special video effects, for content moderation, for demographic classification, for content and ad recommendations, and for other non-personally-identifying operations. WE MAY COLLECT BIOMETRIC IDENTIFIERS AND BIOMETRIC INFORMATION AS DEFINED UNDER US LAWS, SUCH AS FACEPRINTS AND VOICEPRINTS, FROM YOUR USER CONTENT. Where required by law, we will seek any required permissions from you prior to any such collection."
I heard too, though not confirmed, they are allowed to access other devices in the household and control the camera and microphone? Whatever the case, I've little doubt the tech is possible.
People say, I have nothing to hide, but then no one can stand up for them without assuming they are being surveiled
I agree that twitter is a cesspool and needs to go. Someone asked me what I would do if I was given benevolent dictator status recently, my reply " I would simply resign on the spot (well, after banning twitter first, maybe) to avoid becoming corrupted and stressed out!"
Good answer. It also addresses the key problem with ever more centralized authority and power. Would we even *want* someone to ever be powerful enough to destroy a monster like Twitter, with no consequences to himself? At least in the theoretical case of "Musket", he takes the financial hit (as well as a social one, in the form of ridicule and opprobrium from the cultural left).
We abolish Twitter by the death of a thousand cuts...all we have to do is stop using it, one individual at a time. Good mental health is a great advertisement for resistance.
Mark, you are performing an essential service. The humiliation/anxiety engine (a brilliant formulation on your part by the way) is integral to the biopolitics of the regime. WSGR put the misdirection from the psyops units concerning cartoon villains like the Masons, the Illuminati and the Lizard-people in perspective.
Social media is profoundly unhealthy. Have my own sinister/weird IT experience that formed a key aspect of a personal/professional katabasis a while back, so your article was very meaningful on a personal level.
It is possible, one hopes, that a monetary apocalypse (probably a few years away) will reset things and liberate us, but this is probably naive.
Thank you, Philip. My hope is that we can cobble together real-world tactics to fight back, which is a big part of the reason I started this stack. I don't think you're naive, but I'm not totally convinced this situation requires some kind of apocalyptic catastrophe before we can do something to correct it (or at the very least, save lives and soften the landing). Maybe that makes *me* naive, lol.
Also, I had a nice chuckle at the "Lizard People" line. Good one!
Re real-world tactics...I expect that the possibility for a technical pushback at the grassroots level is unlikely to be effective at constraining the system. However, even failed efforts, if done properly, can generate positive synergies, simply by bringing people together, building co-operation and cohesion and reassuring people that they are not alone. We need capacity across a range of areas: building psycho-affective resilience, promoting awareness of the logical skills needed for effective analysis and counter-psyops. There is a lot at stake, but people are waking up.
I don't necessarily mean technical solutions of the direct kind. As I mentioned, I am anti-hacking, and no longer believe in the concept of "White Hat" hackers; the slippery slope there is more like a rocket slide. But I think there are fully legal (and, potentially *very* effective) technical approaches to the scourge of social media dragons. I plan on proposing a few of these.
That said. I agree with the rest of your sentiment here. Bringing people together in the ways you describe isn't just tactically wise, it's sort of the whole point of the project; The means and ends.
Oct 18, 2022·edited Oct 18, 2022Liked by Mark Bisone
To clarify what I had in mind when I used the expression 'technical': skills for mitigating the risks from surveillance/infotainment technology, above all the risks of either synaptic malformation, psycho-affective disruption, behavioural modification. Also skills for meme-warfare. 'Techne' just means skill in classical Greek (apologies if I am being a pedant here).
I am a great believer that the fight must include aesthetics and logic. Plato wrote that if you want change in the city, first change the music. Skills in composition (both music and lyrics) are as important as computer coding. A good protest song is worth a million votes. Skills in formal logic and rhetoric are useful too. People who flourish will surely bring down the system.
So dense with information and thought provoking, I'm now at a loss for words. I had multiple things I wanted to comment on, but now I essentially have decision paralysis. One of the circles that I am in advocates getting engaged on twitter, the concerns outlined here are all ones that I've had. One thing that I've noticed is that engaging for the past 1-2 weeks on twitter has informed me that our opposition is hopelessly ignorant and incapable of making effective arguments. Another takeaway is that to communicate effectively with the character limit makes charitable assumptions an absolute requirement for engagement. Making uncharitable assumptions to stupid easy with the character limit, but I have noticed that this is a preferred course of action for our enemies. Sad to think they someone believe making uncharitable assumptions on compressed positions is some kind of virtue. Since I can always demonstrate uncharitable assumptions about my motivations are false, people tend to disengage after minimal back and forth. I think this realization was helpful, but sharing your concern about the double edged sword of providing the enemy data I have to carefully consider how I proceed. Since you used the LOTR analogy, I'll go with that and say engagement is kind of like using the seeing stones knowing the Sauron is in possession of one.
Not my intention at all. I understand how at the tactical level, Twiiter seems like important terrain to engage on. But I believe you say it best yourself when you describe the *kind * of engagement that takes place. And that's even assuming that most (or in some case, even a small portion) of that engagement is with human beings instead of bots. Note that this bot potential includes "supporters" as well as "antagonists". I will write more about this, but one of the effects seems to be to have well-intentioned people to confuse fog for blue skies, and vice versa. And, of course, to waste their precious time where other approaches might do more good, more efficiently.
That said, I'm open to alternative opinions about how the platform may be subverted to the cause of good (I even have a few of my own, but I'd rather get people on the same page about its dangers before I explain any of those.)
That was awesome. I am going to go through it again. I learned a lot. I have never been on Twitter either, I thought briefly if Musk buys it...but, nah. There are no shortage of folks ready to unleash holy hellfire upon the snowflakes, I'm not needed there.
Keep up the great work.
Thanks, brother. I think there needs to be some kind of (privately funded) "Just Say No" campaign for social media, perhaps in the form of those old G.I. Joe post-episode spots. "And knowing is half the spiritual battle." Yo Joe!
When I quite Facebook in 2017, though I had been spending three hours a day scrolling and posting, real life I realized was so much more fascinating I didn't miss FB at all!
I keep telling my nephew though, he is addicted to Tiktok, but he admits it and is quite proud in fact. We might actually need the really big 🧲
TikTok is the worst of a very bad bunch. Their own TOS language openly admits to being a spy device. The notion that it's even legal speaks to how demented and corrupt our gerontacracy has become.
On the one hand, having watched people on tiktok I want to celebrate how creative people can be. On the other, like borigato says, if you aren't paying for it, you aren't the client, you are the product. And another sign our elite including Trump don't really care about the implications, only who controls it.
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/21/915043052/trumps-tiktok-deal-what-just-happened-and-why-does-it-matter
Here's a good 'un, from their updated TOS last June (EMPHASIS mine):
"Image and Audio Information:
We may collect information about the images and audio that are a part of your User Content, such as identifying the objects and scenery that appear, the existence and location within an image of face and body features and attributes, the nature of the audio, and the text of the words spoken in your User Content. We may collect this information to enable special video effects, for content moderation, for demographic classification, for content and ad recommendations, and for other non-personally-identifying operations. WE MAY COLLECT BIOMETRIC IDENTIFIERS AND BIOMETRIC INFORMATION AS DEFINED UNDER US LAWS, SUCH AS FACEPRINTS AND VOICEPRINTS, FROM YOUR USER CONTENT. Where required by law, we will seek any required permissions from you prior to any such collection."
I heard too, though not confirmed, they are allowed to access other devices in the household and control the camera and microphone? Whatever the case, I've little doubt the tech is possible.
People say, I have nothing to hide, but then no one can stand up for them without assuming they are being surveiled
I agree that twitter is a cesspool and needs to go. Someone asked me what I would do if I was given benevolent dictator status recently, my reply " I would simply resign on the spot (well, after banning twitter first, maybe) to avoid becoming corrupted and stressed out!"
Good answer. It also addresses the key problem with ever more centralized authority and power. Would we even *want* someone to ever be powerful enough to destroy a monster like Twitter, with no consequences to himself? At least in the theoretical case of "Musket", he takes the financial hit (as well as a social one, in the form of ridicule and opprobrium from the cultural left).
We abolish Twitter by the death of a thousand cuts...all we have to do is stop using it, one individual at a time. Good mental health is a great advertisement for resistance.
Mark, you are performing an essential service. The humiliation/anxiety engine (a brilliant formulation on your part by the way) is integral to the biopolitics of the regime. WSGR put the misdirection from the psyops units concerning cartoon villains like the Masons, the Illuminati and the Lizard-people in perspective.
Social media is profoundly unhealthy. Have my own sinister/weird IT experience that formed a key aspect of a personal/professional katabasis a while back, so your article was very meaningful on a personal level.
It is possible, one hopes, that a monetary apocalypse (probably a few years away) will reset things and liberate us, but this is probably naive.
Thank you, Philip. My hope is that we can cobble together real-world tactics to fight back, which is a big part of the reason I started this stack. I don't think you're naive, but I'm not totally convinced this situation requires some kind of apocalyptic catastrophe before we can do something to correct it (or at the very least, save lives and soften the landing). Maybe that makes *me* naive, lol.
Also, I had a nice chuckle at the "Lizard People" line. Good one!
Re real-world tactics...I expect that the possibility for a technical pushback at the grassroots level is unlikely to be effective at constraining the system. However, even failed efforts, if done properly, can generate positive synergies, simply by bringing people together, building co-operation and cohesion and reassuring people that they are not alone. We need capacity across a range of areas: building psycho-affective resilience, promoting awareness of the logical skills needed for effective analysis and counter-psyops. There is a lot at stake, but people are waking up.
I don't necessarily mean technical solutions of the direct kind. As I mentioned, I am anti-hacking, and no longer believe in the concept of "White Hat" hackers; the slippery slope there is more like a rocket slide. But I think there are fully legal (and, potentially *very* effective) technical approaches to the scourge of social media dragons. I plan on proposing a few of these.
That said. I agree with the rest of your sentiment here. Bringing people together in the ways you describe isn't just tactically wise, it's sort of the whole point of the project; The means and ends.
To clarify what I had in mind when I used the expression 'technical': skills for mitigating the risks from surveillance/infotainment technology, above all the risks of either synaptic malformation, psycho-affective disruption, behavioural modification. Also skills for meme-warfare. 'Techne' just means skill in classical Greek (apologies if I am being a pedant here).
I am a great believer that the fight must include aesthetics and logic. Plato wrote that if you want change in the city, first change the music. Skills in composition (both music and lyrics) are as important as computer coding. A good protest song is worth a million votes. Skills in formal logic and rhetoric are useful too. People who flourish will surely bring down the system.
So dense with information and thought provoking, I'm now at a loss for words. I had multiple things I wanted to comment on, but now I essentially have decision paralysis. One of the circles that I am in advocates getting engaged on twitter, the concerns outlined here are all ones that I've had. One thing that I've noticed is that engaging for the past 1-2 weeks on twitter has informed me that our opposition is hopelessly ignorant and incapable of making effective arguments. Another takeaway is that to communicate effectively with the character limit makes charitable assumptions an absolute requirement for engagement. Making uncharitable assumptions to stupid easy with the character limit, but I have noticed that this is a preferred course of action for our enemies. Sad to think they someone believe making uncharitable assumptions on compressed positions is some kind of virtue. Since I can always demonstrate uncharitable assumptions about my motivations are false, people tend to disengage after minimal back and forth. I think this realization was helpful, but sharing your concern about the double edged sword of providing the enemy data I have to carefully consider how I proceed. Since you used the LOTR analogy, I'll go with that and say engagement is kind of like using the seeing stones knowing the Sauron is in possession of one.
"...now I essentially have decision paralysis."
Not my intention at all. I understand how at the tactical level, Twiiter seems like important terrain to engage on. But I believe you say it best yourself when you describe the *kind * of engagement that takes place. And that's even assuming that most (or in some case, even a small portion) of that engagement is with human beings instead of bots. Note that this bot potential includes "supporters" as well as "antagonists". I will write more about this, but one of the effects seems to be to have well-intentioned people to confuse fog for blue skies, and vice versa. And, of course, to waste their precious time where other approaches might do more good, more efficiently.
That said, I'm open to alternative opinions about how the platform may be subverted to the cause of good (I even have a few of my own, but I'd rather get people on the same page about its dangers before I explain any of those.)
Thanks for giving it a fair hearing. In any case.
For your MIMIC acronym, I prefer Cartel. Complex is too neutral for my tastes.