Brainsturbator Forums

The Post-Everything Future of 5GW

2011-08-21T00:09:08-05:00

Big ups to Wes Unruh for hipping me to an article that’s a year old but hit my brainpan like Starfish Prime:

http://securitydebrief.com/2010/09/29/fifth-generation-warfare-a-growing-concept/

The article is not worth reprinting in full. The author’s bio, on the other hand, very much is:

Steven Bucci writes about cybersecurity, modern warfare and the interagency process, particularly as it involves defending U.S. interests domestically. Bucci formerly served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Homeland Defense at the Department of Defense and also served for 28 years in the U.S. Army. He is currently IBM’s Issue Lead for cybersecurity.

The article is about the threat of 5GW. At first I thought it was a lazy treatment of the topic by someone who didn’t have the time to research it, then it hit me: I wasn’t reading an essay, I was reading ad copy. This guy is actually selling 5GW, as well as hyping for a loose think tank called the 5GW Eductational Institute.
http://www.5gwinstitute.com/

Here’s where things get quotable:

The 5GW Educational Institute is truly one of just a few groups studying the idea of “Generational Warfare.” They are on the cutting edge of a new (and hopefully effective) way to address the challenges our nation faces. They are attempting to be the thought leaders on the topic of 5GW and make the case that the United States is at a moment of transitioning from traditional and separated disciplines in the national security space to the world of highly integrated, multifaceted and sophisticated 5GW.

Our enemies have figured this out already. They are agile, innovative and will try whatever works. We tend to still have an industrial-age methodology. We preach agility, net-centric operations and a legion of other buzz words, but then return to our comfortable traditional corners.

Horseshit. Pentagon Red Teams routinely outperform Al Qaeda, and it’s not like I’m some super-patriot, that’s just an obvious fact. 99% of domestic terrorism post-9/11 has been FBI entrapment, not actual 4GW teams formulating and executing plans.

Let’s be real: I’m no cheerleader for the military industrial complex, but their enemies have not figured out shit, except perhaps that the US military is running on an un-sustainable business plan and their Full Spectrum Dominance is about to hit some brick walls in less than a decade. That doesn’t mean they are 5GW ninjas with telepathic insights, it means they read US media, which has been publishing detailed information about that problem for decades now.

Nobody is touching the US in terms of force projection, so with “Cyberwar” testing poorly with the body politic, I can see the next threat being 5GW. Can you imagine Paul Wolfowitz shilling before Congress and saying “five gee double you” with a straight face, hundreds of times? You won’t have to in about 18 months. Gears are already turning.

I was joking with Wes that I could see 5GW becoming “the critical theory of the warrior class”—which is to say, a culture that produces complex essays that say nothing at all. I didn’t realize how dire that was until I thought about a climate where 5GW is normal conversation: invisible warfare taken for granted. This completely negates the need for manufacturing an enemy, or creating opposition to control—you can simply declare natural disasters and industrial disasters as “5GW attacks.” Explaining the concept becomes part of the news cycle and everyone on the bus is explaining it to each other for the rest of your life.

It’s late and I could explain this better—I will be back to do exactly that.

#Occupy Teach-Ins

2011-11-02T19:13:54-05:00

Running thread for my own selfish benefit, as per.

VIA: http://www.browndailyherald.com/occupy-teach-in-draws-full-house-in-salomon-1.2651788

Professors from departments including economics, history, sociology and political science spoke at the event, each lending their own expertise to contextualize the movement. After each set of speakers, there was a question-and-answer session.

...

Community members — such as a member of the Rhode Island Anti-Sexism League and representatives from Occupy Providence — spoke last at the event, which lasted over three hours. By the end of the event, the auditorium was half-full.

“I think it’s awesome that teachers are involved, but I got the most out of the community members,” said Emily Doyle ‘13. “They’re the ones who have seen what’s happening in Providence and are motivated to change it.” She said she thought it was a mistake to schedule community members to speak last.

VIA: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016658588_occupy01m.html

The Occupy Seattle demonstrators took some free classes Sunday night and into early Monday, courtesy of half a dozen instructors from North Seattle and Seattle Central community colleges.

The class titles included “The Art of Protest Signs” and “Camera Techniques for Documenting Human Rights Abuses.”

They were held for free in the brick courtyard along Broadway at Seattle Central, near where demonstrators have been camping out since Saturday.

The instructors conducted the classes on their own time.

There was no overcrowding at the sessions.

Esther “Little Dove” John, 59, a psychology and conflict-management instructor, says her 5 a.m. session on “Labor History and the Psychology of Greed” had a dozen people attending, and half of them were fellow instructors.

“People were cold and shivering, using blankets, bundling up together,” she says.

Why was she there?

“This is the moment,” says John. “I believe this is the beginning of a great historical sweep.”

Skilluminati CSE

2011-09-02T04:14:10-05:00

A mere “links” section would do no justice to the scope of the Skilluminati ecosystem, so as per a Bling Finger recommendation I’m instituting a Custom Search Engine—basically a sandbox of awesome sites for researchers.

beta test: The Sandbox

This is an open thread for tinkering and suggestions. Got the list up to an even hundred sources and I’m going to write some stuff over the weekend and play around. My bias so far is source documents over commentary so I’ve got Leftists, Hedge Fund alpha males and military-industrial voices in the mix in approximately equal measure.

The Current List
http://mediafilter.org/
http://bankwatch.org/
http://www.prwatch.org/
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/
http://www.spinwatch.org/
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/
http://www.propagandacritic.com/
http://www.technologyreview.com/
http://www.corporatewatch.org
http://arxiv.org/
http://www.triviumeducation.com/
http://www.nextgov.com
http://csat.au.af.mil/future-conflict.htm
http://www.endgame.org/
http://practicalaction.org/
http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/
http://www.campaignstrategy.org/
http://www.warisbusiness.com/
http://www.psywar.org/
http://www.iwar.org.uk/
http://www.medialens.org/
http://www.archive.org
http://littlesis.org
http://www.itsoc.org/
http://ieeessit.org
http://www.sec.gov/
http://www.ieee.org/
http://longnow.org
http://www.namebase.org/
http://mitworld.mit.edu/
http://motherjones.com
http://www.counterpunch.org/
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/
http://www.opensecrets.org/
http://publicintelligence.net/
http://www.shadowstats.com/
http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/
http://www.systemswiki.org
http://www.historyisaweapon.org
http://www.visualcomplexity.com
http://www.searchlores.org/
http://www.appropedia.org
http://www.projectcensored.org/
http://www.appliedautonomy.com/
http://www.academicearth.org/
http://www.historycommons.org/
http://www.panarchy.com/
http://un-intelligible.org/
http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/
http://www.propublica.org/
http://www.sourcewatch.org
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
http://www.well.com
http://www.phibetaiota.net/
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/
http://www.jeffvail.net/
http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/
http://www.edge.org/
http://www.ted.com/
http://antifascist-calling.blogspot.com/
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/
http://subtopia.blogspot.com/
http://cryptome.org/
http://cryptogon.com/
http://steelweaver.tumblr.com/
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
http://www.globalswadeshi.net/*
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/*
http://www.zenpundit.com/*
http://www.ubiwar.com/*
http://secretsun.blogspot.com/*
http://rigint.blogspot.com/*
http://posthumanblues.blogspot.com/*
http://www.timboucher.com/*
http://www.urbeingrecorded.com/*
http://www.dysnomia.us/*
http://www.technoccult.com/*
http://www.cablegatesearch.net/
http://www.skilluminati.com/*
http://www.gutenberg.org/
http://www.mitre.org/
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/
http://www.schneier.com/
http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/
http://www.socialcritic.org/
http://www.globalgovernancewatch.org
http://www.crocodyl.org/
http://projects.washingtonpost.com
http://www.gallup.com
http://www.pollingreport.com/
http://people-press.org/
http://www.fedstats.gov/
http://www.holmesreport.com/
http://www.nndb.com/
http://www.cdi.org/
http://www.fiatpax.net/
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/
http://www.tbuckner.com

Information Operations Contractors: A Survey

2011-09-07T10:38:14-05:00

The purpose of this thread is tracing the topology of the corporate/military IO ecosystem. The goal is an atlas of the players involved.

Source: WaPo

An expanding network of Pentagon contractors with professed expertise in information operations has become the focus of an investigation ordered last week by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

Gates’s action was prompted by news reports that Michael D. Furlong, a senior civilian Defense Department employee, had used $25 million in funds from the Pentagon’s program against roadside bombs to hire private contractors to gather information on suspected insurgents in Afghanistan—activities that Furlong says were authorized by top U.S. military commanders.

But Furlong’s now-halted operation is just one example of units in every branch of the armed forces spending millions of dollars on private contractors—many of them retired military, CIA and other intelligence specialists—to satisfy military commanders’ new interest in information operations.

“Information operations is the hot thing, and somebody turned on a hose of money,” said W. Patrick ("Pat") Lang, a retired senior Defense Intelligence Agency officer who served in Army Special Forces. “Retired colonels and senior executive service officers are forming teams to compete.”

Gates told reporters Thursday that such operations are “critical” to the war in Afghanistan, albeit in need of “an overall strategy or perhaps adequate oversight.” Beyond the Furlong case, he said, “there are broader problems in terms of oversight in these important areas that need to be corrected, and that’s what I’m focused on.”

Based in Lackland Air Force Base, Tex., the Joint Information Operations Warfare Center is the 435-person lead unit that “plans, integrates and synchronizes information operations in direct support of joint forces commanders . . . across the Defense Department,” according its mission statement. Those operations may include “psychological operations . . . and military deception,” according to a 2006 publication from the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Because senior military officers have had little experience in those areas, they frequently have relied on private contractors.

The Warfare Center, where Furlong is based, has a relatively small budget of its own. But it also gets funding from across the Defense Department, from the Joint Forces, Special Operations, Air Combat and Army’s 1st Information Commands, wrote Navy Lt. Cmdr. Steve Curry, chief of media operations for Strategic Command, in answer to a question.

Between 2006 and 2008, Central Command alone had 172 contracts worth $270 million just for information operations in Iraq, according to a Defense Department inspector general report released in September.

Purchases of products and services made through major contracts included “military analysts, development of television commercials and documentaries, focus group and polling services, television air time, posters, banners, and billboards,” the inspector general reported. Smaller individual purchases under information-operations programs included “magazine publishing and printing services, newspaper dissemination, television and radio airtime, text messaging services, internet services and novelty items,” the report said.

Another aspect of information operations is the complicated chain out of which they develop. One such chain was illustrated on Jan. 9, 2009, by JB Management of Alexandria.

JBM announced it was part of a winning team selected by the Warfare Center to provide “Human Network Analysis and Information Operations Support” for one year with “three additional year-long option periods.”

JBM’s president, Harry Gibb, is a retired Army colonel and its chief operations officer, Andy L. Vonada, is a retired Marine Corps officer whose last assignment was as “lead politico-military planner for the strategic plans and policies directorate for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” Alex J. Johnson, chairman of the JBM board of directors, is another Army veteran.

And the firm’s director of capture and strategy, Robert Cordray, is a West Point graduate who left the Army after five years, went to work for another private contractor and was deployed to Iraq to assist with information operations.

National Program Office

2011-09-19T13:05:26-05:00

via: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Program_Office

The National Program Office (NPO) was an office of the United States Government, established to ensure continuity of government in the event of a national disaster.

The NPO was established by a secret executive order (National Security Decision Directive 55) signed on 14 September 1982 by President Ronald Reagan during the Cold War in preparation for a nuclear war, presumably with the Soviet Union.

The NPO plan was classified Top Secret, codeword Pegasus. It was also referred to as Project 908 (also known as “Nine Naught Eight"). The only oversight was by a Project Pegasus committee chaired by then-Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush.

via: http://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/18/us/pentagon-book-for-doomsday-is-to-be-closed.html

A Pentagon agency, the Defense Mobilization Systems Planning Activity, was given the task of making plans to glue together a shattered Government. But the planners found it impossible, even in peacetime, to coordinate the White House, the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department and other agencies.

The project was an amalgam of more than 20 “black programs”—so highly classified that only a handful of military and civilian personnel knew of them.

“That raised the bureaucratic nightmare to the nth power,” Mr. Blair said. “No one knew what anyone else was doing. It was hard to find out even the technical characteristics of some of the plans. You had all the difficulties of creating command-and-control networks cutting across bureaucratic lines, combined with the secrecy of black programs—even the bureaucrats running it were handicapped.”

...

Far more elaborate plans began with National Security Decision Directive 55, an order signed by President Reagan in January 1983 and still top secret. The directive to create “continuity of government” during and after a long nuclear war was drafted by, among others, Oliver L. North, then an obscure marine on the National Security Council staff.

In the Reagan Administration, the project was supervised by Vice President George Bush. A senior C.I.A. officer, Charles Allen, was deputy director. In the Reagan and Bush Administrations, the project involved hundreds of people, including White House officials, Army generals, C.I.A. officers and private companies run by retired military and intelligence personnel.

...

Then the fragmented leadership would be woven together with a communications system of space satellites and specially outfitted tractor-trailer trucks equipped with sophisticated transmitters. Convoys of at least 16 lead-lined trucks, each commanded by an Army colonel, were to hurtle down the nation’s highways eluding Soviet warheads after the Pentagon was destroyed. On the trucks and throughout the nation, sophisticated radio and computer terminals shielded from the effects of nuclear explosions were to link surviving military and civilian officials after the capital was destroyed.

Billions of dollars were spent on such equipment, much of which is now gathering dust in Army depots.

Barry Horton, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for command, control, communications and intelligence programs, said that he could answer no questions about the project, since “the details of these efforts remain classified.” Other Pentagon officials confirmed that most of the project was being mothballed as part of an overall review of nuclear war plans, although none would agree to be quoted, citing secrecy strictures.

...

But the secrecy surrounding the project began crumbling after Mr. North referred obliquely to his role in it in Congressional hearings on the Iran-Contra scandal in 1987. After the subject was raised, Representative Jack Brooks, Democrat of Texas, asked if “plans for the continuity of government” included a “contingency plan in the event of an emergency that would suspend the American Constitution.”

In the Bush Administration, members of Congress and the press became aware of internal Army disputes involving the project. Some concerned awards of multimillion-dollar, no-bid contracts to former Army officials who had left the program. Others involved Army analyses concluding that the project’s crucial communications links would break down in a crisis.

High-ranking Army officials took strong measures to quash the unwanted publicity. According to a 1989 House Armed Services Committee report and Pentagon records, they ordered an officer attached to the project—a soldier with a self-confessed record of drug abuse and black-marketeering—to identify whistle-blowers within the program and smear them as Soviet spies.

Last year, a military satellite communications system separate from but crucial to the Doomsday project—the $27.4 billion Milstar program—was deemed incapable of enduring a long nuclear war. A scaled-down Milstar satellite, the first of six now scheduled to be built, was launched in February, with half its classified communications gear stripped out and replaced by ballast.

While some “continuity of government” programs continue under the aegis of Pentagon planners, they are pale versions of the vision laid out by President Reagan in 1983.

“They are realizing these requirements are throwbacks to the cold war,” Mr. Blair said. “They are not relevant to today’s world.”

Why is Democracy Broken? The Demographics of Big Apathy

2011-09-04T09:10:31-05:00

Source: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1786/who-are-nonvoters-less-republican-educated-younger

As is typical in U.S. elections, nonvoters are significantly younger, less educated and less affluent than are likely voters.

Nearly three-quarters of nonvoters (72%) are younger than age 50, compared with only 42% of likely voters.

Similarly, a majority of nonvoters (60%) have not gone beyond high school, compared with just 34% among those likely to vote.

This education gap is somewhat larger among young people: 55% of nonvoters younger than age 40 have only a high school education, while the figure among young likely voters is just 20%.

Low education levels and low incomes go hand-in-hand: 43% of nonvoters have family incomes under $30,000, compared with just 19% among likely voters.

Reflecting their low incomes, many more nonvoters (31%) than likely voters (14%) describe their personal financial situation as poor, and fully 51% of nonvoters say that they or someone in their household was out of work and looking for a job at some point in the past 12 months. Among voters, 36% had this personal experience with unemployment.

A much higher proportion of nonvoters than voters identify as Hispanic or Latino: 21% of nonvoters vs. 6% of voters.

Part of this difference, of course, reflects the fact that nearly four-in-ten (37%) Latinos in the U.S. are not citizens and thus not eligible to vote.

...

Nonvoting does not appear to be a byproduct of contentment with the political system.

Somewhat more nonvoters than voters say they are basically content with the federal government (25% among nonvoters, 16% among likely voters), but this is a decidedly minority view.

Fully half of nonvoters are frustrated with government and 19% say they are angry.

Similarly, most nonvoters (73%) say they can trust the government in Washington to do what’s right only some of the time, or never. This is about the same level of distrust expressed by voters (76%).

Kurt Bardella’s Beltway Lessons

2011-09-05T03:24:33-05:00

Darrell Issa is a study unto himself and clearly someone’s asset (as per this recent-ish New Yorker profile/hitpiece) but my attention is drawn to his Icarus-Cerberus assistant, Kurt Bardella. Quotables ensue...

Issa has set up what his aides call Issa Enterprises, a highly organized effort to manage his image. Kurt Bardella, the spokesman, who is twenty-seven, and whom Issa calls “my secret weapon,” fiercely screens all interviews. Bardella has a reputation as one of the savviest young spokesmen on Capitol Hill, someone who understands the complicated new media environment.

Over lunch at Bistro Bis, a French restaurant near the Capitol, Bardella was surprisingly open in his disparagement of the media. He said, “Some people in the press, I think, are just lazy as hell. There are times when I pitch a story and they do it word for word. That’s just embarrassing. They’re adjusting to a time that demands less quality and more quantity. And it works to my advantage most of the time, because I think most reporters have liked me packaging things for them. Most people will opt for what’s easier, so they can move on to the next thing. Reporters are measured by how often their stuff gets on Drudge. It’s a bad way to be, but it’s reality.”

He marvelled that the Daily Beast recently reported that Issa was fond of referring to himself in the third person. The reporter who wrote the story, Howard Kurtz, had in fact been interviewing Bardella when he thought he was talking to the congressman on the phone. (Kurtz later said that Bardella didn’t indicate that he wasn’t Issa when they spoke.) “I think anyone who knows me well enough knows I’m far too fond of myself to abdicate my own identity in favor of someone else’s,” Bardella told me.

Bardella later added that he was dealing with a new twist in his relationship with the press. Now that Issa had been elevated to chairman of the Oversight Committee, he said, “reporters e-mail me saying, ‘Hey, I’m writing this story on this thing. Do you think you guys might want to investigate it? If so, if you get some documents, can you give them to me?’ I’m, like, ‘You guys are going to write that we’re the ones wanting to do all the investigating, but you guys are literally the ones trying to egg us on to do that!’ ”

Bardella joined Issa’s staff two years ago, after working for Brian Bilbray, another San Diego congressman, and Olympia Snowe, the moderate senator from Maine. During lunch, he was quick to explain how he had helped transform Issa from an obscure congressman to a fixture of the Washington media-political establishment. Most members of Congress focus mainly on reporters back home. Bardella set out to promote Issa in Washington. “My goal is very simple,” he said. “I’m going to make Darrell Issa an actual political figure. I’m going to focus like a laser beam on the five hundred people here who care about this crap, and that’s it. We’ve been catering more to that audience, so Darrell can expand his sphere of influence here among people who track who’s up, who’s down, who wins, who loses. Then we can broaden that to something more tangible afterward.”

The task for Issa Enterprises is thus to help Issa make the change from an outsider, grandstanding for talk-radio partisans and conservative bloggers, to a responsible committee chairman. “You’ve got to move from the right to the center,” Issa told me. “If there was a blog with five listeners or viewers, I had to be on it. Now I have to be on fewer media, but more substantive media. What we’re really trying to do is move an agenda, and that requires that we have the support of the American people and at least a big chunk of Democrats.”

More specifically, Issa Enterprises needs to convince élites that Darrell Issa is no Dan Burton, the head of the House Oversight Committee when Bill Clinton was President. Burton, who is still a member of the committee, doggedly pursued right-wing conspiracy theories about Clinton, and will forever be remembered for firing bullets into a pumpkin or a melon—the actual fruit was never determined—while trying to prove that Vince Foster, a Clinton aide who committed suicide, was murdered.

The transformation is a work in progress. In an interview with Rush Limbaugh last year, Issa described Obama as “one of the most corrupt Presidents in modern times.” In December, he told me that what he really meant is that Congress was “corrupting part of government” by passing major spending bills without specifying how the executive branch should use the money. “The stimulus that the Democrats passed, and the tarp that Republicans and Democrats passed, is corrupting to the process,” he said. “This Administration enjoys that corruption. It’s not personal corruption of the President.” More recently, in an interview with CNN, he claimed that he meant “corrupt” in the sense that a computer hard drive can become corrupt: it just stops working well.

Further: http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Kurt_Bardella

Narrative Control, Language & Power

2011-08-28T02:35:23-05:00

“Expectation calibration and expectation management is essential at home and internationally.”

-- Harvard Professor and Barack Obama Foreign Policy Advisor Samantha Power, February 21, 2008

Source: http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/apple-my-eye-us-fancies-huge-metaphor-reposit

Apple of my eye? US fancies a huge metaphor repository
The US Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity building a system to understand human metaphorical speech

Researchers with the US Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity want to build a repository of metaphors. You read that right. Not just American/English metaphors mind you but those of Iranian Farsi, Mexican Spanish and Russian speakers.

Why metaphors? “Metaphors have been known since Aristotle as poetic or rhetorical devices that are unique, creative instances of language artistry (for example: The world is a stage; Time is money). Over the last 30 years, metaphors have been shown to be pervasive in everyday language and to reveal how people in a culture define and understand the world around them,” IARPA says.

The group, which develops high-risk, reward research projects for the government says Metaphor Program:

Shape how people think about complex topics and can influence beliefs;

Reduce the complexity of meaning associated with a topic by capturing or expressing patterns;

Show uncovered inferred meanings and worldviews of particular groups or individuals: Characterization of disparities in social issues and contrasting political goals; exposure of inclusion and exclusion of social and political groups and understanding of psychological problems and conflicts.

In the end the program should produce a methodology, tools and techniques together with a prototype system that will identify metaphors that provide insight into cultural beliefs. It should also help build structured framework that organizes the metaphors associated with the various dimensions of an analytic problem and build a metaphor repository where all metaphors and related information are captured for future reference and access, IARPA stated.

“For decision makers to be effective in a world of mass communication and global interaction, they must understand the shared concepts and worldviews of members of other cultures of interest. Recognizing cultural norms is a significant challenge, however, because they tend to be hidden. We tend to notice them only when they are in conflict with the norms of other cultures. Such differences may cause discomfort or frustration and may lead to flawed interpretations about the intent or motivation of others. The Metaphor Program will exploit the use of metaphors by different cultures to gain insight into their cultural norms,” IARPA says.

The Metaphor Program is divided into two phases, totaling 60 months, and is intended to begin in November 2011.

Understanding language is a hot topic amongst the government research folks. Last year you may recall, the military’s research folks at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said they wanted to know about how stories or narratives influence human behavior. To this end, DARPA hosted a workshop called “Stories, Neuroscience and Experimental Technologies (STORyNET): Analysis and Decomposition of Narratives in Security Contexts.”

“Stories exert a powerful influence on human thoughts and behavior. They consolidate memory, shape emotions, cue heuristics and biases in judgment, influence in-group/out-group distinctions, and may affect the fundamental contents of personal identity. It comes as no surprise that these influences make stories highly relevant to vexing security challenges such as radicalization, violent social mobilization, insurgency and terrorism, and conflict prevention and resolution. Therefore, understanding the role stories play in a security context is a matter of great import and some urgency,” DARPA stated.

Source: http://www.modernmythology.net/2011/08/vivisecting-verses-darpa-investigates.html

Vivisecting Verses - DARPA Investigates the Neurobiology of Narratives

By David Metcalfe

“If I were a betting man or woman, I would say that certain types of stories might be addictive and, neurobiologically speaking, not that different from taking a tiny hit of cocaine,”
- William Casebeer of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Virginia

Despite the fact that it’s readily apparent Mr. Casebeer has never tried cocaine, DARPA’s current interest in narratives is an interesting development at an agency known for unique scientific inquiries. On April 25 and 26th DARPA held a conference called Narrative Networks (N2): The Neurobiology of Narratives. The purpose of this conference was to follow up a Feburary 26th event which sought to outline a quantitative methodology for measuring the effect of storytelling on human action.

We owe much of the early development of the internet to DARPA, along with remote viewing, remote controlled moths, invisibility cloaks and other wonders of the contemporary age. Now they’ve got their sites set on stories, and we can be assured that, in the near future, there will be some fatly funded scientific justification for what we already know. I mean, come on, Modern Mythology and Weaponized just published The Immanence of Myth exploring this very topic, and I assure you there’s more in there than a tiny hit to get you inspired.

And that’s the unfortunate thing about these scientific inquiries, they’re always years (usually centuries) behind the times. I seem to recall an author who spent his entire career developing this theory, and effectively influencing television, film and music with his ideas. Who was that? Something about word viruses? Oh, yes, William S. Burroughs. Who in turn got much of his inspiration from other thinkers like Brion Gysin, Alfred Korzybski, and really beyond all this name dropping, what true poet or writer doesn’t understand the fact that their writing takes on an effective reality?

The Medieval Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno wrote a treatise, called De vinculis in genere (Of Bonds In General), which has been used at the London School of Economics. It may be written in latin, but it details these exact theories and, if our scientists today were properly literate, everything there is perfectly quantitative. They don’t even have to be bilingual. Cambridge offers a perfectly viable translation that I’m sure would be easily accessible via any local library.

In fact Bruno’s theories are merely the quantification of the European bardic arts, Grecian theatre, and Egyptian ritual, which were themselves already quantified, encultured forms of earlier story telling techniques. And that’s just within the Western tradition.

So what’s new here? What secrets of the narrative art will be unveiled in this quantitative analysis?

Nothing much, other than what was once an art-form will suffer yet another reduction into a somewhat less effective means for moving markets, and manipulating populations. And that, in the end, is really the goal. For all the money they spent on remote viewing tests, Russel Targ, one of the lead scientists during the SRI tests, admits that it’s fairly easy to do, and that the most telling instruction manual they still have on the subject is a centuries old yogic training manual from India.

I ran across information on this symposium from a link posted by Joseph Matheny (who has himself already proven the ability of storytelling to motivate action) to a brief piece on Dollars and Dragons. The piece contains links leading on to other posts, one on Verilliance, a blog about “Better Marketing Through Science,” and one from a professor of Narrative Philosophy who has been studying this phenomenon for 30 years.

While Casebeer states the purpose of the project is to develop an understanding of how narratives effect the development of terrorism and violent behavior, with the attendant goal of creating “counter-narrative strategies.” If his understanding of a little nip of yao is any sign of his social savvy, it’s obvious that there are others with less noble goals who will gladly leap on these developments and ride them for all they’re worth.

...continued…

Helpful Questions for Interpreting Political Language & Propaganda

2011-08-26T16:13:51-05:00

This is a backup snatched from the RI forum. The URL given for this document is no longer working and I cannot find a backup copy anywhere. Imagine that.

Questions You Can Ask About Political Language

Politicians can intensify their own “good” (and, in aggression) the others’ “bad”
by means of repetition, association, and composition.

Repetition
What key words are often repeated? What repeated “mantra” or “talking points” --repeated themes or ideas? What images, pictures, or symbols? What names? What slogans are used? What backgrounds (to repeat the message visually) are used for staged “photo ops”? What planning can be inferred indicating that all speakers are “singing off the same sheet”—all repeating the same themes, or using the same key words or phrasing? What internal repetition techniques (rhyme, alliteration, anaphora) are used within the phrasing? What clichés, and what stock responses ("stump speeches,” “boilerplate") are used in various situations? What repeated activities—such as rituals, customs, traditions—are used or known within the group? What frequency is the repetition: how often do you see or hear the message? What duration: how long has it gone on? What intensity: how many, how much? A blitz, a saturation? What effects on the audience? Does the audience recognize, remember? What technology (print, recordings,e-mail) is used to repeat, or to multiply copies?

Association
Are there explicit, direct assertions of membership ("I am… I belong to")? Or, of tastes or opinions ("I like… I believe in")? Are there implicit, indirect suggestions using music, colors, flags, symbols, backgrounds? What associations are used to trigger intense emotions, feelings? (Most obviously: God-on-Our-Side, flag-waving, dead heroes, “plain folks.") What background associations? Often the choice of companions (advisors, friends, celebrities, spouse); of locales (historic sites, shrines, beautiful scenery); of events ("good times” - festivals, fairs; “bad times” - helping at disasters.) Are there any metaphors or analogies (e.g. suggesting imagery of sports, war, battle, journey, nature)? Any “name-dropping”: references or allusions to heroes and celebrities (e.g. athletics, historical, religious)?

Composition
What are the key content words: nouns (person, places, things, concepts) and verbs (actions)? The related adjectives, adverbs? What positive claims about self, or negative charges about others, are made? Are they explicitly stated? Implicitly suggested? What generalities? What specifics? What absolutes (e.g. “it is..."); what qualifiers ("perhaps… maybe")? What hypotheticals, conditionals ("if… then")? What figures of speech: Metaphors? Rhetorical questions? Hyperbole (overstatement)? Litotes (understatement)? Puns? Irony? What nonverbals (e.g. smiles, frowns, tone of voice, backgrounds)? What sentence patterns are used: balanced, parallel structures? Climactic order? How are the larger structures (speeches, paragraphs, essays) organized? Are the ideas clear, coherent? What are the openers, closers, transitionals? What sequence of ideas? What proportion? What emphasis? What overall strategy? What wider context? <> <> Political and religious rhetoric often suggests a larger story, script, storyline, or narrative featuring “You”—acting in a role as part of a group (a cause, a movement, a political party, a church) in a wider social context. A role implies a belief (a basic worldview), a purpose (goal, direction) and a plan (a process, a way, a script, steps to be taken) to get there, using certain behaviors (specific acts, jobs, tasks, duties to be done), and certain rules (a code of conduct, a list of “shoulds") to be followed. Are these stated or implied?

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Politicians can downplay their own “bad” (and, in aggression) the others’ “good”
by means of omission, diversion, and confusion.

Omission
What disadvantages, drawbacks, hazards have been omitted? Are there any unwanted, harmful side-effects: unsafe, unhealthy, uneconomical, inefficient, unneeded? Are there any relevant omissions about the people involved, concealing: intentional illegality (crimes, scandals), or unintentional incompetence (mistakes, failures, ignorance)? Any concealed “conflicts of interest”? Any hidden agendas, favoritism, nepotism? Are there any relevant omissions about proposed plans, programs, or policies? Any cover-ups hiding past errors, carelessness, neglect, cost overruns, options ignored, criticism suppressed; or future risks, unsound estimates, potential dangers? What issues get less time, less attention, or are totally ignored? Is there any “source” omission, when the relevant authorship or ownership is omitted: e.g. an anonymous rumor, an unsigned letter; or a fake name (common on the Internet when vulgar or predatory intent is concealed); or a “front organization” (in politics, a partisan group concealed behind a neutral, bland, inoffensive name); in business, corporations hidden behind obscure acronyms or names. People (and corporations) have a right to advocate or to support their side financially, but not a right to conceal their support. Any omissions about intended purpose? Any ulterior motives, “hidden agendas”? Any illegal or immoral covert actions? Any concealed benefits, payoffs, which will go to supporters now or later? Any “revolving door” payoffs-- hidden and delayed—in which ex-politicians or retired generals become high-paid lobbyists or executives with companies they favored while in power? Any secret agreements, “back room deals,” sub rosa, under the table bribes, favors? “Follow the dollar” is the first rule for investigative journalists who, by carefully analyzing the budget or financial records, can often expose relevant omissions. Any restrictions, bans, or censorship of contrary views? Any suppression of contradictory evidence? Any silencing or “disappearing” of opponents? Any euphemisms used to hide, or to lessen a “bad”? (e.g. a"gift" or a “donation” for a bribe) Are “half-truths,” “stacking the deck,” quotes-out-of-context used to distort, to conceal? Are there omissions about the oppositions’ merits, or good points?

Diversion
Diversion occurs when time, effort, or money is spent on unimportant issues, trivial things, on side-issues instead of on the main issues. Are there ad hominem attacks (to the person), instead of the issue? Are there ad populum appeals (to the public), focusing on the audience’s emotional feelings (stirring up “gut issues” fears, anxieties; hopes, desires)? Are there ad misericordium appeals by the speaker for pity or sympathy ("poor me") ? Is there a “pointing to another wrong”? Any evasions, steering clear, or changing the subject away from problems? Any alibis, excuses? Any “red herrings”—false trails, noisy distractions? Is there an emphasis on a minor “good”: style over substance, cosmetic superficialities? In attacks, any “nitpicking” or “hairsplitting” about petty items? Is there any “attacking a straw man” - focusing on a non-argument, or a weak minor point? Are there any pleasant distractions: humor, jokes, entertainments (like ancient Rome’s “bread and circuses” policy) to divert public attention from other issues?

Confusion
Are any words unclear, uncommon, unfamiliar? Are technical words (jargon), or vague generalities, ambiguous words, or euphemisms used inappropriately to conceal the “bad”? Are there “shifting definitions” (equivocations)? Are statements too wordy, roundabout, indirect, rambling (circumlocution)? Are the examples used representative? Typical? Sufficient? Are comparisons used within the same category? Are analogies clear, appropriate? Are there any irrational statements, illogical acts, invalid linking of ideas, non sequiturs? Any inconsistencies, or contradictions, within the text, or with past words and deeds? Any factual errors? Are there any “double messages” (verbal/nonverbal incongruence)? Are there frequent or constant changes, variations, or revisions (in plans, reports, purposes)? Are statistics (and charts, graphs, computer print-outs) accurate, clear, and meaningful? Are estimates (of unknowns, future forecasts) reasonable, probable, based on reliable evidence? Are systems too complex: too many parts, too many processes, too many intersections? Are things disorganized, incoherent, chaotic, or out of sync? Are the potential benefits and risks clear? Are the goals and priorities clear or vague, fixed or shifting? Do people feel confused, overloaded, weary, burned out? Does anyone offer an easy answer, a simple solution ("trust me") to solve a complex problem.

Social Media in Strategic Communication

2011-09-01T03:00:00-05:00

Source: Techland

The new Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) program was submitted under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an arm of the Department of Defense. The goal is to “develop a new science of social networks built on an emerging technology base” to help the agency keep abreast with communication technologies, namely Twitter.

The program’s plan is fourfold:
1. Detect, classify, measure and track the (a) formation, development and spread of ideas and concepts (memes), and
(b) purposeful or deceptive messaging and misinformation.
2. Recognize persuasion campaign structures and influence operations across social mediasites and communities.
3. Identify participants and intent, and measure effects of persuasion campaigns.
4. Counter messaging of detected adversary influence operations.

The development of a new science of social networks and the solutions to the problems posed by SMISC will require the confluence of several technologies including, but not limited to, information theory, massive-scale graph analytics and natural language processing. While SMISC will not directly support natural language processing development efforts, it will certainly use the results of previous programs as well as contribute new challenges to further stimulate ongoing efforts.

Technology areas particularly relevant to SMISC are shown here grouped to correspond to the four basic goals of the program as described above:

1. Linguistic cues, patterns of information flow, topic trend analysis, narrative structure analysis, sentiment detection and opinion mining;
2. Meme tracking across communities, graph analytics/probabilistic reasoning, pattern detection, cultural narratives;
3. Inducing identities, modeling emergent communities, trust analytics, network dynamics modeling;
4. Automated content generation, bots in social media, crowd sourcing.

Recent research has shown that traditional approaches to understanding social media through static network connectivity models often produce misleading results. It is, therefore, necessary to take into account the dynamics of behavior and SMISC is interested in a wide variety of techniques for doing so.

Cryptome PDF: http://cryptome.org/dodi/dod-smisc.pdf

Excellent background from George Washington blog: http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2009/01/government-heavily-manipulates-social.html