"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." — John Keats
A couple months ago I introduced in comment, RAND Corporation’s Product “ The Russian ‘Firehose of Falsehood’ Propaganda Model : Why it might work and options to counter it.”
www.rand.org/...
Subsequently, last month, a newsier-looking version complete with picture of Putin to attract the public was introduced as a link by either Diarist or other commenters: www.rand.org/…
Another RAND National Defense Research Institute Product , commissioned by US European Command — USECOM and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND NDRI, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office
of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the
Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community, is Titled “Understanding and Defending Against Russia's Malign and Subversive Information Efforts in Europe” [I may have posted this as well]. www.rand.org/...
Offers insight into specific techniques of information manipulation including tactics such as these, contained in Table S.2: Information Manipulation Techniques Used by Russia and Its Agents
Complete Fabrication: Information that is purposefully entirely false and misleading
Publication of forgeries (e.g., falsified government documents and email exchanges, audio of fictional conversations, and manufactured video and still images)
Misappropriation: Misleading content that uses existing events, people, or documentary evidence to
misrepresent facts (e.g., Translations of interviews that directly contradict what the interviewee said)
Deceptive identities: Imitation or impersonation of a genuine and credible source of information (e.g., Impersonating categories of individuals with authority by using terms such as “specialist,” “expert,” or “witness” when referring to individuals or organizations used to authenticate narratives)
Obfuscation: Clouding public discourse, often by offering multiple, contradictory accounts for the
same event/phenomenon (e.g., Multiple contradictory accounts offered for the same event)
Conspiracy theories: Proposed covert plots by powerful individuals, organizations, or alliances to
accomplish a goal, which is often nefarious in nature (e.g., Stories regarding secretive actions taken
by the West, U.S., Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Brussels (EU), and homosexuals and the “gay lobby”
Selective use of facts: Use of factual information in manipulative ways (e.g., Sputnik’s selective presentation of facts as evidence[you begin to see Fox News techniques, as well as other disinformatinoal entities, by now. Even primitives such as Donald Trump, grasp methodologies, as our very human brains are so attuned to social discourse that these are very organic methods of biasing verbal symbolic language, and Psychopaths are adept at such misuse wiTHOUT training, though ANY “true believer’ in any human ingroup, such as religions, can and do contrive in these ways])
Rhetorical fallacies: Messages that contain deliberately flawed reasoning
“which [is] logically invalid but cognitively effective” [you see this OFTEN in public comments here and everywhere. Real information is given, then the initiator jumps to unwarranted conclusions. Purposeful Formal fallacy use as well as the awesome list www.logicalfallacies.org of informal fallacies to which we are subject in untutored, and in disorganized, thinking!] (e.g., “Whataboutism,” countering strawman arguments, appealing to a slippery slope, and propagating red herrings)
Appeals to emotion/authority: Themes or messages that elicit emotional responses, often at
the expense of logic or evidence (e.g., Emotionally charged framing regarding
a (false) story of how refugees treated a young girl [if you remember that. European news has fails, although not as common as US major media, from NYT to more usual suspects])
We are subject to massive cognitive errors due to our brains , as ALL brains, are organs evolved to use Novel sensory information comparing it with past (memory) and heuristic condensations of complex experience into quickly accessible (neuroscience and cognitive research sometimes calls the energized synaptic linking “engrams”) impulsive responses and cognitive associations.
This process is automatic. It is in fact why you have so little memory of very early life, as your brain has not collected enough associations. Early in life, We are “prepared” by far more massively dendritically-linked cognitive possibilities, from which to choose sensory and motor responses, even as we have not developed specificity in our emotional and, thus also our motor responses.
I want to avoid overloading you with known information and research, and will not go further with discussion of brains, or with the massive “pruning’ of which you have surely read and heard, that occurs even through adolescence.
(one could make a case, though that MUCH of the progressive dementia occurring through lack of use is no more than lifelong pruning of the less emotionally charged, existential reduction of brains as developmental process. I do NOT want to go into the epigenetic and transcriptional processes through which we close ourselves to sensorimotor skills. Yet you have SURELY recognized that some types of learning occur during “Developmental Windows”, and both progressive and extreme reduction of ability can follow window closures. Learning to smoothly speak languages without accents is one such window period, tending to close by age 12, though those , such as musicians and skilled hearers- I’ve noticed retention in formal dance-trained individuals as well, are less to not subject to this phenomenon. Notice how the phenom is MOTOR, as well as including even HEARING of differences in component sounds) All this material IS relevant to experiences you have of TRUSTING FAMILIAR SOURCES, as well as trusting sources you ATTRIBUTE to trustworthiness!
The preservation and most durable emotiocognitive thought architectures we create, (and I hesitate to use such a static word as “architecture”, but due to desire to emphasize persistence in the face of nocvel information the word evokes a powerfully correct image of how difficult it is to change early heuristics developed from experience. Babies and children MUST do and think what works to arouse parental love and inclusion) is due to the way we process information, through midbrain nuclei, attentive to novelty, and assessing novel input according to possible threat.
That is VERY important for you to understand, as it is the PRIMARY contributor to Cognitive Bias. (there is an excellent Diarist writing from time to time on the subject of cognitive biases and fallacies; I’ve just spent an hour attempting to find their work, failing as there are about 7k diarists, and the find bot denies that any dairy pertaining to these exists) Biases and fallacies are so numerous in Psychological education and research that I can only point you toward such sources as Wikipedia for the most basic look: en.wikipedia.org/…
YOUR avoidance of inappropriate denigration or calumniation is an important skill to develop
I added basic neurological view in order to assist your recognition that the bases of human fallacies are built into us for very good purposes, and heuristic exclusion is a PHYSICAL, REAL phenomenon, and NOT one through which you should attribute blame, and therefore resentment. When you descend into mirroring of biases and behaviors, OR yur choice to speciously differentiate your own, different biases, is primary to disputes escalating into violence and rejection. Remember that we form heuristic distillations because THIS is the JOB of brains.
It is ALSO the brain’s evolved role, to SELF-CORRECT errors occurring in previous heuristics, narratives accepted as factual due to our limited experience, and beliefs. This occurs during rest periods, mainly sleep (DMN activity in neuroimaging research explores the changes that occur in your brain during such assimilation), which i will not here describe. Let suffice, that you CAN correct previous erroneous beliefs in light of new, actual, sensory (and motor) input.
You LEARN, though the mediation occurs in many brain areas, and the continued active collation of new information, from learning to walk a slack rope, to ballet, to ANY verbal , behavioral, even emotional response are ALL very similar in changes, including the formation of new connections in the brain. MY purpose here is to emphasize that learning is NOT as sedately comfortable as is easy stasis. You find it difficult to learn, due to similar reasons you find it difficult or dangerous to develop and use muscles and kinetic capacities. This requires desire — eagerness, visible in ANY animal possessing a brain, especially visible in early developmental periods.
TO learn can be socially embarrassing, and DANGEROUS,
due to the necessity of abandoning previously working cognitive heuristics (again, heuristic means “shortcut” and is a natural product of basic logic applied only to actual experiences you, as an individual, have had). You lose friends through any appearance of defection from their beliefs, including loss of intimacy with parents having rigid dogmatic unquestioned, heuristic, highly emotionally-connected beliefs.
Our evolution has built into us physical dexterity in speech — tongues, lips, glottal and laryngeal and hyoid precisions (as well as the also useful obvious finger dexterity differing from other social primates). We have imitative abilities that also exceed the SAME capabilities inn many other animals.
A great proportion of mammals and many, many birds also use imitation for learning. Learning itself involves a huge amount of imitation, with very conservative departures, in order to innovate or to socially impress. That impulse to impress socially is another basic and important factor in our species.
Speech itself is a completely social adaptation of the human brain,
and not reality-oriented, but social-status-connected emotiohormonally. A very large proportion of our human brain is involved with speech, though certain relatively small cortical regions , if injured, can prevent production, recognition, or formation of speech.
Words, though, are beautifully mapped in areas specifically linking to emotionally and informationally relevant processes and areas of the brain. (it was only in 2019 or so that cortical mapping showed consistent regional stimulative placement of specific words. A word has proven slightly to widely different “meanings” among different people!)
Remember — all novel information is processed through a midbrain area primarily scanning it for possible threat/danger. (this is the amygdala, which has a dozen nuclei trading information with all kinds of association, hormonal, and other areas, including recent information, and more distributed Long-term accepted memory)
Due to that social orientation so necessary for human survival, you may learn COMPLETELY fallacious ideas, and complete fictions (truth is less existentially important than successful embedment in a socially powerful group, OR, alternatively, one which will accept you!)
— These ideas you may claim to , or in reality, do, espouse, assist you in gaining social credence with your intimates, and/or those with whom you desire intimacy and social status. This is a problem DUE TO our being an obligate social, pretty much Eusocial animal, depending upon others for survival. The indigenous nonliterate cultures used imaginative storytelling, to impress heuristic views , adhering to explanations of reality passed down through untold centuries.
So, when you listen to Vladimir Putin’s stories, it is not different from ANY ideology or other creatively crafted story. He, himself, has crafted a narrative in which he believes. The hormonal rewards of social poser are vulnerabilities inherent in all of us, and moreso in those who seek social dominance. A Huge proportion of those crippled by Psychopathy, gravitate toward the “game” of Social Dominance; you WILL find those SD-Oriented to be psychopathic, differing form the cruder ones who engage in private brutal, abominable acts.
There is some Diathesis-stress modeling of variant individuals, and a major difference is willingness to be patient, favoring Machiavellian subtrait. Religions, cults, nations, mobs, (as the Jan 6 2021 coalition of q-cultists, neonazis, otherwise unmotivated believers in the ideology of violent force and death as remedy for what perceived threats they entertain, illustrate), or ANY cynical user of social group identity, ALL share the same processing.
(Description of variant forms of the early-abused individuals who compose different variant psychopathic behaviors requires knowledge of specific childhood events, as well as specific modeling behaviors they took in. The entire hormonal and simulatory differences in brains becomes involved. “Risk taking” behaviors, and their variations would result in far too long an essay for a primer, but you must yourself develop enough to feel pity along with your revulsion, or you engage in cognitive traps increasing your own equifinal thoughts and behavioral similarities with such damaged individuals)
So, “There, but for fortune, go you or I” should become apparent to you.
What differences do you have from Neonazis, Hashshishim, Russian publics, or click-language speakers? Your limited experience differs from their limited experience.
So does mine. Learning IS a basic hunger of brains and brained organisms.
Abuse, causing terror of learning or terror of possible expulsion or ostracism from a group you perceive to be requisite to your survival or acceptance as important member, or offers love and/or reproductive opportunities, IS used by coercive individuals, groups, AND societies
It remains up to you at this moment to critically observe such abuse, and cynically-used “love-bombing.”
We are vulnerable to a greater extent to desperation resulting from isolation, than most of us accept, especially when speciously comparing ourselves to “less” courageous.
Humans choose their behaviors situationally, as do other social mammals. SO much so that attributing others’ behaviors to “personality” is CALLED The Fundamental Attribution Error, in the most basic psychology.
IN previous comments I emphasized that Putin is heir to extreme paranoia, induced not only through the isolated informational nature of Soviet Union, but also through the training he received in KGB. I have called the social structure a Counterintelligence Society, following numerous scholars of social forms contorted by aggressive totalitarian societies, and coercively refined & developed Intelligence Agency social power.
A counterintelligence society
is, if not obvious, one based upon preemption. Some of you, exposed to difficulties arising from threat-oriented parenting, understand preemptive behaviors, including paranoid (fearfully-induced false ideations, perceptions, attributions occurring within an individual, or in the case of parents, a dyad) prognoses. Contrafactual attributions, falsehoods, stories are created and rigidly retained within such societies. You see this occurring in ALL US self-interest subgroups to greater or lesser extents.
The excessive Soviet and Russian purges in response to ideological departures, and public failures, are due to the possible ensuing loss of support.
That ‘Firehose of Falsehood” is an alternative tactic useful in perpetuating firm public support.
I, and possibly you, were first exposed to the firehosing method by the initial, and then 34 thousand recorded, open lies of DJ Trump. It had precedent, in every sustained and repeated lie promulgated in our own nation politics, as well as throughout “excuses” for atrocious behaviors for years now, at least since the advent of GW Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their precursor writers of PNAC. Look to Karl Rove’s skilled usage since 1979 or so.
Precedent reaches back into the written early period of propaganda composed by the so-called “christians” and their syncretism occurring to obtain Roman Legionnaires and patricians of Rome, where Manichaean (though Zoroaster earlier framed the internal battle as between asha — truth, and druj — decay, decadence, death) ideas of Greek-like attribution of internal social struggles to “gods” vs demons, dissociating one’s perceived social choices from their real origin, our individual brains. The christian embrace of war “deities” like Mithra, popular in Legionnaires, caused departure of the philosophy into embrace of violent lethal means and rationales. If is seem to digress, it is relevant, as Russian Orthodox violent nationalism, like other unquestioned dissociative ideas lead to acceptance of false, but tightly coherent narratives. I am sure you ALL have noted the massive increase of attribution and petition to “god” — a medieval Germanic & English word directly meaning “good.” (it’s Danish for good, and English is closest to Frisian region in origin)
Doubting that many have read this far — I stand accused by my professors, and others, of not bringing my own submitted papers to language common in 8th grade or 12 year-olds. I respect the cognitive skills of even readers of that age more than adult educators do, and though TRYING to simplify, fail.
TO complete this short primer, I’d like to introduce readers to a project of the 28 European Union member states
While the color revolutions and Russian violent invasion and repression in Georgia and establishment of “Abkhazia” and “South Ossetia”, the Chechen and other Caucasian and less known acquisitional violence, all antedate the EU March 2015 formation of East Stratcom Task Force to combat the Disinformation strategy so visible in Russian propaganda, hardly ever diminished from Soviet Union KGB strategy.
The violation of EVERY agreement entered into by Russia.
Dissolution of Soviet Union, the Commonwealth of Independent States signed the Minsk Agreement on Dec. 30, 1991, agreeing that the Russian government would be given charge of all nuclear armaments. Ukraine never trusted Muscovite Russia across the centuries, repeatedly suffering violations, invasions, and even selective atrocity. I leave that whole history to you.
When Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum openly in 2014, the EU became alerted to Russia, as a European country, for the first time since World War 2, using military force to attack and take land from a neighbor: Russia’s illegal annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. The lies promulgated by Russia being so copious and insistent, in March 2015 the EU met in Brussels its center, as NYC is UN’s Center, though much UN agency business seems to be conducted in Switzerland .
That precipitating violation: United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances Dec. 5, 1994. A political agreement in accordance with the principles of the Helsinki Accords, the memorandum included security assurances against the threat or use of force against Ukraine’s territory or political independence. The countries promised to respect the sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine. Parallel memorandums were signed for Belarus and Kazakhstan. [those 2 nations have responded recently quite differently to Russia’s aggression. Comments on those appeared under several recent and even early, Ukraine War posts by Kos and DK staff.]
Eu vs Disinfo was born: euvsdisinfo.eu/…
You are familiar with D. J. Trump’s massive use of Disinformation, often excused by US media and legal pundits as unintentional or mere mistaken , “beliefs”, or related decrement of his now privately admitted TRUE DISINFORMATIONAL attempts. See your Jan. 6 congressional Committee hearings.
Go to EU vs. Disinfo’s database on the 14 THOUSAND+ lies by Russia's GRU and other Security Service firehose. Remember that EACH Title is disinformation, and the Disproof appears only when exploring the individual link[s]. euvsdisinfo.eu/…
The European Union’s Eastern Partnership includes Moldova and the Caucasus former Soviet nations. We might not expect direct Russian confrontation with NATO, but rather armed invasions of EP states, and further subversion of Serbia, Hungary, African nations and others vulnerable to Russian control. Here’s EU vs Disinfo’s page on Eastern Partnership nations: euvsdisinfo.eu/…
some author notes
and some narrative directions that hopefully induce you to look within yourself to find and develop your ability to detect your Disinformation Detection. (I have run into a number of quite arrogant and error-prone individuals, whose orientations are social, prizing perceived caste rather than any search for real truth)
Valid Questions, I’ll try to respond to, though some private stresses may preclude my attention for the next couple weeks. I treasure my naivete’ as we are better individuals when kinder, trusting, and closer to our basic impulses. We ARE evolved for trust, and that error-corrective brain all neurally-based organisms have had for beyond ½ billion years, when it self-signals, is adequate alert, IF we do our best to attend to those signals.
We are conscious because consciousness is aroused by every new sensory moment (it’s a big hormonal thing occurring in the brain, the alarm to attention, and should not be regarded as threat, as MOST of the stimulation is really indistinugishable from that eagerness born of , first our dynamic universe, from atomic to sensory motion). We function in cycles related to circadian cycling. This is a magnificently beautiful process.
I’m not a sage, but only heir to a teenage surfer who said: “Creativity is Synthesis.” Others have informed my every discovery; Our recognition of “the Universe as Composed of Eagerness” is forever individual discovery yet anciently recognized stimulus. It was Upanishad or Veda that said “The universe is composed of delight.”
It was an always-wild Wolf who continually reimpressed me with the fact of Eagerness and Exuberance, and the Incorruptible Bonding of Love, for a lifetime, being our own essence.
Another surfer, not me, pointed out that “The Quest for Wholeness is the Essence of Courage.” I say only: Treasure your integrity, beyond any other wealth in which you may believe; Then you have a chance at courage and kindness, and greater forgiveness, and love, than is normally the lot of humans.
We used to read Robinson Jeffers by firelight. I was and may still be, the worst, if the most innocent, among us all. His reference to “dreams” may lead to conflation. In Hawaiian language two far different words differentiate between goal/fear dreams and the true dreams we experience as our brains play with assimilating new information. We remember saliently emotional dreams because our wiser, ancient brains KNOW that we need to attend to something. this distinction must be made, for you to understand your own symbols, dreams. Because Jeffers, though, made the connection of Wholeness to Integrity, adherence to truth, I submit to you one of his poems:
The Answer
“Then what is the answer?
–Not to be deluded by dreams.
To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence, and their tyrants come, many times before.
When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose the least ugly faction; these evils are essential.
To keep one’s own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted and not wish for evil; and not be duped
By dreams of universal justice or happiness.
These dreams will not be fulfilled.
To know this, and know that however ugly the parts appear the whole remains beautiful.
A severed hand
Is an ugly thing, and man dissevered from the earth and stars and his history…for contemplation or in fact…
Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is wholeness, the greatest beauty is
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe.
Love that, not man
Apart from that, or else you will share man’s pitiful confusions, or drown in despair when his days darken.”
[Thereupon is based the entirety of the Primer — as John Keats did, nailing the Two Thousand year-old pictures, a moment frozen on a Grecian Urn, you must discern more than what is pictured or written by voice or hand of humans. Attend especially to his conclusion, the last two lines found here: www.poetryfoundation.org/... They are even more succinct, and best all my insignificant efforts.]