Tag: Deception

An Introduction to Fifth Generation Warfare

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love 5GW

We type these words travelling through the Swiss Alps on high-speed rail. As the world becomes smaller, we at The Radio Research Group have witnessed firsthand how nearly everything we knew about modern conflict is changing, under the shadow of Fifth Generation Warfare. The incredible, exponential, accelerating pace of technology has overturned centuries of standard operating procedure. Diplomats and military leaders alike have been thrust into uncharted domains, disrupted by an invisible enemy that makes us question our reality.

An Introduction to Fifth Generation Warfare

Related:

5GW: 2012 NDAA – Propaganda – MISO – InfoOps – PsyOps

Cambridge Analytica and the Right-Wing Populist Movements

Embedded Journalism, Media Manipulation & Apathy

Memetic Warfare

A friendly fire death, a platoon’s 20 years of trauma

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Bryan O’Neal has spent two decades grinding his way up the U.S. Army ranks, from lowly private to command sergeant major — the highest rank for a non-commissioned officer. He could write a textbook on modern warfare history — and his own unique place in it — but much of what he’s seen and done could be hard for anyone to hear. Significant numbers of the men and women under his command weren’t even born until after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that inspired him to enlist.

…

In the spring of 2004, perhaps the last thing President George W. Bush’s administration needed was another war-related PR problem. No one could find Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, which the administration had used to build a case for war. Less than a month before Tillman’s death, four contractors for the Blackwater private security firm in Iraq were ambushed and dragged through the streets, and their corpses were hung from a bridge. In April came shocking images of torture at the Abu Ghraib prison.

A friendly fire death, a platoon’s 20 years of trauma

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The Danger of Bullshit: Revisiting Harry Frankfurt’s Classic Essay

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat) 
‘The liar is inescapably concerned with truth-values. In order to invent a lie at all, he must think he knows what is true.’ (p. 51)

The Danger of Bullshit: Revisiting Harry Frankfurt’s Classic Essay

Harry Frankfurt argues that bullshit is more dangerous than lying. At first sight, this seems counter-intuitive. Surely lying is worse than bullshitting? Liars are intentionally and deliberately trying to deceive us. Normally, doing something bad (e.g. deceiving someone) intentionally makes the action worse than if it is done unintentionally, for example accidentally or absentmindedly. If this is the case, how can bullshit be worse than lying?

The reason Frankfurt gives is that, whereas liars at least pay some respect to the difference between what is true and what isn’t, bullshitters completely disregard it. They simply don’t care about the difference. This, Frankfurt argues, means that compulsive bullshitters become progressively less able to tell the truth than compulsive liars. Liars and truth tellers are playing on opposite sides of the same game. Bullshitters are playing a different game entirely where the rules of truth don’t matter. This lack of concern, Frankfurt argues, is more corrosive of one’s ability to distinguish the truth than deliberately obscuring the truth. Once one gets into the habit of bullshitting, it is difficult to get out of it.

Related:

On Bullshit Booklet (PDF)Download

PSUV Deputy Warns that Far-Right Opposition Plans to Announce Electoral Results Ahead of Time

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) Deputy Iris Varela warned that the Venezuelan far-right opposition belonging to the Unitary Platform (PUD), together with international news agencies, has a plan to announce alleged electoral results ahead of time on this Sunday, July 28. In Venezuela, the electoral law only allows the National Electoral Council (CNE) to announce electoral results. Only afterwards are media outlets permitted to disclose their estimates.

PSUV Deputy Warns that Far-Right Opposition Plans to Announce Electoral Results Ahead of Time

Related:

Venezuela: Maduro Denounces Far-Right Sabotage as Machado Issues Election Day Instructions

An allegedly leaked report from pro-opposition pollster Datanálisis predicted a narrow Maduro victory on July 28.

The U.S. is going to dispute the election results and claim that Edmundo González won! The Biden Administration has already been using Lula and Gustavo Petro as intermediaries to interfere in Venezuelan politics!

How to Stop a Coup by Mark Feierstein (USAID)

That said, the United States and other countries could do a lot over the next few days to promote a legitimate election and a democratic transition. Indeed, Washington has already made important contributions to this complex process. Negotiations with the Venezuelan government and the skillful leveraging of economic sanctions persuaded the regime to permit the opposition primary in October. That vote established María Corina Machado as the undisputed opposition leader, forged unity among opposition parties, and revived the Venezuelan people’s confidence in elections as the best way to resolve the country’s prolonged political, economic, and humanitarian crises. The administration wisely coordinated those diplomatic efforts with Colombia and Brazil, whose leftist leaders have greater access to the Maduro regime. To be sure, Presidents Gustavo Petro of Colombia and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil have been inconsistent in their support for democracy in Venezuela. Yet their intermittent interventions have been timely and consequential. Were it not for Lula’s engagement, for example, the regime likely would have derailed González’s candidacy, as it did to Machado and the opposition’s second choice, Corina Yoris.

“The Venezuelan opposition is increasingly optimistic that its unity candidate Edmundo González will win the July 28 contest by such an ample margin that Maduro would have no choice but to acknowledge the outcome.”