It is great to notice how the whole insight that we are indeed in a cognitive war is spreading. This last week, 2 other Substack authors wrote on it.
Just the other day, Biernutz_71 wrote Info Wars 2.0, part 1.
In it, he quoted this from a 2019 article in the Columbia Journalism Review, among other great info and examples:
“IN 1970, the Canadian cultural theorist Marshall McLuhan famously predicted that World War III, when it comes, will be “a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation”—a war waged in cyberspace, not on a defined battlefield. His prediction resonates with anyone trying to make sense of our opaque information environment, especially reporters and editors who now find themselves as drafted frontline recruits.”
This captures perfectly what my own series ‘The War for our Minds’ has been trying to convey, and it strengthens this reality that we are indeed participants in this information war, combatants. Biernutz wrote this little gem: “the void has been filled with undrafted conscripts: you and I.” We are, indeed. And whether we will become mere cannon fodder, or actual seasoned and feared warriors, is up to us. Biernutz joined my call to become aware of this Cognitive War that is being waged, to understand the mechanisms used/abused, and from what his article suggests, he will also write on how to counter or nullify the attacks aimed at us.
This is echoed all over, for example by Brian Cates, on his Telegram Channel:
“They're already getting the next one ready, you know that? They'll probably launch it at the beginning of May to try to pull attention from the 2000 Mules rollout.
Some newly minted authority you never heard of ten minutes ago is going suddenly be raised VERY HIGH UP where you can see him or her [there are only TWO GENDERS, don't @ me!] and they will then start selling a fake narrative to you.
The good news is, we're getting BETTER AND BETTER at exposing these people FASTER AND FASTER.”
And why are we getting better and faster? Because we started to catch on that we are in a war, and that we are under attack.
Next, CognitiveCarbon wrote an article titled Memetic Injection.
He coined that phrase, memetic injection, and defined it this way:
“Memetic Injection” as I originally conceived it means “the first, original introduction into the public consciousness of some unique idea, word, creative item, or notion.”
He explains this a bit more:
“Once an “idea” first makes its way into the public consciousness, it is then embellished, enhanced, diminished, twisted, neutered, inverted, or —sometimes if we’re lucky — transmitted more or less intact as it moves from mind to mind (remember the “telephone game” we played as kids?)
But the key point is that every idea had a unique origin somewhere and at some time. If you could somehow trace it back, someone was the first person ever to think of it.”
And why is this important, you may ask? CognitiveCarbon gives the answer: he refers to companies such as Twitter, Facebook (Meta), Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and while they are indeed very instrumental in spreading memes and ideas, they can also determine when and where and by who such ideas and memes originate. This is a VERY important ability: it allows those companies to either support and amplify such ideas, or they can restrict it, ban it, shackle it.
In the past year, I heard several times people bemoan the secrecy of the Twitter algorithms (interestingly, fully back in the news again, thanks to Elon Musk), and the incredible advantage that Facebook and Twitter and such had on determining where memes or news stories came from first. That is an incredibly valuable thing to be aware of: it helps determine if a concerted attack is going on, if normal sharing patters are seen or if there is artificial amplification or suppression going on, who the main players are, ties between groups or individuals, etc.
Another piece of that puzzle became more clear when The Conservative Treehouse blogged this article on the Musk takeover bid of Twitter.
In it, they made a great point:
“Twitter is not a platform built around a website; Twitter is a platform for comments and discussion that operates in the sphere of social media. As a consequence, the technology and data processing required to operate the platform does not have an economy of scale.
There is no business model where Twitter is financially viable to operate…. UNLESS the tech architecture under the platform was subsidized.
In my opinion, there is only one technological system and entity that could possibly underwrite the cost of Twitter to operate. That entity is the United States Government, and here’s why.”
One key reason he gives, is this:
“Within the systems of technology for public (user engagement) commenting, there is no economy of scale. Each added user represents an increased cost to the operation of the platform, because each user engagement demands database performance to respond to the simultaneous users on the platform. The term “simultaneous users” is critical to understand because that drives the cost.”
He then drops this bombshell deduction:
“The only way Twitter, with 217 million users, could exist as a viable platform is if they had access to tech systems of incredible scale and performance, and those systems were essentially free or very cheap. The only entity that could possibly provide that level of capacity and scale is the United States Government – combined with a bottomless bank account.
If my hunch is correct, Elon Musk is poised to expose the well-kept secret that most social media platforms are operating on U.S. government tech infrastructure and indirect subsidy. Let that sink in.”
He then refers to this tweet, showing an immediate attack on Musk, from WITHIN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT, as if they wanted to prove ConservativeTreehouse right…
In a follow-up article, a few days ago, titled Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop, they went into more detail, going over what is known about CIA and intelligence presence in Social Media. Worth a careful read, as well!
But I want to talk about in more detail, after this long introduction, is memes and truth.
CognitiveCarbon’s article that I mentioned above is a great starting point explaining what memes are.
But as a quick recap, I’ll lift a key part from his article, as he really nailed this (if we ever meet, CognitiveCarbon, first beer is on me), in a very rich, dense and superbly articulated few sentences:
“The modern word “meme” is broadly understood to mean a picture or brief video with some humorous words overlaid that makes some narrative-piercing cultural or political point.
A well-constructed meme (the kind that the left doesn’t seem to know how to make) doesn’t need any explanation; it is the explanation, and it cuts right through our cognitive filters to grab us by the brain stem at an almost subconscious level.
We instantly know what it’s claiming is true without needing to interpret it. It’s that property of memes that infuriates the left: there is no need for a narrative, which they rely on.”
That is what a meme is. (I would add hash-tags in that category, too!) When discussing this a few weeks ago with some friends, I coined the term ‘truth booster’. A meme is not the vaccination itself, which would be the narrative, the reasoning and proof and explanations that would lead a person to change their mind or to be reassured that they are on the right track. A meme, then, is but the booster shot that refreshes and reinforces an already known reality.
As said, the left can’t meme. Why not? Because memes are boosters that refer back to the narrative of the ‘vaccination’, and if your narrative is not based on reality, but on delusional idea of what you want to turn reality into, they will fail.
Or think about this: they want to transform reality, or at least our perception of it. As such, their memes have no touching point within the frame of reference of their targets, as they attempt to introduce a new reality or understanding. Memes don’t work that way. They contain snippets of what is already part of the common culture and knowledge.
Meme's don't work without truth. They are weaponized truth. To counter any and all attempt to disrupt our cognitive processes. They are thus a superbly DEFENSIVE weapon, too, aimed at neutralizing incoming attempts at ideological change.
I am not sure, though, how well this aspect of memes is understood yet.
But to properly explore that, I here have to split the article in 2 parts: an introduction to memes, and in a separate article, how they function, with the place of truth in all that.
First, on memes.
Already in 2005, a USMC Major, Michael B. Prosser, wrote a Master’s thesis for his degree Master of Operational Studies, called Memetics—A Growth Industry in US Military Operations, and boy, is this a goldmine.
I will go through his first page, paragraph by paragraph.
“THESIS: Tomorrow’s US military must approach warfighting with an alternate mindset that is prepared to leverage all elements of national power to influence the ideological spheres of future enemies by engaging them with alternate means—memes—to gain advantage.”
Here we see the shift towards non-physical attacks, and shifting aim to the ideological spheres, fully in line with my previous articles on Cognitive Warfare. Interestingly here, their main weapon is the meme.
The article then provides 4 discussion points:
“Defining memes.
• Memes are "units of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation," and as ideas become means to attack ideologies. Meme-warfare enters into the hotly contested battlefields inside the minds of our enemies and particularly inside the minds of the undecided.
• Formations charged with Information Operations (IO) Psychological Operations (PsyOps), and Strategic Communications (SC) provide an existing construct for memes and the study of memes, memetics, to grow and mature into an accepted doctrinal discipline.”
Memes are indeed weapons, as unites of cultural transmission, to attack ‘ideologies’. This is KEY, as the war we are in right now is NOT a traditional war between nation states, or empires, or even between tribes or races or religion. It is a war of ideologies. (That exploration will be another future article).
Here, the goal is expressed to create a stand-alone military unit to create and grow meme warfare into it’s own, accepted doctrinal discipline. And indeed, we see this further explored in studies commissioned by NATO or different branches of the US military in subsequent years, marking a clear push towards this in response to this first exploratory study.
“Epidemiology of insurgency ideology
• Using the analogy that ideologies possess the same theoretical characteristics as a disease (particularly as complex adaptive systems), then a similar method and routine can/should be applied to combating them. Memes can and should be used like medicine to inoculate the enemy and generate popular support.”
Funny how this mirrors my own analogy of vaccines and memes as truth booster shots. But I would argue that memes are not medicine, as on their own they are nothing. Their referent is very important. Also: why do some memes go viral, and others remain unseen? Medicine doesn’t work so haphazardly.
“Private sector meme application.
• 3M Corporation employed an innovation meme designed to cultivate an employee culture, which accepts and embraces innovation in product development. As a practical matter, 3M executives endorsed and employed the lead user process in new product development, which translated into a thirty percent profit increase. The innovation meme was key to 3M’s profit increase.”
Here, the author gave an example of meme use. Since this was 2005, 7 years after the founding of Facebook, and a year before Twitter was founded, Social Media was still in it’s infancy, and cell phone technology was not nearly as advanced as it is today: it did not allow yet for proper transmission of high quality images or video’s, or such features were still too expensive for most to be really as effective or prevalent as they are today, where everyone has a smart phone and a proper data plan.
But the key point is: the private sector is using it, so we must jump on this bandwagon, as well! Which mirrors the arguments used to develop Cognitive Warfare as the 6th domain.
“The proposed Meme Warfare Center (MWC)
• The MWC as a staff organization has the primary mission to advise the Commander on meme generation, transmission, coupled with a detailed analysis on enemy, friendly and noncombatant populations. The MWC aims for a full spectrum capability of meme generation, analysis, quality control/assurance and organic transmission apparatus. The proposed MWC structure lays in stark contrast to the ad hoc nature of current IO and JPOTF formations.”
This is important, as well, as it recognizes the need for a permanent action. It juxtaposes the ‘ad hoc nature’ of the current Information Operations (IO) and the Joint psychological operations task force (JPOTF). Those only came into play when needed (‘ad hoc’), while meme warfare is a continuous operation, without a beginning, without an end. The paragraph still makes the distinction of ‘noncombatants’, but it is clear that such only means ‘non-immediate target enemy’.
“CONCLUSION:
Cognitive scientists, cultural anthropologists, behavior scientists, and game theory experts must be included as professional meme-wielding-gunfighters on future battlefields. The US must recognize the growing need for emerging disciplines in ideological warfare by ‘weaponeering’ memes. The Meme Warfare Center offers sophisticated and intellectually rich capability absent in current IO, PsyOps and SC formations and is specifically designed to conduct combat inside the mind of the enemy. Memes are key emerging tools to win the ideological metaphysical fight.”
Weaponized truth. Weaponized memes. Weaponizing information and information delivery. And the implication that whole populations are now involved as targets for this memetic warfare.
Of course, in the Media you will hear about how memes and meme warfare is actually a perfidious disinformation ploy hatched by people on the right and alt right. The Great Meme War is then brought up, and 4Chan and 8Chan.
All memes that are credited of winning the 2016 Trump election. How else could Trump win, except by deceiving the masses through slick and deceptive meme warfare? Clearly not because his message resonated with millions of Americans!
A great example is this Politico article, World War Meme, that warns ominously in it’s subtitle: “How a group of anonymous keyboard commandos conquered the internet for Donald Trump—and plans to deliver Europe to the far right.”
The article also quoted ‘Daniel’, who wrote to the authors of this Politico article in an email: “The reason I fought in the meme war is that as Andrew Breitbart said we are at literal war with the left. There is an ideological Cold War going on right now and the victor will determine the fate of Western Civilization.”
It is amazing to see all these stories converge. Official US military and NATO studies/papers talk about how Cognitive Warfare and Memetic Warfare is aimed at ideologies. And random people within the pro-Trump movement echo that. The late Andrew Breitbart is named, and that is no coincidence, either. He seemed to have had his finger on the pulse of society, and what made it move/influenced it.
But for Politico, the goal is simple: link the Trump success to 4Chan, and then write about 4Chan stuff like this:
“The problem is compounded by the fact that deception and trolling are at the heart of 4Chan’s culture, making it impossible to strike through the pasteboard mask of anonymity and determine a poster’s true motivation.”
Or
“If you see a Nazi frog glorifying Donald Trump and you’re on the fence and you’re like, ‘OK, now I’m going to vote for Donald Trump,’ you were never going to vote for Hillary Clinton anyways,” said the [former Clinton] aide. But the aide conceded that such efforts could have discouraged uncommitted voters from going to the polls, and others on the left view the meme ecosystem as a real asset to Trump.”
And there is more to this long article Politico wrote.
There is this very interesting part, at the very end (keep in mind this was written in 2017!):
“In our call, Auernheimer, breaking at points into manic laughter, pointed to growing friction between France’s military and police and its civilian leadership, and said he was working to foment popular sentiment in favor of a coup if Le Pen’s National Front does not win in April. “We hope to catalyze a new democratic system or encourage military and police putting the country back in order,” he said.”
What to make of this? A manically laughing alt-right meme warrior, who wants to spread the Trump Meme War experience to Europe to support the extreme Right in European coutnries? Talking about an actual coup in France if Le Pen doesn’t win? Something about that tells me that this didn’t happen.
Or perhaps it did.
We read on:
“He offered to show me his command center if I flew out to his home in Ukraine. In January, when I emailed him to follow up on his offer, he responded, “Due to an NDA I can’t have any further discussions with you on this subject. Sorry.””
From Ukraine? Well, look at that. Why is a 4Chan veteran and ‘white nationalist hacker’ who is assumed to have helped Trump win, operating from Ukraine, of all places? He is a ‘white nationalist’. Azov, perchance? Related to the same white nationalist Azov members who were so helpful guiding unsuspecting Trump-supporters into the Capitol on January 6th? This story stinks.
I have nothing else but a suspicion, but thought it worthwhile to flag, given the current events in Ukraine, and the different other links between Azov, Antifa and attempts to discredit conservative movements in the US, beginning with Trump. Incredible to see such elements used not just on January 6, 2021, but in 2017.
Memes aren’t just studied in the Marine Corps, nor are they simply the domain of 4Chan keyboard warriors, or of Ukrainian neo-Nazis.
Darpa is involved as well, as is NATO, studying the concept of memetic warfare, similarly as the concept of Cognitive Warfare. In a great paper, Jeff Giesea (yes, the same early hour Trump supporter) wrote a study on memetic warfare for NATO’s STRATCOM: ‘It’s time to embrace memetic warfare’.
It opens with humor:
“‘The best way to counter ISIS is to unleash an army of trolls on them’, Charles C. Johnson joked over beers last spring. ‘I could totally mess with their recruiting and propaganda.’”
But Mr. Giesea gets to serious business, quickly:
“In doing so, it should be thought of as broader and more strategic than ‘weaponized trolling’. Memetic warfare, as I define it, is competition over narrative, ideas, and social control in a social-media battlefield. One might think of it as a subset of ‘information operations’ tailored to social media.
[..]
Memetic warfare could also be viewed as a ‘digital native’ version of psychological warfare, more commonly known as propaganda. If propaganda and public diplomacy are conventional forms of memetic warfare, then trolling and PSYOPs are guerrilla versions. Memetic warfare can be useful at the grand narrative level, at the battle level, or in a special circumstance. It can be offensive, defensive, or predictive. It can be deployed independently or in conjunction with cyber, hybrid, or conventional efforts.”
A few takeaways: trolling itself is not memetic, even if trolls can use memes. Think of a troll as an intrigant, a person placed in a group with the aim to disrupt their meetings, sow suspicion and discord, to take down conventional accepted wisdom and bring in doubt.
Memes are about the narrative, ideas and social control. And they are highly adaptable to use on different levels.
He makes another key point:
“Cyber warfare is about taking control of data. Memetic warfare is about taking control of the dialogue, narrative, and psychological space. It’s about denigrating, disrupting, and subverting the enemy’s effort to do the same.”
And he gave a great example, that I cannot withhold you:
“A ‘memetic skirmish’ involving the U.S. Embassy in Moscow demonstrates that talented and creative State Department communicators are poised to act when allowed. In August 2015, the local news in Moscow released a photo showing U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Tefft conducting a press conference at an opposition rally. The photo, according to the U.S. Embassy, was a fake. It seemed to be deliberate disinformation. The Embassy had a brilliant response. ‘Ambassador Tefft spent his day off yesterday at home’, the embassy tweeted. ‘But thanks to Photoshop, he could be anywhere.’ Shortly thereafter, various Russian twitter accounts released the same press conference photo of Ambassador Tefft against a variety of backgrounds - landing on the moon, surrounded by cats, at various weddings, at a hockey game, landing in the Philippines with General MacArthur during World War II, and elsewhere. It became a meme, and Russia’s disinformation effort backfired.”
One last point by Mr. Giesea:
“Ethically, it’s not clear where to draw boundaries for this type of campaign. Is it ethically justifiable to spread homophobic and juvenile memes if it helps undermine and ridicule Daesh and its followers? Would the answer be different if the memes come from the gay community and ‘Gays Against ISIS’-type groups? How does the possibility of unintended consequences factor into this, including the possibility that such a campaign inadvertently helps Daesh? Are NATO member nations too politically correct to use offensive themes to undermine mortal enemies?
Here is what seems odd about the current context: Today NATO members have the legal, moral, and bureaucratic setup to tear apart human beings with bombs, but not to fight them with social-media-focused Strategic Communication. Does this make sense?”
This opens a whole other discussion, on political correctness, the place of humor and ridicule, and so on. But the point he makes is interesting: The US military and NATO have no problem dropping a thermobaric bomb on an enemy, but would court-martial a soldier who openly mocked and ridiculed that same enemy. Still: what are the ethics in play here? This will be important to look at, as well.
Another DARPA study is focused on narratives: Narrative Networks (N2) (DSO, 2011-in progress), with as aim to perform quantitative analysis of narratives, understanding their effects on human psychology and neurobiology, and determine their influence on individuals and culture.
This angle of ‘narratives’ is an important aside, and I will keep that for a full article on it’s own.
Dr. Robert Finkelstein, president of Robotic Technology, Inc., gave a presentation titled ‘Tutorial: Military Memetics’, presented at the Social Media for Defense Summit, hosted in Alexandria in Oct. 2011. (Important to note that he was involved with DARPA already in 2006, working on this same subject matter.)
“Our pragmatic definition:
a meme is information which propagates, has impact, and persists
Memetics is the study and application of memes
Military Memetics is the application of memes for national security
It is a subset of Neuro-Cognitive Warfare, a revolutionary tool in the information war
It can provide a coherent, scientific approach for information operations, psychological warfare, and the general war against terrorists
It can prevent or mitigate irrational conflict, reduce the probability of war or defeat, and increase the probability of peace or victory”
He also provided a distinction in memes, as described by either their external phenoma (e-memes, manifested by their effects on human behavior and culture) and their internal phenomena (i-memes, manifested by their effects on an individual’s neuronal behavior and brain).
This, if you ask me, is losing the forest for the trees. How can you distinguish a meme from any other information a person receives, on such neurological level? It appears to be a very materialistic approach, as well, that would assume that humans are nothing but a collective of cells and chemical and electrical processes and signals. We have those, for sure, but we are also much more. And that is where they go wrong.
It leads Dr. Finkelstein to present a slide like this:
He then defines what memes are, and what the meme definition for military memetics would be. Next, he makes the following statement:
“The desired impacts of memes for national security are immediate, not evolutionary
Memes can change individual and group values and behavior
Memes can enhance dysfunctional cultures or sub-cultures”
With this image as illustration on that slide:
Can memes change values and behavior? If so, is that any and all behavior, or only so far, or only certain types of behavior and values? And memes in general have no ‘evolutionary’ impact, either, he is taking the analogy by Dawkins way too far and literal.
And that famous poster? A meme, now, yes, but why is it a meme, and why is it so powerful? Is it successful because of clever choice of words, color, flag? Or because it refers, in a striking personal way with the pointed finger breaking the 4th wall, to an actual truth people have, that of patriotism? Would it change ideas and behavior, or only confirm an already existing idea, translating it to the decision to act on it? I doubt that this poster would make a non-patriotic American suddenly patriotic. But it WOULD prompt a patriotic American to enlist. This strongly hints at a very different functioning of memes.
Still, as Dr. Finkelstein struggles to capture ‘memes’ into proper scientific definitions and metrics to work on, the presentations contains some interesting attempts at capturing ‘memes’.
But overall, we see why another researcher has serious doubts on what DARPA is doing (it wasn’t just me being critical):
“Thing is, even after a dozen years of DARPA publicly funding research projects that try to determine what words, images, colors etc. make the most effective memes, or how network analysis may reveal the most effective insertion points, I’m still not convinced that they’ve figured much out that they could actually apply. I’m not suggesting this stuff doesn’t work at all, but just that focusing on content and transmission without looking at reception — the culture itself … will probably result in a pretty dull knife. It may be able to cut you but you wouldn’t use it for surgery.” David Pescovitz, in interview ‘Memes Are For Tricksters: The Biology of Disinformation’
In the same interview, Douglas Rushkoff stated, asked if we can look at memes themselves as viruses attacking us:
“Yeah, that’s the simplest way of looking at it. That’s why I called memes in media “media viruses.” Even if they end up forcing important ideas into the cultural conversation, and even if they ultimately lead to good things, they do infect us from the outside. They attack our weak code, and continue to replicate until we repair it, or until we come to recognize the “shell” of the virus itself.”
He separates the meme from it’s carrier.
“My point is that more nefarious virologists — the high-paid specialists of Hill & Knowlton and Russia and Cambridge Analytica — are grafting memes into carrier viruses. They are creating the voltage necessary for the virus to spread by resorting to stimulation, inflammation, and dangerous provocation.”
One last example, this time from a paper sponsored by the US Navy, from 2019:
“We define meme as “a culturally resonant item easily shared or spread online,” and develop an epidemiological model of inoculate / infect / treat to classify and analyze ways in which memes have been effectively used in the online information environment.”
We see some of Dr. Finkelstein’s elements appear again, but also of mr. Rushkoff: clear sign that this field is absolutely still in the beginning stages.
With all those examples from the USMC, NATO, Navy, you get the point. Memes are weapons.
But this gets us to the next point: how exactly do they work? (Spoiler alert: And what place does truth have in all that?)
As this is already long enough, that will be for part 2.
I wasn't exposed to memes, and the use of memes, until I became immersed in the political dialogue of the 2016 election, then especially later as an early follower of the Q movement and drops. I had never been on "the chans". I became much more active on Twitter and had much fun engaging in meme exchanges. True, I learned early on, the left can't meme, and you explained why. We used memes to expose their hypocrisy and lies and false premises. We used them as offensive weapons, as well as defensive. We must remember, at the core of this study, the objective is truth. Your next part on ideologies I'm sure will explore this. Thank you.
Potent memes are rooted in reality. There are superficial memes, everywhere, effective for a time and soon enough quaint artifacts of historical ridicule. It is not all about memes. They seem important now because we are on the cusp of radical, systemic change. In another, stable era, they are just another idea. What matters is not the meme - it is how a given meme effects change, individual or collective. To be blunt, this is arse over tit. I suspect, in time, the study of memetics will seem superficial and relatively inconsequential. Real change, psychologically and physically, occurs at a much deeper level - memes are just surface, visible froth.