I think anyone who uses social media needs to see this video especially right up until the end because in a sense the future of war most definitely will involve each one of us. If you haven’t got time to watch the whole video you can read the brief extract below.
Some may view it as war propaganda. It depends if you are talking about the derogatory word for propaganda, that lies in order to manipulate perspectives falsely and not in good faith. The way I see it is purely information.
‘(25.15) We like to think of this Internet place as just a fun consequence free place…(but) Something’s happening. I just had a four star general tell me that the cyber domain and specifically the human elements – that being us affected within that cyber domain is one of the 5 most important components to modern warfare…I believe the biggest threat right now is division. They are going to find the division within our society and they are going to try and amplify it. I would like to submit for your consideration a countermeasure….a way to get through this modern bombardment; this new battle-space that we haven’t considered before. I think if they are going to divide us, I think the way to get around this is proactive intentional unity. We all need to be more conscious of what types of content we are consuming online. What are we liking and what are we sharing. How is it affecting our minds. Is it affecting the way we treat people both online and offline. If we just extend patience and political grace but also to those we disagree these maneuvers in the cyber domain meant to divide us simply will not work. Political grace, the art of disagreeing well. This is the ultimate countermeasure.‘
– Destin Sandlin SmarterEveryDay
So modern cyber combat is coming in the form of creating and exacerbating division within our societies. Well it already has occurred as you maybe be aware by foreign meddling in elections and targeted consumer research on Facebook to exacerbate political divisions.
Political Grace (The Art of Disagreeing Well)
I couldn’t help but reflect on what Jordan Peterson said or words to the effect: ‘What you really want to do if you have an argument with someone is you help them. You want to make their argument as magnificent as you possibly can and then see if you can undermine it… Don’t strawman it, rather steelman the opposing view until it’s the best it can be and reflect on it until you respect it highly. Like how the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky empowers his characters with immense impartiality no matter their psychological state or philosophical bent. Then and only then only can you disagree well.’ Peterson expands on this in the snippet of his lecture below.
I’m currently reading Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and like Peterson I can attest this book flattened me. Rarely these days do I read with that kind of hopeless, helpless feeling of being completely, utterly lost in the imaginary world. Who else can create such authentic human emotions that I feel I’m experiencing all of them myself?
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
It’s easy to believe. In the late sixties, we were divided without the internet…and that makes it much easier. I’ve never seen a policital divide like it is now.
In America, you pick a side…liberal or conservative and there is no middle ground. I look around and think…man people are being played.
Yeh, people seem to be far more tribal these days. People are talking to each other in echo chambers and reinforcing their own biased world-views. The rug has been taken out from the moderates on the right and left and of course the centrists (or classical liberals). The extremists on both the left and right seem to be the only ones getting their opinions aired. I couldn’t agree more – people are getting played. But the media (press) and big corporations have a lot to do with that by taking this moral bastion and virtue signalling stance. It’s getting hard to sift through the all the weed to find impartial information which isn’t at the behest of an ideological agenda.
When I was younger…like a lot of young people I was a bit more liberal…never extreme but was full of idealism. Now I look and think don’t you see what is happening? Can’t you see you are being used? I have been joking I would like to see a new party…the common sense party…lol but it would get corrupted also.
I just want to watch a newscast of someone reading from a sheet of paper….I don’t want their opinion…just the facts and let us decide.
How is it in Austrailia? America was ok during the Clinton years…both parties worked together…then nothing.
I agree with you about corporations and the media…
Bad, in reading your post I couldn’t help but notice the similarities of my own self and how I have changed. I also was full of idealism too, but never extreme. I agreed with everything you wrote there. I haven’t lived in Australia for over 10 years so I couldn’t really tell you what it has been like there. But having read the news and gauged the societal temperament it would appear that the ‘modern left’ (post modernist- neo marxists) are driving their ideological agenda with relative success.
By the way Bad, I wrote a post about the ‘Political Compass Test’ where you can measure where you sit on the Political spectrum. It’s an interesting little exercise to find out if your estimations about your political bent align with your ‘actual’ political outlook. The test isn’t too cumbersome if you’re interested in doing it. My results are in that post. I’d be interested for curiosity sake how you scored in that one and you might be too – For ‘shits and giggles’ as they say lol
https://observationblogger.com/2019/01/03/the-political-compass-test-where-do-you-sit-on-the-political-spectrum/
I couldn’t agree more. Cyberspace is the new battlefield of our time. Say for instance in terrorism. Most of the ISIS’ propaganda and recruitment happens online. Well, at least, that was the case before the Marawi Siege, that we had in Mindanao, Philippines, happened. And personally, it’s a war that’s hard to monitor because anyone or anything can be your enemy.
You make a really stand-out point about Cyberspace being the new battlefield in the winning of hearts and minds. Your example regarding ISIS and the Marawai Siege demonstrates just how powerful this social medium is in assimilating and coalescing people with a similar ideology to carry out horrendous acts. Thanks for adding to the discussion Tina!
Reblogged this on Observation Blogger and commented:
I wrote this article about this video in 2019 – an unclassified release from US Naval intelligence which warned what us what our enemies were intending to do to disrupt and overhaul western liberal-democratic societies. Unfortunately few took heed and everything they warned about is coming into fruition. These people in the video aren’t dummies and considering what has taken place since their public warning 2 years ago about the heading of the next war(a cyber one in social media), we now find ourselves smack-bang-dead-on in a war against our own societies (ourselves in some sense and what we represent.
It seems our enemies are winning convincingly on this front as polarisation of world-views in the west are increasingly setting everyone’s individual sense of being able to align with someone of a different opinion unassailable. No thanks to the oligarchy of the Mainstream media mind-set, Hollywood, Big Corp and Universities who have welcomed with unprecedented gusto this break-up and gran reset of society since the commencement of the Pandemic.
Only as individuals can we reject this totalitarian beseige and sophisticatedly too by taking advantage of our like-click social preferences and endorphin response. If we don’t wake up and I mean quick-smart – we are in ‘literally’ for a hell of a time.