Information Warfare and Propaganda

From: jimruttshow8596

The Jim Rutt Show features an episode dedicated to the topic of information warfare and propaganda, particularly as discussed in two recent essays from The Consilience Project [00:02:05]. This focus aims to help listeners understand the nature of propaganda to foster a better information ecosystem [00:02:27].

The Scale and Scope of Modern Information Warfare

Information warfare has a long and complex history, dating back to ancient times with examples like Sun Tzu’s writings or the obelisks of Ramses I [00:03:13]. These early forms of information warfare were always constrained by the available communication media [00:03:30]. For instance, on D-Day, hundreds of thousands of pamphlets were scattered to instill fear in opposing enemies [00:03:52].

A significant shift occurred during the Cold War with the institution of psychological warfare under Eisenhower [00:04:13]. This involved not just printing presses and radio, but also television, a large academic apparatus, and the entertainment industry [00:04:27]. Figures like Edward Bernays rebranded these multi-pronged approaches as “public relations” [00:04:36]. This era saw the widespread institutionalization of manipulative communication habits [00:04:48]. The behavioral sciences gained supremacy as an aspect of the military-industrial complex, leading to widespread efforts to create increasingly sophisticated mechanisms for manipulative communication [00:05:10].

Today, all sides in the information war possess such powerful informational weapons that they should be considered akin to weapons of mass destruction [00:05:33]. The current landscape, inundated with competing propaganda campaigns, is being destroyed to such an extent that no one can truly win the “culture war” [00:05:42]. This situation is likened to a “self-terminating war” of “mutually assured destruction” due to the escalating sophistication of informational warfare [00:05:53]. The destruction of populations’ capacities to collaborate and make choices is a major consequence [00:07:10].

This escalation is largely due to two simultaneous trends: the ever-increasing reach of mass media and the massive increase in real knowledge of psychology and cognitive science [00:07:56]. The potential for future technologies like pervasive virtual and augmented reality could elevate information warfare from “Hiroshima bombs” to “hydrogen bombs,” threatening advanced civilization [00:09:05].

Elites and Susceptibility to Propaganda

A crucial point is that no group of leaders is immune to the cognitive and emotional distortions inflicted upon the masses [00:09:34]. Once manipulative information is unleashed, it pollutes the entire environment, including the elites who initiated it [00:09:45]. Governments incentivize the creation of experts in deception and manipulation, leading to a bureaucracy that undermines trust among its own agencies [00:10:38]. This can lead to paranoia within the insulated political class, and younger generations entering this class may have been socialized in a completely propagandized environment [01:11:15].

The influence of social media and micro-targeted attention capture technology means that even if one doesn’t actively “buy” the propaganda they produce, they are still susceptible if they spend any time on these platforms [01:11:43]. Research supports that more educated and intelligent individuals are often more susceptible to confirmation bias [01:13:36].

The deep history of sophisticated, psychologically manipulative information warfare can lead to suspicion of everything, making it difficult to find reliable information even about past government propaganda activities [01:14:10]. This creates a problem where counter-propaganda merely becomes competing propagandas without a valid foundation [01:15:14].

Mass Insanity and Information Nihilism

The current state of society is described as “teetering on the edge of mass insanity,” caught in dynamics of mutual assured destruction [01:16:20]. This “mass insanity” manifests as ubiquitous low-grade psychopathology [01:16:49]. Historical examples show that a culture’s level of pathology and neurosis makes it susceptible to propaganda, and propaganda itself induces more neurosis and psychopathology, creating a negative feedback loop [01:17:11]. The pandemic, for instance, saw a tremendous increase in mental health problems alongside a surge in propaganda [01:17:32].

Insanity can also be defined as the absence of contact with reality [01:18:19]. This ties into Baudrillardian simulation, where civilizations create illusions to sustain themselves, drawing populations into fictitious understandings of their actual situation [01:18:25]. This leads to a state of “information nihilism,” where one doesn’t care whether what they say is true or false, only if it is useful [01:19:10]. This can devolve into sociopathy, where the increasing weaponization of language fuels conflict [01:19:40]. Harry Frankfurt’s distinction between lying (which depends on truth) and “bullshitting” (which doesn’t care about truth or lies) is relevant here [01:20:21]. Both the left and right tend to accuse the other side of operating in bad faith, a sign of a deeply propagandized environment where language is provided to dehumanize opponents [01:21:04].

Distinguishing Education from Propaganda

The distinction between education and propaganda is crucial. One common misconception is that anything one agrees with is education, and anything one disagrees with is propaganda, regardless of method [01:25:50]. This flawed analysis prevents people from realizing their own communication practices might be counterproductive [01:26:55]. Another confusion is the belief that no difference exists between the two, leading to epistemological nihilism where all communication is seen as manipulative [01:27:21]. However, manipulative communication is parasitic on non-manipulative communication; basic human development and socialization require honest conversation and mutual understanding [01:28:07].

To distinguish, one must look at the structure of the relationship and communication patterns, rather than just the content [01:29:07].

Two key indicators:

1. Epistemic Asymmetry: Both the propagandist and the educator typically know more than the audience, creating an “epistemic asymmetry” [01:29:57].

   • Propaganda: There is no intention for the audience to “graduate” or ascend to the propagandist’s level of knowledge [01:30:13]. The intention is to control behavior through information manipulation, maintaining an unbridgeable epistemic gap [01:30:57].
   • Education: The entire point of the educator’s communication is to obsolete this asymmetry, bringing the student to a position of knowing what the educator knows, and even beyond, fostering responsibility for knowledge and societal handling [01:30:31].

2. Nature and Style of Communication:

   • Propaganda: Often involves applications of behavioral psychological insight to manipulate stimulation and communication [01:31:56]. Messages are designed to be receivable under duress, sensory overwhelm, phobia, indoctrination, double binds, and fatigue [01:32:10]. Digital media, like TikTok, can induce such states, making viewers malleable, susceptible, and emotionally manipulable [01:32:26]. The intent is attention capture and influencing behavior, sometimes akin to brainwashing [01:35:27].
   • Education: The educator is concerned with the audience being in the right state to be reflective and integrate new knowledge in a non-disruptive way. The educator wants the audience to have their wits about them to work on problems [01:32:41].

A non-falsifiable system is a strong tell for propaganda [01:36:51]. If questioning a doctrine or idea leads to immediate dismissal as a “heretic” or “racist” (as with Critical Race Theory), it indicates a propagandistic agenda [01:37:02]. Propaganda often creates and relies on “thought-terminating clichés” (Robert Lifton’s term), like “the science is settled,” which are designed to shut down further conversation and protect an underlying, often incoherent, ideology [01:38:35].

Types of Propaganda

Inspired by Jacques Ellul’s work, the article outlines several typologies:

1. Overt vs. Covert Propaganda:

   • Overt: Everyone knows it’s propaganda and who made it, like Uncle Sam posters, Nazi rallies, or the national anthem at a football game [01:41:51]. It’s the most transparent kind [01:42:42].
   • Covert: The audience doesn’t realize it’s propaganda [01:43:00]. Examples include the CIA’s secret financial and operational support for student protest groups in the 1960s to promote a “protest culture” image abroad [01:43:06]. Another example is Russian propaganda on Facebook during the 2016 election, where users unknowingly consumed content created by foreign intelligence operatives [01:44:20]. Distinguishing covert propaganda is a critical 21st-century skill [01:44:57].

2. Deceitful vs. Truthful but Misleading Propaganda:

   • Deceitful: Involves outright lies or crazy disinformation campaigns, often from foreign governments [01:46:04]. However, this is a short-term strategy as it risks a “boy who cried wolf” effect when discovered [01:47:09].
   • Truthful but Misleading: Great propagandists use as much truthful information as possible, but selectively, to create a specific picture [01:46:39]. Goebbels, for example, advised telling the truth but not the whole truth [01:46:47]. This allows for plausible deniability of fiction [01:48:42]. This type of propaganda can pass fact-checkers because it doesn’t contain factual inaccuracies, but it omits crucial context, leading to a deceptive understanding [01:49:05]. Ideologically motivated think tanks often operate this way, pursuing specific research agendas while omitting others [01:50:39]. The belief that information problems can be solved by simple fact-checking or by removing “liars” misunderstands the complexity of manipulative information [01:51:32].

3. Vertical vs. Horizontal Propaganda:

   • Vertical: Classic, centralized, top-down propaganda, usually government-run and aided by intelligence agencies [01:52:19]. Examples include state-directed campaigns like those from the Russian Internet Research Agency [01:52:54].
   • Horizontal: Has no centralized authority. It is created, embraced, improved upon, and spread by the very people who were initially targeted by vertical propaganda [01:53:27]. This taps into psychological motivations, leading people to become “true believers” and propagate thought-terminating clichés [01:53:41]. Jimi Hendrix playing the Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock is cited as a powerful example of horizontal propaganda for American ideals of freedom [01:54:07]. The rise of social media has greatly accelerated horizontal propagation [01:55:27].
   • Emergent Propaganda: Social media can also lead to emergent propaganda, where “mind viruses” or memes spin up organically in the “petri dish of horizontal culture,” gaining coherence and becoming self-generated engines [01:55:37]. The drastically lowered barrier to access the information war means individuals can create propaganda as powerful as government campaigns, leading to a spiraling arms race where traditional vertical strategies fail and create more problems than they solve [01:56:20].

The COVID-19 Pandemic as a Case Study

The COVID-19 pandemic provides a curious case study for propaganda dynamics [01:58:54]. The CDC’s early, false claim that masks were ineffective, intended to prevent panic and conserve limited supplies, seeded a culture of backlash against masks [01:59:02]. This was an attempt at a “noble lie” via vertical propaganda, a strategy that might have worked in the 1980s when communication resources were limited [01:59:29]. However, in the current digital landscape, such attempts create “eddies that spiral out of counter-propaganda” [02:00:11]. This undermines the legitimacy of official pronouncements and reveals the ingrained belief among governing classes that they cannot reason with people [02:00:36].

The inability to access raw data from vaccine companies, coupled with their lack of accountability for negative health outcomes, creates an “unbridgeable epistemic asymmetry” [01:06:36]. While the FDA acts as a proxy, it too operates with a similar epistemic gap and lacks direct accountability, further eroding trust [01:10:20]. This makes it impossible for the relationship to be truly educational; it becomes persuasive or coercive [01:09:50]. The refusal to provide public data and take responsibility drives counter-propaganda, leading to ambient cynicism and information nihilism, where “my idiot uncle” is perceived as equally likely to be true as a scholar [01:12:06].

The Nudge and its Propagandistic Nature

The concept of “nudging,” popularized by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, is a newer form of propaganda [01:04:04]. Nudging units, often connected to behavioral scientists and digital media companies, attempt to set choice architectures that influence decisions without the individual’s awareness [01:04:29]. An example is making enrollment in a retirement plan a default “yes” rather than “no” [01:05:03]. This is a form of covert propaganda, even if seemingly benign in its intent [01:04:48].

Towards a Solution: Rebuilding Social Coherence

To address the destructive nature of information warfare, society needs to establish “demilitarized zones” where education can occur instead of conflict [02:22:05]. This resilience begins at the level of family, socialization, and community cultural resilience [02:22:41]. Instead of schools, which are often battlegrounds in culture wars, the focus should be on creating contexts where individuals can be sure of good faith communication and expand these contexts [02:23:00]. This is similar to the concept of decentralized education hub networks that are non-parochial yet digitally networked [02:23:51].

The goal is not insulation but creating new conditions for socialization where individuals can discern between information warfare and genuine educational relationships [02:24:39]. Being able to discern propaganda from education is one of the most valuable skills for a human to possess today [02:25:11].

Exponential digital technologies have rendered traditional ways of running states, economies, and cultures obsolete [02:20:01]. There are three paths forward:

1. Authoritarian Order: Using digital means to establish a centralized view and social control system, like China, making vertical propaganda effective again [02:20:23]. This is a self-terminating pattern [02:21:11].
2. Cultural Chaos: The current situation, where the internet fuels escalating, polarized feedback dynamics, leading to complete cultural, economic, and political chaos [02:21:19]. This could eventually lead to techno-feudalism, which is also self-terminating [02:21:40].
3. Ordered Open Structure (Education Infrastructure): Using digital affordances to create a fundamentally different civic architecture—a broadly distributed educational and communications architecture that enables deliberative democracy [02:21:51]. This involves designing an “open structure for the digital” [02:23:02].

Technical solutions are part of this, such as requiring real-name identity online (with narrow exceptions) to reduce bots, AI-generated texts, and anonymous advertisers, creating a “cleaner” digital space [02:23:54]. Beyond technology, the focus must be on using technology to create new forms of embodied communication and foster civic discourse [02:24:07]. Educational technology should not keep people on screens but connect them to others who can benefit from communication [02:24:48].

The ultimate goal is to leverage the network power of the digital to galvanize “noetic polities”—groups committed to values that can build education, community, and conversation [02:24:55]. This contrasts with current platforms that create market demographic groups and propagandized subclasses [02:25:15].

A critical societal challenge is how individuals can intelligently choose experts to trust, given the complexity of modern knowledge [02:26:00]. While direct access to raw data may be impractical for many, systems for “inter-subjective inter-objective validation” within a transparent expert proxy chain could build social coherence and trust [02:26:51]. This would move beyond simply accepting official pronouncements or succumbing to information nihilism [02:27:00].

This ties into concepts of “educational democracy” or “qualified democracy,” where individuals can choose to delegate decisions to experts, but critically, the educational “on-ramp” to expertise and full information must not be guarded [02:27:20].

Finally, the immense technological prowess currently used to make algorithms for addiction and attention capture could be repurposed [02:30:52]. Imagine algorithms dedicated to showing people sequences of information that lead to healthy, mature, and capable minds, fostering human development, hierarchical complexity, and reflective metacognitive awareness [02:31:01]. This would be a radical shift from profit-driven exploitation to an educational social control that is non-coercive, allowing for cooperation and collaboration in times of crisis [02:32:56]. This vision of a “profound educational infrastructure” relies on the faith that education can lead people towards truth, reducing conflict and division [02:33:35].