Narrative Warfare: To Weaponize Something Empire Struggles To Cope With

Alexander Macris wrote an article of use to dissidents this past week, "No, Really - What is to Be Done?" at Contemplations on the Tree of Woe.

Why is this of value to dissidents? Because he took the time to solve a persistent problem that dissidents deal with: entryism by the Enemy.

His conclusion will be familiar to many of you once you read it. He quotes his prior article, "The Seven Generations of Modern War", as part of this and I will do the same.

In a networkless insurgency, the splinter cells of the resistance would not communicate face-to-face, nor by cell phone, nor by internet contact. Instead they would rely only on stigmergy. Derived from the Greek words stigma (sign) and ergon (to act), stigmergy is the use of environmental mechanisms to coordinate the actions of independent agents. It is responsible for bird flocks and ant swarms...

[T]here are four mechanisms of stigmergy:

• Stigmergic marking. Markers left by one splinter cell influences the actions of other splinter cells. Ants leave pheromones as markers for other ants. In the context of an insurgency, the news coverage of an attack would fill the same role.
• Sematectonic signaling. Here, “environmental conditions influence the behavior of all actors in the system.” For instance, if an anti-Chinese splinter cell attacks Beijing’s Forbidden City, the Forbidden City will be given increased security thereafter. The increased security becomes a signal to other splinter cells not to attack there.
• Quantitative signaling. Here, “the environmental signals are of a single scalable type. The size of a global guerilla attack on a given location can meter the scale of the security response.”
• Qualitative signaling. “The environmental signals are of a varied type that change the message based on their combination. Different types of attacks on the same target will yield information on the type of attack that is most effective.”

That, friends, is a Stand Alone Complex.

While originally intended to "underscore the dilemmas and concerns that people would face if they relied too heavily on the new communications infrastructure,"[1] Stand Alone Complex (スタンド・アローン・コンプレックス Sutando Arōn Konpurekkusu?) eventually came to represent a phenomenon where unrelated, yet very similar actions of individuals create a seemingly concerted effort.

A Stand Alone Complex can be compared to the emergent copycat behavior that often occurs after incidents such as serial murders or terrorist attacks. An incident catches the public's attention and certain types of people "get on the bandwagon", so to speak. It is particularly apparent when the incident appears to be the result of well-known political or religious beliefs, but it can also occur in response to intense media attention. For example, a mere fire, no matter the number of deaths, is just a garden variety tragedy. However, if the right kind of people begin to believe it was arson, caused by deliberate action, the threat that more arsons will be committed increases dramatically.

What separates the Stand Alone Complex from normal copycat behavior is that there is no real originator of the copied action, but merely a rumor or an illusion that supposedly performed the copied action. There may be real people who are labeled as the originator, but in reality, no one started the original behavior. And in Stand Alone Complex, the facade just has to exist in the minds of the public. In other words, a potential copycat just has to believe the copied behavior happened from an originator - when it really did not. The result is an epidemic of copied behavior having a net effect of purpose. One could say that the Stand Alone Complex is mass hysteria over nothing - yet causing an overall change in social structure.

This is not unlike the concepts of memes (refer to the conversation between the major and the Puppet Master in the manga) and second-order simulacra. It also has ties to social theory, as illustrated in the work of Frederic Jameson and Masachi Osawa. The Slender Man phenomenon, in which the fictitious concept of a supernatural murderer went viral and has allegedly inspired real attacks, may be seen as an example of the Stand Alone Complex.

Macris, as the Comments in his article reveal, had no knowledge of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex before I mentioned it to him.

He independently discovered the phenonemon and explained how it works in a manner that invites practical application. That is the value his article presents to those opposed to Empire.

By independently discovering this phenonemon, he validates the claim that it is real. If it is real, then it can be used. If it can be used, it can be weaponized.

And if it can be weaponized, it can be deployed to make Empire bleed.

You don't have to be a Deep State actor like Goda to make this happen, dissident. You just need to know how this thing works. Learn your tools, dissident, and stand.

The memes are the missiles. Make Empire fall.