The injuries of information warfare

Just because it's not physical doesn't mean it's not real

Twitter is in the news right now, and there is a possibility of us seeing justice — and restoration of our civil rights. I don’t know if Twitter is going to be turned into a distributed autonomous organisation, merged with another social media platform, shut down for crimes against humanity, or meet some other fate. What I do know is that I have been harmed by the assassination of my virtual persona, and we deserve restitution for the theft of a social network that belongs to the users.

Yesterday I sat down to write an article about another victim of persecution, whose story has resonance with my own. He has lost his livelihood, been smeared in the press, and targeted by the establishment. But I found it too provocative (for now)… good writing needs a certain detachment from the topic, as well as empathy for the subject. So I penned the title for this article instead, but still couldn’t proceed: it feels like I have “laptop poisoning”.

I am a GenXer — born in 1971, raised on 8-bit home computing, and matured in the dotcom IT boom of the 1990s. I find the digital realm natural and effortless. Even at school one of the bullies used to tease me by walking up behind me and loudly shouting “COMPUTER!” to get attention. I am also an “autist” — I have never bothered with a diagnosis with Aspergers or similar as I don’t feel ill or broken — but there is a particular way of relating to structured information that a few of us have.

Over the last few months I have been giving a lot of thought to the nature of information warfare, which has facets drawn from psychology, AI, mind control, social engineering, nanotech, transhumanism, and bioweapons. My own inner reality is an “absolute truth” that I own and can report upon. As the years of this war grind on, I am noticing changes in myself from constant exposure to the virtual realm. I hope that by making these wounds speakable others may feel their silent and hidden suffering is legitimised.

We understand the heroism of kinetic warfare, and the determination it must have taken to endure bombings like the Blitz of London in WW2. Everyone knew it was a real war, even if a few may have dissented on its need or virtues. The current war is qualitatively different: it is a war of and on “common knowledge”. The war only rages as long as sufficient people not only believe there is no war, and also believe other people believe there is no war. The suppression of information that reveals the true war is figural.

I have been the victim of abominable behaviour from people I previously trusted and respected, who seem to justify their actions on the basis that anyone who perceives a war of subversion is crazy. In the professional realm I have been absolutely disowned by the tech industry cognoscenti. They are hypocrites of the highest order, professing to support free speech and diversity of opinion, yet actively celebrate people like me being stripped of our freedoms. Likewise in my family I have experienced painful betrayal.

The physical world is full of masked zombies with empty eyes, discarded muzzles decomposing on the street, and signage poisoning the air with fear. Some friends have injected their children with toxic potions, while regarding those who decline the sacrament of the Church of Covid as irresponsible degenerates. When I choose to associate with them I have to circumscribe our conversations to trivia; when I stay away it feeds the suspicion I have joined an esoteric cult. These are hard times.

There is little to rival the gruesomeness of the genetic mutilation of children via needle rape. Yet it is literally clinical in its execution, denying you obvious screams and violence. My banned book describes Coronagate as the scandal to end all scandals, and the content has withstood the test of time. Meanwhile, based on an analysis by The Expose of official UK government data, children who are “double jabbed” die at fifty times the rate of the “unvaccinated”. (We don’t refer to the “unlobotomised” or “unamputated”, so there’s a subtle framing trap there.)

Censorship isn’t just the suppression of important life-saving information. It also isn’t just a “digital Kristallnacht” with the shattering of the virtual shop windows of patriots. It is the equivalent of us being forced to watch children being murdered — albeit out of sight — while rendered powerless to act. For that matter, my own daughters have been put at risk because family members have preferred mass media propaganda over suppressed reality.

It is in this context that the injuries of WW3 need to be understood. The soldiers of WW1 saw the horrors of trench warfare and gas attacks, but they were not forced to watch their own children being butchered with the connivance of their families, while being denounced as “conspiracy theorists” for identifying the criminals violating the innocent. The small coffins and weeping parents are real, even if my own keyboard is not soaked in the blood of children.

Such barbarity takes work to perceive, but once seen cannot be unseen. Here are the types of injuries I am noticing in this (to my knowledge) unprecedented bio-information war.

The first is “focus injury”, which is kind of “trench foot for the mind”. Social media presents us with endless pieces of short form content that we have to make decisions around. I notice a growing fatigue and difficulty staying on task with longer formats. It is as if my mind has been trained to deal with content in tiny chunks, and nothing more. Watching videos and reading books presents a challenge, as it means sustained focus. I am really good at the social media game, but it comes at a price!

Next is “injustice injury”. This is a war of persuasion, and the best content brings openness and vulnerability. The poets of WW1 typically wrote after they left the battlefield; in contrast we produce while our own families are being bombarded with deadly lies day by day. I pour my heart into my work, and being censored (without any outrage or support) pains me. Staying on the battlefield requires overcoming the natural desire to withdraw and protect one’s heart from further hurt.

The content we have to confront is sickening: child rape, psychotronic weapons, nanotech nightmares, cannibalism, treason, slavery, mass poisoning, butchery of the innocent, betrayal by those most trusted, mind control techniques in the home, and so on. There is a kind of “aversion injury” that arises over time: I want to spend less and less time online, and am more and more drawn to nature and the offline world. The effort to stay engaged rises. This is why I found the article hard to write yesterday; creative juices were blocked by my own ongoing trauma.

The pervasive nature of this war means there is no separation of the battlefield from ordinary life. Further more the same (overused and exhausted) skills are being demanded from other contexts. For instance, I struggle to sort and upload my photos to run my art print business and make an honest living on my own. This is both because the same overtaxed autist organising skills are being used, and the (at scale) product marketing channels have been stolen from me. This is a kind of “envelopment injury” of unrestricted information warfare.

Many of us are enduring “alienation injury”, as we find many old friends are not “true frens”. Those who wish to live by lies define for themselves the nature of truth and righteousness — putting themselves in the place reserved for the almighty. We can struggle to find spiritual understanding and intimate snuggles in our vicinity. Lovers, children, and colleagues become estranged as they act out unwise and wicked spiritual values. Our social world becomes yet more virtual, yet the untouched and untouchable is not always healthy for us.

The final kind of injury I would like to suggest is “isolation injury”. Digital soldiers in a volunteer militia can feel like their work is second class or unworthy because it lacks the “pew pew” of guns. Nonetheless, psychological warfare is barbaric, and every bit as taxing as a special forces training course. Pressing on despite physical exhaustion — something I have experienced in rowing and mountaineering — in many ways is far easier than enduring through years of social mocking and agonising ostracism.

Which brings me full circle: I would like to close with some thoughts on Twitter and the future of social media. Exposing and fixing the wrongdoings of the incumbent tyrant landlord is not enough. We have to recognise that cancel culture leads to death: and that the “information injuries” cannot be unlinked from physical harm. The task ahead is to redesign social media so that the violence is engineered out, and peace is designed in. That means returning power over network participation and content presentation to the users.

I am resuming my former tradition of ending each article with one of my photos — this one is from my walk yesterday evening.