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2026-03-02

Psychological warfare and ASI risk

Disclaimer

• Quick Note

Main

• Propaganda can be used during both peacetime and war. During war, it is more appropriate to also call it psychological warfare.
• I am currently at war with the people building ASI. What I signal as a person, should reflect that.

Some quotes from wikipedia article on psychological warfare

mongol empire

Genghis Khan, leader of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century AD employed less-subtle techniques. Defeating the will of the enemy before having to attack and reaching a consented settlement was preferable to facing his wrath. The Mongol generals demanded submission to the Khan and threatened the initially captured villages with complete destruction if they refused to surrender. If they had to fight to take the settlement, the Mongol generals fulfilled their threats and massacred the survivors. Tales of the encroaching horde spread to the next villages and created an aura of insecurity that undermined the possibility of future resistance. Genghis Khan also employed tactics that made his numbers seem greater than they actually were. During night operations he ordered each soldier to light three torches at dusk to give the illusion of an overwhelming army and deceive and intimidate enemy scouts. He also sometimes had objects tied to the tails of his horses, so that riding on open and dry fields raised a cloud of dust that gave the enemy the impression of great numbers. His soldiers used arrows specially notched to whistle as they flew through the air, creating a terrifying noise.

vietnam war

The United States ran an extensive program of psychological warfare during the Vietnam War.

In Operation Wandering Soul, the United States also used tapes of distorted human sounds and played them during the night making the Vietnamese soldiers think that the dead were back for revenge.

The Vietcong and their forces also used a program of psychological warfare during this war.

She made three broadcasts a day, reading a list of newly killed or imprisoned Americans, and playing popular US anti-war songs in an effort to incite feelings of nostalgia and homesickness, attempting to persuade US GIs that the US involvement in the Vietnam War was unjust and immoral. A typical broadcast began as follows: How are you, GI Joe? It seems to me that most of you are poorly informed about the going of the war, to say nothing about a correct explanation of your presence over here. Nothing is more confused than to be ordered into a war to die or to be maimed for life without the faintest idea of what's going on.

I want to google more of these examples. Actual quotes will help.

Note to self

• You are not the creator of the propaganda who lives above it. You are the propaganda itself. The way you live your life should itself be the biggest propaganda there could possibly be.

See also

• Frame control by Aella
  • Aella seems to implicitly imply all frame control is universally bad, and there are no causes for which this sort of frame control is a legitimate tactic.
  • I think it's bad to prevent people from exiting (by restricting money, sex, etc)
  • I think it's bad to use some of these tactics on purpose as a con, but if you're frame controlling someone with a frame you actually believe in, it's not obvious to me this is bad.
  • I do think you should sometimes deliberately broadcast the frame (instead of keeping it hidden) and use more rationalist debate norms if the other person is interested. But also, fuck this whole idea of using rationalist debate norms 24x7, these losers are directly ending the world themselves by being this meek.
  • Yudkowsky is not meek and I respect him for that, he is willing to claim authority, and judge and shame others sometimes. I used to find some of this annoying back in 2022, but now I'm more like, holy fuck he was right, maybe he does deserve the authority or status he was nakedly claiming for. I'm a lot more convinced now he is one of the most important people in human history, right up there with a Darwin or Jenner or Nietzsche or Freud.

Every individual instance is “not that bad”; and when the knife that wounds you is invisible, you might doubt that you’re bleeding at all.

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