The Anonymous We

[psychegram]

While reading Laura's V for Vendetta piece at SOTT, this quote from Joe Quinn really leaped out at me:

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/143031-V-is-for-Vendetta-Give-a-Penny-for-the-Guy-

The people who, as V described it, "see nothing", understand none of this. They believe that if they can just hang out and be on the winning side then all of their personal problems will be solved. Such a person is unable to understand the broader concepts and ideals for which the first person fights. They know that this is a fight for Truth, but they dismiss their own ability to contribute to that fight because they place value judgments on the "insignificance" of the part which they are able to play. They think: "what's one more person?... what difference will it make? I can make no difference, what's the point?"

Such a person fails to understand the nature of the battle in which they are engaged, they fail to understand or have NO FAITH in a true group dynamic and the effect it can have. They fail to understand the reality of non-linearity and that the apparently insignificant effort of one person can have GREAT significance if it is done in the spirit or with the intent of a group effort. In that case the "small effort" is automatically added to the efforts of all other members of the group and all such efforts combine to become far more than the sum of the parts.

A radically different understanding of WHY we are doing something TOTALLY changes and vastly increases the effect it can have.

Now, has anyone here heard of the entity calling itself the Anonymous We? They've been featured on Fox News a few times, portrayed as a frightening group of hacker terrorists, though of course that isn't what they are at all. The entity (I can't think of any other word to describe it) was born on 4chan, a board where the IPs of every poster are scrambled, and everyone thus posts as 'Anonymous'. What grew out of this is what looks to be a sort of group mind, very similar to an angry mob except that a) it's not angry, exactly (more just bored) and b) its existence has a continuity that has never been possible for a mob before.

Here's the 'Sekrit Code of Anonymous':
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Anonymous

* Anonymous is devoid of humanity, morality, pity, and mercy.

* Anonymous works as one, because none of us are as cruel as all of us.

* Anonymous cannot be harmed, no matter how many Anonymous may fall in battle.

* Anonymous doesn't fall in battle, anyway.

* Anonymous only undertakes Serious Business.

* Anonymous is everyone

* Anonymous is everywhere.

* Anonymous cannot be out-numbered.

* Anonymous is a hydra, constantly moving, constantly changing. Remove one head, and ten replace it.

* Anonymous reinforces its ranks exponentially at need.

* Anonymous has no weakness or flaw.

* Anonymous exploits all weaknesses and flaws.

* Anonymous doesn't have a family or friends.

* Anonymous is your family and friends.

* Anonymous is not your friend.

* Anonymous is not your personal army.

* Anonymous is in control at all times.

* Anonymous does not accept failure, Anonymous delivers.

* Anonymous has no identity.

* Anonymous cannot be betrayed.

* Anonymous does it for the lulz.

* Anonymous is humanity.

* Anonymous are created as equals.

* Anonymous is a choice.

* Anonymous is an unstoppable force.

* Anonymous has over 9000 penises and they are all raping children.

* If Anonymous must have a name, his name is David.

* Anonymous obeys the Code.

* Anonymous is Legion.

* Anonymous does not forgive.

* Anonymous does not forget.

* Expect us.

(emphasis in original)

This strikes me to be very much along the lines of what Quinn was talking about: a group entity in which no one is in control, everyone can contribute, action is distributed amongst multiple actors, etc. At the moment it's still maturing (and if you actually go to 4chan, you can see that it seems to be at about the level of a hyperactive 12 year old), but it's certainly becoming conscious of its true power. Its ability to harness vast numbers of people, as well as the difficulty - almost impossibility - of steering or controlling it in any way, will make it very difficult for the Control System to coopt or subvert.

 

[Hildegarda]

This strikes me to be very much along the lines of what Quinn was talking about: a group entity in which no one is in control, everyone can contribute, action is distributed amongst multiple actors, etc. At the moment it's still maturing (and if you actually go to 4chan, you can see that it seems to be at about the level of a hyperactive 12 year old), but it's certainly becoming conscious of its true power. Its ability to harness vast numbers of people, as well as the difficulty - almost impossibility - of steering or controlling it in any way, will make it very difficult for the Control System to coopt or subvert.

I am be totally misreading you or Quinn, but it seems to me that what you are saying is opposite of what he is means. You are talking about a basically unconscious and aimless hive mind. He is talking about a group of independent yet collinear conscious individuals acting in harmony towards an AIM.

The Anonymous We are indeed a maturing hive mind, and they are already being steered and corrupted by PTB, contrary to what you are saying. Largely because an active and dedicated psychopath can easily hide behind the "anonymous" label, flowing composition and lack of orientation of such a group. Despite being "anonymous", they have an internal hierarchy, and those "in the know" know the top players. The trolls have long ago crossed from Internet ranting to real live harassment and ruination of random people.

Here is a article about them that suggest they may be doing other things too, and also talks about their worldview and reasoning:

Malwebolence: The Trolls Among Us

\\\ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

On Sunday, Fortuny showed me an office building that once housed Google programmers, and a low-slung modernist structure where programmers wrote Halo 3, the best-selling video game. We ate muffins at Terra Bite, a coffee shop founded by a Google employee where customers pay whatever price they feel like. Kirkland seemed to pulse with the easy money and optimism of the Internet, unaware of the machinations of the troll on the hill.

We walked on, to Starbucks. At the next table, middle-schoolers with punk-rock haircuts feasted noisily on energy drinks and whipped cream. Fortuny sipped a white-chocolate mocha. He proceeded to demonstrate his personal cure for trolling, the Theory of the Green Hair.

“You have green hair,” he told me. “Did you know that?”

“No,” I said.

“Why not?”

“I look in the mirror. I see my hair is black.”

“That’s uh, interesting. I guess you understand that you have green hair about as well as you understand that you’re a terrible reporter.”

“What do you mean? What did I do?”

“That’s a very interesting reaction,” Fortuny said. “Why didn’t you get so defensive when I said you had green hair?” If I were certain that I wasn’t a terrible reporter, he explained, I would have laughed the suggestion off just as easily. The willingness of trolling “victims” to be hurt by words, he argued, makes them complicit, and trolling will end as soon as we all get over it. [typical psychopathic ploy -- blame the victim] [..]

On Monday we drove to the mall. I asked Fortuny how he could troll me if he so chose. He took out his cellphone. On the screen was a picture of my debit card with the numbers clearly legible. I had left it in plain view beside my laptop. “I took this while you were out,” he said. He pressed a button. The picture disappeared. “See? I just deleted it.”

[..]

Weev, the troll who thought hacking the epilepsy site was immoral, is legendary among trolls. He is said to have jammed the cellphones of daughters of C.E.O.’s and demanded ransom from their fathers; he is also said to have trashed his enemies’ credit ratings. Better documented are his repeated assaults on LiveJournal, an online diary site where he himself maintains a personal blog. Working with a group of fellow hackers and trolls, he once obtained access to thousands of user accounts.

I first met Weev in an online chat room that I visited while staying at Fortuny’s house. “I hack, I ruin, I make piles of money,” he boasted. “I make people afraid for their lives.” On the phone that night, Weev displayed a misanthropy far harsher than Fortuny’s. “Trolling is basically Internet eugenics,” he said, his voice pitching up like a jet engine on the runway. “I want everyone off the Internet. Bloggers are filth. They need to be destroyed. Blogging gives the illusion of participation to a bunch of retards. . . . We need to put these people in the oven!”

I listened for a few more minutes as Weev held forth on the Federal Reserve and about Jews. Unlike Fortuny, he made no attempt to reconcile his trolling with conventional social norms. Two days later, I flew to Los Angeles and met Weev at a train station in Fullerton, a sleepy bungalow town folded into the vast Orange County grid. He is in his early 20s with full lips, darting eyes and a nest of hair falling back from his temples. He has a way of leaning in as he makes a point, inviting you to share what might or might not be a joke.

As we walked through Fullerton’s downtown, Weev told me about his day — he’d lost $10,000 on the commodities market, he claimed — and summarized his philosophy of “global ruin.” “We are headed for a Malthusian crisis,” he said, with professorial confidence. “Plankton levels are dropping. Bees are dying. There are tortilla riots in Mexico, the highest wheat prices in 30-odd years.” He paused. “The question we have to answer is: How do we kill four of the world’s six billion people in the most just way possible?” He seemed excited to have said this aloud.

Ideas like these bring trouble. Almost a year ago, while in the midst of an LSD-and-methamphetamine bender, a longer-haired, wilder-eyed Weev gave a talk called “Internet Crime” at a San Diego hacker convention. He expounded on diverse topics like hacking the Firefox browser, online trade in illegal weaponry and assassination markets — untraceable online betting pools that pay whoever predicts the exact date of a political leader’s demise. The talk led to two uncomfortable interviews with federal agents and the decision to shed his legal identity altogether. Weev now espouses “the ruin lifestyle” — moving from condo to condo, living out of three bags, no name, no possessions, all assets held offshore. As a member of a group of hackers called “the organization,” which, he says, bring in upward of $10 million annually, he says he can wreak ruin from anywhere.

[I don't think this guy is entirely making this stuff up. Although it is more likely that he is a useful idiot for those same agents]

 

[anart]

Hi psychegram,  do you think this 'anonymous' is a 'positive' force?  

I ask because from what you've posted, it strikes me as more of a self-indulgent, power-hungry faux-entity bent on imposing its force on others - on destruction.

The dynamic Joe is describing, while it may seem similar in description, is one of creation - which would stand in almost direct opposition to what you have listed below as the 'sekrit code'.

The two main forces at work in this reality are entropy and creation  - from what you've written below, 'anonymous we' would be an entropic application of the networking principle - whereas what Joe is referring to is the opposite of that.

Ponerization also has an enormous role to play in such situations, as Hildegarda has stated.

 

[psychegram]

There is no doubt in my mind that there are psychopaths such as 'Weev' participating in and attempting to subvert Anonymous. They're everywhere these days. That said, the fact that all participants remain anonymous means that no individual participant can have more influence than any other, which has the effect of inhibiting the growth of personality cults which - as I understand it - is one of the psychopath's favorite control techniques. Then there's the 'no personal army' rule: if someone tries to direct Anon for their own ends, another participant will almost inevitably notice this and point it out, which can easily have dire consequences for that someone (crashed website, trashed credit rating, etc.) Neither of these points rule out psychopathic subversion completely, but they do act against it: a built-in feedback mechanism that few other organizations possess.

Of course, a group of psychopaths acting together could conceivably steer Anon, and probably have more success at it than any one individual acting alone. Again, though, the basic temperament of the 'organization' would mean that if/when they got revealed, they'd invite Anon's wrath.

What's a far more worrying possibility is that the hive mind itself will develop along psychopathic lines. I'll get to that in a second.

anart:

The dynamic Joe is describing, while it may seem similar in description, is one of creation - which would stand in almost direct opposition to what you have listed below as the 'sekrit code'.

Anon undoubtedly engages in destructive activity such as trolling and hacking. It does, however, have a creative side as well, expressed mostly on http://encyclopediadramatica.com where there's a huge collection of tongue in cheek pages chronicling its history and poking fun at anything and everything: a very large, ongoing, collaborative creative project in which people participate largely because it's fun. In fact most of what Anon's 'members' do is for fun: so far as I can tell it's basically a horde of teenagers who participate not for money (obviously), not for fame (equally obviously), and not even because they've got a chip on their shoulder ... but rather, just because it amuses them to do so. "Anonymous does it for the lulz." That's actually scarier, I think. Teenagers love practical jokes, and what Anon does can be thought of as a series of massive, collaborative pranks.

Now, all that said, Anonymous really does have a very powerful destructive side to it, and I'm not attempting to sugarcoat it here. Its targets can include Fox News, the Church of Scientology, and white supremacist talk radio hosts on the one hand, and innocent people on the other. It can and does laugh about tragedies, in a most inhuman way. Many of the jokes on Encyclopedia Dramatica are in such shockingly bad taste that one wonders if they're really jokes. All of this is to be expected from something that has the mentality, essentially, of a teenager: every teenager I know (and I was the same way myself), when they're out of earshot of adults and alone with their friends, makes jokes like this. They laugh at weakness, stupidity, and tragedy ... because, well ... they're teenagers. They're immature. They haven't fully developed the ability to empathize yet, and as a result, are capable of high cruelty. Environmental factors can of course accentuate this dynamic: the worst jokes I've heard were from my time in the Royal Canadian Army Cadets (very similar to boy scouts), and then subsequently in the army (I was in Canada's infantry reserve for three years.)

Earlier I mentioned the possibility that Anon will develop as a psychopathic gestalt: the participants having normal consciousness, but the totality behaving as a psychopath. There's precedent of course: the modern corporation is essentially psychopathic, though of course the employees generally are not. Much of the evidence points to this as a distinct possibility; however, another possibility is that the truly negative behaviour is a function of immaturity. On the one hand, much of Anon's behaviour can be quite reckless and callous; on the other, many of the inherent attributes (grassroots, distributed and bottom-up; total dissolution of the ego of all participants; radically flattened hierarchy: in other words, attributes commonly shared by many if not all true internet phenomena) can act against psychopathic influence. At this point, all I can personally say is that I don't know, and there's very little that can be done besides adopting a wait-and-see approach.

I want to emphasize that I'm in no way advocating for Anonymous. I am cautiously optimistic - because the potential for positive action is certainly there, largely in the sense of tweaking the noses of the PTB - but the emphasis is on 'cautiously'. One way or another, as this thing comes into its own it will become increasingly influential, and is thus something worthy of keeping an eye on.

 

[Erna]

Hi Psychegram

[quote author=psychegram]
They (teenagers) haven't fully developed the ability to empathize yet, and as a result, are capable of high cruelty.[/quote]

Empathy is not an ability that can be developed, it is present or absent, irrespective of age.

[quote author=psychegram]
I am cautiously optimistic[/quote]

Why would you be optimistic about this group’s ability after reading their Sekrit Code?

 

[Hildegarda]

the fact that all participants remain anonymous means that no individual participant can have more influence than any other, which has the effect of inhibiting the growth of personality cults which - as I understand it - is one of the psychopath's favorite control techniques.

I think you are missing something. Just by putting in more time and destructive skills than the other participants, Weev &Co are on top of the pile. Personal recognition is irrelevant when in your mind you can easily ascribe to yourself the collective work of all. After all, it's anonymous.

if someone tries to direct Anon for their own ends, another participant will almost inevitably notice this and point it out, which can easily have dire consequences for that someone (crashed website, trashed credit rating, etc.)

From the evidence in the article, it sounds different. Why would a band of people of basically selfish people, who is out for lulz and really doesn't care, stop to point out the selfishness of one of their own. Only if the weaker complains to the guy on the top, and if the guy on the top decided it's worthy to interfere. See below:


Sherrod DeGrippo, a 28-year-old Atlanta native who goes by the name Girlvinyl, runs Encyclopedia Dramatica, the online troll archive. In 2006, DeGrippo received an e-mail message from a well-known band of trolls, demanding that she edit the entry about them on the Encyclopedia Dramatica site. She refused. Within hours, the aggrieved trolls hit the phones, bombarding her apartment with taxis, pizzas, escorts and threats of rape and violent death. DeGrippo, alone and terrified, sought counsel from a powerful friend. She called Weev.

Of course, a group of psychopaths acting together could conceivably steer Anon, and probably have more success at it than any one individual acting alone. Again, though, the basic temperament of the 'organization' would mean that if/when they got revealed, they'd invite Anon's wrath.

I think it's already happening. Same in Wikipedia too, btw.

It does, however, have a creative side as well, expressed mostly on http://encyclopediadramatica.com where there's a huge collection of tongue in cheek pages chronicling its history and poking fun at anything and everything [..]That's actually scarier, I think. Teenagers love practical jokes [..]Many of the jokes on Encyclopedia Dramatica are in such shockingly bad taste that one wonders if they're really jokes.

Scary, yes. Creative, absolutely not -- IMO.

They're immature. They haven't fully developed the ability to empathize yet, and as a result, are capable of high cruelty.

People like the main characters in that article are way past teen age. It is quite unlikely at this point that they will develop measurable empathy; due to the nature of their activity, their psychopathic tendencies are likely to crystallize even further. And, they run the show. I think there is no point in waiting and seeing.

 

[psychegram]

They (teenagers) haven't fully developed the ability to empathize yet, and as a result, are capable of high cruelty.

Empathy is not an ability that can be developed, it is present or absent, irrespective of age.

That's a bit simplistic. The following abstract indicates that empathy is an ability that develops with age.

http://jbd.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/18/2/211

Children's Empathic Responses to Emotional Complexity
Marcelle Ricard

Mary Kamberk-Kilicci

University of Montreal, Canada

The aim of this study was to assess the empathic reactivity of children when confronted with two different emotions felt by the same character. A total of 90 girls, divided into three equal groups aged 4, 6, and 8 years, were asked to verbally respond to a series of fictitious stories illustrated by a picture where the character's face was left blank. Four of these episodes implied one simple emotion, and the remaining four were complex episodes where the situation potentially induced two opposite emotions within the character, either successively or simultaneously. Empathy was scored according to (a) the match between the emotion identified in the character and the one reported by the subject, and (b) the interpretation given for the subject's reaction. Both the quality of the match and the level of interpretation from self-to event-to character-centred justifications-were found to increase with age, for complex as well as for simple emotions. However, children of all three age-groups displayed less empathic capabilities when witnessing complex rather than simple episodes, given the more demanding task involved in recognising and sharing emotional complexity. Finally, successive emotions appeared more difficult to cope with than simultaneous emotions, but this decalage may be due to the content of the stimuli used in this study.

My own personal experience is that - among normal people, not psychopaths - empathy grows with age and experience. The old tend to be more empathic than the young; those who have gone through depression tend to be more empathic than those who haven't. It's not on/off, black/white: it's a continuum. It's not that children are completely unempathic, it's that one's ability to empathize grows more sophisticated and nuanced along with the development of one's mind.

I think you are missing something. Just by putting in more time and destructive skills than the other participants, Weev &Co are on top of the pile. Personal recognition is irrelevant when in your mind you can easily ascribe to yourself the collective work of all. After all, it's anonymous.

Hmm. An interesting point I hadn't considered.

People like the main characters in that article are way past teen age. It is quite unlikely at this point that they will develop measurable empathy; due to the nature of their activity, their psychopathic tendencies are likely to crystallize even further. And, they run the show. I think there is no point in waiting and seeing.

The main characters in that article were two people, Weev and Fortuny. From a sample of two, it is very difficult to get a handle on the tendencies of thousands.

This is why I'm somewhat optimistic about the ultimate effects of entities like Anonymous. It's a large and fluid group, mostly young, mostly still finding their way in the world. There are psychos among them, yes; well, there are psychos in every population and every organization (even wikipedia, as you said; this doesn't make all of wikipedia useless, however). What makes Anonymous a little different is that it gives these kids a taste of the possibilities inherent in collective action, something most of them are highly unlikely - in modern society - to learn anywhere else. In this respect it's teaching them an important lesson: that when a massive number of people work together on something, towards a common goal, virtually anything is possible. The only other venue I'm aware of where this dynamic currently exists is in the open source software community, and unless you're a computer programmer (and most people aren't) that's something you can't really participate in. It's not that Anon's actions to date have been particularly praiseworthy, because they haven't; it's that the participants are learning how to act as one, a lesson they may very well apply later on in their lives, towards more positive, creative goals.

 

[combsbt]

They (teenagers) haven't fully developed the ability to empathize yet, and as a result, are capable of high cruelty.

Empathy is not an ability that can be developed, it is present or absent, irrespective of age.

Perhaps the capacity for empathy is what is either present or not, and if the capacity is there it is there in full. Then what appears as developing of empathy is just a better connection with ones conscience, which as I understand it is closely related to empathy. It is more of an unveiling or revealing process than a growing process. This point of view is not necessarily true, just from what I've formulated from the readings this site is associated with (Gurdjieff, etc.) I would like to hear if you feel differently about this and why?

In the Children's Empathic Responses to Emotional Complexity study it appears that they are just measuring how well one can identify emotions in others. That is not necessarily a good measurement of empathic capacity - I think psychopaths (lacking empathic capacity) are very adept at reading emotions in others (and using to their advantage).

As for Anonymous - I don't think it has any positive potential because it seems to be oriented towards dissociating oneself with the effect your actions have on others. By posting anonymously and participating in a group with the principles that have been stated, one is taught that it is acceptable to do harm if you do it collectively (and single individual can be blamed). Definitely not a good use of the potential present in networking. So what I'm getting at is that while it does teach about the possibilities in networking, it teaches about the negative potential only. OSIT.

 

[Erna]

[quote author=combsbt]
Perhaps the capacity for empathy is what is either present or not, and if the capacity is there it is there in full. Then what appears as developing of empathy is just a better connection with ones conscience, which as I understand it is closely related to empathy. It is more of an unveiling or revealing process than a growing process.[/quote]

Combsbt, I started to respond, and then you conveyed my message better than I could have.
   
[quote author=combsbt]In the Children's Empathic Responses to Emotional Complexity study it appears that they are just measuring how well one can identify emotions in others. That is not necessarily a good measurement of empathic capacity - I think psychopaths (lacking empathic capacity) are very adept at reading emotions in others (and using to their advantage). 
[/quote]

This is my understanding as well. Psychegram, my response to your statement was more directed at your choice of words, that empathy is an ability that can be developed. I think in addition to what Combsbt observed in the study you referenced, 4, 6 & 8 year olds have a vastly different scope in communication abilities as well, + I think in teenagers the capacity for empathy is quite established (from my own experience).

 

[anart]

This is why I'm somewhat optimistic about the ultimate effects of entities like Anonymous. It's a large and fluid group, mostly young, mostly still finding their way in the world. There are psychos among them, yes; well, there are psychos in every population and every organization (even wikipedia, as you said; this doesn't make all of wikipedia useless, however).

Have you read Political Ponerology by Andrew Lobaczewski? If you haven't, it's a quite important book. If you have, then you might want to review the process of ponerogenesis - 'psychos' in every population are not like a few ants at a picnic. It is not a stretch to state that Ponergenesis is what is wrong with the world today - to write off 'a few psychos' is to miss the crux of the matter entirely.

 

[psychegram]

Perhaps the capacity for empathy is what is either present or not, and if the capacity is there it is there in full. Then what appears as developing of empathy is just a better connection with ones conscience, which as I understand it is closely related to empathy. It is more of an unveiling or revealing process than a growing process. n with ones conscience, which as I understand it is closely related to empathy. It is more of an unveiling or revealing process than a growing process. This point of view is not necessarily true, just from what I've formulated from the readings this site is associated with (Gurdjieff, etc.) I would like to hear if you feel differently about this and why?

Actually, that's quite a good way of putting it. Obviously psychopaths don't have the capacity at all, whereas very young children do exhibit it; in that respect it's a binary quality, either there or not. If there, however, it seems to me to take on a range of values, from (on one extreme) a Bodhisattva who has compassion for the whole world, to (on the other) a tribal warrior who cares not at all for anyone who isn't a blood relative (but cares fiercely for those who are.) I envision empathy as being a kind of circle, which can be so constricted as to exclude everything outside the narrowly defined self, or so wide as to include every living being in creation. An element of spiritual growth would then be the gradual widening of the circle's bounds (which could well be expressed as an unveiling, as after all what was outside the circle was always there.)

As for Anonymous - I don't think it has any positive potential because it seems to be oriented towards dissociating oneself with the effect your actions have on others. By posting anonymously and participating in a group with the principles that have been stated, one is taught that it is acceptable to do harm if you do it collectively (and single individual can be blamed). Definitely not a good use of the potential present in networking. So what I'm getting at is that while it does teach about the possibilities in networking, it teaches about the negative potential only.

Hmm. A very good point. You may well be right about that. The orientation is certainly quite negative. The lessons the individual participants take away from this, however, don't have to be. Those who get deeper and deeper into trolling, well, yes: they'll never become anything but better (worse?) trolls. But that doesn't at all rule out positive lessons. In terms of harm done to others, some participants may well be so sickened by one or another of the entity's excesses that they change their ways (and, yes, some will learn to suppress their empathy with ever greater efficiency.) Others might take away the lesson that, as part of an anonymous group, they can get away with things they can't otherwise: there are obvious applications here with organized resistance to fascist governments.

This is why I'm somewhat optimistic about the ultimate effects of entities like Anonymous. It's a large and fluid group, mostly young, mostly still finding their way in the world. There are psychos among them, yes; well, there are psychos in every population and every organization (even wikipedia, as you said; this doesn't make all of wikipedia useless, however).

Have you read Political Ponerology by Andrew Lobaczewski? If you haven't, it's a quite important book. If you have, then you might want to review the process of ponerogenesis - 'psychos' in every population are not like a few ants at a picnic. It is not a stretch to state that Ponergenesis is what is wrong with the world today - to write off 'a few psychos' is to miss the crux of the matter entirely.

I haven't read the book itself, unfortunately. Lobaczewski's work is certainly high on my list of must-read books, however. I have read everything available on the web on the subject. In fact, it was a google search on the then-novel term 'ponerology' that first brought SOTT and Laura's work to my attention. My understanding of ponerogenesis (in brief) is that, given a population of normals who all assume everyone else is like them (ie, has a conscience), a single psychopath (with his lack of guilt, ability to mimic others, and high social intelligence) is able to infiltrate the group and, through manipulation and personal charisma, build around himself a social network of friends, hangers-on. and associated believers, all of whom he uses to feed off of economically and emotionally, or simply to entertain himself by playing with their lives. Once a position of power is attained the psychopath will begin altering the rules to whatever extent he is able, in such a way as to benefit both himself personally and - indirectly - other psychopaths, who are then attracted to this group as it presents an easier source of prey. Over time, more and more positions of power and responsibility are filled by psychopaths (while talented normals are purposefully kept out, as they present a threat to the psychos' fun), until eventually the psychopathic subpopulation exerts total dominance. As they don't know when to quit while they're ahead, they feed off of the group until it collapses, which usually happens shortly after they've completely taken over.

Like I said, though, I haven't read the book, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if I've oversimplified matters or missed a crucial point. It's high on my list of must-read works, however.

Anyhow, I wasn't trying to be dismissive of the effects of psychopathy on group dynamics. More just realistic: we live in a highly ponerized society, and the process is advancing in leaps and bounds. I'm pretty hard-pressed to think of anything that hasn't been infected. The corollary is that, in a world where everything is rotting in front of our eyes, we have no choice but to look for the seeds of rebirth and regrowth wherever we can. Even in something as outwardly vicious and ugly and seemingly irretrievably ponerized as a band of trolls.

 

[Hildegarda]

What makes Anonymous a little different is that it gives these kids a taste of the possibilities inherent in collective action, something most of them are highly unlikely - in modern society - to learn anywhere else.

My prospective is slightly different. I see people networking in collective action all the time in real life, and that includes teens as well. People organize social groups, volunteer, lobby, build, put things together, make things happen. For teens and young adults, opportunities for employment, sports, performing and visual art, various volunteering (recently including a lot of political effort) are altogether numerous, and provide a real possibility to achieve, individually and as a group.

Seriously, I gave up trying to find a babysitter for my kids so that my husband and I want to go out once in half a year -- kids are so busy, nobody has time to spare. And when they are done running around (or while doing that), they unwind on MySpace and Facebook, or text to one another. Like I said, a lot of networking, and most of it surprisingly real name based, even on the net.

I agree that the Anon does indeed give people an opportunity for collective action. But I imagine those would be people who are disenfranchised from more immediate real-life based networks. This could be the fault of a network or of the people themselves, but in any case it's a negative experience, which, if left w\o analysis, will only fester. Or, people may be using Anon as an outlet for pent-up emotions (mostly negative) or that same need to unwind, tune-out and immerse themselves in a sort of a different world -- same as video gaming.

I guess networking is simply a tool that can be used either way. In and of itself, it doesn't shape a person's values, knowledge base and deeper motivations. The latter come first and define what the network is going to be like.

In this respect it's teaching them an important lesson: that when a massive number of people work together on something, towards a common goal, virtually anything is possible. The only other venue I'm aware of where this dynamic currently exists is in the open source software community, and unless you're a computer programmer (and most people aren't) that's something you can't really participate in.

Again, unlike you, I don't find the dynamic to be particularly unique. Any blog ring, any wiki project will have it. I have seen lost people recovered with help of viral alert spreading through the net, treatment for sick children secured through inet appeals and mass donations, corruption in the court and government system revealed and counteracted through petitions and media bombardment. Jeez, even in a day-to-day "obyvatel" world there are so many opportunities, and so many worthier causes for collective actions, than anonymously spamming message boards and collecting sophomoric jokes. So many more opportunities and so many more incidents, too. Thankfully.

 

[D69]

Anonymous is not a group , its a movement. As far as i know ( and i can be wrong of course ;) ), this movement is not admired in "underground".
It is like hildergarda said -> they do it 4 t3h lulz , which is pointless but for them it is still a technical lesson.

 

[psychegram]

Anonymous is not a group , its a movement. As far as i know ( and i can be wrong of course ;) ), this movement is not admired in "underground".
It is like hildergarda said -> they do it 4 t3h lulz , which is pointless but for them it is still a technical lesson.

To be honest, I have no idea how it's viewed in the underground (well, except for this underground ... where it's certainly not viewed well.) Though I wouldn't be surprised if they're generally hated and feared, given all the trouble they cause.

What makes Anonymous a little different is that it gives these kids a taste of the possibilities inherent in collective action, something most of them are highly unlikely - in modern society - to learn anywhere else.

My prospective is slightly different. I see people networking in collective action all the time in real life, and that includes teens as well. People organize social groups, volunteer, lobby, build, put things together, make things happen. For teens and young adults, opportunities for employment, sports, performing and visual art, various volunteering (recently including a lot of political effort) are altogether numerous, and provide a real possibility to achieve, individually and as a group.

That's an excellent point, and there's no question at all that those are much healthier ways of networking. Except ... what a lot (not all) of those activities have in common, is that they're hierarchical. So far as I know it's very difficult to get away from overt hierarchies in any sector of contemporary social life, and - IMO - learning how to do without hierarchies is an important life lesson, one the PTB are not eager for their sheeple to learn.

Seriously, I gave up trying to find a babysitter for my kids so that my husband and I want to go out once in half a year -- kids are so busy, nobody has time to spare. And when they are done running around (or while doing that), they unwind on MySpace and Facebook, or text to one another. Like I said, a lot of networking, and most of it surprisingly real name based, even on the net.

I agree that the Anon does indeed give people an opportunity for collective action. But I imagine those would be people who are disenfranchised from more immediate real-life based networks. This could be the fault of a network or of the people themselves, but in any case it's a negative experience, which, if left w\o analysis, will only fester. Or, people may be using Anon as an outlet for pent-up emotions (mostly negative) or that same need to unwind, tune-out and immerse themselves in a sort of a different world -- same as video gaming.

Those are precisely the people I was thinking of: the modern alienated teenager, confined for the most part to his atomized suburban bedroom where he plays his xbox, his social interactions either through said gaming console, or taking place in the context of the public school system ... whose true purpose is not so much education, as indoctrination into a system of tight social control. The kids are busy, of that there's no question ... but what are they busy doing? How much of their time is really theirs, to use as they please? Of course this is hardly unique to teenagers: most (not all, but most) adults in Western society find themselves in much the same context.

Anyhow, here's what a friend of mine - 'Anon #61377' - had to say about why she participates:

Me:why do you participate in anon? what's your motivation? payoff?
Anon #61377: I enjoy causing havok. I like knowing that something I've done has affected someone elses life, no matter how small or large. And beyond that, I like feeling as though Im one piece of something greater. Something powerful that is only as strong as it is due to all the singular pieces.
M: what happens when someone tries to steer anon towards their own ends?
Anon #61377:Anonymous is not your personal army.
Whoever tries to use Anon as their personal army will get ahcked.
See; Alex Wuori.
That his is butthurt something fierce. Tried to personal army us into hacking some chick he didnt like but also wanted to have sex with.
M: right. now: do you think people are ever successful?
Anon #61377: Ever successful in using Anon as a personal army? It really depends on the cause. If enough Anon like the cause, it becomes a campaign, and I guess the person gets their wish, but its out of their hands.
You can only really direct Anon. Im sure someone had the idea to wreck Hal Turner, but as individuals and as a single entity, we came up with what to do to him.
M:
is there a hierarchy?
or a leadership class?
Anon #61377:
Anonymous is legion. =3
Thats the point.
question:
(a NY Times article mentioned Fortuny and Weev)
M:
the only recognized Anon's are ones who do the most damage, get the most press, get caught, or admin the sites.
Moot is the Admin of 4chan. He's a "higher up" But thats only because he's more known.
Anon #61377:
gotcha
now: would you say you've learned anything from participation?
answer:
Yes and no.
Not in teh way "Have I learned to ddos someone" Well, no. If I payed enough attention, Im sure I'd pick it up. But I've learned a lot oabout injustices that are happening internationally that need to be corrected.
M:
such as?
Anon #61377:
Hal Turner is a big one. His white supremacy rallies caused a lot of violence. It was one hate mongerer against another. We ran that man into the ground. A feminist woman was saying all sorts of nasty things about her son on the internet, including that she wished she had an abortion. We found the kid and let him know.
There are a lot of people out there who need to be taken down a peg.
Matt says:
Co$? (That's their abbreviation for the Church of Scientology)
Anon #61377:
=3 They're very special people there.
Sometimes we do just do things for the lulz. But the lot of them are pretentious out the wazoo and definitely need to feel some hurt for ripping off their own doodes.
Part of Project Chanology (their anti-Scientology crusade) was that every day at 5 o'clock, everyone would stop and think mean thoughts at Tom Cruise.
M:
interesting
does anon ever go overboard?
Anon #61377:
Yeah. Probably.
M:
how do you, personally, feel about that?
Anon #61377:
Im not exactly losing sleep over it.
If we go overboard, then thats what happens.
Too bad.
It was probably worth it.
M:
worth it how?
Anon #61377:
It was probably for the lulz.
M:
doesn't that strike you as kind of vicious? harassing white supremacists is one thing, but innocent people?
Anon #61377:
I doubt we'd harass them if they were innocent, but it might have been a slow day.
The point of Anonymous is this. "No one of us is as cruel as all of us"
We're just as collectively racist as Hal Turner. We're just as mean. We're just as discriminatory.
M:
so what makes you better?
Anon #61377:
Did I say we were
M:
fair enough
is anon ultimately a positive or a negative force in the world? or is that the wrong question?
Anon #61377:
A better question is "What is a positive or negative force in this world?"
A group of people took down a white supremacist.
A bunch of vanadals harassed a man who stands up for what he believes.
M:
depends on perspective, then?
Anon #61377:
Yeah.
Im sure plenty of the members of Anon think they're doing the stuff of legends. They're making the world a better place. Some Anon sympathizers think the same. (I guess I'd probably fit in that category )
I dont think Alex and Hal think so though.

Whew! I'm letting that be a lesson in checking my assumptions at the door. Between this and the Alex Jones thread, I sure am getting the results of wishful thinking thrust in my face pretty plainly. Anonymous certainly isn't what I thought it was!

Well. "All there is, is lessons."

 

[Cyre2067]

This is why I'm somewhat optimistic about the ultimate effects of entities like Anonymous. It's a large and fluid group, mostly young, mostly still finding their way in the world. There are psychos among them, yes; well, there are psychos in every population and every organization (even wikipedia, as you said; this doesn't make all of wikipedia useless, however).

Have you read Political Ponerology by Andrew Lobaczewski? If you haven't, it's a quite important book. If you have, then you might want to review the process of ponerogenesis - 'psychos' in every population are not like a few ants at a picnic. It is not a stretch to state that Ponergenesis is what is wrong with the world today - to write off 'a few psychos' is to miss the crux of the matter entirely.

I haven't read the book itself, unfortunately. Lobaczewski's work is certainly high on my list of must-read books, however. I have read everything available on the web on the subject. In fact, it was a google search on the then-novel term 'ponerology' that first brought SOTT and Laura's work to my attention. My understanding of ponerogenesis (in brief) is that, given a population of normals who all assume everyone else is like them (ie, has a conscience), a single psychopath (with his lack of guilt, ability to mimic others, and high social intelligence) is able to infiltrate the group and, through manipulation and personal charisma, build around himself a social network of friends, hangers-on. and associated believers, all of whom he uses to feed off of economically and emotionally, or simply to entertain himself by playing with their lives. Once a position of power is attained the psychopath will begin altering the rules to whatever extent he is able, in such a way as to benefit both himself personally and - indirectly - other psychopaths, who are then attracted to this group as it presents an easier source of prey. Over time, more and more positions of power and responsibility are filled by psychopaths (while talented normals are purposefully kept out, as they present a threat to the psychos' fun), until eventually the psychopathic subpopulation exerts total dominance. As they don't know when to quit while they're ahead, they feed off of the group until it collapses, which usually happens shortly after they've completely taken over.

Like I said, though, I haven't read the book, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if I've oversimplified matters or missed a crucial point. It's high on my list of must-read works, however.

Anyhow, I wasn't trying to be dismissive of the effects of psychopathy on group dynamics. More just realistic: we live in a highly ponerized society, and the process is advancing in leaps and bounds. I'm pretty hard-pressed to think of anything that hasn't been infected. The corollary is that, in a world where everything is rotting in front of our eyes, we have no choice but to look for the seeds of rebirth and regrowth wherever we can. Even in something as outwardly vicious and ugly and seemingly irretrievably ponerized as a band of trolls.

Hey Psyche, did you happen to notice the contradiction contained in your response above? Your understanding is pretty spot on btw. The bit in red is where I think you're missing the point.

To be more specific, it's impossible that this anonymous movement could ever be a force for creation. It's likely already infected with a variety of characteropaths, probably a few psychopaths as well, not to mention narcissistically wounded or straight up NPD individuals. In order to have a movement achieve the positive affects you describe by quoting Joe you need first of all, a solid awareness of psychology and ponerology in order to keep your group or network uncorruptable. Simply put, a thoroughly understanding of psychology and ponerology acts as a immunization against infection. Given that this Anonymous group lacks that awareness and is already being stirred by deviants, there is no possibly it could be a 'seed of rebirth and regrowth'. If anything it will serve as another vehicle to spread the infection.