Knowledge and Conviction

To review so far: The current shift from Western Civilization to the Networked Civilization is driven by corporate profit-seeking through control of the Internet. While there are some efforts to seize the actual network infrastructure, this is not the primary focus of the real threat. Rather, the biggest problem is how the Internet can be harnessed to mass manipulation.

The technology journalists who have reported on it so far, while they understand the mechanism quite well, do not understand where it’s actually taking us. Both the techies who are building this collection of AI approaches and those who oppose it are blinded by how Satan is using them. It’s not a bad idea to study how the primary actors are building a sort of Matrix to keep people fooled, but we cannot rely on their own stated aims, and we certainly can’t get any real help from crusaders who oppose them. We have to evaluate this thing from the mystical approach to understanding reality.

Perhaps you may recall a company called HBGary; their servers were hacked and all their internal conversations were exposed. The video I linked yesterday mentioned Team Themis and some planning HBGary engaged with several other private espionage firms to create a fake reality. Their plans included writing software that would allow a single agent to create and maintain ten or twenty false identities on the Internet and keep track of each one, and use these fake personas to infiltrate online communities and influence people.

We note that HBGary never sold that idea, and had to shut down because of the exposure. However, the idea itself is now in use by the US government, another others. Right now, there are uniformed servicemen, Intel civilians and private contractors working for the government who are doing this very thing; they are maintaining fake personas and infiltrating various forums and social media services to spy on people and manipulate as many as they can.

Here’s an example: When Barrett Brown first published this hacking of HBGary, at least one conspiracy forum discussion downplayed it all, calling him a nut and pointing out that HBGary never sold their software. But some of those posting on that forum were government agents. You can pick them out if you are familiar with the likes of The Delphi Technique and the rules for spotting disinformation and the shills who use those tricks. Some of this information is a little out of date because it was written up in the days before that false persona software was created. Also, keep in mind that some disinfo agents are true believers, activists who go looking for discussions of some specific issue.

Such analysis is good training for the brain, but without the divine revelation in your heart, you are likely to waste time becoming obsessed with stuff like that. It’s too easy to take that kind of mental awareness and let it run away with you. There has to be something far wiser to decide when it matters. While your mind is occupied with the question of whether someone is trying to deceive you, your convictions need to consider what difference it makes.

In other words, the ultimate question morally is, “What should I do about this?” Often enough, it’s nothing at all, except simply recognizing that you can dismiss the claim. This brings us back to those Three Pillars of Christian Mysticism [PDF]: (1) commit yourself to the truth of God’s revelation to you individually, (2) learn to exercise divine empathy and compassion, (3) yet never allow yourself to become entangled on the human level.

Do you grasp how this threatens the Devil’s plans for us? On the human level, we most certainly are going to fail from time to time. But our failures serve primarily to instruct us to close some door we left open for demonic influences. Once we get our minds used to thinking along those lines, we can reinforce the position that the battleground is internal. Fighting the Devil means beating him inside yourself. That’s it. There’s really nothing else you can do that matters. If you can stay focused on that, God takes care of everything else.

When we spread that kind of approach to reality, it tends to pull people out of the Matrix. If there is anything at all we can do for others, it is letting them see us disconnected from that fake “reality.” That’s holiness; that’s God’s glory and His shalom in our lives.