In our previous post, we discussed how the XRP crypto movement has leveraged cult dynamics to rally networks and communities to silence and repress critics in ways that both boost and defend the value of its key token.
The question at hand is whether democracy can survive in an environment where anyone can print their own money (by launching coins) and then use that money to corrupt the political system in their favour? The answer is not that easy to determine.
The good news is that so far those who have tried to hack the political system in exactly this way have usually failed.
Chief among them have been Russian Ponzi schemer, Sergei Mavrodi and Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. Both famously used ill-gotten gains and/or the promise of future distributions of ill-gotten gains to fund political campaigns that eventually saw them elected to public office. Once in office, they were able to benefit from the immunity such offices brought against wider prosecution. Even so, in both cases, the respective domestic governments fought back and won. In Russia, the state Duma moved to oust Mavrodi from office in 1995. In Colombia, Escobar was expelled from his position in the Colombian congress two years after winning it in 1982.
Both stories are important because they reveal the degree to which open democratic systems can be coopted by those prepared to use intimidation tactics while paying off opponents or buying support to achieve influence and power.
The political complexity today, however, comes in the growing ambiguity about what should and should not be considered fair practice in this regard. The normalisation of such techniques and tactics in the marketing and lobbying sphere more broadly is to blame for this.
Some might reasonably argue that crypto-funded influence operations are no more or less a representation of true democracy in action than anything else. They might even argue that online brigading — based on deferred incentives — is not so different to the existing lobbying paradigm. Traditional lobbying techniques, after all, are equally focused on creating the illusion that certain causes are more publicly supported than they really are in a bid to get politicians to bow to the interests of empowered minorities. If that’s the case, what’s wrong with using Robin Hood tactics to democratise lobbying activity in a bid to counter the lobbying of vested interests?
Those arguing against might point out that in robust political systems there are rules constraining politicians (Nancy Pelosi notwithstanding) from profiting from personal political activity or governmental insider knowledge, be that on the political donation front or on the personal investment front. Such arguments, however, might be undermined by the fact that politicians can still be rewarded ex post facto by way of well-renumerated positions on corporate boards or advisories. (Gerhard Schröder, Nick Clegg, we’re looking at you.)
This is why, overall, it’s really very hard to figure out what constitutes authenticity in the world of influence operations and what does not. This is something Marc Zuckerberg recently admitted to on the Joe Rogan show. It becomes ever harder, I would argue, when one’s own government becomes comfortable with using similar tactics for its own ends too.
In a polarised world, one man’s brigading and intimidation is increasingly another man’s justified protest or search for individual accountability. To the same degree, one man’s Mavrodi is another man’s Zelensky. Both were happy to use viral and populist campaigns to take on the power of vested interests. Both channelled the revolutionary Robin Hood spirit in their messaging. Were Mavordi’s tactics to hack power any more or less manipulative is genuinely hard to determine. It’s all a question of perspective. We’re increasingly happy to turn a blind eye to manipulative tactics if they serve our own agenda.
If you Can’t Beat Them, Join Them?
Whether it’s Wirecard, Tesla, XRP or an official state actor messaging about Covid or Ukraine/Russia, what matters most of all for the average person just trying to make heads and tails of things, is that the use of influence operations has been both democratised and normalised on all fronts. That mass accessibility has created a new arms race. Whoever you are, if you are not prepared to use manipulative perception management tactics to promote your interests, you and your cause — whatever it may be– will be seriously disadvantaged.
Pandora’s box, in other words, has been opened.
What that means in practice is the ritual use of deceptive and inauthentic online practices to create an equally effective illusion that what is actually a minority view is a majority-held one. This is most easily crafted by penetrating or hacking the consciousness of key decision-makers, from media editors and journalists to politicians, corporate executives and academics.
This is why Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron are now looking to recruit influencers, TikTokers and other online personalities to launch a counter-propaganda offensive on their own front. If you can’t beat them, you have to join them. (Or so they would have you believe, because the chances governments with nudge units weren’t already using such tactics seems unlikely.)
The good news for those still trying to discern truth from propaganda is that the perception management playbook is easy to spot whoever is deploying it, good or bad.
Key tactics include bombarding targeted individuals with a barrage of angry complaints based on the understanding that even a small increase in negative correspondence can distort the recipient’s understanding of public opinion or fair practice. For private actors, that might involve dispatching angry missives to journalists. For state actors, it might take the shape of physical letters in imposing red font sent directly to your door. Another highly effective strategy remains using copypasta and bots across the entire information spectrum (if you can afford it).
If you’re really up against it though, fake legal threats from private actors really work a treat, while at the government level, it always pays to bluff that you have more power to impose mandates and bans that defy human rights legislation than you really do.
If that fails there’s always recourse to direct harassment or intimidation tactics against problematic targets, from Dan McCrum to Julian Assange — ideally in ways that put off others from following in their footsteps. And don’t forget the power of blacklisting and shaming. In short, every nasty trick ever used by an authoritarian despot is now back in vogue.
If that doesn’t have liberals worried, they’re probably not the liberals they thought they were.
And yet to really score big, as evidenced by XPR and Qanon, there’s nothing quite like adding a myth or cult component to radicalise followers in support of your cause. Ideologically motivated online armies fight harder and dirtier than any others. Isis understood this in its online recruitment mechanics very early on.
That’s why what I am increasingly worried about is that this isn’t just an information war that risks warping the brains of everyone in a way that stunts innovation, science and progress. It’s a holy war. This is because the only way to navigate through a totally corrupted information landscape is with principle-based dogma.
It’s time to brush up on your Max Weber because the new arms race in town will be linked to who can create the better cult. The cult with the most capacity for virality, conversion and wealth creation will replace the atomic bomb as the arbiter of peace.
Crypto cults are the canary in the coal mine.
