The problem with this is that it assumes that the only (or main) source of disinformation, propaganda and manipulation is the government. These techniques are used on a daily basis by people on all sides of every issue. Is it possible that some of them are paid government "spies"? Sure. However, it's likely that the vast majority of them are just independent trolls, skillful manipulators or bad arguers who've discovered that the techniques in question are an easy way to manipulate the discussion so that they can get the validation that they crave.
I think that the document itself merits some analysis when it comes to manipulation and disinformation. If you take the document at face value, the author's intention is to give information to other activists so that they can protect their communities from government manipulation. However, I think it's also possible that the list of behaviors is meant to be used by leaders to purge communities for (internal) political or personal reasons. Given a long enough posting history, you could use this list to accuse almost anyone of being a spy. I suspect that whatever the author's original intentions, the latter interpretation is going to end up being much more common. It's already easy enough to dismiss people who disagree with you as "government shills", and this will simply make it even easier to justify.
Even so, it seems like a valuable collection of things that new and old forum posters should be aware of; similar to how HN's vigilance regarding logical fallacies raises the level of discourse.
To some extent this community already employs countermeasures against some of these attacks through reply cool-downs, pun down-voting, and hell-banning. However, until now I wasn't aware that a ontology of these attacks existed. Given a common vocabulary to describe these activities, we should be able to point them out as easily as we do ad hominem.
The best single rule I have found, useful for academic disciplines as well as internet forums is "Everybody overstates the accuracy, applicability, universality, precision, or other some other aspects of claims they have made." Anybody who actually cares enough about something to go through the trouble of writing it up, unless they are being paid by the word (which has been noted elsewhere has its own problems), is going to be emotionally invested in their work and writings. So my best advice is to assume from the beginning that it is overstated, and consider a weaker version, or a charitable interpretation, of their claims.
Given the limited amount of information available in an online post, a charitable interpretation is even more warranted online than in a book.
In light of the claim that everyone overstates their case, I've wondered if one would be well served by deliberately exaggerating to counteract the "charitable interpretation" you mention.
It's a cycle. The more people exaggerate to counteract "charitable interpretations", the more charitable interpretation is necessary to get back to the truth, and so on. The end result is a dysfunctional "discussion" where both sides are just repeating the most extreme views they can come up with in hopes that it will draw attention to the kernel of truth they started with.
The potential for a runaway positive feedback cycle is something I wanted to mention in my original post[0], but didn't due to sleep deprivation. I guess your mention of the cycle gave me the mental starting point necessary to put my thoughts into these few words.
In my childhood I had people take seriously things that I exaggerated or made up (they were silly things like made up names of plants), and as a result I gradually developed a desire to be as level and honest as possible. I frequently wonder whether I'm deluding myself into believing that I'm not overstating my case (in which case I think my positions must be very weak indeed), or doing myself a disservice by avoiding the exaggeration that most listeners expect.
[0] I hate making comments that sound like a retroactive reinterpretation of an earlier comment to make myself appear to have been more insightful or correct than I actually was; it reminds me of Adam Sandler's "me too" character from the SNL skit in which Jerry Seinfeld plays a distraught history teacher.
Comments
The problem with this is that it assumes that the only (or main) source of disinformation, propaganda and manipulation is the government. These techniques are used on a daily basis by people on all sides of every issue. Is it possible that some of them are paid government "spies"? Sure. However, it's likely that the vast majority of them are just independent trolls, skillful manipulators or bad arguers who've discovered that the techniques in question are an easy way to manipulate the discussion so that they can get the validation that they crave.
I think that the document itself merits some analysis when it comes to manipulation and disinformation. If you take the document at face value, the author's intention is to give information to other activists so that they can protect their communities from government manipulation. However, I think it's also possible that the list of behaviors is meant to be used by leaders to purge communities for (internal) political or personal reasons. Given a long enough posting history, you could use this list to accuse almost anyone of being a spy. I suspect that whatever the author's original intentions, the latter interpretation is going to end up being much more common. It's already easy enough to dismiss people who disagree with you as "government shills", and this will simply make it even easier to justify.
Even so, it seems like a valuable collection of things that new and old forum posters should be aware of; similar to how HN's vigilance regarding logical fallacies raises the level of discourse.
To some extent this community already employs countermeasures against some of these attacks through reply cool-downs, pun down-voting, and hell-banning. However, until now I wasn't aware that a ontology of these attacks existed. Given a common vocabulary to describe these activities, we should be able to point them out as easily as we do ad hominem.
The best single rule I have found, useful for academic disciplines as well as internet forums is "Everybody overstates the accuracy, applicability, universality, precision, or other some other aspects of claims they have made." Anybody who actually cares enough about something to go through the trouble of writing it up, unless they are being paid by the word (which has been noted elsewhere has its own problems), is going to be emotionally invested in their work and writings. So my best advice is to assume from the beginning that it is overstated, and consider a weaker version, or a charitable interpretation, of their claims.
Given the limited amount of information available in an online post, a charitable interpretation is even more warranted online than in a book.
In light of the claim that everyone overstates their case, I've wondered if one would be well served by deliberately exaggerating to counteract the "charitable interpretation" you mention.
It's a cycle. The more people exaggerate to counteract "charitable interpretations", the more charitable interpretation is necessary to get back to the truth, and so on. The end result is a dysfunctional "discussion" where both sides are just repeating the most extreme views they can come up with in hopes that it will draw attention to the kernel of truth they started with.
The potential for a runaway positive feedback cycle is something I wanted to mention in my original post[0], but didn't due to sleep deprivation. I guess your mention of the cycle gave me the mental starting point necessary to put my thoughts into these few words.
In my childhood I had people take seriously things that I exaggerated or made up (they were silly things like made up names of plants), and as a result I gradually developed a desire to be as level and honest as possible. I frequently wonder whether I'm deluding myself into believing that I'm not overstating my case (in which case I think my positions must be very weak indeed), or doing myself a disservice by avoiding the exaggeration that most listeners expect.
[0] I hate making comments that sound like a retroactive reinterpretation of an earlier comment to make myself appear to have been more insightful or correct than I actually was; it reminds me of Adam Sandler's "me too" character from the SNL skit in which Jerry Seinfeld plays a distraught history teacher.