meditation « Amaranth Foundation

What’s with the elaborate ruse fetish?

June 21, 2012

Part 1 of 14

The theory – “There are many people in the hacker scene who feel that @cubespherical may himself be Jester and this may be an elaborate ruse to get his enemies to send him money”

Spotting the flaw

It probably is common to develop elaborate ops to take down a site. I’m sure there are plenty of obstacles to overcome to do that. I don’t know what they are. But I do know that coding a website is a pain in the ass. You have to think about all the dumbass things you would really rather not think about in order to prevent problems.

So I can see how hacking is an elaborate endeavor. However, human plans aren’t as elaborate as computer code. It’s because we ignore the most unlikely scenarios that computers don’t know to ignore. Our plans don’t require the command “do continue breathing while working on the op” like a computer does.

The flaw is assuming that Jester is a computer, or that solving computer problems are exactly like solving human problems. They aren’t.

If you tell a person to do something vague, they’ll start guessing what you want. Sometimes they guess right. Sometimes they guess what you really should have asked for. Sometimes they guess horribly, mind-blowingly wrong. Computers don’t guess.

They also don’t forget what you said 20 minutes ago. If the plan is too complex, people will leave out the half that doesn’t sound fun, easy, or comprehensible.

There’s a reason why people don’t have elaborate plans. It’s because they don’t work. And there’s a reason why Rube Goldberg machines are funny. It’s because people intuitively know how absurd it is to have 300 steps to pop a balloon.

It’s a miracle when those things work at all.

Fixing the flaw

Jester’s ops are remarkably elegant and simple. There’s a beautiful Zen quality to his work. It’s poetic.

So if I need to assign credit for an op to Jester, I would look first for how Zen-like it is. If it isn’t Zen, it isn’t Jester. That’s not something you can just turn off after you have it. Zen masters make mistakes, but they make Zen influenced mistakes. Trolling himself and then deleting his own account isn’t Zen.

Deleting his own account to encourage a troll doesn’t sound Zen at first glance, but Zen is never single layered.

He thought he would get something out of it. (Not rocket science) He says that it was a bad idea, but being wrong doesn’t mean there wasn’t a reason. It also doesn’t mean his reasoning wasn’t Zen. It means it backfired.

I think he wanted to show that he took the troll seriously. That would make the troll cocky enough to pwn himself. Or make someone else cocky enough to stick his neck out. He consistently uses that strategy and usually it works. Reusing an effective plan is Zen.

I think he underestimated the amount of chaos that would ensue. That sounds Zen to me. When you understand simplicity, you err towards simplicity.

The context has changed. Anonymous hasn’t given public ransom demands before. Change in context requires reassessment of strategy. Is there a more convincing way to remove all doubt that he believed the story and takes less effort than deactivating an account?

Maybe, maybe not.

Maybe he was looking for information about the culture of his supporters and detractors. Maybe he wanted to explore some profound truth about the human condition. Maybe he was just bored and watching people scurry around in chaos amuses him. That sounds Zen. Sadistic, but still Zen.

It isn’t always rainbows and kittens. Sometimes it’s an old dude smacking you with a stick to force an insight.

He could have said that this was a stupid idea to make people more comfortable, or to keep them occupied with thinking how dumb he is, rather than anticipating his next move. That sounds pretty Zen, and not at all out of character.

It could also be that he is, in fact, a human being. It could have been a whim. Sometimes things sound like a good idea at the time for no apparent reason. I’m going with the first option – he wanted to show the troll he was taking it seriously and thought it would turn out better than it did.

That’s pretty much exactly what he said. Sometimes you have to take people at their word when it makes the most sense and takes less effort than all the other options. Even brilliant strategists are kinda lazy once in a while.

(That’s what makes them brilliant. Dumbasses slog through the swamp; geniuses find the shortcut)

It sounds like a dumb idea to deactivate the accounts, but you can’t know exactly how dumb an idea is until after it beats the crap out of you. And some things sound like a dumbass move in the beginning but become incredibly beautiful after they work.

Like relativity theory or quantum mechanics.

The Elusive Counterexample

If he wanted money, he would just ask for it. He posts about Wounded Warriors relatively often. He posted something about getting them to sell wrist bands with his name and doxed identities. People are willing to buy them.

If he wanted people to donate, he could have just said “Hey guys, I’m working on an expensive project. Does anyone want to help out? You can donate to my bitcoin wallet. Plz RT” Using average nonprofit donation rates and amounts, he’d get about $30,000 from one 20-tweet campaign.

That’s the Zen way for Jester to get money. He doesn’t need to jump through hoops. He doesn’t need gimmicks or guerilla marketing. He doesn’t need flash because he has substance.

People use gimmicks because they’re scared. He’s not scared. They use gimmicks because they can’t think of anything better. He can think of something better. And people use gimmicks because it’s impossible to break through apathy of the modern world without something big. He’s already broken through.

People love him, his work, and would be willing to spare a few dollars if they thought it would help him take out more jihadists. His people would have donated. They would have retweeted. Some might have even started fundraising drives of their own.

If he really needed money, he would have just asked. His world would not collapse. He’s not that neurotic.

But he hasn’t asked. He’s stated clearly that he doesn’t ask. The Zen thing is to stay consistent.

Take home message

Computers aren’t people and people aren’t computers
There’s no Zen switch – once you have it, you don’t lose it without major life changes
Giving people the benefit of the doubt makes confusing acts easier to understand
Sometimes Zen looks pretty stupid before it fully unfolds into something beautiful
1. However, even Zen masters make mistakes
You don’t need gimmicks if you have substance and resources

The simple trick to deal with fear

June 21, 2012

Part 2 of 14

Serenity soundbites

More isn’t always better
Notice your first reaction to the story
When in doubt, take it out
Take out the thing you put in to manipulate people
Elaborate designs showcase your fear
There’s a simple trick to dealing with fear

The logic

People want to listen to intriguing stories.

People believe authority figures.

If you don’t want someone to see something, make them look somewhere else.

These things are good; therefore more of them are better.

Elaborate plans have lots of these things.

Therefore elaborate plans are better than simple plans.

The flaw here is assuming more is always better; it isn’t. The more stuff you have, the more opportunities that something will go wrong. Anything that can go wrong will. And anything that involves a lot of people can go sideways in an instant.

Too many distractions increase the chances that one will contradict another. Too much intrigue overwhelms and exhausts the audience. Too many authoritative things increase the chance that you’ll look pompous and boring. Or people will start questioning why you need to work so hard to prove your claim. Or it’ll waste time you should have spent with something useful.

Going overboard with intriguing distractions or authoritative proof hurts the argument more than it helps. But people add more stuff than they need because of fear.

Simplicity = terrifying

Simple plans are brave. They assume failure at the beginning and go ahead anyway. They make sure there’s a way to get back to the goal using the stuff they already have.

Elaborate plans assume success and abandon hope when the first details don’t work. They shove in newfangled details because there’s no confidence in the original. Or they do it to escape the ghosts of failure. Like the Winchester Mystery House.

Sometimes those details would work if you just pushed a little harder. Sometimes they work with other people, but not the first one you asked. Sometimes they work with the person you want to ask, but not on that day. But elaborate plans don’t trust that, so they try something else.

Simple plans don’t have something else. There’s no trick up your sleeve or magic incantation to make people do what you want. It’s just you and the bare hope of success.

That’s terrifying.

Elaborate plans at least give you something to keep your mind off it for a while. Or they distract other people from your fear. Because if people are looking at X, they’re not looking at Y. And if they’re looking at lots of stuff, they’re more likely to believe one of those things.

Law of large numbers, and all that.

Simple plans don’t look authoritative. They don’t have fancy tools and confusing jargon that only an expert would know how to wield – thus existence of the tool is proof of expertise. They don’t force people to believe through 3 hour explanations of flowcharts and powerpoint slides.

Elaborate plans always have something to do, somewhere to be, something to say. But that’s mistaking motion for action. It’s mistaking speech for meaning. Because when you start looking at what action and meaning are, you realize that you have no idea what you’re doing, where you’re going, or how you’re going to keep the world from falling apart.

It’s terrifying.

Simple plans don’t let you ignore the terror. That’s why normal people don’t use them. And that’s why we say that people who do use them are master strategists. It takes a lot of guts and awareness to pull off a simple plan.

What’s your first reaction to this story?

I have a story about competitive flower arranging. (Because I’m that kind of girl) My arrangement was a minimalist Japanese design, but everyone else in the show gave ornate, overpowering designs. I was terrified when I saw the monstrosities I was up against. I knew I was going to lose.

I thought I didn’t get the memo about what the judges were looking for. I thought it would look like I was lazy, or didn’t want to win. I thought I would look abnormal and everyone would hate me. So I put a geisha hair ornament in to spice it up. I had nowhere to put it, so I just laid it on the table.

It looked weird and the colors clashed.

I wanted to show the judges that I was conforming to the norm of ornateness, but I also wanted them to see my minimalist design esthetic. I agonized over that for about an hour. (Because I’m that kind of girl)

One of the Flower Show Dowagers saw my panic and came over. She put her arm around me and cooed “Sweetie pie, it’s taking a long time, isn’t it?” When she really meant “if it takes this long to make a decision, it means you don’t know what you’re doing.” (FSDs have a knack for beating the shit out of you in the nicest way possible.)

Then she said “when in doubt, take it out.” That’s good advice, but painfully unhelpful when you don’t know what to take out.

For my flower arrangements, it was always the thing that conformed to popularity but had no business being there. I put it in to make the judges think I listened to the prompt even though I went in a different direction. Or it was the new and exciting thing I couldn’t bear to part with, but distracted from the rest of the piece.

They were the things I put in to force people to react the way I wanted. (Because I’m that kind of girl) The plan was to win first place. I needed to convince them to give it to me. So I put in elements that I thought would convince them. (Anyone who doesn’t use that strategy wins contests by accident, nepotism, or blackmail.)

I agonized over taking out the bad elements because they represented something I was afraid to lose – like intrigue, authority, or conformity. If I gave them up, I would lose my authority to command the judges to give me the prize. I couldn’t win, so I would lose. But there’s a flaw – those judges were chosen because they know how to spot bullshit.

A bad design element is impossible to ignore and detracts from the entire piece.

An element exists either to improve the design or to distract from something bad.

A bad element does not improve the design, therefore it distracts from something bad.

It was a contest; the only bad thing there was fear of losing.

Therefore the element was a distraction from the fear of losing.

Judges know that and aren’t distracted; otherwise they wouldn’t be given the honor of judging.

Therefore, it would be impossible for the judges to not see my fear of losing if I left in a bad element.

Judges aren’t psychic. If they don’t see something pointing to fear, they don’t magically know. If they never saw the offending ornament, they have no choice but to assume I never intended to put it there. They would never know it existed at all. But if they do see it, they know exactly what it means.

The thing to take out was always the one that showcased my fear. But in taking it out, I had to confront the fear, accept that I was taking a step towards failure, and go ahead anyway.

This story had a happy ending – I won 1st place because the minimalist design was good in and of itself. But it was better without the clashing ornament.

Dealing with fear

Simplicity means taking out all the things that sound cool but really shouldn’t be there. Like geisha hair ornaments, or assuming Jester is exactly the same as everyone else, or that he’s less intelligent than the people trolling him, or that the world is a comforting, easy place to live.

Harsh, but true.

The easiest way to get through the fear is to carry on regardless. Sometimes things aren’t as terrible as they seem in your head. It’s not the end of the world to lose a flower arranging contest. It’s also not the end of the world to admit that Jester might not be as dumb as people want him to be.

His intelligence doesn’t make anyone else smarter or dumber, just like the other flower arrangements didn’t make my geisha ornament look better or worse within my own design. The ornament clashed, and nothing on the other side of the room was going to fix that. The design was an entity entirely unto itself.

So are you. It seems like Jester’s existence makes you look dumber in comparison, but it’s a false comparison. Intelligence, like design, is judged based on individual merits, not outside forces.

You don’t suddenly lose information because you’re standing next to someone with more. You don’t gain information because you’re standing next to someone with less. You have exactly the same amount of information in your head as you did before because nothing inside you changed.

And expertise in one area doesn’t mean total world domination. It’s reasonable to assume I know more about microbiology than Jester does. (Maybe not. Maybe he took classes in bioterrorism. I only had one) That doesn’t make me smarter overall, or better at anything other than telling cool stories about zombie ants and magnetic bacteria.

There’s no way to compare microbiology to computer programming, just like there’s no way to compare an ornate flower arrangement to a minimalist one. They each have to be assessed by themselves, on the solidity of their own achievements. So it doesn’t hurt my soul to know that Jester is better than me at something.

Comparing the two indicates an overarching fear of losing something. But you don’t lose intelligence unless you have a neurological disaster. I realize that a tweet can make someone feel stupid, but that’s not a stroke. That’s the realization that you’re not the smartest person out of 7 billion people in this world.

You’ll live.

Making the pain stop

It only hurts when he’s better at something you care about; for me, that’s social engineering. I can look at it as a way to learn from him, or a reason to sulk under the covers about how much I suck. Guess which one I chose. It actually isn’t that hard.

You just admit that he’s not a Wild and Windy Typhoonigator determined to suck the intelligence out of you. And even if he were, he doesn’t have a magic brain-sucking ray gun.

Dealing with fear is hard, and no one can really tell you how to do it. There are thousands of witty quotes about how action is the best remedy for fear. If you just get up and start going, it doesn’t look so bad anymore.

But that’s painfully unhelpful when you’re too paralyzed to think straight, or if something new comes in after you start, or if you’re halfway through and still afraid. When that happens, ask yourself why you care so damn much.

The world doesn’t end if someone doesn’t like a flower arrangement. It’s just something pretty to look at, or something to make someone else feel comfortable, or a way to get status in a group you care about. It’s a prop used to get something you want. Everyone is in competition with someone, and everyone is a judge of something.

If your first response to this example was “why the hell would she care about a stupid flower show? That’s nothing to be afraid of!” or “what’s the big deal? If the ornament doesn’t belong there, just take it out” or “who cares what FSDs think?” then you have the ability to free yourself from fear.

All you have to do is see how your problem is a judged flower arrangement, and then tell yourself that you’re whatever kind of girl you thought I was. (I’m actually this kind of girl *huggles*)

Most of life is flower arrangements. People just use different kinds of flowers.

Your way takes an hour, mine takes 40 seconds

June 21, 2012

Part 3 of 14

The theory - Jester has been doxed by a new troll, as someone other than Tom Ryan. “Occam’s Razor narrows it down to two scenarios.”

Spotting the flaw

Scenario 1 = the troll is Jester. Scenario 2 = the troll is Jester. Sweetie, that’s only one scenario. *cuddly-wuddlies*

(Side note: guess who loves elaborate plans and brags about it all day, every day? Sociopaths. Trolling yourself is extremely common on sociopath blogs. And nowhere else. And it’s only the stupid ones because the smart ones are too lazy/ skilled to do that. Not saying anything, you know. I’m sure that could mean anything.)

Other than that, Occam’s razor appears too late to be useful in this argument. The simplest solution is best, or the one with the least amount of effort is best. Using it should be simple too. It’s easiest to use this while you’re telling the story, not after you have two convoluted stories.

It takes a lot of effort for a guy to set up a new Twitter account, troll himself, delete his own blog and Twitter account, then come back and say “my bad.”

He would have to radically change his strategy, with no warning or awareness of the consequences. He would have to plan the strategy and execute it. Then he would have to recover from it afterwards. (More about that in this post)

That’s not simple.

It’s more likely that Jester was going about his daily business, yet another troll came along, and Jester had an unforced error. Occam’s razor, if correctly applied here, would say that Jester was, in fact, a human being.

He was probably bored. Bored people do stupid shit. Or he was distracted and didn’t put as much thought into it as he should have. Distracted people make mistakes. Or he was drunk. Drunk logic is ridiculous and often regrettable under the harsh light of sobriety.

That’s simple.

It’s also possible that he didn’t make an unforced error. The end result was a greater conspiracy theory that consumed the entire Anonyverse. Occam’s razor here says he wanted that result.

There’s any number of reasons for that. But it’s probably not trying to cover up something. That requires Jester psychically divining the appearance of the troll so that he could have an op to cover up (that would be best covered up by chaos) at the exact moment the troll appeared. Occam’s razor says you should eliminate the story that depends solely on magical powers. That’s the whole purpose of the rule.

It’s probably not covering up the Tom Ryan thing because it hasn’t bothered him before. Occam’s razor says that if he hasn’t been bothered previously, and nothing has changed, he’s not going to be bothered now.

The ops he’s already working on could fit into a cover up plan. That would be the Team Poison thing, the continued attacks of jihadist sites, and whatever else he’s got cooking that no one knows about. It’s reasonable to think he would try to play the hand he’s been dealt, and he’s already been dealt a lot of conspiracy theories. So he could have been trying to use it as a tool.

Occam’s razor says no, though.

Master strategists like Jester know how to use the tools they have. That’s why they’re called masters. Chaos can be a tool, but only if he put something in there to make sure it went the right way. I didn’t see anything that looked like funneling people towards a specific objective.

The Libyan psy-op did create chaos, and did funnel people toward a specific objective using a communication method they would believe. Xerxes creates chaos in website accessibility and drives people to abandon their sites. (It’s not magic. It’s frustration. He’s explained Saladin before; he just didn’t use the name when he said it.)

If he knows that chaos is a tool and uses it successfully, he’s not going to magically forget he was able to do that. If he needed to use chaos as a tool again, he would use it strategically.

So Occam’s razor says you should eliminate scenarios that require a master using a tool in the most complicated and unhelpful way possible, or magically forgetting something integral to his work.

He might have wanted information that only comes from observing. Or he’s sadistic and liked watching the chaos. Occam’s razor says getting information or entertainment are simple goals achieved by simple means so they would be accepted.

More elaborate, but still simple.

But now I have two simple scenarios and no way to choose between them. Occam’s razor doesn’t help me anymore because both are simple enough to qualify as valid under this rule. I need completely new information in order to choose between the two.

Even though there are two scenarios here, there’s only one explanation for what happened – it was business as usual for both Jester and the troll. Scenario 2 just ascribes more intention to Jester’s actions, or paints him as a more mythical figure for not making a mistake.

The only way to choose between them is to ask Jester. He said publicly it was an unforced error. If it was deliberate, he wouldn’t admit it because that would give away too much of his strategy. Both scenarios have the same response, thus there’s no way to choose between them.

It’s a dead end, so the argument’s over. The only thing left is to accept that some things are fundamentally unknowable and move on with your life. Occam’s razor says sometimes this is the only way to keep your sanity.

Fixing the flaw

Occam’s razor isn’t really built for choosing between two things. It’s for assessing the likelihood of one thing at a time. When I used it, I put it at the end of each claim – the unforced error, the cover up, the Tom Ryan thing, and the sadism.

Each one of those claims was assessed individually and eliminated or accepted based on its own simplicity. I didn’t compare the Tom Ryan thing to information gathering to see which one of those was simpler. I compared each one to the context of the situation.

Occam’s razor is meant for the scenario creation phase, not the elimination phase. Reasoning: it’s faster and easier to do it right the first time.

You have to spend time and energy creating a convoluted explanation for a given event. The more convoluted, the more time it takes. So, let’s say it takes 10 minutes to write out convoluted scenario 1. That’s 10 minutes you don’t get back. If you need scenario 2 because scenario 1 is wrong, you just spent 10 minutes on a worthless endeavor.

If scenario 2 takes another 10 minutes to write, you just spent 20 minutes on this. Now you have to choose between these two scenarios.

That means all the evidence you used in creating scenario 1 and 2 isn’t useful anymore. If it were useful, it would have been obvious that one was better, so you wouldn’t be stuck with a choice.

Since there are two equally plausible scenarios you have to come up with something completely new to distinguish between them. This new thing has to:

Be true
Support one scenario
Destroy support for the other one

#3 is pretty important. If you’re eliminating something, you have to say that one of your facts is less important, less true, or less relevant so you’re allowed to ignore it. Otherwise you have to leave it in and let it tangle up everything, like when your mom makes you include your baby sister in your No Girls Allowed club.

Finding that new thing requires research. That takes a lot more time. So let’s say 40 minutes of reading. This entire thing would take an hour before you get to use Occam’s razor if you chose to start with convoluted stories.

My way took 40 seconds.

Take home message

If two scenarios are the same, there’s no choice between them
It helps to think about what real people do in real situations
If you do it right the first time, you move on with your life faster
Occam’s razor is made for comparing one thing to the context, not two things to each other
The elimination phase requires more information than you currently have
1. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t have an elimination phase

How to choose between two opposing sides

June 21, 2012

Part 4 of 14

Serenity soundbites

People have a right to enjoy their lives in their own way, even if other people disagree
Freedom means letting people make the wrong decisions
Sometimes you have to play go along, get along
It’s not when someone believes they have a right they don’t actually have
When choosing between two opposing sides, you have to ignore something
When assessing value, you have to know stuff about all sides, not just the one you want
Don’t choose the side that requires impossible assumptions
Don’t choose the side that advertises your fear

The story

I was at a wedding once. It was one of those things – you know you have to be there to keep up appearances, but would really rather do anything else. So I kept to myself, smiled and nodded when people’s trajectories bounced off my position, but otherwise said nothing.

I like watching from a distance – like a cat on a rooftop, surveying my territory. It’s serene.

But then, a woman adopted me. She seemed like a nice lady, although oddly enthusiastic about making sure no one’s thoughts had space to explore the nether regions. I smiled politely and chatted for a few minutes. No harm, no foul.

Then it was time to throw the bouquet. Being single at a wedding doesn’t bother me – being the only single lady on stage to perform an odd ritual that exposes an idiosyncratic and unexplainable flaw bothers me.

But I played along because what else was I supposed to do? Stamp my feet like a petulant child? The nice lady pulled me onto the floor and positioned me just so. The bouquet hit me in the head, so I guess she’s had some experience with that.

She thought I wasn’t enjoying the party, and it made her feel bad. If she spent the whole time thinking about how sad and lonely I was, she would be miserable on what should have been a happy day. When I tried to explain to her that I was fine, she thought my entertainment strategies were sadly misguided.

Inexplicably, getting beaned with plastic flowers proved that I was having a good time, and thus allowed her to enjoy the rest of the party.

The explanation

Freedom is what happens when people accept that other people have a right to make the wrong decisions. She didn’t want to give me the freedom to enjoy the party in my own way. That’s wrong. But that also means I can’t tell her she’s wrong. She was trying to enjoy the party in her own way. That means I would destroy her freedom if I asked her to stop.

Sometimes you have to stand up for your rights, but it isn’t every single time. It’s when you get a greater reward for the effort you have to put in. If their drive to force you to submit is stronger than your refusal, you’ll submit. But if your refusal is stronger, you won’t. If you want something more, you’ll give up a right to get that higher valued thing.

I was willing to give her the freedom to enjoy the party, because I knew that it would needlessly hurt her to be a petulant wallflower. In doing that, I had to sacrifice my own comfort and enjoyment. And safety. Plastic flowers aren’t the softest projectiles. (OW!)

It’s hard to say that I had a greater right to enjoy the party than she did. Why would my enjoyment be worth more than hers? Everyone always has the right to say “you’re not the boss of me!!!” but civilized people forgo that right in order to create a stable society. It’s how we manage to keep from killing each other.

There seems to be a hot debate about whether or not Jester is right to tell jihadists what they can and cannot do on his internet. But that means saying jihadists have the right to kill people, like Charles Manson shouldn’t be in jail because he only told people what to do.

Like it’s not bad if it’s only words, no matter what those words mean or what happens after the talking is over or what would’ve happened if those words never existed. Like “go to club X at 11pm and detonate the bomb you create with this manual” has the same meaning and result as “I think I’m going to adopt a kitten today.”

That’s a little stupid.

Yeah, people have the right to say what they want, but those rights have to be balanced with other people’s rights. Why is a jihadist’s right to kill people worth more than a soccer mom’s right to be alive?

There has to be a balance

What’s in opposition?
Where’s the support for each side?
What would you have to do to ignore one of them?
Which force is stronger?
What seems like a contradiction?
How do you eliminate the contradiction?

Filling that out for the wedding example:

What’s in opposition?
1. My right to self-determination vs. her right to enjoy the party
Where’s the support for each side?
1. It was a wedding, not a gulag – we both had the right to feel that way
2. I wanted my right just as much as she wanted her right
What would you have to do to ignore one of them?
1. Assume one of us doesn’t have that right
2. Assume one of us doesn’t want that right
3. Assume one of us doesn’t exist
Which force is stronger?
1. Her persistence to engage me in the party was stronger than my persistence to refuse
What seems like a contradiction?
1. She wants me to be happy, but I was already happy and now I’m not
How do you eliminate the contradiction?
1. Find something to be happy about in whatever she wants
2. Convince her that I was already happy

At some point, you have to choose one extreme or the other. You can’t just sit around doing absolutely nothing. Doing nothing is still a choice. So in order to create the simplest plan here, I admitted that her drive to control me was stronger than my drive to avoid people.

Then I had to choose which part to ignore. I went with 3b – not wanting the right anymore. I still had the right; I just wanted peace and reputation more. To eliminate the contradiction, I chose 6a – find something else to be happy about. Peace and reputation made me happy. So I chose her side and suffered the consequences.

It’s the same structure for the jihadists – except the answer is 3a – not having the right at all. Blind craving doesn’t give them the right to kill people. And eliminating the contradiction is 6b – convincing them that killing people isn’t actually as holy as they believe it is.

Or just taking out their communication channels. Totally easier.

Opposing theories

Filling that out for choosing two opposing explanations:

What’s in opposition?
- Jester trolled himself vs. Jester didn’t troll himself
Where’s the support for each side?
- Trolling himself
  - Jester is a skilled social engineer
  - He’s not above doing something questionable to get what he wants
  - Anonymous might pull a stunt like that to get attention
- Not trolling himself
  - Jester is consistent
  - His attacks are elegant and simple
  - He’s smart enough to know that he doesn’t need stunts if he has 32,000 fans
What would you have to do to ignore one of them?
- Trolling himself
  - Assume that things are business as usual
  - Assume that Jester is smart and sane
  - Assume that he has NOT had a neurological disaster that impairs his judgment
- Not trolling himself
  - Jester suddenly changed strategies for no apparent reason
  - Jester lost his Zen quality
  - Jester needed something he couldn’t get without a massive conspiracy theory or the ones already in effect
Which force is stronger?
- Inertia is stronger than capriciousness – business as usual wins
What seems like a contradiction?
- Anonymous thinks Jester is a dumbass, but they would have to assume he isn’t
How do you eliminate the contradiction?
- Find evidence that Jester isn’t a dumbass
- Believe that evidence

The answer seems obvious when it’s written out like this. But resolving the contradiction is always the hard part. If you really don’t want to believe that Jester’s as smart as people think he is, there’s nothing in the world that can make you believe. If you see no value in accepting his intelligence, but see tremendous value in saying how stupid he is, there’s no compelling reason to change your mind.

The easiest way to assess value is to just write out the pros and cons. Simplistic, but these things don’t have to be hard. The hard part is getting off your ass and doing it. It’s a lot easier to look for someone to say “it’s ok, no one else knows the answer either” and curl up under the covers.

Except some people do know the answer. You just look at the situation, write out the good things and the bad things, figure out the ratio, and act accordingly. (Wait, where have I heard that?)

It helps to think of the real life events that ensue after you make a decision, both for and against, before you actually make it. (I know, rocket science, right? But for some reason people don’t do that.)

In my wedding example, I valued getting along with people over the inevitable hysteria had I refused a polite, yet firm invitation to join the party. I would look like a complete idiot, so doing my own thing wasn’t as valuable to me in that situation. In most other situations, it’s very valuable.

But that means all situations have to be taken individually. It seems so much easier to believe in one thing forever and ever. Except that usually means you have to assume someone doesn’t exist, or that people had strokes without noticing.

Just saying.

Some people aren’t that dumb

June 21, 2012

Part 5 of 14

The theory – “According to @cubespherical, the explanation is, incredibly, low tech. Recently, @cubespherical bumped into a mutual acquaintance of @th3j35t3r’s real life identity. When his name was brought up in conversation, the third party slipped up and linked this identity to Jester.”

Spotting the flaw

The flaw here is the assumption that Jester’s friends are normal. Jester isn’t normal; he’s brilliant. He probably has brilliant friends. Or he has people he puts up with because they’re extremely loyal. (Or brilliant and loyal, and thus super-duper with sprinkles on top unlikely to spill the beans)

[Or no friends at all because he’s That Kind of Guy]

Other people have diverse categories of friends – basketball friends, mommy and me friends, work friends, friends of friends, etc. I think he only has brilliant and loyal. Or, at least, only those people are able to link his real life identity to the Jester persona.

His brilliant friends would have enough situational awareness to catch someone sniffing for clues about Jester’s identity. They would be smart enough to know they shouldn’t talk about him to people with 9 year grudges. Randomly aggressive bar brawlers aren’t that intriguing to smart people, so given a choice of loyalty, they would choose Jester.

So they aren’t likely to intentionally or accidentally say anything.

His not so brilliant, yet incredibly loyal, friends wouldn’t say anything either. They’re not slugs; they know that words mean things. Even if the troll was a friend, they would value loyalty over idle chit chat. Loyalty has to be earned and proved, and that means it’s a stronger friendship than random dudes he plays basketball with.

It seems weird to assume this guy would tell his basketball buddies that jihadists want to kill him. That doesn’t sound natural. There has to be a script – actual spoken words that make sense in context – in order to transmit information.

Does he say “dude, that was a foul. If you do that one more time, I’m going to tell the jihadists that you’re actually me”? What about “ohhh, nothing but net! Just like that time I tango downed a jihadist website!”?

Just saying.

He’s a better social engineer than I am. You don’t get to that level by ignoring it completely. He doesn’t tell his deep, dark secrets to the guy who happens to think he doesn’t suck.

But normal people do. It’s not always easy to make friends. It’s not always easy to keep the friends you have. It’s not always easy to tell who your friends are or if they’ll still be your friend if something bad happens.

During the chaos, Jester found out that some of his supporters weren’t actually supporters. Even masters can’t know everything.

Normal people stay friends with people who have grudges against mutual friends. Normal people tell secrets to people who aren’t really their friends. Those friends tell the secrets to random people because it never occurs to them to keep it a secret. It would occur to Jester’s friends to keep his identity a secret.

Normal people have normal friends. High performing people have high performing friends.

Fixing the flaw

I would doubt any story based on the idea that Jester is exactly like every other person out there. He’s clearly not. He’s fallible, but he’s smart enough to take care of himself. He has human needs and desires, but he’s pretty good at restraining himself where other people wouldn’t. He can’t see everything, but he looks for it whenever he can. There’s evidence on his blog and his tweets to support that.

I can’t imagine how a guy could make such a convincing woman without that kind of awareness. Not saying that women are more aware than men, just that men pretending to be women have to work at it. A man who makes a more convincing woman than me is pretty damn good.

(And no, I’m not going to forget that I was out done by a dude. Oh, I guess maybe I do make a convincing woman …*mad at Jester*)

Smart people aren’t Bigfoot. Some of them, believe it or not, do exist.

The graph of intelligence is a bell shaped curve. There’s a reason for that. There are people at the tail ends of the bell; otherwise, the graph would look different. There aren’t many, but “not many” doesn’t mean “none at all.”

Someone has to be at the thin end of the curve – Jester’s a good candidate. He’s smart enough to know where to find other people like him. He’s charming enough to make those people love him. So if he has friends, they’re going to be in roughly the same place on the curve. Which means they aren’t average.

You can’t say someone acts exactly like an average person if they’ve already shown that they don’t.

Take home message

Smart people don’t tell dangerous secrets to randomly aggressive people
Loyal people don’t tell dangerous secrets to anyone
Social engineering experts don’t tell secrets to guys who happen to think they don’t suck
Normal people sometimes value quantity over quality in friendships
Don’t assume someone is average when they’ve clearly shown that they aren’t

How to make people love you

June 21, 2012

Part 6 of 14

Serenity soundbites

If you want something and get it, you feel loved. If you don’t, you don’t.
Power requires an act, an accomplice, and an enticement
Conformity is about proving the ability to love and be loved
Nonconformity risks losing your friends and proving that you don’t deserve new ones
Intimacy combines opposing concepts and it’s your job to not explode under the pressure

The logic

I have a feeling these conspiracy theories get repeated, and plausible alternatives get ignored, because of a need to be loved and not a lack of intelligence. Even smart people do stupid things in the name of love.

Love = getting what you want.

Getting what you want = someone has to give it to you.

If someone gives something to you, it’s because you convinced them to.

It’s easier to convince predictable people.

Predictable = you know what someone wants and how they’ll react to your request.

People who conform to norms = predictable.

People who don’t conform to norms = unpredictable.

Thus it’s easier to get something from a conformist and harder to get something from a nonconformist.

So conforming proves that you’re willing to love and be loved.

Not conforming proves that you’re unwilling to love and be loved.

Conformity = elaborate

Elaborate = hiding fear

Intimacy = getting what you want without asking = simple

Without asking = letting people scrutinize and remember all the things that make you different

Intimacy = nonconformity = simple = terrifying

Love

Love is about getting what you want. If you want to be loved, and you are, then you got what you wanted. If you didn’t get what you wanted, then it’s not love. It’s you pretending, or making the best of a bad situation, or not knowing what you want.

Semantics, maybe. But it’s a helpful way to start breaking down a complicated concept.

I find a lot of people upset over the idea of ascribing anything as base and dirty as “a want” to something as spiritual and emotional as love. Like saying “I want to cuddle now” is gauche. If you want a cuddle, then you get it, you feel loved. If you don’t, you don’t. It’s not hard.

I think the problem arises in the details. Some people want things other people don’t want. Some people want things other people say they shouldn’t want. Some people secretly want those things but don’t want to be criticized for it. Some things have stereotypes or symbols attached to them but aren’t necessarily evil in and of themselves.

Some people want healthy things that they truly deserve, but their partner doesn’t want to give them, so the partner tries to convince them to stop wanting that thing.

Like money, sex, or power.

Convincing people

Having power can make you feel loved, even if people say you shouldn’t enjoy power, or that some people abuse power, or that the symbols of power are dirty. But it isn’t dirty. It’s the natural method for convincing someone to give you the things that make you feel loved. Some people just don’t know how to do it effectively, so it turns into something terrible.

Saying that power is always dirty because some people abuse it is like saying fire hoses should be outlawed because they were used to suppress rioters in the civil rights movement. The fire hoses weren’t the problem. The people wielding them on innocent protesters were the problem. Power is just a tool, and can be used to attack people or to make them feel better.

In order to get it, there has to be a specific act and a person to do it– there’s no such thing as power in a vacuum. Power that isn’t used is like the money in a forgotten bank account.

So that means you have to decide what that specific act is.

Who do you want power over?
What do you want them to do?
What do they want in return?

This is the same for loyalty. You have to decide what you want (act of loyalty – like keeping a secret), who you want to give it to you (friends), and then give them a reason to do it. The only difference between earning loyalty and power is that people generally see loyalty as good, and power as bad. Except when loyalty to the Nazis makes you kill people. Or when people use power to create equality, like Martin Luther King.

I guess there’s an unequal amount of good and bad in most things, right?

Creating power

So, how would conspiracy theories create power in this situation?

Who do you want power over?
1. The chaos of an uncertain world
2. Jester
3. Friends
What do you want them to do?
1. Become more understandable and easier to live in
2. Admit defeat
3. Form a stronger friendship
What do they want in return?
1. The world doesn’t want anything from you
2. Jester wants to not be annoyed
3. Friends want a stronger friendship

In this scenario, there’s only one sure way to get power – building a stronger friendship with people who also believe in the conspiracy theory. It’s unlikely that Jester would give up just because people whined at him.

But I think if someone offered him a legitimate opportunity to no longer be annoyed by this, he would give a diplomatically vague admission of defeat and move on. However, that means an enforceable promise to leave him alone.

That seems to defeat the purpose of the conspiracy theory. The whole point is to talk to people about it, and you can’t have something to talk about if you agree to leave your Muse alone. The whole point of talking to people is to create a space where you can get what you want without looking like a complete jackass.

Conformity

Conformity is being predictable so that people can ask for things without coercion. Conformists look at the norm to make decisions for them, so everyone else can look at those norms too. Everyone else can use those standard responses to plan a strategy to get what they want.

If you change yourself to make predictions easier – so that others don’t have to learn anything – it’s easier for them to feel loved. When you admit that someone else can tell you what to do because it makes them feel better, you prove that you’re willing to love and be loved. It’s harder on you, but there’s a certain amount of honor in sacrifice.

Nonconformists aren’t predictable. It’s hard to plan a strategy to make them happy if the wants change capriciously. It’s a little selfish because they don’t sacrifice anything for you – they do what they want and don’t care about your reaction. And it’s hard to give things to people if you constantly wonder if they’ll abandon you.

Conformists don’t abandon people – they stay with the status quo for as long as they possibly can. Nonconformists abandon the things that aren’t working when they think there’s something better beyond the status quo.

Nonconforming means you take a huge risk that your friends won’t follow when you leave the norm behind. It means you might not be able to make new friends because you’ve shown that you’re unlovable. So if you abandon the conspiracy theory for the truth, you risk losing your friends without being able to make new ones.

If the status quo was “we’re friends” and it isn’t working anymore, a nonconformist will just leave. A conformist will stick it out even though it sucks because change is against their nature. It will always suck at some point. No relationship is perfect, so conformity proves the ability to accept imperfections and still maintain the friendship.

Conforming to the rules of the group proves that you’re willing to stick it out even if things get hard. It proves you’re loyal. It proves you’re able to love someone by showing them how to convince you to do stuff. You show them how to do that through long, drawn out conversations – like conspiracy theories.

In conforming, and having those long, drawn out conversations, you allow people to scrutinize your actions and remember things you would rather they forgot. You no longer blend into the crowd – so you’re forced into nonconformity and face the threat of being seen as unlovable.

But in trying to escape the threat, people contort themselves into ridiculously complex facades of what might be accepted, but never is. It’s unbelievably elaborate. It’s a lot simpler to accept that idiosyncrasies happen and there’s no point in showcasing all the places where you’re afraid.

That’s why intimacy is so damn terrifying. You have to combine opposing concepts – conformity and nonconformity, elaborateness and simplicity, fear and fearlessness – without exploding.

Accusations of fraud aren’t really that bad

June 21, 2012

Part 7 of 14

The theory – “Jester controls both accounts and manufactures a ruse to: disappear/retire, not answer to evidence of fraud (taking credit for attacks/hacks he had nothing to do with), and/or to make people forget about the one of the more recent doxes linking him to @tomryanblog, one of the more credible claims. Here is the @spoolfiend‘s pastebin which presents evidence that Jester is Tom Ryan.”

HA! HA, I say to you who believe that spoolfiend has the most credible claim that Jester is Tom Ryan.

Spotting the flaw

Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that he did claim credit for something that wasn’t his.

You have to prove that:

There’s someone else
That person cares
Someone will do something about it
Jester will hate that something enough to react to it

This sounds cruel, but if I attacked a site, then got a death threat, and someone else came in claiming my work as their own, I would feel a twinge of relief that the jihadists would go after someone else.

Then I would feel bad that someone would be killed for something he didn’t do. But if he were willing to take a bullet or an IED for me, I’m not sure I would question it. I would say thank you and try to protect him from the inevitable.

It’s hard to imagine a scenario where he reached that decision without passion, deliberation, and awareness of the consequences. I would respect the thought process he used when he decided to protect me. Then I would get the hell out of his way so I don’t fuck up his strategy and get him killed.

There’s a huge difference between stealing an idea overheard in the office hallway and telling a jihadist that he should kill you instead of some other guy. That’s not a whim. He would have noticed the angry jihadists at some point. Those guys are hard to miss.

Maybe this person feels the same way I would, or maybe not. Maybe he’s mad that he didn’t get the glory. But if he wanted glory, he would have done something about it. You don’t get to that level of strategic thinking without knowing how to defend yourself against someone stealing credit.

And if glory means that much, but you’re not willing to defend it, you don’t deserve it. Glory is like money – there’s a reason why banks have secure vaults. People want to steal what’s in the vault.

If you don’t have enough wherewithal to build a vault for your glory, people can just walk in and take it. It would be nice if everyone gave credit where credit was due, but that’s not how the world works.

Life sucks that way.

If Jester really took credit for someone else’s work, that person knows and has chosen not to say anything. Maybe the person behind the Jester persona was the designated fall guy for these ops. Maybe the real guy feels guilty about committing crimes and wants Jester to make the cognitive dissonance go away. Maybe a mission went bad and the guy saved Jester’s life, so now Jester owes him. Maybe it’s something else.

That means it’s not really fraud –it’s two guys who agreed to work together in an unconventional way. Partnership != fraud. If there’s more than one guy behind this, they’ve chosen to be called Jester, and they want to be treated as a singular entity using singular pronouns.

There’s nothing abnormal about calling someone what they want to be called, like the guy whose name is William, but he’s called Bill or Billy or Mack or Buddy. Both of their names are “Jester” now, so you can’t say Jester 1 stole an op from Jester 2 without looking like a moron. It’s like saying Chang stole a liver from Eng.

And even if the real guy wasn’t a willing participant, he would have no way to punish Jester for it. Is he going to call a lawyer? He would have to show his own identity. Is he going to tell the jihadists they should start looking for him instead? Is he going to stir up whiny skiddies to bombard Jester with tweets? How will that help?

The only permanent thing is a record that a bunch of people on the internet hated Jester. I can feel him quivering like a chihuahua on an ice floe from here. o_o

I’m not 100% certain that he needs a legacy. He may have started the Twitter account because it was the easiest way to accomplish a specific objective during a tango down, or for the long term strategy, rather than for personal glory. I don’t know what that objective could be, but it’s a significant possibility that something existed.

He doesn’t sound like a guy whose entire purpose in life is to make people like him. Maybe that’s just my interpretation, but I haven’t seen anything that screams “OMG!! LOOK AT MEEEEE!!!!” yet. It sounds like people are projecting their own desires onto his actions. Or that could be me projecting. It’s hard to tell sometimes.

But if he doesn’t actually care about a legacy, accusations of fraud don’t attack something he cares about. It would be like watching someone swordfight the wind – kinda funny, kinda creepy, but not enough damage to warrant asking the guy to leave.

Fixing the flaw

I would separate the two scenarios and try to find a reason why he would care about being called a fraud. If I could find one thing that motivated him to escape accusations, I would believe he cared. I wouldn’t necessarily believe that he did this to escape fraud charges, but I would believe that a bad reputation mattered to him.

He’s a fraud
1. He thought this was right – why would he feel guilty about being right?
2. He’s egotistic – why would claims of fraud hurt his ego if he knows that he stole something? Does this assume that he can’t remember things that just happened?
3. He’s impossible to find – who would punish him for this crime and how would they get to him?
4. He claims to have been in the Special Forces – what punishment would be worse than what he’s willingly endured?
He’s not a fraud
1. He’s confident in his own abilities – how would words destroy Xerxes or Saladin or bring websites back online?
2. He’s secure in his friendships – why would the words of trolls make his friends stop loving him?
3. He knows who his friends are – why would he care about people who aren’t his friends?
4. He created the program that does the work – why does he need someone else or someone not already a friend?

I could be wrong about this, but I don’t see how verbal abuse would faze this guy. He doesn’t seem neurotic enough to obsess about random strangers liking or not liking him.

And I don’t see how it would faze a guy who believed he was right to claim someone else’s work as his own. Conmen know they’re lying. They just don’t care. It’s hard to make someone care when they don’t.

So it doesn’t really matter if there’s fraud or not. Nothing’s going to happen to him either way. The only thing holding him back is a sense of honor. But no one else gets to decide what honor means to him. It could mean telling the truth about his accomplishments, or it could mean saving the life of someone he cares about.

But it doesn’t mean “whatever whiny skiddies want.”

Take home message

Telling jihadists they should kill you isn’t a whim
Fraud has to have a victim – partnership != fraud
If he doesn’t care about a legacy, accusations don’t hurt him
If there’s no punishment, there’s nothing holding him back except honor and self-respect

How to create a legacy

June 6, 2012

Part 8 of 14

Serenity soundbites

A legacy is the story people tell so they remember you existed
No one can tell someone else what legacy to want, who they want to uphold it, or why
Heroes piss off villains and are proud of it
Heroes do something hard to benefit someone else

The structure

A legacy isn’t a thing. It’s an amorphous, intangible concept. It’s what happens when someone else remembers who you are even when you aren’t right in front of them. They have to remember something specific. And they have to tell someone else about it.

The whole point of a legacy is to start a conversation. It’s more fun to talk about specific events, images, or repeat phrases than to say “yeah, Jester was kinda cool.” That’s not a story. It’s just a vague impression. A story has a beginning, middle, and end. It has conflict and change. It has clever tricks, death-defying bravery, and miraculous deeds.

It has content, a storyteller, and a reason for telling the story at all.

What do you want people to say?
Who do you want to say it?
What would make them want to say it?

So, filling this out for Jester:

What do you want people to say?
1. Jester was a good person
Who do you want to say it?
1. People Jester admires
2. People Jester needs in order to get his work done
3. People who benefit from his work
4. Jester himself
What would make them want to say it?
1. Doing something they feel is worth talking about
2. Doing something that makes him proud to talk about

Notice how these aren’t really specific? There’s a reason for that. It’s not supposed to be hard. Structure takes out the hard parts so life doesn’t look so bone-crushingly impossible. Once you have a structure that works, all you need to do is fill in the details.

You have to define what “good” means, or who those people are, or what they like talking about. That’s a lot easier than sitting around saying “please, someone notice me and say that I don’t suck.” It’s still hard to come up with stuff, but at least you have a place to start.

Hint: a thesaurus helps if you’re really stuck. If you have one word like “good” you can start looking for similar words like reasonable, credible, honest, angelic, not nefarious, not crazy, loyal, unhesitating, enchanting, masterful, cherished, veteran, statuesque, and wholesome. All those came from Merriam-webster.com.

Once you have a list of possibilities staring right at you, all you have to do is eliminate the ones that don’t fit – like wholesome or angelic. Then read the definition of the words you like best. Then do something that fits that definition.

Jester’s legacy

Jester repeats a quote about depreciating reputations, so he probably does care about a glorious legacy. But it may not be as valuable to him as people think, and it may not sound the same in his head as it does to everyone else.

He might define “good” as the accomplishment of a specific objective that only he knows about. If he achieved that objective even though people talk shit about him for some other thing, I think he would still be satisfied. Even if that other thing were true and dishonorable, he still wouldn’t care because he got what he wanted.

He would only be upset about a dishonorable rumor if that dishonor meant something to him. It only means something if it makes him or someone he cares about feel bad.

He can’t care about everyone. There’s no possible way to get 100% of the people to love him 100% of the time. He has to choose which people to uphold his legacy and which to ignore. He might define “people” as someone (anyone) other than Anonymous.

It’s probably his close friends or people he’s worked with in the past or people he wants to work with in the future. Or it’s the person who helps him get something done right now.

It could be poets and historians, although it takes a breathtakingly large ego to say “I’d like a poet, preferably female with a degree in hard science, to enshrine me as a demigod” before even starting a project. (Well, mission accomplished. I await the gasps for air as Jester’s ego engages – like Mega Maid from Spaceballs.)

It’s probably not the people he actively torments. He’d know that people don’t sing the praises of their tormentors. If he wanted their praise, he wouldn’t torment them. He does torment them; therefore he doesn’t want their praise. Modus tollens.

If he doesn’t want Anonymous to sing his praises, he’s not that upset when he doesn’t get it. That’s just common sense. You’re not upset when you don’t get things you never wanted. You’re just “oh… ok … well, yes I don’t have that …”

Exactly like I wouldn’t be upset if I were unceremoniously reminded that I don’t have a beer hat. I’m not in a spiral of self-loathing because I can’t wear beverages on my head. I would only notice if someone made a stink about it. And I would only do something if a hot shower didn’t get rid of the stink.

I think it looks like he’s enjoying fame simply because he’s learned how to deal with it, rather than an overwhelming urge for more. In the beginning, his response to fame was a little awkward. It improved over time because that’s what happens when smart people commit to something.

He could want a legacy, but may not want the legacy Anonymous thinks he wants. He could want a legacy but may want it kept alive by someone other than Anonymous. He could want a legacy and still not care if the majority of the internet records show that he was hated.

Heroes

That might actually be the legacy he wants. Heroes have to piss someone off; otherwise they wouldn’t be different from all the normal people the villains trample over, now would they? Maybe he’s decided that Anonymous is a villain and deserves to be pissed off.

(Evidence, anywhere? Hmm… I wonder where it could be)

Maybe accusations of fraud make him feel better about himself because it’s proof of heroism. Maybe it’s just annoying, but he consoles himself with the knowledge that his plans to piss off villains worked.

Maybe he wants future generations to say “That’s a lot of vitriol. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” Maybe he wants future generations to say “Once I saw mountains angry”

Maybe he needs a peaceful resolution to an issue he struggles with – like whatever happened during his tours of duty. Whatever it was, it wasn’t easy, morally tidy, or forgettable. Maybe he needed an enemy to show him what he isn’t, and a group of immature brats shows him that maturity is worth it, even if getting there sucks.

Maybe he had no intention of attacking Anonymous at all but had to make the best of a bad situation, and if they went away tomorrow, he would be relieved so he can get back to work.

(I’m going with that one)

I realize this is hard to swallow, but he doesn’t care about Anonymous as much as they want him to. He cares about getting his work done. He cares about keeping himself alive. If those things aren’t affected, he doesn’t need that much from everyone else. And I know this because he says so – repeatedly.

Sometimes you have to take people at their word. It helps that his actions don’t contradict those words. Unbelievable as it seems, he just might not care what villains think of him.

How to be a hero

Heroes fight someone in order to save someone else.

Who’s the villain?
What’s hard about this situation?
Who benefits?
What benefits do they get?

Here it is for Jester:

Who’s the villain?
1. Jihadists
2. Trolls
3. Westboro Baptist Church
What’s hard about this situation?
1. Creating the code that does the work
2. Avoiding detection and capture
3. Dealing with crazy people
4. Getting the work done without ignoring the fans
Who benefits?
1. American people
2. Grieving families
3. Fans
What benefits do they get?
1. Security because the jihadists have a harder time planning attacks
2. Peace of mind that their funeral ceremonies won’t be interrupted
3. Someone to look up to, to provide hope in an uncertain world
4. Someone to learn from and emulate so their world becomes less uncertain

Here it is for Anonymous:

Who’s the villain?
1. Jester
What’s hard about this situation?
1. Coming up with theories
2. Coming up with clever quips and insults
3. Trying to find his name, or prove the name they have is right
4. Trying to hack into his Twitter and blog accounts to prevent him from doing his work
5. Attacking the charity he cares about just to spite him
Who benefits?
1. Themselves
2. The group
3. The jihadists
What benefits do they get?
1. They feel smart and powerful
2. There’s a morale boost
3. They get stronger connections to their friends through conversations about theories
4. Jihadists get free information about Jester’s supposed whereabouts
5. Jihadists get time to reorganize their strategy while Jester’s distracted

Which one of these sounds more heroic? Is it the guy fighting for other people, or the guy fighting for himself? Is it the guy who inspires, or the guy who destroys? Is it the guy saving lives, or the guy telling murders where to find their victims?

Just saying.

How to deal with being wrong

June 6, 2012

Part 9 of 14

The theory – “If it was, indeed, an anon op, why haven’t they released Jester’s identity? Why assume a different persona when confronting Jester in the first place? Either they knew his identity and could prove it, or they didn’t.

It appears that, currently, the strongest case is that Jester had been uncovered for fraud and concocted an elaborate scheme to escape being discredited.”

Spotting the flaw

The flaw here is that the theorist has the right answer, but doesn’t want to accept it. If this was an op, it succeeded or failed. So instead of saying “this was an op, but they can’t prove his identity, so the op failed” he said “this wasn’t an op. It was Jester.”

The second flaw is the rhetorical question. Indeed, why not release the identity? It’s because he said wouldn’t. He was going to release it only after he raised enough money to hide. He didn’t raise the money, so he wasn’t obligated to release the information.

Rule #1 of ransom demands – don’t give up before you get the money.

The rhetorical questions sound smart, because it was reasonable in previous contexts. Anonymous members regularly preen and gloat that they have Jester’s identity. If they have something, they show it, and if they can’t show it, it means they don’t have it. But they never ask for anything to prevent its release.

This guy did. The context is completely different now. Arguments have to take current contexts and changes into account. So a question that sounded smart last month doesn’t sound smart anymore. It sounds like he didn’t know the context changed, or knew and chose to ignore it.

Fixing the flaw

If I were going to set up an argument, I would look at the context of the current situation with all the facts I’ve gathered previously. I would see if the current situation changed before choosing a side. Perhaps I’m more nimble than most, or perhaps just less attached to things.

Meditation helps with that. But not the touchy-feely contemplate your navel kind of meditation. As with all things, my meditation method feels more like a kick in the poussoi than opening the gates of heavenly peace. o_0

I don’t wait for the Hand of God to reach out and touch me. I leave a flaming bag of poop on its doorstep and then rassle it to the ground. You would think I would learn to avoid the poop bag on my way down, but apparently not. However, this way gives me insights faster than if I had waited around for the crusty old bastard to get off his ass and find me.

One of the more useful insights is that context isn’t a part of my soul. It isn’t my body, my mind, or my emotional state. It’s just what happens. So if something happens in the outside world, it’s not happening in my inner world. And if it’s in my inner world, it’s not in the outside world.

That’s physics. Two things can’t occupy the same space at the same time. And “inside” doesn’t mean the same thing as “outside.” That’s English.

It only becomes part of my body when a physical act affects my tissues. It only becomes part of my mind when my neurons change to accept the new information. And it only becomes part of my soul if I decide to let it in.

When a change in context forces a change in argument position, I see it as an obligation to refine my position, not a death threat on my soul. Obligations aren’t fun, so I don’t look forward to changing my argument. But I don’t take it as a personal attack that I missed something, or that new information appeared later, or that circumstances beyond my control changed the situation.

I’m not perfect. I don’t get everything right every single time. But it helps to remember that I’m going to survive all moments of my life except the last one. So when I make a logic error, I know I’ll live. The Logic Gods don’t smite me because I denied an antecedent.

I fix the error and move on.

I can’t know everything. There are many true things that still exist without my blessing– like what Jester had for breakfast. My lack of information doesn’t make it less true. It just means it hasn’t made its way into my sphere of knowledge. Jester can have breakfast without anyone else knowing. That doesn’t mean he didn’t eat.

(I don’t need solid evidence of this, thank you)

And I don’t have a time machine. I don’t feel bad about not knowing something now that I’m going to know three days from now. It’s not my fault if the piece of information I needed wasn’t published or found until after I needed it. It’s my fault if I knew where to find the information and chose not to look for it.

But there’s nothing wrong with my soul if someone else comes to a different conclusion using information I never had access to. I feel annoyed that I have to do more work. But I don’t go into a self-loathing tailspin because I used good information on Monday and new information broke on Wednesday.

There’s only so much self-loathing this little body can take; pouting over lack of a time machine didn’t make the cut. o_0

So when context changes, making my argument clearly wrong, I fix it and get on with my life. My soul doesn’t die because I was wrong. It’s annoying, and sometimes painful. But the pain goes away. Eventually, all pain goes away.

Take home message

When context changes, the argument and tools have to change with it
Badass meditation helps, but it’s not for hippies and pussies
When context changes, your soul doesn’t necessarily change with it
A change in argument position is an obligation, not a death threat
You survive every moment of your life except the last one

How to create freedom

June 6, 2012

Part 10 of 14

Serenity soundbites

Loyalty to a petrified opinion makes you look petrified
Creating freedom isn’t as hard as people think it is
Someone has to sacrifice to create freedom, and they get something valuable out of it
False peace comes from shielding yourself against chaos, true peace comes from sacrifice

How to fix the flaw

“Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul” – Mark Twain.

The flaw here is loyalty to a petrified opinion. The writer wanted to believe that Anonymous didn’t fail, or that things haven’t changed. So he blamed Jester for the op, and asked a smart sounding question out of context.

The way to fix this flaw is to stop seeing context changes and position changes as a part of your soul. And the other way is to make a commitment to helpful opinions. Breaking chains and freeing souls is a helpful opinion. Loyalty to that would make the world a better place.

I don’t see how this writer was loyal to freeing anyone. I don’t see how his position – that Anonymous hasn’t failed – answers any of these questions with enough force to be useful.

Who is being chained?
Who is doing the chaining?
What are the chains?
How are those chains broken?
What has to be sacrificed?
What’s gained?

Everyone is chained to something. There will never be a time when everyone is completely free, because freedom requires sacrifice. If one person is free, it means someone else gave up a portion of their freedom to provide it.

Soldiers sacrifice themselves so civilians don’t have to live in a dictatorship. Parents sacrifice sleep and entertainment so their kids can have experiences they didn’t have. Boyfriends sacrifice so their girlfriends can have a spider-free life.

This doesn’t have to be hard

Who is being chained?
1. Me
Who is doing the chaining?
1. Spiders
2. Ghosts of the past
3. Self-image
What are the chains?
1. Some spiders are poisonous
2. We’re neurologically programmed to fear things like spiders
3. A spider ghost story terrified me when I was little and I’ve never forgotten it
4. I’m a biologist, so I don’t like it when things get killed but I don’t want to deal with spiders = cognitive dissonance
5. I’m a romantic so I feign helplessness to watch a man be a knight in shining armor
How are those chains broken?
1. Kill the poisonous spiders
2. Relocate nonpoisonous spiders
3. Do a little Brave Guy dance
What has to be sacrificed?
1. Safety – he could get hurt if the poisonous spider bites him
2. Dignity – it’s more elegant to smash a nonpoisonous spider than chasing after it as it scurries away
3. Serenity – calming a hysterical woman isn’t a fun way to spend an afternoon
4. Laziness –he has to get up and do it
5. Autonomy – he has to stop whatever he was doing and do what I want
What’s gained?
1. Honor – he gets praise for being a brave guy in a scary situation
2. Appreciation – I could do it myself, but I don’t want to so I appreciate the help
3. Self-confidence – he accomplished something necessary
4. Legacy – I can tell a kickass spider slaying story so he gets to relive the honor when other people hear about it
5. Intimacy – relationships don’t exist without some kind of sacrifice, so this was another opportunity to strengthen the relationship

Straightforward, no? Breaking chains doesn’t have to be arduous or complex. This was one simple, banal act but it’s something worth hanging onto. It creates peace of mind and security for both people. I get it that believing you’re infallible also creates peace of mind and security. But it’s a false peace. Eventually something will come along to destroy it.

You can only ignore reality for so long

But, giving Anonymous the benefit of the doubt:

Who is being chained?
1. Anonymous (the writer is the one breaking the chain)
Who is doing the chaining?
1. Emotions
2. The state of the world
What are the chains?
1. Failure doesn’t feel good
2. Failure weakens the cause and makes people not want to help
How are those chains broken?
1. Not failing
What has to be sacrificed?
1. Logic? I’m not sure about this one
What’s gained?
1. Comfort – the sting of failure isn’t as bad if you ignore it

And here it is for Jester:

Who is being chained?
1. American people
Who is doing the chaining?
1. Jihadists
What are the chains?
1. Jihadists kill people
How are those chains broken?
1. Preventing jihadists from recruiting and issuing orders
What has to be sacrificed?
1. Safety - he could be killed
2. Time – it takes time to research, attack, respond to tweets, and maintain his daily life
3. Sanity – you can only deal with the crazies for so long before they get their stink all over you
What’s gained?
1. Honor – he did something valuable with his time
2. Self-confidence –proof that he can do what he sets his mind to
3. Appreciation – people don’t like dying, so it’s nice to have the help
4. Legacy – people will remember him and look up to him as a hero
5. Achievement of objectives – nobody dies in attacks that never happen

True peace comes from sacrifice so that someone else can have freedom. Jester has already proved that he sacrifices for everyone else’s peace and security. When Anonymous does that, then I’ll believe the rhetoric about freedom fighters and peaceful protests.

Spotting the flaw

Fixing the flaw

The Elusive Counterexample

Take home message

Other posts in this series

Serenity soundbites

The logic

Simplicity = terrifying

What’s your first reaction to this story?

Dealing with fear

Making the pain stop

Other posts in this series

Spotting the flaw

Fixing the flaw

Take home message

Other posts in this series

Serenity soundbites

The story

The explanation

There has to be a balance

Opposing theories

Other posts in this series

Spotting the flaw

Fixing the flaw

Take home message

Other posts in this series

Serenity soundbites

The logic

Love

Convincing people

Creating power

Conformity

Other posts in this series

Spotting the flaw

Fixing the flaw

Take home message

Other posts in this series

Serenity soundbites

The structure

Jester’s legacy

Heroes

How to be a hero

Other posts in this series

Spotting the flaw

Fixing the flaw

Take home message

Other posts in this series

Serenity soundbites

How to fix the flaw

This doesn’t have to be hard

You can only ignore reality for so long

Other posts in this series

How to Deal with Assholes

About us