Incoming Troll Radar!

Chapter Two - Episode XIX: Counter Disinfolklore ~ Controlling War Magic

Don’t get me wrong!

There were times on that bridge to the House of Lies (which I will tell you about later) when it was impossible to tell whether or not explosions had truly injured people, as the Russian bridge trolls alleged to me.

I was only then dimly aware of how Russian Disinfolklore creates realities solely in order to provide content for its Disinfolklore apparatus.

Diplomats as I was there then (and even the Russian diplomats I worked with on that bridge to Russia-occupied Ukraine) were mere bit-part actors activated to play roles we had no idea we were performing, for diabolical ends I could not then (2015-2018) have imagined in my wildest phantasmagorical nightmares. We were kindling to ignite in a civilisation confusion about the rights and wrongs of Russia’s brutal genocidal invasion of Ukraine in early 2014.

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I heard the explosions. I was on the scene within minutes of them occurring. I saw what the Russian bridge trolls told me was the blood of those injured. Yet, it could also be another substance. It was blackberry season. Tonnes of blackberries were being conveyed by porters across the bridge from government-controlled Ukraine to the Russia-occupied part of the country.

So, I have first-hand experience of how Russia may stage deaths and injuries to trigger a response. Yet, in a free society like Ukraine, even if there was some evidence that the Ukrainian authorities wanted to stage such “provocations,” given what I know about Ukraine, it strikes me as highly unlikely such a staged death could be pulled off.

Besides, when Russia has killed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians since February 24th, 2022, it is always going to be more likely that another death of a Ukrainian (for example, in the case of Lisa) is by the hand of Russia, rather than Ukraine.

Remember too what I just mentioned about Russian Disinfolklore not disclosing any generosity or empathy? Since Russia cannot imagine an Other (Ukraine) that is any different from itself, it always projects into its Disinfolklore the same Mana and values as Russia itself possesses. Russian Disinfolkore often reveals itself when its characteristics are attributed to another state or situation or character in its Disinfolklore. Because Russian Disinfolklore is full of artificial Lisa’s, it also assumes Ukrainian information space is too. When such projections do not ring true, then, we can sometimes detect in Russian Disinfolklore’s attribution of Mana / energy the reflection its own (im)morality in other information domains where we would not expect to find it.

As counter Disinfolklorists we do think through these possibilities. But we are not paralysed by them into both-sides’ing an event which beyond all reasonable doubt happened in the way it seems to have happened. Besides, if Russia wants the “benefit of the doubt,” it should just withdraw from Ukraine and then there would be no Russians there to be fake-blamed.

Our reaction of experiencing disgust at Russia is justified. By contrast Russians who believe the Disinfolklore that for example Russia’s atrocities in Russia-occupied Bucha were a “provocation” by Ukraine are wrong. As the organic counter Disinfolklore “North Atlantic Fella Organization” (NAFO) movement fellas might say. Nonsense. Residents of Bucha were massacred by Russian state operatives. Russians who believe Lisa did not exist or that the organic disgust that arose on the network after the photograph by her mother taken moments before a nuclear capable Russian Iskander missile obliterated her kindergarten in Vynnytsia was noticed was faked are wrong. We make this call. Second criterion in the Code of Positive Trolls is: Rightness. Ethical Discipline. And when something is not Right, whether in a meme or allegation about a War Crime, as Counter Disinfolklorists we make the call: the Mana in Russian memes that Ukraine sacrificed Lisa to win our sympathy or as a ‘provocation’ is untrue. It is not. Its illusory. It’s a figment in Russian Disinfolklore.

Normally we have what’s colloquially known as a bullshit detector (for reasons I will explain shortly, in Counter Disinfolklore we talk about developing your “Incoming Troll Radar.” This requires of us two skills we can sharpen, if we pay enough attention to gatekeeping what we allow into our mind: mindfulness (paying attention and monitoring the state of our bodies and mind), and introspection (scrutiny, alertness)).

Yet, when anyone - whether an advertiser, our child, our mother or our pet cat - wants us to do something for them, intuitively, they do precisely the same things as that house insurer’s advertisement in a previous example or as Russia promoting the idea that Bucha was a “provocation” by Ukraine:

They purposefully use means to induce in us an experience that is, given what they know about our particular personality or the knowledge of our cultural embedding, or of the archetypes that people the deep structure of our minds, highly likely to provoke in us an experience of feeling a specific emotion.

To be continued…

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Continued from:

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I was a guest on

Silicon Curtain Substack

this week. Great chat about, among other things, Disinfolklore’s origins in Herder’s insight that led to the unification of (some of) the Germanic peoples:

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This is where we are!

Beginning of Chapter Two:

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First in series:

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