[File under: Changing Patterns Survival Strategy]
Tried to write a post like this a week or so ago but it got eaten by web monsters. So I will make this one fast as I have to get to work here in a minute. Building on strategies discussed in the recent super post about surveillance.
Don Juan talks about this in the Castaneda books. Don’t have them handy though, so I won’t paste in any quotes. Something about how a man of knowledge or whatever term he uses must constantly change his patterns of activity. Honestly, I forget *why* he says that exactly, but it seemed cool at the time and it seems even cooler now. Constantly change. Pick up and discard aspects of what you consider your “self.” Suddenly give away your most prized possession, just to sever your attachment and always be forcing yourself to give up and move on.
But it’s not in a defeatist way. It’s a matter of creative withdrawal. You pull back your energy into yourself and are free to re-allocate it. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about finding strong fallback positions. Ideally, your fallback ought to be even stronger than your normal current or exploratory stance. Strongholds, psychological and otherwise. But you can’t let yourself be trapped. Change your appearance regularly. If you’re a dude, facial hair is a good way to muck around with this. Changing the styles of clothes you wear randomly, your patterns of speech, your patterns of though. Be a moving target. The only constant is change anyway, so jump in. Off to work…
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10 Comments
Another relevant pattern here is in training (be it weight training or meditative training or whatever). Do the same exercises over and over again, and you end up only working out one set of muscles/skills. You are no longer working out your body as a whole, but putting all the effort into developing only one part of it.
As for surveillance, this kind of switching things up is perfect cover. Surveillance (particularly of the data-mining variety) only works because it can be used to predict future behavior. If you present the watchers with unpredictability, all their surveillance won’t be worth a damn. This way of looking at things pretty much forces creativity and holistic training as a response to paranoia.
On the other hand, being unpredictable pretty much means you’re a blank slate for them to project on, and they’ll probably label you a terrorist…
Be ready for that with previously surveilled evidence of patriotism.
Actually, I just want to clear up a few mis-conceptions about Data Mining. It’s vastly less effective and intelligent than people give it credit for, mostly because the most vocal folks talking about Data Mining happen to run companies that do Data Mining. We’ll call it DM from here on out…already sick of typing that.
By regularly altering your life routines, you’re actually making yourself visible. The DM Homeland Security approach is looking for cues exactly like what you’ve detailed here to isolate people worth questioning and scrutinizing. For this exact reason, a lot of the most honest folks in the DM trade have been speaking up about how US Govt spending on DM as a terror prevention strategy is a LARGE WASTE OF MONEY. The entire point of a “sleeper cell” is that they’re meticulously created to behave exactly like everyone else.
However, the contracts have already been signed, the facilities have been built and the eggheads have been hired — so DHS marches on. Defenders of the program point out that although a sleeper cell is mostly invisible, they have to “break cover” shortly before their actual attack. As they ramp up preparations and make the shift from inconspicuous actors to militarized operatives, there will be distinct changes to their data trail. As long as DHS can act quickly, they can respond in time. (This is especially true since all “terrorists” are just angry dumb arabs being set up by FBI informants.)
So I have to disagree with Ian’s claim that “surveillance (particularly of the data-mining variety) only works because it can be used to predict future behavior,” since that’s actually not what it’s used for. It’s used to locate anomalous behavior, which helps them target their surveillance better. What Tim is decribing here is definitely anomalous behavior.
However, I don’t doubt that we could do it artfully enough to still be “invisible” — unable to be read as a continuous trail of data, since the breaks and periodicity will make no sense to a computer script based on very binary behavior patterns…either hypnotized normal or panicky criminal. There’s not a lot of room for dancing and art in that model, and our opening lies somewhere in between.
I’m also interested in more radical procedures, like deliberately inducing multiple personalities within yourself, or having a self-hypnotic pattern to talk yourself “out of” your normal behavior….a 60-second, highly conditioned mantra/command sequence for emergency situations.
Why did I use “exact” so many times in the 2nd paragraph?
I like your point and have to concede to your reasoning here, I think. I guess for me the “surveillance” question is really just a hook to hang a subject on that I wanted to talk about already and can easily be divorced from that discussion - and perhaps would be better to do so. Namely, the notion that it’s totally legitimate and okay to COMPLETELY switch gears in life on a regular basis. I’ve never just heard anybody say that it’s okay to do that and that there could be some real tangible benefits from living that way, so I just sorta wanted to say, go on with your bad self! Live however. There’s no real singular “right” way to be a human being, there’s just #whatworks and #whatyoucanlivewith as a human. I forget who the quote’s from, some Russian author, that a human being is something which can adapt to absolutely anything. Preparing for that on your own time by randomly making RADICAL lifestyle changes is very effective when the shit hits the fan…
Justin, have you written anything on surveillance vis-a-vis lifestyle marketing? Gonna start pushing things in that direction…
You must have just been trying to be really exact!
A much better wording of what I was trying to figure out by saying that surveillance was only useful for predicting future behavior. The idea being that the surveillance would have to be computerized and algorithmic to be of any use to those watching, and that changing behaviors wouldn’t fit into that. Identity dancing, to make use of your description.
Gurdjieff used to have something kind of like this, called the “stop excercise.” Granted, it was used to force people to just be mindful of their current state of attention and is supposed to be impossible to do without a teacher.
But I don’t see any reason it couldn’t be repurposed with some kind of random timing mechanism, so that whenever the alarm went off (or whatever), you would look at your state of mind/behavior/whatever, and then deliberately change something and hold that new stance until the alarm went off again.
It wouldn’t be a radical lifestyle change, but it would be good training for being able to comfortably make larger changes.
Really, I guess this is what I’m talking about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapeshifting
i have seen something like this idea expressed in one other place, recipes for disaster- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up_technique#Behavioural_cut-ups
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_process
This post via a cut up machine
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http://www.eskimo.com/~rstarr/poormfa/travesty.html