Understanding Emerging Cognitive Dynamics in Bharat’s Information Environment
Understanding Emerging Cognitive Dynamics in Bharat’s Information Environment
Cognitive Warfare
Trusted Electronics and Supply Chain Security: A Strategic Legal Blueprint for Viksit Bharat 2047
Abstract The rapid digital transformation of economies and societies has elevated semiconductors and trusted electronics from industrial commodities to strategic assets that underpin national security, economic resilience, and technological sovereignty. As emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, quantum computing, and critical digital infrastructure become increasingly dependent on sophisticated semiconductor ecosystems, vulnerabilities embedded within global electronics supply chains pose significant strategic risks. Hardware Trojans, malicious firmware, counterfeit components, opaque manufacturing processes, and insecure technology transfers have expanded the threat landscape beyond conventional cybersecurity, exposing states to systemic risks that originate at the hardware layer. For India, these developments coincide with an ambitious national vision of Viksit Bharat 2047 and the strategic objective of establishing itself as a trusted global hub for electronics and semiconductor manufacturing through initiatives such as Make in India and the India Semiconductor Mission. While considerable policy emphasis has been placed on strengthening domestic manufacturing capabilities, the corresponding legal and institutional architecture required to secure trusted electronics and resilient supply chains remains fragmented. Existing cybersecurity legislation primarily addresses software vulnerabilities, data protection, and post-incident liability, leaving significant gaps in the governance of hardware integrity, semiconductor provenance, and strategic technology supply chains. This paper examines the evolution of India’s legal and regulatory framework governing trusted electronics and supply chain security through the lens of strategic trade management, constitutional governance, and national security law. Particular emphasis is placed on the emergence of SCOMET Category 7 as a significant development in India’s export control architecture, reflecting an evolving understanding of dual-use technologies, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, embedded software, and intangible technology transfers. The paper argues that the introduction of Category 7 represents a shift from regulating individual transactions towards managing systemic technological risk across critical sectors. The study further analyses the relationship between India’s cybersecurity laws, constitutional framework, strategic trade regulations, and international export control commitments, particularly under the Wassenaar Arrangement. It argues that contemporary hardware-layer threats cannot be effectively addressed through conventional liability-based legal frameworks alone. Instead, they require preventive governance mechanisms that integrate trusted electronics, secure supply chains, strategic technology controls, and institutional coordination. Building upon this analysis, the paper proposes a sovereignty-centric framework – the India Trusted Silicon Chain – that integrates legal reform, institutional coordination, trusted supplier certification, and strategic technology governance into a coherent national framework. The proposed framework seeks to strengthen India’s technological resilience while supporting its aspirations to become a trusted manufacturing destination and a responsible stakeholder in global technology governance. By repositioning trusted electronics as a foundational pillar of national security and digital sovereignty, this paper contributes to the emerging discourse on hardware-centric cybersecurity and offers a strategic legal blueprint for achieving the objectives of Viksit Bharat 2047. Download the complete CWA Research Report, using the link: Trusted Electronics and Supply Chain Security: A Strategic Legal Blueprint for Viksit Bharat 2047 About the Author:
Cognitive Warfare and the Idea of Sahaj Intelligence
In a democracy like Bharat, the relevance of awareness-driven engagement and a first-responder model within the context of national security is only set to grow. These decentralised, agile responses will play an increasingly critical role in the broader architecture of national defence and societal resilience. And this is precisely where the domain of Cognitive Warfare (CW) begins. India’s experienced strategic community has long observed—and participated in—the transitional journey from Information Warfare (IW) and Psychological Operations (PsyOps) to today’s evolving battlespace. But more recently, a new layer has clearly emerged. When we integrate tools like AI, AR/VR, synthetic media (including deepfakes), and other advanced technologies into this matrix, the battlefield shifts—from controlling information to controlling perception. And that perceptual battlefield is exactly where Cognitive Warfare takes shape. What is Cognitive Warfare – From a Layman’s Perspective One of the biggest barriers to exploring the potential of this domain is the lack of a clear, accessible understanding of what Cognitive Warfare actually means. Too often, we cloud the concept with security jargon, academic references, or overly technical frameworks—making it harder to grasp the basic idea at the heart of it. To cut through the noise, we need to start with a simple, grounded question: How do you explain Cognitive Warfare to someone who’s never heard the term—and what does it actually look like in practice? If the person is a complete layman—someone unfamiliar with advanced tech or modern digital systems (rare these days, but still possible)—we can explain it in lighter terms: Cognitive Warfare is really just the latest version of the oldest game in the world: manipulation. For centuries, manipulators have shaped the way people think, behave, or believe—whether they were ancient travelers, invading empires, imperial regimes, or even certain academic voices: sociologists, anthropologists, ideological influencers, or psychologists. But now, something new has happened. When these classic manipulators shake hands with modern computing, AI, and algorithmic technology, a far more powerful—and more subtle—form of influence emerges. That’s what we now call Cognitive Warfare. So, on a lighter note: It’s not new in spirit—but it’s faster, sneakier… and now, it scales. In essence, cognitive warfare isn’t about breaking systems—it’s about bending perception. And that requires an entirely different kind of defence. Note: The article has been published on the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) website. You can read the full article from there. Link to article – https://www.vifindia.org/2025/july/02/Cognitive-Warfare-and-the-Idea-of-Sahaj-Intelligence
Revolution in Technology Affairs [RTA]
Revolution in Technology Affairs (RTA) – the Concept Evolution in military technologies, tactics and strategies, that have the potential to revolutionize the character of warfare, is often viewed under the broader umbrella of RMA- Revolution in Military Affairs. The kind of environment that persuaded military strategists to consider the revolutionary changes in the character of warfare, in the context of global politics and security, today exists in the domain of Technology affairs too! The pace of developments in Information and Digital Technologies domains is rapid and revolutionary, and Bharat is at the forefront of this change! In the last 9 years of an unprecedented digital transformation, Bharat has presented a model of Digital Public Infrastructure and Digital Governance before the world! To observe/explore and study these changes, their current trajectory and future developments, the Cognitive Warfare Agency (CWA) introduces the idea of Revolution in Technology Affairs [RTA]. A concept originating from Bharat. Cognitive Warfare Agency (CWA) – http://cognitivewarfare.in/ About Devsena Mishra – https://www.linkedin.com/in/devsenami…
Idea of Data and the Virtual World: A National Security Perspective
Idea of Data and the Virtual World: A National Security Perspective – is an essay by Devsena Mishra, published in the National Security Journal of Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) Link to the Journal – Idea of Data and the Virtual World: A National Security Perspective
Virtual Reality and Data (Part 1)
A National Security Perspective Virtual Reality (VR), often projected as a future state of current tech improvisation, is, on the contrary, one of the earliest tech experiments of previous century. It’s a product of the Postwar phase, which in many ways, was haunted by the fear of mind control and counter-control obsessions! It was a time when on one hand, the psychologists were experimenting with their ‘controlled’ feedback methods, behaviourists were formulating and propagating their behaviour modification theories, and the cybernauts of the Valley (backed by the US military) were designing and developing digital realities in their labs and novelists/sci-fi writers were painting those wild imaginations with the metallic flavour of modern paranoia (for ordinary people), all at the same time! If those plans would have succeeded, the dystopian tech future would have arrived by now! So, what happened then? What stopped such well-laid-out plans halfway? Well, one can say that the Virtual Reality plans faced a reality check. The fuel to run the engine was missing! In the absence of mass reach of the internet and Data, the attempts to produce a low-cost, blockbuster version of VR products could not succeed! While on one side, Virtual Reality, as an idea and product, was itself in its immature state, on the other side, the perfect ‘fertility’ of human minds, their massive ‘engagement’ on screens, and needed universal ‘mindset’ shift cum acceptance, was entirely absent. A behavioural change process (which lasted a few decades) with enormous strategic patience was needed to reach the state we see today! “VR scientists are the illusionists of science; we’re honest when we tell you we’re fooling you, and you should take us seriously when we point out that we’re not the only ones.” (Jaron Lanier, “Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality,” 2017) To probe the limits of present-day Virtual Reality gadgets and their abilities to measure human imaginations, we must first explore the real fuel that runs these ‘Imagineering’ platforms and VR engines! The Idea of ‘Data’ Can the platforms that run behavioural algorithms on people’s screens in an ‘auto’ mode, manipulate the choice of their ‘users’ with precisely targeted dopamine content, see the ‘privacy’ of their consumers as a commodity that can be bought or sold to anonymous entities, facilitates networks of online scammers and shifts the entire burden of ‘responsibility/accountability’ on their subscribers (on the click of a button) and for whom any ‘intervention’ in this process by the democratically elected governments/ institutions, is a violation to their ‘rights’ to leverage this exclusive edge, could ever be inspired to make some behavioural changes in their approach to Data, Privacy, and Rights of their Users? These were perhaps some of the big questions before the drafters of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2023 of Bharat, which is now an act. “This law will start an era of responsible and accountable behaviour by data fiduciaries to maintain and protect citizen’s digital privacy” said Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar. The debate around Data, Privacy, and Protection is long and interesting. Over the last few years, several jargons related to the idea of ‘Data’ were launched, and many have attempted to equate the term with the ‘New Oil’ and ‘New Gold’ kind of abstract definitions to highlight its ever-growing value/influence in our life! One of the biggest ironies of ‘Data’ is that it often comes from people who have been told that they are going to be obsolete or replaced by the same machines that this Data fuels, and yet they are addicted/trapped to an extent, that they keep feeding these systems, pleasantly and voluntarily! According to some rough estimates, on average, routine internet users produce some 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day (a quintillion is equal to number 10 raised to the power 18). “The fate of information in the typically American world is to become something which can be bought or sold” –Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings (1950) Data is ‘Power’ Back in 2021, at the World Economic Forum (WEF) gathering, Russian President Vladimir Putin highlighted the digital giants’ increasing intervention in the social, economic, and political systems of the world, and he mentioned that: “In some areas, they are de facto competing with states.” Then he went a step further and asked the gathering, “Where is the border between successful global business, in-demand services, and big data consolidation and the attempts to manage society at one’s own discretion, and in a tough manner, replace legal democratic institutions and essentially usurp or restrict the natural right of people to decide for themselves how to live, what to choose and what position to express freely?” These are undoubtedly the dominant questions of this century. And today, it seems that words like Data and Big Data have become some of the biggest fallacies of our time, more deceptive than Russian Maskirovka itself! Ask a normal user of the internet what’s the meaning of these popular terms like Data and Big Data, and they will reply promptly ‘Information,’ without realizing that it is this Data cum information which is capable of electing the governments, destabilizing the political system, crashing the businesses/markets, disrupting the socio-economic environment, and winning the battles (not just of narration but physical too)! In a nutshell, today the idea of Data has become a synonym for ‘Power,’ the source of unlimited/unrestricted Power! And to know where this power currently resides and who controls it, one needs to go no further but to see the list of the world’s top 10 tech giants, and their home countries (and there is not a single Indian IT company in that list)! Now the question is if data is Power, then some amount of thrill, hallucination, and control it must have produced! So, what does a mix of all that look like, and where is the Real playground? Virtual World (आभासी दुनिया) The word ‘Virtual’ means आभासी in Hindi. Something that one can sense and interact with but which […]
Digital Empires – Emerging Trends And Visuals
These days, some strange and unnecessary trends/visuals/debates are flooding over our screens (whether we want to see them or not), and sometimes it seems that the ‘Digital Empires’ are making their presence felt in our life like never before! Other than Infrastructure and Economic Influence, these Digital Empires and their citizens both have some political acceptance too. Today, protecting the rights of ‘Digital Citizens’ is a top priority of democratic governments across the world, and such jargons are now a part of the routine public discourse and official briefs. So, from Digital Apps to Digital Economy to Digital Empires, it seems this global transition is going at a remarkable pace and ease! But sometimes, we must make a fair assessment/reality check on these Digital Empires’ influence to assess whether that is real or some mere fictional stuff. After all, many sci-fi believers exist among us! Now the question is: What should be the measuring stick or a metric to evaluate the strength of these Digital Empires? How can we check whether there is growing acceptance of their existence? And most importantly, where do these new ‘Empires’ stand before the old systems of governance that are still functional (or perhaps they seem so)? Let’s put it in a simple manner: Time is one of the most precious resources of human life, and we tend to measure the value of things in proportion to the ‘Time’ spent. Valuation of Time in our wage, labor, and all other economic exchanges, often helps us to determine the cost and worth of something. So, Time is money, we often say that, and traditionally, human beings tend to be quite thoughtful in spending their money. If we make ‘Time’ a measuring stick here, we can check how much time the Digital Citizens contribute/dedicate voluntarily to these Digital Empires. There are estimates that an average internet user spends approx 6 hours 58 minutes, in a day, on social media platforms (which is close to a full day work shift). Can we expect a normal citizen of any System (say in a democracy) to contribute even an hour from their daily life, only for the sake of sustaining/strengthening the idea of Democracy (happily and voluntarily)? We know we cannot! It takes enormous government efforts to motivate citizens to go to polling stations to exercise their voting (a basic right) once every three, four, or five years, and still, the participation remains lower than expected. That’s the case with every democracy across the world! But on the contrary, the same citizens are spending, their most precious asset – Time, on these platforms cum digital empires, happily and voluntarily, and yet they believe that it’s a free service and the emperors are so kind! These Digital Citizens are even ready to shed their right to privacy, secrecy, dignity, and independent thinking and life, for the sake of participating in the trends of these digital empires and they never demand their human rights here! For a System to exist, individuals must accept, participate and engage in that. So, the participation and engagement of people matters! Some are active to spread propaganda and others are there to counter that, some are seeking entertainment/pleasure, others are producing it, few are using it positively (for education/news, etc.), and the rest are abusing it negatively. But in the end, no one can escape from it, and they will be called ‘Digital Citizens’ of these ever-growing Digital Empires. No social or political organization, across the world, has the capacity for such constant mass mobilization of their members/followers for any single cause, regularly! So, what does the picture look like from an eye of a stakeholder/believer of old systems? Where do their institutions, structures, and platforms of public participation stand in front of these vastly accepted Digital Empires? A few days back, in an interview, while recalling the learnings of his father, Israeli PM Netanyahu said: “My father was a great historian and well, he taught me several things. He said that the first condition for a living organism is to identify danger in time, because if you don’t, you could be devoured. You could be destroyed very quickly. And that’s the nature of the human conflict.” The question we need to ask today is: How should one take these emerging strange and unnecessary trends/visuals/improvisations related to our family, social and religious structures? Is that a perfect trap to drag, attract and engage the remaining few, the detached ones? A few years back, voices on the attention economy and potential loss of creativity and mental capacity from an overdose of screen time, started surfacing across the world, and a healthy trend started where many people voluntarily stopped using these tools/platforms. But then something interesting happened, and all of a sudden tsunami of questions on the very existence of individual identity, their gender, their parenthood, their family, their social and moral beliefs, started surfacing, and that provoked those who were either detached or were in a mood to do so. They all got encouraged to participate. For what? To defend and counter what they believe in! They started participating in these social media exchanges again, sometimes for some serious discourse and sometimes for the good of humanity. Now, what happened next? They all eventually became participants/digital citizens on these Digital Empires! So, in the end, whose gain is this? If we summarize the potential loss from this trajectory, where it is going to hit the most, it seems that eventually, it is the idea of ‘Time’ and the idea of ‘Information,’ that will lose their relevance. In all previous conceptual revolutions in human history, the significance of Time and Information remained intact but now that is changing! When there is plenty of time to spend and a surplus of Information to consume, it is the abundance of time and information itself that has the potential to make them irrelevant too! As a human, we tend to give value to those resources that are scarce, not those that […]
Anti-Patterns of Performance and Bhartiya Practices
“The medium is the message,” said communication theorist Marshall McLuhan (Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, 1964). What McLuhan referred to in this phrase is “the psychic and social consequences of the designs or patterns as they amplify or accelerate existing processes,” as in his views, the ‘message’ of any medium or technology is “the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.” Pattern recognition forms a significant part of human observations, but in computer technology, the idea of ‘Anti Patterns’ exists too. So, what are the Anti-Patterns, and how do they work? To see that we can recall the Boeing 737 Max crash catastrophe, that happened between October 2018 to March 2019 (Yglesias 2019). In October 2018, a Boeing 737 Max passenger jet crashed shortly after take-off, off the coast of Indonesia, and five months later, following a similar pattern, another 737 Max crashed in Ethiopia. After investigations, it was widely reported that a flight control software fix known as MCAS (Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System) was one of the key factors that led to the two crashes that killed 346 people. The company tried hard to push the blame on the software malfunction (and even tried to push the blame further on an Indian IT company too) but from the accounts of those involved and their own country’s detailed investigation reports, it came to the surface, that the technology involved was not an isolated factor that contributed to that disaster, it was a part of a series of slip-ups! From economic incentives/drive for profits to culture to system engineering to sales process to training to user interface and documentation, every aspect that expected to yield some advantage instead proved deadly anti-patterns for the stability and performance of the aircraft. And the way those small leakages in their overall working culture/approach, got unnoticed and undocumented in the first crash and surpassed the system again to make their way to the second, reflects the very nature of the ‘Anti-Patterns.’ In 1995, programmer Andrew Koenig first coined the term “Anti Pattern” in his article published in the Journal of Object-Oriented Programming. His core idea was that: an Anti-Pattern often seems like a good approach when you begin, but slowly it leads you into trouble. In simple words, these are not some types of flaws, bugs, or errors that could surface in routine observations, as these practices initially appear to be beneficial and rewarding, but ultimately, they result in seriously damaging consequences. This is one of the key problems with anti-patterns that they look trivial, useful, attractive, and relevant, at the beginning, and due to that illusion, those who follow them often lack the interest/desire to anticipate that in the long run, they can pave the way for unprecedented disaster too. Performance Culture of Bharat – Some Background The performance ethos of our people is rich and most praised in the world, and that reflects in the numbers and volume of our active participation in the skills/performance-based industries and domains across different geographies. The philosophy behind ‘Performance culture’ of Bharat is a bit unique. It is based largely on mutual respect, cooperation, coexistence, and mutual harmony. One can say that by culture, temperament, and by tradition, we are qualitatively different from Western societies. And what differentiates us from the rest is that our people are not vocal about their acts, they are the silent doers, and do not believe in claiming or proclaiming something. There are millions of such silent/unsung/unpraised performers, who far from any limelight doing the heavy lifting for the current trajectory of the country. It is the Performance culture of Bharat, which is one of our core assets, and a crucial differentiator as well! What is changing? Today, there are over 750 million smartphone users in India, and we are going to touch the billion mark soon! According to some rough estimates, an average internet user spends over 6 to 6.5 hours a day online, which is close to a full day work shift. We are aware of the fact that the imported ‘Medium’ and ‘Technology’ on which our people are engaged so intensely has a character and a psychology of its own, and it is visibly bringing a radical psychological/behavioural shift/transformation in the lives of our common people. While we are always open to change, we must also observe/review and monitor what kind of transformation it would be. And at what level is it going to impact our behavioural patterns? Technology Led Anti-Patterns of Performance “The most important thing about a technology is how it changes people” ― Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget. Roast Culture Anti-Pattern Trolling is a thing of the past. These days our youths are enjoying a new kind of dope on social media platforms called ‘Roast.’ The idea of Roast or Roasting (insult comedy/mockery in the form of humour) is not new but what has changed now is that it is now becoming one of the leading flavours in different domains, be it politics, religion, economy, or even education. Why such a flavour is leading? Because it’s easy, interesting, and entertaining, and gives a different kind of psychological pleasure of having an upper hand on something, be it an issue, event, or a topic of discussion. In India, the trend of Roasting, in its current form, started back in 2015, with AIB Knockout, which sparked big controversies and public backlash (FIRs) due to their lewd comments/acts and obscene shows, which finally led to the shutting down of their production (FirstPost Staff 2015). But the irony is that, within a matter of a few years, today all that seems a part of the mainstream, and today hundreds of more crude and pornographic daily shows/shorts called ‘Roast’ are going live on almost all popular social media platforms. Their hosts and audiences both often fall in the age group of 12 to 30 years of range, and the daily viewership/engagements of these roasters cum influencers are in the millions. From an outer […]
10th Man View of National Security (Part-2)
READ ALSO: 10th Man View of National Security (Part-1) An interesting thing about Success Models is that those who pursue them, live in an illusion of ‘control’ and think that whatever they are getting is due to the pain and hard-work they are putting into it. Why? Because their schedule of ‘rewards’ is not fixed! It’s not that they are sure to be rewarded for each and every actions, sometimes they get nothing and sometimes a lot – this unpredictable nature of rewards make them more devoted pigeon, who try hard and thinks may be I have not pecked enough, it is for them there are some motivation quotes available in the market too, such as “No Pain, No Gain.” This is the idea of Variable Ratio Reinforcement theory, which in Skinner’s view yields maximum response rate and maximum sustainability! Creator Economy – Early Signs Over the last few weeks, some headlines are flashing in the mainstream media about the Tulsi Village of Chhattisgarh. The village is now called a YouTubers’ hub, YouTuber Hot Spot, and Content Capital of India, as one in every three residents of village is now a Youtuber, a member of Creator Economy. There are over 1000 Youtubers in the village with a population of approx 3000. And these days all national media outlets are filled with the Success Stories of this village. There are stories from an 85-year-old grandmother to a 15-year-old boy, from people leaving government jobs and farming types routine professions to earning the name, fame, and celebrity status. And the village is now promoted as a Model Village for the country! Some outlets have mentioned that every kid born in this village and its surrounding, now aims to be only a Youtuber in life. After all, those who used to earn 10-15 thousand in a month, today earning 35-40 thousand, and as the number of their subscribers/followers is ramping up, there is no limit to their Success! The whole scheme of the creator economy looks like nothing less than a dream for the residents of this small village of Bharat, at least in numbers and narration. This is a classic case of a ‘Success Model’ in making! Creator Economy has already started setting its footholds in our small towns and villages, the Tier II/Tier III towns and villages are their main target! One can say that this is a unique model of ‘AatmaNirbharta’, which is developed by, nurtured by, and promoted by foreign platforms! Now the question comes how we will convince a kid growing up in these villages, to perform the real work in life, when everyone around him/her is earning not just 100 times more money but name/fame and celebrity status too. And what all it takes is a Smartphone and some ‘fakeness’ before the camera! We cannot ignore the fact that it is our Small Towns and Villages which produces our farmers, our soldiers, our craftsmen, and our Industrial clusters, so giving the foreign tech platforms’ Creator Economy a free runway here is like leasing out the potential of Bharat! And if these viral trends of today become ‘Success Models’ of tomorrow, it will probably take another War of Independence in future to bring our people back on track! Addiction is a neurological process, which can shattered the life of individuals, societies and nation and it is generally irreversible! Drug Addiction in some of our border states like Punjab is one of our key national security issues, and we have seen our rural Punjab falling in the grip of this menace before our eyes! Now these platforms of virtual dopamine- are another man made calamity in making, gradually spreading in the villages and small towns, under the shadow of ‘Creator Economy.’ Our inability to not see these trends can be called nothing but our intentional or unintentional ‘Vision Blindness.’ And it’s a matter of National Security concern! ‘Pit bull’ Controversy -– Uttar Pradesh A few days back, news about a gym trainer’s 80-plus-year-old mother getting killed by their American bully dog pit bull surfaced in the media. The way hundreds of dog/cat lovers, across social media platforms, started a campaign to stand with the killer dog, started showing empathy with the owner for keep showing love to his dog despite losing his mother, and the way entire focus of discussions shifted toward pit-bull’s emotions, it makes one to wonder that what caused our society to become so insensitive, inhuman and immoral! From day one, the young man was pretending to be more ‘unusually’ caring and loving toward his killer pet, and his whole focus was on showing himself ‘cool’ and saving his and his American pit-bull’s brand image. After all, he was in the center of a viral trend, how can he pretend to be a normal human! This is the reality of this token economy, where being viral is more important than living as a normal human! “With nothing else to seek but attention, ordinary people tend to become assholes, because the biggest assholes get the most attention. This inherent bias toward assholedom flavors the action of all the other parts of the BUMMER (Behaviors of Users Modified and Made into Empires for Rent) machine,” Jaron Lanier, author ”Ten Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Account Right Now” and creator of Virtual Reality. If we take the above case as a symbolic reference then the young man represents our Gen Z and emerging Creators’ community, his pit bull represents American tech platforms, and the old mother can be seen as a symbol of our National Interests. With whom do you think our youngsters will stand in the future? “The mob rushes in where individuals fear to tread.” ― B.F. Skinner, Walden Two There are many such early warning signs related to Creator Economy that exists, and it will need a separate case study of its own for those signs alone. But in a nutshell, Creator Economy is now turning into the most upgraded engine of producing new/improved Success […]
10th Man View of National Security (Part 1)
Technology of Behaviour and Success Models Technology dominance is a misleading term! Some of the most impactful innovations of our time are not ‘technological,’ they are ‘psychological,’ crafted by psy-chologists/ behaviorists of Silicon Valley labs! Ideas after experimenting successfully on rats and pigeons are offered to the social media animals (a bit higher class of species), to confirm their validity/effectiveness. Then our responses are monitored/ recorded in real-time so that improvements/ enhancements can be made for better ‘conditioning’ in the future release! It’s an endless loop of behavior modification, and there is no way to turn it off! If these visuals sound unusual and uncomfortable, then we need to look at what one of the most radical behaviorists of the 20th century, B.F. Skinner was doing with his ‘Skinner Box’ in the middle of World War II. Skinner and a ‘crackpot’ Idea One fine day, an American psychologist received funding from the U.S. Military to implement his ‘crackpot idea’ (as he referred to it) to set up the Project Pigeon, a proposal to use living organisms (pigeons in this case) to guide missiles. Two of his programs, a research program during World War II called “Project Pigeon” and a peacetime continuation of that program called “ORCON” (short form for Organic Control), obtained sponsorship from U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. While working on the project, he realized the power of ‘behavior shaping’ methods, which in simple words means rewarding an animal for a desired behavior/response and punishing him for doing the opposite. Shortly, Project Pigeon got suspended, but the idea was captured and implemented in developing the electronic guided systems! Encouraged by the response to his crazy ideas, Skinner continued his experiments to test his ‘ideas of behavior shaping’ on rats, pigeons, and other testable animals and developed a doctrine called ‘Technology of Behavior,’ which is also known as a technology of behavior modification. NATIONAL SECURITY, Technology of Behaviour, Technology dominance, psychological dominance, behavior modification, Skinner Box, Skinner box and the idea of ‘Conditioning’ “Almost all major problems involve human behavior, and they cannot be solved by physical and biological technology alone. What is needed is a technology of human behavior.” (B.F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, 1971) In Skinner Box – a soundproof enclosure with a food dispenser, that a rat can operate by pressing a lever or a pigeon by pecking a key, Skinner used to experiment with the animal’s behavior through ‘contingencies of reinforcement’ – circumstances under which desired behavior is rewarded to make sure it will be repeated. The behavior he demanded from those pigeons/ rats was weird and unnatural for them, such as he used to make them walk by making figure eight, by rewarding them with food at some moments. And the process, as explained by Skinner, goes like this: “I watch a hungry pigeon carefully. When he makes a slight clockwise turn he’s instantly rewarded for it. After he eats, he immediately tries it again. Then I wait for more of a turn and reinforce again. Within two or three minutes, I can get any pigeon to make a full circle.” Through this process, what he called operant ‘conditioning’ or technology of ‘behavior,’ he taught pigeons to dance and to play Ping Pong too. And one of his partners in those experiments got so excited that he left his full-time psychology career and started a commercial behavior business for animals! One of the key discoveries from those experiments, in Skinner’s view, was the ‘schedule of reinforcements/rewards,’ and based on that, he devised different ways of delivering rewards, as per the response rate of animals(pigeons/ rats). He insisted that “a procedure in which behavior is reinforced or rewarded after scheduled but unpredictable time durations yields the most stable rate of response,” which in simple words means that if an animal knows he will get some rewards for his particular behavior but the timing for that is not fixed, it is unpredictable, then he can be tempted to do more, as long as the person who controls the box and lever of rewards wants! This is how all gambling/ casino system works and they are highly addictive too. If it can work for rats or pigeons then why can’t it work on humans too, with this fantasy in his mind, he invented several other devices too, i.e. a cumulative recorder, an air crib for training infants, a teaching machine to automate the task programmed learning, and a verbal summator, etc. It is said that he went to an extent of performing those experiments on his kids! Skinner aspired to build such a Skinner box for the whole of humanity, where people’s behavior can be shaped and controlled by a few and chosen people of the world! But who are those few people in his views? It’s a question that he never bothered to answer! Later, Skinner wrote a sci-fi novel called “Weldon Two” (1948) where he visualized a perfectly socially engineered society, working as per his principles of operant conditioning! “I’ve had only one idea in my life…to put it as bluntly as possible – it is the idea of having my own way, the control of human behavior…I remember the rage I used to feel when a prediction went awry. I could have shouted at the subjects of my experiments, Behave, damn you! Behave as you ought!” – B.F. Skinner’s novel Walden Two, 1948 (the dialogue is from a character in the novel, who is also an alter ego of the author). It is interesting that this radical behaviorist who denied the idea of ‘free-will’ and independent thinking (he used to call them illusion), propagated the thesis of ‘conditioning’ human actions like those of rats and pigeons, and formulated devices of social engineering- is the Man behind the ‘User Experience’ of the world’s first computer network and the first social media platform (PLATO system) too! As Skinner mentioned in his paper ‘Pigeons in a Pelican,’- “One virtue in crackpot ideas is that they breed rapidly […]