When I opened this site, I vowed that if I was to link to another site permanently, it would only be because I read the content there faithfully. While that may mean any number of things; things like I may or may not like the idea or the people involved, personally; or, that I may agree or disagree with the idea, or people involved, on any number of other issues; it certainly does means one very important thing: I take being associated with people very seriously. And, I’ll tell you, thats because I’m a tactician…

Most people (today) do not show (any noticeable) concern about their connection to society, in other words, they take it for granted. And that statement can easily be backed up, when we consider major reversals in privacy policies. Or, the large populations of the web sites MySpace or Facebook, where some of the most advanced information technology is employed toward rather socially empty ends — advertising and marketing. Policy is made, and tools are used to connect, with almost no real concern for their respective meaning.

That is one good reason not to be linking all over, people can be screwy. Now, in realizing my own hesitation toward connecting with people, and how I think others are over-willing to connect, a great deal about my own social tactics can be exposed. But, only if you’re willing to look at the rationale (or intent/motivations) for my tactics.

I swore I wouldn’t permanently link to any other place unless — I promised myself that it would take a valid, relevant thinker, who spends time on a topic that is difficult to avoid in my own mind.  Rarely would I do such thing with a whole community. But, all this because: I want the association to have meaning. In the end, I want this site to have some meaning.

If you looked closely at those tactics, you might see I believe value is created with rising demand or rising scarceness. But, what my little guideline has shown me is something else. It helped me understand something I read from Wired in May called “Don’t Look a Leopard in the Eye, And Other Security Advice”.

What my little rule showed me is that, control of perceived meaning is a key concern of tacticians — that control in general is a majority concern of people. This led me to thinking about tactics in general. And, it was then that I thought of this from the article…

Al-Qaida terrorism is different yet again. The goal is to terrorize. It doesn’t care about the target, but it doesn’t have any pattern of tactic, either. Given that, the best way to spend our counterterrorism dollar is on intelligence, investigation and emergency response. And to refuse to be terrorized.

I immediately realized how easy it is to misunderstand intent when all you have to look at are tactics and how important intent actually is in developing countermeasures — in this case misunderstanding intent, makes the tactics appear random when they are most certainly not. And snidely, I imagine it is a daunting task to develop a measure meant to counter an entirely random set of tactics. Perhaps thats why a “War on Terror”, or a “War on Drugs” are such idiotic notions, as one cannot battle a tactic. This may be a fault within conventional wisdom, that we as people do not immediately become introspective when dealing in tactics and countermeasures.

The lack of introspection is likely the cause for the tit-for-tat arms races that eventually results from this model of sociality. Yet, it seems obvious given the nature of entities both employing tactics, that true introspection would reveal both entities were one and had no need to fight. Its certainly this lack of introspection that causes people to remain ignorant to the intent of tactics, and allows them to make the assumptions they do. Some people might wonder why we make assumptions like this, but thats quite simple. It is, because in these instances the last thing someone would do is ask a question. This is exactly why they call this kind of information “intelligence.”

If you’re developing countermeasures against some entities tactics, it is usually considered a poor tactical response, to reveal how or when, you don’t know something and are forced to make assumptions. For instance, I’ve seen people make assumptions like “he’s so full of himself” when it comes to associating my work with other people. And this is far from the case — quite the opposite. I think such of myself that I’m careful about injecting myself into situations, and its more usually for the situation’s sake then my own. Though, I’ll be the first to admit that thinking I’m full of myself is a very sensible conclusion given the tactics being employed here. In the end though, it is just a commonly made mistake in how people mostly lack a well developed introspective thought process.

We see it, here in the article, as the author makes another of these sensible conclusion/assumptions; that terrorists don’t care about their target. It seems obvious too, and is entirely the case from certain perspectives, but again, it is these perspectives that make broad assumptions about the perspective of, in this case, terrorists, which I think may be wrong, perhaps fatally so.

I think terrorists do, indeed, care about their choice of a target very much. They do so though, in a very different way than most people care to imagine, because its just an awful way to think. And, I think I arrived at this notion, because I’ve employed especially introspective thought processes. Sure. I’m probably wrong, but, I don’t mind putting myself out there, which by the way, is a good reason to be careful about my associations.

In putting myself out there, here is what I feel is misunderstood in the above statement from the article: terrorists aren’t targeting the people they kill, they have a rather specific target though, still — its the people that survive. You see, terrorism doesn’t work on dead people, they’re dead. Terrorists’ focus on the people who survive and bare witness; these are the targets — who know then full well that next time, it could be them, in the victim role. Notice how fear gives rise to the first signs of introspection?

In short, terrorists want to be sure they target someone who maximizes the depiction of suffering, or at tactic that does so,  because their goal is to terrorize anyone [living] watching or listening. And, obviously, living people will always be more introspective about being killed than anything else.

So, what does all this teach us about tactics?

It teaches us to forget the tactics themselves all together when creating countermeasures. It teaches us that we need to focus more on the intent of tactics — that is, if we hope to become true tacticians. Because the ultimate goal of terror is unsure footing; to scare — a terrorist meets his goal when you lead a different life. You see, that is the goal of a terrorist to use tactics to terrorize you into a life that can be controlled through yet another set of tactics.

I think the moral is quite simple, and its not just to avoid being terrorized emotionally. Its more than not allowing yourself to feel a certain way. Frankly, that doesn’t even make sense to me. Instead, what we should learn as human beings is, to always focus on intent. Both in devising our own tactics as we do quite a bit now. But also in devising countermeasures to other’s tactics. Because, behind all of these activities are the underlying intentions, and, thereby more fundamental points of disrupting the entities themselves.