PROTOTYPE
Smoking
ephemeral writing circles...
The self,
transformed into reflexes,
into cysts
of immediate sugars,
grabs the heart
of the earth
and throws itself
into the digital
to dance
the boredom
of production.
Butterfly pleasures
that burn
in the light of time
dissolved by emergencies,
indefinite,
infinite splintering
as prototype.
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DIGITAL
PANDEMIC
L. Poenaru
While the term "digital pandemic" may not have the same connotations as a biological pandemic, it has significant biological repercussions on the overall health of populations (cognitive and allostatic load, technological stress, social pressure to pursue an ideal life, domestic violence, autoimmune diseases, cultural and political stress, work-related stress, addictions, ADHD, anxiety, self-harm, etc.). It reflects the growing threat posed by the rapid dissemination of harmful and manipulative digital content in our interconnected world. Addressing this challenge requires collective action, informed decision-making, scientific research, and ongoing vigilance to protect populations worldwide.
The context that interests us represents a source of exponential stress and allostatic load[1] (Juster, McEwen, Lupien, 2010). It is evident: one does not remain captive to a "fight-flight-freeze" digital logic (simultaneous combat, flight, and immobilization on a screen that exploits and distorts our attraction to negative stimuli) without becoming increasingly stressed by the unconscious injection of economic codes that condition us like Pavlov's dogs. Psychosocial stress produces changes in cognition, affect, behavior (Wolf, 2018), while a growing number of studies demonstrate the effects of stress on inflammatory reactions and the immune system (Yan, 2016). Pruett (2003) reminds us that there is now irrefutable evidence demonstrating that stress responses can cause clinically relevant immunosuppression as well as other types of immune system dysfunction. The production or action of stress mediators are the main culprits of undesirable immunological effects.
(...)
While many actions on social media remain within legal boundaries, their potential to manipulate, exploit, and harm individuals and societal structures calls for a reexamination of legal and ethical standards. Indeed, the dynamics of social media and digital platforms, driven by algorithms and data exploitation, create a highly vulnerable ecosystem. Psychological manipulation, data exploitation, misinformation, socio-political influence, and economic manipulation contribute to a landscape where individual autonomy, privacy, mental health, and democratic processes are at risk.
(...)
The rise of meme stocks (Aloosh, Choi, Ouzan, 2021) underscores the powerful role social media plays in modern financial markets. By enabling rapid information dissemination, fostering herd behavior, and sometimes propagating misinformation, social media can significantly influence stock prices and market dynamics. While this democratization of market influence empowers retail investors, it also introduces new risks and challenges, including market volatility, regulatory scrutiny, and the potential for financial instability.
[1]Allostatic load refers to the cumulative burden of chronic stress and life events. Juster, McEwen, and Lupien (2010) suggest that by incorporating an allostatic load index representing neuroendocrine, immune, metabolic, and cardiovascular system functioning, numerous studies have demonstrated greater prediction of morbidity and mortality over and beyond traditional detection methods employed in biomedical practice. Poenaru
DEEP reading
THE
BARRAGE
OF
STIMULI
IN
CYBERCAPITALISM
AND
THE
OPPONENT
PROCESSES
L. Poenaru
The barrage of stimuli in cybercapitalism—characterized by constant exposure to digital content, rapid information cycles, and the omnipresence of social media—can be intricately understood through the lens of opponent process theory. This theory, originally proposed by Solomon and Corbit in 1974, posits that emotional responses to stimuli are often followed by an opposing process that counteracts the initial emotional reaction. Over time, this counteracting process can become stronger, leading to habituation and a shifting emotional landscape.
The theory of opponent process suggests that emotional responses are not isolated or static but are dynamically regulated through opposing processes that work to maintain emotional equilibrium. This theory posits that emotional experiences are the result of two opposing processes:
-
The primary process (A-process): This is the initial emotional response to a stimulus. It is usually strong and direct, elicited immediately after the stimulus is encountered. For example, when you drink coffee, you may initially feel a strong sense of alertness and energy. This is the A-process, which is positive in this case.
-
The opponent process (B-process): The B-process is a secondary emotional response that counteracts the A-process. It typically begins shortly after the A-process starts and works to balance or reduce the intensity of the initial emotion. The B-process is usually opposite in nature to the A-process. For instance, after the initial alertness from coffee, you might experience a "crash" or a feeling of fatigue as the B-process kicks in to counteract the heightened arousal.
These processes work in tandem to keep a physiological variable (like body temperature, blood pressure, or emotional state) within a narrow, optimal range. When one process pushes a variable away from its set point, the opposing process acts to bring it back.
Homeostasis begins with the detection of a change in the internal environment. For example, if your body temperature rises above the normal range, sensors in your body detect this deviation. Once the change is detected, an opponent process is activated to counteract it. In the case of a rise in body temperature, the body initiates cooling mechanisms, such as sweating and vasodilation (widening of blood vessels), to dissipate heat and lower the temperature. The opponent process continues until the variable (in this case, body temperature) returns to its set point. Once the temperature is back within the normal range, the cooling mechanisms are dialed down or stopped, preventing the body from cooling too much. This system operates continuously, with the opposing processes constantly adjusting to small deviations from the set point. For example, if the body starts to cool too much, the opposing process of heat production (e.g., shivering, vasoconstriction) will kick in to warm the body back up.
In the context of cybercapitalism, the continuous onslaught of stimuli, ranging from advertisements, notifications, and sensational news to the instant gratification offered by social media, creates a complex emotional environment for individuals. These stimuli often elicit strong emotional reactions—whether it's excitement, outrage, or pleasure—which are then followed by an opponent process, a contrasting emotional state that seeks to restore equilibrium. For example, the initial excitement from receiving social media notifications can be followed by a sense of emptiness or dissatisfaction, as the opposing process dampens the initial positive response.
Over time, the constant exposure to such stimuli can lead to a kind of emotional numbing or desensitization, where the opponent processes become more pronounced. The initial highs become less satisfying, and individuals may find themselves in a state of chronic dissatisfaction or anxiety, driven by the need to continuously seek new stimuli to achieve the same emotional highs. This is particularly evident in how social media platforms and digital marketing are designed to exploit these emotional cycles, keeping users engaged through an endless loop of anticipation, gratification, and subsequent emotional downturn.
Read MORE:
https://www.liviupoenaru.com/post/the-barrage-of-stimuli-in-cybercapitalism-and-the-oppent-processes
LIVRES
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ALL
SOLDIERS
OF
PSYCHOLOGICAL
WARFARE?
Liviu Poenaru
UNLIMITED WAR AGAINST ONESELF
The questions posed by Albert Einstein to Sigmund Freud in 1933 remain pertinent nearly a century later: "How is it possible for the masses to be inflamed (...) to the point of frenzy and self-sacrifice? (...) Is there a way to direct the psychological development of men so that they become more resistant to the psychoses of hatred and annihilation?" (Einstein, Freud, 1933, p. 67). However, the contemporary context of neoliberal and cybercapitalist warfare is radically different from the military wars referenced by Einstein and Freud. Alliez and Lazzarato (2016) view liberalism as a "philosophy of total war" and consider capital as "ontologically anti-democratic." They propose a continuity and interdependence between the economy and war that gives rise to the "capitalocene," which generates the "anthropocene."
This suggests that the "peace-crisis-war-solution" sequence involving military action has been fundamentally altered in the total war within the population that follows the evolution of capitalism. This war within-against-for the populations is indefinite and infinite, paralleling the law of capital accumulation, and manifests in a plurality of wars: of classes, races, sexes, intelligences (Alexandre, 2017), information (Colon, 2023), etc. The war against subjectivities and simultaneously for the creation of unlimited, consumable-consumerist-productivist subjectivities (Poenaru, 2023) undergoes massive repression (colluding with dominant propaganda) within clinical psychology research, while the academic-military-economic complex draws its strategies from the multiple fields of psychological sciences.
"Deterritorialized war is no longer inter-state war but an uninterrupted series of multiple wars against populations, permanently pushing 'governmentality' toward governance in a common enterprise of denial of global civil wars. (...) The matrix of these civil wars is colonial war. The latter was never a war between states but essentially a war within and against the population, where distinctions between peace and war, between combatants and non-combatants, between economic, political, and military aspects never applied. (...) Its war will be both fractal and transversal: fractal, because it produces its invariance indefinitely through constant change of scale (its 'irregularity' and the 'fractures' it introduces operate at various scales of reality); and transversal, because it unfolds simultaneously at the macropolitical level (playing with all the great dual oppositions: social classes, whites and non-whites, men and women...) and at the micropolitical level (through molecular engineering favoring the highest interactions)" (Alliez, Lazzarato, 2016, p. 28-29).
Freud responds to Einstein by recalling his theory of instinctual ambivalence and the interplay of life-preserving and aggressive instincts. These flourish under the influence of Eros and Thanatos, determining a permanent and necessary entanglement of life and death instincts driving evolution. History, of course, confirms the indelible intertwining of various instincts theorized by Freud.
"(...) more attention should be devoted than has been done so far to educate a layer of men thinking independently, inaccessible to intimidation and striving for the truth, who would lead the non-autonomous masses. It requires no demonstration that the encroachments of state powers and the prohibition of thought by the Church are not conducive to raising such men. The ideal state would naturally be a community of men who have subjected their instinctual life to the dictatorship of reason" (Einstein, Freud, 1933, p. 79).
The critique of how state powers raise men and the proposal to educate a layer of independently thinking men, inaccessible to intimidation, is commendable. However, the creation of a "superior layer" remains debatable, as does questioning the lack of autonomy of the masses: is it natural or naturalized, constructed by states and a colonizing civilization (of mass psychology) driven by capital, producing subjectivities enslaved to the wage regime and production-consumption? What is the power of states compared to the increasing dictates of corporate powers over global, collective, individual, and unconscious laws?
Freud criticizes the Church's prohibition of thought, but what about the lack of freedom of thought and autonomy in academic circles (Chomsky, 1967/2017; Beaud, 2021)? Who will educate this mass of autonomous individuals if disciplinary institutions (Foucault, 1975) remain subject to the fractal and transversal war of capital and the early conditionings preparing future adults for anthropological and economic cataclysm? Why the dictatorship of reason if unreason is part of the epistemic balance and if human reason is now infested with artificial intelligence? Moreover, Freud believes that "everything that promotes cultural development works at the same time against war" (Einstein, Freud, 1933, p. 81). However, this viewpoint is obsolete in a world where culture has become one of the main vectors of political-economic propaganda (brilliantly analyzed by Guy Debord in 1967, in *The Society of the Spectacle*).
Psychological warfare, which concerns us, is an integral part of total war, one of the many facets of a belligerent kaleidoscope producing the illusion of democracy, progress, security, and population well-being. Its fundamental strategies and techniques aim to destabilize the opponent, making them believe they are in a position of weakness and should surrender. This is precisely what we experience in the era of the internet and social networks. Yet, the fractal and transversal psycho-economic war of cybercapitalism has not stopped at destabilizing the opponent.
READ MORE
https://www.liviupoenaru.com/all-soldiers-of-psychological-war
