fuck, we've been trying to get them to do that over substantive issues for years, and what manages to get them to actually do it? some kind of mass hypnosis by a bad con artist, sending out instructions via some alternate reality rpg. i bet if you did a careful analysis of the people involved in this protest, that is the commonality amongst them - they are all gamers. and, while not to tar the broader gaming community too viciously, although i don't care for it myself, that is no doubt the right way to understand what just happened.
is there a lesson there in trying to manipulate people? is the conscious use of gaming platform style "reality augmentation" a useful means of generating mass movements? and, if so, could the left develop a simulation that could actually succeed in sweeping them into power?
there might be, but it's not clear that such tactics would lead to sustainable shifts in how power is used. i mean, it just sounds like a formula for brutality. the fundamental problem on the left has always been that it's always been unpopular, which we delude ourselves into thinking is a fantasy by speaking of "popular movements". but, if we fucking wanted communism then we would have it. so, we insist that the social revolution must come first, because we simply can't have socialism unless we change how we think, first. brainwashing people using what is at it's core military training technology may be effective in generating armies, but it's not so clear that it will be effective in changing how people think.
...except that it might be, if it's written to be.
i'm bringing this up because the utility of the tool is a legitimate open question. everybody's talking about cyberwarfare as something foreign actors do. but, the left should be embracing it as a tool of insurrectionary change, as a way to organize people, both to influence how they behave and, perhaps more importantly, to influence how they think.
if the next iteration of the republican party adopts these kinds of augmented reality game tactics as standard, the left will simply find itself at a tactical disadvantage should it disavow it's use. worse, the centre is pushing it's own augmented reality game with the russiagate thing. the question really ought to be about responsible use, rather than about use at all.
but, that's my takeaway, watching this - they got them to storm the capitol. finally. fuck.