Anti-Robot Inundation Army
Adding Noise in the Propaganda War

The majority of the postcards were sent out at random. The Information Theory series cards were mostly sent to people I know. The FEAR/Political series were sent to people whose addresses I pulled at random from the Cincinnati, Ohio phone book and some random addresses accross the USA. The response from people who have figured out who was sending these cards has been very positive. Some have even offered to donate to the cause.

The Data Diatribe project (now the Anti-Robot Inundation Army) has grown way beyond the original scope. Somewhere along the line the Information Theory series seems to have merged with the FEAR series ... mostly because of the 2004 U.S. Presidential election. With that now behind us, I'll probably concentrate on random propaganda. For those of you who missed some of the postcards, here is a catalog of what has been sent out to date. Each card was a limited run, though the political stuff seemed to grow as the election grew closer. In some cases there may be a few cards still available. If you see something you must have to complete your collection (or would like to acquire it so you can burn it) each card is available for $4.00 (US) and you can use PayPal. (You can just send money if you like. Contact me either way...)

You can also have any of these cards (that are still available) sent anonymously to anyone you like. I'll try to create a form to do so soon.

All images are licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Series: Information Theory
Title: Information Consumes Attention
Description: 4"x6" Card Stock, various colors. First in the series.
Number of cards in run: 25
Number remaining: 0
Release Date: June 2004
Verbiage:
Manifesto:
You have not been chosen at random. Please disregard this message. Are you still reading? Consider: There is no original thought; just data, signal and noise; recycled and reused but seldom reduced. Data without context is noise. (Data is useless without a context in which to interpret it.) Data only becomes information once it has been understood and transformed into a useful medium. Information without context, misinformation, incorrect information and out-of-date information equals information entropy. Information consumes attention and attention is a finite resource. A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and information entropy creates an attention bankruptcy. What is worse - a lack of information or too much information? One may be manipulated and oppressed by either.

How will you allocate your bounded attention?

Series: Fear
Title: Game
Description: 4"x6" Card Stock, various colors
Number of cards in run: 27
Number remaining: 0
Release Date: July 2004
Verbiage:

Game: Match these words to the icons on the reverse side of this card:
Peace, Love, Chance, Information, Knowledge, Conformity.
Answer Key: You are probably correct.
Consider: The "culture wars" are a red herring. All political debate is economic debate. Wherever you stand on gay marriage, the war in Iraq , abortion or religion, if you cannot feed your family, educate your children or assure their health, none of these issues matter. Follow the money .

Series: Information Theory
Title: Information Does Not Equal Knowledge
Description: 4"x6" Card Stock, various colors
Number of cards in run: 35
Number remaining: 2
Release Date: July 2004
Verbiage:

Signal to noise:
Data does not equal information. Data must be interpreted and understood in order to become information. Information does not equal knowledge . Knowledge is a construct that is created in the mind of the user as a result of accessing, processing and understanding information. Different individuals may extract different knowledge from the same information ... or may extract no knowledge at all.

No matter how sophisticated the medium; garbage in still produces garbage out. Noise cannot modify our expectations and to understand the sentence is not necessarily to understand the message.

 Are you missing the message?

Series: Information Theory
Title: Meme
Description: 4"x6" Card Stock, various colors
Number of cards in run: 37
Number remaining: 2
Release Date: July 2004
Verbiage:

memen. (mm) : A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Memes are the cultural counterpart of genes and can be considered the unit of cultural evolution. Ideas can evolve in a way analogous to biological evolution. Some ideas survive better than others; ideas can mutate through, for example, misunderstandings; and two ideas can recombine to produce a new idea involving elements of each parent idea. Memes are contagious ideas, all competing for a share of our mind in a kind of Darwinian selection. As memes evolve, they become better and better at distracting and diverting our attention. They are viruses of the mind. Individual slogans, catch-phrases, melodies, icons, inventions, and fashions are typical memes. All transmitted knowledge is memetic.

Remember this. It may be important later.

Series: Information-Theory
Title: Propaganda
Description: 4"x6" Card Stock, various colors
Number of cards in run: 40
Number remaining: 1
Release Date: August 2004
Verbiage:

Is untrue information still information?
Disinformation is deliberately misleading information announced publicly or leaked by a government or corporation or other entity for the purpose of influencing opinions or perceptions.
Misinformation is information that is not true. The difference is intent.
Propaganda is a specific type of information aimed at serving an agenda. Even if the message conveys true information, it may be partisan or fail to paint a complete picture. Propaganda attempts to change people’s understanding through deception and confusion rather than persuasion and understanding. Advertising, public relations and (cynically perhaps) all political speech can be said to be propaganda.
All are noise.

Anymore, can we distinguish between political and corporate propaganda?

Series: Fear
Title: War on Iraq
Description: 4"x5" image on 4"x6" Card Stock, various colors
Number of cards in run: 50
Number remaining: 0
Release Date: August 2004
Verbiage:

What is it good for? Saddam Hussein is not responsible for the 9-11 attacks. There were no Iraqi citizens among the 9-11 terrorists. There is no link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Osama Bin Laden is not in Iraq . There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq . The Iraqi people did not ask to be “liberated”.

So why is the United States waging war on Iraq ?