Society of the Psyop, Part 3: Cognition and Chaos - Journal #149

The article argues that digital media now observes its audiences and adapts to them, creating a targeted visual culture that shapes beliefs and actions, and it traces how this traces back to Cold War military deception. It describes the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the CIA used the Palladium system to create a decoy "UFO" that fooled Cuban radar and fighter pilots. The piece links Palladium to the U-2 and OXCART programs, which pursued invisibility and deception, and to what it calls "Cognitive Warfare." It also says human perception is slow and predictive, which makes it open to manipulation.