A Fourth Method of Attacking Starfish ~ by Ransom

 

This is a follow-up to last week's article on the same topic.

A fourth method of attacking starfish is to outcompete the starfish organization in the pursuit of recruits, thereby starving it of the human feedstock with which to function and grow.

Starfish grow laterally by creating connections between peers, often cultivating existing relationships in more casual organizations.  Centralized organizations wanting to fight distributed organizations may be well served by disrupting this process.

Established centralized organizations may have an advantage over emerging distributed organizations due to their financial resources and existing ties & shared interests with media and other idea-propagating organizations.  These two assets enable them to flood potential recruits with marketing similar to that of the decentralized organization but directed towards the formation of a hybrid organization that isolates and starves the distributed organization.

A partial list of such tactics includes:

• Form a hybrid organization that advocates a position like that of the target organization but intentionally devoid of undesired messaging
• Form a hybrid organization that advocates a position like that of the target organization but directed towards a different goal
• Use friendly media organizations to flood the attention of prospective converts with the controlled hybrid organization's messaging so that the similar messaging of the target organization has difficulty gaining attention
• Use friendly media organizations to broadcast a managed conflict theater that presents your hybrid organization as struggling mightily against the target organization's adversaries, thereby gaining legitimacy and recruits at the expense of the target organization

The various BLM branches are examples of such hybrid organizations that drain attention & recruits from the local organizations that serve the interests and needs of blacks.

Industries sometimes form advocacy or watchdog groups that don't hold companies to the same standards that environmentally-oriented groups do.

Governments commonly fund & support official underground movements to manage the disaffected and prevent the growth of true opposition.

Care must be taken that the hybrid organization does not turn on its creators.  A designed dependence on the host organization's financial support is one method.  Blackmail files are another.  Recruiting members who have no other options in life is a third.