The War for Your Mind: How Your Own Data Is Being Used Against You
Why Staying Unpredictable Is the Only Way to Win the Information War
"When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic."
— Dresden James
I had just pulled into my driveway, the engine clicking as it cooled. I should have gone inside, but I stayed, phone pressed to my ear, caught in a conversation with my father that neither of us wanted to end. I had been talking to him on the way back from dropping off a friend, and what started as casual discussion turned into something heavier—one of those rare conversations where ideas unravel, where thoughts spill out in ways that make you sit in your car long after you’ve arrived, letting the weight of it settle.
We were talking about information. Not just the kind we consume, but the kind we give away. The surveys, the social media posts, the opinions we throw out into the digital ether, thinking they belong to us. He brought up those political calls, the ones that come around election time, asking for our thoughts, our stances, our concerns. We never answer them. Not because we don’t have thoughts, but because we know those surveys aren’t about making the world a better place. They’re not about refining policies to help people. They’re about collecting ammunition.
Because that’s what data is now. It’s not just information—it’s a weapon. And we’re the ones handing it over.
The Business of Belief
Politicians don’t operate on conviction anymore. They operate on strategy. When they speak, they already know what words will resonate with you, what promises will sound the most convincing. They don’t have to guess what will get them votes—they already have the data. Every survey you take, every comment you leave online, every petition you sign—it all becomes part of a carefully structured campaign designed not to lead, but to win.
It’s not about ideals. It’s about numbers.
That’s why I don’t trust any of them. Not a single one. Because no matter which side they claim to be on, they all function the same way—collecting, analyzing, fine-tuning their messaging to get the exact response they need. And the second they get power? More often than not, the promises fade. Because the promises were never the point. The point was getting there.
But the machine doesn’t stop. It keeps collecting. Because data isn’t just useful for getting elected—it’s useful for keeping people controlled.
And that’s where the danger is.
Wendy Byrde & The Power of Subtle Manipulation
I told my father that all of this reminds me of Ozark, and specifically Wendy Byrde. It’s fiction, but it’s based on reality.
Wendy doesn’t dominate people through direct force—she understands them. She studies behaviour, identifies weaknesses, and then positions the right information at the right time. That’s how real power works. Not through coercion, not through brute force, but through calculated influence.
That’s exactly how political strategists, corporate marketing teams, and intelligence agencies function. They don’t need to change people. They just need to position the right narratives, push the right emotional triggers, and let the system take care of the rest.
And we keep feeding them the data to refine their control.
When You Run With Wolves, You Learn to Howl
That’s not to say that every politician starts out as a manipulator. Some step into politics with genuine beliefs, with values they want to uphold. But when you run with wolves, you learn how to howl.
It doesn’t take long before they realize that idealism alone won’t keep them in power, and that the system they have entered is larger than any one individual.
The forces that shape the political system—corporate backers, intelligence networks, entrenched bureaucracies, and party leadership—exert enormous pressure on those who enter. The reality is that governing requires navigating these forces, often forcing politicians into compromises they never expected to make.
A politician may enter the system with integrity, but once inside, they are surrounded by individuals who have already adapted to its demands. They see how influence is built, who funds campaigns, which policies gain traction, and what happens to those who challenge the status quo too aggressively. They learn to navigate, to negotiate, to survive.
Some adapt without fully abandoning their values, learning how to work within the system without becoming entirely absorbed by it. But for many, their original convictions become less influential than their ability to hold onto power. The need to remain in the game—to win reelection, to maintain favour with the right donors, to avoid political exile—gradually takes precedence over pushing real change.
And once power becomes the priority, self-preservation overrides independent thinking. They begin to conform to the system rather than challenge it. The ability to question, to evolve, to engage in true discourse diminishes.
They become rigid. They become predictable.
And once they become predictable, they are no longer the ones wielding power—they become instruments of the larger machine.
The Danger of Excess Idealism & The Case for Maintenance
And that’s when idealism starts becoming dangerous.
Too many leaders—especially those who market themselves as transformational figures—are obsessed with rapid change, with tearing down old structures and implementing new policies before they’ve even fixed the problems in front of them.
But constant reinvention isn’t progress—it’s instability.
They chase big, sweeping reforms without considering whether the foundation they’re standing on is even stable. And that’s where things start to fall apart.
People in developed nations are often quick to compare themselves to third-world countries, saying, "Look how much better off we are." But what they don’t realize is that stability isn’t permanent.
A country doesn’t become unstable overnight—it happens when systems are neglected, when the obsession with change overtakes the responsibility of maintaining what already exists.
And that’s what we should be focusing on. Not endless reinvention, not blind progress for the sake of progress, but maintenance.
A nation isn’t just built by moving forward. It’s built by knowing when to stop and repair what’s already been broken.
The Careful Dance of Discourse
This ties into another thing my father and I talked about: the delicate balance between standing your ground and knowing when to listen.
Some people push too hard—forcing their beliefs onto others, dominating conversations, refusing to accept any perspective that doesn’t align with their own. They bulldoze through discussions, convinced that they are right and that others must be made to see things their way.
Then, on the other side, there are those who submit too easily—people who keep quiet just to keep friendships intact, who refuse to challenge a dominant voice in a discussion not because they agree, but because they fear conflict.
Neither of these approaches lead to real growth.
The people who push too hard must learn restraint, recognizing that real influence isn’t about overpowering others—it’s about planting the right ideas at the right time. And those who remain silent must realize that challenging someone doesn’t have to mean fighting them.
There is a middle ground—a careful dance where two people can challenge each other, sit in discomfort, and evolve together.
That’s what true discourse should be. And more than anything, that’s how we remain unpredictable.
Because the moment we become locked into one static ideology, one way of thinking, one mode of interaction—we become easy to categorize, easy to control.
The Trap of Representation
I know this because I’ve fallen for it before.
During COVID, when everything was in upheaval—when fear and uncertainty became part of daily life—I found myself drawn to politicians and public figures who echoed the frustrations I was feeling. Some of them spoke directly to my concerns, articulating the same anger and exhaustion that had been building inside me.
And for a while, I let them represent me.
I didn’t think of it that way at the time, but looking back, I see it clearly. I mistook emotional validation for leadership. I allowed certain voices to become extensions of my own frustration, aligning myself with their rhetoric because it felt like they understood.
But that’s the trick, isn’t it? That’s how people in power pull you in—not through logic or real solutions, but by reflecting back the emotions you’re already feeling.
Eventually, I snapped out of it. The illusion wore off. I started to see them for what they were—not saviours, not leaders, but strategists, opportunists, people using my frustrations to serve their own ends.
And that’s when I realized: we are all vulnerable to this.
It’s not just about intelligence or awareness. Anyone can fall into this trap. It’s human nature to gravitate toward voices that validate our experiences. That’s why it’s so dangerous. The moment you let someone else be the mouthpiece for your grievances, you stop thinking for yourself.
And if I fell for it once, how many times before had I unknowingly done the same?
That’s why I wrote Modern Ammunition. Because this isn’t new. People are starting to recognize it now, but some of us saw it years ago—and we were trying to warn everyone.
Modern Ammunition: The Song That Said It First
As we were talking, I told my father, “I had already written this. We were talking about this years ago, and now people are seeing it.”
At the time, the song might have seemed like commentary, maybe even an exaggeration. But now, people are starting to recognize it for what it really was—a warning.
I wasn’t writing about some distant future. I was writing about now.
When we wrote Modern Ammunition, we built its foundation on the Jacobite Uprising—not in a literal historical sense, but in its spirit of rebellion, subversion, and hidden warfare. The Jacobites fought a war where power wasn’t always displayed on the battlefield; it was fought in whispers, in secret alliances, in strategy and timing.
You can hear that in the song—the war on the water, the tension of an impending fight, but also the hidden themes woven throughout. Just like then, the real battle today isn’t always the one you see coming.
The war isn’t fought on battlefields. It’s fought in search histories, in comment threads, in the subtle shifts of an algorithm. And we don’t even realize we’re part of it. We keep feeding the machine, thinking we’re just talking, just sharing, just participating.
But everything we say is being turned into something else.
Even this essay.
Somewhere, the words I’m writing right now are being categorized, analyzed, and stored. Maybe they’ll be flagged, maybe they’ll be indexed, maybe they’ll be used to refine a model that predicts how people like me think—people who refuse to fall neatly into place.
And yet, what’s the alternative? Silence? Disengagement? That’s not an option.
While people may start truly listening to Modern Ammunition now, and not just hearing it, the ones who saw it coming have already learned how to move.
By the way, if you download the cover art shown at the top of this essay and zoom in, you’ll find all kinds of hidden meanings and messages woven into it. Some of them are obvious, but others? You might have to look a little deeper.
Drop a comment below and let me know how many you found and what they said. Let’s see who catches them all. 👀
The Illusion of Choice
Sitting in my car, the conversation still ringing in my ears, I thought about how much of our reality is curated. How many of our “free choices” have already been laid out for us. How the things we believe we’re choosing for ourselves have, in many ways, already been chosen.
Because in the end, the real question is this:
Do we keep handing over the ammunition?
Or do we finally stop loading the gun?
The Outdividuals - Modern Ammunition - Lyric Video
(click the link to listen on YouTube)
Lyrics: Modern Ammunition
Stock up on modern ammunition
For a whole new system
For a different war
We hand in all our information
It’s a better weapon
Than the guns and bombs
Get woke
Dead folk chasing bread
Overfed blokes
Eat their headlines up for breakfast
It’s a known fact that they’re all broke
Restless souls in a dojo of spent ghosts
Vile demons got a grasp on every nation
They’re farming information
For some mass manipulation
Metadata in malicious hands is ammunition
Not just dangerous
It’s toys-r-us for those who we should never come to trust
Those who have a lust for power also bust a nut
When conspiring to bag the world, they also interrupt
The peaceful day to day that we have come to know and love
Cult of blood
But they like to be referred to as a club
Wouldn’t know a devil if it looked them in the eye
‘Cause for them it’s a reflection of what’s happening inside
Those who live in hell will manifest it for the rest
I don’t jest
There is more than meets the eye
Stock up on modern ammunition
For a whole new system
For a different war
We hand in all our information
It’s a better weapon
Than the guns and bombs
I fear what tomorrow brings
If we sit aside and let them
Set fire to the roots that bind our young hearts
We are weak when separate
Hanging on to false hope
(No more false hope, we’re)
Waiting on their saviour
(Tired of waiting on them)
Weathering this cold storm
(Must find a new shore)
Longing for a new shore
Ahhhh ahhhhh
There’s more than meets the eye
There’s more to you and I
There’s more than meets the eye
There’s more to you and I
Stock up on modern ammunition
For a whole new system
For a different war
Hooah
We hand in all our information
It’s a better weapon
Than the guns and bombs
Stock up on modern ammunition
For a whole new system
For a different war
Yeah ah
We hand in all our information
It’s a better weapon
Than the guns and bombs
Yeah
