WELCOME TO THE METAGAME

Last week I announced that I’m attending the THE LAST PSYOP in person in Austin, TX, September 4th. Since then I’ve been looking for sponsors, funding, a venue.

Here’s what we have so far:

• LastPsyop.com - event homepage & pitch

  • GitHub for the backstage/event planning, includes more details on the current status & who is on our list to reach out to

• Omar wrote “what is an open source psyop?” to answer a frequently asked question (how is it going to be a psyop if it’s open?)

• Katt published a “Welcome to the Metagame” lore building video

  • She’s been working on designing the game & its rules for September. This video is an attempt to introduce “the meta game” as the thing that is unfolding over the next 12 weeks leading up to the event that will shape the event.

• 2 hour interview with Mathew Fisher - this is about more than just the September event but has some good signal for why we care about it

We have an official Discord for the event now. It’s split by “live players” and “backstage / metagame”:

• “Players” are those who are going to be playing the simulated game in-person (or helping out remotely) in September

• “Backstage / meta game” is everyone helping out from now until then (or is trying to disrupt/steer the September)

As a player in “the game”, you’ll form an identity with your team, pick an objective, perform your actions & reveal on Sunday to what extent your op is successful & post mortem it.

As a player in “the meta game”, you’re trying to influence the event itself to make it compatible / legible / useful to the territory of the information landscape that you occupy.

The ultimate goal is that playing the game (which is made up, and we have complete control over) to improve the meta game (which we’re all stuck playing, and the best we can do is try to influence it). Here’s how I’m explaining of it as of this morning:

Next Steps

• Lock down a venue, figure out whose bank account is going to hold money & pay for things

• Pitch to more sponsors / tech partners

• Email everyone who applied so far to let them know of the latest updates

I would love to see people make “meta game” videos/articles/whatever that describe the event and if it’s good we’ll just use it / you can pull the event in your desired direction that way.

For example, right now I have captured the territory “last psyop” - if you google that Defender’s substack is on the top page.

Same with “memes for human flourishing”:

I would love to see others stake an “outpost” in their territory, and benefit from that as part of this collective art project.

May the best final psyop win.