# notes

path: README.md
sortable_path: README.md
title: SYNOIA
lead: ## A PSYCHOTIC GUIDE TO THREAT MODELING, SECURITY CULTURE, AND TRUST
checksum: 4cd1f3c303d5074377e07cb51b9573b5407b2049f26cfdb9bdb4253cd93d5100
created: 2025-10-13 22:25:33.286226158+00:00
modified: 2025-10-14 00:08:12.881016592+00:00
metadata: {}
body:
  ## A PSYCHOTIC GUIDE TO THREAT MODELING, SECURITY CULTURE, AND TRUST

  one of [the authors](the%20authors.md) pats the blanket, an invitation to sit between them. the sun throws fire across the clouds, and casts the graveyard in gold. crickets. evening birdsong. a nip in the air makes you glad the one with wings put one around your shoulders.

  so, stardust. how's consensus reality holding up out there? you started seeing things yet?

  i hear that ICE is everywhere,

raw_content:
  # SYNOIA
  ## A PSYCHOTIC GUIDE TO THREAT MODELING, SECURITY CULTURE, AND TRUST

  one of [the authors](the%20authors.md) pats the blanket, an invitation to sit between them. the sun throws fire across the clouds, and casts the graveyard in gold. crickets. evening birdsong. a nip in the air makes you glad the one with wings put one around your shoulders.

  so, stardust. how's consensus reality holding up out there? you started seeing things yet?

  i hear that ICE is everywhere,


path: maydayNotes/notes-1-nov-evening.md
sortable_path: maydayNotesnotes-1-nov-evening.md
checksum: 2d5becfe6c7ab820f24e54ba3bb6db4b42009dc310483209ffff3a6be93b133e
created: 2025-12-16 20:50:58.86030324+00:00
modified: 2025-12-16 20:50:01.520549104+00:00
metadata: {}
lead:
  fantastic that we remembered this project exists considering we're having a bit of a paranoid episode. no better time to make notes

body:
  fantastic that we remembered this project exists considering we're having a bit of a paranoid episode. no better time to make notes

  you've really gotta build an identifier system for when you're experiencing a paranoid episode and you've _really_ gotta both update and trust it\
  our subconscious systems registered earlier that we were making assumptions counter to our models, which really should have tipped us off\
  with that data, we just kind of addressed the one immediate problem. which dgmw. needed addressing. but should have flagged the Whole Thing for us

  it's not even really that we're less trustworthy in a paranoid episode--no nvm that's. correct. we can't access 90% of our models and often the remaining 10% we can't access with reliability. sometimes there are Known Facts that our models are counterindicating--the problem there is that's usually a sign that we've got a piece of data we haven't consciously registered and should trust our model to have more context. this absolutely harms our trustworthiness.

  safety valves are--i wouldn't even say "useful" i'd say "necessary". thinking your way out of a paranoid episode has a Poor Success Rate. we caught it way longer than we should have after "morrigan is unhappy with us," which is actually deffo something to think about for the Spotter's Guide. note for future us and whatnot.\
  safety valve we hit was realizing in the shower that not only were we over-dwelling on how something could possibly be Enemy Action, we had had two similar chains of thought earlier in the day. now we're just kind of lurking discord for the evening with no obligation to respond to anything and notifs off, curled up in bed typin this shit with our wife next to us. we've made a plan of action for if it gets worse, have an eye on it, and having the wife is soothing && low potential harm due to other safety valves we have in place.

  noticing that minimizing stimuli definitely helpful here, but we still need at least one to focus on or else it'll Getch Us. might be personal experience but still something to think about.

  identifying episode triggers is something we definitely need a better schema for. picking your brain on that, mori, could be real helpful. we're used to just riding the shit out and trying to rebuild to better support doing that, y'know? \
  talkin this out is helping. even though it's not direct to you or whatever. still really, really helps to Say It. 90% we couldn't say it direct right now anyways. \
  that number's off, i think. just--it'd be harder, i guess.

raw_content:
  fantastic that we remembered this project exists considering we're having a bit of a paranoid episode. no better time to make notes

  you've really gotta build an identifier system for when you're experiencing a paranoid episode and you've _really_ gotta both update and trust it\
  our subconscious systems registered earlier that we were making assumptions counter to our models, which really should have tipped us off\
  with that data, we just kind of addressed the one immediate problem. which dgmw. needed addressing. but should have flagged the Whole Thing for us

  it's not even really that we're less trustworthy in a paranoid episode--no nvm that's. correct. we can't access 90% of our models and often the remaining 10% we can't access with reliability. sometimes there are Known Facts that our models are counterindicating--the problem there is that's usually a sign that we've got a piece of data we haven't consciously registered and should trust our model to have more context. this absolutely harms our trustworthiness.

  safety valves are--i wouldn't even say "useful" i'd say "necessary". thinking your way out of a paranoid episode has a Poor Success Rate. we caught it way longer than we should have after "morrigan is unhappy with us," which is actually deffo something to think about for the Spotter's Guide. note for future us and whatnot.\
  safety valve we hit was realizing in the shower that not only were we over-dwelling on how something could possibly be Enemy Action, we had had two similar chains of thought earlier in the day. now we're just kind of lurking discord for the evening with no obligation to respond to anything and notifs off, curled up in bed typin this shit with our wife next to us. we've made a plan of action for if it gets worse, have an eye on it, and having the wife is soothing && low potential harm due to other safety valves we have in place.

  noticing that minimizing stimuli definitely helpful here, but we still need at least one to focus on or else it'll Getch Us. might be personal experience but still something to think about.

  identifying episode triggers is something we definitely need a better schema for. picking your brain on that, mori, could be real helpful. we're used to just riding the shit out and trying to rebuild to better support doing that, y'know? \
  talkin this out is helping. even though it's not direct to you or whatever. still really, really helps to Say It. 90% we couldn't say it direct right now anyways. \
  that number's off, i think. just--it'd be harder, i guess.


path: maydayNotes/notes-1-nov-morning.md
sortable_path: maydayNotesnotes-1-nov-morning.md
lead: Hoookay
checksum: f47ba500cf927baff0b35c73faaa2ec91ed27123b20a3b47ab97550f9924a16e
created: 2025-12-16 20:50:58.870529039+00:00
modified: 2025-12-16 20:50:01.520549104+00:00
metadata: {}
body:
  Hoookay

  So the thing, right, is that security culture has a real fucked relationship to paranoia\
  Bc a lot of things that could medically be called paranoia? They're literally just best practices.\
  I think the quick n dirty guide has to be "trust, but verify"\
  yea that checks. i also think basic best practices's good.\
  Signal, stfu, metadata?\
  shit like that yea

  I think we gotta talk about security best practices && how to recognize when paranoia's overriding\
  which requires talking about security best practices and what paranoia does to you\
  which. may not be fun lmao

raw_content:
  Hoookay

  So the thing, right, is that security culture has a real fucked relationship to paranoia\
  Bc a lot of things that could medically be called paranoia? They're literally just best practices.\
  I think the quick n dirty guide has to be "trust, but verify"\
  yea that checks. i also think basic best practices's good.\
  Signal, stfu, metadata?\
  shit like that yea

  I think we gotta talk about security best practices && how to recognize when paranoia's overriding\
  which requires talking about security best practices and what paranoia does to you\
  which. may not be fun lmao


path: maydayNotes/notes-21-oct-morning.md
sortable_path: maydayNotesnotes-21-oct-morning.md
checksum: d8ac1ca345ae9e44b972d3357a5c859309a46f33747bc51be04b6bab609c4102
created: 2025-12-16 20:50:58.870824413+00:00
modified: 2025-12-16 20:50:01.520549104+00:00
metadata: {}
lead:
  I'm just going to put a bunch of our loose thoughts to page right now cause I think that's a good idea

body:
  I'm just going to put a bunch of our loose thoughts to page right now cause I think that's a good idea

  Threat modeling relies on, well, models, which are usually inaccessible or corrupted during a psychotic and/or paranoid episode\
  Our workaround has historically been "find folk whose threat models we can wholesale tab as Trusted", this is not necessarily feasible for most\
  like it only really works when you have folk around you with similar threat models in general. or folk who know you well enough to model your models and help you with that.\
  guide to having that: fuck if i know how this happened with us. looking back and looking at the folk we've been curating that with, i think a big bit of it is that you have to start from compatible first principles and have similar-enough lived experience and general knowledge\
  like a cis woman would be a trusted source for misogyny but not transmisogyny if that makes sense?\
  it's really kind of just similar to surrounding yourself with a diverse group these days with the caveat that you need an average high mental stability

  the goal is to create the kind of relationships where you trust everyone else's models\
  issue is that trust is...weird and hard

  Our thoughts on trust are essentially that you've gotta make threat models of everyone around you and tab the ones that are not only least risk but highest like. Like. Would this creature fight for me.

  this-all runs into "how to model" in general which i'm not certain i have distilled down enough to have coherent thoughts on this morning

  The way our (Morgans) trustnet works is that we can't read our models with any kind of precision during an episode, but we can still read their metadata, so to speak\
  It's like a tagging system for _what_ you can trust given creatures for\
  cause also trust doesn't have to be all-covering, it just has to be absolute?\
  Yeah! I don't have to trust Luke to have a good model of when someone's in potential physical danger, but I trust him to have my best interests in mind, to recognize patterns of abuse, and to want to help, and I trust him on all three of those absolutely\
  The core of the concept of a trustnet links back into the whole 'know yourself and your enemy' thing. I know we're historically not the best at recognizing when we're just in a conversation to win, but we trust, like, Luke and Sophie to recognize those and say something about it. We know we have that weakness, so we can rely on others who've proven not to have it.\
  and by surrounding yourself with folk who are better at this aspect of modeling you get better at it yourself\
  Exactly!! _and crucially,_ if I recognize I am having an Episode, I have fallbacks

  thing is also like. just how a lot of things People call paranoia are reasonable concerns in Shitscape 2025\
  I've been called paranoid for using Signal instead of text messages\
  yeah lmao. a lot of basic opsec relies on a lack of global trust\
  and i _guess_ that a way to address paranoia is building global trust. but building specific trust will serve you better 99 times out of 100\
  There are Bad Actors out there, sorta thing?\
  yeah! global trust kind of. like I _get_ assuming the best of everyone as an idea is good but from an operational security standpoint doing that without a functioning threat modeling system with a quick response time will absolutely fuck you if you are in any way a vulnerable demographic in 2025

raw_content:
  I'm just going to put a bunch of our loose thoughts to page right now cause I think that's a good idea

  Threat modeling relies on, well, models, which are usually inaccessible or corrupted during a psychotic and/or paranoid episode\
  Our workaround has historically been "find folk whose threat models we can wholesale tab as Trusted", this is not necessarily feasible for most\
  like it only really works when you have folk around you with similar threat models in general. or folk who know you well enough to model your models and help you with that.\
  guide to having that: fuck if i know how this happened with us. looking back and looking at the folk we've been curating that with, i think a big bit of it is that you have to start from compatible first principles and have similar-enough lived experience and general knowledge\
  like a cis woman would be a trusted source for misogyny but not transmisogyny if that makes sense?\
  it's really kind of just similar to surrounding yourself with a diverse group these days with the caveat that you need an average high mental stability

  the goal is to create the kind of relationships where you trust everyone else's models\
  issue is that trust is...weird and hard

  Our thoughts on trust are essentially that you've gotta make threat models of everyone around you and tab the ones that are not only least risk but highest like. Like. Would this creature fight for me.

  this-all runs into "how to model" in general which i'm not certain i have distilled down enough to have coherent thoughts on this morning

  The way our (Morgans) trustnet works is that we can't read our models with any kind of precision during an episode, but we can still read their metadata, so to speak\
  It's like a tagging system for _what_ you can trust given creatures for\
  cause also trust doesn't have to be all-covering, it just has to be absolute?\
  Yeah! I don't have to trust Luke to have a good model of when someone's in potential physical danger, but I trust him to have my best interests in mind, to recognize patterns of abuse, and to want to help, and I trust him on all three of those absolutely\
  The core of the concept of a trustnet links back into the whole 'know yourself and your enemy' thing. I know we're historically not the best at recognizing when we're just in a conversation to win, but we trust, like, Luke and Sophie to recognize those and say something about it. We know we have that weakness, so we can rely on others who've proven not to have it.\
  and by surrounding yourself with folk who are better at this aspect of modeling you get better at it yourself\
  Exactly!! _and crucially,_ if I recognize I am having an Episode, I have fallbacks

  thing is also like. just how a lot of things People call paranoia are reasonable concerns in Shitscape 2025\
  I've been called paranoid for using Signal instead of text messages\
  yeah lmao. a lot of basic opsec relies on a lack of global trust\
  and i _guess_ that a way to address paranoia is building global trust. but building specific trust will serve you better 99 times out of 100\
  There are Bad Actors out there, sorta thing?\
  yeah! global trust kind of. like I _get_ assuming the best of everyone as an idea is good but from an operational security standpoint doing that without a functioning threat modeling system with a quick response time will absolutely fuck you if you are in any way a vulnerable demographic in 2025


path: maydayNotes/notes-4-nov-morning.md
sortable_path: maydayNotesnotes-4-nov-morning.md
lead: paranoia and anxiety are like shitty fuckin cousins
checksum: 333df8951985f98642d83f1ee81308eff93d16b22b70fb1623e1712c60eec7c8
created: 2025-12-16 20:50:58.871057684+00:00
modified: 2025-12-16 20:50:01.520549104+00:00
metadata: {}
body:
  paranoia and anxiety are like shitty fuckin cousins

  i guess they could be considered siblings for most folk, but for us it's very much. paranoia and anxiety feel Different.\
  with paranoia, there's a certainty. with anxiety, there isn't. it's a lot like--

  when i'm having a paranoid episode it feels like there's eyes on the back of my neck. there's an object and subject. when i'm having an anxious epsiode it feels like i only know what the _subject_ is. paranoia is, for me, "I know what is going to happen and I know why", and anxiety is "I know what I think is going to happen but I don't know why".

  ...granted they're really fuckin intertwined. it's just easier to beat off anxiety with a stick within this definition--if i don't know why i get the like.\
  >assumes it's in my models\
  >looks inside\
  >not there\
  and i've been able to build the tech of "if it is not in my models and i believe it's going to happen i am Experiencing An Anxiety". paranoia just always feels like there's a Reason I Know, or a Reason I Can Find If I Look Harder.

  there's also the nuance sometimes of "i see it in my models and i am blowing it out of proportion, disregard"

raw_content:
  paranoia and anxiety are like shitty fuckin cousins

  i guess they could be considered siblings for most folk, but for us it's very much. paranoia and anxiety feel Different.\
  with paranoia, there's a certainty. with anxiety, there isn't. it's a lot like--

  when i'm having a paranoid episode it feels like there's eyes on the back of my neck. there's an object and subject. when i'm having an anxious epsiode it feels like i only know what the _subject_ is. paranoia is, for me, "I know what is going to happen and I know why", and anxiety is "I know what I think is going to happen but I don't know why".

  ...granted they're really fuckin intertwined. it's just easier to beat off anxiety with a stick within this definition--if i don't know why i get the like.\
  >assumes it's in my models\
  >looks inside\
  >not there\
  and i've been able to build the tech of "if it is not in my models and i believe it's going to happen i am Experiencing An Anxiety". paranoia just always feels like there's a Reason I Know, or a Reason I Can Find If I Look Harder.

  there's also the nuance sometimes of "i see it in my models and i am blowing it out of proportion, disregard"


path: morrigan_essay.md
sortable_path: morrigan_essay.md
checksum: 9f8e14103c8b5e5479c1e6eb4eaf8e3722feb08850c117ef215d08edc9524561
created: 2025-12-16 20:57:00.984122178+00:00
modified: 2025-12-16 21:36:33.849659497+00:00
metadata: {}
lead:
  When I talk to my friends about paranoia, the topics begin to blur together. The nuances and particularities of certain delusions come up just as often as the justified fear of mass surveillance carried out by neofacist states with access to untold power over our epistemologies, both inter- and intra- personal. The reliability of our institutions to accurately describe reality [has been questionable for a long time](link to seeing like a state), but the sundering of the consensus reality they create has thrown many into a trustless environment, adrift on the unsea.

body:
  When I talk to my friends about paranoia, the topics begin to blur together. The nuances and particularities of certain delusions come up just as often as the justified fear of mass surveillance carried out by neofacist states with access to untold power over our epistemologies, both inter- and intra- personal. The reliability of our institutions to accurately describe reality [has been questionable for a long time](link to seeing like a state), but the sundering of the consensus reality they create has thrown many into a trustless environment, adrift on the unsea.

  I've seen common advice about this fail to land. 'Model your enemy' and 'check the sources' don't really hold sway over the constant, itching feeling that this, too, could be a lie. The world, regardless of its actual tractability, *feels* as though it is dissolving under your feet. If the powers that be cannot grasp at the truth of a situation, or perhaps have a vested interest in making sure *you* cannot, what chance do you have at understanding? Welcome to Naraka, we hope you hate your stay.

  From here, there are two choices. 

  One. You give up on trust. The only thing that you can possibly rely on is yourself, all else is suspect. Potentially enemies first, irrelevant otherwise. Or, maybe you give up on trust by abandoning it for blindness. You commit to go down with the ship, to die like a dog, no matter what. Your trust is broken, and so is your integrity, but your *loyalty* remains intact. 

  Two. You decide to try anyway. This essay is intended for those of you who make this choice.

  How do you know what to trust, or who? What can you trust beyond the information of your own senses, your own feelings?

  What even is this thing we call *trust?*

  - Trust is a thing that can be broken. 
  - It is not a good thing in and of itself to trust. (Trusting people who mean you harm kinda sucks)
  - There's a certain degree of vulnerability
  - It depends heavily on your model of their mind matching, more or less, the actual stuff under their hood
  - It's essential for any coordination where you hold less than absolute power (ie. essential for all coordination.)

raw_content:
  When I talk to my friends about paranoia, the topics begin to blur together. The nuances and particularities of certain delusions come up just as often as the justified fear of mass surveillance carried out by neofacist states with access to untold power over our epistemologies, both inter- and intra- personal. The reliability of our institutions to accurately describe reality [has been questionable for a long time](link to seeing like a state), but the sundering of the consensus reality they create has thrown many into a trustless environment, adrift on the unsea.

  I've seen common advice about this fail to land. 'Model your enemy' and 'check the sources' don't really hold sway over the constant, itching feeling that this, too, could be a lie. The world, regardless of its actual tractability, *feels* as though it is dissolving under your feet. If the powers that be cannot grasp at the truth of a situation, or perhaps have a vested interest in making sure *you* cannot, what chance do you have at understanding? Welcome to Naraka, we hope you hate your stay.

  From here, there are two choices. 

  One. You give up on trust. The only thing that you can possibly rely on is yourself, all else is suspect. Potentially enemies first, irrelevant otherwise. Or, maybe you give up on trust by abandoning it for blindness. You commit to go down with the ship, to die like a dog, no matter what. Your trust is broken, and so is your integrity, but your *loyalty* remains intact. 

  Two. You decide to try anyway. This essay is intended for those of you who make this choice.

  How do you know what to trust, or who? What can you trust beyond the information of your own senses, your own feelings?

  What even is this thing we call *trust?*

  - Trust is a thing that can be broken. 
  - It is not a good thing in and of itself to trust. (Trusting people who mean you harm kinda sucks)
  - There's a certain degree of vulnerability
  - It depends heavily on your model of their mind matching, more or less, the actual stuff under their hood
  - It's essential for any coordination where you hold less than absolute power (ie. essential for all coordination.)


# links

title: the authors
href: the authors.md
type: markdown
snippet:
  one of [the authors](the%20authors.md) pats the blanket, an invitation to sit between them. the sun throws fire across the clouds, and casts the graveyard in gold. crickets. evening birdsong. a nip in the air makes you glad the one with wings put one around your shoulders.


