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Electronic Resistance
From the situation in Myanmar, which I have not been following closely enough, but which I find to be extremely important and scary:
Using technology in as heavy-handed a way as it had used truncheons, the junta simply closed down the nation’s two Internet providers. In keeping with the country’s self-imposed isolation over the past half-century, it cut itself off from the virtual world just as it had from the world at large.
Most overseas cellphone communications and land lines were severed or hampered as well, and soldiers on the streets confiscated cameras and video-telephones.
There is literally no reason this cannot be implemented “here” - here being wherever it is that you are. Do you control your own internet service or is it centralized by giant companies who are in cahoots with the government? What happens if and when this fails? How can you create redundant systems to distribute important information in the event of such a shutdown? After it happens is too late to begin planning….
- Going with the flow
- Let’s Talk About Houses
- The Cloud Minders
- Antidote to Empire
- Church unleashes cell-phone jamming technology
- Prev: Data Dots: URL’s for objects
- Next: Revolutions & Rebellions
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I thought you were done posting paranoid stuff?
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:09 pm
What’s paranoid about this? It’s simply pragmatic and it illustrates a significant flaw in how our technological systems are organized. They are not operating according to best possible usage principles.
If your business is communicating, especially over the internet, then it’s simply a business planning issue. But it goes way beyond that as well…
See also: http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2007...7/unnecessary-network-centralization/
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:18 pm
I guess it just struck me that way like “Oh No this can happen to us!”
One way to look at it though is that Myanmar is a dictatorship that wants to cut itself off from the rest of the world, but its getting harder and harder to do so. So the US doing this same thing seems kind of odd because the US represents what Myanmar is trying to shut out.
Dictatorships are innefective in welding power on the world stage for very long, because democracies are more powerful technologically and thus militarily.
So if the US decided to shut down all technology on its citizens it would spell the end of its power.
So yeah, it could happen, but……
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:22 pm
There must be some kind of threshold or balance between freedom and power with States.
Because Liberals like to paint the US as this evil empire, when in reality it came to power by being a liberal democracy.
Probabably we are in a state of decline and its shaking things up. Power becomes entrenched, things get too centralized, leaders get paranoid, but the power originally came from having a society where the citizens neurons are put to the best creative use.
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:31 pm
No, I’m not saying this would happen across the entire nation. But look at how big Myanmar is - not very. You could *easily* pull the plug on a city - any city across the globe - in this way.
Back when I lived in Arcata, they have only one internet line coming into the entire town. Even though that situation isn’t quite as bad everywhere, fact is most of the phone and data lines are owned not by individuals or by municipalities, but by large corporations who lease usage to smaller companies.
There is a significant amount of danger in putting all our eggs into one (or a few) baskets, so to speak. I’d like to see there being hundreds upon thousands of different methods of communication which supplement the internet and the role that electronic media have taken within global culture. Especially since non-electronic means are probably a lot more secure, sustainable, direct and difficult to track.
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:41 pm
just sharing this:
Two Wolves
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two “wolves” inside us all.
One is evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:32 pm
[sidenote]
jwx: for some unknown reaso every comment you leave gets marked as spam. Not sure how to fix this. Perhaps you could try making up a new username to comment under?
October 3rd, 2007 at 3:08 pm
aaaaah, they are trying to grind me down, heee heee.
October 3rd, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Shit, maybe they are. That one went into spam as well. Maybe it’s your IP address? I’m not sure what to do as I have never encountered this problem before. Maybe try clearing your web cache or something? Anybody else know how to fix this? We could potentially take this to the WP support forums…
October 3rd, 2007 at 3:42 pm
maybe it’s my email address? About IP addresses I would have no idea. I switched to my wife’s desktop computer because my laptop crashed a few weeks ago, maybe that is the problem?
I cleared the cache, here goes. If this doesn’t work I will take it to WP.
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:47 pm
I don’t think the two wolves applies to this. I think its the case of wolves with smart free creative, innovative sheep, that they eat. (leaders of first world)
vs. Wolves that horribly abuse and restrict the sheep they eat (third world dictators)
Either way you have wolves. The predatory kind. Powerful people. I mean the military industrial complex is a complex that exists in a free society. Free societies innovate.
You can’t have a huge military industrial complex in a dictatorship.
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:50 pm
I think jwx is suggesting that you see what you focus on in life.
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:50 pm
This seems speculative at best…
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Not that speculative. Its why we defeated the USSR.
October 3rd, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Nations are Superorganisms. They compete with each other over resources and power like other organisms.
Competition makes everything better over time. Things that work best are tested through competition. Dictatorships are not as powerful of a model. They don’t win.
The Liberal Democracy is a Super-organism model that wins.
Maybe the wolf thing is not a good analogy, but there is a big tension with citizens in a liberal democracy and the Powers that be that make war with other nations.
But the freedom in liberal democracies are what makes them strong and allows them to win wars and dominate economiocally on the world stage.
Talk to individual citizens and they might not be vert nationalistic and may prefer to look at the world as one big family. Why can’t we all just get along?
But really its the same reason all organisisms can’t just get along. They are in competition with one another over scarce resources.
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Yeah, I don’t really see that as being historically accurate either, but that’s a difference of interpretation perhaps.
This I disagree with: competition makes things more competitive, which encourages innovations. But then when you have an innovation which outstrips its competitors, competition dies off and the leader ossifies.
You have to look at what the purpose of your model is. What kind of machine is your model? What does it *do*? What are its intentions and goals?
I do like all the cheerleading for Liberal Democracies though: I think there is something to it!
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:25 pm
I am not really making this stuff up. Its not really a matter of my opinion. Nations as superorganisms competing with each other is a concept Howard Bloom uses a lot in the “Lucifer Principle” but I don’t think he totally originated it.
What I am talking about is not some Kings and Generals etc. getting togeher and saying “What is our purpose?” What model should we go with?”
Its more like a bunch of species wild animals trying to survive and produce offspring. They don’t pause and say “Is competition really a good thing?”
Its the way the system works. Its evolution. Natural systems here.
On the level of nation States its on the level of memes. But it works according to similar laws.
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Things that can replicate successfully persist.
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Okay, but that doesn’t mean I agree with it, whether you or Howard Bloom or somebody else invented it.
Actually, I think those kinds of conversations *do* occur, but not on the level of Kings and Generals. On the level of think tanks and advisory councils and scientific management boards (humaniculture, etc)
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:31 pm
No, because things that persist over time necessarily adapt, especially across generations.
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:32 pm
[jwx: your comment still got spammed. What the heck?]
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:57 pm
So wat don’t you agree with? The concept of nations as super-organisms?
October 4th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
IMHO if we invade Iran and keep torturing people we will get boycotted like South Africa and our economy will fall apart. Then if we fail to respond like a civilized nation and straighten out the PTB get increasingly dictatorial and the worst case scenario happens. Since I think 9/11 was a false flag attack I see an internet shut down as likely.
Also, imho, part of our victory over the USSR was achieved by Saudi Arabia keeping the price of oil low re: inflation. Part of our problems now are because we were in Saudi Arabia following the Persian Gulf War and abandoned Afghanistan after using them to defeat the USSR.
I could go on but my point is that we have all we need as a nation to succeed but we continue to feed our nightmares and eventually that’s all we will have left.