There was a guy who invested in amalgamated
widgets. Everyday he’d call the company and ask how they were doing. The answer
was always the same. - “Great”
One day the answer was different. It
was, “We’re bankrupt and have been taken over by Universal Skateboards”
This illustrates a law of business which is
“Tell ‘em the bad news last.” It also calls to mind something I’ve hoped to
discover for many years about the technostate which is gradually incorporating
all aspects of our lives under its banners.
Just in the nick of time I’ve found what could be called “The humorous
aspects of Cybertronic Society,” or “Computers do the darndest things!”
For example if you lived in
Berlin in 1945 you could go to anyone of the few remaining movie theatres and
see the latest War News. Row after row
of super bombers flew through the sky to deliver their cargo of death to the criminals and Non Nazi’s It was beautiful and awe inspiring. It didn’t exist, but that’s where the funny
part comes into play. The streets outside were pure ruble and could not be transverse
by an auto but in propaganda land all was well.
I confess it takes a certain
macabre sensitivity to see the annihilation of twenty million humans in it’s
comic context, but you don’t have to go so far as to actually laugh. When Ronald Reagan threw a half million
people off of social security we may well
believe that some of them were negatively impacted in the extreme. If ten or twenty thousand lives were lost
nevertheless to identify which one’s remains impossible. This allows democrats to sleep at night and
after all – they kept their jobs and homes.
One other thing that
only recently has crossed my mind is that most readers don’t have the slightest
idea what I am talking about. They are
used to hearing stories about some aspect, often dysfunctional, of a system that they would never dream of replacing. I
too am not clear as to what the replacement will be but am not happy with the thought of things
remaining as they are- because that might translate into things getting worse.
One translation of this is to
say that the people in charge of fixing things like to tinker around the edges
in the basic belief that the system as a whole, does it’s job and actually I can kind of agree with that.
Others would suggest that the passing years and era a calling for a system wide
solution – top to bottom. I can agree with that too. I’m a pretty agreeable
guy.
Here’s where the real
confusion comes. Actually I think we need even more then a system wide solution
– more then a revamping from top to bottom. Increasingly it begins to look like
a sort of reformation.
A big part of the
difference between these viewpoints is I don’t see the problem as one of greed
or incompetence or immorality.
Essentially we have a system that forces people to break the ethical
laws. I mean do you think all those black men in prison became dope dealers out
of choice? If we value people according
to their wealth then where do we get off if they streal and cheat to gain it?
This means I see the
shadow where others see light.
Here’s an
example, comparatively harmless. I
bought a set of headphones online a few weeks
ago, the money was transferred and that was the end of the soty the
company said it had no record of anything – although I have the CC info. I’ve since expended many hours trying to
track the item down. Fortunately for me
I enjoy this sort of trackin but it can
be nerve wracking.
What in a store would be a ten
minute transaction her has occupied many hours of my and other searchin –
Including a three way conference call with the bank that
ended with my phone breaking up
and the store employing the age old expedient of giving out the wrong
connect number.
Plus this is the THX 1138
scenario .
There are two prime scenarios in the
war between the humans and the cybertrons.
One is the Kobayashi Maru scenario, which was the name of a test in the
first Star Trek movie. Essentially the
Kobayashi Maru was a spacecraft that,
given the factors the Captains had to work with
would crash in the battle sims. The object was to discover how potential
captains would act in futility creation scenarios. A secondary goal was the administration of
purposeless punishment – meant to
demonstrate to the subject the omnipotence of the Code.
Another scenario is Thx-1138 which simply put says that technocode
being binary and finite there is a point beyond which gains can never exceed losses and therefor
systems must terminate. It is not, for
instance, that the RIAA can’t catch
those music pirates that prevents them
from doing so – it is just that the cost of doing so far outweighs the cost of letting it pass that it is no longer profitable
Returning to the present case I don’t know how large the profit margin on a
pair of head phones is. I imagine a few
dollars. This means that after a while
it no longer pays them to stall you but
rather it’s worth their while to solve the problem. A corollary to this is much more often
utilized, often in statements of privacy
which are so complex they are worthless..
I confess there were times when,
viewing the complexity of the task and the assumed ignorance of the involved
firms I lost heart but I remind the
reader this is a useful skill. Amateurs get on the phone, feeling they’ve been
ripped off and start screaming, but a pro will seduce the phone operator into
looking up and divulging whatever information is needed.
It’s been a long time
since I had a personal secretary but the best ones were masters at gaining information
informally.
And finally consider one Rich Feynmans
informal laws of safe cracking. Humint
(Human intelligence) is always best.
This raises a question that can’t be answered.
It’s critical as
well. Eg NY Times - is it technostate propaganda or human intelligence? Fox news – same question.
There’s a kicker – when we had
multiple media sources,
Newspapers,
Radio stations – most intelligence was human intelligence and then consequently the real kicker which
is, from a systems point of view I don’t give a hoot what the information
is - if it is coming from one source
then that source has got to go. Actually
this makes things simple for me in that for instance I don’t have to ask if fox
is fair and balanced.
Another way to look at it is the
king must retire – he might be a swell guy but still he’s a king and that’s not
good.
In a way it’s good be cause it helps to keep
people in ignorance and thus keep commentators employed. It’s basic Chaos. Heat water and wait for
bubble to appear with the question being
where and when. In the meantime do lines of heroin, get blow jobs by the pool
and make sure your political friends are happy.
Above all – relax for it is the relaxed mind that is ever alert to entrepreneurial opportunities.
Pay no mind to the dark winged
angel.
Begin here----------
On of the aspects of technology we are
becoming away of is how it creates dark tech.
The universe itself, if you try to add it up reveals that the majority
of it is not present – it is called dark matter.
This is not your run of the mill darkness. It is specific, as in the case where a descending Space shuttle loses radio contact with earth on descent, or where money, in the form of electrons is trading so rapidly that no one can tell for sure were it is. It's an offshoot of chaos and happens when things are moving bigger and quicker then one is prepared to recognize.
The old school boy joke is theres good news a hand grenade that blows everything up for a quarter mile. The bad news is no one can't throw it more then three hundred feet. Hence we have a case where technological advance is very costly.
(Very)
roughly the US economy is about 3
trillion a year but in any given year there's seven or eight trillion in
circulation. Go to the third world, or
even Europe and everybody loves the dollar.They don’t love the US – that’s
another story. Theoretically it’s POD – plain old dollars but it effects the
state or context of the chaotic
situation. One and one is two but
a bird in the hand is not the same as a bird in the bush. What I am saying is that we can at least
imagine situations which would precipitate a sudden change in the social order.
Because that’s the basic problem
isn’t it? We want change but no one has
the slightest real idea on how to bring it about or what to bring about..
I include myself in this
category. Even Cornell West, noted
socialist, doesn’t quite know where we’re going. Some call it the virtual state where somehow the freedoms of democracy are
preserved in the presence of the all
knowing and indifferent technostate. The technostate ultimate has one answer to
every problem – the concentration camp.
Even further down the line it’s goal is annihilation of biological life
forms on planet earth. We don’t want
that, at least some of us don’t want that
and admitting acceptable losses will occur to the majority of humans
have to find ways around the current and coming difficulties.
I am not alone. There have been
many of us for decades with eyes opened.
Even global warming people recognized they were going to have to set up
independent means of dealing with the problems
because (see paragraph A)
How for instance do we plan to
distribute human dna advances? At present it’s shown in harmless “testing”
measures but what is a gene supplement
that will keep you free of cancer worth?
Or one that will increase your IQ several fold. Do we help the
smartest?or the the not so smartest?
Do we make
it a matter of who can afford it? Who
has control the government or the corporation?
On a related matter what about
so called Bitcurrency. The US left the
gold standard years ago and nowadays sll money is a sort of consensual
agreement – it has value because we want it to have value. The fact that currency value can change via
printing more is a form of contamination.
These current issues are
directly related but most don’t see it because they own stock in amalgamated
widgets – eg greenbacks What is more and
more dangerous is they cannot conceive of anyone not wanting amalgamated to go on forever.
Certainly the surest way to
preserve Amalgamated would be to spread
it out – but this is not the case.
Don’t put democracy down. It is
fast to adopt – fast on it’s feet and
very useful in a variety of productive environments- almost like a code. And what is more people have *not* lost their minds. The darkside of democracy is not so bad as
long as it stays inert. Many political
philosophers, such as Plato, believed that sooner or later all democracy would
be taken over by a small ruling elite
and devolve to tyranny.
The irony of Jefferson is that
this fellow who has been adopted a libertarian idol could never balance his own books.
All this has little impact on
today. The thought crosses my mind that
the real anarchists – the real threats to the economic order are the large
capitol interests because they seek not
competition but market domination
To put it as bluntly as possible- anything that replaces any aspect of the
current food. knowledge information processors is to be looked on favorably.
I can’t in
all decency urge the buying of bit currency. It’s too bogus, but it is a
beginning. It’s like hopscotch - a
stupid game that serves no purpose- it doesn’t
need a purpose. It is given value by what it is not.
I try to keep non aligned but one could as well say that anything that
weakens my enemy is my friend. To reiterate – I don’t know what’s wrong with capitalism but it’s
not fixing itself. Maybe we’ll enter a
Star Trek world where money is essentially obsolete. It’s disturbing because
people like to have one up on someone else.
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