29/10/2
Chronically short on isp-hours for the rest of this month, I'll whet your wondering whistle with a few pointers to gaseous options available to the military and others.
Incapacitating Agents (removed from official army site)
"Incapacitation produced by less likely candidates such as LSD and other indole derivatives, psychedelic phenethylamines, and potent opioids is theoretically possible, but it is unlikely that any of these compounds would be employed militarily. Covert use, which is logistically easier to accomplish and has fewer constraints, opens a broader spectrum of possibilities. This, however, is a concept that involves considerations that generally extend beyond the scope of chemical warfare." |
Pentagon Program Promotes Psychopharmacological Warfare
| "One class of drugs under consideration are fentanyls. The report's cover features a diagram of fentanyl. According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the biological effects of fentanyls are indistinguishable from those of heroin, with the exception that the fentanyls may be hundreds of times more potent." |
Bombing the Mind - The Pentagon's Program for Psychopharmalogical Warfare
| "These mind-altering weapons violate international agreements on chemical and biological warfare as well as human rights. Some of the techniques discussed in the report have already been used by the US in the "War on Terrorism"" |
The Advantages and Limitations of Calmatives for Use as a Non-Lethal Technique
| "...new and improved methods for administration of pharmacological agents are under continuing development, it should be noted that the fact that a particular drug does not currently have a method of administration appropriate for immediate use as a non-lethal technique should not disqualify this compound from present and/or future consideration as a non-lethal calmative agent. The developments in this arena of drug application/administration will continue to emerge in a rapid fashion." |
26/10/2
With our seeming inability to come to terms with our hyperconsumptive predilection, we suffer; most dangerously distracted from recognizing responsiblity. We must look for and expect new ideas and flexible thinking from every citizen. Iced Neurons - Embodied Human Consciousness, Abrupt Global Climate Change, and Freedom
"Personal action can either open out possibilities of enriched experience or it can shut off possibilities. Personal action is either predominantly validating, confirming, encouraging, supportive, enhancing, or it is invalidating, denying, discouraging, undermining and constricting. It can be creative or destructive.
In a world were the normal condition is one of alienation, most personal action must be destructive both of one's own experience and that of the other."
R.D. Laing |
From Sex-Vixens to Senators - Representation in Nazi Porn and the Discourse of the American Right Wing adds weight to my repulsion of rightists in general and their Bushiness in particular.
| "The right wing's images of feminism discussed in this paper run the somewhat limited gamut between the grotesque and the ludicrous. They are not derived from a principled examination of feminism but from the right wing's own unacknowledged and unanalysed desires and anxieties." |
Here we enter a surreal world - The Technologies of Orgasm (Chapter 1) by Rachel P. Maines - in which we learn of The Job Nobody Wanted.
| "Given the ubiquity of these descriptions in the medical literature, it is surprising that the character and purpose of these massage treatments for hysteria and related disorders have received little attention from historians." |
Richard Preston chillingly examines The Demon in the Freezer
"How many doctors could recognize smallpox today?" I asked.
"Virtually none. Smallpox takes forms that even I can't diagnose. And I wrote the textbook." (D. A. Henderson, Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies) |
23/10/2
Big Bang Cosmology and Atheism - Why the Big Bang is No Help to Theists is a marvelously concise answer by Quentin Smith to William Lane Craig's 1994 book Reasonable Faith.
| "All of the observations we have are of changes in things - of something changing from one state to another. Things move, come to a rest, get larger, get smaller, combine with other things, divide in half, and so on. But we have no observation of things coming into existence." |
One further note from the melodious Council for Secular Humanism strums A New Approach, an editorial by Paul Kurtz.
| "Secular humanism is nonreligious. But this does not mean that it does not criticize the claims of religion; indeed, we have a moral obligation to speak the plain truth. There is a difference, however, between being antireligious-attacking religion or dismissing it cavalierly-and being willing to analyze religious claims and calling them to account for their lack of reliable empirical foundations." |
Max Tegmark reduces apparent complexity to algorithmic simplicity - could this be a hint for realization of generalized artificial intelligence? Does the Universe In Fact Contain Almost No Information?
| "It is argued that if the Schrödinger equation is universally valid, then decoherence together with the standard chaotic behavior of certain non-linear systems will make the universe appear extremely complex to any self-aware subsets that happen to inhabit it now, even if it was in a quite simple state shortly after the big bang." |
Chapter 1 of Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems demonstrates a novel approach to uncomplicating the knottiness.
| "It is a future that encourages innovative opportunity for people to learn and prosper, that incorporates responsibility to maintain and restore the diversity of nature, and that is based on a just and civil society. We hope this volume contributes to such a future." |
22/10/2
Beyond The Limits To Growth is a warning that is some years old now; with an update in '96. Rather than wax ironically cynical, as is my pun-literate wont, this is a basic text that requires re-reading as often as it takes to achieve a sustainable shareholder mind-set.
| "But until we started updating The Limits to Growth we had not let our minds fully absorb the message. The human world is beyond its limits. The present way of doing things is unsustainable. The future, to be viable at all, must be one of drawing back, easing down, healing. Poverty cannot be ended by indefinite material growth; it will have to be addressed while the material human economy contracts. Like everyone else, we didn't really want to come to these conclusions." |
Murray Bookchin is distilled by Janet Biehl as an introduction to The Murray Bookchin Reader.
| "To all his writing, Bookchin brings a passionate hatred of the capitalist social order, expressed in the cadences of six decades of radical oratory. He brings to it the grim hatred of the grueling toil that he experienced in factories, and the acerbic intensity of one who has looked down the barrel of a gun during 1930s labor protests. At the same time he brings to it the originality and creativity of a thinker who is largely self-taught, and the love of coherence of one who studied dialectics with Marxists as a youth. He brings to it, in this age of diminished expectations, the outrage of one who consistently chooses morality over realpolitik, and he serves as the lacerating conscience of those who once held revolutionary sentiments but have since abandoned them." |
Murray himself does what we all must do: follow our muse, remain bemused, endlessly muse. Right or wrong, indifference is fatal. Comments on the International Social Ecology Network Gathering and the "Deep Social Ecology" of John Clark
| "What Marx's fetishism of commodities is for capitalism, this Heideggerian Gelassenheit is for present-day ideology, particularly for deep ecology and all its "social ecological" offspring. Thus, we do not change the world; we "dwell" in it. We do not reason out a course of action; we "intuit" it, or better, "imagine" it. We do not pursue a rational eduction of the moments that make up an evolution; instead, we relapse into a magical reverie, often in the name of an aesthetic vanguardism that surrenders reality to fancy or imagination." |
To give fair shrift to the diametric of Bookchinological grokness, the more libertarian could probably support the Institute for Sustainable Capitalism; oxymoronic...but one never knows, these cognitive confusions often lead to clarity of concern.
| "The Natural Capitalism Academy (NCA) works with companies, governments, civil society, and academia to implement Natural Capitalism, a pragmatic and proven approach to reorienting organizations and society towards sustainability." |
If we are to be straight in understanding our lot we must realise our neurochemical basis and consistantly take the moral high road. Psychopharmacology and the human condition
"Consummative gratifications create a condition of ecstasy or euphoria: a short-term flood of pleasurable satisfaction that is its own justification. Biological examples include the orgasm, being praised, eating and drinking, and escape from danger. The desire for consummative gratification could be described as a craving.
Appetitive gratification, by contrast, is the fulfilling of purpose, the sense of one's life being an unfolding story. Its biological basis is the highly evolved human social intelligence; specifically the 'theory of mind' mechanism and the ability to imagine human dispositions, motivation and intentions. Appetitive gratification is therefore a matter of participating - intellectually and emotionally - in the unfolding of human character and relations over real time. The lack of appetitive gratification results in boredom, loneliness, anomie." |
Tonight's conclusion on CBC of David Suzuki's most recent three part filmed masterwork - that outlines our interdependance while acknowledging our responsibility - renders our collective ignorance of individual ecological impacts inexplicable. There is no rational excuse for inattention, and there can be no question of the culpabilty of the media of the masses.
The rationalizations of war have been endlessly extrapolated. The ecology of peace is rarely explicated. I'm sorry.
20/10/2
Dare to step
Outside
And be brave.
Outside
And know truth
Persona-versal.
Outside
Complete. |
Were the prime (irreducible) basis of all ideologies equal to an ecology of mind, matter and minding, we would be nigh incapable of hypocritical action; and would manifest transhuman actuality in our ever-so-human daily affairs.
All of human endeavor is at root an attempt at re-cognition of unity. This presupposes that we are personal, perceptually alone, and innately cast out. Conscious re-integration to pre-dichotomous grokness is zen an effort beyond ability. Excuse the words, they are not the thing.
Logic dictates that no matter the effort, intent is the basis that directs. Our intent as 'western' progress oriented democracies is both cancerous and cosmic, intermingled in such a way that Occam's Razor will either provide a close yet ultimately satisfying shave or an aortal slice that proves fatal.
Oikos presents Towards An Ecology of Mind
"Behind every scientific advance there is always a matrix, a mother lode of unknowns out of which the new partial answers have been chiseled. But the hungry, overpopulated, sick, ambitious, and competitive world will not wait, we are told, till more is known, but must rush in where angels fear to tread.
I have very little sympathy for these arguments from the world's "need." I notice that those who pander to its needs are often well paid. I distrust the applied scientists' claim that what they do is useful and necessary. I suspect that their impatient enthusiasm for action, their rarin'-to-go, is not just a symptom of impatience, nor is it pure buccaneering ambition. I suspect that it covers deep epistemological panic." |
Fifteen percent of our six billion people have some kind of internet access. A majority of this number, some sixty percent, are restricted by national or corporate restriction to allowed sites. Of the remainder (perhaps three hundred million worldwide), a majority are non-interacters that are interested by and large with banalities - news headlines, celebrity, sheep.
Being generous, and I would appreciate a correction, there are ten million web writers with about one percent, or one-hundred thousand, that have real contributions to make; and twenty million web readers with critical ability. This is an absurdly small proportion of Gaia's ostensible uber-intelligence.
Distraction, then, becomes the main effect of the web for most users. This is no different than the matured evolution of television, radio, film, etc., and points to a fatal flaw in human nature. Will we, in fact, destroy our children's possibilities by inattention? "I was unaware" does not hold sway in courts of law, yet blindly blissful overconsumption that has the most dire consequences is not only pointedly downplayed or ignored, but actively condoned.
U' W A Threatened by Occidental Petroleum - oh, the Gore of it all...
| "Before the gold was yellow, now it is black, but the color of the blood that pays for them continues being red, continues being Indian..." |
Water, Energy, and Global Warming is a short work of lengthy implication. An invaluable addition to the research reported recently suggesting that the net effect of global weather change may be an abrupt shift into ice age conditions for the northern hemisphere, precipitated by the shut-down of the Gulf Stream conveyor of tropical warmth. We have no idea what on earth we're doing.
| "If there is a moral to the story, it is that prolonged scientific debate and confusion can sometimes result from a failure to step back and look at all aspects of a problem. And a second moral is that out-of-context technological fixes aimed at a single aspect of a complex whole may prove destructive." |
Scroll down a bit and discover Theo Emery's review of The Opening of the American Mind: Canons, Culture, and History.
| "Sure to make some academics uncomfortable is Jacoby's scathing-and quite deserved-criticism of the left for failing to stake out a progressive position on education overall, and instead engaging the likes of Bloom and his ilk in a war of words to defend faculty chairs, departments, and books read by a tiny minority of students in the nation." |
14/10/2
Human Identity Politics: Homo Indeterminus
| "Thus, there is a desperate need for a new consciousness, for new cosmopolitan identities, in the broadest and most literal sense of the term. Human beings must begin seeing themselves not as citizens of one nation or another, but of the earth, indeed, of the cosmos itself. " |
Assimilation is the basis of the U.S.American melting pot while multicultural diversity is the premise of the Canadian confederation.
Those south of the border would like to believe that equality equals sameness, and so suffer the consequences of ignore-ance. We northerners grok that unique ability is a vital attribute for survival and so enjoy the benefits of our plural essence.
Enough snoot-nosed superiority! What I am trying to touch, I think, is that while the rest of the tech-advanced countries are striving for ecological and economic balance, and political inclusion instead of ideological exclusion, the U.S. is a country under occupation. The home of the free has become a caricature of what it perhaps never was, and certainly will never be (again) unless the brave souls who can effect change, do.
We have cried, and tried, and sighed, yet are completely under the spell of fear; acknowledged or not. A hegemony does not necessarily need to intend to be so as long as the perception is generally accepted. The U.S.A. has been the de facto global overlord since the dropping of nuclear weapons on Japan - Soviet (or Iraqi, for that matter) blunders and bluffs notwithstanding.
Now, there might be something to be said for maintaining a certain level of mad consternation considering that the minions of evil have wreaked considerable chaos over the last hundred years. The question then becomes whether we would recognize evil if it came to rule our own roost. And if it did what safety-net would remain?
The entire arsenal of the most weaponized country ever to squat (on) Gaia is now at the disposal of one man, whose actual intentions are befogged by misguided personal desires and a monolithic misperception of the Republic's point. This autocratic space cadet, along with his cadre of callous concubines, is playing a cutthroat endgame that has everything to do with resource abuse and nothing to do with even the most basic human rights.
All that the rest of us Gaians can do is, ironically, pray. We can hope against hope that Bush Jr. will be impeached, the entrenched two party system diversified, and that America will join the rest of us in moderating consumption while accelerating innovation. A problem is that the death throes of this Amerempire may take us along for a euthanasian trip. Maybe we should impose sanctions.
Francis Heylighen is a polymath, um, yeah, totally, man. What makes a meme successful? Selection criteria for cultural evolution
| "Self-justification, the degree to which the components of a meme mutually support each other, will facilitate understanding and acceptance. Self-reinforcement, the degree to which the meme stimulates its host to rehearse itself, e.g. by repetition, meditation, prayer, etc., will strengthen retention. Intolerance, the degree to which a meme excludes rival memes from being assimilated or retained, will also help the meme to retain a stable position in memory. Proselytism, the degree to which the meme urges its host to maximally spread the meme to other hosts, will increase the rates of expression and transmission." |
It is disconcerting when an essay gets so much absolutely right and then falls apart by excessive extrapolation and agenda promotion. Context is the Key
| "How many people does it take not to support the official mind-control program for it to break down? An interesting question. This itself illustrates how powerful programming can be, that education can continue to pump out material of a suppressive, limiting nature when the majority do not subscribe to these tenets." |
11/10/2
Iron rings draped on all cords entering the computer could help to "harden" our ever-so-delicate machines, but reading Electromagnetic Bomb - A Weapon of Electronic Mass Destruction may make a mind melt. Perhaps we could develop wearable EMP devices to be used to block or confuse surveillance equipment - just a thought.
| "The efficient execution of an IW (Information Warfare) campaign against a modern industrial or post-industrial opponent will require the use of specialised tools designed to destroy information systems. Electromagnetic bombs built for this purpose can provide, where delivered by suitable means, a very effective tool for this purpose." |
Present Attention
"O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim
For preacher and monk the honored name!
For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.
Such folk see only one side of a thing
Jainism and Buddhism. Udana 68-69:
Parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant" |
Table 1 manifests Categories of the "fleeting moment". This aligns understanding of The Perception of the Fleeting Moment in Dance. Are fleeting moments aligned? Are perceptions fleeting? Are our perceptions categorically fleeting? Has the sense of the word fleeting fled?
10/10/2
Thanks to the prodding of Post-atomic I spent yesterday in the cognitive pig trough, and had to give my brain a thorough wash before turning in. A first thought when I woke up, after sex (nah), drugs (coffee!!) and rock and roll (thanks Janis), was "what about Bey?".
Intentionally autonomous individuals are both a Thoreauian ideal and a practically impossible practice. Consumer capitalism is in fact set up as a direct challenge to even the possibility of a self-directed, self-governing, self-reliant individual. That this is not self-evident is testament to the efficacy and efficiency of experience modification technologies.
Our distraction from what underlies mediated reality puts us squarely in the Pavlovian stimulus/response mode. It is our duty as free individuals to pay attention (as in an always remembered mantra) to the motives, means, and desired ends of those who would govern and sell.
Hakim Bey (Peter Lamborn Wilson) - Millennium
| "Now the situation has changed. Capitalism is freed of its own ideological armoring & need no longer concede space to any "third force". Although the founder of aikido could dodge bullets, no one can stand aside from the onslaught of a power that occupies the whole extent of tactical space. Escapism is possible for the "third guest, the parasite", but not for the sole opponent. Capitalism is now at liberty to declare war & deal directly as enemies with all former "alternatives" (including "democracy"). In this sense we have not chosen ourselves as opposition -- we have been chosen." |
The spectacle of surveillance does not lead to a paradise of transparency. Film is the medium Giovanni Tiso uses to deconstruct the superpanopticon and precipitate a lifting of the veil.
| "If cinema has a role in the society of surveillance is precisely that of creating powerful, well-crafted illusions which play with collective fears instead of probing their deeper roots; films that reinforce the dominant ideology by giving a false sense of resolution, as in the finales of both the Truman Show and The Matrix, whereas in fact all that they are suggesting is that things should go back to how they were in a mythical time in the past, before technology started changing our lives." |
In these days of Bush-delineated dichotomy, words become hypercharged stones impeding the flow of rational discourse. Many, if not most of those bandying such terms as conservative or liberal are using them in a pejorative way and without reference to their actual meaning. I need a quick refresher course - Liberalism.
"The tasks and approaches of all kinds of liberalism was the same:
a) to understand the 'natural laws';
b) to allow the unimpeded operation of the 'laws';
c) to examine the rationality of existing institutions, laws, social and political systems;
d) to change or reform those elements which are 'irrational' or which promote 'irrationality'." |
9/10/2
Mind control is the process of gaining control of and altering the contents of peoples' opinions and thoughts.
Brainwashing is conducting this process efficiently and nefariously.
Thus begins Dr. Thomas Dorman's assay of Brainwashing, a short, pointed article of little faith in them.
| "To use James Jesus Angelton's expression, this is a wilderness of mirrors (Angelton was the United States' greatest counterintelligence expert in the CIA). Yes, spying, skullduggery, wet operations, plausible deniability, and various other high crimes and machinations are all involved." |
Best to start with as objective an overview as possible when the subject is so elusive and yet pervasive. Coercive Persuasion and Attitude Change is from the Encyclopedia of Sociology Volume 1.
| "Contemporary thought-reform programs are generally far more sophisticated in their selection of both destabilization and influence techniques than were the programs studied during the 1950s. For example, hypnosis was entirely absent from the first programs studied but is often observed in modern programs." |
Returning to 1956, Allen W. Dulles sent J. Edgar Hoover a Memorandum - Subject: Brainwashing. Prepare to get goosebumps at recognition. 1)A small child is made aware of the physical and psychological control of his parents and quickly recognizes that an overwhelming force must be reckoned with. So, a controlled adult comes to recognize the overwhelming powers of the state and the impersonal, "incarcerative" machinery in which he is enmeshed. The individual recognizes that definite limits have been put upon the ways he can respond.
| "There is a major difference between preparation for elicitation and for brainwashing. Prisoners exploited through elicitation must retain sufficient clarity of thought to be able to give coherent,factual accounts. In brainwashing, on the other hand, the first thing attacked is clarity of thought." |
To gain a wider historical perspective, and a needed reiteration of some American's culpability in many of the twentieth century's disgraces, Anton Chaitkin exposes British psychiatry: from eugenics to assassination.
| "Experiments in coercive interrogation and brainwashing would be conducted at Allen Institute under the auspices of the Canadian military, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Dr. Cameron's "terminal'' use of electric shock as a brain-burning torture, psychosurgery, and brainwashing with drugs and hypnosis would make the Canadian program the most famous apsect of the CIA's MK- Ultra." |
Today the techniques have become much more sophisticated, employing the widest array of control technologies. While conspiracy nuts may be alarmist to a ridiculous degree, we do actually live in a remarkably controllable society with deep, nay totalitarian consequences for each of us. NSA's Subliminal Posthypnotic Scripts
| "In addition to the ability to see and hear what is going on inside people's homes, vehicles, and businesses through the use of nearly microscopic digital surveillance technology, the NSA is able to interrogate and influence a person subconsciously without the knowledge or consent of the subject." |
Innoculation Theory
"If we want to strengthen existing attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, inoculation theory suggests that we should present a weak attack on those attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Again, the key word here is, "weak." If the attack is too strong, it will cause the attitude, belief, or behavior to get weaker or even move to the opposite position. The attack has to be strong enough to challenge the defenses of the receiver without overwhelming them.
Here are the steps of effective inoculation:
1) Warn the receiver of the impending attack.
2) Make a weak attack.
3) Get the receiver to actively defend the attitude." |
As an addendum to all the above, I have copied a document that has been removed from our favorite search engine and its, I thought, inexhumable cache. Memorandum for: Mr. J. Lee Rankin, General Counsel, President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy
| "In summary, therefore, there is no evidence that the Soviets have any techniques or agents capable of producing particular behavioral patterns which are not available in the West (boldness mine). Current research indicates that the Soviets are attempting to develop a technology for controlling the development of behavioral patterns among the citizenry of the USSR in accordance with politically determined requirements of the system. Furthermore, the same technology can be applied to more sophisticated approaches to the "coding" of information for transmittal to population targets in the "battle for the minds of men." " |
7/10/2
Piet Hut is a scientist of sufficient insight to allow (our) innate spiritual heritage to inform his (lack of) world view. We are not what we do any more than a frog is defined by its hopping - kangaroos everywhere agree that Science is not a Weltanschauung, but rather an (albeit useful) approach. Life as a Laboratory
| "As anthropologists know, importing and imposing one's own culturally bound classification system on a different culture precludes a fair and respectful intercultural comparison. Distorting even the most basic terms at the start of a dialogue, in favor of your own way of using those terms, is not a good way to gain understanding of the other side. By putting a shaman healer and a Buddhist meditator and a Muslim mula all in the box of religion, rather than medicine, psychology, or law, we severely limit the possibilities for meaningful comparisons." |
A dirty secret underlies Canada's kinder, gentler demeanor - the RCMP(NSIS)/CSIS(CSE) coalition (which is tied directly into the NSA/CIA/FBI/MI5 etc.). Performing the math gives us: Echelon (we can't watch our own citizens but you can) plus domestic enforcement (we can watch our own citizens but you can't) plus accountability (which) equals Panopticon plus negative accountability. [(E + P) + A] = P! + (-A) Are we clear now? Mounties in masks: A spy story
| "Many Canadians are under the mistaken impression the Mounties hung up their spy gear in 1984 when the Canadian Security Intelligence Service assumed most of the duties of the RCMP Security Service, disbanded in the wake of widespread criticism for infringing on civil liberties." |
6/10/2
Piero Scaruffi investigates Thinking About Thought, which is zen somewhat akin to diving into an empty pool.
"An explanation of the brain will have to be an electrochemical explanation of the processes that keep it alive and make it behave the way it does. An explanation of cognition is likely to be in the form of algorithms that apply to all matter. Cognition will likely turn out to be a general property of matter and be somehow accounted for by formulas, like any other material phenomena.
Consciousness is the tough part. We aren't any closer to a theory of consciousness than Descartes was. We still can't bridge that gap: the gap between material processes occurring in the brain and our emotions, our feelings, our awareness of existing.
We don't really know why that particular piece of matter, the brain, yields consciousness. After all, the physical substance of the brain is made of the same elements found in all animals (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sodium, nitrogen, phosphorous, iron, calcium, potassium).
I have proposed a way out of this dilemma: to assume that a fundamental property of matter, of all matter, allows for the rise of consciousness when matter is organized in particular manners. If consciousness is somehow present in each particle of the universe, then we don't need to explain the gap: there is no gap, just like there is no gap between electricity and gravity, they are simply different aspects of matter, which originate from different properties of fundamental particles." |
While pursuing unified theories of wellbeing I am thrust into A Synthesis of, well, being. This is a scientific and philosophical synthesis of the sort that has been out of favor for some time. It looks at mathematics, physics, philosophy, religion and politics from a single unifying perspective.
| "The cycle of time is ripe for a new conceptual framework." |
With the wild season drawing to a close in the north, it might be time to consult The Magic Mushroom Growers Guide in all it's comprehensive yet user-friendly glory.
| "Innovation without experience is the primary cause of failure." |
I couldn't have said it better myself. Oh, I did. Feb. '01
How did we get to this place? Listening intently to the sizzle, so immersed in all the media-directed attention that the steak, dripping it's vitality on the searing griddle of productivity, will soon be burnt. As most of us are already - burnt-out that is, with biological, human needs for care and love and acknowledged interdependence pegged squarely against the need for basic provision; and, for the few, stuff.
The idea haunts me. If all Gaian humans consumed like us in the so-called developed places, we would need a few more planetships. So the plan is to strengthen the "defense" capability of those who are "in" (read Euro-AmeriCanadian Australs) while maintaining a vast labor pool by means of directed political and social instability; easily quelled by the massive allied forces if an insurrection gets too rambunctious. This makes clear the role of our Intelligence networks, and reveals in retrospect the obvious.
Surely we must see this; if we can't share then we must exclude. Short of an energy and materials revolution, such as harnessing fusion and nanoreplication, this consumptive fantasy will soon resolve itself in a way the Nazis would likely have approved.
Is strong AI, nanobots, and limitless energy the answer? Maybe, but I would qualify my partial optimism by observing our own strong anti-intelligence and suspect ethicality. Perhaps the first Extropian colonist voyageurs will decide biology must defer in favor of energy. |
So let's see what kind of nefariousness Big Brother John AssCops is up to now...ah yes, The United States Foriegn Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review. The conclusion below represents yet another Exectutive Branch power grab as the American people inexorably lose their rights (as do all other world citizens by example or act). Can the collective conscience wake up before it's too late? See growers guide above...?
| "Indeed, because the President has the inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless intelligence surveillance based on a significant foreign intelligence purpose, this Court must interpret FISA to avoid infringement of this presidential power, if possible. Thus, it is the FISC's interpretation of FISA and the USA Patriot Act, not the government's, that raises the more severe constitutional questions. To the extent that avoidance doctrine governs here, it Compels the Court to read the statute to support, rather than infringe, the President's constitutional power and responsibility to keep the country safe." |
We're Not A Free Country Any More - Top 10 Signs Democracy Is Dying is Maureen Farrell's latest audit.
| "When the Wolfowitz Doctrine was leaked to the New York Times in 1992, former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown warned that our desire to control the world's resources, while squelching any chance for opposition, would present a "grave danger of nuclear war," and Sen. Kennedy accused the Pentagon of looking for ways "to justify Cold War levels of military spending." Now that Wolfowitz's dream has become stated policy, there's been nary a peep. Foisted upon us, without the benefit of democracy, this bellicose, imperialistic policy makes the world a decidedly more dangerous place." |
Doctor StrangeSeuss
Or: How I learned to stop worrying and rhyme the bomb
by Charlie Stross
"Strangelove's strange hand
Strains hard, speaks RAND
Corporation studies speak of rungs and operands --
in the prisoner's dillemma which has gotten out of hand" |
