ATM machine that dispenses gold bars is unveiled

[reggie]

Re: ATM machine that dispenses gold bars is unveiled

This work has a far darker view of the impact of computers and the Internet on humanity than I have. I will confess that I was unable to get far in it. I am more comfortable with the positive view of the Internet such as found on TheDailyBell.com. Even such things as Google and Facebook (and even ATM machines ;)) are two edged swords in my view. One might speculate that these each have some origins in military intelligence, as we know for certain the TCP/IP Internet backbone itself does, but even if they do, they have both positive and negative (not simply neutral) ramifications, just as do many inventions done partially for military use in earlier times.

I think you need to read military documents that describe the transformation that our military, and society, is undergoing, and how that transformation is being driven by network science. The US Military is very detailed about its plans, and there is a tremendous amount of material available in public documents as well as books for purchase. The impact of network centric science is well known and well researched, and liberty is not one of the outcomes of this type of high-density Cybernetic system.

FYI, Talbott's book was merely a high-level regurgitation of Jacques Ellul's much more thorough work called "The Technological Society". In the opening pages of book, the Publisher essentially states that Aldous Huxley referred Sociologists to Ellul whenever they asked him how to build the scientific dictatorship.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: ATM machine that dispenses gold bars is unveiled

I think you need to read military documents that describe the transformation that our military, and society, is undergoing, and how that transformation is being driven by network science.

I have some knowledge of such matters. Yes, the military and intelligence services and contractors are doing as you describe. I spent many years as an officer, manager and design engineer in such businesses.

But, as I stated in my previous post, this is a two edged sword. Sometimes major technology advances byte the hands that built them.

Who, may I ask, is "reggie". Your posts contain sharp cautions, but you have revealed nothing of the person behind those posts, so far as I have seen.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: ATM machine that dispenses gold bars is unveiled

From Brzezinski Decries “Global Political Awakening” During CFR Speech:

In his 1970 book Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote the following.

The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.

This quote is quite consistent with the concerns you raise, reggie.

[reggie]

Re: ATM machine that dispenses gold bars is unveiled

I have some knowledge of such matters. Yes, the military and intelligence services and contractors are doing as you describe. I spent many years as an officer, manager and design engineer in such businesses.

But, as I stated in my previous post, this is a two edged sword. Sometimes major technology advances byte the hands that built them.

Who, may I ask, is "reggie". Your posts contain sharp cautions, but you have revealed nothing of the person behind those posts, so far as I have seen.

Well, Norbert Weiner told us where these Cybernetic systems go - they end-up creating greater control of the system. We showed the Japanese automakers how to deploy this in their manufacturing process and we saw a dramatic rise in "quality", which is just another way to describe control over the system.

As more sensors are deployed into society defining each system node and the links between nodes, algorithms can be better designed to manage the feedback from these sensors with this feedback driving various controls, like peer pressure via other sheeple. This is where we are headed, the evidence is everywhere (cell phones, automobile sensor, appliance sensors, networked computers, etc.).

Now, combine all of this proven capability with the narratives going-on in DC, like Samuel Huntintons Clash of Civilizations manifested through Islamic Terroism, or like DHS and DoD branding the Internet as a "Battle Space", or the FBI making claims about domestic terrorists, and we can see that dialectics are being developed in order to justify deployment and use of these control systems against those who are on the wrong side of these dialectics, and oppose "the system".

If we were moving in a direction such that greater freedoms were the goal, then we may migrate toward a peer-to-peer model, maintain absolute data privacy, discount any moves to push data to the cloud, breakup search monopolies, outlaw cybernetic algorithms on aggregate data sets, and most certainly squash efforts to deploy video-gaming psychology throughout traditional societal institutions. At a minimum, we'd be having Congressional hearings about these crucial matters so that some level of transparency could be created in order to allow a minimal level of choice. Instead, we're moving rapidly toward a holistically planned, monitored and controlled society where these techniques are undetectable, as they are buried in scientific methodologies only 1-in-10million understand.

As far as Reggie, reggie is nothing more than one person who has spent far too much time reading obscure material.

[bpr]

Re: ATM machine that dispenses gold bars is unveiled

Sometimes the news just keeps on giving:

Inventor of the cash machine dies

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: ATM machine that dispenses gold bars is unveiled

Instead, we're moving rapidly toward a holistically planned, monitored and controlled society where these techniques are undetectable, as they are buried in scientific methodologies only 1-in-10million understand.

I have fears for the future, but not I do not fear what you describe.

Unfortunately I sense a sufficiently wide rift between your intuitions and mine that further discussion seems unlikely to be fruitful.

Good luck.

[reggie]

Re: ATM machine that dispenses gold bars is unveiled

I'll leave you with this to ponder.

excerpt from The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul:

“Technology will not tolerate any judgment being passed on it. Or rather: technologists do not easily tolerate people expressing an ethical or moral judgment on what they do. But the expression of ethical, moral and spiritual judgments is actually the highest freedom of mankind. So I am robbed of my highest freedom. So whatever I say about technology and the technologists themselves is of no importance to them. It won’t deter them from what they are doing. They are now set in their course. They are so conditioned. For a technologist is not free. He is conditioned. By his training, by his experiences and by the objective which he must reach. He is not free in the execution of his task. He does what technology demands of him. That’s why I think freedom and technology contradict one another.”

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: ATM machine that dispenses gold bars is unveiled

I'll leave you with this to ponder.

The relation of man to society and technology, the manner in which technology enables the formation of more complex societies, and the significance of this to man's freedom, are subtle.