"Social Production" & open-source economics

[reggie]

Re: "Social Production" & open-source economics

You seem to me to have an undo tendency to see everything that the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) is active in as being driven by the MIC, and also a tendency to insinuate by selective use of impressive names certain connections that are not necessarily there.

Oh darn, I forgot, kids in dorm rooms created Apple & Microsoft & Yahoo & Google & Youtube and Netscape and and and and.... a couple guys in a garage created HP... and and and...

But us proletariats, we the masses, use the same tools to preserve our freedom!

Oh, puh-leese. Watch that video that I PM'd you. It's a beginning, as it'll start to show how calculated all this has been.

Do not confuse tools with long term interests.

The tools directly and incontrovertible support the long term interests. It's just shrouded in 4GW mumbo-jumbo that is designed to confuse even the brightest of stars and to keep the tech worker chugging along at full speed immersed in feeling cool and not asking any questions about where the "F" this is all going.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: "Social Production" & open-source economics

Oh darn, I forgot, kids in dorm rooms created Apple & Microsoft & Yahoo & Google & Youtube and Netscape and and and and.... a couple guys in a garage created HP... and and and...

I'm not saying it's all motherhood and apple pie. I'm saying it's not all man eating sharks and piranhas either. It's both.

Oh, puh-leese. Watch that video that I PM'd you. It's a beginning, as it'll start to show how calculated all this has been.

I don't speak German. It has some English, in a secondary role, in the first couple of minutes I watched. Then I gave up. I am sure if one cherry picks all the evil threads, one can make whatever it was they were talking about look pretty bad. That doesn't help me much get a complete and balanced picture.

The tools directly and incontrovertible support the long term interests. It's just shrouded in 4GW mumbo-jumbo that is designed to confuse even the brightest of stars and to keep the tech worker chugging along at full speed immersed in feeling cool and not asking any questions about where the "F" this is all going.

Sure .. the tools can support the long term interests of the elite, just as the Red Coats used guns. But the same tools can support the long interests of the proletariat (that's us) as well.

Go read some of The Daily Bell for a more optimistic view on how the Internet is useful to us.

[reggie]

Re: "Social Production" & open-source economics

I don't speak German. It has some English, in a secondary role, in the first couple of minutes I watched. Then I gave up. I am sure if one cherry picks all the evil threads, one can make whatever it was they were talking about look pretty bad. That doesn't help me much get a complete and balanced picture.

Sorry, I didn't realize that version wasn't subtitled in English. Here is an English subtitled version.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: "Social Production" & open-source economics

Sorry, I didn't realize that version wasn't subtitled in English. Here is an English subtitled version.

So ... it's a video biographical sketch of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber and related people and events of the decades following World War II in the U.S. It is sympathetic to the concerns expressed in his "Manifesto" and it suggests that certain developments of the times, such as LSD, Cybernetics and ARPANET, are the products of a deeply dangerous and subversive plan by the U.S. military to control humans ... all humans.

Though all the facts presented are true so far as I know, though the military was involved in and provided key funding for some of this work, though some of this mind control work was despicable, though such mind control, computer, networking and mathematical work continues to be funded by U.S. intelligence and military, and though some part of that in which the U.S. engages even today is despicable, ... still the implications suggested by this video are paranoid bunkum. There is a larger, more integrated yet more diverse layer to civilization being formed here, which has a complex mix of good and evil, driven by the aspirations, needs and insights of many diverse people.

The mood of this video reminded me of the radio show "The Shadow" to which I used to enjoy listening in the early 1950's, famous for its line "What evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow!"

I do not recommend others waste two hours of their time on this video. That old radio show was much better.

[reggie]

Re: "Social Production" & open-source economics

So ... it's a video biographical sketch of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber and related people and events of the decades following World War II in the U.S. It is sympathetic to the concerns expressed in his "Manifesto" and it suggests that certain developments of the times, such as LSD, Cybernetics and ARPANET, are the products of a deeply dangerous and subversive plan by the U.S. military to control humans ... all humans.

Though all the facts presented are true so far as I know, though the military was involved in and provided key funding for some of this work, though some of this mind control work was despicable, though such mind control, computer, networking and mathematical work continues to be funded by U.S. intelligence and military, and though some part of that in which the U.S. engages even today is despicable, ... still the implications suggested by this video are paranoid bunkum. There is a larger, more integrated yet more diverse layer to civilization being formed here, which has a complex mix of good and evil, driven by the aspirations, needs and insights of many diverse people.

The mood of this video reminded me of the radio show "The Shadow" to which I used to enjoy listening in the early 1950's, famous for its line "What evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow!"

I do not recommend others waste two hours of their time on this video. That old radio show was much better.

So, given that:

• The facts in the documentary are accurate, as you have stated in your post.
• Kaczynski's writings are merely a reflection of highly credible societal thinkers, namely, Jacques Ellul's and Bertrand Russell's earlier works in "The Technological Society" and "The Impact of Science on Society", respectively.
• Steve Blank has quite candidly exposed the deep links between Silicon Valley and the MIC (GoogleTalk video).
• Sensor arrays (the front-end of control feedback systems) are proliferating across the public space.
• Network theory allows virtual realtime feed back control of chaotic [societal] systems.
• Yochai Benkler is at TED talking about monetizing, and thereby measuring & controlling, human social interactions.
• And all of this happens to be occurring exactly at the same time our existing socioeconomic system is crashing.

You conclude that one should merely dismiss this area of research and thought as "paranoid bunkum"?

Given that the public is generally inundated with messages about how cool tech is, and how benevolent all the actors are within the industry, and how the Internet is a force of freedom, I don't think it could do much damage to explore some alternative perspectives on the matter. I mean, what's to fear from this exploration?

[FrankL]

Re: "Social Production" & open-source economics

So, given that:

• The facts in the documentary are accurate, as you have stated in your post.
• Kaczynski's writings are merely a reflection of highly credible societal thinkers, namely, Jacques Ellul's and Bertrand Russell's earlier works in "The Technological Society" and "The Impact of Science on Society", respectively.
• Steve Blank has quite candidly exposed the deep links between Silicon Valley and the MIC (GoogleTalk video).
• Sensor arrays are proliferating the public space.
• Network theory allows virtual realtime feed back control of chaotic systems.

You conclude that one should merely dismiss this area of research and thought as "paranoid bunkum"?

Given that the public is generally inundated with messages about how cool tech is, and how benevolent all the actors are within the industry, and how the Internet is a force of freedom, I don't think it could do much damage to explore some alternative perspectives on the matter. I mean, what's to fear from this exploration?

The knowledge that all data posted on the internet that is publicly accessible can easily be data-mined with the aim to form profiles of anyone. With the advent of the internet, the boundary between private and public information is rapidly disappearing; the youngest generation that has never experienced a life without the net often uses social networks for a large part of their everyday communications with their friends.

Even while I try not to put my full name anywhere, I am fully aware that it is very likely that I can still be profiled by bots that harvest login/email combinations from bulletin boards (for admins it's a tough task to always keep up to date on every security update; with the transient nature of websites, their content gets neglected as the owner loses interest).

It's not being profiled that I fear most, but the knowledge that this method is a very difficult thing to resist for a society where governments become more and more totalitarian in their control.

And that's not even starting with using social networks to influence citizen in 'target areas' (think Georgia, Ukraine, Iran).

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: "Social Production" & open-source economics

I don't think it could do much damage to explore some alternative perspectives on the matter. I mean, what's to fear from this exploration?

What is to fear is too narrow an exploration that emphasizes too much the fearful aspects over the rest.

There is more going on here than the dark side of MIC efforts to control humans.

The same tools of their control are also the tools of our (we the ordinary man's) freedom, just as was the musket in Concord, Massachusetts in 1775.

A broader, real time, global human awareness and civilization is forming. It has both its good and evil strands, as have human endeavors before. It has its own forms and structures, its own rules of formation. It even has its own collective unconsciousness (Carl Jung).

Enjoy your time in this life. Contribute where you can to the well being of those around you and to the improvement of those forms of civilization which both we humans shape and form, and which shape and form themselves, by their own rules, over our collective energy and endeavors. Typically when one emphasizes too much the dark side of what's "out there", this is a sign that one has not sufficiently and consciously integrated the light and dark sides within ones self. What evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow!. Enlightened understanding and contribution begin at home, within oneself.

[reggie]

Re: "Social Production" & open-source economics

Typically when one emphasizes too much the dark side of what's "out there", this is a sign that one has not sufficiently and consciously integrated the light and dark sides within ones self. What evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow!. Enlightened understanding and contribution begin at home, within oneself.

The material I bring up is all but buried everywhere. No one is talking about the bigger societal implications of technology, at least not at a serious level. What we have are a large contingent of people plowing forward implementing super high tech with little-to-no contemplation of its impact, which is a game changer for all of us.

So, now that I bring up what is not discussed, you want to frame me as one whose heart is evil and lurks in the shadow? It's just outrageous! C'mon man.

Let's have an adult conversation about ALL the impact of this new tech, and not reduce ourselves to trying to pigeon hole those who take an unpopular or uncomfortable position. There are a lot of people with a lot of money trying to play god right now with these new technological toys, and society may have to pay a high price for NOT talking about the implications, as painful as that may be.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: "Social Production" & open-source economics

Even while I try not to put my full name anywhere, I am fully aware that it is very likely that I can still be profiled by bots that harvest login/email combinations from bulletin boards

The small time bots that prey on the security holes in down-rev software are not what worry me much. They lack the power to integrate a sufficient amount of information about me to create a substantial and sustained risk. It's like walking through a busy shopping mall (do they have those anymore?) which has its occasional pickpocket and even a mugger now and then. So long as one is a bit more attentive to ones personal safety than most, one will probably be safe enough most of the time. Not even Howard Hughes or Michael Jackson was promised a life free of danger.

It's the big guys such as the dark side of Google or the almost invisible side of the NSA (or thereabouts) which create a more worthy threat to our well being. As best as I can tell, some well funded but quite secret organization in the Eastern United States is building a computer with a thousand or more processors and enough main memory (RAM) to hold thousands of bytes of real time data on each and every person on the planet, all accessible in a single system image computer (each CPU can access any of tens of terabytes of data at RAM speeds, all in parallel.)

With the advent of the internet, the boundary between private and public information is rapidly disappearing

Ah, heck no. The boundary shifts back and forth, but can never disappear.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: "Social Production" & open-source economics

So, now that I bring up what is not discussed, you want to frame me as one whose heart is evil and lurks in the shadow? It's just outrageous! C'mon man.

Yes, I suspect my strange replies seem outrageous to you. So be it.

Me thinks you see the shadows, but not the light.

[reggie]

Re: "Social Production" & open-source economics

Yes, I suspect my strange replies seem outrageous to you. So be it.

Me thinks you see the shadows, but not the light.

It's less about being outrageous and more about being disappointed - mostly because if all of the inaccurate assumptions that are so easily rectified, but some how aren't.

Let me ask you this, which image holds more power for it's controllers, the Lord of the Ring (on the left), or the networked topology representative of today's Internet (on the right)?



Before answering, I suggest a trip to the US DoD Command & Control Research Program's (CCRP) online library is in order.
http://www.dodccrp.org/html4/books_downloads.html

What one will find when reading the material from that library is that the US DoD understands that network centric systems of this type [on the right] bring limited freedom to the users on the edge, and that the primary objective of such a system architecture is to enhance the speed and reliability of centralized command and control. In none of the MIC's research, at least that I've been able to find, has there been any serious discussion about the users on the edge gaining more liberty through this architecture. Further, system architectures of this type are global in their reach, and do not inherently discriminate between users in one country over an other. Hence, Americans are subjected to the same network effects that non-Americans are subjected to, irrespective of Posse Comitatus.