It's business that really rules us now

[gwynedd1]

Re: It's business that really rules us now

I agree with that, and it seems to mean that you want a society with a diverse small power centers, rather than concentrations of wealth, income and political power in a few individuals or organizations.

I miss the frontier. But there's no more land to be siezed from disadvantaged hunter gatherers.

This form of government is a convention by which several petty states

agree to become members of a larger one, which they intend to establish.

It is a kind of assemblage of societies, that constitute a new one,

capable of increasing by means of further associations, till they arrive

at such a degree of power as to be able to provide for the security of

the whole body.



It was these associations that so long contributed to the prosperity of

Greece. By these the Romans attacked the whole globe, and by these alone

the whole globe withstood them; for when Rome had arrived at her highest

pitch of grandeur, it was the associations beyond the Danube and the

Rhine -- associations formed by the terror of her arms -- that enabled

the barbarians to resist her.

Montesquieu


Though it does not bode well that Adam Smith said the worst run governments is that run by merchants.

[Woodsman]

Re: media concentration

...We're moving into a non-hierarchical society where human + technology form a system of circular feedback which creates its own predictable behaviors and limits. In an ironic twist, it will be humanity's own social interactions that drive the system and facilitate its control. But thhe tech driven system will operate at speeds and possess the necessary dexterity such that common man will never be in a position to lead change, and humanity will exhaust itself in any effort to keep pace.

Your thesis is gaining some traction, Reggie. Now even the Harvard Law Review (by way of CounterPunch) is picking up on it:

“It is modulation, not privacy, that poses the greater threat to innovative practice,” explains Cohen. “Regimes of pervasively distributed surveillance and modulation seek to mold individual preferences and behavior in ways that reduce the serendipity and the freedom to tinker on which innovation thrives.” Cohen has pointed out the obvious irony here, not that it’s easy to miss; the tech industry is uncritically labeled America’s hothouse of innovation, but it may in fact be killing innovation by disenchanting the world and locking inspiration in an cage."

and

"The point is to perfect the form and function of the rational-instrumental bureaucracy as defined by Max Weber: to constantly ratchet up efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. If they succeed in their own terms, the tech companies stand to create a feedback loop made perfectly to fit each an every oneof us, an increasingly closed systems of personal development in which the great algorithms in the cloud endlessly tailor the psychological and social inputs of humans who lose the gift of randomness and irrationality."

and

"This surveillance changes our behavior by chilling us, by telling us we are always being watched by authority. Authority thereby represses in us whatever might happen to be defined as “crime,” or any anti-social behavior at the moment."

Isn't this precisely what you've been writing about under the general theme of "second order cybernetics?" Well here it is in black and white and from a lefty think site quoting an expert to be published in the HLR, no less. Not exactly vindication for all the friction you've encountered here in our little sanctuary of free thought, but hey it's a start.

At some point, some of your most vocal critics here will grudgingly have to admit you were on to something. But surely by then we will be so far down the road to being "modulated" that no one will care.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/03/iron-cagebook/print

[don]

Re: media concentration

Current research has brought me to the introduction of early railroad passenger service. It was seen by not a few as a democratizing technology, a social leveler.

[lektrode]

Re: media concentration

Your thesis is gaining some traction, Reggie....
...
At some point, some of your most vocal critics here will grudgingly have to admit you were on to something. But surely by then we will be so far down the road to being "modulated" that no one will care....

reg's stuff has always facinated us, woody - well... me anyway - altho i ack that mr c1ue always liked to poke holes in it, thereby serving a higher purpose in that the debate/argument/brawling even tween those 2 was even more entertaining but from an enlightening POV

my earliest interest in this sort of stuff was back when i was a subscriber to mother earth news and there was a regular contributor that liked to focus of the effects of television and its implications

Current research has brought me to the introduction of early railroad passenger service. It was seen by not a few as a democratizing technology, a social leveler.

can i assume this is viewed as a good thing, mr don?

my .02:

the railroad, particularly the completion of the transcontinental circuit, represents the 1st major quantum leap - in the increase in living standards, as it affected commerce etc.

the next was the telegraph on thru radio tech, that culminated in celtels in practically every Americans hands - down to the sight near daily of 12year olds walking side by side on the street, yakkin away...

the next quantum leap - and IMHO as big as the railroads were at the time of the golden spike - was the development of
The Wild Wild Web

its effects are still expanding - even as our standard of living is in decline - and consumer 'lektronics drains the wealth of the working class, while outsourcing the millions of jobs it has created (read: tranfers the wealth of those attracted by the 'shiny objects' phenom to the big retailers/importers and chinese mfr's) while 'the benefits' of all this crap now being defined by the screen size, the sound effects and games ya can play on em...

we are at a major crossroad/juncture and we need another quantum leap pretty quick and the question is

WHERE WILL IT COME FROM?

i say it needs to address several issues and all at the same time:
massive trade imbalances, massive .gov deficits to fund wars for oil that we are no longer capable of 'winning' (since The US no longer has the will/stomach to do what it takes, by whatever means necessary, to win a real war anymore - the proof of that being whats occured in the ME over the past decade, particularly since 2009....)

and then there's the 'minor little matter' of global/climate/warming-change - aka poisoning of the biosphere

nears i can tell - in my somewhat limited intellectual capacity - is WE NEED AN ENERGY GAMECHANGER

and as much as i am a proponent of alternative energy technologies....
NO, solar/wind is NOT a gamechanger - this is incremental progress at BEST, most certainly NOT quantum leap - that depends on 100s of billions in subsidies -
just to achieve, what, precisely - in over 30years trying/subsidizing - a 3% solution???

no - incrementals aint gonna git it - we're running out of time, and we needed it 5 years ago (more like 30) - too bad that the luddites tookover all 3 branches of the .gov at that critical point

but at least the banks are 'profitable'....

[reggie]

Re: media concentration

...We're moving into a non-hierarchical society where human + technology form a system of circular feedback which creates its own predictable behaviors and limits. In an ironic twist, it will be humanity's own social interactions that drive the system and facilitate its control. But thhe tech driven system will operate at speeds and possess the necessary dexterity such that common man will never be in a position to lead change, and humanity will exhaust itself in any effort to keep pace.

Your thesis is gaining some traction, Reggie.

Thanks, but we're pretty late in the game now. The science for this phase has been in full-steam-ahead mode for 100yrs. Funny/Sad thing is that all of it is so well documented now and most of it accessible with a little effort, except for the $500+ books that are priced to keep out of reach of the common man. I even recently found a new version of an important text priced at $10K. I should buy it and post an electronic version online just to piss 'em off, but then no one would read it anyway.

Now even the Harvard Law Review (by way of CounterPunch) is picking up on it:

“It is modulation, not privacy, that poses the greater threat to innovative practice,” explains Cohen. “Regimes of pervasively distributed surveillance and modulation seek to mold individual preferences and behavior in ways that reduce the serendipity and the freedom to tinker on which innovation thrives.” Cohen has pointed out the obvious irony here, not that it’s easy to miss; the tech industry is uncritically labeled America’s hothouse of innovation, but it may in fact be killing innovation by disenchanting the world and locking inspiration in an cage."

The good news is that this system can still be used against them. But we're so far behind the curve it won't happen. I tried it, and it was wildly successful, but they kicked my ass back in the gutter.

"The point is to perfect the form and function of the rational-instrumental bureaucracy as defined by Max Weber: to constantly ratchet up efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. If they succeed in their own terms, the tech companies stand to create a feedback loop made perfectly to fit each an every oneof us, an increasingly closed systems of personal development in which the great algorithms in the cloud endlessly tailor the psychological and social inputs of humans who lose the gift of randomness and irrationality."

OODA loops, baby. You know, the stuff that I was so abused over by some closed-minded overly institutionalized members here with deliberately programmed egos of superiority. Remember, the "OO" in OODA stands for "Cloud" - this is terminology developed in the pentagon. Cloud computing is intended to control O (for observe) and O (for orient). When you control a populations observations and orientation toward those observations, you control their D (decisions) and A (actions) = O-O-D-A. When your systems have the ability to create the fastest loops out there then you control everyone else's observations and orientations toward their own world view. That's the era we're in now, and discussion forums are actually great place to perpetrate this.

"This surveillance changes our behavior by chilling us, by telling us we are always being watched by authority. Authority thereby represses in us whatever might happen to be defined as “crime,” or any anti-social behavior at the moment."

Naw, this is BS. The surveillence propaganda is nothing more than that... propaganda to instill fear, which helps instill more propaganda. They don't need to surveil if they can control the feedback loops. It's the culmination of Silicon Valley in its totality that is the problem, gov't, and its ability to surviel, is going away very quickly. Bottom line, surveilance is unnecessary. Just think thru the logic, it's pretty obvious.

Isn't this precisely what you've been writing about under the general theme of "second order cybernetics?" Well here it is in black and white and from a lefty think site quoting an expert to be published in the HLR, no less. Not exactly vindication for all the friction you've encountered here in our little sanctuary of free thought, but hey it's a start.

At some point, some of your most vocal critics here will grudgingly have to admit you were on to something. But
“It is modulation, not privacy, that poses the greater threat to innovative practice,” explains Cohen. “Regimes of pervasively distributed surveillance and modulation seek to mold individual preferences and behavior in ways that reduce the serendipity and the freedom to tinker on which innovation thrives.” Cohen has pointed out the obvious irony here, not that it’s easy to miss; the tech industry is uncritically labeled America’s hothouse of innovation, but it may in fact be killing innovation by disenchanting the world and locking inspiration in an cage." surely by then we will be so far down the road to being "modulated" that no one will care.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/03/iron-cagebook/print

Yup, 2nd order cybernetics as applied to human behavior - thank you Gordon Pask, who was trumpeted here as a here by one of the members. Gordon showed mathematically how "conversation" could be broken down into cybernetic science, as a feedback and control device with individual perspective. If only one can insert a sensor between all objects in order to measure this "conversation", then those objects can be controlled via super fast devices, which we now know as supercomputers, networks, and advance algorthms. Long live Twitter!!!!

Anyway, the question to ask oneself now is "why is Harvard Law Review publishing this piece"? Perhaps they now have so much confidence that full disclosure is of little concern. I don't know at this writting, will have to think it thru. But everything coming from institutional players, such as HLR, is done with purpose. And by way, CounterPunch is just another of their instruments, no matter how it may appear.

reg's stuff has always facinated us, woody - well... me anyway - altho i ack that mr c1ue always liked to poke holes in it, thereby serving a higher purpose in that the debate/argument/brawling even tween those 2 was even more entertaining but from an enlightening POV.

Those so-called discussions ended due to repeated use of decptive tactics, which I refused to participate in. No way we can have a "conversation" about the science behind our reality if one of the participants is using techniques of deception to obfuscate the discussion for onlookers.

[reggie]

Re: media concentration

wow, I posted another thread killa!

[leegs]

Re: media concentration

reg's stuff has always facinated us, woody - well... me anyway -

nears i can tell - in my somewhat limited intellectual capacity - is WE NEED AN ENERGY GAMECHANGER

and as much as i am a proponent of alternative energy technologies....
NO, solar/wind is NOT a gamechanger - this is incremental progress at BEST, most certainly NOT quantum leap - that depends on 100s of billions in subsidies -
just to achieve, what, precisely - in over 30years trying/subsidizing - a 3% solution???

no - incrementals aint gonna git it - we're running out of time, and we needed it 5 years ago (more like 30) - too bad that the luddites tookover all 3 branches of the .gov at that critical point
...

Lek, I enjoyed this post, as I do many of yours. But . . . you write 'we NEED a gamechanger'

I submit that we really only WANT a gamechanger, because we are used to the status quo, whether we like it or not, whether it is 'fair', whether it would in fact only allow the things that we rail against here to be perpetuated.

Anyway, NEED or WANT, I don't think 'it' is forthcoming. Oh well . . .

[lektrode]

Re: media concentration

Lek, I enjoyed this post, as I do many of yours.

well.. thanks, i think - just hope that you are laughing mostly _with_ me

;)

But . . . you write 'we NEED a gamechanger'

I submit that we really only WANT a gamechanger, because we are used to the status quo, whether we like it or not, whether it is 'fair', whether it would in fact only allow the things that we rail against here to be perpetuated.

Anyway, NEED or WANT, I don't think 'it' is forthcoming. Oh well . . .

how so and what things, mr leeqs?

trillions in deficits for wars for/over oil, the poisoning of the biosphere, wholesale gutting of our industrial capacity in exchange for cheap trinkets from china?

or replacing all that with giving up use of our cars, airline travel, plastics, disconnecting from the grid and growing all of our own food, in OUR OWN BACKYARDS?

personally, i'd rather take my chances with the N word - wouldnt you?

[leegs]

Re: media concentration

well.. thanks, i think - just hope that you are laughing mostly _with_ me

;)



how so and what things, mr leeqs?

trillions in deficits for wars for/over oil, the poisoning of the biosphere, wholesale gutting of our industrial capacity in exchange for cheap trinkets from china?

or replacing all that with giving up use of our cars, airline travel, plastics, disconnecting from the grid and growing all of our own food, in OUR OWN BACKYARDS?

personally, i'd rather take my chances with the N word - wouldnt you?

Yes, definitely in a laughing 'with' sense, I was not being sarcastic!


200 or so years of intense energy consumption has resulted in very nice lifestyles for most of us reading this. It has also resulted in a lot of damage to the earth in ways that are likely to quite inconvenient for our progeny. It has also been an enabler of ever more powerful and irresponsible centralized institutions, also in ways that are likely to be inconvenient in the future.


You seem to be implying that dependence on oil is at the root of wars, poisoning, gutting, etc. I disagree completely. Human nature (greed, shortsightedness) is at the root of those things, and I do not believe for a second that continued availability of affordable (?) centralized energy will change those things. I firmly believe that we will continue flattening the mountains in WV, fracking the shale in PA, and moving capital around the world to where it can get the 'best return' with or without nuclear.


Widespread adoption of nuclear power, assuming that doing so is even practical and affordable, could perhaps enable the status quo (in terms of our nice lifestyles along with all the negative things) to be prolonged for a long time, but not indefinitely. I see that this will only make the inevitable decline in industrial society even worse, with the problems compounded by dozens/hundreds/? of dead nuclear plants dotting the landscape.


I agree that our failure to find your 'game changer' will be very uncomfortable in the medium turn (decades, perhaps centuries) for billions of people. I don't disagree that 'taking our chances with the N word' might allow my grandkids to have lifestyle that more closely resembles my own. But beyond say 50 years, I see wider use of nuclear as terrible legacy to leave behind for future generations.

BTW, somewhat related, this week's archdruid was pretty 'fun', check it out.
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/

[lektrode]

Re: media concentration

Yes, definitely in a laughing 'with' sense, I was not being sarcastic!...
....
............
I agree that our failure to find your 'game changer' will be very uncomfortable in the medium turn...
....

.........
BTW, somewhat related, this week's archdruid was pretty 'fun', check it out.
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/

thanks for the comeback, mr leeqs.

will have more on this - tis too important not to.

but a wx window is opening, and i gotta get on it/gitter done and will have to get back to you.