On Sun, 28 Apr 1996, jim bell wrote: [...]
"Military technologies" only work effectively against a military target.
While generally I agree with you, I believe Esper Sata, Gerald Bull and Pablo Escobar might have more specific disagreements.
Kill civilians and you just make other civilians angry. At that point they'll be look for a weapon that "military technologies" cannot effectively oppose. That weapon is already known to be possible.
While strong cryptography is powerful, and secure communications liberating, unplugging the phones would about cripple that 'weapon' for a while. Any group rebelling based only on high technology communication is an extremely vulnerable group, both to widespread denial of service, and more specific 'surgical' attacks. (Motorola stock anyone?)
Quite the contrary, I think that a "successful popular uprising" will require only a very small investment in time and money, in which some of they key players in government are targeted and the prospect exists for easily and cheaply getting the rest. At that point they will resign in droves.
Firstly, uprising, even kicking people out of power might take only a small investment in time and money, but consolidating a new system (even a decentralized one) will be extensively expensive and time consuming. To the extent that a successful uprising depends on organizing the new power structure, I can't see how a successful popular uprising can be cheap. In addition I believe the assumption that a few, even several official deaths will cause mass resignations ignores history. See e.g., Columbia, South Africa, and any number of other examples. [...]
Government feeds on its own size; once government is dramatically reduced below its current size, it will become even less able to resist further contraction. Probably few government employees realize this.
While I understand the point, I think that a slim efficient government is much better able to resist "contraction." The most effective covert action/terrorist/political agitation groups have all been small and closely held. It's easier to control all aspects of operation and a greater concentration can be put into internal security concerns as government shrinks. Obviously there is a critical mass, but I don't think you will see the "runaway refrigerator" effect with government shrinkage.
Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com
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