Reflections on "High Concept, Low Tech," Martial Law, the new Paper Gauntlet and the changing meaning of 911.

[Blanc]

Intelligence vs stupidity, knowledge vs ignorance - some slightly random,
paradoxically related ruminations:

--
Someone I read made the observation that the risk and danger posed to
civilization by scientific/technological advances increases proportional to
their speed and the inability of humans to manage them.

--
The human mind requires knowledge and preparation in order to act
intelligently.  Without some acquaintanceship with an environment, with a
circumstance, with the character or the measure or the nature of things -
with reality - responding to an event or circumstance is almost impossible
because the mind doesn't "know where to go", which direction to turn or what
steps to take that will be successful or get you out of harm's way.

--
Einstein quote:  "Imagination is more important than knowledge."  The
powers-that-be in high places think they should have all the information -
or aim to possess all your base - and thereby control it and everyone and
all events, for the common good.  They overlook the resourceful imagination.

I don't think the terrorists were all that smart; I think they exploited all
the loopholes made available from the limited imagination of those who are
expecting only complicity to enforced standardization of behavior, who are
expecting to identify danger only from stereotypical images.  As is plainly
and painfully apparent, they don't know how to distinguish a dangerous nail
clipper from sharp fingernail.

--
The blades of a fan when it is running seem to going in one direction, but
when it slows down you can see they have actually been going the other way.
In life it can be confusing to identify which is the cause or the effect,
the antecedent or the consequence, and what to expect from events based on
their apparent intent.

The free world seems to be teeter-tottering, gyrating, seemingly going now
one way, now the other, on how much "civil liberty" will be allowed to
individuals, fearing the liberty of criminals.  There are many lessons from
history which some can still remember about what happens when things go one
way - into totalitarianism - but there is much influence against going the
other way, toward "individualism".  It could just spin faster and faster
"out of control".

--
The means to achieving privacy are but one aspect of living a normal life
amidst a growing ability to be too close together, to be too much in view by
others.  Privacy is a way to achieve or maintain separateness in the milieu,
but not simply distance - a separateness  that one can control at one's own
discretion, regardless of who would vote for allowances to intrude upon it,
regardless of where one is residing or who has been elected to make official
decisions on the matter.

It is a control which could be engaged regardless of who might be "out" of
control, as well, for it is the case that one lives not only with
controllers, but with the controlled, who also can make a free and moral
existence impossible, and against whom one must also protect oneself.

--
There used to be a lot of discussions on the cpunks and elsewhere about
autonomous zones, the cyberspace existing nowhere and everywhere,
individuals, strangers, far away yet always near in the immediacy of their
contacts, a nation existing only by its connectivities, using cash managed
independently, outside "the law";  the cyberanarchy independent of
nation-states which would retard civilization, contrary to the purpose of
their creation.  Living like cyber-nomads, traveling over the globe, while
yet physically going nowhere.

Isn't it interesting that OB-L and his supposed followers actually have been
living that kind of life, yet not in total dependence on all the high-tech
gear.  They, in contrast to the high-techies in the upperspace underground,
have been surviving as low-lifes on the mountainous ground, true nomads
expanding over the globe, while planning on sending everyone to the
Netherworld.

--

Try to get back to normal.  Don't worry your pretty little head about it.
And leave your butter knife at home.
  ..
Blanc