Is the revolution over?

[Steve Kinney]

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On 03/05/2017 12:05 AM, \0xDynamite wrote:
> Honestly, I'm back to this list shell-shocked.  I left this 
> civilization, thinking things were on track, but coming back, I
> see the information revolution has turned into another glam and
> sham celebration.  What happened to John Perry Barlow?

He appears to be on the boards of EFF and the Freedom Of The Press
Foundation.

> What's the value of cryptography if everyone's content with
> facebook, jabbascript login portals, and the same old commerce now
> 100 times easier?

Cryptography is a tool, not a magic cure-all.  There is a time and
place to lock adversaries out of your comms channels, and a time and
place to be very visible.  To tell the difference on a case by case
basis, ask yourself:  "Does my use of wide open public comms do more
harm to my interests or to those of my adversaries?"  It's a piss poor
pitiful Anarchist, who refuses to use an adversary's infrastructure to
harm that adversary's interests.

Those who insist on trying to conceal their identities and/or
activities from hostile actors at all times take themselves out of the
influence game.  If you have a protocol for broadcasting a persistent,
responsive, influential political message without being identified by
well funded surveillance actors, do please share it:  That would be a
fundamental and unexpected breakthrough.  Otherwise, such an effort
only starts a count-down timer - when will a well funded surveillance
actor take the trouble to find out who you are, and trace your
movements backward through time?  When they do so, which of the
actions you took because you believed they were "off the record" will
justify the allocation of billable hours to shut you down?

> Are there any revolutionaries?  Is the soul for real change dead?
> Is everyone medicated, over-eaten, touch-screen hyper-media and
> everyone is PERFECTLY CONTENT?

Judging by the "social media" channels, practically no one is content;
nearly everyone seems to believe that their ideological adversaries
are presently in power and need to be stomped down.  I see more people
who either call themselves "revolutionaries" or publicly bemoan the
fact that there "are no revolutionaries" all the time lately.  Of
course, they don't know what the word means - they accept self
defeating definitions provided to them by a lifetime of exposure to
counter-
revolutionary propaganda.

As expected, the Internet does amplify human intelligence and
mobilizes distributed "smart mobs" in response to perceived problems
and challenges.  But the Internet also amplifies human stupidity, and
some factions among our rulers have learned how to raise armies of
morons in cyberspace.  The result is a hotly contested information
battle space where multiple factions compete to influence both
ephemeral swarms and more durable herd movements.  I have never seen
anything like the intensity and variety of influence and
disinformation projects in progress right now in U.S. broadcast and
online media.

As expected, the future arrives sooner every day as the rate of change
continues to accelerate.  I see signs of panic and/or desperation
everywhere I look at any well established economic power block's
publicly visible activities.  What if there was a revolution and
nobody noticed?  The answer to that question is all around us right now.

> I still have a complete revolution in my pocket, but I guess I'll
> have to chuck it, if there's no one here...

You say you want a revolution?  Congratulations!  Radical changes in
the physical world - economic, technological and geophysical - are now
rendering previously stable political systems obsolete and
unmaintainable.  New institutional templates adapted to new conditions
emerge because people adapt their social and economic behavior to new
conditions; not because Great Visionary Leaders issue a call to arms.
 The political agitation and violence we call a "revolution" is only
the last stage of the actual revolutionary process, terminating it and
establishing a new institutional stability for the benefit of a new
set of power players.

We all want to change the world.  But if you have a real solution, we
all need to see the plan.  Restricting its distribution to "secure and
anonymous" channels only guarantees it won't reach an audience that
can implement it.  Where and as surprise actions provide strategic
advantage, do use cryptographic technology - IF your co-conspirators
are also up to it, which almost never happens in real life.  When
physical meetings where all electronics are banned are practical, they
can facilitate useful goal setting, coordination and planning.  The
surveillance networks will follow most of your group to and from the
meeting place, but otherwise moles and unwitting informants will be
the only security risks affecting the meeting itself.

A proposed revolution in communications security that would have
blinded State and Corporate actors to "private" network comms never
got off the ground and so could be said to have failed.  But a real,
naturally occurring revolution is in progress anyway:  Come back in 50
years and you will hardly know the place.

:o)



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