So, with the 2000 and 2004 elections - the "old-money" elites were seeing the changing picture emerging and they supported the aggressiveness of the Neo-conservative ideology in actively intervening around the world to protect US interests - just see the PNAC principles to see how they sought control and prosperity of the world, it is blatantly plastered there and signed by a lot of influential people - business, military and politics alike. Research institutions like the RAND Corporation have for years now been researching into projects of more effective social control and understanding - a quick look at the research projects and grants is quite telling. Of course, a lot of important knowledge also comes out of this - just like the Nazi medical experiments are extremely valuable to medical science today. It is however not so nefarious to research on sociology, politics, military science and the intersection of all of this. It all is just valid information and knowledge about current society and imminent trends. The scary thing is how the conclusions are being formed and what active measures, policies are being set in motion from this information. It seems the development is into regaining social control in the advent of freedom of democracy, information and thought - and one needs to sum up all of the policies and trends to get "the big picture" and how the system is being changed into a stronger bias again. Other institutions like the American Enterprise Institute cater to the managers and elites - providing ideological guidelines and analysis --- to bolster their apologetic "logics" of performing their actions, and recruiting like-minded to continue supporting the system bias. It is all about being self-righteous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingsoc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_101
The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm
http://www.aei.org/
http://www.anglospherechallenge.com/
Probably like many of you, I played with WWII games on the computer and tabletop a lot when growing up - and read all the comics and was greatly interested in all kind of war machinery, strategy and tactics. It came in handy during my military training - maps, communications, strategic routes, defence positioning and intelligence. Mostly I was involved in NATO communications of various intelligence and cryptography. Nowadays I appreciate that background and apply to computer security.
Also, just like after WWI where the German population was in shock - as was largely the whole of Europe - that is when new policies and bias is most easily implemented. It is just like boot-camp, you break them down - then you bring the light forward to build them up into your image - i.e to your advantage. That also happened with the Bush administration - repeatedly, with 9/11, several internal threats and the financial meltdown. Now the US has new departments for social control and security --- and a population scared to wits about what has happened, thereby supporting almost anything the political leaders are proposing. As we all know - the CIA and other power politics players most often play both sides in geopolitical important strategies - to make things happen. I don't really think anyone wanted the 9/11 stuff to happen - but that terrorists attacking the US would be extremely advantageous to the "old-money" elite when they just had gotten the aggressive Neo-conservatives into office --- that is beyond any doubt.
This is not any conspiracy theory - it is just looking at the big picture and big trends - the "world system" with it's components and those interacting - who stands to gain, and what events occur in history. It is not about trying to find evidence, it is just about understanding the system itself as it stands and evolves. This includes the benefits, interests and fears of the participants. That is why systems science is so interdisciplinary -- it wakes a complete view, not just a singe aspect of a separate science and the closed rigid environment of a scientific area with it's logics, models and formulas. Rumsfeld made a speech in 2006 about the "global war of ideas" and the battle around the emerging Internet, that they hadn't completely figured out yet.
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2006/tr20060327-12710.html
Well, just to convey the "big picture" of history, geopolitics, evolution and society to those who are interested --- of course you should all be, but then again you have a lot invested in being dependent on the success of the elites, which again feed your bellies and bank accounts. It "pays" to stay on the "winning team", and that is the inherent elitist social Darwinism that infers the back-stabbing rat-race towards the top of the pyramid. But like I've explained in innumerate posts, this is not sustainable - it always goes through the cycle of greatness into destruction - like any empire etc. What is ingenious is when every time that shock of destruction happens - at whatever scale and aspect of society, business etc - if you are in control at the moment of destruction, shock and chaos - then you always have the possibility to shape the chaos into what benefits you, since fortunes are nullified and people are in disarray or bewilderment.
Now, remember that your brains are limited and that skull and bones real-estate is scarce... so when you fill your brain with worthless edutainment of celebrities, comedy shows and political bickering - then your brain gets swamped with minute details that is in no way important to your function as a democratic voter, but is purely emotional and contributes to your feeling well-being, self-image and hopes for success. That also goes for religion, philosophy, ideology, beliefs etc. Of course the kind of knowledge that strengthens you personally is useful in any system - but when it strengthens you in the view of "the big picture" then you start interacting with "the big boys." Ultimately, when you fill your brain with nonsense that is irrelevant to your understanding of freedom and democracy, and your role in it ... then you are just turned into a drooling zombie at the bidding of those big players who benefit from society being aligned towards them.
Again, this is a very large macro-view of the world and society - a high-level systems view - and underneath is a very complex and intertwined network effects, interests and causes etc. That doesn't mean that it is chaos or that it can't be understood. You just need to keep an open mind, and not be so weak that you automatically align yourself with others in the system. Having personal integrity and a strong internal information structure that you truly trust - means that you need to keep an open mind and NOT censor or discriminate ANY information - just evaluate it and place in the right periphery of the information system that you have. Of course the dynamics of the system changes all the time, and so you need to be aware of this - just like an overhead map, chessboard or other tabletop game if you like...
Happy learning - it is well worth your while to understand more of reasoning, systems, history, technology, society, politics and how you fit in between all of this. It does not mean that you can change anything on your own - but it sure makes it nice to know what is the big picture and how the changes affect you personally - so that you don't get totally screwed by "market forces". Be a trader and player who understands what is going on - not just a piece getting tossed around by the "incomprehensible volatility".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingsoc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_101
The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm
http://www.aei.org/
http://www.anglospherechallenge.com/
Probably like many of you, I played with WWII games on the computer and tabletop a lot when growing up - and read all the comics and was greatly interested in all kind of war machinery, strategy and tactics. It came in handy during my military training - maps, communications, strategic routes, defence positioning and intelligence. Mostly I was involved in NATO communications of various intelligence and cryptography. Nowadays I appreciate that background and apply to computer security.
Also, just like after WWI where the German population was in shock - as was largely the whole of Europe - that is when new policies and bias is most easily implemented. It is just like boot-camp, you break them down - then you bring the light forward to build them up into your image - i.e to your advantage. That also happened with the Bush administration - repeatedly, with 9/11, several internal threats and the financial meltdown. Now the US has new departments for social control and security --- and a population scared to wits about what has happened, thereby supporting almost anything the political leaders are proposing. As we all know - the CIA and other power politics players most often play both sides in geopolitical important strategies - to make things happen. I don't really think anyone wanted the 9/11 stuff to happen - but that terrorists attacking the US would be extremely advantageous to the "old-money" elite when they just had gotten the aggressive Neo-conservatives into office --- that is beyond any doubt.
This is not any conspiracy theory - it is just looking at the big picture and big trends - the "world system" with it's components and those interacting - who stands to gain, and what events occur in history. It is not about trying to find evidence, it is just about understanding the system itself as it stands and evolves. This includes the benefits, interests and fears of the participants. That is why systems science is so interdisciplinary -- it wakes a complete view, not just a singe aspect of a separate science and the closed rigid environment of a scientific area with it's logics, models and formulas. Rumsfeld made a speech in 2006 about the "global war of ideas" and the battle around the emerging Internet, that they hadn't completely figured out yet.
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2006/tr20060327-12710.html
Well, just to convey the "big picture" of history, geopolitics, evolution and society to those who are interested --- of course you should all be, but then again you have a lot invested in being dependent on the success of the elites, which again feed your bellies and bank accounts. It "pays" to stay on the "winning team", and that is the inherent elitist social Darwinism that infers the back-stabbing rat-race towards the top of the pyramid. But like I've explained in innumerate posts, this is not sustainable - it always goes through the cycle of greatness into destruction - like any empire etc. What is ingenious is when every time that shock of destruction happens - at whatever scale and aspect of society, business etc - if you are in control at the moment of destruction, shock and chaos - then you always have the possibility to shape the chaos into what benefits you, since fortunes are nullified and people are in disarray or bewilderment.
Now, remember that your brains are limited and that skull and bones real-estate is scarce... so when you fill your brain with worthless edutainment of celebrities, comedy shows and political bickering - then your brain gets swamped with minute details that is in no way important to your function as a democratic voter, but is purely emotional and contributes to your feeling well-being, self-image and hopes for success. That also goes for religion, philosophy, ideology, beliefs etc. Of course the kind of knowledge that strengthens you personally is useful in any system - but when it strengthens you in the view of "the big picture" then you start interacting with "the big boys." Ultimately, when you fill your brain with nonsense that is irrelevant to your understanding of freedom and democracy, and your role in it ... then you are just turned into a drooling zombie at the bidding of those big players who benefit from society being aligned towards them.
Again, this is a very large macro-view of the world and society - a high-level systems view - and underneath is a very complex and intertwined network effects, interests and causes etc. That doesn't mean that it is chaos or that it can't be understood. You just need to keep an open mind, and not be so weak that you automatically align yourself with others in the system. Having personal integrity and a strong internal information structure that you truly trust - means that you need to keep an open mind and NOT censor or discriminate ANY information - just evaluate it and place in the right periphery of the information system that you have. Of course the dynamics of the system changes all the time, and so you need to be aware of this - just like an overhead map, chessboard or other tabletop game if you like...
Happy learning - it is well worth your while to understand more of reasoning, systems, history, technology, society, politics and how you fit in between all of this. It does not mean that you can change anything on your own - but it sure makes it nice to know what is the big picture and how the changes affect you personally - so that you don't get totally screwed by "market forces". Be a trader and player who understands what is going on - not just a piece getting tossed around by the "incomprehensible volatility".
