Is “1984” an end station, or only a way station to “Brave New World?” Imagine a world in which a self-sustaining (self-improving?), centralized network of pervasive machines is availed to meet out every human need, save one: the need for self expression. How, then, could the need for self to find expression be satisfied, except by devising ways to promote one’s power for prioritizing one’s demands within the artificial network? Were the network to replace the biosphere, how could one express one’s freedom and dignity, except at the expense of others who have less power or influence within the system? That is, unless (unlikely?) the system consented to allow power to be expressed by tinkering with the system itself.
In effect, such tinkering (benign?) would be a kind of expression of one’s power over everyone else. Everyone’s mind would need to be reprogrammed or inculcated so as to accept, even love, such changes. Would freedom come to consist only in how one is able to participate in effecting new technological or scientific “advances?” To preserve one’s place in the power-priority structure, how much would one always be tempted to ally with, or sabotage, the positions of others, depending on advantages then perceived? Would there necessarily arise between every two persons a love-hate relationship, which is arbitrated primarily by fluxing balances of power?
Eventually, would all that animates every person be the impersonal need of each person to express power? Or, does some higher Empathy trump Power? Should, or will, faith in Empathy lead us to resist a world in which a self-sustaining, self-improving, centralized network of pervasive machines is availed to meet out every other human need? Instead, should we work to keep networks of power separate, independent, redundant, competitive, and delegated to the lowest levels at which they can tend to facilitate reasonable expression of human freedom and dignity? I think, yes.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
Regarding benign, oligopolistic collectivism:
I suspect the Gates-Buffet initiative for organizing half of all billionaires’ wealth in order to “redistribute charity.” I suspect “redistribute charity” is Newspeak for coordinating resources for the new oligarchical world order, to further spread, consolidate, and centralize tentacles for control, to reach into every last detail of every last human being’s life. If oligopolists of the world truly were charitable, if they truly had a decent philosophy, the number one priority should be de-centralizing control in order to redistribute power to the lowest levels at which it can reasonably and freely be exercised.
But I very much doubt you will see anything of the like. Which means our only chance is to take control for ourselves. How? By declaring the motives and methods of the coagulating nest of oligarchical elites to be what they are: tyrannical and treasonous to America and to human freedom and dignity. On that basis, the wealth of centralizing elites should not be redistributed, but judicially smashed. For in smashing it, their power to centralize and aggrandize control and destroy liberty could be proportionately reduced, so that our freedom would be proportionately increased.
I do not say smash the wealth of all the wealthy. I am saying punish the wealthy who seek to establish Big Brother centralized control, to the diminishment of human liberty. But do not punish the wealthy who seek to spread human freedom and dignity. Or, if the wealth of even abusers must be redistributed, then use it to put meaning back into the Tenth Amendment, to redistribute power to states and to lower level communities, to enhance defense of borders, to improve infrastructure for transportation and communication, and to improve health research. Do not facilitate for wealth to be used to increase organizational power among nations bent on replacing all freedom with centralization of control over the collective.
I can still dream.
W. Chambers, F. Hayek, and G. Orwell were prescient. Imagine if their prescience had been sponsored to make an impression before 1935, instead of after 1945? Well, now we have had WWII, Korean War, Cuba, Vietnam, and all the trouble spots stirred up by oligarchical, commie, and Islamic collectivists. So, now we have the template and the history, all laid out. We have documentation of the inevitable brutality of big government (and owned government) intrusiveness. Yet still (!) many of our faux-“liberal” pols, pundits, and profs persist in selling us the collectivist, big-government snake oil. And still our green youth fall for it!
Think about the science of: debt enslavement, Stockholm Syndrome, arms races, and centralization of mind control: Is such science more likely to increase mind enlightenment, or mind control? Does the likelihood depend on us? Do we choose, by acting on our faiths, our own destinies? As we forsake a higher Source of consciousness, do we condemn every last person who is closest to us to a kind of Stockholm Syndrome? To live under present trends, must every last human being be converted to a moral zombie, for the “greater good” of an otherwise impersonal, non-existent, scientific, centrally controlling Big Brother?
Must even the ruling class be made miserable and sub-human? Do we choose our science of population control, or does it choose us? In Orwell’s “1984,” was not even O’Brien made miserable and sub-human?
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four:
In the book, Inner Party member O'Brien describes the Party's vision of future:
-There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always — do not forget this, Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.
—Part III, Chapter III, Nineteen Eighty-Four
While we still have means to see, know, and act, we must rise and say No! No! N0! to all this big-government, centralizing-collectivist crap. No mas! Every pol who stands for centralizing comprehensive control over minutiae of our lives must be fire hosed out of office!
Why, despite logic and contrarian facts, does impersonal Big Brother still seem to be laughing, everywhere? Obama is just a facade. Why does the structure behind him not seem worried? Do we even have a clue what the structure is, much less how to fight it? Large, modern, international corporations, deeply invested in crony capitalism, tend to be just another form for giving expression to international collectivism. While conservers of liberty focus against communists and progressives, crony capitalistic collectivists are voraciously eating out the heart of human freedom and dignity, right under our noses. Will November just deliver us from one face of Big Brother to another? Organized money talks, insults, laughs, and smashes. And it owns our chokepoints. Sedition and treason are running amuck, hardly even bothering to hold masks in place. How can Middle Americans grasp a Rico-like power to expel power-muckers to the rags they deserve? Under what banner can we conquer?
The government that tries to do too much and that disrespects individual and local freedom can never be benign. It will always treat by hitting you over the head, while asking you if you feel better between the hits or during.
Because Jesus advocated charity for the poor, rather than despotically coerced redistribution, Christianity is not of much use to collectivist Progressives. But Islam could easily be used as proxy for a new Frenchified version of authoritative terror, i.e., the Cult of the Supreme Being, replete with state collectivizing, imposing rituals to so fill and occupy all minds of the masses as to leave no time for idle reflection, questioning, or trouble making. Such a mix with Islam could dress the Cult of the Supreme Being with what it never had: a tradition of sacred stories and sacraments. Potential thug rulers salivate all over themselves by anticipating how to collectivize and control the masses by throwing religious opium their way. In that light, Muslim infiltration simultaneously advances two objectives: set aside Christianity, and obtain State power over the masses. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_the_Supreme_Being.
From A.T. -- @Drew noted, "What is depressing about this is how even science and scientists have been corrupted by the leftist agenda and power grab."
Well, they aren't done. We've seen the product of the cult of reason before, in France, during The Terror. For the left, they are "reasonable." Everything that is reasonable is justifiable in science. Therefore, science must support leftist positions. Or be made to. Therefore, non-leftists are unscientific. By power of collectivism, make it so. Truth is control over the collective. Facts are controlled by the collectivizers. The collectivizers are hollow. Impersonal nihilism rules the power vacuum. Free thought is crime. What year is this, really?
From A.T. -- @PJPony, re: "... the same religion based loosely on Islam and earth worship"
I concur that Islam could easily be used as proxy for a new Frenchified version of authoritative terror, i.e., the Cult of the Supreme Being, replete with state collectivizing, imposing rituals to so fill and occupy all minds of the masses as to leave no time for idle reflection, questioning, or trouble making. Such a mix with Islam could dress the Cult of the Supreme Being with what it never had: a tradition of sacred stories and sacraments. Potential thug rulers salivate all over themselves by anticipating how to control the masses by throwing religious opium their way. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_the_Supreme_Being.
Communists (even under their other names, i.e., Democrats, Liberals, Socialists and Progressives) are not about fairness, redistribution, or social justice. They are about comprehensive, consolidated, centralized, ruthless rule. Feedback from the middle class is not wanted. The middle class is to be leveled. Talk about a leap of faith! Would you ask your family, friends, and neighbors to give all authority to one godless ruler and his henchmen, and then just trust them to really want to look out for the best interests of all? When in history has that worked? Seeing all power centralized, when in history has that not attracted the most ruthless of sociopaths? The "progressive" movement has nothing to do with social justice, except as fraud and deceit. It is about progressively consolidating rule. Why? Because a lot of people don't know what they should be doing without someone telling them, and a few people very much want to tell them. Meanwhile, the middle class that just wants to be left alone walks around, oblivious, just assuming everyone else wants to be like them. Not so. Sweet Dreams: "Some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused." [www.youtube.com] Note to middle class: there is no room for you in the "progressive" society. It means to eliminate you. If you want to survive, with freedom and dignity intact, you cannot let the Progs pass a tipping point.
Interesting stuff on Einstein. Great scientist; political views somewhat naive.
http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/einstein.htm
I suspect National Socialism was not so different from the International Communism that was propagated by Stalin's Oz-monkeys. Yes, their appeals to supporters were different. Hitler wanted to advance a pagan master race (to "save the planet?"). Stalin wanted to appeal to the conscience of useful idiots with regard to "social justice." But both were ruthless, and both sought dominion over the world.
I suspect Einstein got taken in by the feel good appeal of international socialism, and then he fled Germany when it took on the master race persona under Hitler. Why Leftists think Hitler was a "righty" instead of a "lefty" is a mystery to me. Both Hitler and Stalin were fascists, both wanted rule by elites, both wanted elimination of the middle class, and both wanted State power to replace regard for God.
It seems to me that "righties" are folks who don't want comprehensive, consolidated, centralized control by government over a broken middle class. Problem is, how does a middle class society assimilate and sustain viable values, absent central enforcement?
Answer(?): Shared values. But where do those come from? How do we come to agree on values that can sustain viable civilization? Good faith intuition, wisdom from experience and tradition, "scientific" reason, or arbitrary force? Well, I guess Progs will do their best to give us an answer we can't refuse.
From A.T. –
@AdvancedCommonSense, re "clear that the goal of Einstein is to disrupt the Religious and State basis in order communism to come to power in all world. He was very active in doing that. He literally wanted a New World Order"
What you say does make sense (!) -- as repulsive as it is to the digestion. We need to take a harder look at where some of our elites would lead us, and where history has shown them to have been flat wrong. I sent your reference to my cosmos-prof-brother. It's no longer surprising to find that scientists who have blithely discounted the worth of long tested religious values have so often taken such silly leaps of faith into godless communism. Thanks for the reference sites.
From A.T. -- Re: "We face a tough road to recapture our vanishing right to self-government"
I would add: ... as well as to recapture individual liberty.
Worldwide, there is an accelerating effort to consolidate and centralize comprehensive, all pervasive control. There is to be one oligarchic hegemony, with tentacles reaching out to cover the globe. No one will be permitted to cut the tentacles. The middle class will be leveled, so no one will sass back. Everyone will know that the regime exists only to please itself, but no one will dare say it, even signal it. The wrong facial expressions will get you demoted, deconstructed, or disintegrated. Political correctness will reach not only into speech, but also into thought. Incorrect thinking may not get you jailed, but it will get you quarantined. People will be miserable, but hail their leaders gloriously. As government expands, serfdom will increase. Once your value to the planet is calculated to be negative, you will be eliminated. The first to be shot will be those who thought the government owed them entitlements. Progs will not rest until they deliver us to a North Korea style Brave New World.
There is a humane alternative. It consists in defending and delegating liberty and power to the lowest levels at which they can be decently and reasonably exercised. However, that alternative is under siege by corrupt, adolescent, and zombie collectivists everywhere. Once America falls, they win. Why on earth should we want to become entangled with International Zombieism?
From A.T. -- Antihumanist said, “The problem is the appalling ignorance and disinterest of our citizens.”
Well, the dumbing down and demoralizing has been going on for more than 30 years. It would take as long to smarten back up. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Iz3VjoHXLA&feature=player_embedded. But we probably don’t have time to smarten the electorate, or the educational system that produces it. But, without a smarter electorate, the chance for peaceable resolution keeps diminishing. So hope will fall to those who have not dumbed down who still retain energy and will. They will have to provide strong leadership. I hope it can be peaceable. But that hope is not well represented in history.
As to “the ultimate check and balance”: Absent a society's assimilation of contours for a defensible philosophy that affords decent respect for a higher Source of moral purposefulness, no mere contrivances of legalisms will long protect human freedom and dignity from base animal urges.
From A.T. -- Re Liveable Communities Act:
@Deornwulf noted, "With all of that being said, the most disturbing thing about the postings here is the misplaced outrage. There is nothing wrong with the bill. It is not a 1984 conspiracy to forward some UN Agenda. Rather it is another example of the Federal Government intruding where it does not belong. There is no Constitutional mandate for the Federal Government to offer grants for housing development. Congress should have never considered the matter in the first place."
Well, you find the outrage, but then do not quite make clear whether you are outraged by it. I am outraged that the Feds do not in any way feel limited. Nor do they much heed middle class Americans. IOW, they believe they have unlimited power, and, given support of every elitist who is willing to enrich or empower himself by selling ever more control over the general populace, they have unlimited means to raise money, support, and more power. Everywhere, the watchword is "comprehensive," as in we must have comprehensive solutions, shot at us by centralizing power bidders out of D.C. It may be that it is not an avowed conspiracy, no more than a wolfpack just happening to make the most of its opportunities. But that does not mean that the wolfpack is not dangerous. Regardless, it does seem a bit strange how many new, comprehensive packages of legislation seem just to happen to have been pre-prepared, or planned for springing upon us when we are unprepared, or not even read. If these are not conspiratorial wolves, they are certainly cunning.
Post a Comment