Technological serfdom
Uncategorized - - Posted on March, 10 at 4:02 pm by Ken L
Catallaxy is a bit of an odd blog I reckon. Jason Soon’s posts are usually informative, measured and civil. However they attract a group of regular commenters who could best be described as … ummmm … eccentric. Ah well all part of the great web I guess (Marcus Aurelius’s web, not the world wide variety).
Anyway Jason has a post today mentioning an essay contest in the following terms:
In The Constitution of Liberty Hayek says that “we are probably only at the threshold of an age in which the technological possibilities of mind control are likely to grow rapidly and what may appear at first as innocuous or beneficial powers over the personality of the individual will be at the disposal of government. The greatest threats to human freedom probably still lie in the future.”
Has Hayek’s gloomy warning been borne out by events, or has technology become more a force for liberating people from government?
I guess Hayek’s writings have to be read in the context of his time and his life experience, and consequently it’s understandable that he wrote so strongly and eloquently about the potential dangers that flow from increases in state power. Nor would I want to dismiss his concerns. Nevertheless I have always found it puzzling that so many people who promote Hayek’s views seem to place such blind faith in ‘free’ markets and thus in the private sector.
Speaking personally, I am just as concerned about the technological possibilities of mind control in the hands of private corporations as I am about anything the state is likely to do.
Posted in Uncategorized |
March 10th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I’d back that. Damage to freedom tends to occur when monolithic organisations have too much control over the flow of resources. This is true of both governments and private enterprise. Standard Oil is usually dragged out as an example of the latter, but Microsoft would also be a (potential) risk given the spread of the Windows operating system.
I can think of a number of examples from my own area of interest (Coffee) where freedom of the individual has been appallingly reduced through the actions of the ‘free’ market on one side AND government on the other.
March 10th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
But what if they are one & the same?…:)
Guess we’ll soon find out.
March 10th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Might add, this is a positive sign from the Federal Labor govt:
http://andrewbartlett.com/blog/?p=1957
(Major improvements to control political donations on the way?)
One small but important step to ensure we don’t transform into the “black hole” that is American politics. Fancy all that money, media exposure & hoopla only to choose the same candidates that any citizen w/ half a brain who watched the news a coupla times a week could’ve told you would end up as the “Top of the line Models”?
Don’t ya luv the way ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ sucks the life out of the anti-war, anti-Corporate Media, anti-corruption movement?…& in turn, allows Bushevik War Criminals to move about freely giving paid talks, interviews & writing books to fill their coffers?
Ya gotta give it to them…the American Resource War movement has “Hit & Run” down to a fine art.
Mind control is happening each time you turn on your TV or go to a mainstream movie. It really ain’t that sophisticated. If you’re letting the mainstream media define the political race for you, or the War…if you permit them to set the parameters, you’re probably missing a heck of a lot of other views, ideas and approaches to life…you’ve become an Armchair Imperialist. Comfy & cosy, chomping on your barely edible pizza & swilling your “road to diabetes” soft drink as another sectarian civil war is constructed in a far off country, in order to supply your pizza delivery dude w/ enuff petrol to get to your home. And you demonstrate more emotion over the latest “horror flick” w/ the “Halloween-style” soundtrack than you do over the censored shots of bodies that litter the latest “BREAKING NEWS” explosion site.
The fact that GW Bush & his mates are about to walk away scott-free from this Iraq FIASCO tells me the that “Mind Control” has worked on a mass level. It’s not a future problem. It’s a NOW problem.
March 10th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
I know I am under some sort of control,perhaps chosen as a sleeper for future events.Right now though it seems my operation,that part of my mind that engages with representative meaning,eg. word sentence and communication forming by this means and spoken,is always functionally adapting to interference.I have a number of times suggested how lazy A.S.I.O.is ,I see plenty of evidence of a coincidence type in my life ,that this has been happening for years,and have even determined baby behaviour as in responses.I do state such, knowing full well, I have been in a mental hospital and clinic hearing voices has got its own pyschobabble description.In circumstances where noise is more abundant and human behaviour more easily distracted and compelled, I have seen this adding to strange series of coincidences.The truth is,I would suggest, a more alarming matter than what you are determining by Bushes exploits and getting away with it.How can a voice one hears before a statement from self,in an attempt to be fully conscious in that statement… go under,as in drown,in milliseconds to the coherence reality of the words one is hearing, seemingly[not my choice of word]across ones head or in some sort of turbulent reality which seems to pass by!?Out on this farm I can even sometimes know when a bull some distance away,is going to call in pain,because I have resisted the determined behaviour,which seems to mean a more punishing result next time in the sweep.I dont trust our media either,there is something unusually self accepting about them which isnt real,this taken over state is,I would even suggest, you visiting the subject matter means,you maybe more far gone than you may suspect!?There is a code in this for Authority,I dont know what it is..this subject prioritises the code.I am sure about this,as I am sure it is hard for most people to accept in their waking moments they are actually controlled and asleep with brain functioning quite well![Until} not my chosen word, one hears the crazy controlling thoughts machine trying to insert and assert the word keys of daydreaming or distraction…the worry directions of any forced subjects,simulating and blocking mental activity..until entrainment is easy and thorough.I hate our government*s reluctance to know and accept this is the real terror,unjustified attacks on law abiding citizens as much as they can be, with this operating.I am there,and hardly anyone knows me,for me, cannot be,the end doubt for myself is the same reality..psychobabble with degrees has more say,than any attempt to find the criminal process.Thus being in contempt of Authority is the only controlled honesty.They wont do any better!?
March 10th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Phil, love your work, but could you throw in the occasional paragraph break? It is real hard to read big slabs of text like that.
March 10th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Seeker, tell the truth. It’s virtually impossible to read. phil can’t handle apostrophes or spacings, let alone paragraphs.
Ken, from my point of view, I am even more concerned about private corporations that I am about government. After all we did get rid of the Rodent, but we still have The Australian and its gang of ideologues who still peddle the same crap. Governments in a democracy are controllable (sort of) but corporations seem uncontrollable.
March 11th, 2008 at 12:16 am
There’s a major element of chemistry in this mind-control issue, too. Big Pharma pumps out the drugs, gets doctors hooked on perks and freebies, gets them prescribing anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, anti-convulsants, benzodiazepines… Mind contol? You betcha! As the victim of a major misdiagnosis in childhood which led to inappropriate medication with serious side-effects, I have had first-head experience of pharmacological fallibility. And I’m still angry. Mind control plus arch-capitalist ethic is a standard recipe for human disaster.
March 11th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Anybody got any egs of govt or private mind control that they are concerned about?
March 11th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Generally speaking, an Alfoil hat takes care of most of it.
March 11th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Excellent points, Ken and Nasking. And I love Nasking’s terminology, ‘Bushovik’. I agree that they ought to be accountable for their crimes.
One of the ironies of today is that those criticising these excesses usually prompt the ‘anti-American’ chant. Whereas in truth, many of us remain in awe of the wisdom in the US Declaration of Independence and their Constitution.
It is true that they were wary of State power, but they would have felt the same about corporate power, had it spread like it has today.
Checks and balances, or accountability are required everywhere.
March 11th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Anybody got any egs of govt or private mind control that they are concerned about?
No, because they wipe qall knowledge of it after they’ve done it.
Like, duh.
On a more serious note, what is advertising if not media used to change or stimulate people’s desires? Isn’t that ‘mind control’?
March 11th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
What ABBA and Seeker said Phil Travers. I got further with one your posts than I have before, but had to stop for lack of paragraphing and spacing. I wanted to read further but . . .
I have my Alfoil hat on now enkew and am therefore impervious to mind control from the intertubes screen, but the biomechanical bugs they planted in my brain have not been disabled by Polish Vodka. Yet.
Ken I agree that the Hayek Libertarians have a massive blind-spot about the extent to which the state buttresses and regulates the markets. The markets have never been free!
March 11th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Absolutely spot-on Naskers:
“I am just as concerned about the technological possibilities of mind control in the hands of private corporations as I am about anything the state is likely to do.
But what if they are one & the same?…:)”
“I am gross and perverted
I’m obsessed ‘n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little has changed
I’m the tool of the Government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you
I may be vile and pernicious
But you can’t look away
I make you think I’m delicious
With the stuff that I say
I’m the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I’m the slime oozin’ out
From your TV set
You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don’t need you
Don’t go for help . . . no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold
That’s right, folks . . .
Don’t touch that dial
Well, I am the slime from your video
Oozin’ along on your livin’ room floor
I am the slime from your video
Can’t stop the slime, people, lookit me go
I am the slime from your video
Oozin’ along on your livin’ room floor
I am the slime from your video
Can’t stop the slime, people, lookit me go”
“I’m The Slime”
From Frank Zappa’s Overnite Sensation album, early 70s.
And agreed seeker and Ozymandias, I like philip traver’s ideas a lot. Good folk tried to wise him up to his readily fixed communicational handicap at LP a few months back, but it was like taliking to a word processor.
Philip, this William Burroughs-ish Interzone/Naked Lunch thing is well and good if you’re WB, but it really does place an un-necsessary barrier between you and your message, mate.
March 11th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Superb choice EC.
Thought this might fit here too:
Imagine if you will, a room containing a Cabal of Busheviks…those who supported the Iraq Invasion…sitting in a circle. In the middle of this room are the bodies of one, innocent Iraqi family…symbolising those who have fallen during these dreadful days & did not once request American intervention.
Upon entering the room, you make your way thru the seated Cabal…and with horror and disgust you gaze at the mutilated, strewn bodies. Shakily you turn on the seated ones & demand:
“Who did this?”
Each character you fix your urgent eyes on lifts their hand & points across the way to another. The “Other” points at “another”. And each time your gaze is averted from the finger-pointer, you come to realise that the most recent finger-pointer has vanished. Eventually only YOU and one Bushevik is left in the room.
Now you’re furious.
“I demand you tell me who did this!!!”. The hand is lifted. The finger points.
At YOU.
You hear a door click open. A faceless character in a black overcoat enters the room & stands before YOU.
You realise you are now the only two living beings alive in the room. Then you notice a row of TV monitors imbedded in the walls…they are showing the various Cabal members smiling inanely as they are interviewed by big time Talk Show hosts…the audiences are laughing…continously…nervously…insanely.
You shake your head in frustration…& utter with contempt:
“I’m sure those mongrels are guilty. How can the people laugh with them?”
The faceless authority figure takes YOU by the arm & leads YOU away from the bodies of the INNOCENT…leads YOU out of the room. Says in a terrifyingly sweet voice:
“You are mistaken. They brought it on themselves. Come along…i have many brilliant things to show you…they will help you to stop worrying”.
THE LIGHT in THE ROOM goes off.
The monitors keep displaying.
N’
March 11th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Gulf War illness linked to chemical exposure
Monday, Mar 10, 2008 11:11PM UTC
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Exposure to pesticides, nerve agents and other
chemicals may explain the chronic, multi-symptom health problems
experienced by up to one-third of Gulf War veterans, U.S. researchers
said on Monday.
They said an analysis of a host of studies offers compelling evidence
that the fatigue, muscle or joint pain, memory and sleep problems,
rashes and breathing troubles experienced by these veterans are due to
chemicals known as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and
organophosphates, which includes nerve gas.
“Convergent evidence now strongly links a class of chemicals –
acetylcholinesterase inhibitors — to illness in Gulf War veterans,”
And if Agent Orange did not get you then the good old seppos are kind enough to spread this crap around the planet just to give you a bit of memory loss;
Dr. Beatrice Golomb of the University of California, San Diego, said
in e-mailed comments.
She said some of the chemicals linked to these illnesses continue to
be used in agriculture, and in homes and offices for pest control in
the United States and throughout the world.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0711986105
March 11th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Whilst the World’s media goes loopy over the Elliot Spitzer story, more American troops die in the Iraq FIASCO.
BAGHDAD — Bombers unleashed a wave of explosions in Baghdad and north of the capital Monday, including two attacks that killed eight U.S. service members in the deadliest day for the military this year, American and Iraqi authorities said.
The other blasts targeted Iraqi security forces, militias and civilians, hitting a police station, a hotel, a busy traffic intersection and near a mosque and a hospital.
The combined death toll of at least 22 included 14 Iraqi casualties, on the heels of twin bombings that killed nearly 70 people last Thursday in a Baghdad shopping district, indicated that Sunni Muslim insurgents are reasserting their presence at a time when large-scale attacks had dipped to record lows, Iraqi officials said.
(8 U.S. troops, 14 Iraqis die in wave of insurgent bombings
By Hannah Allam and Yasseen Taha | McClatchy Newspapers)
———————
Whilst those who have been victims of REAL, vicious “mind control” techniques…the American soldiers…prepare to “tell it as it was…& is…in Iraq”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19501.htm
(10/03/08 “ICH” — - Get ready for the horrible, honest reality of the American occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan like you haven’t heard it before. For four days, from March 13 through March 16, hundreds of U.S. veterans of the two wars will descend on Washington and testify in the “Winter Soldier” hearings about what they really did while they were serving their country in Iraq. And their experiences aren’t pretty.
The event is inspired by the Winter Solider tribunal held in 1971 by Vietnam War vets, including John Kerry. The name comes from a quote from Thomas Paine, the revolutionary who rallied George Washington’s troops at Valley Forge, saying: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”)
———–
It’s not surprising that the Bushevik War-Mongers, John McCain & other Hawks would be rubbing their hands w/ glee over Spitzer’s “fall from grace”.
Anything to keep the TRUTH from coming out about this damned War. Anything to keep the public’s attention glued elsewhere. What’s juicier than a “sex scandal”, particularly when you can bring down someone who was a thorn in the side of Wall Street.
Alas, moral hypocrisy & the resulting blackmail will always be the downfall of the so called “Left-Wing” of politics until they decide to “out” themselves (Obama had the guts to so in his book regarding his drug use as a young man)…or play it more sober & straighter (tho do we really want a bunch of Puritans running government?)…& direct their attention to “bringing down” the real MOBSTERS & War Criminals…& the media types who enable them.