No Empire at the expense of the people - review

I wrote a review of an article I wrote 5 years ago, now moving across to medium to give it a go

Republish of something I wrote in 2015, here on blogger. I feel the article has stood the test of time for the most part, here were the questions I posed and some feedback on what the Trump administration has done… Steve Bannon’s political legacy?

the election of 2016 should be about answering these two questions:

1. Should the U.S. continue to act as global hegemon, which includes providing the reserve currency?Partial Yes. Just enough global hegemon reduction to retain reserve currency status for now. In the middle east, attempt to create new regional balances of power without U.S. blood and treasure. U.S. Troop withdraw with enough brinkmanship to obtain a right balance of power between Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel with regards to the Iraq/Syria ‘spoils of war’.
2. If the answer to 1. is yes, then how should the economy be restructured in order to fulfill the hegemon role in a sustainable fashion?Endevering to get allies to pay for more of their defence against Russia & China.. think NATO funding, U.S. Korean troops, etc. as well as rebalancing trade to be more favourable to the U.S. especially with China. This is an attempt to correct some of the trade imbalances introduced by the Brent Woods system in the 1950s. The system set the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency but conceded favourable trade privileges to defeated foes to ensure peace with Germany and Japan. The primary issue being addressed is that China’s introduction to the same trading system put the U.S. at a big disadvantage in the long term, and would be heading the same way as the British empire did with lot’s of rich bankers in a country slowly losing it’s industrial advantage to more protected economies (at the time the USA, Germany). The problem with the rich banker imperial hegenomy model is you’re only one bad war away from losing everything.. just ask the British.

Steel production was key to great power status

In recent history steel was the most important thing for winning wars. Notice how the top four producers of steel from 200 years ago are permanent members of the UN security council?


The missing permanent member is China, which now produces quite alot:


However these days steel isn't the most important thing for winning wars. Information technology for intelligence gathering, disimformation, smart weapons command and control and many other things is critical. This is why a lot of the China - US trade war revolves around the US trying to prevent too much information technology transfers (as well as protecting strategic US steel & alumunium industries from Chinese undercutting). More to follow.

The problem of Consciousness and the Singularity

I've put a talk together on consciousness & individuality : what these concepts are and how technology will impact them

Youtube video of talk here 

The Problem of Consciousness and the Singularity from Stefan van der Wel

Youtube presentation

Bostom bombers radicalisation memetic cook book

I've been following the boston bombers with great interest.

Stratfor is of the opinion that Inspire magazine helped radicalise Tamerlan as well as give him the knowledge for creating rudimentary explosive devices.


First off, what do I mean about radicalisation in the context of terrorism. Well fundamentally it's about using a person to carry out terror by indoctrinating them into believing it is a righteous cause worth dying for. They are a pawn, or to use Dan Dennett's excellent example an ant:

Dennett's analogy talks about the



Is there anything that can be done about Internet-enabled radicalization?
Authorities assessing the motivations of the bombing suspects appear convinced that Tamerlan and his younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were self-radicalized, “lone wolf” terrorists. Just as they may have gotten their recipe for pressure-cooker bombs from the Internet, so, too, it looks as if they entered cyberspace to indoctrinate themselves with ideas that justified blowing up innocent people.




The obscure Russian jihadist whom Tamerlan Tsarnaev followed online
To summarise, he was a nobody terrorist fighting for Dagastani independence from Russia who put out a few youtube videos

The boston bombings give an interesting insight into islamic radicalisation without any exposure to external networks

Timerlan the older brother had been watching radical preachers who were talking about the need for non-arabs to be warriors for allah.

he is named after a non-arab warrior who ruled a great muslim empire which included chechnea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Timurid_Dynasty_821_-_873_(AH).png


http://blackflags1.blogspot.com.au/

kyrgyzstan


A YouTube account that appears to have been run by Tsarnaev includes a playlist devoted to "terrorism", including one video in English titled The Emergence of Prophecy: The Black Flags from Khorasan. He also maintained a playlist devoted to Islam and one devoted to Timur Mutsuraev, a Chechen singer who sang of the republic's battle for freedom from Russia.


http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/19/relatives-marathon-bombing-suspects-worried-that-older-brother-was-corrupting-sweet-younger-sibling/UCYHkiP9nfsjAtMjJPWJJL/story.html

timerlan

radicalisation

terror


Allah's Mountains: The Battle for Chechnya, The I.D. Forger: Homemade Birth Certificates & ​Other Documents Explained, and How to Win Friends & Influ​ence People, among other works:



latest stratfor - CIA funded radicalisation of tamerlan?
http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical-diary/izvestias-report-and-boston-bombing

http://www.infowars.com/tamerlan-tsarnaev-attended-cia-sponsored-workshop/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/04/24/the-obscure-russian-jihadist-whom-tamerlan-tsarnaev-followed-online/



stratfor on bombing and inspire magazine


inspire magazine


memetics

dennet on dangerous ideas


kids = ant all terrain vehicle

Letting future self have more say on decisions

After having two nights out drinking last week I have question: How do I let future me have more input into decisions present me makes? Apps, behaviour modification, etc. Our brains have evolutionary survival feedback mechanisms which are obsolete and somehow need to be overcome / hijacked.

Brainstorming I can think plan and review calendar for work but coming up short on finances and health. Finances you have "you have spent X" notifications, health you can have a "go for a run" notifications which are pretty primitive.

What I'm kind of thinking you need is a C3PO whispering in your ear a predictive behaviour outcome feedback... e.g. your google maps location shows an 80% probability that you are walking to a bar. Given it's a Tuesday you are likely to consume >5 drinks which will likely mean you will carbload and skip exercise for 4 days. This means in 1 week you will be X kg heavier and your like expectancy will have decreased by X days. A more medium long term feedback would be: given you are entering a bar towards the end of a 16 day period not going to a bar, you are at risk of not completing a 21 day behaviour modification of reducing bar attendance which will lead to a projected uplift of bar attendance events of X per year, leading to a projected.... you get the point.

Chomsky, Sanders, SOPA, TPP and the migration of popular movements online

Bernie Sander's campaign is going very well, rising in the polls massive online presence, he may not be winning in the main stream press but his online presence towers over Hillary's. Need to flesh this out a bit, facts & figures on social media engagement, Hillary trust issues etc.




Noam Chomsky has a more pessimistic outlook on Bernie's campaign. For a start e doesn't believe Sanders will get nominated, and even if we were nominated he doesn't believe he would be able to implement the policy change that appeals to his base due to a lack of clout within the American political & financial establishment.  

Instead Chomsky would prefer it if Bernie prepared his support base for a long term populist uprising, independent of election cycles. This is taken from an interview with the Institute for Public Accuracy titled: Noam Chomsky: Electing the President of An Empire

Noam Chomsky:Take, say, the Bernie Sanders campaign, which I think is important, impressive. He’s doing good and courageous things. He’s organizing a lot of people. That campaign ought to be directed to sustaining a popular movement that will use the election as a kind of an incentive and then go on, and unfortunately it’s not. When the election's over, the movement is going to die. And that’s a serious error.

The only thing that’s going to ever bring about any meaningful change is ongoing, dedicated, popular movements that don’t pay attention to the election cycle. It’s an extravaganza every four years. You have to be involved in it, so fine. We’ll be involved in it, but then we go on. If that were done, you could get major changes.

Noam believes that using the parliamentary system to make popular policy change is impossible in the United States, rather the political establishment now serves the interested of the Plutocracy exclusively:

There’s very good polling evidence on what people think about things. So for example for about 40 years, a considerable majority of the public has thought that taxes should go up on the rich. Taxes go down on the rich. A substantial part of the public, often a big majority, thinks that we ought to have a national healthcare program. Nothing. Impossible. In fact when the press discusses this they call it “politically impossible.” Meaning the pharmaceutical companies won’t accept it, the insurance companies won’t accept it, and so on. So it basically doesn’t matter what the public thinks.

About 70% of the public, the lowest 70% on the income scale, are pretty much disenfranchised. Their attitudes have no detectable influence on the policies of their own representatives. As you move up the scale you get a bit more influence. When you get to the top, policy is made. 

Now the top can mean a fraction of 1%, so it’s kind of a plutocracy with democratic forms. And the elections, I mean by now it’s almost become a joke but it’s always been true that campaign financing plays a very substantial role in not only who’s elected but what the policies are. That goes back 100 years. Mark Hanna, the great campaign manager 100 years ago, was asked once, “What are the important things that you have to have to run a campaign?" He said: “There are three things. First one’s money. The second one is money. And I forget what the third one is.”

I'm necessarily not sold on this argument. There is ample evidence that popular movements can influence policy, provided the public have a powerful advocate. In more recent times these powerful advocates seem to be concentrated in high tech companies which rely on online social networks such as Wikipedia, Google and Facebook.

Case in point - The "Internet blackout" to stop SOPA legislation

For instance, when media companies tried to push through SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) which was arguably detrimental to the common man, it was met with a very effective campaign by Wikipedia, Google, Facebook and others which managed to derail the bill by crowd sourcing an online petition and email campaign to elected representatives:





The campaign led to one million emails being sent to elected representatives protesting the bill along with a petition containing the names of 10 million voters. This lead to the scrapping of the bill.

Now arguably this could just be large technology platform content providers protecting their own interests as opposed to a true grassroots movement. In my opinion, the true nature of this phenomena will become apparent when TPP legislation is attempted to be enforced.

The next test will be the TPP

In order to validate whether this approach will continue to be successful will in my opinion come if the implementation of elements of the transpacific partnership (TPP) which are deemed to be detrimental to society at large is met with similar online protests orchestrated by the big tech and social media players. I can see protest arising regarding intellectual property law, as well as new pharmaceutical regulation.

Journalists I read

This is my regular reading list: I'll add more detail on why I like these guys when I get round to it, but take it from me, if you want to know how the world really works, read these guys.

Taki Theodoracopulos

His spectator column the high life is probably the best column you can read on a week by week basis. The man exudes crass intellectualism and refined vulgarity. He can also write.  He also runs The American Conservative, which has a rather reasonable take on what America's role should be on the world stage.

Gary Brecher: The War Nerd

Best geopolitical analysis on the Internet, and like Taki, he can write! He now has a patron podcast, radio war nerd

George Friedman

Second best geopolitical analysis on the net