What We Are Winning

What Is Left to Win

What We Have Won

What We Must Still Win

What Will Remain

First of all, here begins my use of the confusing phrase "regulate power" that I repeat multiple times but to which I ascribe little in the way of substantive meaning. Second, my desire to hook the reader has allowed the introduction to lose focus. The essay is about two things: (1) the capacity of the Internet to democratize the levers of power from nation-states to ordinary citizens and (2) the obstacles facing those citizens in utilizing that power effectively (which more or less center around control of their thought-flow by private industry). The Reader should know that this is the conceptual framework in which I will be operating, but she does not.

The relevance of all this background to the rest of the argument is tenuous and therefore is likely a waste of space. I should work on just saying what I what I need to say, which is that the best way to comprehend power in modern society is by looking at how it non-coercively shapes human behavior at the lowest level.

Again, all this theoretical background may help me conceptualize the problem in my head, but the need for its inclusion in the essay is questionable. The Zuckerberg tangent feels out of place, and there are probably better ways to illustrate the centrality of information/data to social control.

Also, money is still very powerful in contemporary society, so an acknowledgment of that reality is needed.

The link between the consumption of mindless drivel and social problems is not obvious here. Humans have always had leisure time, and it is not readily apparent that going on Buzzfeed when you are not at work is this horrible thing. What is important is that the data miners are using us for our own gain and thereby preventing our self-fulfillment. All this other stuff is secondary.

The argument is that the inefficiencies of centralized top-down bureaucracy are exacerbated in a world where the Internet structures the majority of communication. The discussion of DDoS? is nice, but it doesn't really capture the point. The point should be that when you have a technically capable, fully conscious, fully free citizenry, you don't need silver bullets anymore and systemic weaknesses are not as easy to exploit. Starfighters beat Death Stars 100% of the time.

I also need to make an argument for the inherent "goodness" of democracy at some point. Many people prefer philosopher-kings, and these need to be acknowledged.

I think the conclusion would be more or less fine if I had done what I needed to do in the earlier sections. But I need to show that the state necessarily withers away and anarchy prevails as well as do a better job explaining what I mean by "obligations" and how that ties in with my conception of freedom. Overall, the central ideas need to flow more seamlessly.

The Internet, Power, and Social Obligation

Introduction

Situating Power in the Internet Society

The Ontology of Power

The Information Epoch

Searching for an Answer

Conclusion

In genre terms, though, it's an aria: an exercise in rhetoric-with-music, not the political analysis of which it is only the operatic analogue.

I understand the temptation, myself. It's not that I've never worked in the genre. But without the benefit of some really clever co-authors, you do have to carry the burden of theoretical sufficiency. And you can't seriously get the reader to participate in the illusion that the whistleblower, the hacktivist and the social entrepreneur are forces on the relevant scale. Not even Mr Snowden—who is not a whistleblower but rather the most successful professional espionage agent of our time, a man who spied for humanity as a whole more brilliantly than anyone has spied for any country on earth for several generations—is a force on the scale about which you are ... well, singing.

In the end, I think, the decision about the direction of revision is about the desire either to be in or out of the frame of resonant fairyland. It's the world of Gesamkunstwerk, to be sure. But still, I think, the sort of stuff law firm partners like to be seen at, dressed expensively, when their brains are tired.

A New Class Struggle

A New Class

-- By ShayBanerjee - 10 Dec 2015

The centralized state and her corporate allies monitor with increasing discomfort the moral leaders of our New Technological Age: the Whistleblower, the Hacktivist, the Social Entrepreneur. Although their insecurity is understandable, it arises not out of fear for the welfare of the People, as they would have us believe, but insecurity over their own incompetence and corruption. Not to worry — their time will come soon enough, for a new order has been born.

Service Through Resonance

Confronting a stampede of 21st century cataclysms — the economic meltdown caused by criminal financial practices, the bloodcurdling terror caused by violent extremism abroad, the growing threat of anthropogenic climate change, the abuse of ordinary citizens by a newly militarized police, the corruption of government institutions, the ballooning cost of higher education — the State has repeatedly dragged her feet, proposing solutions as inadequate as they are rarely enacted. Meanwhile, she encroaches increasingly on our inalienable rights — killing and detaining citizens without due process, snooping on our private affairs, and violently crushing peaceful assemblies. Wherever the State has failed to advance the People's interests, she has chosen to oppress them instead.

Nor is the profit-driven Corporation — that hallmark of "free” enterprise pious in her sermon on market-driven growth but herself reliant on the crutch of state subsidies and protections — leading the People to better world. By now, a solar panel should sit atop every building, but all the Corporation provides is a smartphone atop every hand. Medical research and treatment should liberate the People from disease, but instead the Corporation provides widespread overmedication and costly drug dependence. Media should promote an informed citizenry, but instead the Corporation provides sensationalism, disempowerment, and quizzes telling us to which Disney princess our fashion taste most resembles. Where radical problems demand radical solutions, the weight of large-scale industrial innovation has instead devoted her attention to the fabulously banal task of exploiting the habits, behaviors, and fleeting inclinations of consumerist society.

Yet while the Icarus that is the Corporate-State apparatus ventures sunward, a new set of leaders pulls the People back. The world they construct is a more dynamic, pragmatic, and just one. In this world, government corruption is exposed and addressed, corporate leaders are punished for their crimes, and dreams of roadways emitting solar energy are converted into reality. In this world, power accumulates not through violence, hierarchy, or consumer manipulation, but resonance.

Power Through Democracy

Since the dawn of history, the individual human has sought to accumulate power — the ability to influence human activities and the distribution of scarce of resources. In consonance, Civilization — the collective human conscience — has sought to channel that inclination in service of the social good. The performance of the latter task has required all hitherto societies to collect social force and invest resources into dedicated centers of power — the regulator, the military, the corporation. Only now, with the construction of a fully interconnected network of communications, has that requirement been eliminated. Now, the complete decentralization of power into the hands of the masses is possible and supplants all prior forms of social organization. Rejoice humanity, for, finally, on comes Democracy.

On comes the Whistleblower, that now hidden, now open, agent of human freedom, driven not by greed but service to the People. Risking personal security, social exile, and even her own life, the Whistleblower is overcome with ethical obligation in the face of corruption and evil. Through the Internet she finds her Voice — uncontaminated, pure — and exposes the great lies of representative democracy and corporate responsibility for all the world to see. Like the Naked Emperor slowly realizing the true nature of his “new clothes,” the Corporate-State panics, searching the ends of the Earth to bring the Whistleblower to “justice.” To no avail.

On comes the Hacktivist, that uncorrupted, lionhearted enforcer of the People’s Will . Unlike the institutional actors she fights, the Hacktivist is driven by no agenda but her own — an agenda fully human, fully transparent. Finding strength in numbers and anonymity, the Hacktivist attacks oppression with the force of a People’s Hammer, punishing corporate enemies of democracy, despotic governments, overreaching militaries, child pornography distributors, purveyors of hate speech, and environmental polluters. Over time, the Hacktivist's technical skill grows with her numbers, and her power eventually eclipses that of the Corporate-State herself. Beaming with confidence, the Hacktivist sets her sights on that elusive enemy the Corporate-State has failed to eradicate for decades — and the violent extremists abroad tremble like the cowards they are. The Corporate-State, losing credibility quickly, temporarily allies with the Hacktivist to pursue her own ends.

On comes the Social Entrepreneur, that daring pioneer who measures success not by the accumulation of profit but the goal of genuine human progress. The Internet unlocks the raw power of crowdsourcing as a vehicle to channel capital toward new ventures. At first, the vehicle is employed to mirror the Corporate-State — used by profit-driven entrepreneurs to produce materialist goods of questionable social value. It is the Social Entrepreneur, however, who unleashes the vehicle’s true revolutionary power. After all, she recognizes, the single greatest instrument of human learning in the history of the world has always been, at its root, a crowdfunding project. Similar efforts, she realizes, can be used to drive a new energy future, protect natural resources, reform campaign finance, improve learning outcomes, cure disease, and protect privacy. Quickly, the allies of corporate power rush to discredit the Social Entrepreneur. Investment, they cry, must be for profit, not for good. The Social Entrepreneur continues, unabated.

Freedom and Struggle

A new class of Technologists has emerged, comprised of these three pillars, built in the People’s Image, made possible by a new age, guided in service of freedom, security, and prosperity. With its emergence will arrive new battlegrounds, new campaigns, new fights — a new class struggle for the beating heart of the human race. The particular form that struggle takes remains to be seen, but freedom demands these three pillars are protected, grown, allowed to flourish. The Corporate-State has no interest to do these things, so the People must.

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