Moblog

In this talk, we'll look at threat modeling in the real world, six ways to die, failing states, that big party in the desert, the failure of the humanitarian project, algae and the U.S. military, large-scale natural disasters, the power grid, and many other things. The problems we face are big in every sense of the word -- they involve some of the biggest things we've ever built -- but the solutions may not be. Can non-governmental networks step up when governments fail to provide basic services? Can we avoid a further expansion of neoliberalism in a post-infrastructural state? Are the power structures embedded in our infrastructure cultural destiny? What happens when maker culture grows up?

"Every word you know has been taught to you one way or another. And thus, every concept and belief you have is a result of this same influence. (...) Consequently, the cultural attributes we maintain as important values, are most often the ones that are reinforced by the external culture. The most dominant cultural attributes maintained are the ones that are reinforced by your environment. If you are born into a society which rewards competition over collaboration, then you most likely will adopt to those values in order to survive."

"Can we see in any media or even university press a paragraph of clear unmasking of a global regime that condemns a third of all children to malnutrition with more food than enough available...? In such a social order, thought becomes indistinguishable from propaganda." (John McMurty, The Cancer State of Capitalism)

"For, as this presentation will explore, the majority of people on this planet not only have no idea how they are being affected negatively by the market economy at large, they actually on average hold a steadfast commitment to its principles based on nothing more than the traditional indoctrination. I got an email once that said to me, "If you're against the free market, you're against freedom". And naturally I shuddered at the state of mind control that the dominant established orthodoxy has successfully imposed. Of course, this is how power is maintained. The trick again is to condition people so thoroughly into the established value systems that any thought of an alternative is inherently rules out without critical examination. And to show how deeply pervasive this phenomenon is, you will notice that virtually all the activist organizations, and the environmental, social and political movements of the day always exclude the market system itself as a determinant of harmful effects. It doesn't even occur to them. Instead, they focus on individuals and certain groups or corrupt corporations, and while, you know, it is needed in a per-case basis to target problematic areas it avoids the mechanism which is essentially creating the problem. This is the fatal flaw of what's happening in the so called activist community today. And, as will be firmly and clearly established over the course of this presentation, the greatest destroyer of ecology, the greatest source of waste and pollution, the greatest purveyor of violence, war, crime, inhumanity, poverty and social distortion, the greatest generator of social and personal neurosis, mental disorders, depression, anxiety, and the greatest source of social paralysis, stopping us from moving into new methodologies for global sustainability and hence progress on this planet is not some government, not some legislation, it's not some rogue corporation or monopoly or cartel, it's not some flaw of human nature, it is in fact the economic system itself, at it's very foundation."