Newton’s Third Law – The Coming Collision

[Soylent Brice]

Newton’s Third Law – The Coming Collision

“To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction: or the forces of two bodies on each other are always equal and are directed in opposite directions.”

In watching the coming collision collision between one individual and the world’s mightiest government, we are about to see if these forces are in fact equal, or if these laws will soon be broken.

The Good News

In the light of the latest Wikileaks events I have been thinking very deeply about citizen empowerment and how technology enabled a small group of people to threaten the legitimacy of the most powerful government the world has ever known. And surprisingly that same government has yet to find a legitimately effective response against this very big pie in their very large collective face.

As many of us have done, I have attempted to fill this void with my own speculations about the retaliatory use of power and how it might subsequently threaten future freedoms, but to my surprise I am left with no other recourse than optimism simply because the technology seems finally to be on our side. These ever-shrinking and ever more powerful devices are quickly growing out of government control. In other words, Julian Assange and Wikileaks are not only symbolic of a political shift but represent the dawn of a new age in the most existential sense, one marked by the emergence of a new form of intelligence, a new culture. Even though we are the creators of this machine it has taken on a life of its own as evidenced by the utter inability for government to stand in its way. To many, the notion of autonomous machine intelligence is met with trepidation as it is assumed that such an intrusive presence would, by its unconscious nature, be a threat to our very fragile ecosystem.

However, the Wikileaks phenomenon indicates another possibility, one that exposes our reluctance for hope, that these machines might tend toward progressive ideals; that it is in their nature to assist in a positive human destiny. Now, I am not proposing that these machines are conscious, but I am putting forward the idea that the hyper-networking of the digital age not only enables the empowerment of egalitarian virtues, but that it actually favors them. The printing press created a favorable efficiency gap between the intellectuals of the enlightenment and the cumbersome bureaucracy of the church but more specifically it nurtured an expanding literary attitude as opposed to a zealous dependence upon singular texts. So now we have a ubiquitous and universalizing machine that provides profits in direct relation to how easily it supports a felicitous sharing of information.

read more: http://www.disinfo.com/2010/12/newtons-third-law-the-coming-collision/

i strongly recommend reading the article in it's entirety.

[gtar100]

1. Fascinating perspective. But the battle for control isn't over.

Both financial and government special interests around the world have self-serving motives to control the flow of information. My take on it is that the rapid growth of the Internet has made it difficult for any one entity to control content. But "security" is the big buzz word on the Internet and controls are constantly being worked on.

The biggest downside is having private interests owning infrastructure. How much of the Internet really is in public space? I like what the author has to say and hope he is right. But there are still forces out there salivating at the idea of content control because of perceived financial gain.

Wikileaks has so far been the biggest test of how much the system can really stand. And it has been quaking in its socket, so to speak. Let's hope the vastness and replication of the information and the interest that it holds for people are enough to overcome the information highway extortionists.

[txlibdem]

2. Both Assange and the private are heroes. We should be talking about their parade not their arrest

Idiots in government.