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INFOWAR: Re: does INFOWAR make sense?
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ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 98
INFOWAR. information.macht.krieg
Linz, Austria, september 07 - 12
http://www.aec.at/infowar
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>at its very root, what is it, and what are the basic philosophical
>principles?
The principles of infowar need not involve the love of wisdom
(philosophy), yet they always comprise the essence of wisdom.
>it would be of benefit to articulate the basic principles that are
>beyond any speculation, but to do this, we first need to define what
>infowar is. is it info vandalism? info destruction?
Perhaps instead of trying to dilute infowar with memes of "vandalism" and
"destruction" as you suggest, clarification of the term /infowar/ dervives
from a straightforward analysis of the elements of putting information
into conflict... which means that warring with information inevitably
results in resolution by the most powerful data.
>another question to ask might then be "is infowar of some benefit to
>society"?
A better question to ask might involve considering whether "society"
imparts any benefit to the acquisition of purely beneficial information.
Society may need information more than information needs society.
Information, more than "society", expresses the essence of life.
>for example, while there are many well-intentioned attacks against the
>hegemony of large organizations, one could ask if these don't have an
>effect opposite to that intended. perhaps mild attacks are like a
>vaccination of "the system", that only make it stronger. thus if "the
>system" is corrupt, then one might ask "why make it stronger?".
If the system indeed manifests corruption, then making it stronger only
hastens its demise, since corruption (by definition) defeats itself with
dysfunction. For example, if Communism embodies political sickness, then
by amplifying the sickness, we assure the demise of associated systems.
>just as pearls are made by sand, acting as an irritant, does it really
>make sense to similarly, through mild irritation, strengthen "the system"
>if and when it becomes corrupt? to do so merely incorrectly acknowledges
>them as "pearls" to be irritated to perfection.
Apparently this list has caused irritation in your mind such that you have
created a mind-turd of perfection. What you perceive as "corrupt" others
may see as a systemic pearl. The "pearl" in this case may become greater
than us all. For all we know, a new super-sentient life form may already
inhabit cyberspace.
>random acts of destruction may then merely result in increased security
>and justifaction for fascism. war on drugs, war on rugs, war on hackers,
>war on lazy costly employees, war on incompetence, war on illiteracy,
>war on the homeless, war on pepsi drinkers, etc. --- do they really need
>to be justified?
Well, if they don't need justification, then we should not expect you to
justify your own personal war against infowar either.
>that's one of the reasons i started to think about a new kind of "infowar"
>which might just as easily be called infopeace:
>instead of mutually assured destruction, the idea was to consider
>mutually assured accountability, or even reversed (bottom--up)
>accountability where customers place shopkeepers under surveillance,
>and shopkeepers place management under surveillance and management
>places the CEO under surveillance and the CEO places the king under
>surveillance.
Right. So you want to war against non-accountability. You want to conduct
a war of "surveillance".
>if individuals could somehow place government and other large corporations
>or organizations under surveillance, so that information gathering would
>be bottom--up while physical coersion and force might remain top--down,
>then at least there would be a situation where observability and
>controllability would not both be in the hands of a single entity.
>e.g. police would have the guns and citizens would have the cameras
>(instead of police having both).
Hmmm... to paraphrase Adolf Hitler, "there you sit with your cameras. Here
we sit with our guns. We shall see who wins."
>this might/could result in a kind of infopeace, in the sense that
>information could be distributed rather than centralized. that's kind
>of the spirit of the WWW, in the sense that if a large corporation
>does something bad to an individual that individual can write about
>it on a WWW page, so that it would turn up on a WWW search (so long
>as it wasn't the search engine company that did the something bad).
Infopeace=infoentropy, because conflict means energy. We all "rest in
peace" soon enough. Meanwhile, let's enjoy the zest and vigor of robust
debate.
Cheers,
J R
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