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INFOWAR: RE: information is shit
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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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I used the gasoline example specifically because of it's relation to our
list subject matter which is warfare. Gasoline is vital to conduct any
modern warfare. Waste products of gasoline combustion are simply waste
products just as Gasoline itself was once a waste product until someone
found a use for it. Once they found a use more waste products were
created. This is a cycle that has been repeated for millions of years
going at least as far back as the first time a human ate a meal.
Useful things create useless things, but my point is that useless things
are only useless because we haven't discovered a use for them and not
because they are inherently useless.
Now back to gasoline in specific. Around the turn of the century
Gasoline was a useless byproduct of oil refining until someone
discovered a use for it. That use grew and grew until one dark winter
month the Nazi military lost a war because of it. Their tanks and other
vehicles stalled because the Germans had simply run out of gas in the
middle of the largest counter attack in the war's history when they
stopped retreating and attacked at the Bulge. The Battle of the Bulge
caught everyone but the Germans by surprise and they stood a very real
chance of retaking Europe...but they ran out of gas.
Now to me this example is a great illustration about the merits of the
argument as put forth by Cooke which states that there's a lot of junk
out there. My response is that there isn't a lot of junk out there.
Under the right conditions everything is absolutely vital and
desperately needed.
To link this further with this list's topic of information as a weapon
of war. Remember that there are only three things any military force
does: shoot, move and communicate. If you remove, or at least control
or manipulate any of those three items you will cripple or outright
destroy a military machine's ability to conduct war. It is possible,
now more than ever before, for civilians to stop a military force simply
by stopping them from communicating correct information.
Just my two cents.
:)
M. Shafer Ramsey
Ph.D. Candidate University of Arizona
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Grayson Cooke [SMTP:gcooke@alcor.concordia.ca]
> Sent: Thursday, May 07, 1998 6:09 AM
> To: infowar@aec.at
> Subject: RE: INFOWAR: information is shit
>
[Ramsey, Shafer] (text deleted to save on list bandwidth)
> I must say, however, that your example of gasoline as
> waste turned into gold is particularly problematic, considering the
> waste
> products of gasoline-run engines, the air pollution and the damage to
> the
> ozone layer. really, doesn't this only serve to demonstrate my point
> more
> clearly? Simply, that waste will always be produced; almost as if
> there is
> a WILL-TO-WASTE that functions over and above and in spite of any will
> to
> produce or use.
>
> Similarly, while it is always easy to counter a statement of opinion
> like
> mine with relativism (i.e., one person's shit is another's gold), I
> tend to
> feel that a critical attitude towards the widespread metanarratives of
> informational proliferation and progress, and the speed with which
> this is
> effected, is ultimately more useful than waiting for shit to turn into
> gold. Yeh?
>
> cheers,
> Grayson
>
> Grayson Cooke
>
> gcooke@alcor.concordia.ca
> (514) 937-5101
>
> Humanities Doctoral Programme
> Concordia University
> Montreal
>
>
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