My pathetic response so far has been to close my account with Amazon. I know it's nothing really, but I've had it over 10 years, so I assume I'm a valued customer. I told them why I'm closing it.
I hope that by withdrawing myself - and never being a customer again - from those companies who have showed themselves to be political, or at least not neutral, in the Wikileaks shutdown, I can exert some economic pressure. If many people do the same then it should hurt them hard - their valuation is based on numbers of registered members I'm assuming that these companies will respond more to economic pressure than government pressure. I dont know how true this is. There's also - Paypal, visa and Mastercard, I want nothing to do with them, they disgust me. dave On 11 December 2010 21:00, Simon Biggs <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks Patrick. > > My theory? > > The more central to normalised social activity the internet becomes you > might think the more we should despair. However, it is when the internet has > become the instrument of social, economic and political exchange that the > "other" finds opportunity to strike. Anon-ops' power is greater now than it > could have been before, simply because the internet has become instrumental > to normality. If one seeks to disrupt normality and posit an alternative > then now is the moment to do it. As they say, it is when it seems the battle > is lost that victory becomes apparent. > > Best > > Simon > > > > On 11/12/2010 19:59, "Lichty, Patrick" <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Digital Anarchy and Wikileaks. >> Or, Skynet doesn¹t look anything like we thought it did. >> >> This is the first time I¹ve posted in a while, but I think we¹re in >> significant times. Assange and the whole Wikileaks phenomenon is so >> important >> that it needs a little theory. >> >> To recap for those who have been unaware of the news, Wikileaks is an online >> Wikipedia-like database that ³whistle-blows² against governmental/corporate >> wrongdoing by releasing controlled/classified documents. As of December 2010 >> they have been releasing huge numbers of cables relating to US foreign >> policy, >> which has the First World, especially the US State Department in a panic. >> Why? Because the leaks show the US in any number of gaffes, like calling >> Russia a ³mafia state², disclosing precarious mentions of Middle Eastern >> leaders. In addition, other undisclosed information, such as revealing >> transfers of weapons technology from North Korea to Iran, US drug companies >> targeting African politicians, and so on. This disclosure has sent the First >> World into diplomatic chaos, with geopolitical politics reconfiguring itself >> like a planet-sized Rubik¹s Cube. >> >> First World power has been bitten by its own child, or its own emergent >> system >> as typified in popular science fiction franchises, like the Matrix and >> Terminator. Infopower has begun to become autonomous of its material >> (atomic) >> roots. Instead of the robots, it is merely the infosphere that is asserting >> itself. In The Porcelain Workshop, Antonio Negri asserts that one of the >> three major shift into the postmodern is the primacy of informatics/cognitive >> capital as central to the new order. As such, it is focusing of society on >> this flow of capital which has relocated the foundations of power in the new >> millennium. >> >> The Internet was conceived by the US military (DARPA) as a decentralized >> network for the sharing and redundant storage of information in multiple >> locations in case of nuclear attack. In such a case, one node can be >> destroyed, and the network can still function despite their loss. It is for >> this reason that I believe that material/conventional power should be termed >> as ³atomic², as nuclear weapons are the ultimate extension of the >> nation-state, and as metaphor for material society, we can also double that >> this power situates in the world of atoms. However, this extension of >> conventional/²atomic² power has grown into a concurrent, distributed, >> heterogenous field of power that I will call the Infostate, that includes the >> Web, E-mail, and all functions of networked communications. Although the >> functionaries of conventional power have restructured themselves in terms of >> the informational milieu, the latter is not necessarily congruent with the >> former. The Internet spans most physical states, yet resides in no single >> one. >> >> Despite this, there are zones which the nation state has tried to >> territorialize and limit the flow of cognitive capital, such as Turkey and >> China, but the firewalls remain porous and slippery. This >> deterritiorialization of the Infostate creates an asymmetrical power relation >> which, due to its amorphous nature, is problematic for the conventional >> nation-state to engage. Conventional power requires a face upon which to >> focus >> fear and hatred upon, such as Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden. Infopower >> is >> mercuric and morphogenic, and when confronted by the centralized, >> hierarchical >> nature of conventional power, it merely splits, morphs or replicates, >> sidestepping the metaphorical ³army & general². This relationship signals the >> new balance of power between the nation-state and the Infostate as Krokerian >> Panic dialectic, in which the ability of the one to relate in terms of the >> other implodes. >> >> With the bleeding of information from the material to the infomatic rhizome >> through Wikileaks (i.e. the US diplomatic cable leaks), the Infostate has >> created an asymmetrical insurgency against conventional power. Negri¹s >> conception of cognitive capital as locus of power asymmetrically challenges >> that of material capital. This is analogous to previous mention of events as >> told in the movie, The Matrix, and the artificial (informatic) being >> overriding/supercedes embodied conventional power. As Deleuze, then Agamben >> assert that power is the separation of the subject from potentiality, and as >> such mitigates dissent, the nation-state is trying to exert power by >> separating the means of support and the figurehead from Wikileaks, but >> distributed, asymmetrical cyberwarfare by the net.community has already >> disrupted banks, credit, and networked sites. It has even awakened the >> amorphous hacker subculture of ³Anonymous² which was last known for its mass >> protests against the Church of Scientology to rise against the opponents of >> Wikileaks. The Net, as child of the military (conventional power) has begun >> to turn on its masters, with expected reflexive responses. >> >> This knee-jerk reaction of the nation-state to asymmetrical power versus >> conventional power became evident in the case of 2001, where decentralized >> ³cellular² physical social networks circumvented centralized power. Although >> the previous statement says decentralized physical power, this is merely an >> intermediary step to the development of asymmetrical distributed infopower. >> The centralized, hierarchical nature of the material corporate nation-state >> has been unable to contain the decentralized flow of cellular power, which >> has >> become infopower, created by the emergency of distributed networks. This is >> seen as we look again at Matrix Reloaded, where in, as in The Matrix Trilogy, >> the informatic body/state (Agent Smith) reacts to the intervention of >> conventional human power (Neo, or ³The One²) by asymmetry in massively >> replicating Wikileaks sites (³The Many²). Conventional power now has a cloud >> of moving, replicating targets rather than one to aim at. >> >> The First World then reacts to being challenged by expediting >> material/physical diplomacy that would take months, days, or weeks by >> arresting Assange and possibly for extraditing him to the United States, his >> locus of challenge. But although the ³head², (the object of leverage of >> conventional power) is in custody, the ³body² of Wikileaks and the rest of >> its >> ³computational cloud of dissent² stated on December 7th (incidentally, the >> day >> of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor), that it will continue to release >> information through the WikiLeaks network. Like the anthropomorphization of >> centralizing identity/placing a single ³face² on challenges to hegemony (as >> in >> the Queens of the movies Aliens and The Borg in Star Trek), the true face of >> asymmetry is that of facelessness and morphogenic dissent. It is like trying >> to hold mercury, because as the Critical Art Ensemble states, decentralized >> dissent can only be addressed through decentralized means, and this is not >> the >> structure of conventional power. >> >> In Electronic Civil Disobedience, The Critical Art Ensemble also states that >> in the age of informatic power, physical resistance is severely limited in >> its >> potential for effect, if not useless, as the physical protester is corralled >> or elided entirely by authority. The real interventionists, CAE states, are >> the 20-something year-old hackers who punch through the firewalls and reroute >> flows of information, creating irruptions of redirection, disruption, and >> detournement of infocapital at will. The case of Ricardo Dominguez and the >> Electronic Disturbance Theatre¹s virtual sit-in against the University of >> California was a relatively benign case of the disruption of data as >> political >> act. But the intervention in infocapital is explicated on a larger scale by >> Chinese governbmental hackers¹ compromise of Google (as revealed by >> Wikileaks), as well as the infiltration of an Iranian reactor by hakers. All >> of these illustrate Negri¹s idea that postmodern power/capital has shifted to >> that of the informatics and cognitive fields, and signal a primary shift of >> the balance power in the First World, if not globally. >> >> In light of this redistribution of power, what would the solution for >> converntional/²atomic² power¹s reassertion of hegemony? This would be to >> contain the rise of informatic power by containing its means of distribution. >> This would be by the means of national firewalling, and trunk-line >> disconnection or limited Internet disabling, disrupting infopower, but also >> crippling the flow of digitized material capital as well. This is >> problematic >> at best, as conventional power and informatic power are in symbiotic, the >> latter being more nimble and a step ahead of the former, and to attack a >> symbiote always means to cripple its partner as well. The logical result of >> such actions would be the elimination of net neutrality (the free and open >> flow of data across the Internet) or even the severance of typologies and >> flows of information across the networks. The symbiotic effect is that >> conventional power/capital is also hobbled, as the physical is dependent on >> the same flows of information across the distributed nets, disabling itself >> in >> the process. It is for this reason that it cannot engage in this means of >> retaliation, as it would be the digital suicide of the First World >> nation-state. >> >> This is the brilliance of Wikileaks its use of infrastructure upon which >> conventional power relies as site of anarchic resistance proves the >> potentiality of infomatic power rendering conventional power impotent. In >> this case, bits trump atoms in the milieu of the Net. As nuclear détente >> created an ³aesthetics of uselessness² in the ridiculously high numbers of >> times the world¹s nuclear stockpiles could destroy the Earth, this potential >> reduction of the ³atomic/atomic² to aesthetic nullity arises as the Infostate >> merely shuts down the control systems of the bunker. I nation of nuclear >> gophers, lifeless in their burrows. >> >> Power is reconfiguring in light of informational vs. conventional power, and >> this is why the rise of Wikileaks is significant, and why the geopolitical >> panic-site it creates is a singular event. It suggests that decentralized >> power renders hierarchical conventional power impotent, signaling the >> beginning of the 21st Century paradigm. In The Coming Insurrection, the >> French anarchist group, The Invisible Committee, posits a Communo-Anarchic >> insurgency to overthrow the conventional nation-state. What would replace >> it >> is the creation of a cybernetic proto-industrial model of networked communes >> with high tech microproduction that would be established during and after a >> mass armed insurrection. The insurrection, as CAE states, will not be with >> guns, but with bytes. This is in line with Negri¹s assertion that capital in >> the postmodern has shifted to information/cognitive capital, and that >> conventional power merely marginalizes material (atomic) dissent. The real >> theatre of engagement is the infosphere, and Wikileaks has realized >> info-insurgency as real power first world/digital society has become >> informatic. Anarchy in its most powerful form is now in the disruption and >> release of data withheld by the nation-state. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> NetBehaviour mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > > > Simon Biggs > [email protected] [email protected] > Skype: simonbiggsuk > http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ > > Research Professor edinburgh college of art > http://www.eca.ac.uk/ > Creative Interdisciplinary Research in CoLlaborative Environments > http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ > Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice > http://www.elmcip.net/ > Centre for Film, Performance and Media Arts > http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/film-performance-media-arts > > > > Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number > SC009201 > > > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
