Hi Dave, If you are leaving them make sure they know why...
marc > Have just received an email from Amazon asking to confirm if I want to > close my account. > > At the bottom of their email is the strapline: > "Your feedback is helping us build Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company." > > It reminds me of Pret A Manger's hypocrisy "We shun the obscure > chemicals, additives and preservatives common to so much ‘prepared’ > and ‘fast’ food." (they're owned by McDonalds of course) > > dave > > On 12 December 2010 10:39, dave miller<[email protected]> wrote: >> 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 > _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
