Self Preservation and Irreversible Decline [was: Electronic Freedom Foundation selective in support of freedom]

[seanl@literati.org (Sean Lynch)]

On Mon, Feb 8, 2016 at 10:15 AM coderman <coderman@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 2/8/16, Sean Lynch <seanl@literati.org> wrote:
> ...
> > This is kind of my worst nightmare; that my optimism has been misguided
> all
> > this time. I wrote a post on liberty.me about how to deal with an
> > invincible adversary that may be relevant here:
> >
> https://undergroundeconomist.liberty.me/dealing-with-an-invincible-adversary/
>
>
> "Fighting a far more powerful adversary requires a completely
> different way of thinking than dealing with one who has similar
> capabilities to yours. "
>  ^- this is also true!  however, you don't continue with a full
> explanation of how to resolve this complication...  :)
>

Yeah, it was still a somewhat half-formed set of thoughts I was trying to
get out there for feedback and expansion by the lazywebs. The community
idea hadn't been planted in my head yet.


> > In the forward of an obscure book I've started reading, The Omega Seed by
> > Paolo Soleri, the forward author talks about how the Christians, instead
> > of continually trying to fight ineffectual revolts against the Romans as
> > their Jewish forebears had, instead focused on building communities. I
> > think we need to focus not only on building communities where we're
> > connected to one another, but where we're strongly connected to people
> > around us who may not share our exact beliefs.
>
> indeed. i've enjoyed great conversation with people across every
> corner of the political spectrum. there's more than enough common
> ground to go around, if we can get past the habit forming narcotic of
> outrage pr0n on media propaganda lambdas...
>
> one side effect of such ideological purity purges in intelligence
> community is the erosion of technical talent and capability. drunk
> twice over on offensive suites too sweet for non-discreet, now is
> reckoning with interest past due!
>

Exactly. The NSA might be able to recruit the best "pure mathematicians"
who know about nothing but, while the more well-rounded folks who are good
at coming up with practical applications of their knowledge, and who are
thoughtful about the ethics of it, are left out here with us.

As long as the Powers That Be can keep us focused on "destroying the
system," they have nothing to fear from us. We remove ourselves from the
battle by isolating ourselves. This is part of why I have lost interest in
Seasteading and never really got interested in charter cities, particularly
that ridiculous "Galt's Gulch Chile". Ayn Rand imagined society resting on
the shoulders of a few very productive people, who could hurt it just by
opting out. But in fact the Powers That Be would like nothing more than for
people who aren't willing to play ball to remove themselves from society in
that way. They don't care if society at large is poorer for it. They still
control the allocation of land and mineral/fossil fuel/nuclear resources.
As long as they control those and society depends on those, the only thing
the Reardons of the world create is surplus wealth and new technology,
which only matters to the Powers That Be in a relative sense. So they just
have to make sure those who don't opt out work on their behalf and not some
enemy Power's behalf.
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