The first message to ever travel between two computers connected via the ARPANET, the computer network that would become the Internet, happened on 29 October 1969. The Internet just turned 40. And 40 is the new 20. It is incredible that Al Gore, born 31 March 1948, was able to invent such an amazing series of tubes at the age of 21. Technology is rapidly changing humans, life and relationships. In fact, the homo sapien is about to become obsolete. Perhaps 300 will become the new 20.
Forewarned is forearmed and this article is both objective and persuasive. But while the baton, taser, assault rifle or stealth bomber may be used in lieu of conversation words will always retain their power.
As Ludwig von Mises wrote in Socialism on page 460, ‘Only ideas can overcome ideas.’ and in Omnipotent Government on page 210, ‘Both force and money are impotent against ideas.’
Words proffer the instruments to meaning. Equity, freedom, justice, peace and prosperity. These are not mere words; they are vantage points.
OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE
One major trend with the Internet is the open source environment. Open source software is where the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed with or without modification. There are many examples such as Linux, SourceForge or Wordpress. The speed and adaptability of the open source environment cannot be ignored.
For example, in a memo from deputy CIO David Wennergren to top military officials he wrote,
To effectively achieve its missions, the Department of Defense must develop and update its software-based capabilities faster than ever, to anticipate new threats and respond to continuously changing requirements … The use of open source software can provide advantages in this regard.
The open source environment is the opposite of a classified environment. The source code may be viewed by all. Every single revision may be viewed by all. Transparency is fundamental to the process much to the consternation of some parties.
For example, a researcher built at monitoring tool called Wikipedia Scanner for the online open source encyclopedia Wikipedia.
The BBC reports two examples:
An online tool that claims to reveal the identity of organisations that edit Wikipedia pages has revealed that the CIA was involved in editing entries.
Wikipedia Scanner allegedly shows that workers on the agency’s computers made edits to the page of Iran’s president. …
“The changes brand Mr Limbaugh as “idiotic,” a “racist”, and a “bigot”. An entry about his audience now reads: “Most of them are legally retarded.” The IP address is registered in the name of the Democratic National Headquarters.
Once the taste of such freedom has been experienced it is difficult to extinguish the desire for more. Additionally, the fundamental thinking process spreads over into other aspects of life.
OPEN SOURCE VOTING
The Wall Street Journal reported 9 September 2009 that Diebold (DBD) Election Services which provides proprietary non-publicly viewable voting software is selling their unit to Election Systems and Software. Senator Schumer is concerned about the sale because it gives about 75% of the market share to a single company.
But Diebold Election Services, which has since changed their name to Premier Election Services, has been caught tinkering around with Wikipedia. John Borland at Wired reports,
On November 17th, 2005, an anonymous Wikipedia user deleted 15 paragraphs from an article on e-voting machine-vendor Diebold, excising an entire section critical of the company’s machines. While anonymous, such changes typically leave behind digital fingerprints offering hints about the contributor, such as the location of the computer used to make the edits.
In this case, the changes came from an IP address reserved for the corporate offices of Diebold itself.
What could possibly be at issue? Well, in 2003, Walden O’Dell, CEO and chairman of Diebold, was a top fundraiser for George W. Bush’s Presidential campaign. As Hacking Democracy’s documentary revealed a letter sent by O’Dell to Ohio Republicans stating that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.“
Of course, this situation would be too funny, if not so sad, for The Onion to leave it alone.
With the available technology and open source software why is voting not completely transparent and accountable? Why is proprietary software, owned by private companies and not available for public review, used?
GOLD AND FIAT CURRENCIES
Fiat currencies are like the common stock of nations. All fiat currencies are in long-term bear markets when compared against gold. This portends civil unrest which has already broken out in Iceland, Greece, China, Iran, the United States and others.
Governments may have had a role and been able to function earlier. When the economy was not very complex a thug could tell someone how much they could charge for a cow. But in our current extremely complex society that is riddled with chaotic fingers of instability the distortions that come from government are extremely disrupted to a civil society. At all times and in all circumstances gold remains money. Thus, during this age of turbulence you will know that unlike Bear Stears, Fannie Mae or Washington Mutual stock or Zimbabwe Dollars; gold can never become worthless.
Remember, governments only consume wealth. They are parasitic and produce nothing. The only way they gain and maintain market share is through the threat or use of violence against innocent individuals. For matters of morality is a robber’s costume material? But governments, particularly the large Welfare States, are archaic and barbarous institutions that are no longer needed with our more advanced and civil society. Statism is an ineffectual excuse for immoral behavior. Statism is merely a human livestock management practice.
GOVERNMENTS LOSING THEIR WHUFFIE
Whuffie is the ephemeral reputation-based currency of Cory Doctorow’s science fiction novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and current application to the Internet is explained in the fascinating The Whuffie Factor.
The primary goods and services that governments sell are theft, corruption, famine, pestilence and war. Sure, the costumed criminal gangs strut around lying about how they are protecting markets through regulation but who can seriously believe them? The smart kids in school go off and start business while the dumb kids become the regulators because it is the path of least resistance for the immoral. Seriously, the dumb kids are going to regulate the smart kids? After all, the dumb kids think they know how the series of tubes works.
As a result, the smart kids often just purchase the dumb kids through bribes, extortion, etc. Is this deep capture any more plain than with Goldman Sachs (GS) and JP Morgan (JPM)? There is a plethora of whistle-blowing that shows up on the open source Wikileaks.
Citizens, human livestock, are more productive for their farmers, the elite Wall Street bankers, when they believe the illusion that they are free. Thus statecraft has evolved to be ‘of, by and for the people’. But now the human livestock is realizing their true relationship to the State; they are good only for milk on April 15th and meat in Iraq, Afghanistan or H1N1. They realize that if voting made any difference it would be illegal. They begin to see governments more like an acne infection on the earth’s face that needs to be cleansed.
And so the livestock, awaking to the reality of their being owned, are grumbling and mumbling. Millions have marched on Washington DC. The ideavirus is spreading from hive to hive. What ideavirus?
That governments are costumed criminal gangs hired by bankers that are engaged in purely immoral and unethical behavior to lie, steal, cheat, defraud and murder. That their little paper tickets issued by the unaccountable and close-source Federal Reserve are the primary way they fund these nefarious activities. That the psychopathic bankers are able to privatize the gains and socialize the losses. The best possible way to deal with these parastic vampire squids was enacted by the Founding Fathers in Section 19 of the 1792 Coinage Act that provided for ‘any of the officers or persons who shall be employed at the said mint, for the purpose of profit or gain, or otherwise with a fraudulent intent, * * * every such officer or person who shall be guilty of any * * * of the said offenses, shall be deemed guilty of felony, and shall suffer death.’
As Bloomberg reported on 15 September 2009,
James McDonald, chief executive officer of New York investment firm Rockefeller & Co., died Sunday from a single gunshot wound that was probably self- inflicted, officials in Massachusetts said.
Technology is rapidly moving forward. It has enabled ideas to spread at rapid speeds. The spread of these ideas is undermining the current power structures and revealing things are they really are. The FRN$ and all other fiat currencies are evaporating before the heat of gold and the rise of digital commodity currency.
But all of the current machinations are nearly insignificant compared to the larger picture that soon a whole new level of species is likely to develop called the Homo Evolutis. Governments have been a constant retardation for evolution and advancements as life struggles from the swamps to the stars. Try to escape from being collateral damage as life will be what it was born to be: FREE AND INDEPENDENT.
DISCLOSURES: Long physical gold and silver and no position in DBD, JPM, GS or the problematic SLV or GLD ETFs.
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