Friday, October 13, 2006

The Rise of Age of Machine, The Fall Of The Age Of Man!

the technological system is a network of machines and and the prosses fo their creation and movement. Starting with the transformation of the earths innards into prosses replicators who displace vanrrient human labor with hegemonous machine labor. The displaced labor then has went to the service of the machines, who where to service the dominant class. The machines then becoming a class of their own, a non-human slave class, quickly (historically speaking) displacing the previous non-human slave class; work animals (oxen, horses, etc.). However, this new slave class was very different but became disseminated for labour among the human classes in a similar way. They start as only in the service of the dominant class of humans, but as the class of humans who service them, and the machines to produce machines started to be invented and be disseminated, their number increased and there for the classes which they served also increased. The amount of this slave labour that one had was still a mark of ones place in the class system, in this case replacing animal and/or human slaves with machanical slaves. But, the key difference with this new class of slaves was that firstly they where so efficient at their services they provided, and the variations of the services, they continued to increase in number and variation of function, so that they quickly displaced all other slave classes. Because of this growth, and its subsequent requirements, the largest human peasent class that was formally self-sufficiant and served no one except themselves but where still nonetheless subjects of the higher classes, became increasingly a class at the service of the machine class, and thus lost much of their autonomy. It should be noted that by servicing humans in this way they where also replacing them, thus taking the knowlege and skills required to preform that service away from the human relm and putting it into a new relm in which it became practically irretrievable. It should also be noted that the humans who are being serviced, after being removed from the requirement of performing the labour and knowing the skills on which they depend soon loose these skills and then must have servents. They become dependents, much as a child to its parents; infantile. This fact coupled with the removal of knowlege and skills from the human relm, the dependence becomes practically irreversable and totally universal. As most people should know, the elite consuming classes are more dependant upon the producing classes than vice versa. this is the reason that the elite classes must use force to maintain their privaledge within the class system. this same dynamic exists between the human classes and the machine class, with one very important difference. With humans, being free willed animals who have various allegences, feel emotions, and do not nessisarily work together, it is possible for controlling classes of humans to manipulate their needs, deprive them at times, and force their subserviance. This is, however, not possible with machines. And like other situations where a dominant amd numerically smaller class was not able to exert their force enough to ensure subserviance upon a numaically larger less privaleged class, a shift in class power relations occurs; a revolution, like those that occured in the North American brittish colonies, or in 18th certury France. Thus the machine class came to dominate this civiliztion. The ruling class of this civilization is Not made up of humans, but of Machines. But this being so, why is it not obvious to everyone? Because like the human anthropologist talking to the Jelly Fish in Daniel Quinn's book "Ishmael", the doninant myths and religion of a civilization are not seen or even understood by their most ardent beleivers to be myths and religions. They become invisible. There is a reason why critiques of technology within this civilization
are treated like, well, like blasphemy. It is a very powerful belief too that maintains ingnorence of facts that effect our bodies, minds, social interactions, and eviornment in such a profound way. It must be a powerfull belief to main itself for it is only through the sacrifice of our lives to labour for the machines that this situation continues to persist. Can you not see it? For who is most of our artificial landscape desined to service? It is desined by and for machines. It's needs, production and efficiency, are those that are met by the modern ladscape we are subsumed within. In fact there is entire sections of our artificial landscape that are segregated for manchines only; highways. the train in the station doesn't wait for you, it doesn't care, because its not your needs that it is serving after all, it serves efficiency of production by moving workers who serves the reproduction and maintenence of the technological system. the cold concreate is unforgiving, it is often said. Of course, forgiveness is for humans, not machines. It is Machines who matter, not people.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

mass society and the question of voluntary association

Some anarchists wonder, why against mass society? or more specifically, why is, or is not, mass society compatable with anarchism? Firstly, let's define anarchism as a belief in and/or a society based upon three basic principles. one.) Ditect Action as a primary means of engagement with others. Direct means without and mediation between the subjects involved, that is, not alienated. this is anti-technological in essance, but that is another topic. Action meaning if you want something to happen, you act. You Do It Yourself rather than delagating it to someone else. Two.) Mutual Aid based interdependent exchange; I gift you a 'good' or 'service' or something less material, and you gift in return. cooperation. 3.) Volutary Association with any people, cultural mores, traditions, etc. Basically this means choosing what culture you belong to, if at all. Mass society on the other hand is a very large group of people under a single association. This has been also called the Nation, or ethnicity, which can be but is not nessisarily under a single state. For instance, Lebanon is a state but not a nation and is instead many various nations. Whereas Japan is both a single nation and state (except the Ainu). there is no, nor has their ever been, any example of mass societies where everyone chose to be part of them. I do not think there is any reason why people whould ever choose to be part of of a mass society, although some whould I'm sure choose to, but most would not, but then its would no longer be a mass society then would it? if one wants to keep a mass society a mass society, coersion is inevitable. all mass societies, the American one is a good example, continue to be mass societies by either subsuming and incorporating other societies or destroying them. mass society is synonimous with cultural imperialism. there is amazing diversity within humanity, and it exists percisely to the extent that it resists a mass society, and does not associate with it. Human cultures wish to diversify, if allowed. this is the nature of ecological systems, and we are certainly no exception. Just look at the cultural decentralization and diversification within this mass society following the political rebellion 40 years ago? it was marked by an explosion of countercultures and subcultures, this is what people naturally do. They form volutary groups, or associations, which develop their own cultures, when these groups grow to within a certain range, they start to themselves break up into smaller groups. In fact, I would say that one of the strangths of anarchists in the US is their ressistance to mass society. All this makes sense, of course beause for the vast majority of our time as a species, and even before that, we lived in small groupings. it is part of who we are. This can only be changed through coersion. Therefore, mass society is incompatible with voluntary association, and by extension Anarchy. This means also that it is incompatible with all the things that are only possible through mass society, like industrialism, and complex systems beyond a certain scale. in essance, civilization. So for all you anarcho-syndicalists and anarcho-communists out there, such models are not anarchist.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

million dollar office building under construction burned to the ground



Elk Grove CA: Oct 10th- Arson is the apparent cause of a fire that has completely destroyed a million dollar office building under construction at a quarter million dollar loss for the investors. A blaze broke out at about 3:30 a.m. at a building site at Franklin Boulevard and Laguna Park Drive, authorities said. The new two-story office building, which was in the framing stage, was heavily damaged. Witnesses said flames were 40 feet high.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

sweedish anti-civization action is taken! sabotage causes blackout.



Malmo, Sweaden: Oct 8th- aparently an act of sabotage has caused a hour long blackout in one of sweadens largest cities, affecting 25,000 recipients of electricity. "That is a very serious matter and the police also see it that way," the Eon (a german energy company) spokesman said.