Not the Apocalypse, Part 2

Until relatively recent times, the ruling elite didn’t bother with most of the daily details of their subjects’ existence. With the rise of the middle class to political power, we see a matching rise in both nit-picking intrusion and a spiteful attitude toward those who somehow failed to embrace the materialist “virtues” of the merchant class.

The contract is sacred writ for them. They can be unconscionably bloodthirsty, but they contract that out to lackeys equipped with badges. The idea of getting their hands dirty from violence is reserved for the very worst of the worst, and only when they can gang up on the victim so that useful resistance is utterly impossible. They reserve their most violent rage for those who can argue effectively using their own logic against them. And the dirtiest secret of all is that it won’t matter where they fall on the commonly accepted scale of political and economic theory; they are all materialistic and ignoble when in power.

Anyone can see the rising police state atmosphere as a symptom of civilizational decline. What we have had for a few centuries is already dying, and another civilization is already rising from between the rotting roots, a parasite civilization sucking the last bit of life from its host. Meanwhile, we face a long series of insults and injuries from those yet in power over us.

While it’s possible that government itself may well be involved, it would seem almost beside the point. What we call our official government and its various agencies isn’t always the actual regulatory mechanism that most affects us. There are lots of ways official governments can make room for defacto “governments” to oppress us, typically because the latter simply pays the required tribute. Yeah, it’s always about the money. Regardless of the excuse for demanding yet more control, it always comes back to money.

The mere existence of the term “middle class” and related concepts itself arises from the obsession with material wealth. The entire meaning of Western Civilization has always been materialism, so the rise of a middle class culture and political power in the latter stages of this civilization is simply the final expression of that obsession. In its place we now have a growing population of folks completely alienated from it. An awful lot of what we see now will die with the Baby Boom generation. Even the concept of referring to generations that way will probably pass in less than a century from now. Human self-concept is drifting quickly toward a new blend of things, and while you can find plenty of critical analysis about it from Boomers, it misses the point entirely. Boomers, as the pinnacle of Western materialism, see everything in commercial terms.

We see this in the current conflicts over the Internet and computer use, in general. Some of it you read in the news, such as the rhetorical posturing over encryption. It would seem the moment of threat has passed now as major figures have taken the side against the forced backdoors on encryption software. A part of the resistance was one of the most ignored factors in the entire question: the geeks who make all of this possible. What the government spokesmen demanded is technically impossible, but they lacked the background to understand what is so painfully obvious to computer geeks.

Whatever we might think of the various weaknesses in the computer nerd personality types, they are becoming the dominant species in what is yet Western society. In Socio-sexual Game terms, the Deltas are being replaced by Gammas. If not so much in terms of concrete demographics, it is most certainly true in terms of how people in general relate in society. The definition of Delta is drifting, as it were, to be more like Gamma has been until now. It is the Gamma personality and value system that shapes the rising Network Civilization.

And the middle-class Deltas aren’t going down without a fight. The encryption battle is just the most recent example; look for both official and defacto government to seek ways to crush the nerds. They will fail, but it will be ugly in the meantime. Already we can see manifestations of this in other forms.

Do you read Slashdot? It’s dying, nearly dead. It was once the ultimate nerd forum. Some merchant assholes misunderstood and decided it was such a large audience, surely they could monetize the attention? They borged it and ran off everyone who made it what it was. They tried to push changes in the appearance to something closer to commercial sites. It failed. The same people also bought Sourceforge and screwed it up even worse, forcing advertising ware into popular downloads for Windows until many projects moved away and Firefox started blocking users from going there. While you can still find some interesting geek discussions at Slashdot, even erudite at times, the density is now much lower and the audience has long since moved on to other sites. But instead of one or two replacements, it’s more like a diaspora for now. My previous comments on Reddit are based on a similar geek factor, though of a different flavor. This represents three bruising battles and requires you understand victory in different terms to realize who won.

We can’t easily explain the odd mixture of carping endlessly, simply walking away, or actually hacking the service, but you can begin to outline the nerd response and how it’s spilling over into a much wider activist community. Don’t get hung up on traditional partisan affiliations; notice what they value and how they express it. Materialism fades more and more from consideration. This serves to draw the greatest ire and most spiteful attack from the merchant culture, though often hidden from public view. Every time something nerdy is hijacked by the merchants, you can see the complete lack of geek common sense in the product.

Have you heard about the Stagefright bug in Android? Okay, so Google patched it, but you can bet that virtually none of the actual providers using Android will distribute the patch. Do you see what an abomination that is to the geeks? What will it take for the merchants to get a clue? Money.

Windows 10 and the mandatory updates? More and more control passed from the user back to the provider is the theme of Microsoft. Thousands of computer nerds work there, but the policies come from merchants. Back doors? Hah; it’s loaded with multiple unlocked front doors. I keep waiting for some legislative idiot to suggest it should be mandatory that folks with common devices run some version of Windows, Android or Mac. Meanwhile, the continuing incestuous orgies between government agencies and the big three (Google, MS and Apple) guarantees the differences between them are purely for prime time entertainment.

I’m convinced we will see quite a few skirmishes in the news, and even bigger and uglier stuff only in the more narrowly focused technology news. Some of it may never see publicity at all. That’s because a corollary of materialism is overwhelming pretense. At the same time, the worst stuff is simply too hard to believe without seeing it first-hand with sufficient background to understand it. I am convinced the merchant folk are getting riled up and planning something even worse against the geeks. A critical element in this is unadulterated hatred for what the merchants simply do not understand. I’m also convinced the geeks will win.

Keep your eyes on this; the war has just begun.