The Internet will win the coming battle.
Have you read Bill Clinton’s drivel about regulating the Net? He proposes some office to keep a check on whether someone is posting lies on their blogs, an office which will enforce some sort of balance and fairness. Who decides what is a lie?
The last time such was tried on a massive scale, it succeeded. That was in the days before the Internet. It won’t this time. This is just my own intuition speaking here, but I am convinced the existence of the Internet has created a global sense of need which now regards such networking as a basic human necessity. TPTB despise it, but if they don’t learn how to embrace what it is, and try to change the nature of this beast, it will devour them.
I wasn’t just kidding when I suggested the next civilization will be Net-based. When the current civilization collapses, one of the things putting it in the grave will be this utterly senseless and hopeless fight against the Internet. Tear out the wires and something else will take their place. This genie isn’t going back into the bottle. For good or ill, a little experience with the Internet transforms the human consciousness on a mechanical level. Trying to remove it will be a serious threat to the working of the whole thing. If there is one thing people are likely to fight and die for, this is it.
At the same time, that fighting and dying itself has been transformed. The influence of the virtual world itself calls for a wholly different way of doing things, but they are nonetheless highly effective. So even while I believe Anonymous and LulzSec are not honest revolutions, they exemplify where the most significant battles will be in the future. In order to govern the people, you have speak their language and address their values. The existence of the Internet shapes those things, so any government that can’t adapt to it is a government which will become irrelevant.
The current ruling class of the US in particular simply do not have this. They seek to play the same old games as before, and it’s wearing thin. Any day now the ragged edge will catch and the whole thing come apart. I seriously doubt many of us will ever see that moment for what it is, until much later. Few turning points are so precise and clear as we are told in history class. But that moment is upon us, and while the battle will surely take unexpected turns, I am utterly convinced the current world order will fall in the end. That means if any of the current class are to hang on, they will have to adapt.
A significant portion of our current bureaucracy has already made that shift. The CIA and NSA are loaded with them, and it places them far ahead of less flexible organizations like the FBI. It probably won’t look like a coup, but we should soon see a whole lot of new faces in actual positions of power. Granted, if the New World Order are really cool about it, the hidebound Old Guard will maintain appearances as the real control is removed from their hands. Up to now, that only happens in a few places, rather than as a fundamental fact. If you ask me, at least a part of the recent big cyber attacks is the New Order within our own government putting fear into the Old Guard.
For example, I rather thought Obama might be one of the new guys, because his act sure had all the proper window dressing. But he has shown himself still too much owned by the Old Guard. It was fake. The Net Generation won’t forgive, won’t forget. That doesn’t mean he can’t win the election; it means it won’t matter if he does. The real means of exerting power will no longer be in his hands, despite appearances. Things will simply evaporate for him. In some ways, his failure may be what helped everyone decide they have to tear it all down, giving the Net radicals a stronger voice in the inevitable revolt.
Yeah, it’s all pretty murky, but it’s real even while it’s virtual.
