Anarcho-syndicalism and technology?

I found a clip of Noam Chomsky in Necessary Illusions about the role of mass communication in the world today:



Sure he comes across didactic, the lefty anarcho-syndicalist, but he makes valid points. My intuition tells me that all of these networked communication technologies will someday make many of us to a certain degree, anarchists whether we like it or not, and that media censorship and control over the doctrinal system will one day be mandated here so that order is maintained. The test of the limits of individual agency and help us unravel the recursive nature of true autonomous free will.

What I'm suggesting is that if networked technology takes us in a direction where people around the world can organize and mobilize themselves freely, creating and managing economic surpluses themselves through digital mediums of exchange, away from the eyes of government institutions such as tax collections, the world could balkanize along ideological lines, across national borders to form pseudo-sovereigns. (Encryption and peer-to-peer technologies may enable this.) When will this happen? When technological innovation mediates and alleviates the problem of inter-language communication. This potential for cross-border balkanization would be the raison d'etre for "elites" (eg. governments) to control the doctrinal system and sustain existing structures of national border. Unfortunately these forces could end up reinforcing resistance and further engendering balkanization. We can look to mass communication in China today - government censorship versus the interests of the disenfranchised - to see how this will play out on a global scale.

Ok I'm ready to admit this bleak image is nothing but a passing fancy. I'm not sure if I can wholeheartedly believe it. What it does signify to me that this is probably something worthwhile to investigate: how technological innovation and diffusion may change the organization of global political power.

It's hard to write

I've been struggling for the past few days with a blog entry, where I'm trying to synthesize the types of books, articles, and interests I have with my own idea of how to lead a worthy life, whilst generalizing a model to frame entrepreneurship, ethics, and personal fulfillment together. Writing is so frustrating for me right now! But I will endure because I know that these momentary struggles give me strength of spirit, and more importantly, the clarity of intent.

No free will

Ok so I have no free will right now. This post, these words, the idea of it is situated in the fact that there is no free will. Every minute action from the moment of my conception has created an effect such that if you were omnipotent (i.e. Bill Gates), you'd be able to accurately predict the chain of events in my life and know that I have just arrived at the very end of my blog entry.

Tying up oneself subliminally.

One of the reasons why this blog was started was to instill a sense that my own voice mattered. Everyday it seemed ideas and debates were raging, coming and going, like a headache or a sprain seeking medical attention. It's little comfort to know that these words are tip-toeing from my fingers and filling up pixels to be born again somewhere else (most likely on my own screens no doubt!)

Of course there is a desire for me to be seen, to be read, to exhibit more of my trueness than my physical and social self can communicate. Can words in a blog be the antidote to inadequacy and emptiness? Can it augment my existence in reality, my "more than meets the eye" accessory?

I'm going to begin by stating "my" obvious when it comes to writing words. It can be lonely and unrewarding, yet unrelenting in how it cages me to perfect their flow, iteration after iteration. Words are kind of a mirror that reflects beyond ourselves and back (like transparent flesh sandwiched between two reflections), reaching into a multiverse of possible interpretations that recursively cancels itself. Day after day, the thoughts in my mind come at me in wet lashes, a permanent 24/7 channel surf that tows me away from the shoreline into a vast turbulent sea of memes. I wonder if my creation of self would exist in the same manner 2000 years ago? But there's no time for yesterday.

This blog might be a life line that I can reach for to get back to safer shores, where I can feel the sand between my toes and let sunbeams bounce off my forehead. So this is how the entry ends, free, unadulterated and flowing from my fingers, pixels to be born again in an optimistic future?





(image: The Masterpiece, Mysteries of the Horizon by René Magritte)

To begin.

Hello me. This is a space to share and track ideas with my selve(s) and others who choose to subject themselves to them. I seek to open the floodgates a bit, jump into a sea of memes and let flow wherever the currents of the day carry me. Here's to hoping it's tepid.