Post-Autopia as a Dystopian Digital Nexus?

A new paper of mine titled 'Post-Autopia as a Dystopian Digital Nexus?' is soon to be published in an Italian sociology journal called lo Squaderno (under Creative Commons license). A brief summary:

The days of the automobile being the gateway to ‘unfettered’ freedoms and spontaneous ‘get away’ are surely numbered. This concept of the car is likely to be no longer sustainable in dense urban regions given the increase in car users, and the foreseeable increase in road congestion problems in city areas and privatised routes. The sheer complexity of integrated issues, from individual user rights, individualised pricing schemes, car security, identity validation, etc, will require complex systems of informational databases and coded spaces. I foresee a post-autopia that necessitates a move into datastructures as a dominant form of social-sorting within which automobility will be negotiated and ‘permitted’.

This scenario of increased technological interdependency will be a rational and logical outcome from an ongoing development in increased informational processes that are required to control and organize these flows, both efficiently and profitably (Beniger, 1986). The potential emergence of a post-autopia digital nexus may turn out to be ‘not a deliberate form of oppressive control but an institutional - bureaucratic obsession with function, with the smooth flow of goods and services, and with efficiencies of movement and transactional fluidity’ (Wood and Graham, 2006: 182). In other words, post-autopia will require its own digitalisation as a means of mediating its own organisational principle.

 

 I have included the full paper as a pdf download in the Writings (box.net) widget at the rhs of this blog... for those who are interested in reading more about the rise of surveillance and databases in relation to car movement and mobility.


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New Instruments of Surveillance and Social Control

Just an update on the 'Pandora's Box' paper referred to previously. It has now been published on the website 'Centre for Research on Globalization' run by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky. The title has been changed to:

New Instruments of Surveillance and Social Control: Wireless Technologies which Target the Neuronal Functioning of the Brain

Glad that the paper is getting some circulation....

I would also like to make mention of two other well-researched papers on similar topics which also appear on the CRG site, by British psychoanalyst Carole Smith. They are:

i) On the Need for New Criteria of Diagnosis of Psychosis in the Light of Mind Invasive Technology

ii) Intrusive Brain Reading Surveillance Technology: Hacking the Mind


Both well-worth a read...
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Against the Chip

I once gave a lecture on 'modernity' to a class of 80 undergraduates - I discussed eugenics and modern warfare as an existing 'enlightenment paradigm', based much on the book 'Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern' by John Gray - then I casually mentioned an aside on the alleged role of IBM within the technologised war-machine of the Third-Reich, quoting Edwin Black's 'IBM and the Holocaust'.

Now - an update - it seems that IBM are behind Verichip's human chipping technology: from the punch-cards of the Second World War to bio-chipping of the 21st-Century. Now this is a much-discussed subject with grave implications for human liberty if 'chipping' ever came socialised, or implemented under protocols of national security.

There is also a new video that connects IBM with Verichip - its worth watching and it is called - 'IBM, Verichip, and the Fourth Reich'

Recently, it was reported that chips implanted into animals (original function of the bio-chipping) has been found to lead to tumors: read 'Chip implants linked to animal tumors'


Now: how would global (in)security; climate change; new world war; electromagnetic radiations; HAARP; Tesla technology; mobile-phone masts; bio-chipping all be connected...?

No idea....?!

How can humans ride 'The Shift' in consciousness-vibration increase if we're turned-off...

As Timothy Leary famously said - we must first 'Turn On'; then 'Tune In'; then...

Animation of Surveillance State and Trusted Computing

This is a video worth watching - a 4 minute animation on increasing surveillance strategies... wonderfully animated:



Via CeMoRe

European Star Wars

The Ballistic Missile Early Warning Radar System (BMEWS) at Fylingdales, U.K.

The ongoing debate on the proposed missile defense shield in Europe is heating up. Poland and the Czech Republic are among the possible sites and the UK is now showing interest in supporting the missile shield.

According to recent commentary: 'Fears over the destabilising effects of such a shield was confirmed by a Russian general who said that they would target the system' -

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, said America would trigger an “inevitable arms race” if it deployed interceptors in Europe to knock ballistic missiles out of the sky. A senior Russian general rumbled that Russian missiles would target any interceptors in eastern Europe. Poland’s prime minister told his people that Russia was trying to “scare” them. The Czech foreign minister (a prince with a splendid moustache) complained of Russian “blackmail”.

“The aim is to break ground on a European site in 2008, and for its interceptors to become operational in 2012. This week the Polish and Czech prime ministers said they were keen on hosting the missile-defence sites. That is a change: talks with the Poles have dragged on for years, thanks to elaborate Polish demands for things such as extra missile defences for their own country. Yet both Mr Blair and his Polish rivals face objections from three sources: from Russia, from many of their own voters and from fellow European leaders.”

Source: “Missile-defence systems: Expect Fireworks”, Economist.

“In 2003, the U.K. agreed to allow the U.S. to upgrade radar stations at the Fylingdales Royal Air Force Base in northern England, one of the steps to allowing the missile shield. At the time, then-Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said the U.K. would keep its options open about Britain taking the U.S. missile shield.”

Source: “Blair Wants Part of U.S. Missile Shield Based in U.K.”, Bloomberg.

Read more about the RAF Fylingdales base from Wikipedia

Mind Games

Journalist Sharon Weinberger, who is also editor of Defense Technology International has written an illuminating cover article for the Washington Post titled 'Mind Games' which takes a credible look at those people who call themselves Targeted Individuals (TIs) of covert government mind surveillance. It follows the story of Harlan Girard who has considered himself as a target for mind weapons since the 1980s - and examines some of the background to military involvement in the patents of microwave weaponry - or EM Weapons.

Six months after the voices began, they had another question for him: "Mr. Girard, Mr. Girard. Why aren't you dead yet?" At first, he recalls, the voices would speak just two or three times a day, but it escalated into a near-constant cacophony, often accompanied by severe pain all over his body -- which Girard now attributes to directed-energy weapons that can shoot invisible beams.

Having also read some background into this subject I would caution the reader not to dismiss the possibility too easily...

A Dystopian Future?

Well, I've re-connected to the Web: isn't it good to take a few days off? Must we live a 24/7 connected culture? There is much to be said about breathing a few deep breaths of fresh air and being dis-connected from everything except your self...

Yet will the future allow such a possibility? Must technology really take us down some dystopian path...like a double-edged sword it can both enhance and entrap. Yet these are old debates: what is happening though is an acceleration in technological possibilities that are outstripping the spiritual, ethical, and mindful leadership that humans are employing to oversee the technology. Never deny ourselves; we hold the key.

This article titled 'One generation is all they need' is by an associate professor of criminology and discusses human implanting and chipping in a very realistic way:

'By the time my four-year-old son is swathed in the soft flesh of old age, he will likely find it unremarkable that he and almost everyone he knows will be permanently implanted with a microchip. Automatically tracking his location in real time, it will connect him with databases monitoring and recording his smallest behavioural traits. '

There should be no fear of freedom or human apathy. We make the choices and walk the Way.

May 2007 bring us all Health, Happiness, Spirit, Wisdom, and Compassion.

Next Froniter - The Space Race is Heating Up

I've said a few things about the way the US military-industrial complex is weaving its technotronic web over terrestrial affairs. The plan is to have a fully weaponised satellite war-machine in place in orbit over Earth. So if there is little chance at soul-constraint, they'll go for the physical jugular.

Latest news on this - an article in The Washington Times called 'U.S. to defend space with military force':

The United States will use military force in space to protect satellites and other space systems from attack by hostile states or terrorists, the Bush administration's senior arms-control official said yesterday...

"If these rights are not respected, the United States has the same full range of options -- from diplomatic to military -- to protect its space assets as it has to protect its other critical assets," he said. "There is also a broad range of means, both passive and active, by which space assets may be protected or the effects of the loss of their services minimized," he said.'

Well - I guess that says enough. Anyone trespassing in space is a rogue entity - and that goes for both terrestrial and non-terrestrial entities. Space is for US control only... they wish...

Suspect Nation

Earlier in the week More4 aired a documentary on the state of Britain's surveillance - it was titled Suspect Nation .

For those who missed it, it can be viewed here as a free download on Google Video - while it lasts!

A very 'telling' exposure, and recommended viewing.

Also, I posted earlier upon the recent report that had just been released that had made a study of Britain as a surveillance state.

This study had been commissioned by the Information Commissioner and was undertaken by the Surveillance Studies Network, with the principal report authors having connection to the academic organisation/journal Surveillance & Society.

This 100 page report is now available in full here.

Britain has sleepwalked into pervasive surveillance

It's official - Britain is the most surveilled country amongst developed western nations. A recent report just out - The Surveillance Studies Network report- said there are up to 4.2m CCTV cameras - about one for every 14 people.

The report also stresses that dataveillance has increased drastically, as well as a future of targeted branding. This also includes satellite tracking of all future journeys and the introduction of individually customised payments, as well as job and school screening. This is the first report to really highlight the immediacy of this situation...and it sounds uncomfortable.

You can read separate accounts of this report from the BBC, Guardian, and The Times respectively:


Britain is 'surveillance society'

Spy planes, clothes scanners and secret cameras: Britain's surveillance future

By 2016, they'll be able to watch you everywhere


Also, of interest, is an article by Steve Wright called The ECHELON Trail: An Illegal Vision in which he describes how as an academic researcher at Lancaster University in the UK - he was investigating the Echelon surveillance system and was harrassed by Special Forces who came to his home and forced him to go with them to the university with the aim of confiscating his research... we researchers at Lancaster have a reputation, it seems...

This was first posted on my other blog - New Mobilities

More HAARP

The subject of HAARP just never seems to go away - in fact it's growing: exactly! And the project isn't finished yet.

Free Press International has a short video introducing this subject in a post titled Haarp: Altering Our World

Also...

Alongside this it's worth mentioning a recent story from NASA which I found to be very revealing: in A Growing Intelligence Around Earth NASA explains how its new breed of satellites around the Earth have machine intelligence and can spontaneously respond to events happening on Earth, and communicate between other satellites on this information. It says:

'EO-1 is a new breed of satellite that can think for itself. "We programmed it to notice things that change (like the plume of a volcano) and take appropriate action," Chien explains. EO-1 can re-organize its own priorities to study volcanic eruptions, flash-floods, forest fires, disintegrating sea-ice—in short, anything unexpected.

And now the intelligence is growing. "We're teaching EO-1 to use sensors on other satellites." Examples: Terra and Aqua, two NASA satellites which fly over every part of Earth twice a day. Each has a sensor onboard named MODIS. It's an infrared spectrometer able to sense heat from forest fires and volcanoes—just the sort of thing EO-1 likes to study. "We make MODIS data available to EO-1," says Chien, "so when Terra or Aqua see something interesting, EO-1 can respond."'

Well... enjoy!