Paul Berman writes for the New York Times Magazine on Sayyid Qutb.

This is an absolute must read.

The Philosopher of Islamic Terror

This was a private message but I've decided to post my comments publically.

Elonka wrote:
] Heh, I have trouble with thinking of the name Tom/Decius and
] "apathetic" in the same thought. ;) You're one of the least
] apathetic people I know! (grin)

I'm not apathetic. Statistically, most of my peers are.

] Just out of curiosity, how often do you vote? When's the last
] time that you voted?

I usually try to vote. I did not vote in the last Presidential election because I was flying to South Korea that day. (And I must say I was quite surpised a month later when I returned to find that we did not yet have a leader.) (Yes, I realise that you can pre-vote, but I was far too busy to research it.)

I last voted in the 2002 California elections. I voted against a communist (not exagerating) electric power system for San Francisco which was literally going to be operated by administrators who admitedly didn't know anything about anything other then that they hate corporations (There was only ONE engineer running for PUD administrator in ONE district). It was defeated by less then 1000 votes.

] Regardless, I do agree with you that it's an excellent idea to
] encourage people to vote.

Its not just voting.

We have an extremely effective propaganda system in this country. I beleive the interest in the Internet/blogging is basically a reaction to that, whether people understand it or not. They want more detail and broader perspectives, and they want to control what they see.

The difference between our legal rhetoric and that of the parliments is stark. People don't watch cspan because it is specifically intended to be boring and obtuse. We have to fight this, not just in terms of access (which has been a hard fight in and of itself) but in terms of accessability.

We need more detailed input into our government's actions then a left/right switch every four years. California leads the way in this respect. There are lots of referendums on every ballot and they send you a packet with pro and con information on each item.

We need more organized voting. Do not vote with a party and do not vote as a generalist ("I like this guy."). Pick a specific issue that you care about. Pick a position on that issue. Pre-announce your position on that issue so that politicians have the opportunitiy to respond to you. Create organizations of other people who will vote the same way you will and sell this organization as a part of a coallition that a politican may court in the context of building enough votes to put him/her into office.

Basically, "Special Interests" are GOOD NOT BAD. Attempts to limit them are attempts to limit democracy. When you vote left/right instead of voting on specifics that you UNDERSTAND, you have less impact on the situation, not more. Your input becomes more obtuse and more related to your identity then your thoughts. Left/right is not important. Right/wrong is important, and none of us has the capacity to understand all the right/wrongs nor are any of the politicians right or wrong on every issue. Understand the right/wrong on AN issue and pursue THAT issue ALONE.

Democracy is not an on/off switch. Its many shades of gray. This country could be a great deal more democratic. Information technology enables this because it scaling democracy is, essentially, an information technology problem.

] In terms of the power he now claims, without significant
] challenge, George W. Bush is now the closest thing in a
] long time to dictator of the world. He claims to see the
] future as clearly as the past. Let's hope he's right.

Its amazing to see something like this from someone like Kinsley. Even the right is moving left in response to this... That last sentence bothers me. "Let's hope he's right" is a wimpy finish. Fuck that.

A. He is obviously "wrong" in a moral sense. Thats the whole point. He is being an imperialistic bastard on purpose in hopes of scaring various people into getting rid of our enemies.

B. Even if it works, its going to cost a fortune.

C. It had better fucking work, but there is no way that anyone can know for sure. This is a grim business we engage in and there really is no room for error.

D. Protesting this, if you oppose it, is only useful to the extent that it convinces people that they should vote against these people in the next election.

E. If there is an interest by the liberals in countering this strategy they must provide a clear counter strategy which enables us to deal with Al'Q. So far I haven't seen it. Daschle? Hello??

We are now too powerful to simply avoid voting out of apathy. Your votes don't just impact us. They impact everyone in the world. People must vote, and they must vote with an international perspective. To continue to apathetically not participate in the electoral process in this country, as most of us do, is no longer acceptable. Our votes are the only thing that can ultimately prevent an empire of good intentions from becoming, years from now, exactly the sort of ruthless international dictatorship that such power usually produces.

Sovereign authority - By Michael Kinsley - Slate.com

quoted:

As we shiver in the shadow of war, waiting to be shocked and awed by the malevolent magnificence of militarism in action, some in the antiwar movement are calling for "direct action." What this amounts to is what happened the other day in downtown San Francisco, when about 200 people marched to the Pacific Stock Exchange, and a few dozen of these sat down on the steps, refusing to move, while their brethren disrupted traffic and tied up the downtown area for hours. Why did they do it? Let Warren Langley, former president of the Pacific Stock Exchange, and newly converted to antiwar activism, explain it in his own words:

"It's my history and my lifetime. This war seems very wrong for the entire world. I decided I was willing to do whatever it takes to show a strong stand against it."

Me, me, me, it's all about Me! Langley's narcissism is embarrassingly apparent. Like someone standing there with his fly wide-open, happily unaware, he perfectly embodies the unabashed self-absorption of the "direct action" movement. In nominating themselves for sainthood, the direct-actionists are acting out their personal fantasies on the political stage. In their little morality play they are the stars, moral paragons who, by the sheer power of their goodness and bravery, will shut down the war machine.

This Isn't About You, by Justin Raimondo

This approach also enables the identification of leadership roles within the communities.

Email as Spectroscopy [PDF]

Jeremy wrote:
] (Why didn't I see it earlier?)

Eh, its been covered before... Old memeage. I think its good that we are talking about this, but I'm looking for new revelations.

Like I've said, we have three choices.

1. Everyone has strong anonymnity systems.
2. People become more tolerant of other's opinions.
3. People become afraid to express their opinions.

At least we're in the process of realizing that we have to make this choice. I hope we choose well. Most people seem to be so cynical about it that they literally laugh outloud when I mention door number 2.

RE: A Nation of Voyeurs

] My experience trying to "sell" the concepts of swarm
] intelligence to the commercial world is that managers
] would rather live with a problem they can't solve than
] with a solution they don't fully understand or control.
] So the mindset is a big barrier to adoption.

A lot of whats going on these days in computing is related to these ideas. Of course, the difference between Ant and People is that an Ant will tell the colony if it finds food, whereas People will secure the "food" and charge access. The difference is that Ants don't compete with eachother for resources. They don't have to. Their resources are infinite. This, of course, is the reason these questions are so interesting in terms of information. Information isn't scarce.

OpenP2P.com: Swarm Intelligence: An Interview with Eric Bonabeau [Feb. 21, 2003]

Important government information systems should be opensource.

Open Source Code Meets Democracy - in Australia anyway

There has always been a World of Disorder, but what makes it more dangerous today is that in a networked universe, with widely diffused technologies, open borders and a highly integrated global financial and Internet system, very small groups of people can amass huge amounts of power to disrupt the World of Order. Individuals can become super-empowered.

Maybe Google was thinking, "Let's buy now -- we may soon find web logs added to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) list!"

Peking Duct Tape, and Web Logs as Weapons

The Swiss excel at making clocks and also... henges?

A skeleton was found near Stonehenge hypothesized to be a regional bronze age king of Stonehenge who may have played an important role in the construction of Stonehenge and surprisingly, may be Swiss.

Possible King of Stonehenge Discovered