Week 48

Wikileaks' Cablegate: the truth is out there

https://youtu.be/hl4NlA97GeQ

Apparently US and / or Israel was responsible for the computer worm Stuxnet attack on Iran's nuclear reactors, which destroyed a portion of Iran's fuel rods.

Are you a child?

I am talking to you, the government agencies who coordinated this attack. What have you proven by doing this? I tell you: You accomplished NOTHING. Nada.

If nation-states (especially authoritarian ones) are good at one thing, that is concentrating efforts on one single project (US Manhattan project comes to mind). So if a nation-state X wants to complete project Y, they will, unless they face an all-out attack (just to be clear, X = Iran). So after this mishap, they will probably double their security, and continue from where they left off.

What did you really think would happen?

Was your end goal tied to some political agenda? Aiming to delay an estimated completion so it coincides, uh say, with the next US presidential elections?

What was it?

From Wikileaks cables: We find out the oil company Shell infiltrated all ministeries in Nigeria, they collect information, intelligence as if they are another arm of the US government. But here is the interesting comment made by Shell VP Ann Pickard. Cable says "Pickard has repeatedly told us she does not like to talk to USG officials because the USG is “leaky.”. That is just too funny.

IMO the US culture code for foreign countries is PLAYGROUND.

Nature is pretty good at finding shapes, structures that require the minimum amount of energy. It could be argued in social matters a similar process is present, this must be the reason for the so-called Tipping Point phenomenon. People do not want to topple that authoratic ruler right away, blow the wistle on that corruption immediately, etc. But one way or another what needs to happen, does happen.

What defines these 'least energy' situations? That depends on the working habits, production methods of the age. If computers are prevelant in a society, "leaking", "transmitting" information requires very little energy. And theeere it happens. Result: Wikileaks. A society whose majority is in white collar jobs have different "minimum energy" structures than a peasant, or blue-collar society. The typical nuclear family construct is a least energy structure for a modern, industrial society. It is not for a post-modern one.

Why do I mention this? 3rd wave, the knowledge age is making certain things possible, and whether we like it or not, these new ideas, possibilities will have some enegy behind them.

I pity the fool who'll fight this. Our generation needs to think about institutions that are compatible with these "least energy" settings, not try to erect boundaries where they're surely crumble and fall.

This goes for all ideologies, political structures, economy.

Happy new year.

People were surprised at the revelation in Wikileaks documents that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia fears / hates Iran more than Israel. This is clearly surprising. Why could this be?

SA and Iran are rivals in Iraq. SA throws bunch of money around in Iraq to support Sunni's, obviously Iran does the same for Shias. But this is not enough for Abdullah's fear.

Nuclear weapons? Nah. Everyone knows Iran will not develop nuclear weapons. According to Bruce de Masquita, a political scientist who uses Game Theory to predict future events, Iran will develop weapon grade nuclear fuel but not weapons. Weapon grade fuel option is the Nash Equilibrium of this issue; and it makes perfect sense. Noone in the region wants nuclear weapons, and US, EU certainly do not. Then the only middle way to satisfy Iran's national pride and at the time not having weapons, is the fuel option.

A potential reason or Abdullah's fear might be that the ruling class in Saudi Arabia is having a crisis of legitimacy. They are finding it increasingly hard to maintain status quo, a young, populous Arab generation is coming of age, this new generation criticizes, discusses everything and everyone, in places like Dubai, which is fast becoming a hub for a potential Arabian Renaissance.

Abdullah needs an enemy.

In the past this enemy / outsider usually was Turkey. However because of Turkey's "zero problem" policy with her neighbours, she is no good for Abdullah. Then the next logical choice is Iran. Let's not forget, Saudi Arabia depends on US military presence to maintain order, therefore an enemy that is suitable for US suits Abdullah's interests as well.

From Wikileaks cables we understand that some US diplomats dislike the (new) Turkish foreign policy set forth by current Secretary of State Ahmet Davutoglu. They refer to this policy negatively as neo-Ottomanist pointing to certain speeches / examples for its existence.

They are both right and wrong. People watching Turkey from the outside are receiving conflicted signals from Turkey but current TR foreign policy has nothing to do with the so-called Ottoman past, it has everything to do with economy, geopolitics, globalization. Brazil, who follows a similar track, has a completely different history, but both Turkey and Brazil said "no" to punishing Iran on the nuclear issue.

Sure, Davutoglu in his book Strategic Depth keeps harping about Ottomans, but his psyche is "torn" on this issue. On one hand, intellectually, there is stuff that needs to be done for rational reasons, on the other hand, conservatism requires one to say "all was OK in the past".

This is not a blanket slam against convervatism, as it can be right on occassion; US conservatives have a right to boast about their Constitution which was a major intellectual accomplishment. Sadly the same is not true for Ottomans and the early Turkish Republic. For the West, Rome collapsed hundreds of years before people of Turkey could enjoy a similar event (Ottomans are nothing but Muslim Romans). There was no science under Ottomans, there was no freedom under Ottomans, certainly there was no pluralism under Ottomans. Therefore, there was no Renaissance.

On top of this, early Turkish Republic shoved modernity down people's throats using excessive methods. Mostly pious public bore the brunt of this, then developed a coping mechanism to glorify the past even further. They developed a narrative that "if things were left untouched, we would develop, do the right things" which was hardly true. In order for this narrative to work, anything that disturbed this flow was also labeled as "deviations"; Ironically (maybe normally for convervatives) early Turkish Republic was later added to this narrative, and labeled as "good". Horrific events taking place in this period were simply swept under the carpet or blamed on second level underlings who were simply following orders from the top.

To the extent Davutoglu says the new policy is based on Ottomans, he is deluded.

If you read his book carefully, he takes an issue with Huntington who says his country is torn. Then goes ahead and talks about Jewish psyche being torn because of conflicts between their feeling of superiority (stemming from Torah) and having lived such horrific events in their own past. This has some truth in it, but he is also projecting. A Turkish conservative has no choice but be torn, except for Islam, there is nothing worth to conserve in his/her near past.

That is how to read the new Turkish foreign policy, and its creator, Davutoglu.

I would advise to just let it be.

It is doing something optimal for itself, and for the region. And frankly, all other avenues have been tried already.

US finally passed a law to allow gays to serve openly in the military. I remember it like yesterday of how this issue bit the Clinton presidency in the ass in its first few days; As George Stephenapolous wrote in his memoir "[paraphrasing] an issue that involved sex and Clinton was too good to pass up". So the opposition and the media had attacked his presidency like mad dogs.

All of this confirms Rapaille's analysis on America perfectly -- its cultural tug-of-war is between freedom (as in letting go) and prohibition. Gays serving openly in the military was perceived as "letting go" but serving secretly was "prohibiting" themselves from sharing this information. Of course, being gay or straight is a whole another letting go / prohibition type of act.

To which I say: screw culture, and screw culture codes.

We need to rule our societies intellectually.

US did the right thing this time. Congrats.

No I am not talking about the one that says French people eat all this saturated fat but don't get fat. I am talking about the one that divides them on issues such as central management, culture and history.

As it is all too clear from Asterix the Gaul books, this is a people conquered by the Romans. And Romans, as is known by everyone were a brutal bunch. Their exploits, conquest resulted in millions of deaths. Romans liked to label outsiders as "barbarians" but they themselves deserved that label, and much, much worse.

Now take a moment and think what would happen to a people conquered by these cocksuckers. Here comes an outside force, invades Gaul; some need to make piece with it, some don't, but as in the case of the Conquest of Gaul, almost everyone does, eventually. French language is a derivative of vulgar Latin derived from the dialect of Roman soldiers deployed in Gaul [1]. It sounds disgusting to say the least, and I have no idea why people find it so romantic -- no pun intended. Anyway, here we have, Gauls, invaded by barbarians (Romans), let's think what would happen to the culture codes of these people.

First off, the ruler would be associated with a Roman general living in his garrison. Alas, current French system is centralized, the cultural fault line in the country is between freedom (as in equality) and privilege. Privileged would naturally be associated with the conquerer. Privileged is that person / soldier living in his palace. Check. Current French president lives in a "palace", and yes people have a difficult time with this arrangement (they were conquered by that man after all). That "central" person should not show off too much, case in point, Sarkozy wants to celebrate his election win with bunch of rich friends, boom. His numbers go way down.

At the same time, "people" want a piece of that privilege too, so they push for more social services offered by the government. When they dont get it, they demonstrate, fill the streets. Revolution. French style.

And on, and on it goes..

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[1] Ironically, French are very nationalistic about their language, culture, but they already lost it once. It is as if they do not want a repeat of that experience, and/or at the same time, want to keep the language of the "privileged".

This is a weird mix of cultural bullshit indeed.

[2] I would argue, along with the Catholic Church, the inheritance of Rome is strongest in modern France. The schism between laïcité and Catholicism could well be related to this psychological tug-of-war between the so-called conqueror and the conquered. Obviously modernity plays a big role here, which is a relatively recent event, but is somewhat tied with centralized Rome. See here.

Centralized, concentrated "boxes" that are called bureucracies will meet their end soon enough.

From I, Cringely

Many people think that security breaches of this sort will lead to a crackdown on free speech over the Internet. Certainly there will be bluster about that, but look at the U. S. government’s initial administrative response — telling the military and government employees they can no longer carry USB flash drives. How hopeless is that? Very. It’s a ban that is almost impossible to enforce. First there is the broad issue of what even constitutes a flash drive. Most smartphones certainly qualify, yet the new regs reportedly make no mention of them.

Bluetooth devices don’t even need to be attached. Nor does the Sheevaplug media server in our minivan, which synchronizes automatically with our home network over WiFi. While Shrek is what’s being transferred to our parking lot, who is to say it couldn’t be sensitive e-mails or documents?

We started witnessing actions taken by states that were influenced by cables released by Wikileaks. This organization is already shaping the global agenda.

I have to say, what I love about this mega info dump on the world's collective conscience is that it exceeds the capabilities of any centralized fuck, be it a prime minister, president, government to analyze it in its entirety. Of course the contents are also important. But the amount is its true disruptive power. I saw a tweet recently that Wikipedia is probably the only organization with enough manpower to sift through this data (and I saw the Wikipedia page on the leaks, they did through job). We have distributed leaking, distributed sharing, and distributed sifting / processing of the leaked data. New technologies empowered individuals to such degree that sharing the most secret information in the world takes couple clicks on one's keyboard.

This is what 3rd wave is all about. It is about technology changing the power dynamic so profoundly that no old institutional structure can stay the same.

It is already happening.

Today.

I am a sponge for esoteric gems that is / might be outside of mainstream -- for example blood type diet / character profiling happens to be one of these areas. This is interesting, I realized with few data points I get on someone, I am able to reach a conclusion on certain aspects on their character.

FACT: Only blood type O's are into competitive, one-on-one sports (like basketball, football). A, B, AB do not give a f.ck (if they say they do, they are lying). Blood type B's average height is highest among other btypes, A's are usually law-abiding, B's are adaptable, AB's are sort-of an in-between (they are pretty new in the human evolution).

So recently I saw a friend of mine, who is not into sports, is short, and always trying to "fit in".

By process of elimination, B is out (he is short), O is out (he is not into sports); so I ask him "you are blood type A right?". He goes "how the fuck did you know?". :) This friend was also Jewish, so he was doubly freaked out, but I was just whopping around this esoteric knowledge, nothing more.

I could have continued from there saying this and that type of food (like beer) is not good for him, he should watch for stress (more than O's) etc... There is a wealth of other stuff you can get into from there. But remember how this started -- with few data points.

This is powerful shit.

Apparently some people ran a DoS (denial of service) attack Wikileaks site, trying to keep it busy, so others cannot access it...

These people are clearly stupid.

The nature of Internet is distributed (in stark contrast to industrial forms of organization which are highly centralized), there is no point in attacking "a single" site if you want to "stop" Wikileaks. Because you cant. We will get the files either way. It's all distributed.

Burn Baby, Burn