The Gaming Generation

My Generation - tentatively called "Millenials" of which I am one  of the earlier born members is the generation that is the first to grow up with the internet in a relatively modern format.  Additionally computer games in my generation finally  became more than moving dots and dashes around and more than letters and numbers.

Fully realized 3-D rendered and hardware acceleration became normal very quickly and soon the human need for social interaction would merge.  Ultima Online, World of Warcraft, EVE Online and even  games on Facebook and other platforms emerged.  Mobile gaming is finally becoming mainstream as our communications devices now have the gaming power of yesteryear's laptop computers.

Socially we are more interconnected than ever before.  Our devices are portals to each other.  Some see it as a distancing, or a filter and in some cases these analysts are correct.  Anonymity lets many individuals act in manners that are otherwise not permissible in social situations.  Other times the technology, such as integrated webcams on laptops, tablets and phones allows for intimate connections across vast distances.

Past generations wrote letters on paper and parchment.  Now we write on electrons and magnetic bits.  Past generations would use a complicated cipher to encode their writings, now we have 512 bit encryption available publicly.  There is something still intimate about a handwritten letter, but email is widely regarded as formal enough for almost any message as long as the formatting is thoughtful.

We used to have naughty deguerreotypes and now we sext each other instantly be it picture or video, or even broadcast it for all to see in a rather shameless manner.

Communication is instant world wide and I for one couldn't be happier.  I can speak with people in Russia, Denmark, Iceland and Singapore all at the same time and in real time with no cost beyond paying for access to the world wide web.  Aside from the fact that this would indicate a possible demise of legacy telecom systems in the future, the larger point is that we now have the ability to communicate as individuals with one another without the filter of a government in between.

Aside from picking and choosing what government you live under one discovers that a man is a man anywhere in the world and we have far more in common than governments would have us think.  We enjoy and have passions for the same things and have the same wishes for our families.  It is odd to think that we are somehow in opposition rather than engaged in cooperation.  But here we are.

My generation is certainly not one that is enamored with world peace, nor despite accusations to the contrary, so full of hubris that we think we can attain it.  However we are the first generation with the infrastructure for such an achievement.  Soon a company will be launching into orbit a constellation of micro-satellites that will broadcast internet access world wide.  It will not matter if you are sailing in the middle of the most desolate (of humans) ocean on earth, nor hiking a trail in Afghanistan, nor even in Antarctica.  Soon borders will mean even less.  What I do fear is that governments will jealously guard and attempt to clamp down out of insecurity.  Instead of freeing their citizens to interact, make contracts and engage socially the national governments will instead create more barriers to entry and try to keep us closed off from one another.

What good is a government that gives up social control?  Why it is the best government that one could have.  A freer people will never have existed on earth than is possible at this moment.  But world-wide we see restrictions.  Turkey closing down Twitter and youtube access is just a public example.  The Great Firewall of China is another.  The NSA's bulk monitoring of citizens online and mobile activities in and out of the United States is one of the most egregious.  And yet instead of backing down when challenged, those forces of authority double down and accuse critics of promoting the enemies of the state.  Hyperbole is ratcheted up and we see the militarization of police with MRAPs and an ever increasing number of SWAT teams and federal grants to support this.  Rights are restricted and the government talks seriously for the first time about licensing journalism and restricting the rights of the press and free speech.

My generation has the ability to choose what road we go down.  We will either go on the road to freedom, or on the road to serfdom.

Game On.

Officer Training Required

A more and more common sight:

Here is the issue:

The officer initiates contact
The subject of the contact indicates that she is not in violation and is in-fact the appropriate distance
The officer instigates by insisting that she move farther back (creating a situation where none existed)
The officer, seeing that this is going nowhere escalates further (under color of law) - demanding identification
The subject knowing her rights refuses based on the grounds that there was no reason for contact with the officer in the first place (illegal stop).
The officer arrests the subject and uses broad charges to justify harassment and abuse.

Result?

Subject injured despite there being no resisting arrest charge (possible excessive use of force)
Subject files lawsuit against the department
department reflexively denies
department still investigates (CYA: Cover Your Ass) just in-case their knee-jerk reaction is wrong.

There are many incidents like this and the list is growing day by day.  There are several reasons why police behave in this manner and it is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

Police Officers/LEO's are a tribe much like the marines, or special forces; they are an insular group and everyone else is a potential threat.  This is why the California officers were so freaked out about Dorner.  He was one of them and then he became a threat from the inside.   The American people are the enemy and our cities and rural areas are now widely regarded as battlefields.

Police Officers lack proper training:  Here in my own state very few police officers know that a carry concealed permit also allows for open carry.  As a result the legal advice to residents was to not carry open.  This is wrong.  You do not tell citizens to not engage in a legal activity because you are too lazy to train officers and their superiors on the law.

Federal Funds/Militarization of Police: Bad.

America is becoming a battlefield and our police forces are increasingly populated with mentally ill veterans and sociopaths who engage in manipulative power trips under the color of law and the guise of protecting people.  Comply citizen, or get beaten like the chattel you are.

The Continuing Snowden Revelations

ITS A CONSPIRACY!

No really...it is.  But before digging in to the latest of the continuing reveals of exactly how far our intelligence services are overstepping their constitutional bounds let us take a travel back in time...not all that far to 2010.  This Article can be viewed for context but the main crux of it is from a paper Cass Sunstein (President Obama's Head of Information and Regulatory Affairs...a fairly Kafkaesque‎-esque position if you ask me) wrote with a Harvard Professor, Adrian Vermuele, dealing with how government should respond to citizens distrust of government.  The entire paper is publicly available HERE for you to read.

I refuse to take things out of context and Cassie here makes it quite easy to contextualize his statist attitude.  His wife by the way is Samantha Power.  She is a former journalist turned think tank fellow, turned Obama campaign advisor, turned State Department official.  She published her own statist paper/thesis dealing with a concept she called "The Right to Protect".  This entails using NATO/US/UN forces to intervene in 'humanitarian' crisis around the world based on the assumption that since we have a large military that we should use it for the benefit (as we see said benefit) to promote an open society/democracy/self-determination.  Of course this open society thing is funded by George Soros and the Tides Foundation at large.

Much of this is interconnected via think-tanks and the continuous cycle from Academia to think-Tank to Govt feeding cycle.  It is an intellectual version of the military industrial complex...rather it is the intellectual-industrial-complex. An interesting PDF can be found HERE on the number of think tanks in the USA.  Make of it what you will.  All of this dissembling may seem scattered but that is only because to explore the material in depth would require several books and leads down a rabbit hole so deep and twisting only the most dauntless of scholars or journalists would dare go down.

All one has to do to see the think tanks and though- shapers psychological warfare techniques are in operation is to wait for a significant event to occur and the security experts pop out of the woodwork.  Some of them are CIA/NSA/ Private contractor plants and the rest are shills for the administration (whoever is in power).  Their job is to deflect, discredit and destroy the opposition.  No different than what Cass Sunstein advocates in his paper.  One of the many symptoms of Cass Sunstein's cognitive infiltration strategy that is easily visible takes place in the many commentary sections of online publications.  There is always some racist bait or sexist or something there designed to take an illogical position aligned to the side that needs to be discredited before momentum is gained.

It is clever but diabolical.  And so far reaching that few would believe it...until documents came out saying that it is exactly what happens.  But 'tin foil hat' ITS A CONSPIRACY.  Well technically it is exactly that.  It is a concentrated group of people plotting to use their power against the larger group and influence them without their knowledge towards a goal that the concentrated group considers appropriate or beneficial...to their own selves and likely to the exclusion of others.

It is a thesis...turned actual plan. And it is the very definition of Kafkaesque.  The machine is being designed to grind liberty into dust.  A Semblance of Liberty

Born to fight, and we're born to flee
Doomed to live on ecstasy
Born to lie, and we're born to cheat
Look in the mirror, who do you see?

Born to flee, and we're born to fight
Without your mask, you're terrified
Don't hide your personality
That's who you are, your identity

If the virtues of tomorrow
Cause the greed of today
We won't have a future
Nor liberty

Born to breathe, and we're born to pursue
That's all we are supposed to do
The semblance of our liberty
Is nothing more than slavery

Born to flee, and we're born to fight
Is it failure that's our delight?
Born to cheat, and we're born to lie
Look at yourself, have you lost your mind?

If the virtues of tomorrow
Cause the greed of today
We won't have a future
And no more liberty

If the virtues of tomorrow
Set the need on the way
We won't have a future nor liberty

Private vice leads to public virtue

[Laughs!]

Raised to think that we are free
Living in our caves
Being slaves

We lost control of our lives
At the mercy of the waves
Massive waves

Blind to see what's going on
Conditioned as we are
And we are

We lost control of our greed
But now we face it all
Face our fall

Keeping all that we've created
And consuming all that's possible
Reaching deep into temptation
Nothing can stop us

Guarantee our hard-earned profits
Multiplied ten-fold if possible
Reaching out for new redemption
Nothing avails our needs

My opponent won't rule out raising taxes.
But I will, and The Congress will push me to raise taxes and I'll say no.
And they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again, and I'll say to them:
Read my lips
[George H. W. Bush]

If the virtues of tomorrow
Set the need on the way
We never had a future anyway
We had no future 'till today

Time and tide
Will not wait for anyone

Consider the lyrics and reflect.