Stand Alone Complex

End of an Era: R.i.p. Ftp & Sac

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:39:00 +0000

Blogger is apparently going to shut-down the option to use FTP publishing for it's users, & since I am one of the few percent who bothered with such, partially out of laziness to use PHP, this blog will be more or less closing.

I don't like the idea of using custom domains, & while I find blogger's interface easy (especially the email posting, which came in handy), relying on it is a crutch long-term.

In any case, here's a link to the promo page for the next thing I'm working on (w/ a friend): http://poppychop.net/sss/

We're still unsure about what the focus of the project will eventually be, but it most likely won't be the vain attempt at contributing to the libertarian / anarchist / political sphere that this was. If any of that does pop-up, a clear-cut position in the posts will be me immediately apparent due to differing views.

To be honest, one of the only things we both know going into this project is that, if any writing is to be done, it will be focused on things that are interesting to us to write about. The goal will be this, not overarching internet philosopher political pundit fantasies.

Ironically, if this is continued, the design will be revised. It always seems like whenever I do make what little content I do, it's only just enough to justify exercises in design, & the time lost being placidly ignored.

Indefinite Hiatus

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:05:00 +0000

Not one for kidding myself, I've been far too busy offline to barley even check my email anymore; you can thank the sudden turn of luck I encountered recently in this worsening economy, forcing me to switch gears to another job.

If I have any free-time, I will most likely devote it to another blog project I had been planning for sometime with a friend of mine, & this only because it will not be a solo project (I don't have the time for such right now).

The online ideology chair was getting boring enough, anyway.

"Mad" Logic: Advertising ≠ Coercion

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 20:58:00 +0000

@ what point does persuasion become coercion?

Not all advertising is guilty of so-called "coercion", & if one labels advertising coercion, then this more or less puts one in the same political correct position that many democrats stand for regarding the market (that advertising, & eventually the market, ought to be regulated or intervened).

I take a similar view towards advertising that I do towards competition: those who recognize advertising for what it is will be better able to resist supposed manipulative advertising.

If anything, I think the entire lack of exposure to the psychology of advertising (it can be argued that the lack of exposure to some amount of advertising and/or dialouge of advertising, i.e. censorship of the debate of advertising due to possible majoritarianism, can be equally harmful) makes people more receptive to advertising itself, & the same would go to a person trying to tackle calculus without the required knowledge of the mathematics that come before so (algebra, trigonometry, geometry, etc.).

It would not be fantastical to imagine citizens of a stateless society realizing the "pitfalls" of the market by addressing the concerns that people become prey to possible coercers.

If anything, I see the inherent lack of an arms race of knowledgeable consumers against advertisers, no thanks in part by interventionism (Statism) which is assumed to be "protecting" the consumer by the average citizen who endorses the State.

A similar thing has occurred regarding advertising, copyright patents, etc. on the internet with many proponents of open-source and/or the FSF, wherein the opponents to intellectual property must engage in continual intellectual arms race in order to stay one step ahead of regulators and/or closed-source proponents (the wikileaks admission of the ACTA treaty is a good example of this being effective).

I largely see this problem of "manipulative" advertising being sorted out by individuals realizing that they must equip themselves with the psychological equivalents of personal arms to protect themselves.

Of course, many idealists will despise the possibility that advertising psychology will become an integral part of one's education in a possible stateless society, but then again, it would probably be required regardless as more people would undoubtedly become entrepreneurs.

The line between consumer & producers would blur (prosumer, I believe is the term), until at some point, there is no clear distinction between consumers/prosumers/advertisers/ etc. & advertising is essentially liquidated to the individual level.

You can thank Google for helping to rev up the initial stages of this with AdSense, & individuals being capable of deriving revenue from something as benign as blogging.

You can thank Youtube (more generally, The Internet) for providing an early useful (even if it is susceptible the tragedy of the commons) preview at what happens when everyone can advertise themselves on a site that mimics television.

People that make their own productions are becoming prosumers & are helping others like them to advertise like products.

Roosterteeth.com, cinemassacre.com, Renegade Studios (Star Trek: Of Gods & Men, the upcoming production of Anarchy In America) etc. are a few good examples of how fewer individuals, nowadays, can come together as entrepreneurs & become the new advertisers / content producers.

You can bet as the Internet develops (both with and around any sort of statist regulation), more methods of achieving ad revenue, & more evolved methods of advertising, will come about.

Per memetics, many of us have the advertising bug, in varying amounts, & do not even know it yet.

Advertising would kind of become a non-issue if almost everyone is engaging in some sort of entrepreneurship, which requires a knowledge of advertising (& subsequently, it's psychological effects), even if one is only possibly being an entrepreneur at the local levels.

Additionally, the decentralization of local & regional economies from the federal level (succession, panarchism, etc.) would make manipulative advertising less profitable, because at lesser levels of bureaucracy and/or oversight, more control is possible for the consumers / prosumers / regulators.

Of course, I favor & many others no regulation, no state, etc, but it can be demonstrated that even in a statist society, manipulative advertising & marketing can be reduced with voluntary, free-market actions of individuals.

The ultimate in de-centralization, to the point of the stateless society full of sovereign individuals, would make aforementioned not only self-regulated free-market action more effective, but also eventually deprive statist markets (red / pink markets) of economic activity, state subsidies for certain companies regarding advertising (the only manipulative advertising, imo, is state propaganda, such as Army commercials), & other anti free-market capitalists of the leverage regarding advertising.

In lesser words, don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Advertising would eventually become a casual market occurrence that, per natural selection, competition, etc. "gets" those who who un-prepared for it, & "works" for those that are.

If we all became Mad Men, there'd be no Mad Men.

(FYI, this isn't a post praising the setting of the linked series as an ideal of some sort. It's a good show, however. )

*linked terms forthcoming pending 2nd revision

Penn & Teller: Bullshit! [Taxes]

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 20:50:00 +0000

Coming Soon: Daily, Bi-Daily, Weekly Digest?

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 02:01:00 +0000

Addenum to recent blog activity: I will attempt a digest, a'la ATS, sometime this week, but I haven't yet decided how often it will appear. Stay tuned!

The LP Should Become The LNV (League of Non-Voters)

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:54:00 +0000

Unlike many more enthusiastic* individuals, I try not to obsess over
the disrupted "purity" of libertarianism by those who are minarchist,
vulgar, or patriarchs, which seems to be an increasing past-time for
the more cynical (understandably).

*I prefer to use the term 'enthusiastic' instead of
'radical', since whenever the term radical is used in libertarian
and/or anarchism, it's usually used for scoring popularity points with
others in either an attempt at boosting one's ego, or by playing the
vanguard-ist hijack game of "Which Strain of Libertarianism /
Anarchism Is More Influential Than Others".

In-fact, I think they are proving (to themselves, but to others as
well) to have potentially good use in the field of Public Relations,
this post being a primary example of the LP doing something useful for
once:

[from: http://www.lp.org/news/press-releases/libertarians-to-democrats-call-off-the-thugs]

Libertarians to Democrats: Call off the thugs
...

America's third largest party Friday called on Democrats to end what
appears to be a budding campaign of union violence targeted at
citizens who differ with the White House at town hall meetings across
the country.

Libertarians oppose not only the White House's plans for
government-run medicine, but the use of violence to achieve
political or social goals.

The bolded part: excellent, simple, no nonsense, message received, etc.

Now, if only we can get them to stop wasting time with being a
political party, & just convert them to a League of Non-Voters (LNV).

A hypothetical LNV would help give a "political" and/or a voluntary, memetical,
state-society representation to the disenfranchised limited gov.
advocates & non-voters (most anarchists & voluntaryists) out there,
but without all the problems of the LP, which advocates, essentially, more politics.

1st Rule of LNV: Do Not Vote for The League of Non-Voters.

2nd Rule of LNV: Don't Vote for anyone/anything else.

3rd Rule of LNV: Yes, you can & are encouraged to talk about the LNV.

It would be absolutely great to pick up a paper and see something akin
to "League of Non-Voters: Coercion Is A Four-Letter Word", "League of
Non-Voters: Jail Our Members For Peaceful Protesting, & We'll Sue", &
so-forth.

One can hope, I suppose.

FYI, I wrote more in the draft for this entry, so I'll try
posting those almost finished tangents in the next few days or so.

Also, would like to thank various people who ghost-watch this dormant
blog, & for linking & name dropping Stand Alone Complex, elsewhere on
the Internet.

V.O.N. (Value of Non-Aggression; 2009) * of *

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 03:02:00 +0000

Thanks to an online acquaintance via Reddit, I've come across a
recently launched libertarian band called "V.O.N." (Value of
Non-Aggression).

The first cd, an apt self-titled effort, shows obvious hints of Aphex
Twin with peculiar use of sounds. The production & composition of
the songs hark back to The Notwist; one song in & I'm already smitten.

The album shows a general pre-disposition to ambient & subtly dark
moods, & manages to (for the most part) do very well at cherry picking
dialogue for sample use in the song.

Some industrial sounds are used to shake up things when required,
though, so the reward for your patience will be enough
experimentation to keep he album an engaging experience.

The best of the samples being the Lew Rockwell sample in
"Unconventional Truths", & the more clumsy one being found in the
first song, "The Division of Labor".

"The Law of the Jungle" 's ending sample also tip-toes on being
long-winded, & I would advise in V.O.N.'s future works to trim the
fat a little.

One of the surprises of this album, aside from the songs themselves,
is that the free version of the album is encoded in 128kps CBR (via
MP3).

Yup, the same 128kps that used to be the standard when Napster was
pirating the RIAA proper.

Yet there is barley a noticeable point in any songs that you "hear"
the low quality audio that is typical of 128kps, & this is coming from
a (albeit, practical) audiophile.

This is, however smart, because I am already readying my PayPal
whenever CD's or special access to higher quality recordings become
available.

Back on point: the song lengths are typical of ambient forays, but are
not uniform & give the album a slightly varied order, so the listening
experience shouldn't be tedious.

The ending song, "Death of the State", is appropriately sparse & the
longest (as well as the last) track on the album, w/ occasional
strings popping up the sampled wind noise, keeping your attention in
the atmosphere.

All in all, I think V.O.N. is off to a great start, and despite being
a person who is typically not into Ambient, I had more than enough
patience to listen to this & be pleased with the results.

This album feels like an interesting foreshadow & I think will prove
to be a sleeper hit within the libertarian community.

I think some refinement may be in order for non-libertarian audiences
to listen in, but that's assuming none of these tracks are eventually
used in a video meme of some sort, because you've got plenty of
minimalistic & interpretive atmosphere here to work with.

Do I smell remixes coming our way?

I'm definitely looking forward to further material from V.O.N., &
their libertarian ruminations on the quirky side of Ambient.

('+' = positives, '-' = negatives)

+ Production value, free download, professional effort.
+ You can barley tell the songs are encoded in 128kps.
+ Song lengths are considerable, samples are meaty.
+ Sounds used are unique, & pay tribute without being derivative
+ Pretty good album length

- Only available in 128kps, no Ogg Vorbis or FLAC (for now?)
- One or two samples are heavy-handed
- Could've been longer

Favorites:
Janus, Death of The State, Ode To The Industrialist, & The Division of Labor.

Download Now:
Take That, Atavistic Luddites!, Unconventional Truths, & The Law of the Jungle

(The album itself is available here )

You're We're Nicked

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:35:00 +0000

Found an interesting bit of slight (but understandable) paranoia, but then again, this administration has been all about not letting a good crisis go to waste, so perhaps it's just ahead of the curve...

The original post can be found here

The fear on the street is palpable.

Ever since the election of Barack Obama as President of these United States in November 2008, coupled with the election of a democrat party majority in both the U.S. House and Senate, concern for the United States and personal safety has ignited like a fire in dry grass.

Sales of guns – black guns, rifles, shotguns and handguns (particularly 9mm) everywhere, have gone through the roof.

AR15s have literally flown off of dealer shelves, and only now in the spring of 2009, have I seen the display samples of ARs begin to reappear on the wall of my favorite shooting emporium after the initial post election rush.

Manufacturers of ARs are still working to catch up and some of the major suppliers are as much as 150,000 guns behind.

Not only that, ammo is in the shortest supply I have ever seen in the 43 years of my shooting life. Have you recently tried to get 5.56mm, 9mm or even 380 ammo?

Supplies of 5.56mm and 9mm ammo are in short supply due to the black gun buying craze; .380ACP because of the rise in people getting concealed carry permits and the resurgence of interest in convenient 380 handguns like the fine Ruger LCP.

In fact, in doing a review of the Ruger LCP, my gun store only had a small supply of ONE .380 round on hand, the Winchesters 95-grain SXT, which they had just gotten in. Unfortunately, I had to do a 30-round review of that pistol. There was none other to be found.

What is odd about this new fear is that it is not coming from the average citizen gun owner out there, but it is coming from what to me is an almost shocking source: street cops.

Street cops and SWAT cops that I know from various agencies – rural, suburban and metro – in my area are scared. Cops that before November 2008 never gave much thought (that I knew of anyway) to politics or more importantly to gun rights.

For the most part, these are the guys that didn’t generally have any interest in shooting or gun ownership beyond keeping track of where their duty gun is, and a few of them didn’t even do that so well.

The guys I am talking about now are some of the same guys who used to not even carry off duty on a regular basis- but not anymore.

They don’t scare easily, defenders of the Constitution of this State and the United States (as our oath of office reads), have been buying ARs, survival gear, and all the ammo they can lay their hands on.

All of them (or I should say “us”) have been discussing and have been acquiring guns to provide a layered perimeter defense.

What are we suddenly so afraid of? Well in our discussions it seems to boil down to four areas.

First, fear of federal government intrusion into our lives.

Every time I look at or listen to the news, there is something new and intrusive coming out of the Obama administration and this Congress.

New tax schemes, government-run Canadian-style healthcare, a volunteer citizen defense force (whatever that is, what happened to the National Guard?) equipped with funding similar to our military, forced voluntary “service” after retirement, a lack of a southern border with hordes of illegal and criminal aliens pouring over our border.

The swine flu scare as well as government forced closing of thousands of privately held Chrysler and GM dealerships, which will be the final nail in the coffin for these companies and the list goes on and on.

But these items in the news are just the tip of the iceberg.

We can’t see the full impact of these actions yet, but we don’t know what was added into the thousand of pages of stimulus package bills in the dead of night yet.

I predict however that when the plans contained in the stimulus packages go into effect, a lot of us are going to be surprised if not shocked by what has suddenly and sweepingly changed.

What also scares us is the second, well-founded fear that there is an assault weapons ban looming, one that would make the Clinton Ban appear like a look of disdain in comparison.

I remember well the 1990s and the Clinton years: the rise of militia groups, the “black helicopter” rumors and paranoia, all of which was motivated by the Brady Law and the Assault Weapon’s ban.

What if a new ban comes requiring registration or confiscation and turn-in of banned weapons as what happened in Australia?

...I foresee much civil disobedience coming down the road. Americans are citizens, and not subjects like the British, Canadians or Australians.

They just don’t always obey the law blindly and not one officer or citizen that I spoke to said anything like “I hope I get to keep this gun for awhile before they are banned; They are fun to shoot, so I would hate to give it up.”

It isn’t going to happen, so the cop on the street and the soldier on the base needs to think now what he will do if the orders come down.

I think you all get what I am saying here.

Which leads me to the third fear, that there is a revolution coming, yes, a revolution on the scale of the original American Revolution.

You can hear this topic discussed on many of the talk radio shows by even the big name hosts.

The possibility of an armed revolution against the U.S. government being discussed, albeit very gingerly and fleetingly and as something to be avoided, which it is.

I never heard this mentioned in the 90s. One of my quietest, low profile officer friends brought it up the other day.

He said that at some point in the near future, he felt there is going to be an armed revolt if things keep going the way they are: something has got to give.

I was shocked. Yes, I had heard this from some of my more radical cop friends in the past, but to hear it from a guy like this was unprecedented.

Now, these guys are not saying this will happen to foment revolution, preach sedition or to even participate. They just want to be ready if it happens, to at least defend their families, because number four on the fear list is general societal chaos.

Cops fear for their parents, wives, children or grandchildren more now than ever before. Most cops are encouraging their spouses and loved ones to get concealed carry permits.

Not only that, but some of these same cops are buying gun mounts for their personal cars so they can carry an AR in the family ride at the ready all the time.

They are also strapping on heavier forms of off-duty hardware. I have other friends that are issued ARs or subguns for tactical team use, who always have their gear with them and are planning on just commandeering these weapons for personal use in defending hearth and home.

Final Notes

This is pretty heady and maybe even dangerous stuff. Know fully that I am not advocating anything here. I am reflecting to you what I see and hear going on around me, and maybe saying things that haven’t been said in the open, until now.

It is something to think about.

Written By:

Scott Wagner is a Police Academy Commander and Professor at Columbus State Community College in Columbus Ohio, and Commander of the 727 Counter Terror Training Unit.

A 29 year law enforcement veteran, and current Deputy Sheriff, he is the Precision Marksman for the Union County Sheriff’s Office SRT Team.

It is a bit of a relief to know that some cops are remembering what it is to be human, & not an automaton following every order, but I'll remain skeptical of such until I actually see it: cops are still cops, after all.

Quite frankly, since cap-n-trade went through, with some projecting unemployment will shoot up to 20% (the real rate, not the glaze over reports in the media), it's not unreasonable at all to guess that some amount of civil unrest is going to occur.

Moving out of the country is looking like a better long-term plan. But to where...?

I probably won't even stop by NH unless some sort of time is bought to stave off the incoming insanity (which we probably couldn't predict without hindsight, anyway).

Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers!

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:45:00 +0000

SAC is now viewable on resolutions less than 1024x768, so I can now edit this more efficiently on my crap laptop.

This also means that more people can view it on more devices, since the blog is now centered proper.

Frankly, I'm apologize that I didn't make this choice in the beginning, instead of forcing too much negative space that left the blog looking constantly un-finished.

Other Notes:

1. Got rid of i-frames since overtime I found it be a conter-intuitive design choice.

2. Repeated the background design until end of the page to provide less annoying negative space when reading entries.

3. Slightly brighter background to provide a soft focus on the blog.

4. Home page linked the header images to avoid having a redundant menu.

5. Got rid of redundant menu that was an eyesore.

6. Dropboxes used for listing label navigation & archive navigation (per month).

7. Better font used for headlines.

8. Fixed the PHP used to compress & import stylesheets, so the site should render properly in Google Chromium.

The blog looks cleaner & more practical, which is good considering I'm using Blogger.

The second blog I'll be using for more superficial forays, however, will most likely be based on FlatPress, a non-database version of WordPress.

I hope to eventually port this over to FlatPress, so the entire blog is hosted on my own site. That's a re-design that I don't look forward to, however :\

New Libertarian Manifesto (nostate.com audio)

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Fri, 29 May 2009 19:24:00 +0000

Click to buy the book!

Mike Gogulski:
At the urging and encouragement of a dear friend, I have recorded myself reading Samuel Edward Konkin III’s seminal agorist work, New Libertarian Manifesto...

UPDATE JUNE 3rd: Mike has just uploaded his own torrents, another one @ Mininova, & a new one @ Piratebay. Feel free to copy & paste any previously downloaded files from the old torrents in the new torrent folders to help jump start seeding.

Single File (mp3 . 83m 46s . 77 mb )

.torrent file at nostate.com (Seed!)

.torrent file at mininova (Seed!)

Seperated Files (mp3 . 83m 46s . 77 mb )

.torrent file @ nostate.com (Seed!)

OneBigTorrent (Old; but works. Demonoid Tracker)
Demonoid (Old, but works)

Direct Downloads (mp3 . 83m 46s . 77 mb ):

One single file (all chapters)

Seperated Files (mp3 . 83m 46s . 77 mb ):

0a_Introduction.mp3 (1m42s, 1.6MB)

0b_Preface.mp3 (2m48s, 2.6MB)

1._Statism_-_Our_Condition.mp3 (8m57s, 8.2MB)

2._Agorism_-_Our_Goal.mp3 (19m15s, 17.6MB)

3._Counter-Economics_-_Our_Means.mp3 (23m15s, 21.2MB)

4._Revolution_-_Our_Strategy.mp3 (19m55s, 18.2MB)

5._Action!_Our_Tactics.mp3 (7m51s, 7.2MB)

Please seed if you can! (They are identical files, so you only need to download once, but click both of them to get each tracker’s announce URL’s)

An aside: this promo has also given me an idea of possibly doing the same for a more obscure, libertarian / anarchist / anti-state piece of literature...

Although, my recording equipment would not be the best: I typically use a Sansa Fuze mic if I need to get something digital, & an old-fashioned Shure condenser mic & 4-track for better recording that's stuck on cassette tapes :( .

dot-communism: wired.com = fail

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:36:00 +0000

I normally wouldn't post so much as a link to a Wired.com article, but since it was posted on /., figured it would be worth posting the news item, as /. typically has some intelligent commentary.

from the wired article in question:

"Most people in the West, including myself, were indoctrinated with the notion that extending the power of individuals necessarily diminishes the power of the state, and vice versa. In practice, though, most polities socialize some resources and individualize others.

Most free-market economies have socialized education, and even extremely socialized societies allow some private property.

Rather than viewing technological socialism as one side of a zero-sum trade-off between free-market individualism and centralized authority, it can be seen as a cultural OS that elevates both the individual and the group at once.

The largely unarticulated but intuitively understood goal of communitarian technology is this: to maximize both individual autonomy and the power of people working together.

Thus, digital socialism can be viewed as a third way that renders irrelevant the old debates."

Nevermind the concept of the third-way popping up yet again, thus rendering the old debates still entirely relevant.

Thankfully, one of the comments on the article over @ slashdot (properly titled "The Invisible Gun", sans spell-check) has managed to get enough upvotes to be read:

from user: thtrgremlin's comment

Middle ground? There is no middle ground.

What DOES exist is different questions, but not middle ground. If one tends towards a better society, than a mix of both is certain to be a failure.

The problem I see is that people (of certain political tendencies) give government certain god-like qualities, most common believing government has perfect knowledge, or that anything the government does is "free".

Government is simply a business that "we" have authorized a virtually unlimited use of force.

Beyond that they have no special super powers.

Government can help organize a military to protect against foreign invaders, police that can neutrally handle disputes over violations of social contract, courts to handle issues of contract law and establish statutes regarding the interpretation of contract language to help encourage mutually beneficial voluntary exchange of goods and service.

To say "we need the government to blah blah blah..." is to say that violence is a necessary means to an end. To paraphrase Jonathan Gullible, the penalty for all crimes against government is death / loss of life.

This is the difference between taxes and charitable donation or voluntary exchange; people will be most compelled to be charitable with a gun to their head, how could we ever expect to get so much from people on a voluntary basis?

If it is a one time thing, I would be inclined to agree, but can you really argue maximum net production through such means?

This implies that a robber could keep robbing the same home repeatedly and that their gain will be proportional to the number of times they rob the house.

Does knowing which houses are the richest change much?

The "problem" with the government trying to regulate the Internet is where do you point the gun, the governments only tool?

The government does not do work, it only consumes, with the intent and strength to intimidate by threat do do what it desires... but it is ok because it is the will of (51% of) the people, right?

Mind you, not everything he says is on spot, but one must cheer when & where one can as much as possible these days.

On an ending note, I would like to point to the following links for better coverage on what actually is communism, & how it can be viewed that communism & anarchism are by no means, the same thing, despite the quizzical tolerance of communists by some anarchist communities, like say, the anarchist sub-reddit.

Additionally, some links provide arguments that quite the contrary, the Internet is far anarchistic than communist, & even if what one would dub the "first" Internet were to be regulated into a pathetic, hyper-television existence, the very idea & concept of the social enviornment such as the Internet, & it's use as alternative & stateless-society friendly infrastructure, will most assuredly press on, in some form or another, in the grey & black markets.

Paternalistic political parasites be damned, I say.

"Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright"

"The Future of Copyright"

"Anarchy & The Internet"

"What Is Communism?"

"Why Communism Failed"

"Communism, Copyright, & The Internet"

The First Post-Modern Event?

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Thu, 21 May 2009 05:35:00 +0000

Despite turning in for the night, I came across this rather interesting essay via Reddit (that incredibly useful time-waster once you unsubscribe from the /p/olitics sub-reddit...), titled:

A Shift Realized: The Banking Crisis as the First Postmodern Event (Author: Andrew Hare)

Aside from having yet another resource from which to mine my autodidact education daily, the essay's abstract caught my eye & earned it a bookmark for reading over the morning's coffee:

We can easily understand the cultural logic inherent in the global financial crisis as a 'world historical moment,' a moment where the very tenets of globalization and mediation are being challenged at their most underlying theoretical core.

However, the event also must be understood as the first global event that is wholly and uniformly a postmodern crisis.

In the financial collapse of the banking and credit systems we see the most fundamental aspects of postmodernism revealing itself in material reality.

I examine the crisis and how it is ultimately perfectly predicted and consummated in the ontological works of Lyotard (The Postmodern Condition), the global theories of Baudrillard (The Precession of Simulcra) and the mind–politics of Foucault (Discipline and Punish).

I argue that high Modernism has remained the dominant socio–cultural mode despite the emergence of mainstream postmodern theory in the 1970s, but with the global capitalistic system in greater flux theoretically than ever before we are glimpsing the ultimate death of the last Grand Narrative in modern history.

After the death of God (Nietzsche), the death of dialectic (Fukuyama, Zizek, Baudrillard), and now with the possibility of the death of late capitalism we find ourselves at another cultural cross–roads, one that can only find refuge in simulation.

Fascinating... *tilts head slightly*

Whenever I get to finishing this, I will try & write-up a response to the essay, or at least some minor commentary.

Obviously, however, I am suspect of the part of "...and now with the possibility of the death of late capitalism", particularly since I haven't read the essay yet, but also because I reluctantly anticipate a difference of semantics between my use & the author's use, & we all know how semantics generally end up coloring the dialogue, don't we?

フィン '

Limits of Analysis & The State-Society I

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:57:00 +0000

Truly, it is a case of pseudo-ADD; the same type of ADD that almost everyone causally admits to having in today's society, from the newbie to computer technology that is your grandparents, to the crackberry addled wall streeter who quotes Gordon Gekko @ cocktail parties.

Despite aspiration & occasionally acknowledged "potential" w/ writing, such pseudo-ADD partially explains why the only thing I consistently write are responses in debates, forums, etc, which, despite sometimes being rather wide-ranging, have incentive enough due to another person in the debate, to remain more or less on point.

Still in an "information hungry" mode as a reaction towards previous forays into the misnomer that is labelled "higher education" (college), this results a majority of time spent on consuming information (via Internet, books, etc.), & not as much (not yet) producing.

No doubt, some of our greatest philosophers would probably find themselves bitten by the information bug, although perhaps Diogenes would distract them long enough by chucking rocks at their monitors to prevent such an anachronistic occurrence.

Perhaps the "beta" tag should be worn still?

Ironically, this entry could be seen as a meta-commentary on information overload & my attempt to overcome it, so perhaps it wasn't entirely a waste of time.

From personal experience, having literally grown up on The Internet (renting circa- 1999; ownership began in late 2000 with the purchase of my first computer), the implications are not far off & can be rather disturbing, especially with the known effects of multi-tasking (an activity any internet citizen is more than aware of) has on the brain & how the brain learns less effectively versus mono-tasking (one task at a time).

The prospect of more & more people multi-tasking, becoming constantly busy, forever having their attention monopolized by the increasingly statist monopoly over the "maintenance of life" doesn't bode well for things that do require attention & time: thinking, questioning, argumentation, study, intelligence, etc.

At times, both the "limits of human knowledge" & "opportunity costs" seem to give credence to the reformists attitude of utilizing the "system" to reform it, as everyone of us, no matter how radically we adhere to our ethics & morality, have to learn to subsist in state-society to maintain our own existence.

Be it from the direct evil of working within the government, or from the morally better option of working in the markets that are constantly being marginalized & controlled by the government itself, to achieve this.

However, there is also the observation that learning to "deal with" state society is a waste of resources in of itself, since utilizing any portion of it necessitates some sort of reliance upon state-society, unless one were to abdicate oneself to nature completely (& somehow managing to find a portion of land where no state or individual of state-society can interfere with you).

This entry has given me an idea regarding analysis paralysis itself, & it's importance in the ever solidifying information economy, & the effects on individuals it might have, including the genesis of new "mental disorders" or psychological problems.

Existential depression, internet addiction disorder (IAD), & pathological indecisiveness are a few candidates that come to mind, although the current specifications (let along the wikipedia entry) for IAD are frankly laughable, imo.

I now end this post with the danger that the above written was absolutely nothing new (not surprising), but the hope that utilizing the information regardless, eventually leads towards new avenues of argument & thought for myself, & if I'm lucky to be so influential, others as well.

2 much information, 2 little time (using '2' is more efficient than 'too', no?).

フィン

Flash Mobs For Liberty (FM4L)

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 04:02:00 +0000

Introducing Flash Mobs For Liberty (FM4L)*

*This is a working title; I'd really like to get a smoother abbreviation / name going, but this'll do fornow.

q. What is FM4L (Flash Mobs For Liberty) ?

a. Flash Mobs For Liberty is the latest strategy being developed to help further libertarianism both as a valid idea amid the state-society, & as a more prevalent mememtic idea that goes beyond reactionary feelings amid economic & political crisis.

Additionally, FM4L also hopes to help to propagate & "fight against" the statist memes of: entitlement, collectivism, parasitism, theft, & coercion, via novel strategies that closely identify with primary concepts of a stateless society: de-centralization, non-coercion, & voluntary action, co-operation, & trade.

q. How?

a. The first & primary strategy is via the use of flash mobs (per title of the project):

A flash mob (or flashmob[1]) is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse.

The term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organized via social media or viral emails, rather than those organized by public relations firms or for a publicity stunt.

Yup, no shame in that, this project is largely a publicity stunt :D.

However, it will not be publicity for publicity's sake, but for the sake of propagating new attention, word of mouth, & memes, which all help to propagate relevant but previously unknown, inaccessible, or uncomfortable idea's into society via affected individuals.

q. 'Affected'? That doesn't sound peaceful...

a. Forgive the terminology, per memetics, but this is nothing but a peaceful venture.

FM4L seeks through purely voluntary, almost benign situations into drawing attention to certain ideas & topics of discussion.

A good example of this is the TRUTH campaign, regarding the hazard's of smoking, although perhaps not with such a huge budget as their's :p.

q. Okay, glad that's cleared up. This flash mob thing sounds interesting, how do I join?

a. Nothing concrete has been made beyond this page just yet, but considering how flash mobs are organized, not much will be anyways!

Watch this page, however, for further details on the FM4L's first mission into the memetic sea of society, & perhaps even be on the look-out for some sort of official page with pictures & bright colors :)

This idea is still very early, & I'm mainly just writing it here to give this blog some (any) content to make it worthwhile. Hopefully, I can readjust the sidebar, & maybe make a formal static page or site for this idea later on.

Update 1 [7:30pm]: Since work was busier than anticipated today (weekends are usually slow), I couldn't get as much written down as I wanted to originally, but I did manage to come spruce up my layout offline while coming up with a main page for the FM4L project.

I normally wouldn't have bothered, but I felt like I improved on what was already a decent design.

I also played around with some logos, as well as drafted the first mission & some extraneous objective stuff...

Most of that won't appear for now, I don't want to be too ambitious too soon.

I will however probably elaborate more on the idea behind this project & post it up if I don't manage to get a logo & static-page together instead, though.

Thought also went into the inital scope, which I'm going to be catuously labeling vaporware until a static page appears.

I do however plan on submitting the page to reddit, which if nothing else is accomplished, would be acceptable.

I do intend on carrying on the project on a personal level, with or without massive interest.

It would be nice if I also bought a digital camera (at some point, tight on money etc.) to document my progress as well :)

Anyway, more to come by the end of the week.

There Can Only Be One Webmastar...

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:41:00 +0000

Pure-CSS is proving to be a huge headache in maintaining this site, & I haven't even really written anything, so that speaks volumes about the so-called "Semantic" approach.

This is especially true when I have at least 10 DIV's in a given page (actual number: ovar 9,000, all roughly the same line length, doing a terrible job for my eyes in separating the parts of the page, come editing time.

So, I'm going to scale back the excessive CSS use & use the dreaded, reliable Tables method. However, even table advocates remember what a headache nesting is, so I'll go the sensibly Hybrid approach & only use DIV's when absolutely necessary.

In other words, I'm becoming a better designer. Horray?

In any case, the layout will remain largley unchanged; it was a simple one that was easy to emulate with the use of tables anyways.

The one big difference will be that anyone using older browsers (IE 5 - 6, Netscape 4.8, etc.) will not be SOL (Sh*t out of Luck), which oddly enough, the grand "mastar" plan of the semantic web has a double standard for, & only likes to give plain HTML to those stuck @ the office with Windows 2000 & a burdened budget.

It's also been a bit of time since launch, & I still haven't implemented the finishing touches for the site:

+ Further CSS compression to ensure bandwidth costs (parsing it with PHP, instead of simply linking it via PHP)

+ Finalizing the "project" I've been working on (the one I've been using this site as sort of a test-bed for) that will help with the above, as well as being better organized in general.

+ Finishing the sidebar with a tag list and/or a tag cloud. This might be ditched because I already have a labels list beneath each post, so if it feels redundant, this won't be used until I get A.) mucho traffic & B.) another site design in a year or so

Obviously, the elephant in the room is original content , but the only time I've ever had time to not let offline life interfere with online life was back in High School when I didn't have any obligations.

That will take a little while longer :\

But hey, I'm not kidding myself into thinking this blog will go anywhere either, so at least there's no false advertising :p

N

Retort & Conquer: "Non-Libertarian FAQ" @ NTS

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:27:00 +0000

My first stab @ meta-blogging is with an excellent rebuttal by David Z. of No Third Solution to Critiques of Libertarianism: A Non-Libertarian FAQ by Mike Huben, concerning libertarianism, which some may have had either the pleasure or the groaning over reading.

I remember getting a link to this FAQ a while ago via an email, back when emailing random links was considered "cool" and possibly even efficient (circa -2000 A.D. ?).

Web 2.0 kiddies: this was well before the invention of mass blogging & social networking (Huben's FAQ originated in 1997).

This was also before AOL & Compuserve lost their collective balls in a few rounds of roshambo with ConCast & Spyrizon ;D

Written intercourse aside, here are some notable excerpts:

Huben also thinks that Taxation is theft is a lousy argument.

The first is that property is theft. The notion behind property is that A declares something to be property, and threatens anybody who still wants to use it.

Where does A get the right to forcibly stop others from using it?

...This justifies property taxes or extraction taxes on land or extractable resources if you presume that the government is a holder in trust for natural resources.

Ah, yes… “If you presume [insert inter-subjective assumptions, here] then you must agree with me!”

When property is claimed by a first-owner, no threat is made or implied.

No force, no threat of force is needed, until someone else attempts to forcibly relieve him of his enjoyment of that property.

This can only be justified by a belief in property. As Friedman notes, the argument that “theft” can exist absent a coherent definition of “property” is patently retarded.

...

Huben believes you should “love it, or leave it.”

This is a distinction that seems too subtle for a lot of libertarians: the difference between having a choice and having to leave.

For example, let’s say you live in a condominium…

Not this again!

Of course this is a “love it or leave it” argument. I prefer to couch it in less friendly terms, since it’s actually an “If you don’t like it, get the f**k out!” argument.

The dissenter is always presumed wrong, even though it is (arguably) his country, too (at least partially).

There are two sides to any disagreement. That one side happens to be popularly held does not substantiate it morally, ethically, etc. I do not like certain aspects of the social contract, other people do.

Or, to put it another way, other people don’t agree with my social contract. Why don’t they have to leave it?

If you start by evicting everyone who disagrees, all you’re left with is people who agree, which virtually ensures the State’s perpetuation, and further impedes the (misguided) notion that reform can happen from within.

Everyone who wants meaningful reform has been shown the door.

Charming way to run a society, isn’t it?

So, why should we be obliged to accept the social contract? Why can’t we be left alone?

You are not coerced to accept US government services any more than you are coerced to rent or purchase a place to live.

If pretty much all territory is owned by governments, and pretty much all houses and apartments are owned, well, did you want them to grow on trees?

There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

The government owns everything, and we are merely tenants. Thanks, you just gave everyone the Reader’s Digest definition of feudalism.

Who owns the government?

Some contend that, OK, we’d leave but there’s no libertarian state, so we’ve got nowhere to go.

This concedes the basic challenge to the “love it or leave it” argument, and as such, it’s another bad libertarian argument.

Huben picks the low-hanging fruit:

There are roughly 200 nations to which you could emigrate.

They are the product of an anarcho-capitalist free market: there is no over-government dictating to those sovereign nations.

Nice try.

With few exceptions (Sealand, anyone?) all of these countries were established through violence and conquest.

None of them were founded on anything remotely approaching a “free market”, and none of them recognize an individual’s right to sovereignty, as would a free market.

The free market of government services essentially guarantees that there is no such thing as the free lunch libertarians want.

It’s not competitive.

Stop poisoning the well with terms like “the free market of government services.”

The only people who want a “free lunch” are those who seek to offload the costs of their lifestyle choices onto others.

In economics, this is now as a negative externality, and it is commonly associated with the so-called tragedy of the commons.

Again, you can read the rest of the FAQ here: http://www.nothirdsolution.com/non-libertarian-faq/.

Also recommended for any curious Democrat / Republican / Apathetic Voters out there.

I'd think a good place to start strengthening (or challenging?) your own arguments would be with the aforementioned FAQ's in the above.

I mean honestly, libertarians are just getting tired of the "what about the poor?!?!" arguments; here's your chance to make the dialogue a little better next time you log on to Reddit, & flaunt those Positive Rights of yours.

* I took the liberty (more puns to come) of adding Wikipedia links for better hallway vision.

Cheers,

N

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:55:00 +0000

Alright, I need to post this as this is my first serious attempt into blogging:

1.) For those who I knew previously to this blog, & whom I do not explicitly talk politics all the time with, I will be posting political (or apolitical?) content. I will try & get a separate feed going for non-political entries (this doesn't include apolitics) so you can choose to ignore these entries.

And if you happen to read them anyway, don't take it personally ;D

2.) For those who did come here for political content, I will not be explicitly posting such, & if I haven't updated in a while, a sudden update of non-political content will probably pop-up as a way to keep this place alive.

3.) I do not have all the time in the world to do debates here, but I will try regardless. I *could* have all the time in the world to do that, but I should be much busier than i currently am, especially as our economy (as of this entry) is on the cusp of a lost decade.

4.) I will try my best not to re-design this site constantly. I will try to minimize little tweaks here & there. No, I do not care about adhering to standards, & find the crypto-fascism of both the CSS Zealots & the W3C bureaucrats completely childish. I will only use standards if they prove efficient for me, otherwise, I do not care.

On another note, I've made a solid effort to ensure this site renders in most browsers, IE included (thank you conditional statements). The Trident Engine gets a bad rap (as the main browser that uses it is IE), & like it or not, Microsoft not giving a damn about standards has done quite a bit in evolution of web-design.

5.) I might try & get a style sheet switcher if this place picks up in acitvity, since I have more than layout that I tortured over before calling the design quits in an effort to get something done.

6.) If this blog proves worthwhile, I'll try go beyond Blogger with my own PHP styled blog.

I *might* try wordpress, but I honestly feel like if I studied the PHP 4 Bible I have on hand for about a week, I could come up with something far more lean & effective for a simple blog than this resource hog).

7.) I will only post social networking things & personal details as I see fit; I do not like transparency (aka invasion of privacy) to be easily attained. Besides, if your that curious, use google so I can smile at my ignorance.

Right then, Cheers.

@lpha

noreply@blogger.com (Nitroadict) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:07:00 +0000

There are countless ingredients that make up the human body and mind, like all the components that make up me as an individual with my own personality.

Sure I have a face and voice to distinguish myself from others, but my thoughts and memories are unique only to me, and I carry a sense of my own destiny.

Each of those things are just a small part of it. I collect information to use in my own way. All of that blends to create a mixture that forms me and gives rise to my conscience.

I feel confined, only free to expand myself within boundaries.

~ Major Motoko Kusanagi