The Chill American

Disinfo.com has published my timely essay, "The Chill American."
Check it out here

We're all here to go into space.

People are idiots. Of this fact we can be certain as history points to our crimes, both against the Earth and each other. We can be genius, occasionally, briefly noted along our mapping modernity, prolonged self-destruction. Affairs may have gotten a bit more pressing recently, what with some of us stomping around, ceaselessly devouring. Our attitudes will have to change. Or many will have to die, maybe both. These things are inevitable. Thus, we have to get off this planet. 

It's the perfect task. It's the correct goal. True we have made the aforementioned mistakes and some of us continue to do so, but it cannot be said that there isn't a new paradigm afoot. The human species, having been connected together by technology, has decided change is required, hastily. The twenty-first century promising a new enlightenment by way of a supreme arrogance. Things as they are, we simply don't have time to fret over the past when we're so amazing right now. Surely the baby cannot be blamed for shitting in his diaper. 

We don't need to feel guilty about the mistakes of the past, we need to fix the future, oddly and simply by thinking about it. Everybody is predominately concerned with making money. This is an extremely present mindset and not conducive to future planning. It's hard to find the time to daydream about space travel when you forgot to pick up Timmy from soccer practice because you're tired from working two jobs. We don't have to get rid of money, (although it would solve almost every problem,) or have everyone start wearing white robes. We can't cease our efforts to correct past mistakes, for we can't all leave. Cleaning up sounds like a good start. Eventually we'll run out of dinosaur goo and everything will have to change, preferences and profit be damned. Still, no amount of work done by our lot will change the fact that the Earth could shake us all off like fleas. The Sun could burp in our direction and fry us in place, creating a planetary Pompeii. Leaving the Earth is mandatory for human survival in the long run. I'm asking just that we start thinking about that. Individually we are a tiny sum of a magnificent existence, we can only be valuable while thinking about the whole. 

Every new tomorrow gets us one step closer to being able, but the drive to imagine has been distracted and corrupted. This has happened, is happening and will continue to happen in the future because, as I said, people are idiots. Usually, we get greedy, then we get lazy, then we get spoiled. It happened in Rome, it happens elsewhere now. This sort of behaviour needs to be corrected, for everyone's sake. Celebrate not celebrity, worship wisdom and intelligence, favour reason over profit, cooperation over competition. Ask not what is in this life for you, for you will have it anyway and but what you leave for the future. We can be a planet of philosophers, forcing the hands of non-philosopher Kings. We can do it on our own because we must. Accept that as fact and begin.

"What are we all here for?

We're all here to go into space.

The Earth is going to be a space station and we're all here to go into space.

But what are you and you and you here for?"

-William Burroughs, Dead City Radio.

We are all SkyNet in the Googlesphere

"The theory that Google is becoming or enacting SkyNet has been around since at least 2009. SkyNet for those of you that don’t know, is a fictional, self-aware artificial intelligence that controls the Terminator, among other things, in the movie franchise of the same name. In the story, SkyNet decides humans must die (the reason, “self-preservation” is not exactly relevant) and the War with the Machines begins. In reality, Google is at the forefront of all things technological and either by accident, design or perhaps both simultaneously, continues toward making SkyNet a possibility."

Please read my full article at disinfo.com

A War of Intentions: the Socially Engineered American War on Terror

A War of Intentions: the Socially Engineered American War on Terror

Thinking of ISIS as organized criminals rather than religious terrorists could save the world.

Opinions need to be held in order for certain things to happen in a society. It sounds strange that our beliefs might steer actions in the real world that change lives, but it is a reality. It is one thing, for instance, to come into my home with a gun and take over my life, it is another to slowly advertise that a certain religion promotes proactive violent extremism, changing my mind. 

Intentionality can be directed, via social engineering. Some politician, some journalist, some arms dealer can partake of any position within the domain of morality, the actions result in continued premature death of otherwise useful human beings. It doesn't matter even if your personal contribution to the Socially Engineered American War on Terror is limited to liking an Islamophobic meme on facebook, everyone has to be on board. 

 

However, through the power of Anti-Social Engineering, like-minded individuals (call them "sensible") can create an intentionality of our own, to counter any such programming. First, we must reduce the ideas involved into their lowest common denominators. Their intention is that we look at the Islamic State terrorism group, if I may, as a product of Islam, the religion. This, they argue, is because ISIL/ISIS follows a strict, ancient, bastardized version of Islam and is currently involved in a holy war to convert the planet, or destroy it trying. This is true. But the Islamic State has numbers measured in the thousands, twitter followers don't count. "They" want us to equate the millions upon millions of Muslims in the world with potential Islamic State terrorists. "They" are as extreme as the terrorists.

Of course it's hogwash. Yes, the I.S. is real, yes they're killing people, mostly Muslims. But I don't think you can properly call this a war. They are definitely not a Nation. As a "religious war" it's rather one-sided. The Islamic State is a well organized group of nutball zealots. They are criminals. Dealing with them should be considered a Police action. If we start thinking about them as small-c criminals instead of Terrorists, our intentionality could change the course of action. We're not allowed to think of them this way, because Police action means kicking in doors and rounding up bad guys, dead or alive. It' much easier to just tell everyone "Be fearful of brown people, they might be trying to kill you! Oh yeah, by the way, they're all Muslim."

"They" argue that the Syrian refuges flooding in will carry with them hidden Terrorists. This is probably true. We will have to deal with these criminals as they reveal themselves, in much the same way we do now. School shootings continue to happen in America, shall we ban education? "They" argue that every time the Islamic State attacks, (more so for Western targets) it justifies their War on Terror. It justifies action, just of a different nature. You've been at this a while now, either you are ineffective or your approach is wrong. 

 

When you ask folks who live in the Middle East, even in these torn up areas, about the why of it, an ugly picture forms. America, it seems, has been stomping around the area since WWI, as have others. An Islamic scholar, a Grand Mufti of Syria, Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun was quoted in an interview by RT recently, "If you want to create a true state, you need to build it on the basis of political values and democracy. We don’t impose any religion in Syria; we don’t say that there must be a Christian state, a Jewish state or a Muslim State. These ideas come from outside. The West is instigating such ideologies. The West is playing a big part in the process. I think a state should be founded on strong political and cultural elite. What we see in Syria today is similar to what happened in Yugoslavia - Croatia, Bosnia. There were major cultural elites there. But the West began to provoke different political and religious groups in order to start a civil war, which resulted in manslaughter."

Even a cursory glance at the history of the Islamic State, America's involvement in the Middle East, politics, military action, business brings about a story that reads like a conspiracy theory. In fact, that's what they call it when it is brought to their attention, "It sounds crazy, why would be entertain such thoughts?" The problem is the whole world agrees the conspiracy is real, except the perpetrators. How can such a deep rooted lie become an Intentionality in the face of what is natural, right or even holy? It's easy: money, but that's a whole different essay. Peace can be achieved, but not without countering any war intentionality fiercely. This is our takeaway...

Do not let your friends get away with ignorance that strengthens the discord of peace. Do not let what should be a police action against criminals continue to be the Global War on Terrorism, trademark America. Do not let this police action become a race war, religious war or war against any nation, just so America can continue to hide the fact that it's a bully, stealing lunch money. Intentionality steers us like we're a flock of birds but we can steer too, in our small part. Ensure your part is, at the least, well informed.

If you would like to know more about Intentionality and the creation of reality I've published chapter 7 of Anti-Social Engineering the Hyper-Manipulated Self here

Here is the conclusion of that chapter: "For John Searle, things are either brute facts or institutional reality. Institutional Reality works because we impose functions that define power. We're not assigning rules to frivolous things that don't matter, we are not constituting intentions willy-nilly, at least, this is my hope. So it seems that the things that we are asked to believe must be important. If they are, then surely they are worth mulling over. We are not asking about God here, nor even any grand scheme of society, we wonder about ourselves. By realizing when someone or something “asks” us to believe in it, in its intention, to create some reality out of an idea, we can begin to wonder about the value of following the rule. Institutional reality gives power to ideas through intention. It empowers either the X term or the bearers of X. “This note is legal tender” doesn't describe the note, it makes it what it is. It is one of the things created in our reality, yet only if we participate. What are you creating in your reality?"

Islam has nothing to do with Terrorism

On the so-called Islamic State.

As a consequence of yesterdays suicide bomber/shooting attacks in Paris, my facebook page is full of socially engineered intentions to anger and amaze. My friends list had already been lightening due to the recent federal election. (They're still my friends, their opinions just became unfollowed.) However quickly I wanted to dash off clever chastisements to satisfy my own worth, I dared not unless something interesting happened. I am after all, a busy person.

This morning, eating my oatmeal, flipping through by news feed, there's a pic of a mushroom cloud, glowing orange. Over the cloud was "We've been at peace with Japan since 1945" underneath the cloud was "Time to make peace with Islam." I placed my fingers on the keyboard, I don't recall if I typed my first thought or not, I can't recall the thought itself. It was probably something like, "there are many things wrong with this sentence." I put no such complaint. Instead I examined what options facebook had for me. Could I report this as a violation of some kind. Hate speech? I tried, their robots (I presume) did not agree with my assessment of the picture. 

I spent a couple hours learning what I could about the sorts of ideas one can have about this "thing" they call ISIS or ISIL, or a few other words. I will refer to it as "the Islamic State." In the interest of clarity, by Islamic State I mean specifically the small group of terrorists who refer to themselves as these things. The clarity is important, because there seems to be a great deal of confusion on the matter.

If you Google "Islam has n" it will auto-fill in "nothing to do with terrorism." (This is the point at which I realized I was going to write another essay.) The first page of search results will contain three news stories, featuring Muslims and others espousing that this is true because the Islamic State follows an antiquated, bastardized version of the faith. Below those stories, the entire rest of the page is devoted to pages arguing that it's time to "STOP saying Islam has nothing to do with terrorism." Some of them might claim to argue the opposite, but if you read them you will discover this is a rouse. 

As I searched and read, it became apparent that everyone needed to have an opinion on this matter and that this opinion would probably come from other opinions. Some opinions favour information closer to the truth, some don't. By truth, it is meant, accurate information, related to facts that are real in the world, not some astronomical generalization associating an entire religion and a few pissed off militants. In fact, if you're so inclined, you're really making things worse, because doing so is going to piss off Muslims around the world that wouldn't be otherwise interested in jihad. It's already the case that many young Muslims join the Islamic State for political reasons more than religious, but it is also true that there is a growing movement that believe it's the apocalypse. The Islamic State, it seems, has a place for you, regardless of where you source your thirst for western blood. 

There are common denominators and it is here where we find all our facts and figures. The stuff we can actually work with. The Islamic State is real, it has money, offices with staff, weaponry, technology, manpower, philosophy. It takes action, it destroys. It has a goal (the conversion of the entire world to its ancient interpretation of Islam) and it has no problem beheading you if you're not interested in converting. However, it isn't doing those things because of its religion, it's doing it specifically because your country has been or currently is fucking around in its backyard. 

Most victims of the Islamic State are Muslim, in Muslim countries. Most of the Damage they do is to Muslim property, (trying to rid us of the more "modern" or inappropriate religious items or places.) These things are criminal matters. If you have a bunch of idiots running around in costumes killing people, something should be done about them. The only thing that makes them "Terrorist" is the fact that they are attached to being Muslim/Middle Eastern and that we are attached to the Christian West. Their association, not mine. I make no distinctions, that's the point... Imagine if some Christian militant group (of which there are plenty) reverted to some ancient ultra-conservative form their faith and then started a similar campaign. Would we immediately decry all Christians as enemy? 

There is an ideology at play here, but it is more rooted in politic and society than in religion. In my investigations I discovered that the Islamic State twists the philosophy of Sayyid Qutb, much the same as Al Qaeda and others. Qutb was the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 50s and 60s, after his return from going to University in America where he was appalled by American society. (Imagine the sockhops!) If you would like to really understand everything about this whole "America vs the Middle East" thing, all you need to do is watch "The Power of Nightmares" Seriously, go google "the Power of Nightmares" it's a BBC documentary by Adam Curtis. You can watch it on youtube. 

The point is, Islam doesn't make terrorists, being pissed off at America does. Therein lies the problem in this story, in this matter and in this essay. Once you start delving into "Why are these criminals so mad at America?" You only come up against very valid reasons to be pissed. (And we're not allowed to talk about them. The truth has no place in the American psyche.) This is an extremely complicated and delicate matter that is going to have to be handled one criminal at a time and quietly. Blaming it on any particular belief only fuels the fire, plus it lumps our friends in with our enemies. 

Think of it this way: If all they have are suicide bombers, they'll eventually run out. Unless we keep pissing them off and they keep breeding suicide bombers. Change the mindset, change the outcome. How do we change the mindset? Well, what is it we've been doing that upset everyone in the first place? Oh yeah, we have our own set of leaders who put philosophies into motion, some of them for their own religious motives. Mostly though, we just want your resources or we don't want other to have them. We also need to keep the war machine going. It's big business. How are we going to have enemies to spend billions on if we don't keep creating enemies?