From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Wed Feb 13 2002 - 17:52:53 MST
Brian Phillips wrote:
> >
> I'll take WW1 as a chemist's war, and WW2 as a physicist's war,
> but WW3 (the Cold War) I rather thought THAT was a psychologist's
> war. A war of propaganda, maneuver, bluff etc. This War on terrorism
> is perhaps the "fighting of the last war" with the weapons (mass media,
> mob psychology etc.) we developed in the Last Big One.
> It's working marvelously.
> Everyone assumed we would be using the weapons of the Last Big One to
> prosecute the Cold War, but we didn't, not exactly. More of
> a War via marketing to muster the economic clout to outlast
> socialism (at least in it's extreme form).
> Assume that the chem-phys-psych-bio progression is essentially
> sound. What sort of war would WW4 be?
> Who are the likely enemies?....
> It's 1920.. where is the Evil Axis?
WW3 was a contest of mass mediocrity versus exceptional excellence,
stick versus carrot.
WW4 is the final contest between reason and faith. As the side of
reason, we are at an automatic disadvantage in that most of us are not
so convinced of ourselves that we would be willing to do anything to
win. Those on the side of faith are so convinced of themselves.
At its core, all world wars have been over which is superior: lies
versus truth. First you had the imperialism lie versus the human liberty
truth, second you had the racism lie versus the humanism truth, thirdly
you had the socialism lie versus the free market truth, and finally you
have the lie of religion versus the truth of reason, science, and
technology.
Countries would not go to war against each other if one side or the
other were not lying about their point of view.
In this faith versus reason war, you have various faiths: in god, in
power, in a romantic vision of some arcadian or andelusian period, a
golden age in the past. This is true whether you are talking about
fundamentalist muslims, christian fundamentalists, or fanatical
eco-terrorists and anti-tech luddites. All of these seek to impose some
great lie on the world, and to stamp out the voice of reason which
illuminates the emptiness of their lies.
A weakness of the cause of reason is that we are portrayed as the
criminals against humanity, producing genetically engineered organisms
that are released to the environment, portrayed by the luddites as
bioweapons. The fact that this is a lie is of no consequence for those
prepared to believe such a lie and repeat it often. This will be a
largely propagandistic war. As such, eliminating the sources of enemy
propaganda are of paramount importance, as is countering it with truth,
exposing the lies for what they are, and convincing those who believe in
them otherwise.
Infiltration is also of importance. In WW3, one of the most important
operations of the war was the placement of one of the top western
members of the ComIntern as a double agent for the FBI. Unbeknownst to
the rest of the world, the FBI was aware of the millions of dollars
funnelled to agents in the US through the US Communist Party, and their
agent even sat in on Politburo meetings in Moscow, and was held in high
esteem by the Kremlin when he predicted that Nixon would leave office
over Watergate.
In WWII we had similar moles in Berlin, and most Nazi agents were caught
and turned to act as double agents, such as the famous 'Garbo' who
helped deceive Hitler about the D-Day invasion. We also had Alan
Turing's cracking of the enigma codes used by German military units.
In this respect, we too should focus on placing infiltrators into
various groups of the opposition, being patient about their movement up
the chain of command and supporting their work all the way. We need to
develop quantum computation to crack the encrypted communications of the
opposition (the luddites and anti-globalists love PGP, btw) and tools to
sniff out their packet traffic on the web.
The opposition is not an organized government. It is not necessary to
leave the job of combatting them to governments.
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