<nettime> Re: Paul Virilio vs Seth Godin

[brian carroll <human@architexturez.com>]

> Virilio's theoretical roots in Edmund
> Husserl and the French school of phenomenology means he is particularly
> well placed to understand that, as a post-nuclear medium of parallel
> processing and networked communication, the internet not only bypasses
> any root node of strategic command-and-control but also over-exposes the
> distributed perceptual cues of the survivors we have all become.

 i think the popular notion that nuclear war is behind us is dangerous,
 or even that mythical statement that `the Internet could survive a
 nuclear war by routing around it.' there are different types of nuclear
 weapons. one is a small nuclear electromagnetic pulse bomb detonated
 high up in the atmosphere. i believe one or two such detonations could
 destroy most all electronics (except shielded military equipment) not
 via blast waves but charged particles in the United States. nothing
 electronic would work, no computers, no routers, no power lines, power
 plants would be down, and without these, there is no Internet in said
 region. sure, you can route around it, if there is anything left working.
 but that's not the nature of nuclear weaponry, from my understanding.
 there are thousands of nuclear bombs around, being maintained, waiting
 to be used if necessary. nuclear war is not out of the question. and
 it could be argued it is more likely to occur in the future, than it
 was in the Cold War era where and when things were held in check. now
 there are a dozen players on the chess board, everyone with a different
 strategy. far from `a retro-nuclear nostalgia cult', nuclear bombs are
 not going away just because we are inside a different medium. they
 exist to destroy this medium in times of war, and on a scale that is
 global. e-commerce, the New Economy, Fab plants, could be gone within
 1 hour of warfare for a whole nation or even internationally. bc

the architecture of electricity
http://www.architexturez.com/ae/ 

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net