<nettime> ***SPAM*** Re: what if we were all right but all wrong?

[morlockelloi@yahoo.com]

IaaS indeed. Technology is the cause of everything, ideology is there
to explain it.

By 'technology' I didn't really mean things that happened in the
last 10-20 years. The only recent developments of significance are
establishment of vigorous keyboard punching as effective honeytrap
for neutering activism, and skyrocketing of compartmentalized
identity politics due to global networking, so weirdos can now find
self-similar in faraway lands ... like nettime.

By technology I meant the means of securing the top few hundred places
in the global public person-space which imprints itself onto the
multitudes every hour of the day. It used to be a national phenomenon
but today it's global. This was well understood in the early 20th
century.

I am not anthropologist, but it's fairly accepted that one can 'know'
about 200 people, and that those 'neighbors' will shape the life and
actions of the average human. This is the whole point of branding and
celebrity - getting into that set.

If the change is to come through voting (1 body = 1 vote, ie.
'democracy'), then such change has to be broadcast from this Fortune
200 club. The only way to get in that club is to have considerable
power, because the competition is fierce and well-armed. The means
of being widely heard are very physical and controlled: EM spectrum,
billboard space, print space. Getting a meaningful fraction of any of
these is very expensive.

The 'truthiness' of what have to say is irrelevant, and will not
supplement your lack of the broadcast power. Unless there is a
tectonic shift where dinosaurs are slow to react (but let's be real,
the Internet wasn't it - that space was re-conquered after only few
years ... good few years, though.)

Is there a hope, beyond activism as a lifestyle/hobby? Yes: tectonic
shifts. They won't come from ideology, but from technology, so don't
follow prophets, follow nerds without cellphones.



> Alex' text is pointing to the very tactical understanding of
> ideologies that you are mentioning and a process of appropriation
> for a new sort of... service.
>
> Sure, technology-based mass manipulation services. Does that rings
> a bell? Beyond seeing just the opportunity for 'manipulation' in
> there, a lot of what is going on into the participatory democracy
> scene, a lot of the prismatic transformation of old party duopolies,
> can fit into this vision. That's what your provocation makes me
> imagine... we may call it Politics as a Service perhaps, or PaaS if
> it's not already taken. Ideology as a Service may also fit, IaaS. So
> funny that it sounds almost like 'jacket' in Dutch, jaas.





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