Re: <nettime> notes from the DIEM25 launch

[morlockelloi@yahoo.com]

The trend(s) that Europe is seeing itself dragged to are not result of 
'wrong' thinking and misbehaviour of supposedly powerful masses. They 
are the result of material circumstances, and no amount of magical 
(group)thinking will change that.

Material circumstances are mostly related to technologies of social 
control, and these can not be handled by 'not being afraid' and 
stampeding, which is what current proposals boil down to. That's like 
not being afraid of bullets - looks great the first 5 minutes. What can 
make the difference is (painstakingly slow) acquisition of 
counter-technologies which can change the landscape of material 
circumstances and make the change sustainable outside the stampede phase.

Privacy technologies are definitely party of this equation. For those 
that can't jettison the 19th century revolutionary scene from their 
minds, think meeting on dark street corners. That was a technology. 
Today's privacy is the same thing, but it looks a bit different and 
takes far longer to learn, and it has to be done.

Nothing will change until the would-be changers stop taking knives to 
gun fights (hoping that bravery and motivation will compensate - they 
won't). Privacy technologies, including encryption, are essential part 
of this armament.

Asking people to 'loose their fear' and stampede into the machinegun 
fire is short-sighted - and today 'we don't care that they know about 
our moves better than we do' is equivalent of this.

Absolutely nothing will change as a result of people gathering and 
talking themselves into this or that, and then regurgitating it in the 
social media. The modern society is immune to such knives. The proof is 
obvious - that event in Berlin was completely legal, as are others of 
its kind, while encryption is less and less legal.

The change may come only from the change in the material circumstances 
(it's not any more about material circumstances of production these 
days, as is all done by robots, but use of that phrase may help bridge 
the cognitive gap.)


On 2/13/16 2:29 , Felix Stalder wrote:

> Here, I really totally disagree. Repressive orders crumble when people
> start to loose their fear and act in large numbers, despite being
> monitored not because they found ways to evade it. Security, in this
> case, comes from social solidarity and collective action, not from
> technology.
>
> I'm not against encryption as such, of course, there are many
> instances where it is vital, but this is not one of them (unless
> one follows a kind of Leninist approach). In this case, to focus on
> encryption seems more like a form of political procrastination.

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