Pacification was accomplished through the proffering of Western goods, including machetes, axes, metal pots, fishhooks, matches, mosquito netting, and clothing. The seductive appeal of such things was nearly irresistible, for each of these items can make a quantum improvement in a sylvan lifestyle. Acquisition of several or all of these goods is a transformative experience that makes contact essentially irreversible.
...
With the convenience of matches, one quickly loses the knack for starting a fire. Shotguns decisively outperform bows and arrows, but cartridges must be bought at a good price. Such newly acquired dependencies fundamentally altered the life of the Indians, who were compelled to work for wages instead of spending their days hunting, fishing, and tending their gardens.
This is the kind of thing Ivan Illich wrote about all the time, and it's still happening today, to you. With the convenience of frozen dinners and restaurant meals, one quickly loses the knack for preparing food. iTunes decisively outperforms radio, but music files must be bought at a good price. To navigate sprawl you need a car, to pay expenses on a car you need a job, to get a job you need a college degree, and to get a degree you have to go so deep in debt that giant blocks of money own your life.
But at the same time, many of us understand this web of dependency and are fighting to get free of it. As I've argued many times, the reason to trade your car for a bicycle is not to save the planet, but to minimize your dependence on giant centralized systems in which you have no participation in power, and to liberate thousands of hours of your time for meaningful autonomous work. We're not trying to live like our ancestors, but to do something totally new: to preserve the most helpful complex technologies, while shifting to a political and economic system where power is fully shared.
]]>Magic is an imaginative conception of the lawfulness of a universe where matter has the attributes of consciousness, and can be engaged purely through intention. It is the product of our (primarily emotional and existential rather than intellectual) yearning to connect with the physical world beyond living organisms.
...
I think we get closest to our natural conception of magic if we understand it as a lawfulness that governs the connectedness/disconnectedness of a universal consciousness. When I am able to summon up that broomstick, I become one with the broomstick in some way.
]]>I would add the category of organizational or social control: getting people to do things without them feeling that you are forcing them, or even always realizing that you are leading them. So we're talking advertising, propaganda, management, compulsory education... a lot of these methods are ones that certain people can SEE happening around them, but that most people don't recognize even when they are the object of the control.
I suspect that just as with technologies, there are more and less "evil" or "good" methods here. My advice to any leader who wishes to be "good" is to employ any such "magic" only very sparingly! It's possible to trick people into doing the better thing for themselves and the All, but then you aren't teaching them anything, and they can't go forward without you, or in opposition to you if needed.
I think you can take apart any profession and you will see the actors fall somewhat clearly to one side of that line or the other. The buzz-word for the "good" guys is Empowerment. I can sell you X forever, or I can show you how to do/make/get X on your own.
I think I would describe soldiers as having authoritarian personality more than anti-social personality. The authoritarian personality is aggressive when violence is sanctioned by authorities. These aren't simply thrill seekers that love violence. People like that are too hard to control.
Also, Sean sends a follow-up article on the same blog, Call of Apathy: Advanced Warfighter, arguing that the future of the military is not remorseless thugs, but remote button-pushers. But another reader sends this article, High Levels Of Burnout In U.S. Drone Pilots.
Of course, after unmanned killing machines, the next step is autonomous killing machines, where no human is even aware of the violence. In both cases, there's an interesting question. If you make an unprovoked attack on a machine, is it legal for the machine to respond with lethal force? The sane answer is no. The most the machine can do is take a picture of you and later you can be charged with vandalism. But this would make drones too tactically weak. The law will be changed, and you will still not be allowed to booby-trap your car, but machines in the service of the domination system will have the rights of self-defense formerly reserved to humans.
People need to realise that their wars are not fought by the guy on the news that lost a leg and loves his flag -- he was the FNG [fucking new guy] that got blown up because he was incompetent, who left the fight before it turned him into one of us. The world needs to be made aware of my kind: the silent majority of fighters, those that do not care about politics, religion, ethics, or anything else other than war for war's sake.
...
My psychologist estimated that roughly 80% of infantrymen have an undiagnosed violent personality disorder. These aren't hard stats, but it's interesting when compared to the 20% that suffer from PTSD.
Finally, TSA Nude Body Scanners Made Worthless By Blog. Worthless? How can anyone still think the purpose of airport screening is to keep weapons off airplanes? It's an abuse ritual. And the worse it is at keeping weapons off airplanes, the better it is at training us to submit to an insane authority. Every revelation that the scanners don't protect us, makes them more effective for their real purpose.
]]>]]>I have found that most psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals are not only extraordinarily compliant with authorities but also unaware of the magnitude of their obedience. And it also has become clear to me that the anti-authoritarianism of their patients creates enormous anxiety for these professionals, and their anxiety fuels diagnoses and treatments.