Plutonomy: A Leaked Citibank Memo

[Cain]

Well, he's not "Captain Utopia" for nothing. 

Bingo!

I enjoy the "we're all fucked, but we may as well enjoy the ride/THE MACHINE WILL SHOOT YOU" narrative, as much as anyone else, but that doesn't make it True.

You're really very good at inferring arguments that a person hasn't actually made.

And, as it happens, in the Really Existing World of Actual Government As Practiced By the Sociopaths In Charge, my arguments about how an enriched elite under an existing threat act have real merit.  How do I know?  Because I worked for the fuckers.  I was trained to be one of their useful, thinking, intelligent guard dogs, the kind who see the long term and complex threats, and then crush them.  I know how they think because I went to the same schools as them, studied the same thinkers and had the same professors.

But I'm sure fart-arsing around on Slashdot has given you a far greater insight into the power mechanisms of the 21st century than, oh, actually studying how nations and political elites came by power and lost them, so go ahead and please explain how your pie in the sky utopianism will operate when Blackwater-esque mercs kidnap those close to you and start cutting off their extremities until you turn yourself in.

[LMNO]

Human moral progress doesn't happen.

Just saying.

Would you mind going into more detail on this?

Not that I disagree, I'm interested in your point of view here.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

There are a few problems with the open-source model, though. Whether you're talking about operating systems, applications and other software, crowd-sourcing, spontaneous political movements, or anything else open source, there are barriers that would need to be overcome.

- It's nearly always running a few years behind commercial equivalents in terms of quality, stability, and performance.

- Nobody takes it seriously. It has no marketing department, and it always comes off as "something some dweeb made in his basement."

- It's always assumed that anything open-source is a sub-standard attempt to copy something "real" and you're better off going with the proprietary version, regardless of how unique it is or how unmatched its function is by anything produced commercially.

Ultimately, open-source is so invested in potential that it almost leaves out actual completely.

I would like to think that a system of punishing corporations for their bad behaviors could grow (from an open-source community or anything else) but it won't happen for the same reason that alternatives in general are failing all the time: in order to compete with the Big Guys, you have to look, feel, act, and respond like a Big Guy yourself. That just gets your foot in the door. And from that point on, you're just one equivalent choice among many, so why would anyone pick your system over the one they're already comfortable with?

Ideologies are products like anything else. The "down with Plutocracy" ideology sounds great, until you realize that in order to sell it, you have to market it. And if you sell it, you have to deliver something. Unfortunately for the future of humanity, the only thing a moral upgrade like that can deliver is harder choices, more expensive products, fewer luxuries, and expulsion from your comfort zone. Find a slogan to sell that to a mainstream audience and I'm all ears. I'd support it fully, but at least half of me hopes it never happens, and I'm one of the good guys.

[Doktor Howl]

*sigh*

I said it once, but apparently it hasn't sunk in yet.

YOU WILL ONLY DEFEAT THE PLUTOCRATS THROUGH VIOLENCE.  THEY SURE AS FUCK WILL USE VIOLENCE AGAINST YOU, AND IN FACT HAVE ALREADY FOR DECADES, YOU'RE JUST TOO STUPID TO RECOGNIZE IT FOR WHAT IT IS.  AS SOON AS A SYSTEM WHICH CREATES TRILLIONS FOR ITS BENEFICIARIES IS GENUINELY THREATENED, THEY WILL HIRE PEOPLE WHOSE JOB IT IS TO KILL YOU.  AND THEY WILL, BECAUSE YOUR LILY-WHITE SUBURBAN ASS IS NO MATCH FOR A FORMER SAS/DELTA FORCE/FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION/INSERT SPECIAL FORCES MEMBER HERE TYPE.

Ultimately, all political power derives from the barrel of a gun.  You can either accept that, or end up as another statistic.

Have you spent much time studying how open source/internet projects work?  Once an idea is established, variations will flourish.  The only tricky part would be to define a common information-exchange protocol from the get-go.

Besides, the core question here is whether such a system could develop/expand and become a genuine threat.  Because I don't expect they will recognise it as a threat until such time as it is much too late to stop the actual concept.  At that point, they're fucked.

But I'm not going to spend much more time trying to convince anyone that it is a threat, I'm just going to go ahead and do it if someone doesn't get it done first.

Oh, dear.

[Cain]

*sigh*

I said it once, but apparently it hasn't sunk in yet.

YOU WILL ONLY DEFEAT THE PLUTOCRATS THROUGH VIOLENCE.  THEY SURE AS FUCK WILL USE VIOLENCE AGAINST YOU, AND IN FACT HAVE ALREADY FOR DECADES, YOU'RE JUST TOO STUPID TO RECOGNIZE IT FOR WHAT IT IS.  AS SOON AS A SYSTEM WHICH CREATES TRILLIONS FOR ITS BENEFICIARIES IS GENUINELY THREATENED, THEY WILL HIRE PEOPLE WHOSE JOB IT IS TO KILL YOU.  AND THEY WILL, BECAUSE YOUR LILY-WHITE SUBURBAN ASS IS NO MATCH FOR A FORMER SAS/DELTA FORCE/FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION/INSERT SPECIAL FORCES MEMBER HERE TYPE.

Ultimately, all political power derives from the barrel of a gun.  You can either accept that, or end up as another statistic.

Have you spent much time studying how open source/internet projects work?  Once an idea is established, variations will flourish.  The only tricky part would be to define a common information-exchange protocol from the get-go.

Besides, the core question here is whether such a system could develop/expand and become a genuine threat.  Because I don't expect they will recognise it as a threat until such time as it is much too late to stop the actual concept.  At that point, they're fucked.

But I'm not going to spend much more time trying to convince anyone that it is a threat, I'm just going to go ahead and do it if someone doesn't get it done first.

I studied open source models for insurgencies back in 2005.  You know what happens?  There is a lot of variation, and then a lot of dead insurgents, because not every idea is a good one.  And by the time a good one does come along, the associated levels of violence normally mean there isn't the man power left to use it effectively.

You massively underestimate who you are going up against.  These people use drugs, death squads, mercenaries, investment banks, dirty loans, arms deals and favours to buy up pretty much anyone they want.  They are paranoid to a fault and as such they see threats everywhere, even where there are none.

Your idea isn't dangerous, and even if it was, you wouldn't be able to utlilize it effectively, because you have no grasp of the sort of opposition you are going to run into.  They would eat you alive for breakfast, and spit out your bones.  That is the simple truth.  They have not held onto power for so long by being stupid (except in a particular kind of way which actually, in certain ways, helps them) or by letting real threats go unchecked for too long.

They probably wont even have to use violence.  A few competent hackers and some select, out of context quotes would make you a pariah in no time, an untrustworthy fringe lunatic who cannot be worked with or believed.  And that's amateur work, even for the uninspiring bunch that currently make up the CIA and other such bodies.

[Captain Utopia]

I would really appreciate it if we could discuss the issues civilly and without resorting to one-sided personal attacks.

Well, he's not "Captain Utopia" for nothing. 

Bingo!

I enjoy the "we're all fucked, but we may as well enjoy the ride/THE MACHINE WILL SHOOT YOU" narrative, as much as anyone else, but that doesn't make it True.

You're really very good at inferring arguments that a person hasn't actually made.

Er, which inference did I get it wrong?

And, as it happens, in the Really Existing World of Actual Government As Practiced By the Sociopaths In Charge, my arguments about how an enriched elite under an existing threat act have real merit.  How do I know?  Because I worked for the fuckers.  I was trained to be one of their useful, thinking, intelligent guard dogs, the kind who see the long term and complex threats, and then crush them.  I know how they think because I went to the same schools as them, studied the same thinkers and had the same professors.

But I'm sure fart-arsing around on Slashdot has given you a far greater insight into the power mechanisms of the 21st century than, oh, actually studying how nations and political elites came by power and lost them, so go ahead and please explain how your pie in the sky utopianism will operate when Blackwater-esque mercs kidnap those close to you and start cutting off their extremities until you turn yourself in.

What have I got to do with anything?  It's the concept which, if anything, is dangerous.  If I get hit by a truck tomorrow (driven by a Blackwater merc, naturally), then the idea will spring up independently elsewhere, as it's simply an extrapolation of current trends.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Captain Utopia,

I think the real weakness in your plan is not in the theory itself, but in the fundamental assumption made that there can be some kind of chain reaction set off that can somehow be self-sustaining to a predetermined end with little or no sustained conscious active involvement by a person (or people) with a plan. It is this kind of thing that renders the entire open-source movement utterly inconsequential to the larger schemes at play in the world.

You cannot have a revolution that just somehow takes care of itself by planting a few seeds and watching them sprout. If they do sprout, they will be crushed. If they survive, they will be co-opted. If they germinate and spread a kernel of the original intention to somewhere else, then the process will be repeated. It is not that open-source can't work in theory, it's that its potential is never realized because people keep expecting a spontaneous network of equally well-informed and well-meaning people to show up on a battlefield out of the goodness of their hearts, and then keep showing up, no matter the costs or how many bodies of their fallen comrades they have to stand on top of to make their voices heard. People do not, in fact, have all that much goodness in their hearts. And for good reason. Going into a mine field to start planting flowers gets you out of the gene pool pretty fast.

[Captain Utopia]

I studied open source models for insurgencies back in 2005.  You know what happens?  There is a lot of variation, and then a lot of dead insurgents, because not every idea is a good one.  And by the time a good one does come along, the associated levels of violence normally mean there isn't the man power left to use it effectively.

Sure, I can buy that.  But I was talking about actual open source projects, not things which incorrectly appropriate the "open source" moniker.

I agree with you, to the extent that if there was some Dark Force actively working to stamp out an idea even before it was implemented, then they could succeed.  Once that idea has been implemented once though, and it becomes global, it's a different story.  You'd literally have to wipe out everyone and anyone who had ever heard of it.

There are a few problems with the open-source model, though. Whether you're talking about operating systems, applications and other software, crowd-sourcing, spontaneous political movements, or anything else open source, there are barriers that would need to be overcome.

- It's nearly always running a few years behind commercial equivalents in terms of quality, stability, and performance.

There is no commercial system or equivalent.  If there was then great - as long as it performs the basic task, I don't really care if someone makes a profit.  If enough people did care, they could create their own.

What we are talking about isn't rocket science, it's about three months of work for me if I were to quit my job and start on it now.  I'm not going to, not least because this is just a small part of a much broader plan that's been in the works for the last three years.

- Nobody takes it seriously. It has no marketing department, and it always comes off as "something some dweeb made in his basement."

If it fulfills the specifications, then it'll provide value to the individuals who choose to use it.  That's all the marketing it would need.

- It's always assumed that anything open-source is a sub-standard attempt to copy something "real" and you're better off going with the proprietary version, regardless of how unique it is or how unmatched its function is by anything produced commercially.

Assumed by who?  Again - if there is a proprietary system, and it gives its users a feeling of comfort which an open source version can't, then great.  The end-game is just getting the idea implemented, not who seeks to control it.

Ideologies are products like anything else. The "down with Plutocracy" ideology sounds great, until you realize that in order to sell it, you have to market it. And if you sell it, you have to deliver something. Unfortunately for the future of humanity, the only thing a moral upgrade like that can deliver is harder choices, more expensive products, fewer luxuries, and expulsion from your comfort zone. Find a slogan to sell that to a mainstream audience and I'm all ears. I'd support it fully, but at least half of me hopes it never happens, and I'm one of the good guys.

Can you explain why putting more control into the hands of consumers, guarantees "harder choices, more expensive products, fewer luxuries, and expulsion from your comfort zone".

[Kai]

Human moral progress doesn't happen.

Just saying.

Would you mind going into more detail on this?

Not that I disagree, I'm interested in your point of view here.

IOW, human morality is cyclical. There is no ultimate utopian moral paradise at the end of the tunnel, and people who advocate it are willing to allow the ends to justify the means. People do "bad" things and "good" things, but people who do Good for the Greater Good are able to justify being assholes to get to paradise, whatever that paradise might be called.

Utopianism is dangerous. It gave us NAZI Germany, among other things. Religious crusades, genocide, do I need to go on? I wrote more about it in review of the book I Don't Believe in Atheists, but I don't know where that went to.

[Captain Utopia]

I would describe a vast difference between pointing at a vision of utopia and saying, we can aim to get closer to this... and pointing at it and pretending that you can actually get there if only you're willing to make "certain" sacrifices.

[Kai]

I would describe a vast difference between pointing at a vision of utopia and saying, we can aim to get closer to this... and pointing at it and pretending that you can actually get there if only you're willing to make "certain" sacrifices.

I don't trust your "vision of utopia".

[Captain Utopia]

 

Actually, I'm not sure what point you are making.  Is it that some changes require full cooperation, and thus must be forced if there is no consensus?

Or are you referring to a specific case as it relates to the idea I put forth?  That is an incremental change and doesn't fall into the category above because it doesn't require full cooperation of all the players.

[Captain Utopia]

I find it hard to believe that I'm the only person on PD.com who thinks that it might be possible to out-smart the plutonomy using non-violent methods.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I find it hard to believe that I'm the only person on PD.com who thinks that it might be possible to out-smart the plutonomy using non-violent methods.

I don't think it's impossible to outsmart the Plutonomy, but is it worth the time and effort? Human nature and society being what they are, another one will just step in to take its place anyway. I'm not saying we should give up, but wouldn't it make more sense to just step to the side of it? The plutonomy is like a freight train barreling toward us, and humanity is like the helpless victim tied to the tracks. Except we're not really tied to anything. Yes, in theory, we could come up with a master plan, derail the train or build an alternative track or something, but seriously... why not just get the fuck out the way?

[Bruno]

So, if the richest 2% don't need us, then why are we still here?