[GetsTan]

dear friends,

http://www.realitysandwich.com/noosp...actic_evil_few

here's john's other articles concerning the noosphere;

debugging the noosphere
http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/354

the trap of simulation
http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/411

be well, be love.

david

the noosphere: tactic of the evil few?
john lamb lash

in this third and concluding piece of my series on the noosphere i want to consider the possibility that what goes by that name might be co-opted for mind manipulation and social control. let's ask: could the noosphere be a tool for planetary tyranny, rather than a portal of global communication? and if it is both, where lies the distinction?

i, for one, am wary of the uncritical "positive thinking" that often accompanies the noosphere concept. not that i am against positive thinking as such, when it's genuine and well-founded. but a positive front easily serves devious ends. homeland security, for instance. "making america safe" seems like a good idea until you realize, as the zeitgiest movie points out, that it's an entrainment cue for the neo-con ruse of an "enemy image." there has to be someone to make us safe from. the invented enemy is a terrrific tool for social manipulation. or take women's liberation. nick rockefeller once told the late aaron russo that "women's lib" was supported by rockefeller money for two reasons: to bring women into the workplace and hence under taxation, and to break up the family, making young people look to the "authorities" for direction in life. it is even alleged that gloria steinem has admitted that the cia funded ms. magazine. what was seen as positive thinking in the women's liberation movement did produce progressive results, of course. but the movement may have been maliciously and deceitfully used, at the same time, for long-range goals that in many ways counteracted the intentions of its activists.

a cunning but effective way to subvert civil liberties and individual freedom is to offer an appealing front or an idealistic cause, with the result that people who would like to resist the ruling order are tricked into supporting it. at worse, they end up demanding and embracing what enslaves them. the ruling order routinely uses two tactics to achieve its mad plan of total control: promote a hidden agenda under the pretext of a stated aim, and subvert dissent through appeasement. a clear example of the former tactic is iraq: the stated aim, to democritize the country, is a pretext for the true aim, to destabilize it and sow fear and hatred in the region, and to control the oil supplies, all the while profiting from the massive contracts granted to those who are so compassionately "rebuilding the country." an example of the second tactic is the (perhaps apocryphal) ms. magazine anecdote: the ruling order offers people a way to work against it, and thus to appease the protestors with a sense that they are resisting and effecting change. the hidden controllers win on two counts: they placate and distract opposition, and they advance their own agenda, exactly as happened with women's lib, if nick rockefeller can be believed.

could these tactics be in play with the emergent phenomenon of the noosphere? we hear there are ethical problems with google, arguably the main circuit board for mainstream participation in the noosphere as a global networking system. i won't go into that because i'm not qualified to comment, but it's obvious to me that any global communications device that could be used to construct the noosphere, generating a wonderful planetary conversation in support of creativity and change, could as well be used to construct and enforce a totalitarian system more massive and deadening than stalin's russia raised to the 10th power. the capacity to spy and manipulate via google is unimaginable.