Re: Info War Comes Home

[dmandl@panix.com]

On Fri, 29 Sep 1995, Duncan Frissell wrote:

> [Note:  Whenever I do one of my longer pieces, it seems to drop into the
> void.  Perhaps they are so well written and complete that no one can think
> of any comment to make on them.  Perhaps not.  Read this one and comment.
> You won't regret it.]
> 
> In honor of the Second Annual Conference on Information Warfare a few
> weekends ago, here is my proposal towards a paper to be presented at next
> year's conference.

A couple of things jump to mind:

Though I know you only used War as a metaphor, even that rubs me the
wrong way.  I don't like wars or people who fight them--namely States,
bullies (BIG bullies), and other Territorial Gangsters.  It's an
authoritarian, hierarchical model, even though I realize you're using
it loosely.  Your piece is very short on details, but the few you give
all employ the War metaphor: "neighborhood defense," sensors, video
cameras, etc.

I have no problem with some of these things per se, especially if
they're targeted against the State, but I also have no interest in
living in a kind of permanent war zone.  This strikes me as a negative
approach versus the more positive approach of, say, mutual assistance
groups like the "tong."  (Hakim Bey wrote an excellent essay on tongs
and their applicability to modern anarchist groups, btw.  If anyone's
interested, send me an email message with subject "TONG PLEASE" and
it'll be sent to you automatically.)

Anyone attracted by the idea of urban warfare should read Mike Davis's
excellent "City of Quartz."  He's talking about the modern city
(specifically, L.A.) as a war zone pitting _haves against have-nots,_
but the idea is the same, and it's scary as hell.

I'm ambivalent, to say the least, about the mania for getting
everything in the world WIRED, but if you want to convince me you'll
have to come up with a model that offers me something _constructive._

Cheers.

   --Dave.

--
Dave Mandl
dmandl@panix.com
http://wfmu.org/~davem