Hacklab nerd caught in G20 security sweep

Christopher Browne cbbrowne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
Sat Jun 26 05:24:52 UTC 2010


On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 12:06 AM, Gary Layng <glayng-rieW9WUcm8FFJ04o6PK0Fg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Protesting poverty by trashing, looting and burning the very stores where the
> working poor are struggling to earn a living is at best counterproductive, yet
> many of the G-8 and G-20 protesters seem to think this is appropriate.  How
> this helps the poor they claim to support escapes me completely.

There are parts of the world where the "systems" are so desperately
broken that outright rebellion does look like a pretty good idea.  As
much as we have some reasonably serious problems, I don't think any of
the G-20 countries are examples of that kind of broken.

> Another responsibility is to know what you're talking about.  One young lady
> marching at the G-8 this morning was quoted in a radio report claiming that
> "water isn't a commodity!"  Well, no, ordinary water is not.

There's an abstraction error expressed here...

Money's a useful abstraction, but once we have ludicrous numbers of
layers (e.g. - M0, which is the amount of physical currency in
circulation, thru M3, which includes a number of kinds of promissory
notes), and people start getting convinced that they magically get
things if they have a piece of plastic with some magnetic stripes on
it, the understanding of the value of money starts to break down.

The growth of "incomprehensible abstraction" problem expresses itself
in all kinds of weird places and in weird ways, and allows people to
start holding remarkably irrational positions.

The "water is not a commodity" that you observed seems pretty
reasonable, particularly when, in the wake of security concerns, the
"magic" of water purification is literally turning into a state
secret.  Try to visit the main water purification plant in Toronto.
You're not allowed unless you're part of the operational staff.  This
encourages viewing it as *dangerous* magic, something you're not
really supposeded to understand.

When meat is something that appears, like magic, by going to the
grocery store to find it neatly packed in plastic containers, it
shouldn't be too surprising that people get odd ideas about animal
husbandry.  When the major action takes place at "farm factories" that
are rather unlike traditional farms, intuition doesn't work out very
well.  Horror and romanticism both get expressed when people think
about meat.

There are pro- and anti- science perspectives out there, and that
seems likely to tie in with this too.  I have the personal suspicion
(not nearly proved) that levels of superstition grow and shrink rather
slowly, which would have the odd consequence that any time people
quickly drop particular superstitions, you can expect they'll find new
ones to replace the old.

Throwing away our cell phones and moving back to the farm doesn't seem
like a likely solution to the "oops, I dropped my abstraction"
problem.  Burning Berlusconi in effigy on King Street also seems like
a dubious solution.

(And I'm not certain whether burning Obama in effigy would express:
 a) distain for the U.S.,
 b) racial hatred, or
 c) that you're part of the Tea Party.
On the wacky side, there's also...
 d) Berlusconi wanted a pot of tea, and didn't realize this was an
inappropriate preparation method.  This scenario is by no means
impossible!!!)

> Any loss of rights isn't due to a lack of vigilance on
> the regular citizens' part, it's due to a policy on the part of these useful
> idiots out there of deliberately giving our rights away by pretending they can
> have their childish temper tantrums without having to suffer the consequences.

We do a whole lot of hiding of consequences.  People can get pretty
far pretending there are no consequences to suffer.

I'm quite sure I don't understand the motivations of the violent
portions of the "global protest movement."  I'm not sure what
consequences they either want or expect.

In contrast, I think I comprehend some of Byron's motivations.
There's certainly something interesting, and arguably, somewhat
useful, about the idea of doing "reaction testing."  I know *I*
wouldn't be enthusiastic about testing the police's reactions as he
did.  Way too much likelihood of, well, exactly what happened.
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