With the escalating conflicts both abroad and domestically, several key ideas are becomming increasingly clear to me. Now, forgive me if I sound misanthropic or pessimistic, as this is not my intention (although, I do like the title a lot). I merely see the following as a natural progression of events, which must occur in order to adapt to the changing times.

Sadly, friends, I believe the time of free information is drawing to an end. As information becomes more and more widespread, unregulated, and interconnected with our lives, it also poses a grave new threat to our society, and our lives. Information is the new weapon. Wars are no longer won by brute force alone, but rather by much subtler means.

A while back, I posted on the crucial factor of Willpower in a nation's ability to conduct foreign policy. It is in this area where the internet and the control over information can prove both immensly useful and unbelievably dangerous. Anybody can put anything onto the internet, and within a matter of minutes, millions of people all over the world are able to tap into this. It's starting to move so fast that we are becomming less and less able to properly analyze and respond to the massive influx of data comming at us every second of every day.

At the present, we are slowly losing our grip, but the dam is still holding. Our enemies have not completely mastered the use of the internet and technology to deliver an information attack upon us; however, I believe this is only a matter of time. Now, what is an information attack? Honestly, I don't quite know; I just made up the term. However, an information attack could come as the result of a hacker virus, or simply by infecting the public with harmful knowlege.

This idea of harmful knowlege is a scary one, and very reminiscent of 1984, but I do believe such knowlege exists. A very simple example of this would be the free exchange of top secret documents cascading through the web. This poses a very grave threat to national security. To prevent the spread of harmful knowlege and ward off an information attack, I believe the government will impliment very drastic and intruisive measures. The perfect example here would be the whole NSA spying scandal.

Currently, the public will not stand for such transgressions against our personal liberties, but this is merely a delay in the final outcome. Once an information attack occurs, the public will gradually hand over their rights in trade of security. It sounds scary, but it is merely a survival mechanism commming into play. You can have liberty or security, not both, at least not for long.

When the framers outlined our treasured and to this day safeguarded liberties, they were living in a very different world than the present. Information took days or even months to trade hands, and the rate of effusion was very very slow. Today, the speed of everything has multiplied by many orders of magnitude. The world is no longer round; it is flat. It exists entirely upon the plane of cyberspace.

The government has yet to adapt to the flat world, but if we are to survive as a nation, it soon will. The government will become permenantly and completely embedded with technology, and as technology becomes embedded within our lives, the three shall become one seamless entity. But until that time, I'd watch what you say over the phone.


Here's to the future!:drinktoth