Hidden battle lines in the war for global hegemony.
by Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer Report
October 4, 2012 - Recently, the Wall Street-London
corporate-financier Lowy Institute's "Interpreter" posted an article titled, "
Printing a drone" that conveyed the following concerns:
3D printers are both accessible and
affordable in Australia. Effectively, this means that an individual or
group has the ability – with minimal investment – to avoid the
cumbersome task of purchasing expensive overseas technology and instead
print their weapon. A 3D printed drone is legal and possible;
weaponising it would be a matter of accessing ammunition, something that
is currently safeguarded by laws which regulate the sale, possession
and use of firearms and munitions in Australia. But what happens when
the first 3D printed bullets become available?
Although owning a 3D printer and a domestic
drone is not illegal, the combination represents a privacy issue and a
security threat both in the domestic domain and in international
conflict. I am not advocating for the prohibition of civilian drone use
or 3D printing. What I am encouraging is security frameworks that can
recognise and respond to the threat resulting from the merging of these
two technologies.
These concerns were prompted by the author's discovery
of a drone produced by a 3D printer
- a printer that prints out actual objects instead of images as
traditional printers do. The author was also alarmed by the fact that 3D
printers have also been used
to print out a "working gun."
Video: A 3D printed drone has the global elite
clamoring over the dangers of allowing the masses to possess technical
capabilities that have long been monopolized by large multinationals.
....
Image: Parts of this working gun have been "printed" in 3D.
What was once the exclusive realm of the military-industrial complex,
tilting the balance of power in their favor, may soon become a
distributed balance of power that eliminates them all together. Other 3D printed gun stories have been making it into the news recently as well.
....
The fact is that 3D printing has played an increasing role in
prototyping and precision manufacturing over the years, and coupled with
other forms of computer-controlled manufacturing, form the foundation
of modern weapons manufacturing, the aerospace industry, shipbuilding,
as well as medical and information technology. As these systems improve
and are more widely used, their size, cost, complexity, as well as
barriers to accessing them are reduced. Tools that were once exclusively
found only in the realm of large multinational corporations can now be
found in use amongst increasingly smaller operations, and now, in the
hands of individual hobbyists and garage tinkerers.
In reality, Lowy and its impressionable readers' concerns are
absurd. In a world where everyone has access to 3D printers, online
designs to create virtually anything, including drones, Kalashnikovs,
and cruise missiles, and increasingly versatile and abundant materials
to manufacture items out of, everyone will also have the means to
present to their neighbors a reasonable deterrence against abusing such
technology.
It would be a world where everyone was just as capable of defending
themselves as they would be at menacing one another - essentially an
unprecedented, distributed balance of power that would form the
foundation of a lasting, and realistic peace by pragmatic design, not by
laws and ideals. And in this world, where the means of manufacturing
virtually anything was in the hands of the masses, the sort of disparity
that exists today that inevitably leads to conflicts, exploitation, and
abuse of imbalances of power would be reduced if not eliminated.
The real fear that
Lowy and the global elite that drive its agenda
harbor, is that "the powers that be" today, will be "the powers that
were" in a world where an East African was just as capable of building a
cruise missile as Raytheon was, and the disparity that grants the
global elite of today absolute impunity to roll over the world's
population will have been stripped permanently from them.
Post-Scarcity and The World of Tomorrow
But if one can print a gun, one can also print other forms of
technology previously only possible for large, precision manufacturing
operations. This includes medical instrumentation and devices, systems
for power production, transportation, and laboratory equipment of every
shape and variety to put the means of research and development into the
hands of local communities and individuals.
In a world like this, where the only limitation to solving your
problems is your imagination and your will to solve them, where the
means to actually produce, tangible, technical solutions are at your
very fingertips, would people spend their time producing vast amounts of
weapons to menace their neighbors with?
This question is answered by examining just why people menace each
other with weapons in the first place. Armed conflict is driven by
disparity - either armed resistance by those exploited at the losing end
of socioeconomic disparity, or armed oppression carried out by those
benefiting from disparity, seeking to perpetuate or expand their
disproportionate advantages. In a world where this disparity is reduced
by emerging manufacturing technology and material sciences, so too will
be the desire and ability for people to engage in conflict.
The cost of this technology is decreasing in both terms of money and
resources, as well as accessibility for average people. The costs will
continue to decrease as more people become involved and as the
capabilities of these 3D printers and other forms of computer-controlled
manufacturing improve.
Likewise, the cost and accessibility of material used to manufacture
goods with these systems is also dropping. As more people gain access
to this technology, more people will begin developing with them better
means of recycling spent material and processing new material from a
variety of alternative, and more abundant sources.
Rising in tandem with the 3D printing revolution is the DIY
(Do-It-Yourself) Biology movement, or simply DIYbio. Again, the means of
genetically modifying organisms was once in the sole realm of large
multinational corporations - corporations like Monsanto, Cargill, and
Bayer.
There lies a real risk that the monopoly these large corporations
hold over the ability to genetically manipulate life on a global scale
can be (and is) abused. While shifting this technology into the hands of
the people means that anyone could create and release a deadly
biological attack - it also means that anyone (and most) would work
together to defend against such abuses. It also strips large
multinational corporations of the impunity and intellectual monopoly
they now possess over genetic engineering.
It is the dropping costs of lab equipment and increased access to
educational resources online that have made the DIYbio revolution
possible. Personal manufacturing has also played a role in developing
equipment like
the OpenPCR and the
3D printed "Dremelfuge,"
giving us a glimpse into just how profound the impact will be of the
personal manufacturing revolution. In turn, DIYbio may yield genetically
engineered organisms that turn out materials used for fabrication or
fuel sources for powering home generators - illustrating the
interchangeable synergies that will increasingly accelerate the pace of
this shifting paradigm.
Image: The fruits of post scarcity. From "Caging Humanity:
"No more land? Make some more. Commissioned by NASA in the 1970's,
conceptual artist Don Davis illustrated a torus-shaped space station
that maintains artificial gravity through centripetal force - it was
designed by a NASA Ames/Standford University study. While people may be
taken by the same Pavlovian giggles that accompanied the scorn of
concepts such as a heliocentric planetary system or the idea of manned
flight, such space habitats are not only possible, they are inevitable.
In space, there's plenty of room to spread out. Human innovation may
make compromises necessary in the short-term, but entirely unnecessary
in the long-term."
....
The final goal is "
post scarcity,"
an economic paradigm where the ease of producing a physical object
matches that of copying a digital file. Achieving such a paradigm
requires the sort of technologically competent citizenry, but in
greater numbers, involved in the current 3D printing and DIYbio
revolution.
And while this all sounds great, these implications have not escaped
the notice of those very few who will lose in a world of distributed,
balanced power - where their main point of leverage, scarcity, is
eliminated. These few are of course
the corporate-financier elite
who have wallowed in the disparity they have exploited and indeed,
purposefully perpetuated for so long. They are already taking measures
to head off a revolution most people have no idea is about to unfold.
Hidden Battle Lines in the True War for Global Hegemony
So how does the global elite go about heading off such a revolution
that will not just threaten the source of their seemingly infinite
power, but drain it permanently?
The opposite of economic independence is economic interdependence.
The opposite of a technically competent, pragmatic citizenry is a
politically divided, technically ignorant population. The opposite of a
world of decentralized open source collaboration is one of centralized
monopolistic proprietary corporations. And it is this very world of
"opposites" that is being incrementally built up around us, day by day,
hour by hour, permeating every aspect of modern life, with the global
elite rushing toward deadlines and supranational infrastructure to
cement this paradigm of disparity in place.
The European Union, NAFTA, the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the
ASEAN Economic Community (AEC)
are all interwoven examples of attempts to lock humanity into a system
of global economic interdependence, where centralized regulatory bodies
can legislate and enforce economic policy benefiting the
corporate-financier elite who are building and promoting these very
networks.
One concept that permeates these "economic unions" is that of
shifting over to "service economies" while industry is monopolized,
heavily regulated, and isolated in nations where workers can be closely
monitored and work only for monolithic multinational corporations.
Western nations, like the United States which possesses both the
infrastructure and the human resources to build a society fit for
science fiction, is instead suffering under crumbling, outdated
infrastructure - its population falling vastly short of its true
potential with the average American incapable of understanding, let
alone participating in the frontiers of modern science and technology.
Despite this, there are still Americans that break this mold, but this
is an exception the system is working to extinguish, not expand upon.
It would be difficult to dispute the decline of America as an
industrial power, or defend the current state of America's public
education. Other Western nation's are equally falling short of their
true potential, with increasingly fewer exceptions to spotlight. A
system designed for achieving global hegemony would include measures to
condition the population to fit within the framework for control. This
is being done through a combination of
social engineering (
and here) and sabotaging what used to be a premier education model.
Another concept that permeates all documentation associated with these "economic unions" is that of "
intellectual property,"
or the ownership of ideas, concepts, processes, and information. With a
global economic system dominated by fully functioning enforcement of
"intellectual property rights," it would be possible to criminally
persecute any and all who attempt to create on their own, business
models that "infringed" on existing, dominate business models.
We already see how this system works in regards to media giants
sending people to jail for merely sharing digital copies. Called
"thieves," these "criminals" are sent to prison, fined, or otherwise
penalized not for depriving another of their physical property, but for
depriving another of "potential profits." It doesn't take much
imagination to see how far this abuse can go. And the concept of
intellectual property has been applied beyond music, movies, and
software,- it has also been applied to monopolizing life-saving
medication and even genomes, the substance of life itself. As 3D
printing comes of age, corporations will undoubtedly seek a pretext to
curtail, contain, and control the technology, under the guise of
protecting national security, intellectual property, and public safety.
An existing analog of this can bee seen arrayed against local
agricultural industry. Organic farming, local farmers' markets, and
other forms of localized economics
have already seen creeping legislation
attempt to regulate out of existence the ability for individuals to
grow their own food and/or sell it to their neighbors - perpetuating
wider public dependence on big-agri monopolies and processed food
giants. Similarly, there will be attempts to outlaw the possession of
personal manufacturing equipment if the public is unable to quickly
shift the paradigm.
And it is here that we find the true battle lines for global hegemony.
We are bombarded daily with false narratives, false struggles, and false political paradigms. The
recent US Presidential "debate"
is a perfect example of vast numbers of people being misdirected toward
debates that don't matter, involving political processes that in
reality will change nothing. The US President has long since become
nothing more than a PR front for the corporate-financier interests of
Wall Street and London. Who occupies the White House is of little
consequence beyond which lies will be told to sell a singular,
continuous corporate-financier driven agenda.
Image: Elaborate diversions constructed to
prevent us from even reaching the real battle lines. Professional
spokesmen, representative not of the American people but of Fortune 500
multinational corporations and banks. Since the time of JP Morgan 100
years ago, the corporate-financier elite saw themselves as being above
government, and national sovereignty as merely a regulatory obstacle
they could lobby, bribe, and manipulate out of existence. In the past
100 years, the monied elite have gone from manipulating the presidency
to now reducing the office to a public relations functionary of their
collective interests.
....
Likewise, even geopolitical conflicts, wars, and strategic tensions,
while life threatening and in certain aspects a matter of survival,
take second place to the real battle that is being waged. The real
battle being waged is one of a corporate-financier elite attempting to
establish and maintain absolute domination over humanity through
economic interdependency, social engineering,
and other tools of modern empire.
Everything else is either a means to achieve this, or a distraction to
divert people's time, energy, and resources away from the true battle
lines.
As Sun Tzu stated in "The Art of War," "supreme excellence consists in brea
king
the enemy's resistance without fighting." What better way of achieving
this than preventing the enemy from ever finding the true battle lines
to begin with?
If people are not active locally, developing independent local
institutions, self-sufficient infrastructure and independent economic
activity, while exposing,
boycotting, and replacing
the corporate-financier monopolies that dominate the current global
order, they are wasting their time. There is no political football that
if "kicked" the right way will save us, no candidate that can offer us
salvation of any kind, and no solution at all that will ever come out of
a ballot box. And while government programs and features of the current
system are still necessary for the functioning of civilization, it must
be understood that these
are but temporary stop-gaps, and that permanent pragmatic solutions must be pursued.
It must be understood that "activism" means "activity," not merely
waving placards around and making demands of a system that has no
intention to meet them. It must be understood that by "activity," it is
meant that technical, "wrench-turning" solutions must be implemented.
Organic farming and local farmers' markets are examples of such
solutions already being fought for.
Getting involved in personal manufacturing, DIYbio -and in general
by being producers rather than needy consumers - is another example. All
technology is a double edged sword which can cut both ways. To ensure
it cuts the way which benefits humanity the most,
it must be humanity that wields it, not a minute, self-serving elite. This reality is especially urgent
in terms of biotechnology. So where can one go to get involved?
Enter the Trenches
The trenches can be found all across the United States, and indeed,
the world. While the corporate-financiers squatting over America may be
purposefully sabotaging the American people, the people themselves still
possess a unique drive to innovate and improve the world around them.
And because of this, places where 3D printing, DIYbio, and all other
forms of localized production, collaboration, and tinkering have sprung
up across the nation. The Internet is full of not only resources to find
existing "makerspaces" or "hackerspaces," but enough information for
individuals, their friends, family, and neighbors to create one of their
own.
Hackerspaces.org hosts a map and a list
to help people zero in on locations near them. By visiting the websites
of existing spaces, one can get a feel of how easy it is to start one
of their own. A "makerspace" or "hackerspace" can simply be a room with a
table for people to meet, bring their own tools, and collaborate on
projects of all kinds. Over time, a collection of tools and equipment
can be kept on location and more advanced projects can be pursued.
DIYbio.org likewise lists
community labs where basic skills in genetics are taught and projects
can be pursued in a safe and well-equipped environment.
There is also
a network of "Fabrication Laboratories," or FabLab for short. These are similar to hackerspaces, open to the public, are generally associated with
Dr. Neil Gershenfeld's MIT Fab Lab project and are well equipped with somewhat more expensive and capable pieces of manufacturing equipment.
And while it may seem like an insignificant act to gather together
and work on small projects, a well developed local "maker"
infrastructure can yield big results. More established spaces, like
NYC Resistor, have turned out small businesses, or have helped augment existing local businesses.
Regardless, it is essential that we start walking in the right
direction, no matter how small the steps may be, regardless of how far
in the wrong direction we've gone. Collectively it will make a
difference when people begin putting their time, energy, and resources
into developing local solutions and becoming independent, technically
competent producers rather than needy, hopelessly dependent consumers
running forever on the corporate-financiers' "political treadmills."
When we start turning off the "debate" and turning on our soldering
irons, our tractor, our power tools, our lathes, mills, 3D printers, and
welding torches, we can stop hoping for a better world to be delivered
to us tomorrow, and start building one ourselves today.
Dangers - the DARPA Vacuum.
A conscious pragmatic movement, as well informed as it is
technically competent, pursuing post-scarcity and the reduction of
disparity, elitism, insidiously imposed social engineering, and economic
interdependency has little to fear as it moves forward. However, as the
paradigm stands now - there lacks any clear vision for the future, or
situational awareness of the present.
Makerspaces, hackerspaces, community labs, and open source
collaborations of all varieties run the risk of being subtly
manipulated, compartmentalized, and tasked for diabolical endeavors the
individual participants could hardly fathom. Such a scheme was in fact
announced by DARPA in a Wired article titled, "
Pentagon's New Factory: Your DNA" which stated:
A recent call for research by the
Pentagon’s mad science agency proposes a new program called “Living
Foundries.” The idea is to use biology as a manufacturing platform to
“enable on-demand production of new and high-value materials, devices
and capabilities.”
In other words, let’s engineer life to make stuff we want.
It continues:
To jumpstart the process, Darpa wants to
open the playing field to people from outside the biological sciences,
recruiting designers, engineers, manufacturers, computer scientists,
academics and anyone else who has an idea. By democratizing the
biological design and manufacturing process, they hope to speed up the
development of a reliable factory for all sorts of kind-of-living
things.
Wired, which has increasingly become a clearinghouse for Pentagon
propaganda aimed at "geek" culture - and even hosts corporate-financier
funded Brookings Institution "fellows" as contributors, attempts to make
DARPA's plans sound exciting and fun. In reality, DARPA is assembling
an arsenal of biotechnology constructed of various individual parts
contributed by participants who have no idea what they are involved in
or the bigger picture they are helping to shape. These will be
biotechnological implements only DARPA understands the true
configuration and characteristics of, and implements DARPA and its
affiliates alone can wield at will.
This DARPA vacuum has been assimilating the best and brightest the
world has to offer in a similar manner across many disciplines,
assembling a vast wealth of knowledge and technology to be mixed and
matched behind the veil of secrecy. It is a good bet that all these
technologies are being used for a handful of specific, unknown
objectives, and that cover stories provided by publications like Wired
are solely for public consumption. The atomic bomb was assembled in a
similar compartmentalized fashion, but at a closed-off facility run
top-to-bottom by the US Government. In this new model, entire segments
of the population are compartmentalized to fulfill certain objectives,
with the final product assembled behind closed doors by DARPA
scientists.
....
Being aware of this potential danger is essential. And the sorts of
implements DARPA may already either possess or be working on should give
the masses added incentive to become actively involved in stripping the
technological-intellectual monopolies being cultivated by the global
elite. It is important to get involved locally, but be aware of things
unfolding globally. We must remember that by getting organized, having
an acute situational awareness, and working pragmatically has given the
global elite the immense power they now possess. It will take the masses
getting organized, having a collective, acute situational awareness,
and working pragmatically to take that power back.
