stalinesque
Last post, I worried about Facebook. This post I'll (hopefully) elucidate why.
I'm using the past as guide, but in predicting the future (esp. dramatic changes) there is always significant skepticism. Nonetheless, go crazy. These predictions don't need to individually come true for the result to happen, just that this is one reasonable path for the next one or two decades.
1) The Taliban don't lose in Afghanistan/Pakistan. They take over much of the running of the place. Extremist Islam has a more stable base and gains much more sway all across the Indian Ocean and SE Pacific. From Indonesia to the Middle East, many Muslims will live. Many of them will be anti-American, anti-Western, and they will remain the vocal ones.
2) The USA will decline economically, relative to the world. This will create a "poorness" perception in the USA and the politics of Fear will continue to replace the politics of hope. Stalking horses of fascism like Sarah Palin and worse, Lou Dobbs, will become even more popular. Someday, a more accomplished one of them will be elected president again. (I say again because I recall Nixon, we all remember Bush2.)
3)In the USA, we'll need someone to kick during our depression, some scapegoat, and the public negativity towards Muslims will increase. Things will happen here (much like the have happened elsewhere to Jews for thousands of years), Mosques will burn, Islam will be reviled, being Muslim will cast (at least) a fear of terrorists amongst the heart and south of America. The fear will be misplaced, because almost every Muslim American is a moderate by definition, and moderating further with each passing day. No matter, we the people will revile them anyway. People like Lou Dobbs will help the process along.
4) I'll write against this prejudice.
5) The gov will always know where I am and what I am doing (thanks to increasingly prolific and expert technology). When a corrupt politician of fear is elected president, surrounds himself with technocrat cronies and economic bedfellows, finds himself with access to the database that is Facebook, what will he do?
What would Nixon have done?
6)....and one day I receive a visit from two fellows in dark sunglasses and matching suits. And they very politely tell me to stop writing so harshly against the president and his policies. Or...what? Are they going to do what Stalin would have done and cast that person (or more likely, his relatives and close friends) into a Gulag, to be used as a bargaining chip to make me a mouthpiece of the powerful? Or will that corrupt and venal president do what Nixon would have done and just insinuated future bad happenings if I continued to write against him?
What would Donald Rumsfeld do?
That is the problem I have with Facebook in specific, and perhaps, certain technologies in general. Maybe I am a Luddite.
I'm using the past as guide, but in predicting the future (esp. dramatic changes) there is always significant skepticism. Nonetheless, go crazy. These predictions don't need to individually come true for the result to happen, just that this is one reasonable path for the next one or two decades.
1) The Taliban don't lose in Afghanistan/Pakistan. They take over much of the running of the place. Extremist Islam has a more stable base and gains much more sway all across the Indian Ocean and SE Pacific. From Indonesia to the Middle East, many Muslims will live. Many of them will be anti-American, anti-Western, and they will remain the vocal ones.
2) The USA will decline economically, relative to the world. This will create a "poorness" perception in the USA and the politics of Fear will continue to replace the politics of hope. Stalking horses of fascism like Sarah Palin and worse, Lou Dobbs, will become even more popular. Someday, a more accomplished one of them will be elected president again. (I say again because I recall Nixon, we all remember Bush2.)
3)In the USA, we'll need someone to kick during our depression, some scapegoat, and the public negativity towards Muslims will increase. Things will happen here (much like the have happened elsewhere to Jews for thousands of years), Mosques will burn, Islam will be reviled, being Muslim will cast (at least) a fear of terrorists amongst the heart and south of America. The fear will be misplaced, because almost every Muslim American is a moderate by definition, and moderating further with each passing day. No matter, we the people will revile them anyway. People like Lou Dobbs will help the process along.
4) I'll write against this prejudice.
5) The gov will always know where I am and what I am doing (thanks to increasingly prolific and expert technology). When a corrupt politician of fear is elected president, surrounds himself with technocrat cronies and economic bedfellows, finds himself with access to the database that is Facebook, what will he do?
What would Nixon have done?
6)....and one day I receive a visit from two fellows in dark sunglasses and matching suits. And they very politely tell me to stop writing so harshly against the president and his policies. Or...what? Are they going to do what Stalin would have done and cast that person (or more likely, his relatives and close friends) into a Gulag, to be used as a bargaining chip to make me a mouthpiece of the powerful? Or will that corrupt and venal president do what Nixon would have done and just insinuated future bad happenings if I continued to write against him?
What would Donald Rumsfeld do?
That is the problem I have with Facebook in specific, and perhaps, certain technologies in general. Maybe I am a Luddite.