Here are the new articles:

1. How phishing scams show the need to evolve with technology

2. “Intellectual Property” a Violation of Real Property

The first reflects one of the basic issues that the site’s content is and will be tackling, which is the issue of our mental, cultural and social preparedness for the power of new technologies. Since it gives power to its user which can be both negative and positive technology changes the potential of certain mental, cultural and social norms to affect the society.

Second article is more philosophical, but mainly pertains to the issue we’ve been addressing since the founding of Libervis.com, which is the issue of proprietary software and Free Software and the currently believed paradigm that copyright law operates on. Software is a type of technology whereas copyright law and this “intellectual property” paradigm reflects some social and cultural norms. This has consequences some of which have been outlined in that article.

Libervis.com will continue to actively be used to address issues all across the spectrum that lies between society and culture as we know it and the technology that we use from such a perspective. I think it’s a set of issues which is going to tremendously increase in importance as the accelerating technological evolution continue in face of all the social, cultural and economic turmoil and shifting.

On closer inspection I never wish for destruction or death, but I still wish something induced people to stop for once in their lives, stop like they’ve never stopped, took a step back from where they were and saw it, saw themselves and the world around them from a different perspective and ask themselves some hard questions they’ve previously been taught and induced to avoid.

I believe that most people, however, do feel that something is in our future that is so significant that it will reshape the world as we know it. Most religions claim to predict it. Certain scientists expect it. Movie industry and culture likes to play with spectacular scenarios of what it might be. And every decade there are movements of people believing a special year is coming, and a special day, the current obsession being around 2012 (unsurprisingly, the movie industry is planning to cash in on this by launching a same named movie: 2012). It’s like most individuals of our humanity have some sort of a inexplicable premonition, in form of an urge to wonder about and expect something….

Looking at the world and how quickly it has been changing in the last century lends further credibility to such mysterious expectations. Two world wars, industrial revolutions, global economic upsurges and depressions, continuing globalization and unprecedented evolution of technology and knowledge… Our world is changing constantly, and at accelerating rates. And it feels like this acceleration must lead towards something.. we may hit the wall or cross a threshold.

The best point that can be extracted from the movie, one which also marked the most significant thought left at its ending is that we change on the precipice, when pushed to the very edge of our current paradigm in fear that we will either perish or face the darkness of the unknown.

I believe something is coming, but I don’t know nor will pretend to know what. Many will swarm to tell me “It’s Jesus!”, “It’s the singularity!”, “It’s Planet X”, “It’s an asteroid!”. You entertain yourself with those best guesses. I’ll wait and see, and meanwhile be who I am and on a mission that I send myself to. Do what is right, no matter what the future holds. And I will remember that only I can say what is right for me.

Today, in the age in which rebellions thumping sounds are what we call mainstream music, from hip hop to trance and techno, it looks like the young generation is winning. Only a couple of decades ago this kind of music was frowned upon as mind washing, overly seductive and drug use inducing and people have and probably still are literally forbidding their kinds to listen to it, let alone go to one of those huge parties

Yet the number of these parties and the number of attendants seems to be growing! The once considered “hard” electronic music is becoming mainstream. This music very often invokes feelings of self power and thereby rebellion to anyone who says you can’t do what you really want.

There is only one problem. People who love this kind of music, and despite criticism from their elderly go to these parties, often go only to get themselves “wasted” or to “have a good time” or even to find a (sex) partner…

It could be more, however, if the mentality of rebellion is brought a step further. I could say that the rebels have the music, but still lack the determination and a target. The electronic music culture seems a little like the anti-globalist movement, but with a twist. They both love to make lots of noise wherever they go. They both come in great numbers and they both have a sense of rebellion in them. It’s just that anti-globalists, when they come to one of their “parties”, that is, protests, shout and scream and wave signs and flags and even sometimes do material damage in their agitation towards the perceived enemy, the target, the powers that be, like the G8 group or the Bilderbergs.

Their problem? What the hell is their solution? They have the target alright, but they seldom offer anything they fight FOR. Like, who would they replace the G8, the Bilderbergs and the worlds corrupt governments with??

The electronic music culture of rebellion is similar. They’ve got that kick (pun not intended), but it’s not channeled towards anything but “wasting” themselves. Many on those sensational trance parties talk about “energy”, “love” and “connectedness”, but where do they channel these things? Maybe this energy could be channeled towards a particular shared goal? Maybe the electronic music culture of rebellion needs to define a target and a goal of its own. We feel rebellious, but who are we rebelling against and what are we FOR?

Bottom line is, I’m essentially advocating a merger between what is essentially entertainment and activism. Both have enormous power within them. Entertainment, like electronic music in this instance, can get people incredibly energized, fired up and excited. Activism needs exactly these elements to fuel its campaign for a particular cause. Merging the two is an explosion waiting to be detonated.

I will, in fact, probably be working on this sort of thing. My last post was incredibly vague and impulsive, but it does have something to do with what I am talking about here.

The culture of rebellion will be powered up. Ingredients are there. We just need to mix them up.

Well, Ron Paul is no savior, but he has done something incredible nevertheless. He has been the only US president candidate which actually shows genuine care for the issue of freedom and presents a message that is truly different from what has become a norm in US lately. This helped show people that there may yet be a chance, if only a last chance, for them to actually slow down or stop the encroachments to their freedom.

A sign one guy in a video I am about to link says it best: “Ron Paul cured my apathy”.

Indeed, apathy, which leads to ignorance, settles in when there is a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness, but if you are in USA today you can feel vibrant and alive and you can march with hope and energize your activist spirit. The masses of young people are waking up.

But I’ll stop rambling and show you what is it that brings me to tears.

This youtube video, about a Revolution March.

Please digg this video.

It starts with some powerful and motivating scenes of people being abused by their government and flashes back to WW2 germany. The comparison is more fitting than you may think if you just do some research.

It brings me to tears because I care about freedom. I don’t know how else to put it. It is baffling how have we let our governments invade our lives so much, yet we have seen it time and again on TV, on the internet, new freedom depriving laws, news of people being abused and arrested for the most benign of reasons, for crimes which contain no v of violence in it. This shit piles up until we become numb. Even I become numb, cynical and angry.

That video may be propaganda, but it has a way of being an emotional outlet, inducing the kind of reaction that convinces me, yes I do care. I care to the tears. I care so much I would want to go there and march with the rest, if I only could.

But I will be watching for the news from the freedom front tomorrow in Washington. And I will be hoping that they send a shockwave of voices saying: “We are not giving up, we are paying attention and we are going to take our freedoms back”. And then, there is more hope we can go even further, not just 90% of freedom with minimal government, but 100% of it in a true voluntaryist society.

But it all starts now, or every moment that you choose. Maybe you’ll want to choose July 12, the Revolution March.

And again, please Please spread this video to help motivate more people.

I will blame you.

Propaganda is, quite simply, a tool. It can be used to convey any message or idea, whether I think it’s good or bad. The only thing that differentiates it from an educational film is that aside from your reasoning capabilities it also appeals to your emotions which can in many cases actually be a good thing. Involving emotion into the matter is what makes people passionate and energized about something. It is also a way to get people who usually don’t care about a particular thing to start caring.

Propaganda is therefore like technology. You can’t blame it, you can’t ever blame a “thing” anyway. You can only blame a human being, the producer of a propaganda movie if you believe that the idea he is conveying is the wrong one or the viewer of propaganda for being too willing to accept what is being conveyed without thinking independently about it and researching the facts.

Besides, there is no such thing as an universally wrong or an universally right idea. There is only what is real and what is not. If you have an idea which makes you act in a particular way, reality will always kick in with the consequences of your action. If you dislike the consequences then you might judge your idea as a wrong one. If the consequences are good then you might be on the right track. And the only one who can decide if the consequences are good or bad is you, with consideration to what your desires and goals actually are.

The problem with people in Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union or Mao’s China is not so much propaganda as much as the willingness of people to accept its message almost without questioning. It is ignorance and intellectual laziness. If Hitler’s propaganda was to convey the ideas of individualism, individual sovereignty, freedom, rights to life, liberty and property and people blindly accepted it, I would be willing to bet that they would all be better off because such propaganda would have the same exact message I am trying to convey with many of my posts: think for yourself.

And that would be an example of propaganda which, EVEN when accepted blindly, actually created what can by most people probably considered a good outcome, because everyone is an individual, alive and to a point selfish – and everyone wants to be free of force.

Ideally, of course, they would accept such propaganda only after they have thoroughly questioned it which is excellent because then those who do accept and adopt the idea will do so not only on basis of an emotional appeal, but on the basis of reason, making their enlightenment all the more profound.

In other words, the ideal way to tackle your exposure to propaganda is with the prioritize reason over passion mentality. This doesn’t mean that the emotional appeal shouldn’t entice you to explore the idea further. I mean, if it works for you then go for it! It just means that the emotional trigger should be secondary. It got you intrigued, it got you excited.. to stop at that and turn yourself into an immediate true believer now would be a mistake though. You still need to think it through, do some research to see if the trigger of reason would switch to green for the newly discovered idea too.

Propaganda is especially useful for small grassroots movements who are having trouble convincing people to even give them a chance, to at least try and hear them out. So if making an emotional appeal can get people to listen who can blame them for trying it? They aren’t forcing you to believe anything after all and they aren’t the ones who can brainwash your mind if you don’t let it. You can proclaim them as “evil” if you end up disliking the idea they conveyed (though in my opinion that’d be a foolish proclamation as I don’t believe anyone is inherently evil) or you can praise them for “opening your eyes”, but in both cases it is you who is responsible for what you end up believing in and the consequences of actions you undertake in pursuit of such beliefs, and nobody else!

So called “conspiracy theory” movements are gaining strength. The Free Software and Free Culture movement are providing a shelter from digital restrictions on individual freedoms. The anti-war movement organized the biggest anti-war protest in history in 2003, not so long ago. The internet is doing wonders in rising support for an otherwise completely unlikely president candidate in USA: Ron Paul (albeit whether this would get him elected is highly doubtful).

All of these are symptoms of corruptness of our world. It is the immune system of our societies fighting back at the cancer that is developing in them. You do not have to agree with Alex Jones or David Icke on everything. You might even consider them frauds trying to earn their fortunes on people’s hunger for some sort of a change. However, if everything was fine and if people really didn’t have anything to rally against, they wouldn’t have the success that they had.

Furthermore, despite sometimes dubious story arks presented by these people, many of the things they say do reflect the truth as I see it and some of the reactions they awake in people are indeed ones that should awake. I once recently read a comment about libertarians from someone who doesn’t necessarily agree with them. He said, and I paraphrase, that a good thing about libertarians is that they serve as a detector of bad government behaviour since they put government at so much scrutiny. My point is that even when you disagree with the general context surrounding a particular political faction or a campaign, there may be some things about it which are worth picking out and recognizing as good effects.

This is why I advocate inquisitive exploration and open minded analysis of everything, as long as you are capable and well trained (by yourself) to resist classical propaganda appeals. This way you can separate the stuff that makes sense to you from the stuff that, as some aptly say, alarms your “bullshit detector” (which too must be well trained).

However, open minded exploration must be combined with another incredibly important thing: self-determination. You must respect yourself, believe in yourself and be confident. You must discover who you are and what you want to be in order to know the context of your interests and your exploratory journey. Here is the thing. No book, no newspaper, no TV station, no internet podcast, no holly book, no government and no leader deserves an absolute trust. The only one you must trust is yourself.

To borrow a saying from the movie idiocracy: “Either lead, follow or get out of the way”. I think there is quite a bit of wisdom to those words. What I would urge everyone to try to choose among these three options is “lead”. Seriously, I want everyone to be leaders!

You might ask how is this possible? Someone must be a follower, right? Well, there is nothing about this piece of wisdom which denies the possibility of combining either of these three options. What I advocate is a certain way of prioritizing where “lead” comes first, “follow” comes second and “get out of the way” comes third. For example, when exploring someone’s presentation of “truth” you must think like a leader, the leader of yourself and determine whether it is a good idea to lead yourself to the following of this new “truth”. Just the same, when you are considering “getting out of the way”, this is the mind set which should be employed. Following something or someone as well as getting out of the way (possibly submitting to a sort of ignorance) are options that should be picked with much more deliberation than they usually are.

You must be a leader.

Imagine a nation of such leaders, self-determined, confident, curious and open minded. Who is going to pull one over their eyes? How can they be manipulated? They can’t. This is why I believe this mentality of leadership, when adopted by ideally everyone in our society might be one of the fundamental pillars of positive world change.

That said, going back to the real world as we see it today, here is an interesting observation. Why are “conspiracy theorists” like Alex Jones and David Icke so full of propaganda material appealing to ones emotional triggers? Could it be because the majority of our society has become so numb to intellectual rationalism that there is no other way to reach them other than propagandist emotional appeals? If this is so (and I would be willing to bet it is), then it is certainly a sad state of things. These common people are essentially like remote controlled drones – you only need to press the right switches for them to move.

It is hard to tell who is guilty of turning them into this. Is it the system (media propagated culture of consumerism, culture of desire etc.) they help fuel or is it themselves for letting it happen in the first place? It may really be both, since it is hard to see things ever being much better in the past. If anything people have been even more ignorant and conforming. However, one thing that seems to be different and most scary about the present culture of conformism and ignorance is that they believe they are free and that everything is just fine.

And this is because they failed to grow up into leaders of themselves and are still nannied by the corrupt system they live in and perpetuate. It’s time to make kids into adults and turn this movement of sub-humanism into intellectual super-humanism.

Disclaimer: Again, I have to say that sub-humanism and super-humanism do not refer to inherent state of human beings. We are all simply human. Instead, I refer to the aspirations which may be towards sub- or super-. This is not about eugenics and not about trans-humanism, nor do my views condone treating people as less or more human. Perhaps I will get tired of these disclaimers and come up with alternative terms. Feel free to make suggestions.

Disclaimer2: The fact that I realized and acknowledged these notions does not necessarily make me an end result of these “super-humanism” aspirations. I wouldn’t even claim to be a very good leader of myself. I have my problems and I am, after all, a mere human. However, I think it is the realization that matters as the first step towards making yourself more superb. I am on my journey. I hope you will or already had started yours.

Cheers

I have to say it is quite interesting that there was someone willing to invest into making such a movie, because it is quite timely. It is an irony that it didn’t gain much attention. In my opinion it should have been a “blockbuster”. I think it is quite obvious that idiocracy already exists in our societies. It is among the prime reasons why our governments suck and our societies deteriorate. I talked about it before.

When there is a special and often derogatory term for “geeks” in our high schools as outcasts who deserve to be tortured just because they don’t fit in with the usual crowd – the crowd who finds their ultimate daily achievements somewhere between things like “getting laid” and “getting wasted” – you know Idiocracy is well on its way.

I will no longer be afraid to use the word “Idiot” to describe such people.

They are a movement of sub-humanism – an anti-philosophy based purely on hedonism, ignorance and meaninglessness rather than on pursuing ones fullest potential. In a sub-humanist culture ignorance is power and wisdom is weakness. It is only ironic how those who profess to be intelligent freedom loving people can’t let themselves openly wage war on this culture, in the name of “tolerance” – because no matter how evil we may consider it to be, it is still a “culture”, right?

Indeed. They have the right to exist…

And I have the right to oppose and shun them on my every step. Mere tolerance is one thing, acceptance is another and I will not exercise it.

Sub-humanists, ignorant people, the “mainstream” masses who tell scientists and technologists to “get a life” – carry the cash that supports corrupt industries we oppose and vote for governments which we are trying to change. As such, they are not even neutral bystanders. By choosing ignorance you choose opposition to change and betterment of the world. You are hence my enemy. You will either be changed or get out of the way.

Thank you very much.

Disclaimer: When I say “subhuman” I do not mean that I condone treating humans as not worthy of human beings. It rather denotes my view of their life style and culture as deliberately unworthy of them as human beings. Therefore, I do not believe humans who lead a sub-human life are necessarily intrinsically subhuman themselves, although they do deliberately devolve.

Stay tuned for DoublePlusHuman.com

My explanation: it just happens or..

We create it. We create magic.

Technology of humans today, enhancing their abilities and overall power will appear godly to humans who lived hundreds or thousands years ago. And an event of all human emotion channelled through our magical technology into a show of sound and light that leaves even us beyond belief, will bring them on their niece.

Sensation White is an example of such an event. Witness the power of 2007/8 Humans in all its glory:

Sensation White – The most amazing home videos are here
Sensation White 2007 Trailer – The most amazing home videos are here
Yet, all of this is, indeed, happening in a small hall of a pale blue dot. If so much magic can be found on a place so insignificant to the universe at large, imagine how much more can we find out there.We are so powerful to our past and current self, and we can use this power to destroy or to build. We can share our positive emotions as part of a fest that connects us all for a time into an inpenetrable network of shared sensation or we can direct our emotions into deadly hatred for our differences.The choice is yours. I know mine.

• Era of White
• Sensation White

Luckily there are things that inspire. Inspiration is really the key to a lot of things in life. It has the power to motivate, to spark enthusiasm and consequently create mental energy needed to “unfuzz” the fuzzy to organize the disorganized, to connect the dots – to explore, learn and practice wisdom. Exploring is an act of seeking out the unknown in order to observe it and its surroundings. The next step is its consequence – the learning – an act of acquiring facts (or perceived facts) – an act of making the unknown known. What is left is to “practice wisdom”, the ability to connect the learned facts into a whole which provides deeper understanding of the object in question (physical or non-physical) and the context within which it exists.

On my old blog I sometimes talked about the thing that I believe was one of the greatest sources of inspiration and enthusiasm for me. In fact I count it among things that influenced my life and myself as a person. Because of it, among other things, I am who I am today.

This “thing” is a story and a fictional universe. It is an idea and an ideology. It is a vision and it is a culture. It is a phenomenon called Star Trek.

Trek has made me look beyond. Period. Beyond “what” exactly doesn’t matter as much as the fact that it is “beyond”. The object being super-seeded will always change, but what shouldn’t change is being open towards the beyond.

Some of these “beyonds” include thinking beyond the context of:

• racial, national, cultural, sexual and other differences between sentient beings.
• our Earth and an immediate space we know.
• the universe as we know it, including the laws that we know about it.
• reality as we perceive it.
• our nature as we currently understand it.
• anything that we believe in, anything that we sense, anything that we know and anything that we think we know.

Thinking beyond is a fundamental idea which we also often call “being open minded”. It entails the ability to accept change, most importantly the change in our understanding of the reality around us.

Without being exposed to Star Trek as much as I have I doubt that I would hold on to this value as much as I am today. And I think this had a profound effect on my life.

Trek has emphasized my optimism. I think everybody has a dose of optimism in themselves and so did I. I am not sure if I am genetically or in some other way predisposed to be more optimist or pesimist and I am not entirely sure that I was prior to having significant contact with Trek largely an optimist or a pesimist. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that, just as it made it easier and desirable for me to look beyond everything it has emphasized the value of optimism.

It has basically encouraged me to embrace a vision of a better future and a better world rather than a vision of a cool, but cold and dark “cyberpunk” world where the fittest survive in a constant violent war, as some other modern action packed scifi stories present it. While I enjoy even such dramas and find certain values in them as well, I prefer an optimistic vision of the future any day. We have enough of the dark drama in the real world as it is.

Trek has encouraged my idealism. Gene Roddenberry deliberately envisioned a show which will promote certain moral standards and ideals. This is why he set off to do what no TV show did before, like feature an african-american woman on the show in a time when both racism and sexism were still raging. This is why most stories depicted in Star Trek deal with moral issues and dilemmas and why starship captain’s usually are idealists. In fact, the very future depicted is idealist, with many wrongs we know in the world today having been set right.

This significantly encouraged me to appreciate certain ideals as something worth standing for and pursuing. It has, indeed, a lot to do with my involvement with Free Software and Free Culture.

Trek has fueled my interest and passion for technology. It is almost a perpetual past time of mine to look at the world I am surrounded with and compare it to the world presented in Star Trek making me fascinated when I see things in the present day world be like in Star Trek. Just the same I am looking forward to the future in which all of the things presented in Star Trek will be real and this anticipation fuels my interest in technological advancements. And that’s where most of my fascination with technology really comes from.

Coupled with the open mindedness (tendency to think beyond), optimism (envisioning a positive future) and idealism (standing up for something) technology largely becomes the means used to manifest the above values – used in a positive way for positive purposes. The reason why some may perceive Star Trek promoting technology as inherently good may be because in the above described bigger context of values promoted by Star Trek, it really is, in its world, used largely for positive things.

However even in Star Trek, later series, it has been portrayed what could we face if we do not use technology in a positive way promoted by Star Trek. The Borg may be the best example. They are an example of technology abuse.

So it is not that Star Trek promotes technology as inherently good. It does not. Technology is just a neutral tool. It promotes the idea that technology can be used to create a better world IF we learn to be more open minded (think beyond), be more positive thinking (envision the better future) and care for certain moral and ethical standards. Otherwise, we are in a world of trouble.

And that’s really what sums it up for me. Those are the ingredients that have “infected” my personality. I love technology assuming that it can be used for good and I love the fact that someone in the 60s had the guts to tell the world a message that even today the world deserves to hear: better world is possible, we just have to care and then evolve upon, which includes building the means to build that better world, advancing technology.

And why have I, after that last post portraying a bad and confusing state I am sometimes in, writing this blog entry? Well, I just felt the need to express this. When feeling disoriented and disordered it is good to look for something to grasp on to, and something that inspires me so significantly seems like a good choice.

Writing to this blog is my way of getting something off my chest. All of the entries so far were exactly the result of that, including this post. I am occasionally watching the episodes of Star Trek lately seeking for nothing but inspiration and a source of enthusiasm that I’ve felt evading me with regards to the work I do on the web (Libervis Network). And as I watch it I just feel this urge to, yet again, express why exactly do I love and appreciate it so much.

Mind you, I don’t really know nor care if I should be called a trekkie or a trekker because of that. I don’t particularly care for branding myself as anything. I am just a guy whose life has been affected and whose personality has been inspired by a Star Trek vision and the universe which it created.

Thank you for bearing with me.

Mr. Libervisco Out.