“We should fight with better governance and better intelligence. We have to empower communities to better defend themselves, not with weapons but with organization.”
A quote from Jelani Popal, working on development for the government of Afghanistan, in reference to overcoming the Taliban there. From the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/world/asia/24afghan.html?pagewanted=1&hp
Mr. Popal has found a succinct way to sum up the implications of the reading and thinking I've been doing on the subject of politics for the past few years. Not just on the small scale - as when fighting a particular group in a particular place - but in the global, historical quest to have our own children and nation overcome those who would stand in our way: we have to be more efficient and productive, not more destructive.
Now the question is: what is the role of science and technology in this struggle to organize, seeing how it was born from the pursuit of ever larger and more effective killing machines?
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Evolving politics
An article in the NYT today said that Shell Oil sponsored the screening of an independent documentary about the failure of plans to build several new coal-fired power plants in Texas.
Shell supported the event, said its president, John Hofmeister, “because we felt it was an appropriate venue to share and discuss our commitment to developing technologies, such as coal gasification, and other responsible energy solutions.”
This is weird - as the NYT reporter pointed out. The fact that the head of a giant oil company would support a: an independent documentary, b: one that is all about the failure of the political model of the whole industry, and c: a group, message, and activist explicitly against the environmental impact of their business model, surprised the people screening the film, he reported.
Now my own thoughts on the subject: the fact that a man who controls billions of dollars of profits doesn't have all these protesters shot is a testament to the success of our open yet structured society. The fact that the protesters used media to win the fight against huge profits by huge companies (the subject of their movie and of the article) is testament to the power of communication, especially the internet. The fact that the CEO of Shell found out about all this, and heard enough about it to understand the protesters' motivations, is a demonstration that the free flow of information can change the way that the power structure leads to bad decisions, conflict, and destruction of life.
The possibility of hearing what's happening far away - think of a newspaper in 1800 - leads to cross-pollination of ideas. But the internet allows a much deeper transfer of information: not just a few hundred words, but sharing experiences to an unlimited depth of personal recounting. Rather than just learning what the enemy is up to, it's now possible to get deep enough in that enemy's headspace to see where your interests overlap and to allow a recognition that we all want the same things from this world.
On the other hand, Rick Perry apparently doesn't take the time to be informed about all the other people and how they live and think, and thus tries to do things we consider stupid like building 11 brand new coal-fired plants. So clearly we still need more than communication to build utopia.
Shell supported the event, said its president, John Hofmeister, “because we felt it was an appropriate venue to share and discuss our commitment to developing technologies, such as coal gasification, and other responsible energy solutions.”
This is weird - as the NYT reporter pointed out. The fact that the head of a giant oil company would support a: an independent documentary, b: one that is all about the failure of the political model of the whole industry, and c: a group, message, and activist explicitly against the environmental impact of their business model, surprised the people screening the film, he reported.
Now my own thoughts on the subject: the fact that a man who controls billions of dollars of profits doesn't have all these protesters shot is a testament to the success of our open yet structured society. The fact that the protesters used media to win the fight against huge profits by huge companies (the subject of their movie and of the article) is testament to the power of communication, especially the internet. The fact that the CEO of Shell found out about all this, and heard enough about it to understand the protesters' motivations, is a demonstration that the free flow of information can change the way that the power structure leads to bad decisions, conflict, and destruction of life.
The possibility of hearing what's happening far away - think of a newspaper in 1800 - leads to cross-pollination of ideas. But the internet allows a much deeper transfer of information: not just a few hundred words, but sharing experiences to an unlimited depth of personal recounting. Rather than just learning what the enemy is up to, it's now possible to get deep enough in that enemy's headspace to see where your interests overlap and to allow a recognition that we all want the same things from this world.
On the other hand, Rick Perry apparently doesn't take the time to be informed about all the other people and how they live and think, and thus tries to do things we consider stupid like building 11 brand new coal-fired plants. So clearly we still need more than communication to build utopia.
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