M.A.D. Internet roots

[pynchonoid]

--- Malignd <malignd at yahoo.com> wrote:
> <<Wrong.  ARPANET's was designed as a network that
> would withstand massive enemy attack and still
> permit
> the US government to maintain command and control,
> that is not a requirement applied retroactively.>>
> 
> Yes, you've said that.  So have I.  So have others.

Actually, the ARPANET as origin of the Internet was
disputed by Mr. Fidget.

>  This
> primitive interent was for a government to maintain
> command and control of its own affairs not the
> affairs
> of its citizens

So you're arguing that the government's concern is not
its citizens, but instead its own survivability. 
That's the problem, of course -- one that has been
wonderfully lampooned in the black comedy Dr.
Strangelove, where nuclear war provides the
opportunity for the US ruling elite to shack up with
multiple wives, etc., while  ordinary citizens turn
into ash.

 
> And its means of withstanding attack was
> decentralization.

Which permits its use now for social control as
Pynchon observes.  Decentralization of the network
offers millions of places within the Internet to snoop
on people (then lock them up if necessary). 

The Internet emerges as a part of the Mutally Assured
Destruction scenarios that Pynchon, and others, have
rightfully characterized as "criminally insane."

Fortunately, people have found a way to use this tool,
the Internet, like others before it, in constructive,
creative ways.  Unfortunately, this hasn't prevented
governments from using the same tool for social
control (in both positive and negative forms), nor has
it prevented corporations from using the Internet to
induce the forms of behavior they desire.



=====
<http://www.pynchonoid.org/>

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