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Progressive-tech and the new world order
One of the scariest themes in the Star Trek saga was "The Borg." Different species were captured and "programed" into The Borg whose entire existence was to absorb others into The Borg and defend itself from any non-Borg threats.
It is not surprising that the threat to the individual liberty which we as a nation were founded on, and organized to protect, should come under assault during the rise of the technological age. In the past the threat to liberty came primarily from ideologies that believed in big government in all its various isms and forms.
Today all those various big government ideologies still exist but at the end of the twentieth century they were on the cusp of being marginalized into the dustbin of history . This is when a savior arrived in the form of a technological explosion.
Something similar occured at the end of the nineteenth century as the industrial revolution reached its zenith. The political progressive movement grew government in order to restrain the growth and power of the so called "Robber Barons." Some of what they accomplished was admirable and some was destructive to liberty, but one thing it accomplished is undeniable. In curbing free market excesses both real and imagined it grew the overall scope of our Federal Government beyond its intended purpose as a republic modeled on federalism.
Fast forward to the end of the twentieth century. For the first time in nearly a century the progressive movement is on the decline, or as Bill Clinton put it "the era of big government is over." Then a new revolution is sprung forth from that same free market entrepreneurial spirit that created the Robber Barons of old. Technological innovation hearkened in an exciting future for innovation and transformation of the human condition. Suddenly, rather than fading away, the progressive movement embraced this new and growing technological revolution.
While "W" and the old establishment Republicans continued to play footsies with the old Chamber of Commerce crowd, reigniting the spark of crony capitalism and renewing their love affair of the military industrial complex, the progressives made a strategic move that is now paying them dividends. Rather than renewing their century long fight against "capitalism" they embraced the newest, hippest form of it and the tech oligarchs that control it. Rather than fighting against child labor in the United States, they joined forces with capitalist who use forced labor overseas to manufacture their products. Rather than creating a National Park system as the first progressive president did here at home, they support cesspool manufacturing practices which spew not only imaginary CO2 pollutants, but real life killing toxins into the environment overseas. Progressives took the hand of technological capitalist, sanctioned by naive "conservative crony capitalist" and made love to communist for power and wealth.
Now progressive's of the new "Robber Barons" has enabled them to achieve their cherished dream, dominion. It is, for lovers of liberty, a match made in hell. Unlike the business conglomerates of old, technological titans are not really dependent on resources for their power and wealth. When your wealth is stored in a digital realm, in a "cloud" so to speak, you are far less dependent on society to provide you resources, thus society and its governments have far less control over you. When a small monopoly of information and technology providers joins forces with the political ideology which represents government control of society, individual liberty is, at the very least, in great peril.
There is also another aspect to this unholy alliance that is very real and extremely dangerous. Technology is based on programing. For all the talk of Madison Avenue and their ability to influence people's attitudes and behavior, they have nothing on the technology field. Their entire mindset, their business model indeed their very existence is based around achieving results through programing whether that be machines or people.
People worry about AI, Artificial Intelligence, but what about programmed human intelligence? I used to believe that common sense was a natural attribute, but I have come to ses that common sense is really just applied critical thinking ( the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment). As you begin to replace analysis and judgement with indoctrination and peer pressure, common sense becomes no more than group think. People begin to have common thought patterns but it is achieved not as the result of individual reason and judgement, critical thought, but rather through shared indoctrination.
Both progressive political theory and technological advancement require control and order.
Groupthink is the very antithesis of individual liberty and vise versa. Individual liberty the foundation of not only Americanism but the cornerstone of the entire western advancement has become an actual virus infecting the groupthink of what I will call the new progressive-tech society that is being built. Society is not being asked or taught to reason, it is being programmed to obey. In this we are reaching a tipping point, though we have not quite reached it.
Time and the death of previous generations would have and still could ensure this union and the accelerated decline of liberty, it is upon us. Some years ago I read a comment from a strong proponent of Anthropogenic Global Warming, now just called climate change. Commenting on the continued strong resistance in the scientific community by the "deniers" he made the observation that, "we will win, we just have to wait for the old men to die." So it is with this new progressive-tech union, unless something changed, they just have to wait for the old people to die to fulfill their dream. They have two problems, first they too are led by many old people and wisdom tends to skip a generation and then.....
Donald Trump's totally unexpected appearance on the scene changed everything. A large dose of the virus infected The Borg
And now it is in God's Hands as it always has been.
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