Anonymous Operation Payback Targets Opponents Of Wikileaks

Okay, so due to really badly timed server issues, I have not been able to blog during the latest developments of what is now being called the first global cyber-revolution (thanks to Roger Davies for helping me out!). As my last blog entry: Twittocracy, Interactivism, Hacktivism & Cyber Anarchy: Cause covered Operation Payback, it was a vendetta campaign against those attempting to censor online content based on copyright infringement. Those perpetrating the attacks were Anonymous, the mysterious hacktivist group behind the latest cyber protests against opponents of Wikileaks.

At the end of last year, Wikileaks released the torrent of leaked American diplomatic cables they called Cablegate. To say that this prompted a lot of international reaction would be the understatement of this century. Most world leaders had something to say on the matter and the majority of it was not sounding too good for Wikileaks or its founder Julian Assange. The web server that Wikileaks was hosted on came under DDoS attacks, similar in style to those carried out by Anonymous during Operation Payback Is a Bitch: Save The Pirate Bay. Wikileaks then had its money supply cut off by Paypal, Visa, Mastercard and Amazon dropped hosting. Anonymous; as a hive collective, decided to leap into action. The public home pages of Visa, Paypal and Mastercard were targetted for DDoS by Operation Payback: Save Wikileaks, and hundreds of alternate mirrors of the site's Cablegate Datatbase were spawned.

Anonymous Changes Tactics: Operation Leakspin

The cyber protests in the form of DDoS caught the ever gazing eye of the worlds media and Anonymous got a lot of press attention, using this attention Anonymous launched into a new direction with a new campaign; Operation Leakspin. Operation Payback had successfully brought attention to the shameful acts of private corporations under the intimidation of the United Sates of America. More importantly it had won the support of the people of the internet for Wikileaks, and freedom of the press. With this heightened level of awareness, Operation Leakspin was to spread the contents of the leaked diplomatic cables virally; via social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. Other spin off Anonymous Operations were Operation Blackout/Face-Off which encouraged people to replace their internet avatars with a plain black square, and Operation Paperstorm which encouraged people to print out and distribute paper flyers about Wikileaks and Operation Leakspin. A new hub site emerged as a centralised meeting -place for organisation of such Anonymous Operations with resources such as web chat, IRC and forums.

Wikileaks, Anonymous & The Coming Arabic Cyber Revolution

In the last two weeks, the internet; in particular, Twitter, Wikileaks  and Anonymous , have played a vital role in the on-going cyber revolution across the Arab world. Firstly in Tunisia, where internet censorship has been used to silence dissenting voices for a while, one incident sparked a wave of protests across the country. A single individual immolated himself publicly leading to days of protests, until the leader of Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, fled to Saudi Arabia. More recently since January 25th, Egypt has been awash with protests against their tyrannical dictator Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak. Over the last few days these protests have descended into violent chaos, as Mubarak attempts to cling onto power by inciting violence among his minority of supporters. At one point Mubarak was desperate enough to shut down the entire country's internet access, to try and end this burgeoning revolution. According to the latest news sources, Mubarak was no longer intending to run for re-election in September yet refused to step down as President. [UPDATE] Mubarak has now handed over power to his senior military leadership; who were instrumental in advising him to step aside at the behest of his people. The people of Egypt seem to have accepting this situation as an interim to a new democratic government, but have planned to hold a public demonstration for this Friday (18/02/2011), to garner public opinion on the progression of this process . [/UPDATE]

As if inspired by the courage displayed by the brave Tunisian and Egyptian people; similar protests have taken place across the Arab world. Algeria, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Libya, Iran, Jordan, Oman, Sudan, Morocco, Mauritania and even Saudi Arabia have all had incidents ranging from small protests to all out revolution. This democratic movement is largely driven through social media and the internet, which is why net neutrality is so important globally. The open internet model is necessary to maintain the freedoms of expression of those who are oppressed. In those countries where oppression is most rampant, the internet is used as a means to silence dissent. The voices of freedom cry out to the internet and are silenced, but Anonymous, and other internet freedom groups have taken up the mantle of freedom of speech. These internet vigilantes or hacktivists, have provided services to such affected regions such as Google's Speak to Tweet or information on proxies like Tor.

[UPDATE] (17/02/2011) Anonymous & Wikileaks Versus The FBI & HBGary [/UPDATE]

Open Letter from Anonymous to HBGary

In the recent weeks the FBI in the USA and British Police have arrested several "Members of Anonymous". The FBI hired a company called HBGary to infiltrate and gather intelligence on the group Anonymous. Their efforts did not go unnoticed by the more skilled hacktivists of the group, who proceeded to hack into HBGary's server. They replaced the home page with the above image, and leaked thousands of emails to and from the company.

It seems like the message from Anonymous is pretty clear; the world governments and organisations who seek to control the internet have three options now:

A) Release all of your secret information in an organised fashion

B) People inside your organisation feel compelled to leak the information and do so

C) The extremist arm of the internet comes and takes all your secrets and leaks them into the public domain

Whatever the future holds, the internet is key not only to observing and predicting social change, but generating it.

An Ode To Science: A Poem by Michael Wharton

The scientific method is the most logical option available,
For gaining new knowledge and understanding the real truth,
Empirical evidence; data, is collected, measured, verified,
Hypothesised, tested, and retested to determine the proof.

Proof of a theory that includes it in a far wider concept,
To explain a natural phenomenon of the observable universe,
With matter, gravity and energy, explained by methodology,
To attempt to do so any other way would just be perverse.

Foolish men have attempted to subvert these noble efforts,
To know the mechanics of all existence with experimentation.
Abusing obsolete beliefs to admonish human intellectualism,
Science prevailed against this offensive with determination.

For aeons we have pondered on the purpose of our existence,
On the origins of humanity and beginnings of time and space.
We organised life into Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family,
Genus and Species, in taxonomy there's no such thing as race.

We catalogued and categorised the visible celestial bodies,
They were then personified, deified, fortified and beatified.
Philosophies and ideologies were attributed to these deities,
These teachings sanctified to identify those to be vilified.

Scientific teaching now teeters on the edge of a precipice,
Created by folk ignorant of evidence contrary to their belief.
What they all fail to realise is right before their very eyes,
Science fabricates a pair of wings and flies up to its relief.

Every single individual is fully capable of discovering truth,
Through experimentation, examination and observation of reality.
The truth will out repeatedly until uncovered in its entirety,
Fundamentalist individuals won't be ready for this eventuality.

When reason replaces dogma as the predominant belief structure,
Humanity will emphatically embrace a new dawn of enlightenment.
No longer will sophisticated society acquiesce to myopic piety,
Human civilisation will be emancipated from dogmatic arraignment.

More poetry from Michael Wharton, this time on the subject of science and scientific endeavour. Science; like all things (at present) is a commodity for enterprise, to research and develop products for making money. If only this were not the case, every scientist developing better shampoos and face creams should be working on diseases like Cancer and Alzheimer's.

More recently, science has come under fire from fundamentalist religious groups who advocate "creationism" or "intelligent design" as competing "Theories" to Darwinian evolution through natural selection. They really need to start to grasp the meaning of the word theory in science...

On top of the onslaught from the evangelicals, Vince Cable is now threatening the budget for scientific advancement in research and development.

Science Versus Religion: Shoop Da Whoop!

Science Versus Religion - Darkwings Versus Yahweh: Shoop CLICK ON IMAGE FOR ORIGINAL SIZE

The age old battle of Science Versus Religion has been raging on since the invention of God. Obviously Science came first, then some upstart developed the concept of worship and deities.

Here I have represented the Scientific method with a "Holy Trinity" of scientific legends of our time. Charles Darwin with his theory of Evolution, Stephen Hawking with his theory of the Big Bang, and of course Richard Dawkins with his tireless efforts to promote secular, scientific, logical, reasoning and free thinking amongst the Religious community.

God / Yahweh is represented by an image I found: http://puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/andre/yahweh.html All glory to the original artist!

I really liked the anthropomorphising of the Hebrew lettering. I thought it fit the scheme well.

That's right folks, Imma chargin' Malaysia and having a go at the old graphic image manipulation, or shooping as it has come to be known. I think for my first project I'm going to have a bit of satirical fun with the epic battle of science versus religion. Will post it as soon as I'm done!

Yesterday on the first of July Your Freedom was launched by the coalition Liberal Democrat/Conservative government. It seems that Nick Clegg is at the lead of the project, spearheading a new avenue of internet political interactivity. Over the last couple of years, there have been more and more politically charged social networking sites springing up on all bands of the political spectrum. Several of these were single policy sites, pushing a particular agenda, some were more broadly focused with a particular political slant. In the UK, the government is attempting to give all of these disparate viewpoints a forum for debate and discussion of ideas.

Although it's still a little shaky due to the fact that demand for the service is so much higher than anticipated, the functionality of the front end more than makes up for it. There's an intuitive tagging system, which allows all users to add tags to all campaigns, and all users can leave comments too. It's like we are truly entering a state of Twittocracy (well there is always a theory...), a society shaped by the majority, with their collective opinions being aggregated automatically through what I like to call Interactivism (maybe Hacktivism?) which is basically a marriage of internet and activism.

A number of campaigns are theoretically sound, but the methodology is lacking (poor spelling and grammar...). A great many campaigns are identical to others and sevceral recurring themes have sprung up; such as repealing the Digital Economy Act and the Legalization of Cannabis.

I believe that this proactive platform for public political promotion is pretty provocative. It is probably paramount to protect personal privacy and post (okay, enough alliteration...) anonymously to begin with. Compared with Petition The PM at Number 10 it is definitely an improvement in that it is much less patronising.

An Ode To War: A Poem by Michael Wharton

You are a weapon in the war against peace,
They use your fear to control your actions,
On either side they produce vile propaganda,
Take care to examine the motives of factions.

Why fight at all, what is your main objective?
Power, money, control, cruelty and corruption,
Power over the minds of the people and opinions,
Money is the constant for supply and production.

Control over land mass, of which there is finite,
Cruelty to those who disagree with your virtues.
Corruption of the virtues you pretend to uphold,
Evolution's Nature's job we have to let her choose.

We are at peace with war so it seems in the media,
The news is just numbers now, in bite size chunks.
Between targeted product informational programming,
Sold to you by plastic chicks and shredded hunks.

This may be very short and succinct but the topic and subject matter are distasteful and abhorrent, so I kept it concise. I didn't really have to include details of war or its atrocities, as we are all very much aware of the obvious physical realities. I wanted to keep it simple, as war often is; a struggle for resources at the cost of human life.

Internet Censorship: The Internet Is Under Attack?

According to many key sources of internet trends, the recent governmental seizure of control over the internet has been perceived as a threat to global freedom. The internet culture has flourished from what once was the domain of the knowledgeable few, to what is often called "Web 2.0"; user generated and driven content, shared and open to all interactively and easily. Nowadays, most people between their childhood and retirement age will spend time online regularly. They do so to catch up on the latest news, kill time watching funny videos of cats, keep in touch with long lost friends and relatives, etc... The list of activities people perform regularly online is pretty endless, as new applications of the internet are coming along every day. Some of the things people do online are currently illegal, in quite a few countries, and for years now the governments of those (often developed) countries have been trying to figure out how to enforce laws on the internet. From copyright infringement to "Indecent Pornography", it has been a game of cat and mouse, as technology on both sides is developed to outsmart the other.

We were all made aware of this arms race when sites like Napster and The Pirate Bay were legally challenged, when news of sting operations on paedophile and terrorist networks hit the papers. We were glad of our Government's action against those who would harm or way of life. Now however, it is our governments themselves who are threatening our way of life; in a new development in this arms race, we the people are being targeted with internet censorship.

The ACTA has been implemented in several "Freedom Loving" countries such as Australia, America, and now the United Kingdom has followed suit with the Digital Economy Bill (The DEBill is now The Digital Economy Act since it was pushed through parliament... shouldn't have dragged my feet writing this blog...). Now we have internet censorship, blacklisted websites and filtered content.

Internet Censorship: Spreading The Word!

Internet Censorship Youtube Video Playlist:

So as far as I can tell, the internet is going to become more strictly controlled, surveilled, filtered and censored worldwide. Copyright piracy, inappropriate porn and terrorist communication are simply convenient distractions, so that dissent can be monitored and controlled. If any of the videos in the internet censorship playlist are removed, or if you can no longer gain access to this page then you will know that I was right.

Since the development of the internet, it has been used to express opinions and information freely with the rest of the world. Don't allow this tool to be used to gag and control you, speak out against this right infringement. Several organisations have interactivist campaigns you can join to let your voice be heard; The EFF, The ORG, 38 Degrees and of course Project Freeweb.

If we do nothing, we are in very real danger of losing access to the "real" internet like other less than free countries with more extreme levels of internet censorship ( an obvious example is the People's Republic of China (oh no, I guess that my site's blocked there now...)). Internet superstars such as Tim Berners Lee and John Perry Barlow have declared their opposition to internet censorship. Internet deity Google have spoken out against the global trend towards internet censorship measures and the state controlling the web. Google even released this handy tool to see how much your internet content is being filtered. We have to all stand together and say "No, we DO NOT WANT internet censorship, filtered content or our internet to be arbitrarily cut off!". Of course as with anything online, you have an overwhelming choice of mediums for interactivism to convey such a message!

Anarchy - A Chaotic Mayhem Surely?

Is Anarchy The Way Forward?

Anarchy is inevitable, that much is known for certain, or at least a wide held belief. Where can one draw order from Chaos? Well according to Chaos Theory, patterns emerge organically in nature and are much more stable than those that we have artificially created. Take this principal from physics to biological evolution and you have the origin of Species Theory being proven. Take it further to sociology and politics and you have Anarchy emerging as the only sensible logical, rational state of Utopia in which we can have world peace. Okay, it's a bit of a leap of faith, although faith is belief in the absence of evidence, this would require belief in the overwhelming presence of irrefutable and undeniable evidence. Money is the deciding point; throughout history, goods have been traded according to both the effort of acquisition and scarcity. When money began to flourish as a means of fair exchange, the problems really started. It stopped being fair for a start, where there is somebody making money, in every case, there is somebody off of whose back that money was made. Financial and managerial hierarchies formed, allegiances were made according to financial benefits to the parties involved. In my opinion, Religion must have facilitated money's rise to power due to self interest (that's if money wasn't the idea of some form of Religion...). There are many interactivist organisations dedicated to Freeing us from the tyranny of money, such as The Really Really Free Market, Buy Nothing Day, the Freeconomy Community or even Craigslist and all of the Freecycle community. These are only examples of the myriad of NPOs (None Profit Organisations) trying to make the world a fairer nicer place without financial divisions through interactisism.

What does this brief history of Politics mean?

Well in short, it means that until Religion and money are ultimately removed from society, Anarchy will always have strong opposition from those who currently have power. Those with political power who may somehow agree with the ideals of Anarchy, have no real power to promote it as a means to a utopian end. There is no way to democratically vote for a state of Anarchy, I see this as wrong and almost dictatorial. In states where there is an entry for none of the above candidates in the ballot, this is simply taken as a protest vote and not a meaningful dissolution of parliament option.

Technology Is Evolving Towards Anarchy

Obsolete is the technology of mining and burning fossil fuels that do not replenish. We now know that the Carbon Dioxide released is warming the planet to the point where methane deposits in the world oceans could melt ending much of the life on this planet incredibly quickly. This is alarming as the last time this happened it wiped out 95% of all life on earth. Science and technology are key to preventing this potential apocalypse, not one particular technology or science, but an advanced amalgamation of all of the latest developments in green energy and manufacture. The hydrogen fuel cell is set to replace the internal combustion engine as a means of effectively powering our road and aerial vehicles. Soon enough the means of producing the Hydrogen will be available cheaply from wind and solar energy in and around the homestead. At this stage an individual dwelling will have no need for energy from the national grid and will become self sufficient and green. Other technologies set to influence the political arena are geothermal energy, high rise farms, nano-scale replication and manufacturing (essentially the ultimate form of recycling, put in your old phone, it gets taken apart to its molecules and reassembled get the latest model printed out), and of course stem cell research and gene therapy (potentially curing deadly diseases like cancer and HIV). My interpretation of the effect these technologies will have on humanity is not unique to me. Many libertarian Freedomists or advocates of political and economic Anarchy believe that these technologies will bring about an end to money's totalitarian reign over us. These technologies are a decade, or less, away but in my opinion they could be here sooner if we change our combined political and financial attitude. There are lots of examples of projects like The Venus Project and even mainstream efforts like the Greensburg GreenTown Project , these projects could be done faster and better if money were not a factor in the decision making process.

How Can I Get Involved In Advocating Anarcho-Capitalist-Libertarianism?

My Utopian vision of the future, is somewhat identical to the world John Lennon described so vividly in his most famous song; Imagine. The journey from here to there is fraught with perilous downfalls, with temptations for greed and self service. To ensure we make it safely we need to ensure we do not lose our footing and slip back into a possessive consumerist culture. Short of what Anarchists all over the world are already doing (which in my opinion only gives credence to the consensus of the masses that we are all a bunch of violent destructive simpletons who hate the police), you can stop consuming as much and try to become greener with regards to technology. Become part of a movement, whatever one you like, that is doing something that you can see is shifting paradigms towards a utopian vision. Or something like that.

What is in a Name? 1910 -2000 Back In The Decade!

Over the past hundred years, it has become more and more popular a cultural phenomenon to name the decade. There was the Roaring Twenties, the Thirties and Forties, Fifties and Swinging Sixties. The Seventies, Eighties and Naughty Nineties were relatively straightforward. Right up until the new millennium it took little imagination to perpetuate this new-found tradition.

Some kind of social genius, with a degree in semantics, came up with a name for the decade following the Millennium; The Noughties. It's not like it was entirely on the money (not many people say nought-one, nought-two etc...) but it was quirky and kitsch and it rolled of the tongue. That's what we need for this decade, something that sounds cool. It doesn't have to be massively accurate, just passably sensible. Oh, and it has to end in "ties", you know, to fit in with all of the other decades rhyming scheme.

What Shall We Call This Decade 2010-2019 ?

There are a few suggestions out there on the internet, and let's face it, that is where this will be decided. We have the "Teens", now obviously this doesn't come up to the standard of ending in "ties". We could add "ties" to "Teens" and get "Teenties", but that is a really unwieldy word, also it doesn't cover the period of 2010 to 2012 with the numbers ten through twelve not actually being classified as teens. We could take what we know so far to make a new word "Tenties", but that sounds really awkward and like a vague reference to camping. The list of examples in this ball park is fairly short so I might as well include all of them, here is the last runner up, "Tweenties" (shudder).

My favourite concept word for this occasion is definitely the "Eleventies", it may surprise you, as it seems to defy any definition itself, let alone as a defining term for this decade. My favour is spawned from the repeated utterances in the literary classic series Lord Of The Rings, and lead furthermore by the repeated references of the word such as "111EleventyOne!111!1!!" etc on internet messaging boards due to its overuse in on-line gaming. The word eleven (11) refers to the number between ten (10) and twelve (12), the word Eleventy refers to the number range of a hundred and ten (110) to a hundred and nineteen (119).

Why Will Eleventies Work?

I believe these factors; previous knowledge of the word amongst a large sub-culture (Examples of its use in context already found here , here and here) and the numerical logistical applications of the word itself, will contribute to the word Eleventies becoming the defining term used for this decade.

In the beginning there was nothing, if you believe modern scientists. I believe modern science, but it seems modern scientists are more and more concerned with the profitability of their research rather than the scientific advancement of man. Of course all of this pales in comparison with the final theory of man.

So somehow we have to completely re-write the fundamental laws of physics unless some bright spark figures out the answer to the great question, how and why we have mass and therefore gravity. Well all things are of course relative, as are the forces of time and space. Time passes slower within a body approaching the speed of light.

As we hurtle through the solar system at a velocity that is still unfathomable to the mere human mind. I am at a point in space and time right now, and now I am thousands of meters away due to both the rotation of the earth and it's orbit of the sun. There is another factor however that I am much more interested in, our current velocity from the centre of the universe.

Scientists are still theorising about the concept of a center to the universe, is there one, is that were the big bang happened? What rate is time passing there? That is an important question, could we be passing through time at a slower rate and therefore be evolving slower than other life forms in the universe. The opposite is also possible, so there could theoretically be planets out there with whole different ecosystems based on different elements.

I put it to the world of science and genius, there is always a theory that vacuums cannot exist in nature. As a race of beings descended from microscopic single celled organisms created by the subtle infusion of amino acids by way of meteor collisions, we have never directly observed or detected a true vacuum. Although we are led to believe by scientists that before the big bang there was nothing, a true vacuum to be precise.

The wonder of nothing, as if nothing can exist for any length of time, because time doesn't exist if nothing does. Therefore the laws of physics were merely obeying themselves to spontaneously start creation. We exist in a stable universe as only a stable universe could exist long enough for us to evolve an exist to perceive it. What happened between that, amino acids forming and the first single celled organism is still a question, but there is always a theory.

I have fallen in love with catchphrases, (A catch phrase (or catchphrase) is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance)that are usually good advice. "Look before you leap", "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth", "A fool and his money are soon parted" and my personal favourite; "Money is the root of all evil!", are just some examples. It is widely believed that it is the repetition of these idioms by the general population that leads to what we call common sense. It is unfortunate when people behave in direct contrast to any of these widely regarded life lesson sound bites from history.

Well who is writing today's catchphrases? Well one of my favourite modern catchphrases is from a widely respected man called M.David Merill who is a Professor of instructional technology at Utah State University, (ie a teacher teacher, very clever bloke, I want to learn about learning!). He said simply that "Information is not instruction", this is hardly a radical thought but an over sipmlified statement which strikes at a home a truth (the key to any catchphrase).

I would however not entirely agree with it. Of course I agree that not all information is instruction, but some of it is. The phrase "Not all information is instruction." is a little more accurate. I am not finished yet however, if some information is not instruction then what is it? I therefore submit to the internet that "Information is either warning or instruction". This simple message informs you that not everything you learn should be implemented, historical mistakes are information but not instruction therefore they are warnings.

Human behaviour follows certain basic principles that can be easily understood when looking at animal behaviour. It can also only be one of two things to society, positive or negative. Only one thing separates us from the animals and that is our ability to deviate from that behaviour through conscious decision making. However our decision making process itself is a learned behaviour, like a mating call. We use basic rules to govern our society, but these have proven to be completely ineffective at controlling the behaviour in larger populations.

We all learn and strictly follow a moral code that evolves with our personality, there are things we would do and things we wouldn't. Therefore our current system of law is not instructional information but warning information. My theory is that a society told what not to do on pain of punishment is old news, a society told what to do through positive reinforcement (simple behavioural science in reality, carrot and stick stuff here folks, nothing really revolutionary is it?) would lead to a more peaceful and cooperative world where collaboration to achieve excellence and the desire to learn more actively can truly commence, remember There is always a theory.

My theory about organised religion is that it was a grand idea for those who had plenty (haves), to stop those who had little (have nots) from getting any bright ideas about taking the surplus. Money had to be created so haves could trade with have nots in return for some form of labour. As with any commodity that can be traded under any system to create an atmosphere of control and power, money lead to coveting of money over human life (mainly due to patriarchal and matriarchal desire to ease the life of their offspring by acquiring much more than they need and leaving it to them when they die).

Religion facilitates this by promising that following it's practises leads to a happy afterlife. This imbues people with a sense of well being towards the final moments of life, this encourages them to consider their offspring's well being after they're gone even more (as the fear of death no longer occupies the mind constantly).

Man develops newer and more interesting theories all the time. I developed a theory of my own recently based on genetics in animals such as dogs. If we take what we know to be true, that when combining mating partners of too similar a genetic heritage, the offspring is usually genetically inferior to both parents often taking weaknesses of both but strengths of neither. What if you combine genetics that are less similar? In dogs the offspring is usually genetically superior to both parents, inheriting all of the strengths and none of the weaknesses. My theory is that this is also true in humans.

Social conventions such as religion and parental pressure have reduced the combining of different raced partners for many thousands of years. In more recent times though, due to many socioeconomic factors, trade has been increasing between different countries and inter breeding has been flourishing. In one specific geographic location race has been mixing since it's occupation by the first people to fish it's shores.

The British Isles have been the target of many a conquest over the years since it broke away from mainland Europe in about 6000 BC. Celts, Gauls, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Normans and Vikings have all come for conquest and settled here. Of course just before the industrial revolution people were moving to Britain in their thousands due to the fact that we made their countries part of our great empire! I believe this infusion of culture and genetics is what lead to the industrial revolution itself and to modern science.

Greatness is achieved by few (at the cost of many on too often an occasion), and so very few take it well. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, we've all heard this before. yet we all seem determined to push somebody else into power and then blame them for becoming corrupt.

Over the many years of human evolution, we have elected to form societies based around gathering peoples of various skill sets, to work together harmoniously. There's one skill set that stood out above the rest, that would define the very way we would govern our growing populations and civilisations to come; The ability to communicate with "deities". The first of these to successfully form a great civilization were the Mayans, or the Egyptians, (or both or whatever civilisation fell before them that set them on their separate paths from the same point of contact with extra terrestrial life in Antarctica, or whatever conspiracy theory or version of history you happen to believe (There is always a theory eh?)). The Egyptian and Mayan civilisations rose and fell, as civilisations often do, due to natural occurrences they could not foresee or explain. Around these great climactic events superstition grew into religious practices over many generations.

Those who were perceived to have special power to contact whatever deity controlled the environment, were able to gain control of the behaviour of the populous. As with many primates who live socially, up until this point in history we have only ever had a hierarchy of both maturity and physical dominance. The strongest bloodline of the society would be advised by the eldest, on how best to protect the community from outside and domestic threats.

The elders began to be replaced by the mystics and charlatans at some point, and religion began to be the primary focus of most societies. For peoples who were already rivalling over territory and resources, religion became another divide or a means with which to ally. Conversion became a weapon with which a tribe could gain dominance and territory to feed it's people. As these vast civilizations spread and receded across the surface of this planet of ours patterns emerged and evolved into systems of political power that we still see today, and some that were less popular or effective until we arrive at secular democracy, the closest we have come to not having leaders for a very long time.

Theoretically, Anarchy is the state at which we were most peaceful and productive, during our millions of years evolving opposable thumbs and therefore; tool handling skills, communication skills, nunchuck skills, fire making skills, you know skills, we most likely lived with no formal political structure. We live now in a world where the plethora of skill sets we need to hold society together are so fundamentally different from each other that a hierarchy is inevitable so it seems, even on a Meritocratic basis. Well there's always that money stuff we keep hearing so much about these days.

Without money or possession being concepts employed by the masses, society would be awesome. We would be living in an anarchocapitalist libertarian utopia where everybody takes care of each other, and there are no formal social hierarchies. Unfortunately greed is currently an integral part of our culture due to false scarcity and economic manipulation among other factors in what could otherwise be called a Kleptocracy.

There at the top of our world sit the UN security council, sitting listening to each other's problems and woes regarding each other's hostile behaviour towards the other; why? You really do have to ask why? Why do nations exhibit hostile behaviour to each other and why do we let them? Do people in authority really understand that we really all would rather just get along without Global Thermonuclear War? All of this bristling of arms by none anti-proliferation countries is deeply unsettling to me. I am not exactly a military tactician or anything, but I'm going to have to conceed to the fact that I've thought about being Kim Jong Il. I have thought hard about any potential strategy he may have as regarding taking over the world. Firstly, he would have to take out China.

I know, you're thinking "But The People's Republic of China and The Democratic People's Republic of Korea are friends!", well yes of course they are. If China sign the Nuclear None-Proliferation treaty they have to back the west in a challenge to North Korea about their stash of nukes. If this happens then the whole worlds attention and maybe even military spy drones will be focused on taking control of this stockpile.

Obviously Global Thermonuclear War is an unpleasant thought, nobody likes using nukes. We ultimately would have to consider deployment though if facing an enemy with capabilities to deploy such weapons against us at whim. I guess all I'm saying is that we're all really, really fudged if North Korea nuke China.