permaculture

[Mark Feineigle <mfeineigle@gmail.com>]

Facebook was released when I was in college. It was adopted quickly as a
way to share information among classmates. You could miss a class and get
the notes within a few hours of the session - no need to wait to physically
meet up and copy them anymore. The collaboration made it possible for me to
forgo purchasing several books because I would coordinate with others to
share books. I believe it was next expanded to include high-schools and
finally the general public. With each leg of its expansion and adoption it
got more diluted - to the point where, as we see today, it is what I
crudely call a social circle-jerk. As with much of the internet, the youths
are a primary driver of what is popular. Once parents were using Facebook,
the kids moved on to Instagram (later purchased by Facebook for 1 BILLION),
and now Snapchat.

There have been reports of James Clapper (director of the FBI, who lied
under oath
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/01/27/darrell-issa-james-clapper-lied-to-congress-about-nsa-and-should-be-fired/)
being seen milling around the Facebook offices - even poking his head in on
meetings to say "Hi" to Zuckerberg.

While all of the companies implicated deny any involvement in the PRISM
program
http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/06/washington-post-nsa-fbi-tapping-directly-into-servers-of-9-lea/(not
to mention the rarely mentioned
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_Wind Stellar Wind), which was
initially revealed in 2008 (
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/06/att-whistleblow/; Room 641A; Mark
Klein) to little fanfare, a simple thought experiment should show that the
alphabet soup agencies (domestic and foreign) would love to get their hands
on a database of what everyone was doing. Historically, as empires
grow/fall, paranoia rightfully sets in and they go about policing their own
people. Would the Stasi not salivate over such technology had it been
available to them?

G+ (along with Linkin) seems like the next iteration to catch the fleeing
Facebook users. The first thing that strikes me as odd is Google's motto:
"Do No Evil". In my experience when someone makes a big deal about what
they are not doing, that is usually exactly what they are doing. Google
executives Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt were caught buying
government fuel for their fleet of airplanes below market value
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-jet-fuel-2013-12. While this is not a
huge deal in and of itself, it does implicate Google as being connected to
the government in a less than legit way.

Google right now has a market capitalization of 404 BILLION dollars, just
under Exxon Mobile's 410B. To put this in perspective, Ford has a market
cap of 60B and Southwest Air is at 15B. How can Google be worth so much
more than these companies? Ford has factories, inventory, real assets;
Southwest has a fleet of airplanes. What does Google have? Data. Your data.
There is an old saying: if you aren't paying for a product, you are the
product.

Over the last few years, Google Executives have been selling billions
dollars in shares http://finviz.com/insidertrading.ashx?oc=1295231&tc=2&b=2.
Bill Gates has been doing the same
http://finviz.com/insidertrading.ashx?oc=902012&tc=2&b=2. If these people
cared about us at all, wouldn't even one billion dollars be able to do a
LOT of "not evil"?

As a quick aside, Adobe purchased Omniture in ~2008
https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/solutions/government/pdfs/govt-insight_whitepaper.pdf.
This is software included in (all?) Adobe products that tracks,
"anonymously", what you are doing. Flash, as in 99% of videos on the
internet, is an Adobe product. I would strongly suggest uninstalling all
Adobe products and using something like http://www.clipconverter.cc/ to
download the videos or http://www.foxitsoftware.com/company/ to read PDFs
without telling Adobe what you are interested in. Photoshop is a bit
harder, but GIMP's development is chugging along nicely http://www.gimp.org/
.

Executive Order 12333 grants the attorney general (Holder, also caught
lying about Operation Fast & Furious
http://www.examiner.com/article/holder-lying-fast-and-furious) and the
heads of the FBI or CIA the power to spy as long as they both agree
https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/eo12333.html,
http://dropbox.curry.com/ShowNotesArchive/2014/01/NA-584-2014-01-19/Assets/SnowJob/auth-dag-eo-12333.pdf.
What kind of checks and balances are these? The same as the secret FISA
courts I suppose
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/17/politics/surveillance-court/index.html.

I think these social networks are an intelligence agencies dream come true.

Even if they aren't working hand in hand, you can often identify "shills"
on these and other popular message boards like Reddit (and previously
Digg). With persona software (Reddit Enhancement Suite) you can easily
manage multiple accounts giving the illusion of many users controlled by
one person. To derail conversation takes little more than making a few
jokes and using your alternate accounts to upvote your jokes. Alternatively
you can make a lengthy "sciency" post that your average user will not even
read, let alone critically examine. Psychologically people are drawn to
"likes" and "upvotes". They pile in under social pressure and a thread is
derailed, limiting actually discussion. Reddit has caught users
'firemylasers' and 'JF_Queeny' (among others, likely controlled by the same
person/people) "shilling" for Monsanto/GMO over and over again. How can
these people never comment, but then the second a thread criticizes
Monsanto, they are out in droves? (
http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1c04oc/monsanto_shills_are_sprouting_up_all_over_reddit/
)

The silver lining is that these social networks are just tools, they can be
used for good almost as easily as they can be evil. What one must remember
though is that, at the end of the day, these tools are not in our hands,
they are in the hands of Facebook, Google, or Conde Naste.

The internet is, by definition, a decentralized system. So why do we always
gravitate to these centrally controlled networks? Ignorance and convenience
is what I would say. It is much easier to sign up for an account than it is
to run your own server. This gets to be less and less true every day
though. There are small "plug computers" like the Sheeva Plug and Guru Plug
that act as basic servers fairly accessible to the average user. If
everyone had one of these we would be able to have the same functionality
as FB/G+, but we would be in control of our data. Only sharing with trusted
sources, making public only what we want public, and at the end of the day
we could simply unplug if so inclined.

Email is in the same centrally controlled boat. I use still hypocritically
use Gmail - primarily because I am poor. Plug style computers could fill
the purpose of personal email servers almost as easily.

When reading about the Cuba IPC I couldn't help but see it in the same
light as a G+ circle, preaching to the choir. Tens, likely hundreds, of
thousands of dollars were spent by the attendees to talk permaculture with
other people who are already sold on the idea. From what I read it was even
a bit of a fiasco. What if instead those same people all headed to Haiti
(just a random example) and plowed those dollars/time into a shining
example of what permaculture can do? Michael Reynolds, of Earthship fame,
did something like this. Contact some news agencies, blog about it, etc.
Show local people what permaculture can do (Give a man a fish or teach him
to fish?) instead of giving each other a pat on the back.

Microfinance is another decentralized way to spread ideas while actually
producing results. Sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo can be used to
harness the power (money) of large groups. Loads of people can't afford to
attend any kind of IPC, but would be glad to kick in 20USD just like they
were after the earthquake struck Haiti.

Look at how much money is raised by those stupid celebrity concerts.
Remember after Haiti's earthquake when
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2SgidwR4ds Bush and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs-4ZT3Rv_M Clinton said "if you want to
help, we don't need food/blankets, just send cash"? What happened to all
that cash? An industrial park and luxury hotel were built on the north side
of Haiti (not where the damage was) in the name of promoting jobs and
tourism. Haiti is still in ruble (not to mention the cholera) even after
millions of dollars were spent. In my opinion, these
celebrities/politicians prey on your emotions to steal your money and
stroke your "I did my part" ego. Look more into the Red-Cross, they don't
do shit for how much money they get. If you ever wonder about these NGOs
and non-profits, check out https://www.guidestar.org/ and look at their
form 990 tax returns. Loads of them pay ridiculous salaries to their staff.
Some get totally anonymous "donations" to the tune of millions to promote
sometimes dubious ideas. Most people know this intuitively, just like most
people intuitively despise politicians and lawyers.

I could go on and on, but this is too long already. I think I have given
enough to get anyone who cares more than a sufficient head-start. There is
loads of info in the show-notes/clips at http://www.noagendashow.com and
http://nashownotes.com/. Coincidentally the latest episode, 592, covers
quite a few things I talked about here. In the end it is up to the
individual. You can't count on anyone to get you reliable information.
Could I be wrong? I sure hope I am!

"...don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by
logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through
pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is
our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are
skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the
wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to
happiness' -- then you should enter & remain in them." -
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.065.than.html

Thank you for your time and attention,
Mark Feineigle