The basic modus operandi behind civilization is: BUILD it, then PROTECT it. What if this is the wrong paradigm? What if protecting civilization -- through defensive and offensive measures -- is a waste of money, time and resources compared to other options? This article will argue that it is.
The U.S. is the current poster child for the civilization that spends more money, time and resources on defense than any other civilization does or ever has. About $700 billion a year is allocated by American citizens for "homeland security" -- to defend against attacks, insurrections, criminals, rebellions, wars, aggression and now so-called "terrorism."
The idea is: put money into PROTECTING civilization from DAMAGE. Keep things that will damage it AWAY. Repel bad or unknown things. Protection is the only way a civilization can survive, let alone advance.
Is it any wonder "SECURITY" is the new buzz word, replacing the word "FREEDOM"?
Endlessly vomited in the mass media, to extort billions from the petrified public, the word "SECURITY" is the help-maiden of the rich and powerful -- anyone who makes weapons to ostensibly "protect" the masses. Thus, millions of scared rabbits willingly hand over taxes, debt service and premiums to less than 1% of the population that provides "security" and "protection."
So what's wrong with this your standard meat-head will ask?
Let's answer this question with the question: have you ever watched STAR TREK, in particular the episodes on the BORG? The BORG is the most powerful civilization in the Universe. When some enemy invades their ship, how do they "protect" themselves? Do they turn on flashing red lights and sirens? Do they man their battle stations? Do they ready their weapons? Do they viciously attack the "enemy?" No, they do none of these quaint things. In fact, the BORG does absolutely nothing. They simply IGNORE the invader and go about their business.
But they're the most powerful civilization in the Universe, how can they just do nothing? They do nothing because they can AFFORD to do nothing. They are SO powerful, no "gunman" or "criminal" or "terrorist" CAN do anything to harm them. If, for instance, some criminal sets off a shoe bomb in section 158 of the BORG ship, very little will be destroyed because everything is built so well.
Even some "terrorist" does maximum damage by flying a space ship into the BORG ship, so what? The BORG ship will instantly self-repair because it's made of nano-assisted Nitinol 55. All systems will be back to normal in a matter of minutes.
If some "gunman" storms in and shoots BORG elementary school kids, they too are repaired to full health in a matter of minutes using the universal BORG biosynthesizer. Any invader, whether gunman, enemy, criminal or terrorist is thus defeated, NOT by the ancient methodology of armed forces and military power, but by the technology of resiliency, redundancy and instantaneous self-repair.
In short, the BORG is the most powerful civilization in the Universe -- not because it has military might -- but because it can REPAIR itself faster than any power can DIS-REPAIR it.
No matter how much energy an invader, enemy or terrorist levels at the BORG, that energy is quickly absorbed and converted into a creative, self-repairing agency that nullifies all counter-creative forces (destruction).
A TRULY POWERFUL CIVILIZATION WILL ALLOCATE ITS RESOURCES TOWARDS THE ATTAINMENT OF THE ABILITY TO SELF-REPAIR RATHER THAN THE ABILITY TO PROTECT.
In this light, spending money, time and resources on defending civilization is foolish, if not childish. It's childish because the barbaric impulse in homo sapiens dictates that, when threatened, one should fight back. In other words, conflict is always the "solution." But, with the luxury of conflict, there is a darker side: conflict costs way more than technological advancement. And, through conflict "resolution," the wrong people are usually the beneficiaries. By this it is meant that the irrational meat heads of the civilization are the beneficiaries. These are then usually granted far more credence than they deserve. They garner credence and validity because they claim to "protect" society from enemies, criminal and "terrorists." They usurp credence because they play upon the fear that you and I "need them on that wall" protecting us and providing "security." They will gladly take your freedom and give you security, a security that is fraudulent much of the time.
Such "statist" mentalities -- the warrior, the serviceman, the policeman, the politician, the public servant, the official, the lawyer, the authority, the Graham/McCain mentality -- will always want to commandeer the lion's share of civilization's resources because they are providing "protection". And in the world THEY have created, protection IS an indispensable commodity. But this is the world THEY have created. Fear and scarcity. If THIS world is UNcreated, then their "protection" becomes less valuable, if not meaningless. This is the world we all must strive to create, but this is the world these dark forces will work to prevent.
To the statist, mandatory, mafia-style protection is the ONLY concept their brains have been hard-wired to comprehend. As a result of billions of years of evolution, the idea of using TECHNOLOGY and REASON to create SECURITY never occurs to the "thugs with guns." The idea of allocating civilization's resources to incrementally move towards self-repairing, redundant, decentralized systems that will someday make protection, defense and war obsolete, is an alien concept -- like peace and love, trust, abundance and freedom.
Instead, such mentalities will retort: "What you advocate is pure science fiction," or "do you want a civilization like the BORG?" The answer to these objections are "yes" and "no." Yes, all this IS pure science fiction at this time; BUT most sci-fi eventually becomes reality if it has practical value. And no, I do not advocate a BORG-like civilization, however, if civilization were to allocate even fractions of the money it spends on destruction into technology that builds self-repairing systems, we would eventually become a stronger and more resilient civilization. Like the imaginary BORG, we could possibly become the most powerful civilization in the Universe someday.
Unfortunately the path we are now on ensures we will become the least powerful civilization in the Universe.
The path we are on now is a top-down management plan where the tallest, beer-drinking white guys with IQs of about 120 rule the planet. Yes, these meat heads are in charge of the world's resources. And they justify the peddling of "security" by provoking constant conflicts, overtly and covertly, directly and indirectly to steal these resources. This is good for business, they "reason" -- especially business for their military-industrial-banking complex.
The only way out of this caveman-era paradigm is to terminate the allocations of money and energy we give to such defensive systems and start allocating it into technology that will eventually produce self-repairing systems. Even if self-repairing systems are not possible at first, redundant and decentralized systems ARE possible. These are perfect substitutes, for decentralization is a key element of redundancy and the two operate as elements of self-repairing systems.
A self-repairing civilization, for instance, is one that has local solar power on every house so that when the central power grid goes down, millions of lives aren't frozen in their tracks.
The entire mentality of civilization is thus upside down. The idea of defense vs. self-repair is akin to the concept of central planning vs. distributed planning. The energy of civilization should be directed from repelling antagonistic elements through military force into the technologies that make self-repair and sustainability so dominant -- no enemy, criminal or "terrorist" can possibly prevail.
Bluntly: it is far more practical to quickly fix something that's broken than to attempt to protect every square mile of a civilization's infrastructure with endless military forces centrally commanded by some totalitarian, one-world government. Put the billions into society itself, NOT its militarization in the name of "security." The security is a lie. Put the billions into technology that creates wealth and robust advancement for all, not AI systems that will subjugate billions of people through the extortion of "security." Militarized AI will wipe out all of humanity. One paradigm will benefit just the rich. A truth. The other paradigm will benefit the rich and the poor. The reality we can all have.
The modern police state is predicated on the premise that it's more economical and practical to use force to PROTECT something from getting broken, than FIX it or NEUTER it through redundancy.
Unfortunately the "protect" orientation depends on an infinite escalation of external force whether centralized or decentralized.
Were the energy that goes into the infinite escalation of protective force allocated to technologies of repair, redundancy and rehabilitation civilization would eventually arrive at a state whereby it was impervious to any and all destructive forces.
DESTRUCTIVE FORCES WOULD THEREFORE CEASE TO BE BECAUSE THEY COULD HAVE NO EFFECT ON THE RECIPIENT TARGETS.
The direction the current civilization is headed -- "current" because so many civilizations have come and gone -- is toward global totalitarianism in the name of a "security" that will always be limited or non existent, and a highly-stratified society that is constantly in turmoil and conveniently riddled with so-called "terrorists." In other words, the calculus of the current paradigm is toward a high-tech slavery and a civilization that's endlessly weak.
Is this what you want? Is this what you go to the assembly-line to support? If not, refuse to allocate any more of your taxes, debt service or premiums to any entity that works to create central security and defense rather than self-repair, redundancy and localization. Refuse to support apologists of the Old World Order who do not understand that a self-repairing civilization is more powerful than a centrally-protecting one.