Website review: Revolution, flashmobs, and brain ch...
KingBoy discovered this in Futurism
•23 reviews since Apr 8, 2007
futurism, politics, military
•guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2053020,00.ht...
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KingBoy discovered 13 months ago- Ministry of Defence's ("probability-based") vision of the future. Emphasis is on fear, danger and horror, but this is not without some justification.
- Sawbones84 rated 10 months ago
- Christ, the future sure is looking grim. Even if only half these predictions are half right, we've inherited one hell of a shit show, eh? Am I'm supposed to believe that I'm going to grow old in this fucked up reality?
- LifeHacker rated 13 months ago
- Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future. Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. "Flashmobs" - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups. This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the "future strategic context" likely to face Britain's armed forces. It includes an "analysis of the key risks and shocks". Rear Admiral Chris Parry, head of the MoD's Development, Concepts & Doctrine Centre which drew up the report, describes the assessments as "probability-based, rather than predictive". The 90-page report comments on widely discussed issues such as the growing economic importance of India and China, the militarisation of space, and even what it calls "declining news quality" with the rise of "internet-enabled, citizen-journalists" and pressure to release stories "at the expense of facts". It includes other, some frightening, some reassuring, potential developments that are not so often discussed. New weapons An electromagnetic pulse will probably become operational by 2035 able to destroy all communications systems in a selected area or be used against a "world city" such as an international business service hub. The development of neutron weapons which destroy living organs but not buildings "might make a weapon of choice for extreme ethnic cleansing in an increasingly populated world". The use of unmanned weapons platforms would enable the "application of lethal force without human intervention, raising consequential legal and ethical issues". The "explicit use" of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and devices delivered by unmanned vehicles or missiles.
- st0gey rated 13 months ago
"Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. "Flashmobs" - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups. This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the "future strategic context" likely to face Britain's armed forces. It includes an "analysis of the key risks and shocks". Rear Admiral Chris Parry, head of the MoD's Development, Concepts & Doctrine Centre which drew up the report, describes the assessments as "probability-based, rather than predictive". This so-called "future strategic context" is the result of rationalism within a framework of institutional lunacy, to paraphrase Chomsky. Maybe it's time for us to dismatle our governmental institutions, lest such speculation becomes self-fulfilling prophesy! For the official report and others like it...http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/People/Speeches/ChiefStaff/R usiChristmasLecture.htm For a better understanding of Chomskys observation...http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/200108--.htm
- caravia rated 13 months ago
- "The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx," says the report. The thesis is based on a growing gap between the middle classes and the super-rich on one hand and an urban under-class threatening social order: "The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest". Marxism could also be revived, it says, because of global inequality. An increased trend towards moral relativism and pragmatic values will encourage people to seek the "sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism". By 2010 more than 50% of the world's population will be living in urban rather than rural environments, leading to social deprivation and "new instability risks", and the growth of shanty towns. By 2035, that figure will rise to 60%. Migration will increase. Globalisation may lead to levels of international integration that effectively bring inter-state warfare to an end. But it may lead to "inter-communal conflict" - communities with shared interests transcending national boundaries and resorting to the use of violence."
- Xtine66 rated 13 months ago
- Why are futurists always sadistic bastards who apparently want to tie up and beat everyone?
- Mystiker rated 13 months ago
- From the page: "The development of neutron weapons which destroy living organs but not buildings "might make a weapon of choice for extreme ethnic cleansing in an increasingly populated world"."
- illuminati420 rated 13 months ago
- Above all else the governments of the world fear they may lose control of the proletariat whom they've so carefully corralled and culled for so many years...
- JSm1th rated 13 months ago
- I need a suit like this.
- JD001 rated 13 months ago
- This is both, interesting and scary reading.
