Edward, a madman and prophet of Jehovah, typing on a Linux laptop: The West is dying, and will be overtaken by the Networked Civilization. We shall have world governments, but the only ones which remain very long will build on the Net, not on the West.
The language of Heaven is parable; the logic of Heaven is symbols.
"I am the LORD your God... I spoke to the prophets; I Myself revealed many visions; I spoke in parables through the prophets." Hosea 12:9-10 (NET Free Bible)
In Matthew 13:10ff, Jesus said He spoke in parables because those whose spirits were dead wouldn't understand in the first place. Those whose spirits were alive had at least the capacity to grasp the ultimate truth on some level.
The revelation from God cannot be literal because no human language is worthy. Mathematical precision is for computers and engineers. Clinical description is for scientists. Ultimate truth is far higher than mere facts, for it rests on something which is not limited to this plane of existence. The closest you can come to describing it is to emphasize deductive logic over inductive. We deduce how to live in this world from revelation. Inductive can explore what it can sense of this world, what it can organize, but it cannot account for things in this world which arise from outside it. So call it supernatural, or superstition and mysticism and forget it, right?
Go ahead, take that path. I'll be the first to tell you I'm a madman. You can stop right there and read what follows as amusing fiction. But the truth of God revealed drives one to the edge of sanity, as humans consider such things. So I claim to be a prophet of God and I have a message to share. Like the parables of Jesus, if the truth does not seize you through my words, then it won't matter. If it does grab you, then make of it what you can.
But in case it matters: I am a long time ordained clergyman (45+ years), with a theology education and every bit as much a professional theologian as any other human. I am also a serious Internet user, professional technology writer, and genuine Linux geek. So much for human credentials. God forbid you should call this Scripture. There is a difference between Revelation and a revelation. The former is a theological term referring to God's Word to all mankind; the latter is simply an attempt to make the former relevant to a given context. This is a mere collection of prophetic applications.
Be warned to all who proceed: Revelation from God has always been delivered in murky language, parables and symbols, and a lot of hyperbole. I can't execute my commission by packaging it all neatly and precisely the way you've been taught to expect. Some of this simply cannot be stated literally. Even when it is, the margins between literal and symbolic overlap often and I'm not too sure myself what to make of it at times. If you take God seriously, you'll find something you need. If not, you may still extract something useful here, but I can't promise that.
Enter at your own risk.
A new civilization is aborning.
The West is dead, it's carcass moldering in the street. Will someone please push it off into the sewer? What once was is past. We shall be forced to bear its foul odor a bit longer, but that it is dead is not in doubt. Its last dying act was to spawn a successor.
Instead, we see the fresh-faced beauty of the Networked Civilization. You can call it another name if you like, but I would hate to limit this merely to the existing Internet. Cut all the wires and some other means of transmission will take its place. We have a had a taste and mankind will not be denied the full freedom of virtual communion. Our Internet is merely the current manifestation of it.
Governments will come and go, but only those which embrace the virtual world will keep power for long. Naturally, as with all things human, it will require a nimble foot in both worlds. However, the secret to ruling will be rooted in networking. Any government which tries to change the Internet through regulation and technological enforcement will fail. People will simply not allow it. Correctly do the voices of government policy realize the biggest threat to current Western governments is the virtual world.
And rightly so. God gave the West a chance, but she went from nasty to worse. Arrogant, spiteful, utterly mercenary, the West was doomed from the start. God published her doom long ago, but in case you haven't heard already, you have now. The Networked Civilization will hold the same mixture of promise and threat as did all previous civilizations. It will offer much good and plenty of bad.
Of particular interest to this prophet is the opportunity to resurrect things the West tried to destroy. Materialism is an ancient god known by many names in times past, but was the chief god of the West. The notion nothing important existed outside what the five senses and analytical logic could detect was particularly offensive to God. In the next civilization, it will be impossible to carry on that way. It's one thing to use scientific inquiry and inductive reasoning, but it's another to suggest reality ends with what that produces. Many today of the first Internet generation know instinctively that's not true. They might not have a name for what they seek, but it's outside that frame of reference.
While anyone could predict much will go wrong and mankind will make a hash of it once more, we must acknowledge God has now turned His attention to the new task of raising up the Networked Civilization. Eventually, this, too will turn on Him, but that's for Him to face. For now, the voices of His prophets call mankind to face this new future which His very own hand is helping to raise. Those of you who claim Him as Lord are now called to put your hands to this virtual plow. If we do not, we hand it to Satan entirely before it even starts.
Better by far to engage it directly and ensure some good is laid in the foundation. Thus saith the Lord: Those whom I call and touch must get fully involved in the virtual civilization now upon the earth. Now is the time to cultivate once again the ancient ways of My people, with a careful eye to what belongs today and what died with their nation on the Cross. But to drag in whole the filthy sewage of Western Civilization is offensive to Me.
Your fervent earnest prayers are an IM which will not be ignored or misrouted, because His DNS never fails.
Civilization was God's idea, His command through Noah.
The fundamental question which civilization seeks to answer is how people can live in close proximity with minimal friction. A higher density of humanity provides a great many benefits, but at a distinct cost. Each person must sacrifice some advantages which accrue to those who live in relative isolation. The higher density offers economic and survival benefits. The essence of human nature requires a modicum of interaction between fellow humans to maximize the potential for this plane of existence.
Naturally, the Networked Civilization is quite different from any previous civilization in approaching this issue. The value of shared information is presumed; that's the whole point of networking. Not so much in the information, but the sharing itself. However, networking is a civilization of devices, not precisely people. It requires people act through their devices. The protocols of this civilization are mostly a matter of technology and a host of interactions most of us never see, nor need we really consider them much. Our rising civilization is not the underlying protocols, but it does presume them. We are not the machines, nor are they us; rather, the machines are our portal to society.
As Doc Searles and David Weinberger explained so very long ago in their World of Ends, there has never been a more egalitarian approach in human history. Because we encounter each other via machines, we must of necessity make it all utterly flat, because the machines just don't care, can't be made to care. Instead, we have to reshape our caring to match what is possible. It's not that we lose all the beauty and ugliness we had before, but there is another layer between us which offers it's own set of beauty and ugliness. If we refuse to understand how it actually works, we make ourselves slaves and prey to others who do understand.
Fundamental to its nature is something all Western Civilization hates: No one can own it. You can own the underlying physical infrastructure, but exercising ownership in the virtual space in any way destroys the Network. It's existence arises from the full gestalt of hardware, something which is ever changing, and existing on a scale we can scarcely imagine. It is as close to a fully global civilization as is possible at this time in human history. It is not precisely a network of humans, but of mere machines serving humans. It stands on its own. Extracting the full benefit of this situation requires a shift in how we think.
There are quite a few gurus and experts, hackers and crackers, and all sorts of human talent behind it and involved in it daily, but it remains by nature a collection of machines. We can't even call it any kind of intelligence, but simply a collective means to process intelligence so it can be shared among humans. It's all about the machines, and we have to understand the way the experts and gurus together have decided how the machines will cooperate. There is a vast lore of voluntary directives (RFCs) based on human intelligence about how best to make things work. Humans own the machines and each gets to say exactly how it will cooperate within the agreed framework. There is room for variation, but vary too much and you'll find your machine disconnected by the refusal of others to provide the essential assistance in passing traffic. Human expertise is limited by the necessity of shared protocols, without which there would be no network at all.
In the end, it's all about trust. People trust others within safe limits all have agreed upon, and construct machines with programming to execute on the protocols. Within that framework, everyone is someone, and anyone can use or add something. Anyone can suggest improvements, and use the system however it allows by its design. It's the great leveler of humanity. There is a minimum level of trust, a sort of tension between protecting one's property while connecting that property to something far, far bigger. Each user gets to decide their machine's level of participation for their own purposes within the system.
Only in a virtual sense are we crowded together in a small space, with only the faintest reference to actual geographical location. Your identity is split between your physical person and soul, and your machine's identity on the Network. Personhood is inferred, and trust arises from this virtual relationship. It's just one big on-going agreement. It's the most civilizing thing so far when everyone has to learn how to get along to get anything at done. It's not at all a harsh conformity by command, but entirely of the nature of the thing itself. You can't be Net neighbors without being neighborly.
Don't make the mistake of thinking God is not interested and not watching. He has promoted the Internet from the start. God is pleased with this neighborly aspect of the Networking Civilization.
Thus saith the Lord: Withholding information is as the sin of murder.
Placing a gateway, or any other impediment to information access, is an abomination to God. If you depend on selling such access, you are a thief at the very least. Find another business model, or know the wrath of God will fall upon you.
The Network is based on trust. Trust is the currency of our commerce; it is earned by openness. Not just access, but accuracy, too. Twisting the facts and lying to promote your agenda is a form of access denial. Keep it up and you'll be marked a liar by those who know. When justice comes, no one will trust a liar and keeper of secrets.
Naturally, their evaluation of you depends on what they seek. Civility itself does not change with the new civilization; there is such a thing as TMI (learn the acronyms). Broadcasting your private life is a sin, too. Share with those who ask, if you will, but keep your personal details off the Net, please. It's as the sin of public nudity. Humanity is fallen, and pretending everyone can simply go along without being arrested by the sight of nude bodies is a slap in the face of God.
But the burqa goes too far. Anonymity is a precious commodity reserved for those who truly need it, and only when and where they need it. Keep hiding and no one will trust you. Your IP address is always exposed, and every machine has a unique signature, or the Net won't work at all, so don't make us track you down, because if we have to work that hard, we'll demand our pound of flesh. You can be anonymous when it doesn't do any harm.
Share your gifts. That's why God gave them. Those who have much, of them much is required. We reject any human controls over such matters; it's that voluntary nature of the Network. But if you withhold the treasures of your soul, for whatever reason, no one will trust you. Love your Net neighbor as yourself. Everyone's needs are your needs, and yours are theirs. It's not communism, which is simply an alternative form of greedy materialism; this is family.
If you in any way touch the Net, you must participate fully, or get off. Digitize your art/data, and it is free. Period. No further discussion. Once it assumes a format which can be passed on the Net, you cease to control it. If it can be shared, it must be shared. God is angry with any attempts to restrict access to anything digitized. He blesses and supports the pirates, because they do His work.
Attempts to restrict how information is passed over the Net will fail. God Himself will see to that. All those of you seeking the means to bypass evil technology are friends of God. In dodging evil and oppression, in this alone is secrecy and privacy warranted and blessed by God. May His mercy rest upon you and all your sins be forgiven. May His kindness fill your days with joy and peace.
Thus saith the Lord: Withholding information is as the sin of murder.
So very much has been made of the insistence some things need to be classified, to protect from enemy eyes things which might give them an advantage of us. They insist there is a tactical advantage to secrecy about our plans and methods, and that advantage is absolutely necessary.
Lies! God calls it lying.
He has made it abundantly clear there is no such need. It won't matter who your enemy is, what they know and what great and mighty things they possess to use against you. If you will but choose to proceed as God has said you should, they cannot win without His permission.
Notice, I do not say they cannot win, but that they must have His permission. If He wants them to win, nothing you do can prevent it. If you obey His Laws, you vastly increase the probability He'll never want them to win. He alone is permitted to keep secrets about His plans, but He has made it clear your best chance on this earth is to do things His way and let Him handle the outcomes.
If you insist on defying His ways, you will guarantee He has to break you down by handing you over to your enemies. Whatever calculus He uses definitely tips in favor of destroying you one way or another if you defy His Laws.
His Laws declare unequivocally you shall not have secrets. A secret is any information which affects others, but is denied them. It won't matter the motives; all humanity has the right in God's eyes to be as fully informed as every other human. More accurately, God demands we reveal anything we know which is pertinent to the life of others. Otherwise His judgment of that person's choices fall upon us. So classification systems and secrecy veils are a defiance of God because they deny others that final necessity of moral choice, and arrogantly seeks to interfere with divine processes. You are not God, you blasphemers who keep secrets.
There is no perfection in this world. Individuals, communities, nations, governments -- all of them are destined to rise and fall. God has it under His hand, and keeping secrets attempts to interfere, to stay His hand from His decisions. All it does for you is make you a target for His wrath. When any nation defies His commands regarding secrecy, torture, and other evils, they demand from God He release the demons of Hell upon them. He removes any protection He might have otherwise offered, and He permits a relentless degradation of life as that nation descends into Satanic filth. So it is with individuals and any other entity.
So it is with computers and data. The moment you place data into a digital format, you have crossed a barrier, you have entered that data into another realm. It now belongs to that other realm, and you are not free to handle it in the same fashion as while it remained in some other format. Physical objects you can control and hide, but electrons belong to the ether. God sees and knows, and will not tolerate attempts to treat electrons as physical property. It violates divine principle for this earth.
Obfuscate as you wish things which are simply private. Private information is that which affects only the parties which share it. It really is no one else's business, and you are required by God to keep it away from others not involved. Use encryption and whatever other means. But secrets are another matter. No human force can prevent you using encryption unjustly, not really. But God knows and sees, and demons stand slavering over the opportunity to devour your life if you abuse it.
Secrecy is a sin.
There must be sheeple.
The selection of folks who have some realistic idea how the Internet works is very small, indeed. Fact: The majority of all Internet connections terminate with a machine running some version of Windows. The networks are clogged with them, and they do not behave properly, defying the trusted negotiations of how things ought to work among those who really do know. Because of this, we who do know something about proper behavior on the Net are forced to endure a very heavy background noise.
Who is to say their uses of the Internet are any less moral than that of the experts? The Internet knows nothing of morality itself, only function. Personal morality affects the Net, but the Net is not the proper avenue for addressing human sins of that sort. In our communications over the Net, yes, we would discuss morality, but the Net itself is another matter. The Net cannot be made to filter for moral righteousness. So we must permit, even encourage, uses which fit in with the mindless, soulless traffic.
Granted, that there are so very many of them who cling to the non-compliant technology of Microsoft is what empowers that big corporation to ignore standards, it all remains within the bounds of what we can broadly tolerate for the sake of our needs. Were it not for their money and investments into the infrastructure, the Internet would hardly be so useful and so cheap to access. The basic laws of economics require we tolerate them, even at the cost of finding ourselves a tiny minority.
They need us and we need. It is good and godly to accommodate them where we can. The world is fallen and God has a plan for those who wallow in the Fall. In His time, all things will end, but we cannot hope for better things until then.
Rather, the mission for us is to continue the search for ways to work within the situation as it is, seeking ways to better our own uses. Whatever pure truth we wish to share between us who know can only be borne on such accommodation as we can make for mass consumers of frivolous and even harmful nonsense. There has always been, and always will be, a majority of idiots upon this planet. In their own domains, they may well be the masters of righteousness, so we tolerate them.
Besides, among the users of Linux and Unix we are saddled with a vast horde, a majority of users, who are just as idiotic and sometimes worse. The only way to prevent mass adoption by idiots is to make it harder to use, and then we all waste time on things which should be simple. So we sigh and realize we cannot protect our favorite OS from people who demand whatever it is that destroys the essence of the thing. In its place, Windows isn't so bad, either. Our number one problem is not technology, but people.
Narrow and rough is the path, and few be those who find the truth about networking. Broad is the way which leads down to destruction, and someday they'll take the Internet down with them. We who build the Networked Civilization must be always ready with a new technology, another form of networking, to continue what matters. Let not your zeal for the network flag, for God will prosper those efforts.
Be consistent, even if others don't understand.
In a very few years, we shall have ubiquitous video communications over most of the earth. Cell phones are nearly there now. But it's not a question of hardware; it's a question of access to bandwidth. Localized economics and personal poverty won't prevent the presence of network access, but may make it awfully expensive for anything but the most primitive level of textual transmission.
The heart and soul of the Networked Civilization remains plain text. We cannot easily transmit all the hundreds of visual and auditory cues which provide nuance. You can easily presume upon those who know you well to deduce some measure of such things, but the vast majority of the Net will need more overt clues.
We all have read talented writers who can draw you into their world quickly. While much of this can be learned, it's not essential. This is not simply a style issue, but a matter of consciousness. Aside from issues arising from the various cultural and language contexts, the fully civilized Netizen must grasp the necessity of presenting however much of oneself as can be transmitted over the network, within the context of the protocols in use.
Machines already process and transmit facts. To be human and networked with other humans requires transmitting the self. On the level of the network itself, the machines can identify each other, but for one human to recognize another requires something of substance, something machines may never quite understand. Even if they do, it will be an emulation of humanity, not a uniquely machine personality. Machines on the network facilitate reaching out to touch other humans; there is no other reason to have the Internet.
You can't reach into someone else's head and make them understand. You can only do so much to put yourself in reach of another human. However, the single greatest factor in Networked Civilization is consistency. Wrapped up in the whole business of trust, secrecy and openness is the necessity you wrap your own head around who you are, followed by how best to transmit that within the medium.
We use the term "character" which comes to us from the art of typography. The word indicates something which makes one thing distinguishable from another. To have character is to be not simply unique, but recognizable. Even with the radical changes of someone like Lady Gaga, there has to be an underlying character or she can't sell albums, since it depends heavily upon branding. Translate that to the Networked Civilization, and we cast aside all the visuals and sounds, and we have only the ability to express the self in text. To be a true Netizen starts with not simply a writing style, but a consistency so others can make sense of who you are. Your textual expression is who you are.
The fastest way to find yourself rejected from the Networked society is to be inconsistent. Not simply in style of expression and vocabulary, but in content. It naturally requires you know your own mind. We expect children to be flighty and variable, because they haven't learned enough to nail down what matters to them. They are still learning to participate in whatever "civilization" exists for them. A great many adults, upon first using the Net, appear childlike and annoying. They have entered another civilization, and it's foreign to them. With varying degrees of patience we Netizens try to help or simply avoid them. Their presence is a disruption.
Moving forward into the Networked Civilization will be greatly blessed by a self-conscious recognition of what it takes. Your place in such a civilization depends entirely on knowing what you really believe and doing your best to state your belief. It matters not what others think of your beliefs or of you. What matters more than anything else is character, the consistent presentation which can be recognized by those involved. Godliness in the Networked Civilization is character, a recognizable presence which comes across in the most fundamental mode of communication of plain text.
Know yourself and how to present.
A corollary to consistency is the power to resist attacks.
Every civilization has predators within and barbarians without. What makes a civilization strong is many things, but among them is the ability to take and hold real estate against attacks. The Internet is a metaphor for geography, and the greatness of the rising Networked Civilization is how well it matches the geography, how well it exploits available resources, and fends off attacks from those less well suited.
When the geography was small and simple, the Internet was exclusive to those who could be trusted a priori. That was long ago. The strongest form of virtual life on the Internet now is the device which can face the onslaught of predations without disconnecting. In simplest terms, that would be a computer with good security against known and likely attempts to hijack. Every civilization attempts to tame the wilderness and pacify the barbarians, but it first has to survive them without losing its character as a civilization.
God does not smile on a civilization which cheats on His moral laws, and the Networked Civilization is not exempt. The task is to abstract those moral laws properly to our context.
Conquering and pacifying go too far when it crushes the freedom of your citizens. What's the point? Civilized people aren't quick to slaughter, but they also don't disarm those under threat. In the real world, there cannot ever be a time and place when there is no threat so long as there is more than three living souls. It's the nature of this plane of existence, and it's the nature of the Net. Civilized people prepare themselves to face threats based on probabilities, not wishes.
If you realize the necessity for computer security, you should recognize the same need for your mind. Your place on the Net becomes strong when your machine and mind together are prepared for attacks. The very nature of civility is cynicism. You expect to encounter a generous helping of fools and predators, and you prepare accordingly. The moral high ground is not demanding everyone else behave, but demanding it first of yourself, then conspicuously contrasting your manner against others. You expect to be in the minority against the larger population, but if some few don't show the way, it all comes apart. To be civilized is to hold uncommon high morality, and to offer whatever defense is necessary to keep it.
Taking a single potshot and running away is cowardly and common. Trolling is a favorite pastime of those with nothing better to do, whose lives are empty. Whining is unbearable. If we object to these things, we should object to them in ourselves. Civilized people are committed to a standard they can't actually achieve, but never quit trying. The elite generally succeed, and deserve all the wealth and power that tends to come with it. Whatever it is that counts for success in civilization depends on self-discipline in pursuit of making the world more thoroughly civilized. Moral superiority is not compelling compliance in others, but inspiring it.
Don't get too wrapped up in yourself, nor in despising what strikes you as riffraff. Civility keeps the doors open to peace and takes nothing personal, even when it's intended as a personal insult. Consider the source. Everyone can change, and the best way to help them want to change is let them see your character. That character should include relative resistance to attacks, baiting, trolling, and other digressions from the matter at hand. Computers don't care; they are serene. You can be serene on your own level.
Serenity is a virtue, and makes God smile.
Some would think the coming economic disasters will hinder this new Networked Civilization, since networking is relatively expensive and requires a means to funding the power and equipment. The truth is networking will decline somewhat, but the very nature of the thing itself will not change. It will remain the single greatest need of humanity at this time in history.
The economic collapse, such as it may be, simply serves to curtail and help kill off Western Civilization. A singular virtue of the coming Network Civilization will be the democratization of access, where the dependency on economics will be reduced. Technology has already proven the effect of increasing power while reducing cost. We have reached the threshold, the balance point between the various factors where the minimum hardware available is sufficient for a very long time to come. Even the infrastructure of networking is commoditized.
Any period of limited access will be relatively brief, because the level of destruction it would take to end it entirely is not going to happen -- not yet. The Lord is saving that for another time.
There is much more we might say of these things, but the task at hand is to call for the hearts and minds to prepare for a new world, one which is even now aborning. Welcome to the Networked Civilization.
By Ed Hurst
09 October 2011
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: People of honor need no copyright laws; they are only too happy to give credit where credit is due. Others will ignore copyright laws whenever they please. If you are of the latter, please note what Moses said about dishonorable behavior -- "be sure your sin will find you out" (Numbers 32:23)