I wanted to start this essay with this sentence: "Like everyone else I have been fascinated with recent events in Tehran and the role of social software in them."

Only I can't.

You see, despite the fact the mass media are finally reporting about the Iran election protests and the role of Twitter (among other Internet tools) in them, pretty much only people actually playing in that space are paying attention -- and not all of them. And, of that subset, fewer still are really thinking about what this means to the future of social unrest and grass-roots political action.

Even of those Twittering with the hashtag #iranelection or those who have turned their Twitter icons green
in sympathy; most have no real connection to events there, other than a wish to support what appears to be mass uprising against the mullahs. A 'freedom' movement. We (and I count myself among this crowd) actually do not understand the real situation on the ground there, communicated to us in a storm of 140 character bursts and links to images; all a complicated mess of fact, rumor, and deliberate misinformation. Worse, we misinterpret the protester's motivations. Their actions. Even their goals.

We don't really understand. We tend to see everything through our own eyes. Forgetting, or never knowing, that the meaning of the word 'freedom' is somewhat different for us than for the protesters in Tehran. There is a cultural gulf here and few of us are crossing it. Most of us are almost guaranteed to be disappointed in the end! Even if they are successful, the protestors are not seeking to replace the mullahs with Western-style democracy. They want, and will get, an Iranian system.

And yet it remains compelling. It feels as though we are watching, even taking part in, the first software-mediated revolution. So we raise our own voices in a worldwide howl for attention. And that attention has been returned in the form of arrests and killings of those daring to use these social tools to protest and organize protest. All while the rest of the world remains mute.

(Sidebar: If every tweet with the #iranelection hashtag not posted by an Iranian was replaced with a dollar, the amount of money raised to assist the protests or rebuild the broken lives arising from them would more than suffice. Yet attention is a currency of its own, with value not easily measured in ducats. Still, attention doesn't pay hospital bills or help bribe jailers for the release of a young man who's only crime consists of words in Persian tapped on the keys of a cell phone.)

For me the most interesting thing here is the thing itself. As in the last U.S. election. As in Guatemala recently. As in every case where a spontaneous social upheaval finds itself being organized and broadcast to the outside world via social software tools. This is significant. This is new! This is proof we live in a future weirder than even William Gibson (Twittering as GreatDismal) could predict!

It makes me wonder about the future of software in politics and social discourse. What if the tools were just a little richer? Just a little more commonplace? Would the chaos of #iranelection be replaced by a system of vetted commentary over anonymous channels? Would we get an instant protest-wiki, edited into usefulness with the cultural background and history required to understand what is really happening? Would we have systems for raising money and getting it to those in need with a minimum of graft and waste?

And, more importantly, would our own governments find these tools to be instruments of freedom or dangerous channels for terrorists?

But that's not the punchline. No, this little joke has a real zinger: When (not if) such tools become available to us, they will not be intended for social upheaval. Instead they will exist for the same reasons that Twitter and Facebook and LiveJournal exist. They will exist so we can talk. So we can share who we are with the world.

And that is the kicker. Because who we are includes what we believe. And, in the end, that is the best hope offered by these tools. Maybe we will overcome our differences because we actually talk to each other. From this, I dare to hope that one day the idea of someone like myself supporting people in Iran who believe things about Jews, homosexuals, and women I could never agree to would seem a little less bizarre.

Over at Crooked Timber they're having an online seminar on Charlie Stross and his work. Lots of interesting reading for the politically aware SF fan!

In the post about 'Halting State' I was moved to comment about the literary value of the novel, resulting in the following (slightly edited here) extemporaneous review of the book:

I’m of the opinion that 'Halting State' is Charles Stross showing off. I mean this in a good way, of course. Let me explain.

Because 'Halting State' isn’t as accessible (or even as readable) as some of his other work, it is likely to only make the favorites list of those of us who appreciate the art and audacity of what Charlie has done. (Or those few who missed the writing strength, but found some part of it resonated especially well with them.) What do I mean by art and audacity?

Let me start with Audacity: Charlie set 'Halting State' in what is universally recognized as the most difficult time period to write Science Fiction about; the near future of what is clearly our own world. Few have pulled it off with good results. (Can we say Gibson, Brunner? There are others.) Moreover the near future of 'Halting State' is ‘right around the corner’. Speaking as someone who works in the mobile device industry I can tell you that all of the technology in 'Halting State' could be delivered in a couple of years, and might well be! (Note: The required network infrastructure won’t be well deployed by then and someone with real vision would have to fund the software development.)

Now, Art: The reason Charlie’s use of second person in 'Halting State' stands out so much is that almost no one does it. It is difficult to read for anyone used to first or third person and probably equally difficult to write. Moreover it isn’t well suited for character driven narrative because you are placing the reader, with her or his own opinions and life choices, into the mindset of the narrative character. This potentially leads to mental-modeling confusion and must be handled carefully.

So, in 'Halting State', Charlie simultaneously made two extremely difficult choices. And then he made them work in a story which not only was a ripping good tale, it also revealed something important about us and the future we may soon reside in.

Yeah, Charlie was showing off. Like a master tightrope walker doing two hard tricks at once, he was showing off to the other tightrope walkers (and wannabe tightrope walkers) in the audience. Saying, “See! It can be done!”

Sometimes it seems like McCain is pandering harder than a speed-crazed pimp with a stable of twenty-dollar hookers. His latest? He feels Michigan's pain...

No-one who has seen downtown Detroit can doubt that Michigan is going through hard times. But I dare any committed Republican to show me the real doctrinal difference between what McCain just said there and what Obama has said recently.

And then there is his flaccid response to Phil Gramm's statement that, economically, "We have sort of become a nation of whiners." After disavowing Gramm, McCain either pandered harder or misinterpreted Gramm, take your pick, by saying "I don't agree with Senator Gramm. I believe that the person here in Michigan that just lost his job isn't suffering from a mental recession."

Uh... John, Phil wasn't talking about the people who just lost their jobs. He was talking about the people with money who run companies and who took the other guy's job away because they believe we are in a recession and are therefore making cuts. The one is certainly dealing with a real recession, but Gramm was saying that the other isn't. (Although maybe he will make a real one by, for example, cutting other people's jobs.)

Oh, and John? Phil has a degree in economics. (Making him as likely to be right as any other economist.) What you got?

Oh! Yeah...

Some people are wondering what happened to the Obama they supported during the primaries? Meanwhile John Scalzi demonstrates why he gets all the link love with a little rant about who gets to call who an elitist.

As always, I'm the guy who hates the leading politicians on both sides. That means I get to say "I told you so." when people complain about Obama acting like a politician. I should point out that this doesn't mean you shouldn't vote for him in the general elections. It just means you have to be a realist. He obviously is and, quite honestly, that raises his credit with me...

Coke-spray inducing sentences like this: What is well past a joke is the need for creative market-based solutions to the problems of the farther left.

Honestly, I love the guy, but sometimes John Shirley's rants tend to read like a liberal version of David Brin.

Then he writes something like this or especially this follow-up and one is reminded that, agree with John or not, he can make a clear, cogent, and short statement of solid opinion. Now if he would just re-do his blog's front page so that it had a readable design and findable permalinks. (Thank ghu for RSS, neh?)

This is a kind of reverse futurism: 'How Sputnik changed your life'.

As always with Ken, the essay swerves all over the epistemological map; pushing memes before it into a gigantic, tangled heap that somehow looks like a patchwork temple to Athena when he gets to the last sentence. (How does he do that?)

I thought the only kind of slavery in China was the official kind. You know, where the government forces prisoners to work? (This is the reason I avoided buying certain goods made in China for many years.)

Well, I was wrong. China has the classic kind of slavery as well. At least they are starting to do something about it, despite the fact there was government collusion going on there also.

Note: I consider this kind of human slavery to be one of the worst possible crimes, deserving of the ultimate penalty. Preferably applied by the victims...

The Republicrats and the Demicans are doing it again...

Swept into power by a wave of revulsion against how the Republicans were running things, the Democrats have already returned to pre-election approval ratings. Probably because they promised to clean up Congress's act and then delivered more of the same old thing. (No, this isn't new. Anyone remember the 'Contract with America' when the Republicans followed the same script?)

In the meantime the Republicans are underscoring the corruption in Congress by moving to eject Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) from Congress following his indictment for accepting bribes. Although Jefferson probably deserves expulsion from Congress (and jail time) this effort is likely to backfire as the Democrats respond with some tits for this tat. After all, this is definitely a case of Republican pot calling Democrat kettle black...

In other words, things haven't changed a bit. And, so long as we continue to believe in a false dichotomy of left versus right in a power culture where those labels only apply to the rhetoric and not the substance, they will stay the same no matter who appears to be running things.

Don't believe me? That's OK. People do seem to prefer their comfortable illusions over prickly reality. That's the road leading to where we are today because it is how much of history was made. Expecting differently is expecting human nature to change; a fools quest if I ever heard of one.

This coming election year is not going to be any fun at all for people like me, who abhor the entire political class equally.

When I think 'Russian Engineering' the first thing that comes to mind isn't the word 'small'. 'Enormous' maybe. But definitely not small.

Well, want to try 'nano'? Over at Responsible Nanotechnology, Mike Treder says Russia is pouring more than a billion dollars into nanotech research over the next three years:

But what exactly will they spend the money on? Will any of it be used to study mechanosynthesis, with the goal of achieving molecularly-precise exponential manufacturing? There's no clear indication that it will be, and most sources seem to think that's unlikely, at least in the first few years. The vast majority of funding probably will be devoted to earlier generation nanotech.

We should point out, however, that some interesting work apparently has been done in Russia on producing "a roadmap to automated diamond mechanosynthesis." We haven't learned yet how well-funded or well-connected (or even well-qualified) the researchers on that project are, so we can't say for sure whether their work will be supported by this new government initiative.

Mike also points out some ominous statements from Putin as to the military objectives this research could support. As he says, it looks more like they are developing weaponized nanotech than a manufacturing technology.

Moreover, it is clear the Chinese have already launched their own nanotech program although it is unclear how much progress they are making, since their nanotech scientists are publishing far less than the average. (An indication of lack of progress? Or an indication of secret progress?)

The question this raises for me (being as jaded about government as I am) is this: Could the US military already have their own deep cover Manhattan Project style weaponized nanotech research in place? One with black budgets, secret labs, and everything? And if not, why not? It seems like exactly the kind of thing our current leaders could get behind. (It is so easy to imagine them snickering about turning bin-Laden into 'grey goo'.)

Yeah, it would be so much better if we had a nanotech Apollo Project going. A project with public oversight and positive aims. But this is the real world, one where the most likely scenarios all include the possibility of a nanowar of one kind or another.

I'm thinking Black Nano research is already underway. I'm thinking at least two governments in the world probably have some form of weaponized nanotechnology right now. (No, not 'grey goo' disassemblers. More likely something based on extremely fine dust which can immobilize machinery and/or kill people. Almost certainly they have some form of smart dust now. Possibly they have advanced bioweapons based on nanomaterials.)

I'm thinking it is time to start being afraid. Very afraid...

Before (and after) he wrote and illustrated the children's books for which he so well known, Theodor Seuss Geisel created many editorial cartoons. Back in 2000 the Springfield Library and Museums Association did an exhibit of 'The Political Dr. Seuss'. Follow the link for a description and a small selection of the 200+ cartoons from the exhibit.

If you are a real Dr. Seuss freak and want to see them all, you will want a copy of 'Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel'.

John Scalzi doesn't like the current ballot for SFWA president, so he has decided to run as a 'write-in' candidate. However, he does seem a little lukewarm about it:

Allow me to note that I am not particularly keen on serving in this position; I've been a SFWA member long enough to know that it's a fairly thankless position, with lots of herding cats and dealing with aggravating minutiae, and I have a career to look after at the moment. I'd just as soon not be president of SFWA, and if I am elected president, you should know now that I will view the position as something I am doing in addition to my writing career, not something of equal importance. I might as well be honest with you on that score.

Still, he is motivated in this by one very important thing:

. . . I believe that based on what I've read from him Mr. Capobianco is fundamentally afraid of the changing publishing world, and the changes in the world of speculative fiction, and that this fundamental position will cause him to make his tenure as SFWA backward-facing and defensive, rather than forward-thinking and innovative. This will make SFWA even more irrelevant to working writers -- that is, the people who are shaping science fiction -- than it already is.

Simply put, the professional organization of speculative fiction should not be headed by people who believe their job is to hold back the future. I believe strongly that Michael Capobianco sees it as his role to hold back the future and to maintain the status quo in publishing and in speculative fiction. That battle has already been lost; the publishing world has already irrevocably changed from when Mr. Capobianco last published. It's time that SFWA moves forward with leadership who understands this.

I like Scalzi's platform statement as well, especially this bit:

A rational view of copyright issues that while strongly affirmative of a creator's right to control his or her work also recognizes that the biggest problem facing creators is not piracy but obscurity. To that end I suggest re-evaluating the potential of online browsing initiatives in particular, to get samples of work to the largest possible audiences while still giving authors a say in how that work is viewed.

If you have a slack ten minutes (or, more realistically, a slack hour), play around with this fantastic visualization tool from the minds of Google. Really fascinating is the way you can try different values (such as carbon dioxide emissions or military budgets) on the two axis and then watch the change over time.

In today's Seattle PI there is an interesting opinion article about the real underlying problem the US forces face, "Tribalism is the real enemy in Iraq":

Forget the Quran. Forget the ayatollahs and the imams. If we want to understand the enemy we're fighting in Iraq, the magic word is tribe.

. . .

In other words, the clash of East and West is at bottom not about religion. It's about two different ways of being in the world. Those ways haven't changed in 2,300 years. They are polar antagonists, incompatible and irreconcilable.

In a way I think this kind of thing is self-evident. Yet, here in the West (meaning those places whose cultures are informed by the Western European tradition), we tend to discount these differences because we don't understand at a gut level the loyalty people can feel to their tribe. The extent that they will sacrifice their selfhood for the goals of their tribal community.

Could this lack of understanding stem from the fact we often don't feel that kind of loyalty even to our immediate family? This is a fundamental difference in outlook from the tribal tradition, and in the understanding of self; one that colors everything in our culture.

From their point of view we are selfish and self-full — unreliable, sinful, without real pride. From our point of view they are prideful, rigid, violent, tend to have sickening attitudes towards women, and find no dishonor in cheating or harming others not in their tribe. There is undeniable truth in both viewpoints...

But I do think there are levels of value to culture; cultures are not 'equal, but different'. And I think one way to measure that value lies in attitudes towards women. The article linked above suggests that we deal with the tribal culture on its own terms:

You can't make deals with a tribal foe; they won't be honored. You can't buy them; they'll take your money and despise you. The tribe can't be reasoned with. Its mind is not rational, it's instinctive. The tribe is not modern but primitive. The tribe thinks from the stem of its brain, not the cortex. Its code is of warrior pride, not of Enlightenment reason.

To deal successfully with the tribe, a negotiator of the West must first grant it its pride and honor. The tribe's males must be addressed as warriors; its women must be treated with respect. The tribe must be left to its own land, to govern as it deems best.

If you want to get out of a tribal war, you must find a scenario by which the tribe can declare itself victorious. The tribal mind is canny; it knows when it's whipped. But its warrior pride is so fierce, it cannot admit this. The tribe has to be allowed its face.

From my point of view this is exactly the wrong thing to do! Traditions are fine, so long as they are traditions that allow the members of the culture to grow as persons. (Note how the author of the article says a tribe's "women must be treated with respect." He isn't talking about respect for their persons, he is talking about 'respect' according the rigid rules of their culture.) So long as as their traditions say 'men are warriors' and 'women are subjects' these tribal cultures are stunted, unable to allow their members to reach their true potential. If there is any universal wrong, it is telling a person they are limited by their gender or some other circumstance of their birth unrelated to their intelligence and talents.

Perhaps we can 'win' in Iraq by allowing the tribalists to continue what is, essentially, a culture completely at odds with our own. But that only underscores the folly we made starting the war in the first place. If we cannot change their basic culture (and we can't, at least not in the way we are going about it) there will be no democracy. Instead things will simply return to their previous state, because tribal cultures tend to be ruled by the prototypical 'Strong Man'. I'm guessing that Bush and company know this and are hoping he will be 'our' strong man.

I'm also guessing they will be wrong. Again...

It looks like Israel has upped the ante with the Palestinians again. Of course Hamas is even more likely to try and bluff than the previous Palestinian regime, so the Palestine poker game keeps going back and forth between the two of them; each raising on the other and neither willing to fold.

If you read the entire article it seems clear the Israeli's had a small excuse, as usual, if not what I would consider a valid one. Also, as usual, the Palestinians are blaming the whole thing on the British and the U.S.A. acting in collaboration with the 'Zionists'. So what else is new?

Joey deVilla has a transcript of Canada's new prime minister's first call to America's president.

Back in the early nineties BW (Before Web) there was a general belief that the National Security Agency (NSA) was monitoring email and Usenet posts. (Remember Usenet? If you don't remember think Google Groups, because that is actually Usenet with a Googley front-end.) The story went that the NSA was building a database of email addresses by looking for certain keywords in Internet traffic.

I don't know if this actually happened or if it was just another conspiracy theory, but I do know that many people decided to fight back by adding noise to the system. These were called SpookWords or NSA Fodder and they consisted of a sig-line you added to the bottom of your email or Usenet post made up of a series of words believed to be on the NSA's keyword list. Words like Kremlin, Infowar, attack, nuclear, spy, safe house, encryption, and so on.

The idea was that you could make the NSA's database useless because it would contain far too many false positives. As ideas go it wasn't too bad, although the same kinds of Bayesian algorithms now used to detect spam could probably filter out a big chunk of it. In any case the practice lost currency and dwindled away years ago. You would probably have to search Usenet posts prior to 1998 to find examples.

Well, Stephen Fishburn was a bit pissed off by President Bush's domestic spying program and decided that posting SpookWords to blogs and sig-lines for a few days might be a valid, and very visible, way to protest. Would it actually hurt the NSA's programs (if such exist)? Probably not. Are they a good way to raise awareness of this issue?

Damn skippy they are! And with this blog post let me register my own anger at Bush's actions: Whether legal or not, whether Consititutional or not, makes no difference. What matters is that spying on American citizens without judicial oversight is wrong, wrong, wrong and must stop now!

If you decide to pick this up, please link back to Stephen's original post. Also feel free to comment there with good additions to the list.

[SpookWords]

I am an American citizen. I am not an advocate for terrorism. If called upon by my country, I would gladly defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Inclusion of the following list of terms in this personal web log (or email) represents my opposition to the President's domestic spy program as well as my belief in the Bill of Rights and my 1st Amendment rights of free speech.

Al Qaeda, Taliban, Iraq, assassinate, 9/11, bomb, plutonium, George W. Bush, POTUS, uranium, target, airplane, train, bridge, tunnel, ship, building, kidnap, Afghanistan, explosives, C4, nuclear, infidel, Allah, Satan, suicide bomber, echelon, New York, Washington DC, White House, Congress, Senate, satellite, Army, Navy, soldier, insurgent, Osama bin Laden, jihad, police, Secret Service, FBI, National Security Agency, wiretap, surveillance, and Carnivore …

[/SpookWords]

Dictators have blogs.

(Update: And wannabe states with no official existence have slick promotional websites.)

Previous singularity clues:

1. Charlie Stross's imagination having performance anxiety

It was rejected with a 64 per-cent margin. So, I guess crime-ridden Brazil has avoided becoming proof of the adage "If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns."

I say this because I believe banning guns will not take guns out of the hands of the criminals any more than banning drugs stops people from using drugs. The thing is, criminals, by definition, are willing to break laws and hurt people. So the only possible result of such a ban is to make law-abiding people more vulnerable. I really do believe this, and that makes me happy for the Brazilians.

But there is something bothering me about the vote. You see the National Rifle Association of the United States somehow got into the act. Apparently the local gun lobby sought help from the Norte Americanos for strategy and tactics. Forgetting, perhaps, that Brazil (and the rest of the world) is not the U.S.A., the NRA obliged. They even became accredited with the U.N. for exactly this kind of international lobbying.

I feel as if there is something creepy about the NRA (despite my views on gun ownership), so this makes me unhappy.