#technology_articles

The Blog

The Mont Order society has scaled back its fixation on being an organization, and is now more of a value-based club with a declared set of principles and autonomous members who act with or without blessing from above.

Background: The Mont Order's unofficial conspiracy As always, the overarching priority at the Mont Order society of writers and publications is to promote its members and their agendas. This has not changed, but the model of the group has been reformed slightly to put more energy towards supporting individual members and stop using the group as a vessel that requires its own devotion or resources. This change can be understood from what little content was actually made public after a long conference among the Order's top members. The content takes the form of a short set of written values on cards, which can be seen at the Order's unofficial press release archive "lordre.net" and also in a video originating at the Wave Chronicle. The Wave Chronicle is a leading publication associated with the Order.

The released content for the public contains a code with seven values that the Order will not withdraw, and which sum up the philosophy or ideology guiding the present plans of the Mont Order. Of these, the second may be of the greatest interest to readers of The clubof.info Blog. "Principle Two" declares to the world the Mont Order's most unique attribute, which is its open glorification of technological modernity, regarding it as the origin and future of the Order:

The Order accepts positive and popular globalism based on the inevitable trajectories of technology to unite disparate people across borders. Our own identity is closely tied to events in the world, mainly involving technology, as the internet enabled this group to exist. We see how technology is escaping its creators' designs and we celebrate this trend, which has also empowered us. However, we oppose with absolute conviction the neoconservative and neoliberal views of some major tech corporations including Google.

As shown, the Order has a powerful understanding of what it is and where it is going. It could be that some of the slower and less efficient features of the modern Mont Order may soon disappear, as the Mont program of values is acted upon and expounded for the foreseeable future.

As @Lukewearechange bravely said, US govt is more against YOU than against #ISIS https://t.co/t9yyGbWuQ1 pic.twitter.com/drQ4lMeww9

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) November 1, 2015

The clubof.info Blog

The Blog

In a feature article popular at Beliefnet within the category of "Tech Gospel", the idea of an angry God who wants to smite engineers and scientists for their apparent hubris gets discredited.

@GarionCoyote @beliefnet That is a legitimate view and I encourage that side of the story too

— Harry J. Bentham (@hjbentham) October 13, 2015

Titled "Does God Endorse Tech", the op-ed is part of the same educational effort as the L'Ordre blog, also popular at Beliefnet. The article asked, "For those of us who believe in a personal God, how should we see the relationship between technology and the divine, if there is any at all?" It went on to confess that the God portrayed in the Bible, as well as the deities of other religions such as the ancient Greco-Roman religion, do indeed attack engineers and seekers of knowledge. The religions do all too often portray engineers and seekers of knowledge as sinful. However, it only happens when there are other factors involved. What offends God, or gods, in most religious traditions, tends to be the attitudes behind feats of engineering and science, rather than these accomplishments themselves. In other parts of religious lore, God actively commands technological accomplishments, such as Noah's construction of the ark in order to save animals from extinction. The op-ed concluded:

"where one seeks technology for sharing, or to give it to others unconditionally to help them (a treatment for a disease, for example) no righteous God could do anything but endorse such efforts. The god of Christianity, Islam and Judaism appears to approve of sharing, and would not hesitate to endorse or even command the creation of technologies enabling sharing."

Read more at http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Tech-Gospel/Articles/Does-God-Endorse-Tech.aspx?p=3#OiKvtlFf3GMItb7f.99

In sum, the observation of the article was that technologies should pursue sharing, dignity and equality, rather than empowering a privileged few or usurping moral authority. Further, religious people should actually consider such technologies, e.g. personal computers and smartphones, to have even been endorsed by God. As part of its effort to gain greater recognition, the L'Ordre blog has created a new Facebook page at facebook.com/lordrecolumn, and invites its readers to actively share and sign up to its posts.

How long will the majority-Muslim #Kashmir be denied a referendum to decide its own future? https://t.co/vgIzI7Le5n pic.twitter.com/T7l2XhJqPr

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) November 1, 2015

The clubof.info Blog

The Blog

Synbio has been the focus of an op-ed at h+ Magazine, where it is praised as potentially carrying the salvation of humankind.

Synbio is a shorthand term for synthetic biology, which refers to a field of biology involved in sequencing synthetic genomes to create new species from scratch. It was largely developed by a team under J. Craig Venter, who also made the achievements of the Human Genome Project. From the Harry J. Bentham-authored article:

Like our bodies, our planet is no longer a sufficient vehicle for human dreams and aspirations. The biology of the planet is too inefficient to support the current growth of the human population. We face the prospect of eventually perishing as a species if we cannot repair our species’ oft-omitted disagreements with nature over issues of sustainability, congenital illness and our refusal to submit to the cruelties of natural selection from which we evolved. 

Once we recognize that the current species are flawed, we will see that only by designing and introducing new species can suffering, poverty and the depletion of natural resources be stopped. Once we look at this option, we find already a perfect and ultimately moral solution to the threats of climate change, disease, overpopulation and the terrible scarcity giving rise to endless injustice and retaliatory terrorism. 

The perfect solution could only be brought to the world by a heroic worker in the fields of biotech and synthetic biology. Indeed, this revolution may already be possible today, but fear is sadly holding back the one who could make it happen.

The article blamed a culture driven by profit at the expense of human needs, for preventing solutions to scarcity, disease, suffering and resource-driven wars. In the conclusion, the piece warned that if scientists do not break free from the immense corporate and industrial pressures not to share their inventions more quickly with the global poor, "we will talk about direct action to break free the scientific gifts they refused to share".

#Putin destroys @WhiteHouse's insane, irrational plan to end #Syria War like #Libya disaster http://t.co/odntFP1qMb pic.twitter.com/rCU0UbBAVh

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) October 7, 2015

The clubof.info Blog

The Blog

Responding to Robert B. Reich's New York Times article "Big Tech Has Become Way Too Powerful", an antistatist writer blamed big government for the very problems Reich was suggesting the government should solve.

Writing at the Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) Joel Schlosberg rejected Reich's claim that the government must intervene in free markets in order to maintain them. Reich claimed that "There can’t be a market without government", which Schlosberg considers ignorant of abundant examples ranging from international trade (considering there is no world-government) to trade among individuals in the anarchic spaces of the Internet. Also rejected by Schlosberg was the need for intellectual property as the pillar upholding innovation - by creating artificial scarcity in order to guarantee the existence of high-tech markets. Schlosberg instead advocated an alternative economy, saying "A full-fledged mutualistic economy of the digital age would instead be like the bazaars of eBay and Etsy, but for everything.". Schlosberg concluded by pointing out that Reich contradicts himself in the New York Times op-ed, at first rejecting the way corporations aggressively use intellectual property to shut down competition (and thus innovation), and then parroting the fallacy that intellectual property is the fuel of innovation. Intellectual property, like national security and protectionism, is one of several legal constructions used by political and corporate oligarchs to slow innovation and inhibit the spread of new technologies.

#Leaked: US regime wants to see #terrorism, dead children on US soil to justify #NSA spying http://t.co/Kn7tdJ0Rrg pic.twitter.com/OOGSBcOLuf

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) September 23, 2015

The Blog

The Blog

The following quotes and major points on the constraints preventing scientists and engineers from making poverty history come from the L'Ordre blog, and were published on 12th September 2015. Of particular interest are technologies that could ease industrialization in poorer countries if directly donated to them, such as artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing and synthetic biology.

rather than use humanity’s one redeeming feature – ingenuity – as our deliverance, we have wasted the world’s resources trying to stunt the growth of technology in countries such as Iran, allowing ourselves to be driven by a will to self-destruction and fear. This usurps the natural human yearning to create and evolve, in the spirit of our earliest ancestors

Billionaire entrepreneurs profess to help humanity but have done nothing remarkable to actually enrich, strengthen and boost the survival of poor peoples and states in the Southern Hemisphere. These people are more often placed under economic sanctions for their progress, rather than helped by richer countries

Most people who claim to favor the world's poor seem more interested in creating more refugee camps and inviting billions of people to live in Europe and North America. This more closely resembles the way Native Americans were treated during genocide rather than the heroic desire to arm the world's oppressed people against the world's rich and heavily armed powers

"Where science and technology cross with anti-colonialism, liberation movements and the desire for a mass uprising against injustice and inequality, there is the greatest source of hope for humanity."

Synthetic biology can create self-replicating chemical products including fuels and fertilizers to any extent, and such products don't need to be sold or owned by anyone but could just be given away to radically improve life and development in poorer countries

"Self-gratifying charity" of NGOs and philanthropists claiming to help the world's poor is hollow. They should be arming the world's poor to resist oppression and fraud with the latest technologies through direct action

Everyone takes risks with technology, so we have no right to resist the risk involved in giving out all the world's most potent technology to the world's poorest people

Science and technology need to be depoliticized and national security doctrines should not be used to stop the spread of new technologies, which should be applied to help the poor immediately upon being created

The full extent of this argument can be found in the Catalyst techno-liberation thesis

The post concluded that synthetic biology (the artificial genetic sequencing and creation of new living things) is the most important stride that could help the world's poor at minimum cost to the donor, due to its self-replicating nature and simplicity. The blog proposed that it will become "the key to ending all the world’s resource shortages, environmental problems and wars".

#Saudi aggression against #YemenChildren has the full backing of the US regime. http://t.co/HDBCBsmMK3 pic.twitter.com/ROi9tyuGfn

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) September 13, 2015

The Blog

The Blog

Digital products are essentially available for free and new advances in technology will make almost everything free, a Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) writer predicts.

Commenting on the music industry, James C. Wilson wrote of Taylor Swift's letter to Apple, in which she demanded that she still be paid for her artistic works even during free trial periods offered by Apple Music to customers. While the spirit of her letter is agreeable in fighting for the rights of individual artists to get what they are due, Wilson wrote that the current trajectory of technology will inevitably make all digital products free. Further, even real products will be made free and a post-scarcity economy will eventually emerge where everything is free as a result of further innovation. From Wilson's analysis:

The increased ability to share and discover information will only help those seeking to finance music and other creative projects do so. Furthermore, the duplication of digital content is just the beginning as advances in three dimensional printing and other technologies are now allowing us to duplicate tangible goods as well. Patents and copyrights are only going to become more unenforceable to our benefit.

The prediction aligns with similar theories including The clubof.info Blog's primary information pamphlet, Catalyst, which predicts an explosion in ubiquitous emerging technologies will overtake states and create an unprecedented era of personal freedom and erosion of power structures. Alluding to the same inevitable explosion in popular technology, Wilson concluded, "We are on the edge of a world of plenty, and government created artificial scarcity regimes are one of the few obstacles in our way... it is time to rethink the system entirely and embrace its post-scarcity potential."

The #Trance at http://t.co/DPPTgTOklH #Transparency #Transnationalism #Transhumanism pic.twitter.com/74h0xRDCQC

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) April 1, 2015

The Blog

The @hjbentham Blog

Whether we choose to use a capital "I" for "Internet" may be "a deeper question that it at first appears to be".

This was part of an analysis posted to the L'Ordre blog hosted by the top world faith website Beliefnet on Saturday, 20 June. The blog made reference to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's theories about the emergent politics of the Internet, as well as whistleblower Edward Snowden's philosophy and his attachment to the culture of the Internet. Arguing that Edward Snowden felt that the Internet was a "home", and post-nationalist dissidents view the Internet almost as their country, the blog made a case for continuing to treat the Internet almost as a "metaphysical space" and a legitimate power in its own right: The post said that the Internet allows people to look beyond their own country and function as "citizens of the world". "No technology has made such a notion more factual than the Internet", the blog argued. On this basis, writers might choose to be sensitive to how we portray the Internet and indicate its significance, even sovereignty, by capitalizing it in our writing.

US regime is scared of the world's greatest machine of liberation, the #Internet. #Baltimore http://t.co/Xdd23djKZG pic.twitter.com/ISA0n3fBF5

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) June 24, 2015

The L'Ordre Blog (Beliefnet)

The L'Ordre Blog

The dismissal of blogs as illegitimate authorities and their authors as charlatans is a cry from the throes of a dying elite, the L'Ordre blog reports.

A digital equivalent of the Protestant Reformation is almost beginning to take place, the blog - based at leading website on religious issues, Beliefnet - suggests. The blog goes on to encourage the formation of societies and networks of solidarity between bloggers, citing the Mont Order as an example of such a project:

If single bloggers can form a chorus enough to prevent wars or encourage social and political change merely by recognizing a shared truth, it is clear that greater coordination between them would only increase this capability. Thus the idea of collectives, affiliations or clubs of bloggers is a potent idea. I am trying to help exactly such a clan in the form of the Mont Order, for whom I intend to set up and promote a shared blog to popularize as a new kind of dissident society. 

Read more: http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/lordre#ixzz3YRCHfXvL 

Read more at http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/lordre#X62hmK7AJlexH0zy.99

The Mont Order recently set up a new shared website at the lordre.net domain on Sunday.

Visit the new #Mont Order shared blog, http://t.co/D1EnOaYfPU pic.twitter.com/v95YMQup5l — The Mont Order (@MontOrder) April 26, 2015

The revolution in alternate media has often been compared with the printing press that led to the Protestant Reformation. The L'Ordre blog praises this comparison, arguing further that the crossroads of radicalism and technology will bring positive social change. "Thanks to ubiquitous technology, many people have gone from voiceless to wielding a disproportionate ability to lobby world opinion", the blog observes.

The L'Ordre Blog