by Tony Cartalucci
May 3, 2013
from
LocalOrg Website
Spanish version
The Conquistadores were soldiers and explorers
who conquered foreign lands and their people on behalf of the Spanish Empire
between the 15th and 17th centuries.
Highly organized, with the resources of an
entire empire behind them and armed with superior technology, they easily
swept aside entire civilizations, including the Aztec and Incan Empires.
There was an immense technological disparity between the Conquistadores and
the empires they toppled. Paralyzing fear of these foreigners and their
technology caused many to either flee or even side with their new overlords.
While the Conquistadores were far from the gods many may have perceived them
to be, the ignorance of the natives coupled with their technological
inferiority created conditions not unlike a god descending upon a world to
devour it.
Today, these natives still exist in many countries as second-rate
citizens to the descendents of the Conquistadores, so many centuries later.
A similar scenario played out in North America
with the coming of French and British colonialists. Both a technological
disadvantage and infighting amongst native tribes allowed Europeans to
swallow up an entire continent.
Like their counterparts in South America, North
American natives to this day exist in a state of perpetual subjugation.
With globalization, many believe such disparities are increasingly rare, and
then, only in cases of Western nations leveraging their vast resources and
technological advances against third world nations on the modern
battlefields of imperial conquest.
This perception is held by people who only
understand the world in terms of borders and nation-states, and fail to see
the deep states that have existed and are indeed expanding within their
midst.
Within the nations of the West, there exists a technocratic deep state, one
that is not confined to the borders of any particular Western nation, but
pervades the geopolitical boundaries of them all. It is driven by
corporate-financier special interests, augmented with nearly inexhaustible
resources, and operates under a number of dual pretenses to justify its
activities if and when they attract public attention.
The technological, financial and tactical disparity that is growing between
this deep state and the rest of humanity could be analogous to a native
fisherman catching a glimpse of Spanish masts over the horizon.
If left
unchecked, these new "Conquistadores" will proverbially come ashore.
If we are not properly prepared before that
happens, we are lent by history a sobering warning of what's to come.
The Technocratic Deep
State
The technocratic deep state doesn't have a president, an embassy or borders.
It has neither a unified steering committee, nor
a charter by which it is guided. It is an abstract boundary around corporate
and government research, development, and implementation that includes many
different interests, some of which are complimentary, others competitive,
and still others compartmentalized.
And because it is a deep state - or a state
within a state - undeclared and undefined in conventional terms, it is very
difficult to sort out who is who.
What is clear, is that certain parties, such as the Pentagon's Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA),
treat this deep state as
a compartmentalized operation - manipulating
and steering various aspects of it to suit its needs in ways that are not
entirely understood by all involved.
For example,
DARPA is actively involved in
genetics and synthetic biological research.
Wired reported in its Pentagon-friendly "Danger
Room," in an article titled, "Pentagon’s
New Factory - Your DNA":
DARPA is sick and tired of waiting around
for Mother Nature. Instead, it wants to take the life-making business
into its own hands — and manufacture new biological forms in a factory
of mix-and-match bio-bits.
A recent call for research by the Pentagon’s
mad science agency proposes a new program called “Living Foundries.” The
idea is to use biology as a manufacturing platform to “enable on-demand
production of new and high-value materials, devices and capabilities.”
In other words, let’s engineer life to make stuff we want.
The fields of bioengineering and synthetic biology have already produced
some useful, scary and flat-out bizarre entities. Besides renewable
petroleum or steel strong spider silk, there are all sorts of potential
therapeutic, industrial and agricultural purposes for reorganized DNA.
Wired continues:
To jumpstart the process, DARPA wants to
open the playing field to people from outside the biological sciences,
recruiting designers, engineers, manufacturers, computer scientists,
academics and anyone else who has an idea.
By democratizing the
biological design and manufacturing process, they hope to speed up the
development of a reliable factory for all sorts of kind-of-living
things.
One of the specifics they’re looking for?
Modular genetic parts. Kind of like Legos for biology, a standardized
system of bio-units capable of being assembled in any which way would
explode the possibilities for producing new materials and systems.
While Wired offers readers only the most benign
possibilities DARPA might use these "modular genetic parts" for, the very
corporate-financier interests steering US policy and therefore DARPA's
research, have penned strategy papers indicating interest in the creation of
genotype-specific biological weapons - weapons that could, for example, wipe
out only the Chinese, Eastern Europeans, or people with genetic
predispositions
the ruling elites find unfavorable.
This interest in genotype-specific weapons was mentioned in the
Neo-Conservative Project for a New American Century's (PNAC) 2000 report
titled, "Rebuilding
America's Defenses" which stated:
The proliferation of ballistic and cruise
missiles and long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will make it
much easier to project military power around the globe. Munitions
themselves will become increasingly accurate, while new methods of
attack - electronic, “non-lethal,” biological - will be more widely
available.
(p.71
of .pdf)
Although it may take several decades for the process of transformation
to unfold, in time, the art of warfare on air, land, and sea will be
vastly different than it is today, and “combat” likely will take place
in new dimensions: in space, “cyber-space,” and perhaps the world of
microbes.
(p.72
of .pdf)
And advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific
genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a
politically useful tool.
(p.72
of .pdf)
Clearly then, the Pentagon is mostly likely not
using this collection of "modular genetic parts" for new bullet-proof
materials, but for the modern-day equivalent of small-pox infected blankets
that can wipe out entire civilizations.
Other possibilities are even more startling - biological immortality.
In Wired's article titled, "Pentagon
Looks to Breed Immortal ‘Synthetic Organisms’ - Molecular Kill-Switch
Included," it states:
The Pentagon’s mad science arm may have come
up with its most radical project yet. DARPA is looking to re-write the
laws of evolution to the military’s advantage, creating “synthetic
organisms” that can live forever - or can be killed with the flick of a
molecular switch.
Wired continued by reporting:
The project comes as DARPA also plans to
throw $20 million into a new synthetic biology program, and $7.5 million
into “increasing by several decades the speed with which we sequence,
analyze and functionally edit cellular genomes.”
Wired never directly answers the question as to
what exactly the Pentagon wants with "immortal organisms," or what
"organisms" these would even be, but mention is made of
a revolutionary
experiment with rats involving gene therapy and the successful extension of
their life-span, suggesting the possibility that human biological
immortality might be on the table.
The mention of "increasing by several
decades the speed with which we sequence, analyze and functionally edit
cellular genomes" would be the exact area of focus necessary for achieving
human biological immortality.
DARPA isn't the only technocratic deep state "ministry" interested in
biological immortality.
On the front of a recent Wired issue, is Ray Kurzweil, representing "Singularity
University." Under his picture is the title, "Live Forever! And Save the
World."
Kurzweil is a proponent of what he refers to as
the coming
"singularity,"
a transhumanist merging between man and machine resulting in
unprecedented intellectual abilities and biological immortality.
The nature
of Kurzweil's interests and work all depends on whether he and his
colleagues plan on sharing the benefits of singularity with the rest of
humanity, or moving on without us, and at our cost.
Kurzweil and his Singularity University, like DARPA, is deeply entwined with
the largest corporate-financier interests on Earth.
Should a megalomaniac
seek immortality to compliment the vast wealth and influence they have
accumulated (as all megalomaniacs have attempted to do throughout human
history), Singularity University would seem like a good first stop along the
way.
History's Take on Facing "Conquistadores"
The true goals of Singularity University, those promoting singularity
itself, and DARPA can be debated.
What cannot be debated is that currently,
the development of super-science is still monopolized by special interests.
Even if advances and breakthroughs being made within this technocratic deep
state were done mostly by benevolent servants of humanity - if there is
capacity for abuse, it most certainly will take place.
In the case of the atom bomb, those seeking to employ it geopolitically held
vastly different mindsets than the people who actually created it.
The
amount of abuse or balance new technologies will exhibit across human
civilization depends entirely on how many hands those said technologies find
themselves in. In the case of the atom bomb, when America monopolized it,
they immediately employed it against another nation... twice.
It was only when other nations began developing and deploying nuclear
weapons as a credible deterrence that the US shifted its strategic doctrine.
Likewise, should the Pentagon today develop and monopolize genotype-specific
weapons, they will most likely be used, even if in the most subtle manner.
It will only be when other nations, and indeed, the people themselves, begin
understanding and leveraging genetics, that a balance will be struck and
both the likelihood of the weapons being used and their effectiveness will
be diminished.
Imagine if a native fisherman, instead of spotting Spanish ships coming over
the horizon only days away from the conquering of his land and his people,
found himself in Spain, witnessing the fleet that would conquer him being
assembled while plans of conquest were being drafted.
Could he warn his
people years in advance, and ensure that when the Spanish landed, they were
confronted with a proportional threat that would shift their conquest
instead into diplomacy and compromise? History suggests, yes.
Asia faced a similar conquest by Europeans.
The British held Myanmar,
Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore, while the French held Vietnam, Laos, and
Cambodia. China was equally divided amongst several nations, while the
Philippines were first held by the Spanish, then by the Americans. Japan
watched this conquest and understood all too well the threat technological
disparity posed.
During a period known as
the Meiji Restoration, Japan underwent intense
modernization in education, industry, infrastructure, and defense.
It
specifically drew on Western advances to "catch up." The result was an
environment entirely unfavorable to Western colonization, and in fact, left
Japan poised to oust the West with its own campaign of extraterritorial
invasion and subjugation.
While Japan's decisions after modernization do not
merit emulation, the concept of reducing technological disparity to avoid Conquistador-style subjugation most certainly does. Japan didn't just
"modernize" by buying and recreating Western armaments. They got organized
institutionally as well.
Conversely, Native Americans would eventually end up utilizing much of the
technology brought over by European colonialists, however, infighting and
disorder amongst their own ranks prevented them from posing the credible
deterrence the Meiji Restoration lent Japan.
Japan's ability to both
modernize in terms of technology and in terms of institutions, allowed it to
compete directly with, and put in check European encroachment.
What We Can Do
Today, if we are to head-off modern day Conquistadores emboldened by a vast
disparity in technology and organization, we likewise must reform ourselves.
-
Redesign Institutions to be Truly Ours
We must look at institutions like
schools and universities, hospitals, and research organizations,
designed to feed special interests while hindering our progress as
individuals and communities, and redesign them by leveraging
technology at the grassroots to truly empower people to both
understand and meaningfully shape the world around them.
We must
create new local institutions to leverage technology to our
advantage.
Hackerspaces, FabLabs, and DIYbio labs are just such local
"institutions" that enable ordinary people to get hands-on
experience with cutting edge technology - both helping them
understand shifting paradigms better, and helping them do the
"shifting" themselves.
Organizing locally is key - as is
collaborating globally. Competing institutions that standardize
curriculum for open-source education, or test and certify organic
produce for voluntary participants could help project the collective
interests of scattered local institutions.
-
Embrace Emerging Technology - Protest Abuses of
It
We must not protest emerging technology,
but rather the abuse of it, while studying it and ensuring that it
is put in as many hands as possible.
Like information technology,
regardless of how many nefarious individual or state actors there
are, there are many more interested in the Internet working smoothly
and will mobilize against any given threat.
A similar paradigm will
emerge regarding synthetic biology and 3D printing, provided growing
numbers of people interested in a functional society understand the
technology and are able to modify it to counteract criminals,
terrorists, and monopolistic special interests.
-
Divest from Their System While Building Ours
We must divest from the current system, while systematically
building up alternatives. Unlike the natives of the Americas, we are
not waiting for ships to arrive on our shores.
The new
Conquistadores are already among us, building up their wealth and
influence upon our daily patronage of their system. Imagine the
Aztecs or Incas funding Spanish Conquistadores in tons of gold,
while simultaneously attempting to fight them.
Likewise, any attempt
to break free from a system we are still entirely dependent on and
fueling on a daily basis would be utterly futile.
More specifically, the areas people should focus
on are exactly the areas DARPA and others amongst the technocratic deep
state are, namely,
Depending on who is holding the keys when these
fields merge, we may see the start of post-scarcity, an elitist
transhumanist "singularity," or perhaps some combination of the two.
The more people who understand, begin
developing, and employ these fields of emerging technology, the greater our
chances are that a "singularity" will benefit humanity, rather than a
handful of "transhumanists" at our expense.
These technologies cannot be stopped. If they are possible, people will
develop them.
Biological immortality is already an evolutionary reality, and is being
demonstrably advanced in experiments with species not naturally endowed with
this remarkable ability. Likewise, synthetic biology is already yielding new
forms of life, created not by nature, but by human scientists.
And certainly, if nature can produce
intelligence, science will inevitably recreate it as "artificial
intelligence."
Pretending these technologies don't exist, aren't possible, or are somehow
capable of being stopped is folly.
Instead, we must work to democratize and
balance the equations of power and technological disparity, or suffer in our
ignorance and wishful thinking, another Conquista, Trail of Tears, Nagasaki,
or Hiroshima.