Marxist Internet Propaganda
Copyright © by Mitchell Allen
Future Net
Return to Xanadu
Think about a radio that has five presets for selecting stations. Nothing stops one listener from changing a preset. This is not a user-centric design. What possible benefit can be derived from making a user-centric radio? They are ubiquitous enough that any user can have his own radio!
In much the same way, access to the Internet has been commoditized to the point that people can have their own devices with which to interact.
This paper seeks to invalidate the ongoing Higgins Project [1], by extrapolating pending innovations and their underlying technologies onto the future of the Internet.
Where the Higgins Project seeks to unlock the development of the Internet, which it claims is hindered by user mistrust, the author will demonstrate a counter-argument, namely that mistrust is inherent in two-way communication and further, that this mistrust will actually fuel the innovations required to advance the development of the Internet.
For practical purposes, this paper will limit its scope to the most visible portion of the Internet: the World Wide Web, hereinafter referred to as WWW.
History
The very concept of the WWW is based on the antiquated technology of the hyperlink, much like the concepts of industrialization were founded on the inefficiencies of the feudal economy.
The WWW was flawed from the beginning. Ted Nelson, creator of the first hypertext project [2] immediately pointed out that a true paperless document should not rely on fragile links. He envisioned a self-contained electronic document processor with version tracking, object linking and embedding, digital rights management and an enforced royalty system.
Quirk
Project Xanadu, like other notions of its time, fell into the trap of duality by seeking to make the software document-centric as well as server-centric. In fact, the original 17 rules define a triality, considering the user-centric rule #3:
Every user is uniquely and securely identified.
No matter what spin is placed on this definition, it is clear that the foundation of Project Xanadu is based on mistrust.
Since there is no such thing as perfect trust, the inclusion of rule #3 simply ensured that attention would be diverted from document processing to identity validation, which has nothing to do with hypertext!
Class Struggles
The schism between information providers (publisher class) and information consumers (viewer class) creates a credibility gap that is filled with a nebulous cloud of confidence. The arrogance of publishers seeks to solidify this cloud, while the distrust of viewers constantly strives to disperse it. (It doesn’t matter what any individual perceives about the value of a given piece of information; it is the collective wills of the two classes that control the ebb, flow, creation and destruction of the value of information) As a result, when confidence is high, information flows from the publishers to the viewers and value flows in the opposite direction. Conversely, when confidence is low, information flow diminishes and value decreases.
The power of the publisher class lies in its ability to control the creation and dissemination of information.
The power of the viewer class lies in its ability to control the rejection and the destruction of information.
This is not an even distribution of power.
Power Plays
The viewer class is sometimes reactionary, destroying information through the “madness of mobs”, without regard to the value of the information. However formidable this capability appears, it is mitigated by the ability of the publisher class to create counter-information (propaganda).
As for the power of the publisher class, it too is tempered by the tolerance of the very group of people that enables it to exist. Just as industrialization required a steady stream of laborers to produce the raw materials for machines, so does the creation of information rely on a steady stream of knowledge workers to generate the ideas and theories that feed the information mill. Knowledge workers, then, become the neo-proletariat class that supports the publisher class.
This comparison can’t be carried too far forward, however. Whereas laborers are constrained by the limit of physical energy expenditure, knowledge workers are constrained by the limit of mental energy.
Furthermore, while a laborer can produce raw materials at a measurable and sustainable rate, knowledge workers can not be expected to generate sustainable output of tenable ideas.
Or can they?
If the publisher class can find a way to motivate the knowledge workers to reorganize the way ideas are “manufactured”, then the whole process of information creation accelerates beyond the rate that the viewer class can digest, much less destroy it. A nervous consumption cycle can be perpetuated, rendering passive the entire viewer class!
Once mistrust is nullified, then and only then, can the WWW and the rest of the Internet evolve to heights only imaginable.
Publishers Clearinghouse
One thing that is often overlooked is the duality of the WWW. Until being seized by greedy military/industrial vultures, the Internet was an idyllic research tool for scientists.
The scientific community frowns on fraudulent information. Researchers submit papers for peer review. Education is a life-long commitment.
Contrast this with the wild and woolly commercial WWW, where pseudo-scientific articles, plagiarized term papers and grossly overstated income claims are accepted by the viewer class, or at best, weakly repudiated. The onslaught of misinformation, and its impact on the viewer class, should be noted by anyone who doubts that the publisher class has before it, the very methodology with which to relegate the viewer class to the required state of consumerist, narcissistic irrelevancy [3].
The Rise of the Neo-Proletariat
The entire premise of this paper rests with the ability of the knowledge workers to sustain a high rate of ideation. It is important to note that the output must be of sufficient quality to pass beneath the radar of vestigial mistrust latent in the viewer class’ induced agitated state of nervous consumption.
Publishers must elevate their knowledge workers beyond the status of drones, while inhibiting any inclination either to assimilate into or subvert the publisher class as a result. That particular social experiment is beyond the scope of this paper.
Insofar as such a status can be attained, it follows that the newly motivated knowledge workers will have a vested interest in the process of optimized ideation.
Germ of an Idea
The acceleration of idea creation begins with a taxonomy of innovation, as outlined by Graham, Bachmann [4].
The authors of the cited book list nine major categories of common idea origins:
- Problem Solution (correcting something)
- Evolutionary idea (plagiarism, according to the authors!)
- Symbiotic idea (combining two or more ideas)
- Revolutionary idea (completely new)
- Serendipitous discovery (accidental)
- Targeted innovation (intense research, motivated by economic gain)
- Artistic innovation (impulsive, no immediate practical value)
- Philosophical idea (mental)
- Computer-assisted discovery (combinatorial analysis)
While it may be possible to simultaneously implement all nine of these germinators, there may be a problem of diminishing returns. This paper, therefore, summarily dismisses evolution, serendipity, targeted and artistic categories. They are either redundant, speculative or whimsical. Evolutionary ideas build on existing ideas, which sort of begs the question. Serendipitous discoveries and targeted innovations are redundant in the face of the publisher’s goal to optimize ideation. Artistic innovations have no practical value from the publisher’s perspective and may be left for the petite-publisher class to trot out as a feeble attempt to gain respect in the eyes of the publisher class.
Quick and Lazy
The remaining five germinators are going to be implemented in ways never intended before:
Gather a sizable list of problems facing the average member of the viewer class.
Separate the list into practical and philosophical sub lists.
Create software to permute each sub list into n-tuple subsets.
Use massively parallel symbiosis and computer-assisted discovery to prioritize further development.
Computer-assisted discovery should be based on the ground-breaking work of Genrich Altshuller, who realized that most inventions involve the resolution of two conflicting properties. He analyzed over 200,000 patents, identifying hundreds of these conflicts and thousands of underlying principles that were used to resolve them. The resulting data can be found in the TRIZ system. [4]
While developing the symbiosis software will present a challenge, keeping the n-tuples to a reasonable number will ensure that the task is not insurmountable. Once the software has been hardened against errors, the n-tuples can be increased to reduce the effects of serendipity.
There is actually a formula that proves that the incidence of serendipitous discoveries is inversely proportional to the size of the subset of symbiotic ideas to be permuted. [5]
It’s too complicated to repeat here, but imagine that you had an ancient typewriter and wanted to type the following sentence:
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
The probability of success decreases with each non-functioning key encountered on that typewriter.
Conclusion
Once the ideas start flying out of the optimized ideation laboratories, it remains a simple exercise for the publisher class to package and deliver them as new information to the viewer class.
Done quickly enough, new packages will arrive before the older ones are completely absorbed. The viewer class will have little choice but to let go of the old ideas and embrace the new.
A Warning
It is entirely possible, using the methods outlined in this paper, to choose to focus solely on philosophical innovations. If any publisher were foolish enough to attempt this, it would be subject to the eventual overthrow by an enlightened neo-proletariat faction.
Ideas don’t exist in a vacuum.
This flight of fancy was inspired by:
[1] An open source personal identity manager protocol
[2] Project Xanadu, in case you are a skimmer
[3] Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
[4] Ideation: The Birth and Death of Ideas by Douglas Graham* and Thomas T. Bachmann
[5] Nah…
* I was pleasantly surprised to receive a comment from Douglas Graham, one of the authors.