Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

Taken from today's Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2053020,00.html)


Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. "Flashmobs" - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups.

This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the "future strategic context" likely to face Britain's armed forces. It includes an "analysis of the key risks and shocks". Rear Admiral Chris Parry, head of the MoD's Development, Concepts & Doctrine Centre which drew up the report, describes the assessments as "probability-based, rather than predictive".

The 90-page report comments on widely discussed issues such as the growing economic importance of India and China, the militarisation of space, and even what it calls "declining news quality" with the rise of "internet-enabled, citizen-journalists" and pressure to release stories "at the expense of facts". It includes other, some frightening, some reassuring, potential developments that are not so often discussed.

[sections omitted]

Marxism

"The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx," says the report. The thesis is based on a growing gap between the middle classes and the super-rich on one hand and an urban under-class threatening social order: "The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest". Marxism could also be revived, it says, because of global inequality. An increased trend towards moral relativism and pragmatic values will encourage people to seek the "sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism".

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

extremely cool news :) :) :) :)

[Cult of Reason]

Revolutionary middle class? Who are the middle class they refer to?

[RedCommieBear]

Originally posted by [email protected] 09, 2007 12:13 pm
Revolutionary middle class? Who are the middle class they refer to?
They're referring to people who aren't homeless on the street, yet don't really own any businesses. The middle class is the proletariat and some members of the petite bourgeois.

[Enragé]

what they see as the "middle class" is in actuality simply the proletariate, coupled with some petty bourgeois.

What they see as proletariate is basicly the lumpenproles, and perhaps some really poor workers.

In other words, the class analysis of the article is unsurprisingly... false.


hopeful news in any case :)

[VukBZ2005]

I have to say that when it comes to them and Marxism, they are basically saying a bunch of shit.

They have no real understanding of economic and geopolitical situations, and like the ridiculously stupid Capitalist economists they worship, they base class on income rather than upon their relationship to the means of production.

[An archist]

"Information chips implanted in the brain"

I think this is becoming more and more a reality, it's scary, I saw how people's attitudes can be altered on the news. They let a person answer a series of questions, then subjected a person to magnetic pulses for about 10 minutes, then they let the person answer the same list of questions. The second time, the persons cared less when they were being treated unfair.
scary shit

[TheAdlerian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 09, 2007 02:42 pm
what they see as the "middle class" is in actuality simply the proletariate, coupled with some petty bourgeois.

What they see as proletariate is basicly the lumpenproles, and perhaps some really poor workers.

In other words, the class analysis of the article is unsurprisingly... false.


hopeful news in any case :)
I agree with you here.

I think that most have trouble understanding the concept of being a wage slave. People will not look at their income to debt ratio because the concept frightens them. In the US very few people are liquid enough to be even close to what's called a middle-class.

Education in this area should be a main concern.

[Raúl Duke]

"sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism".

This sounds weird to me; comparing religious orthodoxy with Marxism.

If the middle class is to become revolutionary; I hope its not in the "rigid" manner described here.

They needs to be "open" and "unrestricted in thought and criticism"; that wouls make better revolutionaries out of them.

[Janus]

A certain amount of the report is simply meant to be "alarmist" to a certain degree though the portions about developing technological trends seems to be correct. But as far as a middle-class (whatever they mean by that specific sector) revolution doesn't make much sense, the middle class already dominates much of current political life; large sectors of it have little need for any real change provided that the conditions do not deteriorate too much.

[piet11111]

or they say that the current middle class will fall into the proletariat in the future.
and that is something that to me seems likely seeing how the economy just wont get better.

[Raúl Duke]

or they say that the current middle class will fall into the proletariat in the future.
and that is something that to me seems likely seeing how the economy just wont get better.

That makes more sense than just "the middle class is going to be more revolutionary." statement in the report.

After all...I heard that in the psyche of the middle class everything is about social mobilization and any "step back" is seen very bad, so they try hard enough just to stay in their "current position", even if its just the appearence that they haven't really moved back the social ladder. But once the middle class is "immiserated" (as Marx said would happen to the proletariat) than they would very likely become radical.

[Enragé]

Originally posted by [email protected] 09, 2007 11:38 pm
A certain amount of the report is simply meant to be "alarmist" to a certain degree though the portions about developing technological trends seems to be correct. But as far as a middle-class (whatever they mean by that specific sector) revolution doesn't make much sense, the middle class already dominates much of current political life; large sectors of it have little need for any real change provided that the conditions do not deteriorate too much.
with middle class they just mean like the average guy in the streets, thats how their perception of the world works, the "proletariate" barely even exists in the world for them.

This is hopeful in the sense that marxism is at least being mentioned in a mainstream newspaper, which means we're getting less and less ignored, and less regarded as simply a thing of the past.

[Tower of Bebel]

Originally posted by An [email protected] 09, 2007 03:30 pm
"Information chips implanted in the brain"

I think this is becoming more and more a reality, it's scary, I saw how people's attitudes can be altered on the news. They let a person answer a series of questions, then subjected a person to magnetic pulses for about 10 minutes, then they let the person answer the same list of questions. The second time, the persons cared less when they were being treated unfair.
scary shit
Well, chips would be could if you use it on people who're mentally handicaped, or people who're in coma, or people who're more like plants.

[Janus]

with middle class they just mean like the average guy in the streets, thats how their perception of the world works, the "proletariate" barely even exists in the world for them.
Ok, though I certainly wouldn't consider lawyers, doctors, and various other professionals the "average guy" I do acknowledge that the middle class does constitute the majority of the population.

[Raúl Duke]

There was a novel written by an author (J.G. Ballard) that wikipedia considered to be part of the transgressive fiction types which featured middle class revolutionaries.

Maybe it could tell us what to expect from these revolutionaries :P

Millennium People (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_People)

[phoenixoftime]

Mobs of Ballardist revolutionaries in the future? Can't be worse than that looney Randian lot :lol: