Mindscape vs Landscape.


We humans, more than any other species known to us, shape our landscape according to our will.
Each culture settles on chosen ways to do so resulting in distinct kinds of landscapes.
On the 'mindscape' side it is really no different, but what most of us probably have not considered is that this can be just as deliberate a process as the creation of a physical landscape.
It doesn't 'just happen', and the sneaky aspect of this mindscape creation is that we are, by and large, unaware of it taking place inside our heads.
During a traditional war we send missiles and other kinds of hardware against each other to inflict physical and material damage upon the perceived enemy.
The new and potentially marvellous tool we call "the Internet" is now being used as a platform to inflict damage upon our mindscapes, by turning people against each other within nations, thus making them less able to withstand external aggression.
That is why most nations today have newly established cyber warfare units as parts of their armed forces.
The long and short of this is that the internet will likely be controlled to a much greater extent than what it is today, as we move into a murky future.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I have a hunch

Russian progress in the invasion of Ukraine is not going to plan. That is evident from negotiations between the warring parties as I write this piece. I have seen photos of burned out military vehicles and speculate that they are Russian. Back during the end days of WWII when Soviet armour invaded Germany from the east, Germans were issued with large numbers of shoulder mounted anti tank weapons to help slow down the onslaught: Strategically positioned, one man could take out a Soviet tank in short order. And that happened. Fast forward to Ukraine, shoulder mounted missile launchers are an order of magnitude more effective than in WWII with smart missiles actively seeking their targets over the course of their trajectory. Sitting inside a tank these days, is sort of like being a knight in shiny armour, in the face of a lead ball from a musket. The tank becomes your coffin.
Read more

Metaphysical speculation

. George Orwell (Eric Blair), the famous author of "Animal Farm" and "1984", among other works, used to work in the British Imperial Civil Service during his early years, as a policeman in Burma, as I recall. A statement he made in reflecting upon that time in his life, when a local person was executed for something he had done, has stuck with me: "A universe ceased to exist" Over the years, that statement has given me pause for reflection on many a time, especially following a car accident in 2011 when I was knocked out cold for about half an hour and took some time to realize where I was and what had happened. One way to 'look' at things is as follows: What we perceive, feel and understand is a product of our material bodily structure and the many forces acting upon same. 'The Universe' is an aggregate of the above and give us a sense of who and what we are within the grander scheme of things. Now, let's put ourselves into the shell
Read more

Smelly cities

Watching a video of Imperial Rome reminded me of an experience I had visiting Singapore in 1971. Staying overnight in a modern hotel on the outskirts of the downtown, I ventured into the heart of the old city where narrow cobblestone streets had an open sewer running down the middle. In fact, if you approached the downtown from downwind, you could smell it a mile away. Eventually you get used to it but the initial impact is quite powerful. And so it was in Imperial Rome, a city with some 1 million people, many of whom lived in poverty and squalor. A hive of activity and breeding ground for all manner of infectious diseases. On the other side of the ledger, I lived in the City of Baghdad in 1961 where dry heat day temperatures in the summer ranged between 40 and 50 degrees Celsius. It did not have open sewers (the water would likely have evaporated) but the smell was so different, and not unpleasant, that I experienced it in my dreams long after having returned to Norway.
Read more