Technology and Politics – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Futurist-linked groups talking at the Mont Order

Harry J. Bentham — Sun, 31 Jul 2016 18:41:38 +0000

The following is a selection of points of interest to futurism and forecasts of the political future from the recent Mont Order Conference of July 2016:

Watch this video on YouTube.

STATEMENT 1: NEW SECRET WIKI CREATED

The Mont Order’s secret wiki created via PBworks holds information on the origin and literature of the Mont Order as well as our current structure, ranks and members. Members will be invited via email and will be able to contribute pages or post comments and questions on this literature. The public will not have access to it.

STATEMENT 3: FRIENDS OF THE MONT ORDER GROUP IS EFFECTIVE

The Friends of the Mont Order group created by Raincoaster at Facebook has seen a surprising growth in membership. Our hope is that it will reach a point where members can confidently post to the group and a minimal amount of admin involvement is needed. Due to the continued growth in its membership and the high amount of activity there, the group can be deemed a success so far.

STATEMENT 8: ON ANTI-ISLAM MEDIA AND POLICIES IN EUROPE AND THE US

“Integration”, humiliation of Muslims by the state, and blaming Islam for violence are non-answers to terrorist threats. These steps will only deepen tensions and extremist views on all sides in European countries, where terrorist incidents have occurred. We have noted that incidents in Europe are beginning to resemble a more American pattern of “mass shootings” but similar tragedies have curiously not been occurring in the UK. In addition, editorial policies of Western media clearly follow a pattern of only describing attacks as “terrorist” after an attacker is described to be a Muslim.

POLL ALSO TAKING PLACE

(Vote Here) From a MONT member: “All funding of religious groups by non-citizens should be banned” (expanded: “Religions should be treated the same way as political parties”). Justified by the way Saudi Arabia uses mosque financing to spread its political power and extremism particularly in Europe. Might also bring states and authorities to account for spreading extremism rather than blaming communities. Might also allow Muslim communities to take control of their own future rather than taking orders from foreign clerics. Should this be advocated as law? (NOTE: The UK already bans political parties from getting foreign funds. What is being advocated in the UK context is only that religious groups be also added to these lists of groups. In the context of other countries, they would copy the above element of UK law and then add the religious groups to the lists.)

The Mont Order, often just called Mont, is an information society of writers and networks based in different countries who collaborate to broaden their influence. To date, this has been achieved mainly through the internet.

The Mont Order has held online audio conferences since February 2015.

Shared website: lordre.net

Shared Twitter timeline: @MontOrder

Subscribe to updates from this society: feeds.feedburner.com/lordre/tajQ

Making opinions matter: making headlines

Harry J. Bentham — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 16:00:36 +0000

.#democracy. #you. #indie. #webcontent. #contentmarketing. @HJBentham.

Ever wanted to be the subject of international news, or to be recognized as an expert in your field? In the age of the web, both are relatively easy for anyone to accomplish – and it really matters. Thanks to digital culture, equal opportunity is becoming an unstoppable reality rather than an empty promise from ultimately self-centered authorities and companies.

Everyone knows the internet transforms humanity. Well-known YouTubers such as TheAmazingAtheist have depended on this transformative power of the web for their fame and popularity. It takes geography out of the human equation, and makes it possible to share ideas with ever vaster and more diverse audiences. In many ways, such beautiful communication discredits the idea that humans have to reside in arbitrarily delineated areas of land called states. But did you know you can easily make headlines as a result of your internet influence, and within mere months?

What I have come to realize is that over a period of six months, between March and September 2013, I easily acquired the means to become the subject of international news through the internet. And I accomplished this purely with a robust personal online publishing strategy. Reflecting on how I got this far with nothing more than a cheap netbook resting on a table, I have divided the process for making headlines online into five distinct “phases”. These phases, which I am eager to share with everyone, can easily be imitated by anyone with the bare minimum of a computer and an internet connection.

Keep in mind that I already tried blogging and “vlogging” for two years on YouTube, before I ultimately went for the route of legitimate online publishing. The truth is that blogging is simply inefficient and slow to succeed. It is something of a trap, because it is so easy to get started, but the fact is that it is almost impossible to grow a good readership through blogging alone. Fortunately, there are countless online publications in desperate search of writers with nothing more than comments worthy to be added to the discussion. To really harness the power of the internet, you need to harness the reach of people and businesses already thriving on the internet.

Phase 1

The first phase I identified on the road to effective online publishing consisted of finding nascent or seldom-visited online publications and submitting work to them. There are plenty of them that will take almost any submissions, which really gives new authors the chance to prove themselves. Recently, my own webzine, ClubOfINFO, has opened up to take submissions ranging from sci-fi stories to any meaningful commentary on technology and society.

Phase 2

The second phase involves going to the publications designed to empower everyone through the web, like openDemocracy or Infoshop News. It is at this phase that all online writers discover how technology has given them a unique gift to prove they are a force to be reckoned with.

Phase 3

In the third phase, if you are seeking to become a respected source on your subject, it is wise to use your background gained in the previous phases to submit articles to the leading magazine on your subject. After some months writing reviews and articles at a leading subject source like BeliefNet (that would be the best choice if your area of interest is religious belief) it is possible to earn recognition as a respected source of commentary in even further-reaching online media.

Phase 4

In the fourth and hardest phase, you approach an international news source with an op-ed. This can be difficult for a person who has not completed the previous phases, or if you insist on being published immediately at one of the very top news sources in the world. However, if you have the evidence to prove you are an outspoken online personality after successfully following the above strategy, an op-ed is very likely to be accepted. The real reward from this step is that media often quote their own experts in headlines, so it is actually possible that you can make your first international headline within mere months of becoming a writer on the web.

Phase 5

The fifth phase is all yours. Adapt it carefully to whatever you have set out to accomplish through your online publishing campaign. Successful online publishing can be used to amass an audience ahead of some other effort, such as promoting your personal website, creating more media opportunities in the future, or gaining a flow of potential customers at your own online business.

I followed the steps described above successfully, which is why I feel it is time to share them in detail. Better, I have more recently put together a detailed guidebook to teach these phases in their full depth and guarantee success for anyone else hoping to make their opinion matter through the web. This is a proven strategy, which produces very real results when completed. What I would like to see is everyone else recognizing this opportunity to excel and express themselves, rather than for this strategy to remain mine alone.

By Harry J. Bentham - More articles by Harry J. Bentham

Finding the crossroads of politics and technology — @HJBentham

Harry J. Bentham — Wed, 14 May 2014 14:00:16 +0000

Visit ClubOfINFO

- @ClubOfINFO — Rather than location, education or privilege, having something to offer seems to now be the only determining factor for a writer or activist to be published and gain a voice internationally.

As a student, I initially chose postgraduate study as a route to publishing nonfiction and becoming a political scientist, but I never accessed the necessary funding to start this. After graduating from Lancaster University in 2012 and not being able to become the academic I wanted to be, I have found that postgraduate study is unnecessary to become a nonfiction author or even a political theorist.

There are many alternative media options, especially thanks to the internet. So, since March 2013, I have had work published in well over 40 different publications and the number is growing.

Rather than being a cheap alternative, publishing in online magazines is actually a more effective way of gaining recognition and a strong publishing history than academic publishing. It also takes less time and effort, and you achieve more rewards along the way. As such, the internet has truly overcome the need for educated elites in the old-fashioned sense, since anyone with sufficient knowledge and background is now positioned to gain recognition and have their say.

For some months now, I have been a member of the Lifeboat Foundation. This US-based scientific think tank includes many eminent futurists, including Google’s Ray Kurzweil, and is a credible and influential source of much revolutionary thinking about science, technology and politics. I got invited to this think tank and I continue to contribute to it, despite that I live in the UK and have never travelled to the United States.

Because I have also been writing science fiction for years, my futurist publishing success has provided a valuable means of exploring and attracting interest to ideas I might use in that fiction. It serves to add to the conversation on science and technology, if sci-fi authors can write works with powerful and relevant themes. The link between science fiction, scientific discovery and engineering is far greater than many predict, making artistic or cultural perspectives valuable for influencing science and ethics.

My interest is drawn mainly to what I call the crossroads of politics and technology. Part of this interest comes down to the fact that alternate media is transforming politics, aided by the internet, and this has been instrumental in my own success. This very same interest has led me to launch ClubOfINFO (clubof.info), a new biweekly webzine I am editing from Wigan. This publication occupies a niche for offbeat politics and science articles, activism-savvy product recommendations and sci-fi eBook downloads. I highly recommend a visit to this publication, and subscription is free (follow on Twitter @ClubOfINFO).

Much like the World Wide Web, I believe we can expect many other highly democratic world-changing technologies, and they are set to fundamentally change society. These have been of greatest interest to me, and I have written on what I consider to be the most socially and politically significant technologies. Contributing to the futurist h+ Magazine and the progressive Institute for Emerging Technologies think tank, I have put forward articles praising the potential social and political revolutions resulting from advances in 3D printing, synthetic biology, nanotechnology and other key developments.

Among the work I have published are some of the best in-depth reviews available for consequential books, such as Julian Assange’s Cypherpunks. In this book, Assange eerily predicts a bleak future of “total surveillance” even speaking prior to the shocking revelations of warrantless email and phone interception from whistle-blower Edward Snowden. However, he also acknowledges the possibility of a more favourable outcome: the emergence of a “rebel elite”, a tech-savvy global society of activists and experts who know how to restrain and counter the might of governments bent on using technology for repression and domestic spying. Assange’s book is exactly the kind of work that stimulates the discussion that should be happening all over the world, addressing how exponentially improving technology and the democratization of that technology can empower common citizens against their governments. It is the essence of the crossroads of politics and technology.

My own view of where to go on the crossroads of politics and technology is not important, but I am dedicated to exploring possibilities. Increasingly, users improvise new uses for technology that were not thought of or conceived by the designers themselves. The more rapidly our technology evolves, as depicted repeatedly in trends celebrated by futurists, the less control monolithic companies and governments have over how it will ultimately be used. Depending on your point of view, this may be either worrying or exhilarating. In the grand scheme of things, it cannot be stopped, and people should instead be thinking about how society can adapt to the inevitable change.

It is possible to build a community of internet-based thinkers and activists who are not intellectual snobs, but who have online publishing and political credentials, are trusted by their readers and taken seriously by their opponents. I encourage writers at every level of society to be bold in tackling political subjects and talking about how new science and technology can alter politics or the whole future of civilization. This is the goal I hope to promote with projects such as ClubOfINFO, and it is fully in line with the activities of tens of influential similar publications like h+ Magazine.

For people who believe they have something decisive to offer to futurist discussions about where technology is carrying society and the state, there is no reason to defer to academics and self-proclaimed experts. Everyone’s interests should be taken into consideration, and all should take part in what should be the most democratic explosion in history.

By Harry J. Bentham — More articles by Harry J. Bentham