How many times have you heard the phrase "
armed with this knowledge…?" Too damn many for it to be mere coincidence. How about "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing?" Yup. Oh, wait, here's a good one: "
Knowledge is your most potent weapon." Okay, maybe not in those exact words, but I'll bet
wooden nickels to
day-old donuts that they're familiar concepts.
With me so far?
Great. See, knowledge is a weapon. It's a potent one. It's a dangerous one. It can be completely unstoppable, or it can be subtly corrosive. It can't be killed as long as humans can talk, write, build, sculpt, plan, architect, or (for example, in the case of those amazing Druids) all of them at once. Oh, sure, we can lose the meaning of it for a time - but it's there, waiting.
Curiosity killed the cat. Presumably because the cat learned what it was curious about, which knowledge (or the acquisition thereof) killed it.
J. Robert Oppenheimer (I believe) once said that the biggest secret of the atomic bomb was that it could be made. Once that was public knowledge, there was no way to stop a determined group of men and women from building their own. He was quite right. Plus, twenty-mile high mushroom clouds act as a real good P.A. system.
I can hear you out there now: Custy, I'm hoping there's a friggin' point to all this, or I'm gonna fuX0r you up, man. Yeah, there's a point. It's one that they don't want you to grasp, because it's bitten the authorities on the ass time and time and time and time (you get the idea) again. Ready? Here it is.
Knowledge is power.
I know, you've heard it. But reflect on what that means, for a moment. Here we are, swimming in knowledge. Many of us are officially referred to as 'knowledge workers'. This whole site exists because of the power of an idea.
Add to this the fact that there are many, many things in the world with which to be cheesed off. If you're dannye, fifteen more than that. Injustices, inequalities, cruelty, ignorance, badly-made martinis, dangers, opportunities missed, disasters gained, those little multi-colored candy disks meant to go on ice cream that taste like last week's Liquid Paper with badly burnt sugar on it, people, places, things.
The system itself can suck.
What to do? Do what every other group with a grudge does. Gather together. Stash some arms. Drink some beer. Make some plans. In short, form a militia.
Know what? If you substitute some powerful-ass ideas for the stashing some arms bit, then guess what - we're more than 92% fat. We're 99 44/100ths pure, man. We're almost there. We are the foremost, and best one around.
We're the Knowledge Militia.
Pheer our 'leet rox0ring brainz, baby.
Serve notice to the world around you that you're mad as hell and you're not gonna take it anymore. You aren't going to use guns or swords (unless they do first) but you're gonna do worse- you're gonna use ideas. The most viral of weapons; as Neal Stephenson puts it, the final fourth of the quartet of our Apocalypse - NBCI weapons, or Nuclear, Biological, Chemical and Informational. Actually, if you take our brains, we're all of those. Nuclear? Yeah. Without mutation and natural selection (driven by radiation amongst other things) we wouldn't exist, if you buy into the whole Darwin and evolutionary line of reasoning. We're definitely biological. Chemical? Yup, the human body consists of around $6.00 of chemicals as priced at your average lab supply store, once all that messy oxygen dihydride is removed.
And on the best of the lot - Informational. You damn skippy. Spread the word. Bring the noise. Jack the power.
Take your piece of the database, be it a piece you like, a piece you hate, a piece you think significant or a piece you think utterly pointless, and tuck it safely away. Put it somewhere in a cabinet with a false front. Save it for your children's B-mitzah Unmount the drive it lives on and leave it in the machine. Use strong cryptography. Do something. Because if you don't, they will be along soon, and they'll reach into your tortured self with hook-like claws and rip from you the gossamer web of your freedom and your thought, burying it like a Blue Meanie beneath a heap of pablum-ish news, reports on pointless things, innuendo, intimation, suggestions and more . You'll realize that no, you weren't dreaming and you're not paranoid - they really are coming to get you. Well, get up, man! Or woman! Get up get up get up! Grab your children and your weapons, and flee the house - let them have it, there's more where that came from.
Whenever I read about the Blue team, or the latest Bush gaffe, or the most recent missile defense test, I become unreasonably frightened. Maybe not unreasonably. But that's okay; I have in my pocket a loudmouth-ass opinion, with some facts and readings, and some references holstered at my side. Bring it on, motherfucker. Jack the pain. Bring the noise.
I'm smarter than you, my E2 compadres and I are better informed than you, and we're PISSED.