I like the picture view of the earth from space. A point where the view of the magnitude of the earth we live on and each have a ground level micro view has moved far enough away from ground level to give us the big picture. Move far enough away from anything to see the whole thing and then I can see the forest for the trees.
Man made pipelines are physical conduit systems moving something from one place to another where it is needed but at the point of need does not exist in sufficient quantity for end use expenditure. Real pipelines are easy to see, comprehend and map. The view from my front window is of a mountain covered with snow that comes to me through a pipeline system that starts at the base of the mountain and end in a stream at my faucet. Supplemented by deep bore wells here in town.
"Russia And China Do Pipelanistan"is an entry at Naked Capitalism this morning written by Pepe Escobar, commented on by Yves Smith. It was cross-posted from TomDispatch. Those two sites are my most admired sources of information with which to build my understanding of the structure and function of the major issues of the world.
Pepe's lead line:
"A specter is haunting Washington, an unnerving vision of a Sino-Russian
alliance wedded to an expansive symbiosis of trade and commerce across
much of the Eurasian land mass — at the expense of the United States."
An energy pipeline is the skeleton on which so many other connected/associated geo/political/social/economic matters are hung on. Pepe describes the potential gas deal and then goes on to hang all the related issues on the basic energy pipeline skeleton it would create. He takes a big picture view of all the related energy pipeline issues just like he was looking down of the earth from space. His skill in drawing together all of the related issues into an an enlightening view of the big picture and its future is incredible.
Pepe's analysis hits the nail right on the head and presents a picture of the current situation and its projection into the future that is frightfully revealing because it is reasonably and logically has an exceptionally high probability of being correct.
There is another vital pipeline of "energy" distribution in the world and that is the one in which information flows. The big picture that Pepe describes based on fossil fuel energy connected to all of its various world related issues is a model that also applies as an analogy to information energy and the "pipeline" system through which it flows. That is a system that is tapped and monitored worldwide by the NSA as a vital matter of national security. The NSA is our conceptual flip side of our DOD hardware worldwide capability. DOD protects our national interest and security through its world wide presence divided into geographical commands, including space and its ability to strike militarily anywhere, anytime with sufficient force capability in terms of death, destruction and denial to dominate any conflict situation. The NSA plays the same role in the world of conceptual global information but with the additional resources to initiate the implementation of DOD military action, para-military action by other government agencies or, one more step removed from traditional military or quasi military action to other agencies of government operating in economic or other critical sectors of power and control dominance.
This blog entry was spawned by a "what if" thought in the back of my mind that was generated by the capability to rapidly restructure conceptual systems and physical system technology that the conceptual information systems are based on. I touched on that thought in the prior blog entry "Internet Service Provider, Best Service, Cheapest Price".
It is in the realm of science fiction but what if a consortium of major world power players, who are combinations of big government and big business interests just like the USA offered a robust, secure, open system satellite based world wide web internet pipeline structure open to the entire world at cost to users. There is much talk about balkaniztion of the internet. This goes in the other direction to a true world-wide utility that would offer a choice to the world of direct ground to satellite back to specific ground end point address that anyone with a capable device could use. It would be an information pipeline that the NSA could not tap. Furthermore, it would offer an alternative to all the tier 1 ISPs existing today approaching monopoly control of the fundamental structure of the communication and the associated flow of money it generates to gain even greater control of the communication system.
Looking at it that way the communication system and the thing it conveys begins to look more like a classic pipeline system as well as the banking system and the things that they convey. The former is a physical system requiring considerable construction time. The latter is an established institutional world wide system so well entrenched it is resistant to change and has powerful forces to protect it from change to an asset based object oriented system implementation based on "Commons" philosophy of from a debt based system of capitalism and extraction.
Our fundamental technological communications systems can change quickly as well as the conceptual information structures that it supports. One of the major impediments to change is squeezing every last dollar of profit out of existing and legacy systems by the big players and the loss of market dominance that they must protect themselves from due to innovation that they do not control.
Governments should fear its people. If not the people then who should it fear. Who is a threat to its power? Used to be the church long ago and with that power they made mutual benefit accommodations. Now it is economic power centers. Business and finance. Mutual benefit accommodations there. Information is the new power. A power that is controlled by money but rising as a child born of money and control to maturity that equals the power and influence of money.
What we need is a sole source world wide Internet Service Provider. Satellite based. Open Source System. A secure system that cannot be used, managed, manipulated, invaded or threatened by any self interest, special interest power center. True Net Neutrality.
Somebody generously gives the world the Olympics every 4 years. What if the any one or any collection of the worlds biggest political powers gave the world an alternative free choice ISP to compete with the tier 1 ISP structure we have today that is a tool of USA for information dominance and control of world affairs.
What if China put up an advanced satellite based ISP for the benefit of its own people. They are after all the People's Republic. They have a People's bank. Once operating they simply scaled it up for world wide use for anyone that wanted to sign on? Free as a gift to the world? Would the USA shoot it down as a threat to our security. Maybe that is what the Space Command is for? If the USA shot it down and all the rest of the world was using it then what? The USA attacks the entire world to defend the USA?
Just a flight of fancy but wouldn't it be interesting. A movie plot? Free the world through free flow of information then look at it from out in space to see what a wonderful place it is, physically as nature made it, conceptually as we have made it.
We are entering an new age of information colonialism and imperialism. Unlike the last age that divided and dominated the world and caused conflicts this new age is a new game.
How To Redress The World's Energy Balance.
This link is an excellent analysis. Comments by Neil deGrasse Tyson. The way to address it is globally through our information system evolving to become a knowledge system for control of our environment for the common good not for extraction for the benefit of few power centers.
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