The End of Order and the Last Online Gamer

A few years back an American friend of mine who was a student of ancient history, in particular the Roman Empire, wanted me to play Civilization II, an online turn-based game. She told me that it was her wish to flirt with, and then conquer, some of the greatest leaders of the ancient world. When I probed further, she named Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan. She said that the only way to rule the world with decency was to take over all of it and rule as a benevolent dictator. Incidentally, she was a varsity cheerleader and a big fan of Peter Heather. Which reminds me that I've been meaning to pop to Prof. Heather's department and get him to sign a book for her, and then I'll post it. Two of her other heroes were Plato and also Pink.

Anyway, huffingtonpost.co.uk had a story this week and it makes good reading for individuals involved in the military-industrial complex and indeed, proponents of maintaining armoured divisions in the face of no known threats. One man has been playing CivsII for ten years. He's got to 4000A.D. and well, it's a state of never-ending war. Only three civs are left, Vikings, Celts, Americans (hardy fellows, each). They've been in a state of perpetual war for 1700 years. Yes, I'm sure I just heard Martin Dempsey's heart skip a beat.

The player wanted his America to remain a democracy but could only control it through (I presume Stalin-esque) communism. Wars were nuclear and continually fought for control over resources. In 4000A.D., most of his money went on tanks. Tanks.

The story went viral. Even Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder commented on it. The plan now is to take over the entire world and act as a benevolent dictator. 'Democracy had failed' one user posted. Quite. There are some pertinent issues here - nuclear war, resource war, unstable political systems and perpetual war. These themes are constant in the news, no wonder the story went viral, in 4027 A.D., the user is engaged in a scenario that's a plausible, real future.

It makes you think. I just blogged on Phosphorus as the next big power conflict. It makes me ask, when would you use nuclear weapons? If you look at Cuba, generally regarded as the closest two nuclear powers have come to launching nuclear strikes, the necessity to launch a nuclear strike wasn't there. Robert McNamara in the incredible documentary/interview Fog of War, makes it known that the US saw that if the Soviets could climb down whilst saving face, there was a way out.

Resource war makes a climbdown unthinkable. If your population is starving and hence rebelling, you have to go to war against an external other in order to secure resources. In short, both you and your population not only want, but need, a nuclear strike.

How soon? Look at a population growth chart from 10, 000 B.C. to 2000 A.D.

Here's a shorter time period, 1750 A.D. (1 billion) to 2050 A.D. (10 billion). The Civ player noted the world population peaked in 2000 A.D and then fell sharply due to war and famine.

In fact, the second graph is very much the first half of a Gaussian function, or normal distribution - a bell shaped curve found in many aspects of nature. Which makes the Civ II model even more pertinent. What does this mean for Academia? If Huntington's Clash of Civ's thesis was the debated argument of the first decade of this century, it seems that Garrett Hardin's Lifeboat ethics will be the debate of the next decade.

Nuclear weapons, resource poverty, unstable political systems. Makes you wish for a varsity cheerleader who's happy to act as a benevolent global dictator.

The BBC did a little piece on the Civ story, here.

Animated Foucault and Deleuze in conversation

Love this. YouTube animation of the infamous conversation between Deleuze and Foucault from 1972 included in Bouchard ed. (1977). The "Comments" aren't your usual YouTube fare.

Phosphorus: The Next Big Power Conflict

There's a scene in Alan Moore's famous comic book (he resented the term 'graphic novel') between the Batman and the Joker, in the rain, at a deserted funfair. The Joker is walking around and he says:

"Do you know what triggered the last World War? An argument over how many telegraph poles Germany owed its war debt creditors!'

The joke is on us. National provisions for populations means safeguarding citizens right to consumerism will create resource conflicts around minerals necessary for foodstuffs. Crazy.

The historical accuracy aside, seemingly small controversies can escalate provided there is enough momentum already gained between the antagonists. Simply put, even telegraph poles can be the straw that caused the camel to go to war.

Phosphorus is critical to phosphate fertilisers, themselves critical to 'global food security' says The London Times in a feature on food miracles (a great summary of the problem and history is here at Business Insider). The richest supplies are in Morocco and China and the latter is now less eager to export it than it used to be. Moreover, that 'India is already almost one hundred percent dependent on imported phosphorus' shows the possible antagonisms that could arise over access to minerals.

China has a plan. The plan is to secure resource access globally. To safeguard resource access, it will develop its military, in order to combat US military hegemonic status, should the US confront it over resources. The United States may assume that China is developing its military in order to assert regional authority but it is something much more precise: China understands that the rise of the Asian populations and their consumerism will lead to turbulence in terms of resource access. Whilst America has spent the last ten years engaged in military confrontation to ensure physical security, China has been engaged in soft power offensives aimed at resource security.

The idea is simple: secure resources for your population and your nation survives. Given the nuclear status of China, conflicts will only erupt at the local level, hence China needs high end military technology and cyberintelligence.

China is already resource wealthy. It possesses supplies of most minerals necessary for US manufacturing, for example. C. Robert Taylor argues that US domestic phosphorus supplies will be exhausted in 15-30 years and that this resource, not oil, will then be the key security factor in US foreign policy. Taylor notes that:


Morocco and China hold 60 percent of the world’s known phosphorus reserves while the U.S., South Africa and Jordan hold most of the rest.
Wisely, China, “has imposed a 100 to 175 percent tariff to curtail phosphorus exports, yet the U.S. continues to export to China. Troubling, ain’t it 

Food is key. The reason is obvious. You don't have to kill to survive. You don't have to consume luxury goods to survive. You don't have to have three foreign vacations a year to survive. You don't need to upgrade your home entertainment system to survive or even buy Homeland Series 1 on DVD boxset to survive. But you do have to eat. And if you think that's far fetched, look at what happened to global markets in April 2012 when the cost of Spring Onions and Cabbages in China soared.

Cry Havoc, and let loose the forces of Anonymous

Of course, it makes good sense.Some individuals or groups are collaborating as Anonymous and hacking sites containing sensitive data. Earlier this month it launched DDoS attacks against the UK Home Office's website.

So of course, it makes sense. Earlier this month Anonymous launched attacks against Chinese sites. Its "Anonymous China" twitter feed proclaimed, "Dear Chinese government, you are not infallible." And provided those who accessed it information on anti-censorship programmes.

So of course it makes sense. The American government has been the main target of Anonymous so its important to stress a new, more malicious enemy.

So of course, it makes sense. China's hunger for corporate espionage is harming America, claimed Richard Falkenrath, Former Deputy Homeland Security Advisor to the White House. Right wing conspiracy theorists see the RQ-170 drone lost over Iran as being brought down by a Chinese cyberunit, or more generally, just the Chinese.

So of course it make sense. Adam Segal, writing April 20, 2012 in Foreign Policy, argues Anonymous should attack five key Chinese websites. It's not us, it's them, is Segal's tone - China has the really good secrets.