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The Hivemind Singularity
An anonymous reader writes "Alan Jacobs at The Atlantic writes about a book called New Model Army (NMA), which takes the idea of Anonymous — a loose, self-organizing collective with a purpose — and adds twenty-five years of technological advancement. The book's author, Adam Roberts, 'asks us to imagine a near future when electronic communications technologies enable groups of people to communicate with one another instantaneously, and on secure private networks invulnerable, or nearly so, to outside snooping.' With the arrival of advanced communications tech, such groups wouldn't be limited to enacting their will from behind a computer screen, or in a pre-planned flash mob; they could form actual armies. 'Again, each NMA organizes itself and makes decisions collectively: no commander establishes strategy and gives orders, but instead all members of the NMA communicate with what amounts to an advanced audio form of the IRC protocol, debate their next step, and vote. Results of a vote are shared to all immediately and automatically, at which point the soldiers start doing what they voted to do. ... They are proud of their shared identity, and tend to smirk when officers of more traditional armies want to know who their "ringleaders" are. They have no ringleaders; they don't even have specialists: everyone tends the wounded, not just some designated medical corps, and when they need to negotiate, the negotiating team is chosen by army vote. Each soldier does what needs to be done, with need determined by the NMA which each has freely joined.' Let's hope resistance isn't futile."
We've seen what happens with democratic decision making, as the population grows so does the splintering and each side grows further apart. Unless human nature can progress like the "25 years of" technology I dont see large hiveminds getting too far past their internal "debates".
Let's hope resistance isn't futile.
Why? As far as I can tell this would be a good thing. If everyone in an army is making decisions then they aren't as likely to engage in risky behavior or unnecessary violence. The analogy is to how many have argued that the US has become more warlike as it has lost its draft, so that people favoring war are no longer in any serious risk of being called up. Nothing in the summary seems that negative, and a brief skim of TFA doesn't seem to indicate much actually negative as far as I can tell.
I wonder if the author fully recognizes the primary downfall of the "NMA" model: boredom and single-mindedness. If the "flash-mobs" and other self-organizing units we've seen pop up over the last few years really do suggest the future, then the future is filled with groups who'll come together for roughly 15 minutes to vaguely complain about some particular topic, and then wander on off to ride bikes. All traditional structures need to do is weather the 15 minutes and then continue on as normal.
They are, arent they!
they will all be out of a job
It's somewhat of a sociologically interesting fact that in 99% percent of the cases, where this sort of utopic future communities are described, voting always come up. The fact that there is a network and a mean for people to be "always on" doesn't make people brighter all of a sudden. That sort of democracy can quickly turn into chaos and then anarchy.
:)
From my experience in being part of some passionate amateurs communities I can say that leadership is very important. Individuals will always have different degrees of involvement, different degrees of the ability to know what is right for the group of a whole, different degrees of objectivity, education, selflessness. And even different agendas. Individuals in a group might sincerely believe that their way is the best.
What I'm trying to say is that voting is not always the best solution, leadership (formal or informal) and fast decision making abilities are more important. Having a vision and seeing "the path" is more important than wasting time and energy (think of how long it takes in a group of people larger than 3 to decide where to eat out and multiply by ten for "important stuff") to vote all the time.
I'm not saying that democracy is overrated but not even democracy supposes that people vote on every single aspect. That's where the idea of a parliament (or similar institution) comes from. You're supposed to have your interests represented by people with knowledge, leadership skills, vision and desire to serve the community.
Then again, we also know how that turns out
Curiously yours, crip.
God knows that if I'm suffering hypovolemic shock concomitant to massive war trauma, I want nothing more than the wisdom of the crowd!
Stupid hierarchical medical profession: all of my comrades can Google "How to start an IV" and hit up the Wikipedia page on exploratory laparotomies. Hell, I bet there's an instructables on how to install a Wittmann patch. Oh wait, I already feel confident/competent enough after seeing the Wittmann Patch Wikipedia page.
Excuse me, I'm off to check the eHow for "How to scrub in for surgical procedures"...
I haven't read this book, but I'd be shocked if it were better or more interesting than Daemon and Freedom by Daniel Suarez - which vividly represented the same sort of organizational idea, but set inside a truly impressive narrative. Check out his talk at Long Now to get a taste.
I just read the blurb but I don't see where the 25 years of technical advancement comes in. We have all the communication tools available already.
-- Cheers!
You can assume that there will be a foreign agent pretending to be part of the 'army' using an equally secure link to send out the planned activities to the adversary.
And what happens if a large number of equally 'anonymous' agents are influencing the vote and then following through with counter actions to whatever is decided?
You mean like The Borg?
I don't think this would help much
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Is this book about a Dystopia? This sounds like such an incredibly clumsy and inefficient system that I'm hoping the book is a lost Stanislaw Lem satire.
That's a classic way to run a resistance movement. Mao, Marighella, the IRA, al-Queda, etc. It works fairly well in the early phases. As the revolution advances, tighter coordination is necessary. This leads to centralized leadership. In the end, there's a Stalin or a Castro.
The US is one of the very few countries to get a stable democracy out of a revolution. That's not what usually happens.
On another tracks we were talking about what makes Geeks "Geeks" and how we are pounded by those unscrupulous scumbags
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2980545&cid=40659239
And the author is talking about the complete reverse
I do not know which one is more true-er, tho
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Let's hope resistance isn't futile.
Why? Why is this a bad thing? Because the organizational units are not based on geographic boundaries? This is just a new kind of nation-state that is forming in cyberspace, and they will establish their sovereignty using the same tools of diplomacy that we use in traditional geopolitics; force, propaganda, influence, and intimidation. These new entities don't all fall along traditional geopolitical boundaries, but that doesn't make them inherently evil. In fact, they may wind up being a particularly effective balance against multinationals and governments that act in concert via treaties.
Multinational corporations and governments are already arming themselves for cyber warfare. Corporations are wielding semantic analysis, shilling, and astroturfing to manipulate public perception and change the course of governments all over the world. Governments are bordering on open war in cyberspace.
Which is more dangerous: For citizens to be armed, or for oligarchs to go unchecked? Reading the Declaration of Independence may give you some insight into the conclusion reached by what became the most powerful nation-state in history.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
As long as they don't march on my lawn.
rewriting history since 2109
Inevitably, we can imagine that if groups like these actually existed, one would eventually engage in a war crime of some sort. When that happens, who would be punished? The ones perpetrating it? The people who voted in support of the crime? Those who were aware of it? The entire group?
That sort of democracy can quickly turn into chaos and then anarchy.
You might think that yet Switzerland has a democratic system which is the closest I have seen to the "everyone votes on everything" idea and yet is an incredibly stable country. I think part of the reason for this is that people get to decide things at the local level which makes for strong communities since they have a sense of control. Certainly you don't seem to get the usual sense of powerlessness caused by the politicians listening to rich special interest groups and trampling all over society in their hurry to get that money.
Unfortunately one of the first votes the generalists agree on is to delegate power to specialists, including leaders. It's the Iron Law of Oligarchy.
If your unit gets surprise attacked by the enemy, do you want to spend 5 minutes (at least) calling an online vote on whether to counterattack or retreat, or do you want a commander to give an immediate order?
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
I believe it has already been proven that the US would fail.
Michael
Even though my buddies and I can hive-mind our decisions, it still takes us 15 minutes to decide on pizza toppings.
Or, to put it more plainly, knowing what we're all thinking won't necessarily help the individuals cast their mental "votes" any quicker.
This signature is false.
In a creepy lawful neutral fashion. The current reality is a bit more mercenary. Leaderless armies tending their wounded pan out doesn't seem that near. Might make more insular groups down the road.
I was an army medic, and can tell you right off the bat this idea is bullshit it several different directions. First, no army ever could or would fight this way. The notion of the egalitarian army with no leadership is not really different from a mob. An army works because of the top-down nature of command. In order for all the so-called soldiers to 'vote' on decisions, they'd all have to know what's going on. Otherwise they're voting without having any clue as to what effect their votes might have. There is neither the time, nor the capability, even with this so-called "advanced" communications they're supposed to have, to brief EVERYONE, so either you're going to be wasting time informing everyone then debating everything, getting nothing done, or you're going to have people who don't know what's happening making decisions, either with NO intel, or with undigested and probably misinterpreted intel at every step.
As for the commo, people cannot in my experience, concentrate on more than one conversation at a time. Try it some time if you don't believe.
As for the cockamamie idea of having everyone tend to the wounded... the modern US military has as its new doctrine that every soldier learn basic medical skills. This has actually been the case for years, maybe decades, but recently the expected level of medical proficiency (of all soldiers) went from "buddy-aid", like applying field-dressings to wounds and cooling someone suffering heat-stroke, to every swinging dick being Combat Lifesaver certified. However, that course is about a week long. When I went through, Combat Medic School (Healthcare Specialist Course, MOSC 68W1O) was about 16 weeks long, which was followed up at my unit (as presumably any of my fellow CMS graduates deploying to war as I was, and maybe even ones who weren't,) also attended something called CMAST, Combat Medic Advanced Skills Training, which included performing procedures on a cadaver, and a doing a few other things I'm not permitted to reveal. Then on top of that months of on the job training doing the actual job.
A real functional army waging a war doesn't have the TIME to train every soldier to be a Combat Medic, let alone train them in the 200+ other specialties an actual, real army needs to wage any kind of war.
This... is it a book? This article, or what it references, is sheer mental masturbation, a fantasy that a bunch of soft little fruit-cakes playing games and pretending to be an "army", scoffing at conventional forces demanding to know who their ring-leaders are, is fucking ridiculous. You might as well write a book about people spreading their fingers wide, and flapping their arms and FLYING. It's a fucking joke.
If you're having trouble understanding what I mean, imagine if you went brain-dead tomorrow, and your various body-parts decided to vote on everything you do. Your penis would (assuming you have one) veto every vote that doesn't involve stroking it. Your back would insist it needs to rest, and lay in bed all day. Your stomach and your mouth would agree you should eat, but your hands would demand to know what's in it for them. Your teeth would refuse to chew anything without a guarantee from your hands that they will be brushed and flossed after eating. Teeth appeased, your epiglottis would complain that the body should make up its mind about what they want it to do, open to lungs, or open to stomach, and would start hiccuping to show its displeasure. In short, you wouldn't have the level of agreement and cooperation to be able to so much as stagger into the bathroom and take a shit. Just like what such an army as described in the story would do, without any central leadership and authority.
anarchistic bunch of teenage assholes being controlled
They can't be both anarchistic and controlled.
I assume by "controlled" you mean buying into an alternative propaganda to the one presented by mainstream media.
For better or worse, It's just an age where people have a choice where they invest their beliefs.
The idea of a decentralized "army" is pretty ridiculous but ironically the definition of perfect democracy as the strength derives from the membership.
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.
- - Kay
( Men in Black)
manipulated is a better word
We already have them, they're called 4chan, encyclopedia dramatica, portal of evil, something awful, and to a lesser extent there are plenty of private forums out there.
The thing missing from all of these is the "secure" bit. Most of these areas are just a way to raise a mob to humiliate a target (most of 4chan's /b is people showing each other their naughty bits in between encouraging terror on a target.) Portal of Evil takes is full of homophobic posters. Something awful forums are a semi-private way to humiliate a target by talking smack behind their backs since their target most of the time is oblivious to what is going on. Encyclopedia Dramatica takes the worst of 4chan and portal of evil, and then tries to make their targets commit suicide.
The "inner circle" for all of these are private IRC, that may or may not be secure, but the person behind the curtain is not the same people on the public side. 4chan is mostly children, teens and adult-babies/children that have entitlement issues, occasionally something righteous might come up, but it's mostly "I raided this chicks facebook, post dicks on it"
'asks us to imagine a near future when electronic communications technologies enable groups of people to communicate with one another instantaneously, and on secure private networks invulnerable, or nearly so, to outside snooping.
And how exactly is this possible? The resources required to create the internet and the actual system is not well-suited for any sort of true "decentralized" network or completely private operation.
We're still all physically connected to massive backbones that have to route all the packets we send along wires that connect every computer or wireless router or cell tower on the planet. It passes over countless miles of land that the governments of the world regulate (and control through things like zoning laws and the concept of public land).
How exactly do you have a network that isn't stationary or locally based without that sort of physical limitation? Satellites? Besides SpaceX, I can't really this as an option. And that would be an extremely vulnerable network even if for some odd reason it wasn't regulated, governments could easily take out rogue satellites with random debris.
The idea of a decentralized "army" is pretty ridiculous
You may want to read up a bit on how the anarchist militia organized in the spanish civil war. E.g. before going on a mission, squads would elect a squad member to be the leader for that particular mission.
they don't even have specialists: everyone tends the wounded, not just some designated medical corps,
Do not sign me up then. When my life is on the line, I prefer a trained medic, thank you very much.
There's a reason specialization has won the culture wars some 10,000 years ago: It works. Everyone who did Economics 101 knows that, it's called "division of labour" there. Basically, you do what you're good at, I do what I'm good at, and we share the spoils, which results in both of us having more than if we had to both do everything ourselves.
And the more complex things get, the more specializiation is required and useful. In a hunter-gatherer society, in a bind the primary deer hunter can also skin the beast and the primary cook can also catch a rabbit. But that was 50,000 years ago. How many medical doctors have even a basic competence in programming? And how many of us geeks here could make even the simplest operation without killing the patient?
So, interesting vision from the sound of it, but already from the summary I can tell that someone hasn't thought hard enough about the consequences.
Oh, also: Even Anonymous has specialists.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
...that lack a strong leadership / vision, to know this idea is doomed to fail. Think how debilitating it would be to first ask a soldier to form an opinion on a certain course of action and vote on it (thereby forcing him to make an emotional investment in his choice). Let's say the majority chooses otherwise, rejecting said soldier's strategy. Now tell him to follow through with whatever the majority chose - that would create a negative effect on morale, much worse than asking soldiers to follow commands blindly and not form any opinion in the first place.
If they had squad leaders and elections and organized a militia, then they weren't anarchists. That's not anarchy, that's democracy.
A real anarchist would reject the legitimacy of any squad leader or any other leader of any kind, and would refuse to be part of any organized militia or any other organization of any kind.
He will be careful to only bring things that came true up by the time this doesn't happen.
'Again, each NMA organizes itself and makes decisions collectively: no commander establishes strategy and gives orders
Bullshit. Some ambitious psychotic will subvert the system and rig the votes so he is making the decisions. Actually, probably several will, and they will set the parts of the 'army" they control against each other.
Even if that didn't happen, the idea of crowd sourcing military strategy is bound to fail. Crowds can't agree on a complex strategy, let alone carry out one that requires discipline and surprise.
This kind of thing can work for guerrilla warfare, small groups harrying an enemy, which is basically what Anonymous does, but not a real war. They could cause chaos, but not take or defend territory.
More like 10. And it will be as much due to the maturing of currently existing technology assisted communities as it will be to the emergence of new technology and improvements on current tech.
It's stable, but it's not a democracy. You can vote for alternative figureheads for the country, sure, but they're not actually in power because the real power lies in the financial and industrial block, and that operates outside of any public vote.
The result was certainly less bloody than a Stalin or a Castro, but thinking that the result was a real democracy is quite a misapprehension. It's more like a China, but with the single party hidden within the establishment and untouchable through the electoral system.
They also lost that war...
Sorry but if you think than the fact of having an election converts a system in a democracy, an denies anarchy, you don't understand what democracy nor anarchy are...
Spanish anarchist unions and syndicates (not parties) where strong and with very well defined structures, before they were crushed by the fascist uprising. The base of anarchy is they reject any state or hierarchy, but when it comes to take decisions they use voting systems, where every single person (workers or soldiers) has the same wheight.
Sorry about my poor English, but i think you'll get what I'm saying.
over teamspeak, morale will break. Armies are organized a certain way for a reason.
Just EMP them.
Democratic decision-making... fine for determining military objectives, but absolutely useless for coordination, command, control, and tactics. Such an army would be about as dangerous and stealthy as a poisonous jellyfish.
This doesn't sound like a utopian future, this sounds like terrorist cells. Are you sure that you're not talking about Al Qaeda?
Hivemind: "K guys, let's vote on when to attack! Quickly, now! The choices are A, B, C, D."
Elapsed time: 2 mins
Traditional army: "ATTACK NOW MOVE MOVE MOVE"
Elapsed time: 2 seconds
This is why armies are traditionally hierarchies. Quick decisions are most often authoritative ones.
Where did you get that from? Of course Anarchists cooperate. Anyone who told you different has probably not very shiny reasons for doing so, or is taking the word too literally, instead of looking into the whole thing ;)
From what I've heard, one can always blame the stalinists for that ;)
Anarchists can do whatever they want, including being part of an organization. I suspect a pure anarchist society woul end up defaulting to a form of Marxism or democracy purely for convenience.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
The technology he's talking about sounds a little bit like the stuff a lot of Vernor Vinge's books have, particularly Marooned in Realtime.
I find it interesting that this article is mostly concerned with the military aspects of this kind of technology. What about the spiritual?
What if communicating like this was close to attaining something we used to have, but lost somehow?
The Sprint network of 25 years from now will be the same shit at the one today. Except it will cost more.
They are proud of their shared identity, and tend to smirk when officers of more traditional armies want to know who their "ringleaders" are...
Anonymous may smirk at the idea, but under the Geneva Conventions, they must have a discernible command structure or officers in charge in order to be defined as lawful combatants.
The semantic difference here is the same one the Bush administration used to produce Guantanamo Bay and break the laws regarding treatment of Prisoners of War.
but when it comes to take decisions they use voting systems, where every single person (workers or soldiers) has the same wheight.
That sounds like... pure democracy.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
He said Anonymous, but al-Qaeda is a much better example. At least they know what they're fighting for.
The network described would not work unless everyone had 'like mind' and 'like skills'. The former is impossible in humans. The latter would involve prohibitive training costs for an army ... that's why they have 'specialists'. Even ants and bees, the standard examples of hive-mind, have specialists. And, of course, the BORG had a pro-active Queen.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Please Google "No true Scotsman".
Thanks.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Such a system would be hacked, because it was trusted, and manipulation of the sheeple will continue. Whether it is plain old social engineering and propaganda, or truly impressive technical wizardy, the are biologicals at the endpoint are, by and large, easily duped.
The Luftwaffe was hardly a Stalinist organisation.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Small gangs? Sure. Armies? No. You can't communicate effectively with thousands of people simultaneously in the same "real-time" space.
The core issue here is that humans are primates. Sure, we are a lot more intelligent and communicate far better than even our nearest evolutionary cousins, but that primate "primal" nature is still very much there.
Every single human institution falls victim to this. Big ideas and lofty goals in the macro are eventually swallowed up by primate social drives in the micro. The institutions that do best and survive the longest are the ones that have effective checks and balances against the primate, or leverage aspects of the primal nature to support the institution.
If you truly want to understand human nature, read "How to Wind Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie, and "Gorillas in the Mist" by Jane Goodall - and compare Dale's common sense and highly astute analysis of human social behavior against those of the gorillas.
And watch the light of understanding come on for pretty much every human social interaction you've ever had over the course of your entire life.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
resistance to what? you are not responsible for the state of the world you were born into and all you percieve is your own projection. Go overthrow yourself and create a new self projected vibratory state, wash, rinse, & r3p3t3.
Looks like a lot of wishful thinking. I think the reality is that collectives eventually form into a hierarchy with a figurehead at the top. I think it's a natural tendency for humans to organize into some sort of bureaucratic structure and follow a leader. I'd argue it's even instinctual. There will always be those who want to lead and the majority are happy to be led, let someone else do the thinking for them.
And outside of oppression collectives will inevitably splinter. Either people will be discontent with the majority or they'll be ambitious in their own right and see no room for growth within the organization.
People like to delude themselves into thinking they've discovered something new, that technology is going to inherently bring about a new form of thinking. But the fact is that we're still dealing with humans and they're still driven by the same forces they've always been.
The chain of command and rank structure takes care of decision making. Someone is always in charge, even if it is the last person standing.
Floating in the black seas of infinity without a paddle.
So the idea it could be invulnerable to snooping is just not practical and it makes the entire thought experiment pointless.
It's next to impossible to have an invulnerable to snooping form of communication.
Individuals who don't agree with the outcome of a group vote don't do it anyways. They just leave or create a splinter group. There's no reason to follow a decision you don't agree with. In general it sounds like this guy's idea of Anonymous is much more hierarchical / authoritarian than it actually is.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Franco's army was well-funded and well-equiped by Germany and Italy. The POUM militias weren't, and got stomped on as a result.
That doesn't mean Franco's troops had a picnic, cause they didn't. The POUM lost, but their opponents knew they'd been in a fight.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
"They have no ringleaders; they don't even have specialists: everyone tends the wounded, not just some designated medical corps"
No thanks, I'll take the elitist specialist
Sounds like the 'Cyber Brain' implants from Ghost In The Shell. The military or group application seems exactly like the section 9 in the series.
Who made the decision that the mission needed to take place? Who decided on when, where, and with what squads? Who coordinated overall strategy -- or was the anarchist side uncoordinated above the squad level?
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona_May_Days is just an example.
This biography by Abel Paz http://www.amazon.com/Durruti-Spanish-Revolution-Abel-Paz/dp/190485950X contains a lot of background on the spanish civil war (including mentions of frequent infighting between stalinists and anarchist socialists) from the view of the anarchist faction. Very extensive, interesting read, IMO. Can't comment on the quality of the english language version, though.
Everything is fine and dandy until someone with an irritating voice or personality is voted to be in the vanguard and dies in the next battle.
Check out this book, it's along the same lines as the Hivemind Singularity. Here's a review: http://www.themindfulword.org/2012/starfish-spider-leaderless-organizations/