serendipityoucity

These days i am involved with some very unhealthy forms of work avoidance and family matter escapism and have decided to forgo any sense of responsibility and instead I lie on my new sofa (1950’s Japanese retro thing), turn up the aircon, drink way more hot chocolate that i think anyone should, eat farm to kitchen mixed greens and read the biggest fattest book of fiction kicking around in the house which happens to be cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson (girlz, his books are boyz books, there is a bunch of macho geek stuff in em, while some of it is annoying, they are fun, insightful and explains some of the thinking i frequently come across!). 

So at 2 am, i am thinking about data haven’s, deep lurkium caves storing data, neutrino labs deep in abandoned mines, dark buildings with no windows, server farms, switching stations full of routing equipment and stuff, big fat underground and undersea cables connecting all these places, massive power generation with tons of backup power and more aircon any of us could ever imagine to cool this these things.  Shelves!  There is a whole industry around server room shelving! Then i think of all the brainpower involved by coders and geeks to make the stuff impenetrable and the multiple financial institutions that rely on these things working, the huge political and industrial interests involved in keeping them sorta secret and super safe, the geopolitics of cable connections, how many are left in information darkness, the crazy routes this stuff takes and how most of us think of our data as being stored in some virtual place somewhere.  How we rarely reflect on the physical stuff associated with 24/7 access and well that it is all stored in some very real places with some very big politics and financial interests!

Then i got to thinking of the cultural implications of having our collective memory banks in these places, the archivist in the time machine movie, the librarian in Snow Crash, the archive in Star Wars, the debate between King Thamus and Theuth regarding the invention or writing and how that would affect wisdom and memory, the money, politics, energy and security evolving around these infrastructures, which are of course owned by shareholders and their corporations.

Then i got to thinking about gates, and walls, access, knowledge and of course pirates.  Cuz the loot ain’t no gold bars and doubloons no more - tis data.  The new pirates are those who can break into these things and steal, our well our collective thoughts, or as in the case of the Star Wars example modify/wipe out a part of the universe’s data to suit a particular political interest, and our personal info. So the loot is not necessarily the material stuff, cuz in and of itself is has no value, it is the information and data inside the things that has value.  Controlling the physical is useless unless you know what to do with its content. My guess it the pirate outfits are also not as fanciful, probably bad t or hawaiin shirts, jeans, sandals or converse, jeans or baggy shorts, and not much attention to aesthetics (no offence boyz but tis true!).  But now i digress!

Needless to say i could not sleep.  So i called my pal rene in Rostok, and he refused to wake up cuz it was 7 am Germany time.  But he proceeded to call me back at 7 am my time!  Rascal!  He told me about this place Sealand which is in fact a data haven and

is a micronation located on HM Fort Roughs, a former Maunsell Sea Fort located in the North Sea 10 km (six miles) off the coast of Suffolk, England, in what is claimed as territorial waters using a twelve-nautical-mile radius.

Since 1967, the installation has been occupied by associates and family of Paddy Roy Bates, a former radio broadcaster and former British Army Major, who claims (incorrectly) that it is a sovereign and independent state. [1] Critics, as well as court rulings in the United States and in Germany, have claimed that Roughs Tower has always remained the property of the United Kingdom, a view that is disputed by the Bates family. The population of the facility rarely exceeds ten, and its habitable area is 550 m² (5920 sq ft).

Sealand’s claims to sovereignty and legitimacy are not recognised by any country, yet it is sometimes cited^[1] in debates as an interesting case study of how various principles of international law can be applied to a territorial dispute.

Crazy! Then i recalled Cascadia which is a

(wikipedia) proposed name for the independent sovereign state that would be formed by the union of the Canadian province of British Columbia and the states of Washington and Oregon in the United States, were they ever to successfully secede from their respective federal governments in Ottawa and Washington D.C..^[1] The boundaries of this Cascadia would incorporate those of the existing province and states.^[1]

Cascadia is home to more than 15 million people^[1], along with diminishing numbers of salmon, eagles, grizzly bears, orcas, and wolves. It boasts an economy that generates more than $450 billion worth of goods and services annually,^[1] which would place Cascadia in the top 20 economies of the world.^[1]

Gee! Which major companies are located in this region?  Which company in Seattle boast an income greater than many developing small nations? Hmm! Which industry generates that kind of revenue!  Who do you think is behind trying to have a free flow of labour in this region? Who is behind this transborder boostering?  Well lets just say that the California Ideology, with a few eco-bioregionalists (an often socially conservative lot), some hillbillies all combined with data / high tech geopolitical entities such as the Republic of Cascadia and the Principality of Sealand are things we need to seriously think about!  Do we really want these folks and their corporate entities running the show? And well, the meat space of the planet is being carved out to serve the so called information economy or the virtual data world where geography was supposed to disappear! 

Shesh! Geography seems more important than ever and i haven’t even started ranting about exclusive free trade zones, gated high tech communities, quartz cities, all of which are infrastructurally rich at the expense of the rest of the nation they purport to be a part of!  Now rene tried to dissuade my horizontally (was still in bed on the phone) my not yet watered or caffeinated paranoid negative thoughts by suggesting that the good thing about all this is the movement of people in these zones! Which people and then we wen’t off onto the EU, Swiss democracy systems, German citizenship and blood line and …

nuf said! Time to feed the neighbour’s cats! 

Michael & Hugo & Ram you should be happy people like rene exist or else you would have to deal with me when i am all wound up in the middle of the night because of the stuff you teach me and then off you go roaming the planet and getting girlfriends and leaving me all alone with my thoughts!