Red Pill, Blue Pill, Green Pill, Black Pill

Forbidden fruit: The Apple logo is commonly considered to make an occult reference to the Garden of Eden and relates computer use to forbidden knowledge, information, and soul-testing enlightened liberation. Image Source: The Open Scroll.

Before 1999, there was no word in English, as far as I know, to describe information which shatters one's world view. Techno-political ideologies evolve from an overdose on information and subsequent, broken views of the world.

Information as Forbidden Fruit

The first cyber-ideology to describe the disillusionment of the Information Age was called the red pill, or being red-pilled. The term comes from the film, The Matrix (1999) and Morpheus's speech on how to deal with knowing something you can't explain:

"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more."

Red pilling starts with the feeling that there is something wrong in the world, and you don't know what it is. Everywhere you look, things have gone wrong.

The splinter, driving you mad, is that you are a slave, born into bondage in an invisible prison: The Matrix (1999) © Warner. Reproduced non-commercially under Fair Use. Video Source: Youtube.

The Establishment after Post-Truth

Image Source: National Enquirer.

This post considers the struggle between the establishment and the precariat to control the dominant narrative in global media. To start, we need to know what the establishment is. The word 'establishment' has a medieval history. From the late 15th century to the early 19th century, it meant a settled economic arrangement, what we would call an annuity, or it was an income gained from property.

A Constitutional Dance around Surveillance

Full doc: April 26, 2017 FISA court order against the NSA for five years of illegal spying on US citizens https://t.co/5lXP3CwsEs

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 28, 2017

Julian Assange has posted a link today to the document below, uploaded by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. This is the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court's (FISA) ruling on NSA activities, which was declassified on 11 May 2017. This secret court gives intelligence agencies permission to conduct surveillance activities. The ruling reveals the constitutional balancing act and/or illegality of NSA spying on US citizens and non-US citizens for five years. It shows the contorted legalese used to justify, and question, American government surveillance of domestic and foreign populations. From Circa:

"The American Civil Liberties Union said the newly disclosed violations are some of the most serious to ever be documented and strongly call into question the U.S. intelligence community’s ability to police itself and safeguard American’s privacy as guaranteed by the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure."

The Sinclair Broadcast Group has a curious small collection of documents, including the NSA's 2016 Inspector General Report. In a reflection of the broad impact of science and technology, this FISA release acquires an additional surreal touch, juxtaposed with another uploaded article: Healthy offspring from freeze-dried mouse spermatozoa held on the International Space Station for 9 months.

2016 Cert FISC Memo Opin Order Apr 2017 (4) by Sinclair Broadcast Group on Scribd