From: lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu (Cosma R. Shalizi)
Newsgroups: alt.destroy.the.earth
Subject: Re: Forging a World Dictatorship
Date: 10 Oct 1992 21:55:17 GMT
Organization: Vampire Research Group at Berkeley :)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hailstorm.berkeley.edu

   Joshua is perfectly correct, any aspiring world dictatorship _must_ have
nuclear weapons. We'd also need a source of uranium, and probably oil. I sug-
gest we start by taking over Siberia, which would also give us a few thousand
ex-Soviet scientists & technicians starving for employment, not to mention
lovely places like the sea of Okhost (sp??) to pollute. Then, let me see...
we need big fanatical armies... an industrial base... probably access to
space for asteroids and dropping things on anyone who resists us... Hmmm...
   Well, we need financial backing, so we set ourselves up with unrestrained
capitalism, at least in free trade zones like Vladivostok - i.e., NO
environmental regulations, NO safety laws, NO quality inspection, NO
restrictions on foreign investment and very competitive taxes. We also set
up very strict banking secrecy laws, and invite in foreign scientists by the
ton (e.g., automatic citizenship for any PhD?). It may take some time for us
to build up the economic base we need, alas - but note that Japan went from
a backward feudalism to being a world power in half a century.
   We then start propagating a lunatic, totalitarian philosophy with local
variations - one sub-sect tailored for Islamic fundamentalism in Central
Asia (uranium, natural gas, ex-Soviet space facilities and my cousins),
another for China, a third for India, a fourth for south-east Asia. The
middle east could probably be handled by our central asian version, but
might need a bit of fine tuning. Then at least one version for the
industrial countries, possibly two (one for Eastern Europe) or three (one for
America)*. We crib it from the usual sources - Hitler, Lenin, Marx, Hegel,
Rousseau, Plato, Jung, Lao Tze, etc. We take all the old liberal watch-words
("liberty," "freedom," "equality," "justice," "human rights") and reveal
their true, correct and holistically sound meanings (e.g., "Freedom is
slavery"), and turn on our propaganda machine, liberally fed with Siberian
gold and timber exports - not to mention selling whale meat to the
Japanese.
   In countries with elections, we bribe our candidates into power. In those
without, we force our way into power. Countries that resist us will be crushed
- first by economics, then by conventional means, and when all else fails, by
the Bomb. ("It was necessary to destroy Bactria in order to save it.") Where we
rule, we bring the benefits of efficient and uninhibited government: peace,
law, order, security, discipline. Nothing hurts a professional effort to blow
up the world more than anarchy. Use computers to get a really effective
police state, and none of this wishy-washy leniency towards hackers: Anyone
with an unauthorized modem will be _immediately_ recycled.
   We also fulfill some of our promises - e.g., giving the Third World some
First World pelf, and bringing ecological soundness (poverty and massive
destruction of property) to the First. Then, after a few purges of the lower
orders to eliminate competing political parties, unsympathetic religions,
uncooperative academics and intellectuals, military types with misplaced
loyalties, et cetera, we set up shrines at a few of the more important spots
for our movement (Alamogordo, Tunguska, Bhopal, Chernobyl, etc.) and begin on
the Great Work.

*: Such regional variations will be necessary to meet the spiritual and
intellectual demands of different cultures. While environmentalism will be
well-received in the West, and perhaps Central Asia, it is not likely to be
well thought of in India or Indonesia. That's okay; such philosophies are
_never_ challenged on the grounds of consistency. We will also need to
fine-tune to fit with local religions - there are a large number of
fundamentalist Hindus in India who would be quite useful to us, for
instance, as might the Jesus Freaks here in America, though personally I
find it more aesthetically satisfying to use the eco-hobbits and new-age
bliss-ninnies. Encouraging a superstitious attitude towards technology could
only help matters, since it would give us, the ruling class, the advantage of
supernatural power. Needless to say, our final goals are not to be part of
the public philosophy, but must belong to the inner, esoteric tradition,
revealed only to carefully chosen initiaites.

MORE IDEAS:
Herbert, Frank. _Dune_ (for notes on running a jihad)
Orwell, George. _1984_
Popper, Karl. _The Open Society and Its Enemies_ (for our philosophy)
Russell, Bertrand. "Zahatopolk" in _Nightmares of Eminent Persons_
Stove, David. _The Plato Cult_ (also for our philosophy)
Wingrove, David. _Chung Kuo_
   Doubtless many others can be named...

	Cosma Rohilla Shalizi
	In Real Life: lizi@ocf.berkeley.edu
	larval physicist
	VP, Campus Crusade for Cthulhu (Berkeley)
THE STARS ARE RIGHT: CTHULHU IN '92! WHY SETTLE FOR A LESSER EVIL?
-- 
"Apart from hydrogen, the most common thing in the universe is stupidity."
-Harlan Ellison, _An Edge in My Voice_