An Open Letter to Ben Lake MP

Surveillance Capitalism, Siren Servers Fueling Riots in England + Conveniently Prepackaged Solutions

Aug 06, 2024

The following is a letter to Ben Lake MP, constituency MP for Ceredigion, where I live, of the Plaid Cymru (Welsh Independence) Party, regarding the recent sectarian rioting in England and how it is fueled by social media.

Good Morning Ben,

Firstly congratulations on your re-election and Plaid's performance in general. One of those votes was from me. Aside from my strong belief in devolved power in general as a principle, I think you're a good constituency MP, someone who cares about people and our lives, so thank you.

As someone who gets paid to consult about the dangers of social media and build better, more inherently safe and secure technology, I feel obliged to send some thoughts and opinions about what's going on in England right now.

I am, quite frankly, disgusted that Muslims are being used as a whipping boy, a scapegoat, for a cocktail of Westminster failures from the fallout from the illegal wars and regime changes in the Middle East and Africa to the failure to tackle organised crime, institutional incompetence and corruption, the failure of privatization of infrastructure from trains to water, the 2008 banker bailouts, to the housing crisis, to Brexit and CoVid: none of that was the fault of Muslims. This sectarian hatred is being whipped up in order to distract from the issues of real power: neoliberalism, the failure to reform the banking system and the multi-hundred $trillion derivatives markets, Offshore Trust Fund tax avoidance, siren servers and surveillance capitalism, blinding the masses from forming class consciousness and so forth. By scapegoating Muslims these modern and entirely new systems of power are co-opting the grievances of disenfranchised groups (far right, far left, anything in between they don't care) for their own ends, getting others to do their dirty work (of preventing solidarity, formation of genuine agency and genuine political engagement of the working class and disenfranchised groups) for them.

I could give hours of lectures about social media echo chambers and democratic subversion but rather than doing that I will bullet some useful references to learn and understand this stuff:

These social media platforms have been working for a long time to hijack the basic chemical mechanisms of our brains that govern decision making. The customers of social media platforms aren't the users, rather the users, and their data, are the product sold to companies like Cambridge Analytica, Palantir and so forth, who are the real customers. It is the real customers of social media, those with real agency to shape perception and emotion on these platforms, as well as owners of these platforms, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and so forth, that we must hold to account.

What Keir Starmer and most politicians are describing as 'far right thugs' are also victims in my view. Rioting is a sign of loss of self control, loss of agency, loss of hope no matter the political issue, race or creed. It is my belief that one social media echo chamber is feeding anti-Muslim hate, others are feeding anti-'far right' hate, and then Kier Starmer turns up with a surveillance capitalism solution (face recognition, digital IDs and so forth) that the likes of Palantir will have pre-packaged products to sell right out of the box, when they're the ones who create these social problems to begin with, along with their financial backers.

To understand this it is also important to understand the links between national and private intelligence services and military contractors as well. I experienced this myself last year with my BSV Blockchain nightmare. Cambridge Analytica, for example, has strong links to Erik Prince, founder of the infamous Blackwater private military contracting company that did war crimes, one of its owners is billionaire Robert Mercer who lobbied for Brexit, features in the Paradise Papers, did tax fraud and founded a number inflamatory media outlets. Erik Prince also trained Project Veritas with a former MI6 spy to gather intelligence and use it for political leverage, 'journalism' was a cover story. James O'Keefe left Project Veritas not because of a sandwich nor even accounting fraud, he left because evidence of serious organised crime and racketeering were uncovered, heavily linked to New Hampshire and why Ghislaine Maxwell chose to go to New Hampshire (but I won't get into the detail here).

Palantir received seed funding from In-Q-Tel, the American CIA's venture capital firm, and are lobbying and working hard to privatize the NHS. This is American-speak for turning the healthcare system into a narcotics distribution (Xanax, Opioids et cetera) and extortion (heavily gate-kept, adversely selected insurance) racket, in my humble opinion.

Again, I could wax lyrical about all these connections, but for starters these networks aren't small c family values and Church on Sundays conservatives. These are extremists in the true sense of the word, inspired by like likes of Curtis Yarvin, who aim to completely overturn democracy and even re-establish slavery. Their model for the perfect nation state looks a like Jersey or Bermuda. Their backers are rich, powerful and they employ very clever people, psychologists, policy experts, political campaign managers, former senior politicans and so forth, to perform what is essentially a hostile takeover of democracy and institutions using highly advanced technology 24/7. These are the real far right thugs, the real extremists with the real power to destabilize our society. Deano and Bazza setting cars on fire in Sunderland, egged on by astroturfed social media 'influencers', are the suckers, the rubes in all this, same as the BLM riots, same as the Arab Spring, sadly, many years ago.

In the bottom right hand corner of the above info-graphic you will notice the face and name of 'Tommy Robinson' (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) next to that of the aforementioned James O'Keefe and Alex Jones' Infowars. On Alex Jones Infowars you will also find the likes of Roger Stone (drug dealing, prostitution, extortion, racketeering, death threats against politicians, January 6 insurrection coordinator), Steve Pieczenik (drug dealing, extortion), Patrick Howley (private intelligence, extortion) as well as a whole gammut outlandish conspiracy theory freaks con-artists and so forth, all coordinated via Stratfor. This isn't just some rag tag bunch, they are highly organised criminals and con-artists actively subverting democracy either for purely selfish reasons or extreme ideological ones.

If Keir Starmer were truly interested in tackling far right extremism, he would start by calling the American and Israeli ambassadors to explain that foreign subversion of our democracy by far right billionaire lobbyists and state-sponsored private surveillance and intelligence organisations is unacceptable, and that extradition proceedings will begin if they don't put a lid on this stuff on their own soil. Instead what's being allowed to happen is sectarian violence for the benefit of neither side of the sectarian divide, for the benefit of foreign and private interests, while Keir Starmer picks an easy scapegoat to further the surveillance capitalist agenda.

Having grown up in Scotland with a name like mine (first name Irish Catholic, last name English Protestant) anyone with a bone to pick, which is more often than not, used to pick it with me. All this hatred is a race to the bottom, neither side in a sectarian battle wins, all they do is drag each other down, while those who really instigate it and stoke the flames sit on top of their pile of money laughing at the denizens of hell below. I learned all this in real life, the hard way, growing up and in my career in the oil industry, where I also met many Muslims both here and abroad. They're just like us and yes some of them are racist, some are snobs, some corrupt, some criminal but most of them are hard working, good people, doing their best with their families, in their communities, trying to get by despite mostly being put upon by unaccountable systems of power just like everyone else. Muslims are not the enemy, aren't my enemy, they're not your enemy nor Wales' enemy.

The ultimate difference between Scotland and Wales, however, is that Scotland has its own legal system and more devolved power to resist this stuff, and probably more experience of underlying sectarianism to be able to understand the difference between what's real and what's fake astroturfed social media driven venting. Wales shares laws with England and risks being dragged down into the gutter with England unless the real questions start being asked very quickly.

I strongly suggest that you and Plaid Cymru act in Wales' interest to get to the root of what's causing this social unrest by following the money and the ideology behind this, lest this cancer spread further. I can tell that people are scared, that people are angry, I can tell that ethnic minorities are nervous, we can't allow unelected, unaccountable, extremist ideologues and con-artists to divide us through technology platforms over which users have essentially lost all control over. We must call this out for what it is, and we must also really build back better, not be sold another lemon, another pig in a poke by the likes of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and so forth.

Best Regards,

Patrick Mockridge

8a Plas Helyg, Penparcau

Technology Truth

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