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In response to the question of No-One

So who are you? What are you? What are your goals? Where are you heading? How do you see the world changing? How do you see yourself as an actor in whatever events you predict?

~No-One

I’m a quiet, humble, and generally very shy person. That is, when I am not on the internet. Online, I’m outspoken, disagreeable, and prone to make wildly dramatic gestures. I am a Science Fiction junkie and a computer nerd. I was the kid who everyone thought of as a bad ass hacker genius in school. I wasn’t and still am not. That’s roughly who I am.

I created an anonymous message board in 2002, when I was in high school. I was threatened with lawsuits and punished in other ways. Every kid in school became too afraid to post anything, so I shut it down. I’ve written online in some form or another since 2001, but only this year have I had any significant readership. This is almost entirely due to AnonNews. That’s roughly what I am.

My goal is simple. I want Anonymous to look at itself critically.

Powerful organizations and individuals clamp down on the lives of the general populace for their own gain until the people rise up. It’s an endless cycle. I see the influence of communication technology quickening the pace of this cycle for both sides of this struggle. I’d say that this time, the people have the upper hand. That’s how I see the world changing.

My part in it all is hard for me to understand. I am compelled to write, and I don’t stop to wonder why. I do, however, wonder why people still read what I have to write. Perhaps it’s just because I keep spamming it on AnonNews. Maybe, just maybe, Anonymous secretly wants a conscience. I don’t think there is anything wrong with questioning the rightness of everything they do. To tie this in with my previously mentioned goal, I’ve got to ask: Has Anonymous become more critical of itself? I don’t really know. Anonymous hasn’t been around all that long, and I’ve been around for even less time. Still, I will mention Westboro Baptist and Sony, because they’re two cases, since I’ve been around, where Anonymous has criticized itself. I don’t know if Anonymous has ever denied DDoSing web sites before, but I think it is at least worth noting.

“…Anonymous has many of the characteristics of any other cult. The propagation of Anonymous is perhaps unique to the internet and also to history. I don’t know how informed or interested you are in Anonymous, but it is really of great interest to me.

Describing Anonymous is dicey and there aren’t a lot of good terms. By participating in large scale Anonymous message boards participants alter their own personality somewhat and lose their inhibition. The resulting group action is wild.

Concepts out of science fiction are worshiped by Anonymous. Members claim to be part of a hyper-conscious entity that lives in cyberspace. They often repeat a dogma that Anonymous will awaken humanity and lead the way to a better world. Of course, this is where the cult alarms start going off in my head. Still, Anonymous often postures itself as anti-cult. Anonymous is well known for protesting against Scientology and defacing the Westboro Baptist’s web site (godhatesfags.com). I see this as a way for Anonymous to deflect their own knowledge that they too are a cult…”

That is an excerpt from an e-mail I wrote, seeking the wisdom of someone smarter than myself. He agreed that it sounded cult-like, the way I described it. Not all Anons hold these beliefs, I know. It’s still important though, to be self-critical and conscious of the outside world’s view. Let me quote Wikipedia’s definition of Anonymous, which cites Chris Landers of the Baltimore City Paper.

Anonymous (used as a mass noun) is an Internet meme originating 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, representing the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic, digitized global brain.[2]

So what’s the harm in coming off a little cultish? Appealing to the need each person has for meaning and purpose is only natural, of course. Well, I’d take a hard look at the significance of the movie V for Vendetta and the motto of Anonymous, even if they’re used tongue-in-cheek. I won’t forget that the combination of even a little bit of self-righteous ideology and the wrong imagery is a recipe for violence. To ignore that fact would be terribly naive. I hate to think of what damage one off-balance person with a Guy Fawkes mask and the wrong ideas could do to the lives of real human beings. If I could do just one thing for Anonymous, it would be to make their most important message non-violence.

Those are the best answers to your questions, No-one. Except for one. You asked where I am heading, and I have no idea. I leave that one for Anon to answer.

I’d like to make note of the role my friend Ol’ Brutus has played in these events. He’s always suffered more than I have for all this shit–in school, as well as at present. He was an instrumental part in the Anonymous message board in high school and even more so for the Chronicle. Nothing I have done would have been possible without him.

18 replies on “In response to the question of No-One”

I know how difficult it is to hold one’s ground against a strong tide.

Cheers for letting me get to know you. If you’d like, I would wish to return the favor. Register and I’ll find you, if it’s not obvious who I am.

I fear I might be falling into a troll nom bowl but I’d like to just congratulate you for hitting the nail on the head. Anonymous cannot survive in it’s current state, especially if we continue on in this fashion. Take for example the recent ordeal with Sony; Our reasons for declaring war were justified (self defence of ourselves and all other Internet users) but our attacks were out of line. The collateral were the very people we were trying to protect. Aonymous needs some kind of conscience to help it plan attacks more thoroughly so as to minimize the collateral damage wee inflict. This will keep people happier and improve our self image.

TLDR? Anonymous needs a conscience and it needs one badly.

The entire idea of this is the beauty of a self-clensing organisation. Nobody follows a bad target. Mistakes are corrected on the fly. Complications are resolved as they come.

Remember that this surfaced by itself from people with similar ideologies. The people that willingly pledge to these tasks/missions/projects come from a certain mindset. That mindset is the core of the engine that is Anonymous. That mindset allows hive-like actions and disallows, by default, any form of violence.

Basically, a crazy fuck with a Guy Fawkes mask and a knife is the same now as fifteen years ago – a crazy fuck with a knife and a mask. Violence is just not that interesting as stabbing people where it hurts: Their competence (HBGary).

The idea is that people are in it for justice or for the lulz. You can be a racist, fundamentalist and just plain old crazy all by yourself – why going through the entire HASSLE of a hivemind just to beat people up? I don’t recall a single violent instance raised by anon in any of the chanology pickets, neither in Assange protests.

I would also like to take up this opportunity to remind you that all the attacks on MC/V/PP were aimed at their HOMEPAGES, never at the payment gateways, even though they were easily available (too bad MC, due to some divine incompetence stored the transactions of certain types of purchases on the same line as the .com – that’s on their side)

And I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen anon NOT self-critical at any time. Just look at any fucking thread / conversation in any related place.

I read because you keep spamming on anonnews. It works. But here is me, critisising your critism of lack of self-critism. Trolls trolling trolls, trolling trolls.

This is a perfect example of cult-like thought. Anon can ultimately do nothing wrong, because of its very nature. This is a belief, or an ideology of its own. At it’s heart, it is based on nothing but faith in Anon, the god.

Perhaps, Kilgar, you are retarded. It’s just as much of a cult of having a favorite sports team or voting a political party or following a band. All your “cultish” statements are so vague they can be applied to tying shoelaces.

There is nothing about faith in this, it is a democracy at it purest. If you don’t want to attack, let’s say Habbo Hotel – you don’t. If you don’t want to protest 16th against Sony – you don’t. If you don’t want to spraypaint small little expect ones in your city (found one in mine last week, made me happy) – you don’t.

Are you starting to see where this is heading?

I allow myself to continue: If you don’t want to answer a troll – you don’t. If you don’t want to donate money to WikiLeaks – you don’t. If you don’t want read through the HBGary mails – you don’t.

Now, if you, like me, are pissed off way over your head about a subject and you discover there are thousands of others that think the same and you get together and you do something huge, what is that? What is the difference between that and me and the neighbours cleaning up the local park?

A cult? Nigga PLEASE. You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about. ESPECIALLY when you start raving like an old drunk that there is no autocritism in this movement. Fact is, and I stated this as truth, not as a hypothetical eventuality of my dilluted mind, anonymous is at a constant state of in-fighting. Hey, try to ask what anon thinks about Obama, cut or uncut, Sony vs. Sega, Visa or Mastercard, France or Germany. You’ll not ever walk out with a cohesive answers.

Now if you stick your penis in a wasp nest, expect them to drop their shit to come after you first.

tl;dr you could just as like smashed the keyboard with a fist and sound more in-tune with the reality.

If you ask an Anon to give criticism about Anon, they will by and large give the same opinion as you. That is, it does right because it cannot do wrong. Should it do wrong, it will self-correct. Again, this is founded in a belief system that has become so deeply rooted that to even question it causes Anons to lose their shit and resort to default name-calling mode. The difference between Anons and cleaning a park with neighbors is that your neighbors don’t all feel like they need to wear a uniform when they’re in public.

Again, I think you clearly missed the analogy of a home team.

I have a favourite team in football (not handegg, americans), you see. I’m not especially fanatic, but I watch games now and then. The judge is, of course, always against us. We have (and notice as I naturally used the word “we”) bitter rivals and games against those bring up a lot of tensions before during and after the game. If you want, I can list everything that I dislike about my home team – specific players, the president, some decisions about the arena, the hype, but if you ask me what team I like, I will only have one answer for you. Is it a cult? Am I obeying a diety or am I drawn into a group thinking or some sort of nationalism directed towards the support of my team and direct negative feelings against the rivals (just to note: There are other teams in the league that I like and that I think play great football).

Now go up and see the reference to the americans up there. On a larger scale I identify myself as “European” rather than “American” and the general consesus is that american politics, economy, healthcare and pretty much everything else is retarded because it simply doesn’t work. I am, thus, grouped by ideology to certain people.

I’m also into politics. I am supporting and working for a political party. Does that classify me as religious? We have fought bitter battles against certain other parties and you wouldn’t imagine how much shit there is under the hood that you as voter never sees. I really agree on a personal level with the ideology of the party and I will support it until something better shows up. Now, if you would ask me to list problems, I would give you names, histories, lists whatever. I am REALLY pissed off (enraged, more like) over the handling and direction of the party yet I will still vote on them because they are still less retarded/corrupted/stupid than the other ones present.

So, I don’t understand what your cake is. Either you are:
1. Complaining that there are no (healthy) arguments in the party
2. Complaining that people vote for said party

There are things in anon I don’t like, like how some retards lost their cool over WBC, but then again, I don’t CARE. I don’t care because I fight MY corners – if I see an issue I do endorse and have some time available, I will join it. Just like I support my party, I support the general idea of the movement. Neither of them two is perfect, so no need to call me out on religious nut on this one.

Regarding the neighbours in uniforms, let’s say we just bought a dozen overalls for the dirty work and we’re all white men with a conscience towards the park. What does that make us? a. Agressors? b. Anonymous? c. A paramilitary organisation? d. Vigilant vanguards? d. A cult?

And hey, you might want to know that I have done the military service and then worked for the red cross for one year. Two organisations with completely different structures with imposed uniforms, group culture (attitude, actions, vocabulary) and ultimate goal (killing vs. saving). I did both out of my free will. I grew a lot as a person, met a lot of interesting people and generally consider both as some of the best periods in my life (note that I’m not American and the military service in Europe is much more… educative).

I repeat the question, what wrong in doing something about an issue together with likeminded? Mind you that I have during the last two years actively participated in demonstrations and actions for a few quite specific causes. I know people I hate that also participate in these causes, which for that moment of participation makes us brothers-in-arms, so to speak.

Now, and here’s the point I’m getting to: I cannot badmouth my party, can I? I can tell you a lot of shit about certain people, certain decisions, incompetence of leadership etc, but I won’t ever tell you that the party is crap, because I’m here for a reason, right? I’m here because I agree down to the point, for the first time in my life, with the entire political agenda. If things go to shit, I will have do disconnect, disassociate and go out finding something new. Until then, I will support it.

This is why I’m getting down to the fact that you don’t have a clue of how groups work and pretend to label everything as cultism because you have never adhered to any organisation, group or even a gang. It seems that you never played anything as a team, that you never been hanging out in an online community or think much of your family. This is not to bash on your life, but to explain why your opinions are horribly misguided and flat out wrong.

Don’t you get it? Why don’t you try to get a republican and a democrat to critisize their respective parties? Both will give you a list of things they think is shit, but hardly critisize the idiology – that’s why they are there god damn it.

Anonymous makes mistakes, you won’t catch me saying the opposite. But I, deep down agree with the movement. I think the cause is just and, as I said, I have frequently opted-in when in complete agreement.

That being said, you seem to forget the most important part there is – anonymous is a SYSTEM, a democratic construct. This means that if there are overwhelmingly more republicans online at 1AM, then anon can be said to be republican and the targets (if any) will be represented by the will of the many at that point of time. This is not magic. This is not faith. Depending on where you live, your entire country does that shit every four years – the difference is that anon does it much more often.

Ok, let’s just break it down easy:

If you ask a die-hard republican about his party, he will admit mistakes but be convinced that the Republicans are right. Not a cult.

If you ask a die-hard fan of Manchester United, he will admit mistakes, but be convinced that Man. U is the best. Not a cult.

If you ask a red cross worker, he will complain about the organisation, but hold his ground as a volunteer worker because he believes he’s working for a good cause. Not a cult.

If you ask an active anonymous member, he will tell you what things weren’t clever or what didn’t work but he will believe he’s doing something for a good cause. Cult

Look:

1. Asking a member of a volunteer group to provide hateful statements about his group is a no-go. If they didn’t like it they wouldn’t be there – they are not conscripts.

2. Asking a member of a group to provide critism about his group will give you a list of bad things, but the ultimate conclusion that the group in the end is more good than bad (see above).

And as I told you, to see self-critism and debates within the anonymous, you can just go back to anonnews and read the comments. It’s easy. In fact, there is a lot lot more discussion among anonymous than in a conventional democratic political party.

Yet you still wave the cultist stick like if it was all you had. You are sad and boring, Kiltrout. You don’t understand the basic principals of how parties or trade unions are formed. You don’t understand where protests or riots come from. You’re just some sort of weasel that don’t know anything yet try to get your opinions across as the true ones (cultism if anything, if seen by your standards). I’m not defending anonymous, I’m just genuinely disappointed after your first reply in how square you are and how you completely fail to understand anything I write.

I would wish that the newfags that think that LOIC is a cool thing would read up and reach their own conclusions about what opinions they have. All the positive synergy of the hivemind is useless if you are blindly following.

It was Hitler who came up with the modern concept of the hivemind, its not that great of an idea. The hivemind of anonymous have all thepotentiale of Hitlers concept, ie a group of mindless people being controlled by an external force/idea. So, there is every reason to be critical of the structure. That is what the battle is about now, the concept of love vs ignorance.

I thought that the Roman slave uprisings were among the first documented massive hive structures?

Hitler didn’t invent hivemind. He didn’t invent the indoctrination or even that specific doctrine. He adjusted all these things to a very specific target and did it very well. Besides being paranoid, powerhungry and batshit insane, he was an amazing leader, able to sway his people off their heads.

Love and ignorance? Uh no. If anything, the battle here is between apathy and vengeance. Apathy is the prime occupation of the bulk of the humanity, something people with the slightest little greed take advantage of. Don’t get me wrong – they deserve the crisis they suffer, but don’t run over us other who don’t enjoy that shit.

I’ll take this time to recommend a book for you, my friends. It’s called Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson, and I’d think you’d rather enjoy it’s history on the hive-mind. It’s also very good satire, unlike this Censorship hate hole.

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