Weaponizing Information

AS PRINCE SAID: Dig, if you will, a picture. A picture of the American intelligence gathering community obtaining information damaging to our Russian adversaries. Something such as half the Russians general military is addicted to Vodka, and tends to make decisions directly inimical to their country, when all the while the government seems paralyzed and unable or unwilling to correct the situation. The information becomes top secret, because the last thing the American government wants to to let the Russians know about their own weakness, or that we know about it. The last thing "We" want is for them to fix the problem, because we might choose to and be able to exploit it later. So, it becomes a deep, dark secret, until some know-it-all do gooder like Mr. Snowden spills the beans, decides that it is his sacred duty to save the country by divulging the secret. All hell breaks loose, the libtards and rethuglicans argue bitterly over whether he has done the world and country a favor, or is a traitor. Te United States government tracks the traitor down and sends him to his maker just before he crosses the border into Tijuana. Everything changes. The Russians, suddenly shocked into alertness, clean up their military command, and American loses a valuable informational weapon. Information has always been a potential weapon, and we in our modern world have accumulated enough information and developed sufficient means of weaponizing it that the world is in fact a constant struggle to obtain, control, and utilize it for any conceivable purpose or cause. A world of unregulated information warfare, individual, corporate, and international, loos before us, threatening our survival. Its part of what the current trade war with China is all about, and the danger is enormous. A transparent world, where most people have access to most information is a partial answer; how to achieve that while protecting privacy rights poses a difficult question. WE must retain the freedom of refraining from having government cameras in our homes, and the freedom to choose whether to have computer chips inserted into our brains. e as citizens should and must have control over personal information, as Facebook is starting to realize. at the same time, government must have certain information about everyone; name, rank, and serial number, if nothing else. however, a world divided into mutually hostile military powers, each with a huge abundance of secret, potentially harmful information, and the ability to use this information at any time in any way whimsical, quixotic leader might see fit - is a disaster waiting to happen. How to manage information is as urgent an issue as how to manage natural resources or military weapons. If the United States should happen to discover a weakness in Russia, instead of weaponizing it, it should be shared with Russia, and help should be given to detox the military, and to get the commanders off Vodka. That's just one example.The management of information must ultimately be guided by a system of morality which we have not yet invented, but must, the sooner the better. Otherwise, we are headed for a world in which there is no universal morality governing the use of information, and chaos, destruction, and death.