A man called Alessio Rastani trended all over the internet in the last 48 hours due to a remarkable interview he gave on the BBC. You can read all about it here.
What he talked about isn’t particularly startling – it’s what any slightly cynical or rational person will have observed about the world. It is quite startling that he said it at all, though. As with all these things, banking and dodgy News International journalism and political lobbying and capitalism in general relies on plausible deniability. Even if everybody knows dodgy stuff is going on, as long as nobody actually says it out loud, it’s fine and can continue.
Already rumour is going around that Alessio Rastani is a hoax or prank, a character created by anti-capitalists to stir up trouble/spread awareness. The BBC are stating that he is legit. Even if he isn’t a hoax, though, you can bet there are vested interests drawing up smear campaigns and trying their damnedest right now to undermine his credibility however they can – the corrupt and deceptive economy and society we find ourselves in relies on a kind of global sleight of hand, or a voluntary mass ignorance (or perhaps an obligatory look-the-other-way). When the cogs of the machine start to shine a light on the inner workings, it’s a lot harder to maintain that plausible deniability, and a lot harder to paint capitalism and markets as an uncontrollable, natural force – rather than the man-made, controlled system that it is.
Anyway, this is really just a long, self-indulgent excuse to plug a short story I wrote a few months back. Titled Wikimoku, it’s about the creation of the first truly infocratic society, in which This Kind Of Thing wouldn’t happen. It’s a theme I’d definitely like to expand upon, either in further short stories or perhaps a longer form.
You can read it here. I’d really like to know what you think of it.
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