The Journey 82. Joel Kabakov: The Wealthy and Powerful Need an Epiphany

Publisher RA “Kris” Millegan talks with Joel Kabakov PhD, composer and  former composition chair at the Boston Conservatory, about his book “Technofascism: The New World Disorder” (a termed he invented), artificial intelligence, digital surveillance, the JFK assassination, and physicist Edward Teller (the “father of the hydrogen bomb”).

Joel: At UC Berkeley Edward Teller explained relativity to us and we actually understood it. That was my start in technology. After that I became a music major. I did become a composer. Then I worked for Yamaha, a technology company, in music technology.

They sent me to MIT to meet with these media developers and people who were working on the future of artificial intelligence. [Much later] I was talking with a friend about the nemesis of technology. It’s not the technology itself. It’s the human behaviors around technology that bring in the villainy and the evil. And I said, “Well, that’s like technofascism.” He jumped up from the table and said, “Joel, that’s a book [that should be written].”

Kris: What are we to do?

Joel: I want change just like anybody else. I want all those people who are not paying attention to be identified and called out. I want them to be the agents of change. I’ve done enough in my eight decades. And you’ve done enough. Maybe. We no longer should be looked at to be the agents of change.

Who are really the puppeteers and the puppets? Our elected officials are wholly owned subsidiaries of commerce, aren’t they? Because they promise certain things. They have platforms. They give wonderful speeches. Then they get into office and forget. Not really. But they look like they forget. And we give them a free pass, and why? Because we had an “R” on our ballot or a “D” on our ballot and we had these teams playing off of each other and we got temporarily distracted by the fact that one team is a little better than the other and may advance progress a little bit more than the other.

Here we have the World Health Organization for instance, and they have more power than anybody now. They’re sort of like the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. Whoever thought that would be the case? So the model is “Might makes right” and the model is “power” and the model is – of course it’s wealth and materialism as well.

When you see wealth and materialism commandeering science – I’m thrilled that I’m not a scientist. All science is getting hijacked by these commercial companies. You’re a nuclear physicist and somebody talked you into making the bomb. You were interested in communication technology. Now you’re building a backdoor for cellphones so you can listen in on all our calls. And you’re building a transponder in our car so you know everywhere we are as long as we drive that car.

So privacy went away through the misuse of technology. My friend Andy Farnell in England teaches classes on digital self-defense. How you protect your anonymity. How you can go about your business. How you can get your money without using an ATM.

The rescue has to happen among the most wealthy and the most powerful. They need an epiphany. Let’s elevate this to the upper level and ask them to be good people and fix it.