The Beekeeper is a 2024 American action thriller film directed by David Ayer and written by Kurt Wimmer. The film stars Jason Statham, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Josh Hutcherson, Bobby Naderi, Phylicia Rashad and Jeremy Irons. (wiki)
Tag Archives: CIA
2321 – The Equalizer 3 (2023)
timespace coordinates: 2022 Sicily // Altamonte, a remote Italian town on the Amalfi Coast
The Equalizer 3 is a 2023 American vigilante action film directed by Antoine Fuqua. It is a sequel to The Equalizer 2 and the final installment of The Equalizer trilogy, which is loosely based on the television series of the same name. The film stars Denzel Washington, reprising his role as retired U.S. Marine and DIA officer Robert McCall and Dakota Fanning. (wiki)
Reunites Denzel Washington with Dakota Fanning after Man on Fire (2004), when she was 10.
2302 – The Santiago Boys (podcasts 2023)
Before recommending Evgeny Morozov’s take on the Allende “Socialist AI” experiments in distributed intelligence I need to recommend the book by Eden Medina, author of the “Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile” originally published in 2011.
Here is a good introductory article by Eden Medina about the Cybernetic Revolution, I urge you to read it before getting into the Santiago Boys podcasts.
The Santiago Boys is a tremendous effort to show how things would have developed. It is a what of history – but anchored in deep inequalities and offering a real existing alternative when second order cybernetics seemed to offer a genuine collectivized way ahead. This was a politicized and centralized effort of really dealing with technology and development against tremendous odds.
This is the clarion call – or wakeup out of the current noise, torpor and hype surrounding the AI. There is a backlog on computing, cybernetics, organisational theory, theory of development, political economy, Alphabet agencies (NSA, FBI, CIA etc) during the Cold War, now that we start talking about the Cold War 2.0. It is a big zoom in – expect lots of details, interviews and a non-linear, jumpy and uneven technological, sociological and political history. Chile is important, it is doubly important because it was at the forefront of the CIA-directed coup and Allende realized that. After Pinochet took over – it became an unlikely laboratory of the neoliberal world we currently live in. The Santiago Boys completly changes the optic +it foregrounds the Red Engineers – those that where responsable with anticipating the future using scoți methods. This is a breath of air – considering how much od the discourse gives too much space to the Chicago Boys, the neoliberal followup.
The world of Big Tech, of deregulation, corporate rule and unfettered trust in the markets to solve things out is still with us, but it is not exclusive, it didn’t follow automatically. Basically artificial intelligence developing in another way did not get a chance, did not grow in the interestnof fhe people because a central intelligence agency decided otherwise.
listen to it here: https://the-santiago-boys.com/
-Based on two years of intensive research (more than 200 interviews + archival work).
-Reinterprets the legacy of Salvador Allende in light of today’s debates about Big Tech.
-Recovers the forgotten story of Latin America’s struggle against ITT, the tech giant of the day.
-Traces how Allende’s enemies used “Dark Tech” – the tools of surveillance, propaganda, and control – to overthrow his government.
-Argues that the focus on neoliberal economists around Pinochet – the Chicago Boys – is misplaced. Instead, it foregrounds the Santiago Boys, the socialist engineers around Allende.
-Explores the uncanny similarity between the set-up of Allende’s Project Cybersyn, a pioneering effort to use telexes and computers to manage the national economy, and Pinochet-era Operation Condor, which used similar set-up to hunt down leftist dissidents.
-Offers a new perspective on what exactly happened on the day of the coup of September 11, 1973, and the role that “Dark Tech” played in it.
-Explores the complicity of American and British actors in the coup and subsequent legitimation of Pinochet’s regime.
-Uncovers some unexpected influences behind the broader political project of The
Santiago Boys, from dependency theory to the Bauhaus-inspired theories of design.
-Uses the story of Project Cybersyn to explore the broader themes of technocracy and class; the ambiguities of democratizing technology and expertise; and the invisible impact of Cold War on today’s digital landscape.
Synopsis
This is a nine-part exploration of the unlikely effort of Salvador Allende’s youthful technocrats and engineers (the Santiago Boys) to build their own socialist Internet. They do so by recruiting a prominent British tech guru, Stafford Beer, to help them. (all taken from the media brief)
2278
Kandahar (2023)
spacetime coordinates: 2010’s Iran / Dubai / Herat, Afghanistan > Kandahar
Kandahar is a 2023 American action film directed by Ric Roman Waugh and written by Mitchell LaFortune. The film stars Gerard Butler (who is also a producer) and features a supporting cast that includes Ali Fazal, Navid Negahban and Travis Fimmel.
The film is based on former military intelligence officer Mitchell LaFortune’s spec script Burn Run inspired by his experiences working for the Defense Intelligence Agency and being deployed to Afghanistan in 2013 during the Snowden leaks. (wiki)
imdb // rt // The Covenant (2023)
2215 – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a 2022 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Black Panther. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the sequel to Black Panther (2018) and the 30th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). (wiki)
2172 – The Greatest Beer Run Ever (2022)
spacetime coordinates: 1967 – 1968 New York City / Vietnam
“A man’s story of leaving New York in 1967 to bring beer to his childhood buddies in the Army while they are fighting in Vietnam.”
The Greatest Beer Run Ever is a 2022 American biographical war action comedy-drama film directed and co-written by Peter Farrelly. Based on the book of the same name by John “Chickie” Donohue and Joanna Molloy, the film stars Zac Efron, Bill Murray and Russell Crowe. wiki
2107 – The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
spacetime coordinates: 2020’s Majorca
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is a 2022 American action comedy film directed by Tom Gormican, who co-wrote the screenplay with Kevin Etten. The film stars Nicolas Cage as a fictionalised version of himself, along with a supporting cast that includes Pedro Pascal, Sharon Horgan, Ike Barinholtz, Alessandra Mastronardi, Jacob Scipio, Neil Patrick Harris, and Tiffany Haddish. (wiki)
TimeSpace Warps 