The Net (Das Netz) - Lutz Dammbeck

The Net (Das Netz) - Watch Free Documentary Online - Lutz Dammbeck

Technophobic Terrorism: Unabomber Copycats in Mexico

Amid all the violence caused by government's war on drugs, it's strange to come across news of another radical group, but with a very different agenda.
Last Monday the Mexican TV media announced that two academic researchers working for the Monterrey Technological Institute had suffered injuries caused by an explosive device inside a package. A few days later it was known that an extremist group known as 'Individuals Tending Toward the Savage' --Individualidades Tendiendo a lo Salvaje (ITS)-- claimed responsibility for the bomb, and it is believed they are also responsible for the attack against another researcher occurred months earlier in a different technological school.
Their motive: to protest against the social & ecological damages caused by modern technology, and to warn against the dangers of nanotechnology, which has the potential to enslave mankind, and cover the entire planet in grey goo, as can be read by their manifesto, published on an extremist blog named Total Liberation.

"When these modified viruses affect the way we live through a nano-bacteriological war, unleashed by some laboratory error or by the explosion of nano-pollution that affects the air, food, water, transport, in short the entire world, then all of those who defend nanotechnology and don't think it is a threat will realize that it was a grave error to let it grow out of control."

The manifesto mentions and applauds the actions of Neo-luddite Theodore Kaczynski, a.k.a. the Unabomber, who is currently serving a life sentence for the mail-bombing spree that killed 3 people and injured 23 others.

Their motto: "Nature is good. Civilization is evil."

As oddly as it may sound, anarchist groups in Mexico with eco-extremist tendencies are nothing new. For the last few years sporadic reports of small home-made explosive devices targeting a McDonald's restaurant or an ATM have been claimed by anarchists who support animal rights and are against the economic system.
Added to their same M.O. they also share a penchant for colorful names: Earth Liberation Front, Eco-saboteurs Brigade for Non-forgotten Revenge, Animal Rights Militia, Clandestine Mexico, Eco-anarchist Cell for Direct Attack, and so on.
Authorities had regarded the statements and actions of these groups --who might very well be one and the same--- as little more than annoying pranks... until now, that is.
With all the more 'analogical' problems affecting the world right now, it is somewhat odd to deal with a group of young people --and their ideologies and methods seem to suggest we *are* dealing with young middle-class college-level individuals-- who have a deep grudge against modern technology... although not so deep that it prevents them from using it to spread their manifesto through the web! but congruency is something every terrorist organization seems to lack.
Personally, I find myself sharing many of the concerns that scientific research focused on profit might bring, yet that would never justify in my eyes the use of direct violence --not to mention that it is stupid, plain and simple.
Also, it seems that these 'individual savages' are basing their ideology more on Sci-Fi woes than in actual hard facts.
Nanotechnology has the potential to benefit humanity in ways we can hardly imagine right now, granting us access to incredible new materials, more powerful computers and cleaner energies.
Like all technologies, it could also be abused in detrimental ways; but that has less to do with technology per se, and more with human nature.
Stay tuned.