Extending Security, Extending Governance
The service is essentially a geolocation-enabled emergency notification system which acts as an extension of one’s home alarm system.
Security, the protection of the physical self and property, was a service provided once by kings, then by nation-states. The theory of monopoly of violence.
A theory because there are no perfect monopolies. Not a hard shift, but blurry, gray transition, as time is wont to do. Still, you don’t need to pack heat to protect the pasture, because there’s police departments and FBIs and CIAs and a DHS and a DoD. The point of providing violence as a service was so as to remove it from the day to day, and in turn, let humans unlock economic progress, better the species, enable more babies, and their survival.
Small, nimble, violence providers have challenged that monopoly. They found an alternative means of improving their station in life, of upward mobility, by flying planes into buildings. Detonating our buses. Triggering wars, underpinning economies of violence, exploiting it all to expand their reach.
And, even as we fight the good fight, it becomes clear that this is a chronic, not an acute illness. Unlike the wars of our fathers, this is without end. And, it will give rise to a new generation of governance.
One where security is provided for a fee. Without the trappings of a state. It’s not shrouded in taxes and flags. It’s not decorated uniforms. It’s black armor. It’s a giant red button on your phone. It’s not sirens, it’s a black helo, it’s fast-roping, and its security, violence incarnate, exactly where you need it, when you need it. It is not laws and solving for after the fact, violence as a service, now.
It’s firing one company by deleting it from your phone, and claiming the services of another pseudo-state by downloading another. It’s reading five-star app reviews describing rape-prevention and taking down a drone-stalker.
It’s reading 1-star reviews, penned by family members, where these new governments failed.
-Shlok
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