An Introduction to Swarming and the Future of Protesting

An Introduction to Swarming and the Future of Protesting

For too long we have believed that the traditional protest was our most powerful tool.
I propose there are at least two specific aspects of the traditional protest that we intuitively know have power:

Our Ability to Disrupt the Functioning of Symbols of the State

Let us not forget that the synchronized movement of these actors we disrupt are the result of another by product of a network of shared information.

Our Ability to Force Our Meme, Our Thought-Virus, Into Other People’s Minds, Thereby Increasing Our Membership

In this way we used the media, but now we know we can create the (indy)media.

Given the emergence of all that the beginning of this essay dealt with, it is clear we can safely, and more efficiently, move all the activities related to the second point under the guidance of the Internet. We don’t need protests to be covered by the media in order to articulate our message because we now function via a network independent of mass media. We are speaking into peoples homes every second of every day, not just at protests.