The Original 5GW Post - 13 April 2005

I found that as well, but have not been able to find anything more about it.

TDAXP, it was from one of your early 5GW posts that I came to the link.

What is interesting about the post to me is that 1) it explicitly names 5GW, 2) It implies secrecy as a condition, 3) It implies the guy has been thinking about this for awhile, 4) It implies he has been communicating with other of what 5GW could be.

Torgo X appears to be:

Sean M. Burke,

who now blogs on LiveJournal, in a blog coincidentally called “Torgo X”,

which is currently active. So you could ask him.

His LiveJournal profile lists sburke-at-cpan.org as his email, so you could email him.

He also uses instant messaging. If I could figure out how to use Google Talk to talk to AIM or ICQ accounts, I might try to drop him a line or two.

Dan,

Tracking the timeline would be interesting. My first post on 5GW was days after the discussion you and Mark had (linked from the post you linked above), i.e., I think in July 2005, although I commented July 21st to your Dreaming post by giving examples of how a 5GW might be made to look like an accident or the hand of God:

“I was thinking more along the lines of a scenario in which multiple, seemingly unrelated events hurt one nation (or a group of nations) repeatedly, as if “the hand of God” were behind those events: say, one major terrorist act, one major financial crises, one upsurge in bird-flu, one natural disaster, one powergrid failure, and a case of a targeting error in some ongoing conflict (killing many innocents), over the period of 9 or 15 months.”

Next day, on the 22nd, you linked Torgo X’s simple sentence (very intriguing, it is) and said it is a foreshadowing of yours and Mark’s conversations in July — but a foreshadowing of the secrecy aspect, not of apparent accidents per se? I wonder (if we can remember so far back), because your follow-up post after that comment, posted on July 23rd, used it as an example, in agreement, but your next follow-up post, July 25th, made a 180:

To me, the two statements seemed identical, and the obvious implication was that the SecretWarrior must “walk without rhythm” and act unpredictably.

But then, I read an article on NP that made me wonder if my advice to 5GWarriors to walk without rhythm was dangerously wrong….

Because randomness is very attractive, a succession of “random” catastrophes striking a nation will be very, very suspicious.

Well, we can follow the ins and outs of the timeline, and perhaps should design just such a timeline, including comments made on posts, that would span the various blogs (ZenPundit, tdaxp, Phatic Communion, Coming Anarchy, and the post by Torgo X!)

Actually, now that I look it up, my first mention of 5GW, referencing your blog, was “Boot on Unrestricted Warfare,” Jul 20, 2005. But my first post on Unrestricted Warfare came before I had read about 5GW on your blog, “Friends in Big Places”, Feb 16, 2005.

The coolest thing about that is this: My very first comment at ZenPundit was a comment directing him to Unrestricted Warfare! Sometime before the 19th of July, 2005. (Don’t have the link to the exact comment, unfortunately, only the mention by Mark.) In fact, it was through ZenPundit that I discovered tdaxp.

I either came to Zen first then TDAXP, or the other way around. At some point I stated reading PC too.

I recall the first comments I made were pre-purpleslog on Zen asking for clarification for how EBO (I decided it was hi-tech 2GW), NCW (I decided it was hi-tech 3GW) and GG (I had no idea how to fit it in at the time) fit into the xGW. Sometime after that 5GW discussions began. Coming Anarchy had some early 5GW posts too. I was mostly a lurker. I was printing out the stuff to take home and pour over. I also bounced ideas of a friend.

Earlier today, while reading different tdaxp 5GW threads, I noted that he had called 5GW a form of EBO! Or some such. I’ll have to look it up again later when I have more time; here I thought my look at “xGW and EBO”, much later, had been entirely my own!

Hmmm….Re-reading the wording of Mark’s posts, perhaps I should amend that to say my first comment at Coming Anarchy, in which I responded to CA or else to Mark there. Or maybe it was in an email.

It’s been so long!

Ah, there it is; ‘twas CA:

http://www.cominganarchy.com/?p=894#comment-15384