Skilluminati Closing Shop?

After nearly 6 months largely absent from the blogosphere, I returned to find that the discussion of 5GW has branched out in many interesting ways. One exceptional expansion of the topic could be found at Skilluminati Research, a blog that was new to me.

Now only a couple weeks back on the ‘sphere, and it seems SR is closing shop on 5GW:

I had a great time doing it, but my interests have moved beyond 5th Generation Warfare and I really have no more to contribute. My vision is too wide and too weird, and I’ll be moving my future writing on the subject to another venue, which will be launching soon. What I laid out in Invisible Warfare is something I’m going to let ferment for a few weeks.

It’s not fair for me to keep discussing these concepts as “5GW,” and it’s not smart, either. I can only accomplish 2 things: first, confusing my intended audience with excess terminology, and second, infuriating those who were already covering 5GW years before I started writing about it.

This is too bad, because I was really starting to “dig” the site. I.e., dig into the different but seemingly quite relevant perspective. The vision was not “too wide and too weird”, and I was anything but infuriated.

Admittedly, I haven’t followed the conversation there as much as the actual posts, mostly because some of the commenters were a tad too weird or spoke from a frame of reference quite new to me. I cannot judge the actual audience vs. the intended audience.

One very odd comment was left in the linked good-bye post:

You were definitely bringing a unique yet confusing twist to the 5GW discussion.

I think your use of 5GW ideas might have been better used in a different context, i.e. rather than becoming a 5GW blog, the idea of a Skilluminati blog that takes from whatever theory/tactics/etc is at hand as needed actually resonates more strongly than attempting to redirect the 5GW discussion.

I felt like I was with you yet it also felt like you were saying “I’m a 5GW warrior too!” when 5GW is being positioned as a direct threat to individuals on the ground, including individuals like yourself.

[Clay Richards]

I may have misread or misinterpreted the comment, but it seemed to refer to the pseudo-5GW proposed by John Robb or the Armageddon-esque SEI-enabled 5GW Hammes has suggested. Did I misread? Or is this an example of the spread of that meme which goes like this:

“The future will be filled with SEI’s and open-source networks wreaking havoc upon the earth, which we call 5GW”

In any case, just a couple days ago I added Skilluminati Research to the blogroll, and I don’t intend to remove it.

Rather than put the site on hold, I’ll be returning Skilluminati to it’s roots — the study of social control. I’m working on a physics approach, considering social conformity as entrainment. I’m hoping that’s still interesting and useful to the folks who’ve been reading. I’m very thankful for all the feedback and brainfood from you folks.

—it may remain a useful and inspiring site after all. Or at least intriguing.