but recently he’s been opening up a lot of Chatbox windows, always asking strange questions and speaking in an absolutely bizarre voice. At first I though it was a joke, something he liked to do when high, but today I think I put the pieces together.

I recently wrote about the Guardians of Peace, the organization responsible for the massive hack on Sony,

and one of the results of this is that they started to follow me on Twitter. I have to say, this has been unnerving, but perhaps not as unnerving as learning that US Law enforcement has been actively gathering intelligence on the Guardians of Peace through undercover operations on Facebook. I now suspect that the FBI has hacked into Rob’s Facebook account and is now using it to try to gather information about my relationship with, and knowledge of the Guardians of Peace.

What follows are some of the Facebook Chatbox sessions “Rob” and I have had over the last couple of weeks:

Rob: Hey, big guy! How are you favorite sport’s teams today?

Me: The fucking Canadiens were beaten by the Senators! Lost $150!! Please don’t tell Rachelle! She’d kill me if she knew I was still gambling!

Rob: A secret gambling vice, that’s a real exploitable vulnerability, Michael! I bet your enemies could ruin you with that information! Anyway, sure would be nice if the Guardians of Peace hacked into the Canadiens and taught them a lesson or two about football! Can you make that happen, Michael?

Me: Rob, it’s pretty early for bourbon, isn’t it?

Rob: I like our friendship, Michael, it is good that we share! We must go to a strip club soon! You have a Korean fetish, right?

Rob: Who is your favourite sexy actress? I like the way that Miley Cyrus twerks!

Me: Her dancing is cultural appropriation, Rob!

Rob: America is a land of freedom that grants equal opportunity for all, do you not agree with this premise?

Me: No, not really.

Rob: Mike, can I call you Mike? You know what treason is, don’t you? Is treason or revolution something you would support?

Me: I would like to commit various treasons with Jessica Simpson.

Rob: If you had to pick a country to invade, what country would it be?

Me: I don’t know, Russia? Somebody’s gotta make Putin put on a shirt.

Rob: So are you saying that Russia is the next to suffer a major cyber attack???

Rob: The Eagles are a great band. What do you think they would make of the Guardians of Peace and their hack on an innocent corporation (Sony) working within the free market? Do you think if the Eagles knew anything about the terrorist organization The Guardians of Peace, that they would turn that information over to the authorities? I do. I think that the Eagles, your favourite band, would do the right thing.

Me: The Eagles aren’t my favourite band. The Doobie Brothers are.

Rob: The Doobie Brothers always do the right thing. They hate North Korea, love freedom and always give the government useful information in the war against terror!

For years there’s been an obdurate, official position that there is to be no negotiating with terrorists. Negotiation, or worse, capitulation would lead to utter catastrophe and societal ruination.

It was a mantra that echoed, even boomed in our heads, and to so much as question it was to let the terrorists win. It’s all a little bit counter-intuitive, because on an personal level, we all know that if somebody we loved were taken hostage, we would negotiate, doing whatever we could to bring that light safely back into our lives. When the stakes are intimate and truly meaningful to us, we only care about the results, not the precedent we’re setting in achieving that result.

In acquiescing to the Guardians of Peace demands and agreeing not to release the movie The Interview, Sony was acting in self-interest.

They were not concerned with freedom of speech or following the US government’s rulebook on dealing with terrorists, or even protecting the vulnerable part-time employees who’d be working in the threatened cinemas over Christmas, or anything else that wasn’t a part of their bottom line.

A corporation is not a moral agency, and it exists for the singular purpose of making money, and whatever serves that interest, whether it’s long-term or short-term, serves the corporation. In tatters and reeling, their internal system almost destroyed, Sony made a rational, tactical decision. Put the movie on the shelf for now and see how it all played out.

What’s interesting is that when money, when the unencumbered progress of private enterprise was put in peril, objectives were met. Now, all sorts of smoke and mirrors surround this, but it reduces to the valuation of corporations over actual humans.

One could argue that the dominant species on the planet are actually corporations. Single-minded and constantly feeding, they’re boundless, traversing and devouring landscapes and cultures like a predatory science fiction behemoth. They must feed, and in so doing behave in a very reptilian, even predictable (if strategic) fashion. Although they may, very weirdly, have some of the same rights and responsibilities as human beings, they’re not human beings and don’t serve the broad interests of the species—they’re just seeking to metastasize, and any concessions that are made to modernity, social progress or environmental stewardship, for instance, are done purely to ensure they’re continuing to maximize profit within an evoloving host.

The lesson to learn here is that when an economic system is disordered, as was Sony’s, then a meaningful tactical response was achieved. Our hearts might break to see hostages taken in a coffee shop in Sydney or journalists executed in a faraway desert, but the terrorist’s goals are not achieved until what really matters is threatened, and that is the free market. Corporations, massive, powerful and ubiquitous, perhaps more powerful than nations, remind me of dinosaurs, and the cyber attacks now threatening them are a virus to which they might be vulnerable, and could ultimately cripple the entire species.