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A Letter from 2020
Auckerman writes: "Mark Summerfield, of Perl Press , has written an excellent article over at OsOpinion. It's written as a letter from his future self on what life will be like in 20 years. Kinda scary and certainly worst case scenerio, but his point gets across."
Yawn
Guys: It's just software. It is not the end of the world. there are more important things in life than this. Really.
It gets pretty tiresome after a year or two guys. Can't this band play any other numbers?
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Dear Elvis,
Greetings from the year 2000! I'm writing you from my auto-piloted aircar on my way to work. Normally my wife, Claudia Schiffer, takes the aircar, but my jet pack is in the shop this week.
I just wanted to drop you a line to thank you for making the decision to major in Near Eastern Studies rather than Computer Science. Excellent idea. I now work for a multi-billion dollar Near Eastern Studies company while my Unix hacking friends beg for quarters in the street.
By the way, you should probably sell all that Cisco stock you've got. Networking is going nowhere. Invest in cold fusion.
Sincerely,
You
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Give me liberty or give me something of equal or lesser value from your glossy 32-page catalog.
1984 is about government getting into our private lives. If governments weren't corrupt, corporations wouldn't have the power to be corrupt.
Splitting up the 500 richest corporations and giving the money to the public isn't going to solve any problems. We should have more freedom to skirt around these ridiculous laws, not make laws to strip away more freedom (elect Harry Browne)
That would be against the DMCA. According to the DMCA, all border crossings to Canada are considered devices allowing people to get around copyright protections and thus, are illegal.
I guess the big difference is, Wired publishes all his Henny Penny tripe.
I'm not so willing to bet joe blue-collar-worker has exactly the same political ideas as niles upper-management. And guess who has the money? Upper management of course. And they give that money to political groups that represent *their* interests, not necessarily the interests of their employees. Corporations are not politically homogenous entities. In fact I'd say that the hierarchy in corporations reflect the general political differences of the population at large. Those at top have substantially different views than those at bottom. Now, if corporations where some sort of socialist communes, then perhaps we could get away with thinking that corporations are "us" therefore we have only to blame "ourselves". Just look at YOUR corporation and who is in charge. Do you coders in the trenches really have that much power over your ivory tower business school PHBs and marketing suits? Do you *really* think they share your political views identically?
Yes human nature is at fault. But the bad part of it is at fault more.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
The article was indeed drivel as another poster pointed out. But all the scary legal compromising going on IS something to be concerned about. Fortunately, there are things we can do with existing technology to preserve our rights...
Software. Use open source. If you need Win32, don't upgrade beyond Win 98.
Hardware. Never buy RDRAM-based motherboards.
Music. Buycott the MPAA but start looking into new indie groups too. Try MOD music. Rip your CD's at home into OGG, not MP3. Share your OGGs via Gnutella. Never buy an Audio CDR - always use data CDrs.
Movies. Watch 'em in the theater and buy DVD's as you see fit. The MPAA has a lock on this one, we don't have much legal opportunity to fight back (ideas anyone?)
Privacy. Use PGP.
Vote! email and write your congressman - get informed about what the DMCA and the UCITA and the other threats are. Slashdot's YRO section is easily one of the best references. Support the EFF. get informed - and help inform.
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
Today was a great day. I finally reformatted my house's hard drive and installed Linux on it, so the toaster, blender, television and vibrating easy chair are finally working again. I'm still having some trouble getting X Windows installed in the bathroom, but I think it's because all the BSODs from the old operating system still have the toilet clogged up.
I took my car in to the mechanic today. He said that the problem with my windshield wipers was that I had Perl in /usr/bin/perl18 instead of /usr/bin/perl. Well, duh! I swear, I was never cut out to be a mechanic.
Anyway, I have to go get ready for work. My shoes take a while to boot up, so I must be going now.
ZPengo
Got Rhinos?
Yes, it is a worst-case scenario. And, personally, I think that things will never get that bad. But I see things leaning that way; corporations becoming more and more powerful, the freedom of the Internet starting to be reigned in... It's scary, but what can we do (besides elect Ralph Nader).
The article leaves out a big part, though. The United States may be heading towards a terrible future, but what about other countries? Copyrights and patents could get so insane here in the USA that somebody can patent the alphabet (I wouldn't put it past them...) but those patents don't hold water in other countries. If things get too hairy here in the USA, let's all just defect North to Canada and leave behind idiotic copyright laws. Sounds like a sound plan to me.
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People corrupt politicians. Business are just made up of hundreds and thousands of people who want to get ahead in life, and the upper management uses the weight of the organization to force some changes. Labor parties do the same thing. So do religious groups. Sure, individuals used to have a voice in politics, but the voice of a large collective silences many individuals. So lets not target "Businesses". People as a whole are willing to backstab each other to get a step up in life, and we are part of that society. Business isn't the problem. Humanity is, and by extension, _we_ are the problem.
Of course, that's not an excuse for agnostic apathy. Sure, the agnostic apathetics are technically correct-- they don't know anything and they don't care about anything. You don't worry about your foundation breaking when you haven't built anything. Rather, we must understand and expect that this is how the world works, and we need to manipulate the system for the greater good of everyone, not just for our own "greater good".
Only when we finally admit that We are the problem can we benefit humanity as a whole. Until then, everyone is still wrapped in their own selfishness and pride.
-Ted
(Score -1: Karma Whore)
What point would that be? "I can write silly future fiction that makes 1984 look realisitic"?
Its not a worst case scenerio, its a no case scenerio. At best it could pass as a satire of geek fears.
In a word, ugh.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...