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The Age of Paine Revisited
I had no doubt that I was seeking the start of a transformative global revolution. The fervor and excitement I felt then are still fresh in my mind, though few of those fantasies have yet materialized and some, as the years pass, are seeming increasingly unlikely in my lifetime. And I'm still not sure I was wrong.
Many of the ideas in that essay were indirectly inspired by the hell-raiser of the American Revolution, a writer I've admired all my life. Thomas Paine, a media pioneer, one of the first people in the world to advance the notion of free information in an open society, of individual liberty flourishing amid the demise of institutions and monarchies. In my piece, I imagined Paine online, flaming and blasting away.
In the overheated Wired environment of the time -- some of the people running the magazine were true political radicals, a rare breed in popular media -- the prevailing idea was that the Net would sweep away hoary institutions like Congress, Big Media and Wall Street, changing more or less everything. Top-down, exclusive, closed and proprietary entities would tremble and collapse at the outpouring of ideas, intellectual property, education, democracy and ideas that the Net would provide. One magazine columnist even gushed that illiteracy among the young would vanish because kids all over the world would be so desperate to get online.
I was Wired's easternmost correspondent, based not in California but New York; as such, I got a first-hand look at just how the Net was traumatizing Eastern media. The spectre of all these weird kids hacking together this exciting new kind of many-to-many information culture really shook people up. The bland, filtered, from the top-down media, Wall Street, Congress -- they were all scared to death. They hated the Net then; they still do. (Though just this week, I noticed the stodgy New York Times op-ed page appending e-mail addresses to its regular columns; a landmark of sorts.) Yet as much as the Net has evolved, it's shocking to see how little traditional politics or the popular press has. Real interactivity, perhaps the most political idea ever in media, barely exists off-line.
In my essay, published in the April, l995 issue of the magazine, I wrote that the pamphleteering Paine, who had no children, did have a descendant
"where his values prosper and are validated millions of times a day: the Internet. There, his ideas about communications, media ethics, the universal connections between people, the free flow of honest opinion are all relevant again, visible every time one modem shakes hands with another. The Net offers what Paine and his revolutionary colleagues hoped for in their own new media - a vast, diverse, passionate, global means of transmitting ideas and opening minds. That was part of the political transformation envisioned when he wrote: 'We have it in our power to begin the world over again.' Through media, he believed, 'we see with other eyes; we hear with other ears; and think with other thoughts, than those we formerly used.'"
It isn't clear whether we -- you -- began the world over again. We do -- thanks to the Net -- see with other eyes and hear with other ears, and think new thoughts. Those are still prescient and timely words.
Paine's ideas about a free press, an outpouring of individual opinion and a ferocious sense of social justice seem especially alien to the corporatized, homogenized, blow-dried practioners of "objectivity" who have inherited the American press. The Net suggested a rebirth of Paine's fading values.
Did it deliver? For sure, the pamphleteering model was true. The explosion in weblogs, pages, mailing lists, groups, topics, threads, message boards and p2p systems has introduced nothing less than a new age of individual expression. The personal archives now on the Net are unprecedented in human history, from family bios to discussions of gardening, dogs, politics and sex. Sites like Napster, Deja and EBay -- even Amazon -- have revolutionized business and consumerism. Sexuality has been liberating online, and TV and other forms of entertainment are sure to become subordinate to the Web. Cultural movements like open source have spread far beyond software in terms of their impact on society. The Net has made anyone with a computer a world-wide communicator or entrepreneur, at least potentially. Individuals are freer than ever to talk about sex, engage in heresy, sound off, connect with others, and distribute their thoughts. People with unimaginably diverse interests can now find one another instantly. It's easier to be a gay teenager, a member of a militia, an ex-Marine, a rabbit lover, a scientific researcher. Thanks to computers, there are now a million Paines out there.
But some things have been lost, as well -- influence and commonality. This new individualistic medium is so personal it's become self-absorbed, almost narcissistic. Individuals are speaking out, but it isn't clear who, if anyone, is listening. And it isn't always democratic either. There are few common grounds, town squares or open spaces online. People frequently use blocking and filtering software and programs to stick with the like-minded, not explore the different or experience other points of view. Ideas fly all over the Web, but they often end up on the screens of people who already agree, otherwise they would have long ago unsubscribed. Teenagers and political fanatics have turned the Net's public forums -- on Slashdot, CNN, ABCNews and MSNBC -- into hostile electronic cesspools. To have actual conversations online, you're forced to join clubs where membership and speech boundaries are regulated, even to the point of specialized blocking programs that permit people to gauge levels of hostility or agreement. The digital citizen isn't always very free and open to new ideas. Some of those sites are great, but this doesn't exactly constitute an open and democratic environment, one of the great early dreams of the Net. Joining a rational discussion of a common issue has become virtually impossible on any Net forum that's not restricted by membership or other restrictive tools.
In practical ways, the Net has proved more revolutionary than most of us thought. In l995, few people imagined how ubiquitous e-mail would become, how much of a family communications tool, how natural a medium for teenagers and college students and for grandma and grandpa, how fundamental to research and text, how threatening to copyright and intellectual property traditions. I hardly expected within a few years that a U.S. President would be passing along URLs in a speech before Congress. The explosion in gaming and online entertainment was similarly unforeseen -- most people took the new medium too seriously for that. Almost nobody predicted how specialized online communications would become, how polished online retailing would get, or imagine the marketplace potential of an entity like eBay. We did lots of heavy breathing about the rise of the virtual community -- expectations that have not been met. The hostility bred by the Internet wildly exceeded anyone's expectations, and is nothing less than a tragedy for the idea of the digital citizen.
The Net is, if anything, bigger than people thought it would be now, a part of more people's work and personal lives. Also their creativity -- art and writing flourish online, even when they can't make it off. But its primary impact has been practical, not ideological. Instant messaging has probably had greater import for younger Americans than digital pamphleteering has.
The hacker universe has sobered up as well. Who would have thought, a decade back, that one company, Microsoft, would in fact achieve everyone's paranoid fantasy and conquer the global desktop? Or that that one of the primary champions of Linux would be IBM? In the post September 11 era, hackers are in for a rough time, and the environment of the Net may change again. In the name of national security, authorities will be more vigilant and visible online, with the authority to throw up roadblocks all over the Net. The consequences of cyber-terrorism would now be staggering, and the spectre of the Twin Towers will give government the upper hand politically in its long brawl with the free spirits online.
Nor did anyone quite expect the speed of the transition from capitalism to corporatism, an era in which global corporations acquire media, commerce and popular culture; control copyright and intellectual property; and become the primary funders and corrupters of the political system.
Despite the flowering of individual voices on the Net, we live in an arguably less democratic culture than we did a decade ago, even before Attorney General Ashcroft's sweeping actions.
So does this add up to grim news? I don't know yet, and may not know in my life. The rise of individualism online seems irreversible. If individuals can't reach mass audiences, they can't easily be shut down, either. It seems inconceivable that our society will ever return to a few-to-many model of information, when masses of people waited for a handful of information gatekeepers to parcel out information. But as for the contemporary armies of Paine's some hoped would emerge from the digital din, make themselves heard, even achieve influence -- I'm still waiting for them.
In two places, There is l995, rather than 1995; an l rather than a 1. Did JonKatz just (poorly) OCR an old paper of his? tsk tsk tsk
It's not worth the effort. We need a template. Something about the obviousness of the theses. The nice bit of self promotion at the top of it. etc. etc.
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IIRC MS-DOS and Windows 3.x were the leading OS in 1991. What's changed?
sulli
RTFJ.
Katz is one busy dude!
If anything, the net has given us the ability to find just about any information we want. While the main news/political sites are still status quo, people who want to go out there and raise hell are able to find dissadent information a whole lot easier than before the rise of the net. At least this is true in the US.
I work for an advocacy oriented nonprofit, and I can tell you that the net has had a huge impact on the way we interact with government, and the way we interact with grassroots supporters (getting them to write their Representatives, etc). Give the US government a few years to catch up.
I do not think, however, that the net is going to change the way governments work wholesale. They'll still be corrupt and powerful, and they'll still be trying to screw you and me.
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem
Translation: "Goddamnit! Stop choosing to block my articles from your front page view!"
(Something I haven't done obviously. He's just too entertaining.)
"Slashdot is about legos and staplers." -Cmdr. Taco
Sounds like an Onion headline to me:
Jon Katz Quotes Self
- insert witty phrase here
In any group with a sufficiently large number of people the majority are idiots. You can find this out by reading slashdot comments, and the quality here is certainly better than in the average AOL chat room. Interactivity doesn't make sense unless you find a good way to filter out all these idiots. Who cares about the ability to read the thoughts of 4 billion idiots?
And even if you were able to filter them out, it would not really help to improve the world. Ok, you could read stuff written by non-idiots, but as long as the majority of voters can still be influenced by those few media corporations. Most of your examples are either "mass-media delivers to idiots" or "idiot to idiot" communication.
Abolish the democracy, form a technocracy!
But its primary impact has been practical, not ideological.
Captain Obvious strikes again!
In 91 OS/2 was out. It was a 32 bit os with a GUI. Very technically sweet for it's day. It also cost about 5 times what Dos+Windows cost. IBM was held up as the shining example of a company that couldn't market space heaters in Alaska in January. Everyone (except IBM) knew that the pricing was killing OS2. People who used OS2 were as fanatical about it as the Mac users are. IBM could easily taken the desktop if it had lowered the price. It didn't. As Cringely pointed out a month ago Microsoft has succeeded because its competitors have acted like idiots.
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Whatever you like to think, people in general are still lazy, apathetic, and just plain don't care.
No amount of information overload or internet connectivity will change basic human nature. Simply giving everyone net access (or whatever) won't turn them into caring, conscious, active, wonderful citizens.
Thomas Paine was a political revolutionary. Jon Katz worked with some would-be political revolutionaries at Wired. They thought the net would revolutionize the world, destroying all bad things and empowering the common man, who would somehow go from being a greedy bastard to being a righteous do-gooder. This hasn't happened. What's up with that?
(These Katz Notes provided for those others who began earnestly reading the article only to have their eyes glaze over as they continuted to scroll down....)
m00.
Before the Internet, most people were dumb, passive consumers. Let me just buy things and watch TV, and let others produces things, let others make decisions, let others tell me what my opinions are.
The Internet hasn't changed this. It's turned into Just Another Medium through which we dummies can be told what to wear, what soft drink is cool, who to vote for, who to fuck, and consume, consume, consume!
Today, like years ago, we are told that the masses are meant to be all-consuming pac-men, and the few are meant to produce, lead, and make decisions.
The Internet is not going to bring about a global outpouring of creativity and information sharing, simply because most people can't be bothered to come up with an original thought, much less published writing or software. How many people post to
Technology doesn't change the world, people change the world. Or insert any similar one-liner of your choice.
Things have changed for the better in some ways. Media consolidation has been very rapid the past 6 years or so. Yet anyone with interenet access has access to independant media outlets that ask questions and dig deeper than the mainstream media, who are spoon fed by the pentagon and are quite conciously ok with that.
The problem is that people have to know about these sites and want to go to them. If the entire population is brainwashed to follow one point of view, it won't matter if the plain truth is right in front of them. That is a problem technology can't solve.
AC makes point, moderators see only AC. It's like net.racism or something like that. I thought it was +1 Interesting, anyway. (too bad I have no points)
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
Why would anyone expect the Net to "change everything"? People have always had the ability to stay informed through the quality newspapers, magazines, etc, but very few take the time to try and understand complex issues.
On the one hand, the Net gives us the ability to ready any Joe Blo's rants about subjects he knows nothing about, which actually reduces how informed the average citizen is because of all the noise.
On the other hand, if you are selective about what you read and believe, you can occasionally find gems of wisdom that give you information that might not have otherwise found. Take Slashdot -- the editor's are HUGELY ignorant and foolish about things (*cough*michael*cough*), and the posters are usually even worse. But where the editors do a good job is in their story selection. That attracts the smart, knowledgeable people that occasionally post these gems.
The question is whether the Net is a net loss or a net gain in educating the public, and I'm just not sure.
[controversial opinion alert] One huge win in my opinion that the Net has been a great influence on bringing the American ideas of freedom to the rest of the world. The greatest evil of the world, next to communism, is Socialism and I would like to see it finally die like it should have died last century as the failed experiment it was. The more socialism, the less freedom. [/alert]
And please spare me the "America WAS the home of freedom" blah DCMA blah blah. That's a great example of the narrow-minded, single-issue ignorance that I'm talking about. If you think any of these minor issues are significant in the big picture of freedom, then you need to expand your views are what freedom is.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I just brought my last copy of Wired magazine a few days ago. It's got to a point where it's just not worth buying anymore - I could hardly find an article I could be bothered to read. It used to be that upon buying a new issue of Wired I would read it cover to cover in one sitting.
What happened? It used to have writers who were passionate about technology, had interesting opinions, and had their fingers on the pulse of change. Now it's like a product catalog for gadgets and 'cool stuff'. About half the articles seem to be 'advertising features'.
I think the rot set in during the dot-com boom. The writers stopped talking about the technology and started focusing on making a fast buck.
Sorry Wired, I used to love ya, but we've just drifted apart, ok? Time to move on.
that the inventors and purveyors of some new technology (fire, bronze, the printing press, radio, TV, uP's, etc) envision it as some sort of gateway to an Utopian existance, ushering in an age of peace, harmony, understanding, an end to wars and hunger, blah blah blah - only to have it end up being used for some individual's or group's advantage in gaining wealth, status and power over others?
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
30 years ago, science fiction was kid's stuff - only children wanted to watch it, only children liked it, etc.
30 years have passed, and the children have grown up. Now Sci-fi is a complex medium intended for the use of adults - it grew up with its fans.
15 years ago video games started getting to be more than just 'Pong,' and the children started to play them. Now games are complex, and getting more so. Today, games are still for the young - but not just for kids.
A mere 10 years ago the net started to become a popular means of [everything the wired article talks about]. It has powerfully transformed the world BEFORE a generation has come to power. That is truly amazing, but you can't expect all of the changes that are on the way to happen overnight.
In 20 years, after the internet has had as much time as Sci-Fi to become commonplace, we will be an internet generation. Then all the people who are using this as their media outlet will have it, and just like the stock market, it will become a chaotic tyranny of the majority's decisions swayed by the charisma of those who write well.
Bring it on. The written word has always been my favorite medium of information exchange.
On the side: I don't care if this issue is last year's news, or last century's. Its relevant today, and there are more things that cna be said about it now than could be said last year!
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Yes, but it's more like the crank physicist argument. People laughed at and persecuted Einstein; people are laughing at and persecuting me; therefore, my ideas are equally significant to Einstein's. Just replace Paine with Einstein and you have the essence of the article.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
on Slashdot, CNN, ABCNew and MSNBC -- into hostile electronic cesspools. To have actual conversations online, you're forced to join clubs where membership and speech boundaries are regulated, even to the point of specialized blocking programs that permit people to gauge levels of hostility or agreement.
What did you expect, for all your utopian dreams, you forgot one thing. Most people are fucking stupid. And a great many of them are annoying as well. "giving everyone a voice" (the phrase) might sound good, but actually giving everyone a voice won't. leveling the playing field for everyone and you end up with a world awash in moronic penis bird posts and SPAM promoting porn sites.
The hacker universe has sobered up as well. Who would have thought, a decade back, that one company, Microsoft, would in fact achieve everyone's paranoid fantasy and conquer the global desktop?
What is this supposed to even mean? The "global desktop"? Lots of people run windows on desktops across the globe, but M$ hasn't got central control over much of anything, just lots of revenue streams. And its not like their market share has gone up much since the DOS days anyway.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Yep. The net is a commercialized extension of existing systems in The Real World. More spam for everybody...
... Now the masses are 'stuck' with AOL/MSN and don't even know/care enought to know better.
... more spam for everybody ...
No utopia of free thought and expression, with furious online debates in a sort of "Digital Renaissance".
How did it get like this? How is it that most internet traffic ends up at either an AOL or MSN owned site? (according to some report I read somewhere, don't remember).
Surely, the Internet is populated by people intelligent enough to know when they are being corralled and taken advantage of? Where did it all go wrong?
I have always believed that people watched the garbage on Network Television because of the influence of the networks in the history of the development in television. The net was supposed to change this, allow individual people to express their opinions, and allow netizens to get information from ANY source. The geeks were in charge, and here first, we would show people the way to digital enlightenement
That's what we get for making this stuff "easy to use"
From the intro to the original Article in Wired.
"Thomas Paine was one of the first journalists to use media as a weapon against the entrenched power structure. He should be resurrected as the moral father of the Internet. Jon Katz explains why. "
Let me suggest that size and force of the "media" has simply become ubiquitous. Can't see the forest that has grown, for the single tree you are looking at one foot in front of you, Jon.
Consider this forest enabling us all to integrate information in ways that would be impossible to even dream of before, not to mention now having the ability to share that new information with others so that they can help make productive use of new integrations.
As an Example integrating the world information to the computer industry to the individual....
FreeRepublic is the exact thing Katz is bitching about, a community fenced off from any kind of ideological differences. Post something "pro liberal" and you'll get your IP banned.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
As for useful discourse from "professioanl" editorial sites, sure there has been a bloodbath in the online content market, but sites like Salon are still limping along with useful original writing, and most print magazines have expanded online with interactive publishing.
With the rise of the web, usenet has actually become more intelligent and useful and the true wankers have moved on.
You just had to get a swipe at the AG in there, eh? All this digital hand wringing about the High Lord of Evil, John Ashcroft, is really stupid. I live about 1/2 mile north of what was the World Trade Center. I lived through military checkpoints and police blockades for 2 weeks to get into my apartment. Outside those that lost loved ones, were injured by the attacks or lost jobs, I have had a lot to put up with to get my life back together the way it was before 9/11. None of the barriers were created by AG John Ashcroft. His actions have actually made me feel more comfortable about my situation.
But then I have to listen to the Chicken Little's of the Civil Liberties gang. The group of "well meaning, good intentioned" Americans that only believe that effective policing can occur when the "Cops" are handcuffed and blindfolded. You got to love their arrogance when they proclaim that non-US citizens are guaranteedprotection of our Constitution even though they never lived in the US. I am sure that would be a shock to those folks living in China that were run over by tanks 12 years ago.
The amazing thing at the end of the day, no matter what Ashcroft w/ Congress has done, I feel no loss in liberty. No evil corporation is holding me down. Jack booted thugs haven't beat down my door or surrounded my place of worship with tanks and set it on fire. I have no fear to speak my mind. And to prove it, I am going to say the most controversial thing I can imagine, "John Katz is an insightful, intelligent, fully informed writer focusing on the issues that matter to citizens of Cyberspace and his witty commentary is a favorite of all Slashdot readers." It might not be true but I have no fear in saying it. Just like Jon Katz, I have the Constitutional Right to be full of sh*t and spout it out to the masses. Don't worry Jon the High Lord of Evil, John Ashcroft, is not going to gag you no matter how bad your writing is.
P.S. Jon if you are talking about the US, I need to remind you that we are not a democracy, we are a constitutional republic. If we were a democracy, evil would reign via the power of the ballot box -- majority gets to force the minority to do anything it wants.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
The true changes in society are made face-to-face with people you see everyday. Memes are so much more contagious when you are sharing the same air with someone.
[pink beam of light]
This comment has been moderated as "offtopic", but I think it bears more relevence than its moderation would have us believe.
Truly intellectual individuals do not limit themselves to conversation within their own area(s) of interest. If anything, learning about politics and the opinions of people not like ourselves help remind us of who we are. Also, I certainly see nothing wrong with talking about politics on Slashdot, especially as it pertains to all things geek. There is almost a certain meta-geekness involved in talking not only about geeky things, but the nature of "geeky" itself. Political discussions about such things as rediculous patents, DMCA misuse (well, I've never found a good use, but I digress), privacy, freedom, and the endless attempted assassination of rational thinking and individual thought all hinge upon principles that are near and dear to many a Slashdot reader's heart. If anything, political advocacy in traditionaly geeky subject areas such as science and the like could help more of the public understand the virtues (or possibly enlighten us upon hitherto non obvious disadvantages) of our way of thinking and our way of life.
Recent research in the area of human intelligence has shown that even being slightly smarter than the rest of the population has tremendous advantages, because it allows you to step back and view human interaction separate from your involvement in it. Talking about "meta-geeky" subjects is one way to do this. As I like to say, the group model of human behavior is far more apparent when even a small foot stool can place your eyes above the group.
One more objection to this mentality that we should be allowed to speak only of geeky things on Slashot: By mere coincidence I happened to have read Common Sense and Age of Reason by Thomas Paine a few days before Jon Katz' article. I remember thinking just how ahead of his time this man was, and just how well he would have fit in our communications centric culture. Should this view not be allowed to be discussed on Slashdot? Isn't this the very censorship and tunnel vision most Slashdotter's profess to despise? "Why can't that young Earth Creationist just close his Bible for a few moments, open his mind, and take a look at reality?" Shouldn't we be practicing what we preach? Or is this kneejerk response so typical of Jon Katz articles only here because it was written by Jon Katz? Surely those among us who fancy ourselves as rational and intellectual appreciate the dangers and fallacies of ad hominem arguments.
...see, I'e always been wrong, please keep reading my stuff.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A person is smart. People are stupid.
One on one you can reason with people. En masse, you can only emote with them.
Emotions have huge bandwidth but tiny frequency ... in other words: they're very powerful but they're incredibly stupid (low infomrational content).
Changing that reality would entail re-engineering the human race.
(rant warning)
Oh, for the love of...
The cold war propaganda against communism has perpetated the American psyche so badly, that no one seems to know exactly what it is, beyond, ooo, that communism stuff, that's evil...
I'd really love it if people would stop bashing an economic system they apparently know nothing about.
Yea, you heard me. Economic system. Communism has nothing to do with the way a government deals with it's citizen's rights. Commisism is merely an economic arrangement by which everything becomes public property. The government merely manages all aspects of an economy, essentially making the entire populace members of the public service. (Which, kinda has it's own problems, heh, heh...)
I''l give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you're a libertarian, so fine, yea, in your view communism is a bad thing. But it's only the oposite of free market economics. Democracy and communism can coexist quite nicely, it's just that most examples of communist governments slipped into a fascist state of mind.
Democracy and fascism sit on opposite ends of a spectrum, just like communism and free market. Think of it this way: Whenever something is managed by the government, that's socialism. Roads and infrastructure maintenance, medicaid, social security, hell, the military! That is the essence of socialism, not some cold war ideal of lack of basic human rights. Whenever a government pays for something, that's socailism. There's a good synonym for socialism that get used a whole lot more, since it's such a demonized word. Nationalization. Yea, public service.
Beisdes, there are plenty of examples of socialism and democracy working just fine together. Look at the Scandinavian countries, and other western European nations. Hey, cast a glance just north. Yea, your forgotten neighbours, and my home, Canada. We've got a social safety net, universal heatlh care and well susbsidized school systems. We have yet to fall into a fascist state. (And oddly enough, the only ones who have proposed repealing human rights for certain individuals are the right-wing anti-socialism political parties) Oh yea, a really good point on this freedom thing, as the anniversary of it's adoption has just passed. The man credited with drafting the universal declaration of human rights. Do you know from where he hails? Not the USA. No, actually he hails from up here. Yea, Canada, land of evil socialism, the country that has probably done the most for the cause of human rights in the past fifty years.
So much for restricted freedoms...
(/rant warning)
(AC'd 'cause I'm at work, and can't remember my password...)
Teenagers and political fanatics have turned the Net's public forums on Slashdot into hostile electronic cesspools.
That's what you get for reading Slashdot posts at -1...
Until Katz is willing to accept that no one says brilliant things all the time, then he'll never have the nerve to read the generally higher quality posts ranked 3 and above and ignore everything else.
Evidently you could do enough of the sort of thing you'd do with a crossbow with a long gun that it the difference wasn't fatal to England, and the guns must have seemed gee-wiz modern and cool, at least. But the change in technology didn't really gain anything for the English, beyond the psychological, until guns improved to a point past prior crossbow technology in the 19th Century. The realities in the field remained much the same - except you had to get closer to hit anything with the gun, and it made noise that more easily gave away your position.
So in networked computers we've got this new weapon with which to penetrate people with our ideas. But does it penetrate better than the front page of the Times or a well-printed book? Or is the advantage more purely psychological - "Look, I've got the new thing!"
In any case you've still got to marshall your troops, engage the enemy, retain the support of your hinterland ... and have a strategy that actually can conquer and govern. A change in weaponry doesn't compensate for weakness of strategy and execution, even when the weapons are better. Building a free land is no more a matter of just giving everyone computers than it was of just giving everyone guns.
However, given the right strategy and leadership, computers and guns have their obvious place in social transformation. Since Ashcroft refuses to match gun purchase records with arrested terrorist suspects - claiming that would infringe on gun rights - but wants to closely monitor the Net - it's clear which he and his friends are more scared of. Thinking that a computer is scarier than a gun is about as rational as prefering a musket to a crossbow. Isn't it?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
BTW Katz, political revolutionary utopian ideals of freedom and openness in society are not that. They are pipe dreams of self-proclaimed intellectuals. I'm glad they exist, they need to for the general betterment of the world, but let's be realistic. In over 10,000 years of known human history, WHEN have we ever even come close to utopia? You have to agree that utopia would be great, but the human race is currently not capable of creating such a thing with our naturally selfish humanity. After all, democracy and economic free markets thrive solely on the selfish desires of the individual to get what they want. As a group, this provides the usually best compromises between self desires and group needs. It gets skewed when any one individual gains more power. And communism has NOT worked to provide a utopian future - quite the opposite. Ask any Russian, Cuban, or Chinese citizen if they are as rich as the average American citizen. - We're not even a democracy or true free market economy!
is a great book on that time period. It's mostly source texts from the Aurora -- a leading newspaper in the (then) capital of Philadelphia. The editors were arrested under the sedition laws which Adams signed. The book also describes the arguments between the camps of Adams and Jefferson. Paine belonged to the latter. Basically, a populist: he wanted a single house of representatives. In Common Sense he cited many biblical quotes against monarchies. No senate or president. Power to the people. Adams especially hated Paine's polemics against kings, and tried to write his own pamphlet to counteract the politics in Common Sense. He was convinced -- along with Hamilton, Madison, and Washington (our first millionaire) -- that democracy was a horrible form of government, and that the main job of govt was to ensure that the masses don't get powerful, while at the same time preventing a dictatorship. Hence the divide and conquer strategy which is our constitution. As originally implemented, only the House of representatives was elected. The senate was appointed by the states, and the presidency by "electors" who were the "better men" (ie. rich) in each states. In fact, after the revolution, the property requirements for voting in Massachussetts doubled.
So there are these two camps, one side a bit radical and arguing for a popular republic -- the other wanted to model itself on England. Their genius was to involve a large number of common people into the system of govt. -- but with the stakes against them. They gave an outlet for individuals to protest and have some influence, but mostly dealth with the business at hand.
I'd suggest reading Federalist paper no. 10 for Madison's views on keeping "factions" in check. Like it or not, Paine, Franklin, and Jefferson were outmanoeuvred during the earliest and most formative parts of our history. Sure, Paine's Common Sense rallied the troops and Jefferson's speeches moved the tradesmen during the revolution -- but the dominant voices during the constitutional convention belonged to people such as Madison who claimed "[this] country ought to be run by those who own it." Hey...maybe there is an analogy with the internet.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
Sayeth Katz [everything sic, bad formatting artifacts and all]: "Still, I?ve come to trust interactivity and believe in it. A big difference between this culture and the old one is that ideas have to stand the test. And I?d rather write about other things. So I suggested to the Commander that we move this discussion forward by sticking a poll box next to this column, and make me the topic. Let the geeks speak for themselves...Vote to dump the jerk or keep him."
While it could be a glitch, it's hard to imagine a glitch that just loses the anti-Katz votes. It seems like someone doesn't want to let us "speak for ourselves". As Stalin once said, "those who cast the votes determine nothing. Those who count the votes determine everything."
What happened to more than 1500 anti-Katz votes?
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Communism is not the opposite of capitalism; socialism is the opposite of capitalism. Communism is a sociopolitical worldview which incorporates socialism as one of its guiding principles. In the real world, of course, neither absolute socialism nor absolute capitalism works too well -- capitalist transactions take place even in the most officially socialist countries, and even the most laissez-faire capitalist countries (e.g. the US) incorporate some government control of the economy.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I am sure that would be a shock to those folks living in China that were run over by tanks 12 years ago.
I could have sworn those were Chinese tanks, not American, and so not subject to "Congress shall make no law". You learn something new every day.
This is why, by giving the average human more information, it wont make them care, just give them more weapons to destroy each other with.
Give bin laden the internet, and he'll learn to make a bomb.
Sadly enough, Bin Laden repsresents the majority of humans, most use the net for porn, games, or email, the rest use it to make bombs, and only 1% use it to actually learn something and out of that 1%, about half of them are forced to do so because of their job, school, etc.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I frequent many web forums and I can tell you that there are Thousands of people out there, sharing information, creating websites, building on each others ideas. People, regular folks, with AOL accounts or Roadrunner cablemodems are enabled by the internet to find information and people with common interests.
And I've found or been informed about many very unique and entertaining sites, put up by people in their spare time, who would definately not have bothered to publish a 'zine or even a pamphlet - which wouldn't have made it to my eyes anyway if it were not for the internet.
It's all relative, and maybe for now it's just a start. I don't post to Slashdot very often (or at all) myself. But I was able to read Your thoughts on this subject, wasn't I? (Most of the time I come to the discussion pretty late and any points I would've wanted to contribute have already been made)
Yes, people are Lazy. The cool thing about the 'Net is that it's easy for even lazy people (like me) to put stuff out there for all to see. Even if the majority of that stuff ends up being pointless and dumb, some fraction of it will shine.
The Net is still young. Lamenting its lack of revolutionariness now is like complaining in 1955 that TV was just radio with pictures.
One way in which the Net will prove revoluntionary, I hope, is in lowering the skeptical boundaries we have all created for ourselves based on the huge cost of checking facts. But as more and more source materials go online, linking becomes possible to make facts asserted checkable at low cost. Therefore I expect beliefs that are true but counterintuitive to resurge based on the change of medium.
This explains, for instance, the online popularity of libertarian ideas. But I am sure there are many other domains of life where most people believe something false, or don't believe anything at all, due to lack of easy access to trustworthy authoritative sources.
Looking back thru history we can see the British Invasion, Hitler, Communisim, and today terrorisim. But long behold, the biggest threat to us always has been and always will be oursleves. Our society is still attacking our individual liberties, and this year far more people died from alchol abuse than from the WTC.
The biggest short term threat is already well entrenched among us, "intellectual properety". Copyrights and patents were never intended to be treated like property, that is why they had strict limitations and expiration dates. Unfortunately today, people are so blinded by the "it's property" propaganda that it leads to things like the DMCA, and business process and software patents. Today it is obvious that they were probably never needed, but up until modern times were tolerable. What if we half to choose between copyrights and the internet? What if we half to choose between copyrights and the bill of rights? Well it's already hapening.
H.L. Mencken once wrote favorably of predujice (in the sense of being opinionated) because he thought indicated a person cared enough about an issue to give it some consideration.
The above comments and a couple of others make me wonder just how thoughtful consideration Katz engages in.
1. The web will democratize society. Both Cuba society and your average high school student government can conduct wide-ranging, open discussions of issue, but the participants in either have little formal power and I wouldn't call either democratic. In fact, it is the discussion which is cynically used (in both cases) to give the illusion of power, accountability, democracy etc.
2. The rise of corporate power within capitalism has been going on a long time (the legal foundations for it were laid during Reconstruction) and has nothing to do with the Internet (and they don't even coincide historically). Furthermore, moneyed-interest have been corrupting American government since the beginning and before the rise of the modern corporation as even a cursory reading of history reveals.
It is by coff... er, will, alone I set my mind in motion...
You obviously haven't read the fine print yet, have you?
If you had, you'd realize that many of the shiny new powers granted to the Prez, AG, the USAGs, the FBI, and others, have no limits as to their scope. Like in programming, things with global scope tend to cause problems, sooner or later.
Easy examples in U.S. Federal law: RICO statutes, Co-Intelpro, automatic drug-related asset forfeiture laws.
RICO was a good thing that neither sunseted nor was limited in scope. It ended up being applied to cases it wasn't suited for, and it's a very difficult thing to defend against. Enables AGs to say "we believe you've done a bad thing, we don't have proof, but you're going down anyway." Justice, eh?
Much of Bush and Ashcroft's rhetoric presumes guilt before innocence. The new structure of Bush's military tribunals assume that this form of Justice is infallible: As a defendent, you've one turn at bat. If you lose, you have no appeal, even if you received the death sentance. Plus, evidence can be withheld from the defense, and the sessions can be closed, so there's no chance to analyze or debate a ruling. Also, the jury is an empanelment of military law officers -not a jury of peers, not a jury of equals.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
I think we need two new moderation categories. "Wrong" and "Stupid" (or "Dumb"). Be nice to be able to apply them to articles too...
*blink* What part of "dictatorship of the proletariat" did you fail to understand?
I'll grant you that in Communist theory, that's only an intermediate stage that's intended to pass away after the dissenters have been, to put it gently, "re-educated".
But in every historical case, this stage has been effectively permanent, and documented as deadly, not just to the economy, but to the citizens (whether dissenters or not) forced to live under it.
Nothing personal, but I'll pass.
I lived through military checkpoints and police blockades for 2 weeks to get into my apartment.
I got there a couple of days after they moved the checkpoints from 14th St. to Canal St. This was lucky, as the only place I had to stay was on Christopher St. When I was there, in the bars between stints of volunteering, I got a very good impression of the people. I already admired New Yorkers, not least because I grew up there. It seemed to me that at that time, most were not in favor of war and would have been opposed to restrictions on civil liberties. Perhaps that has changed.
The group of "well meaning, good intentioned" Americans that only believe that effective policing can occur when the "Cops" are handcuffed and blindfolded.
You don't need to mince words. As one of those people concerned with civil liberties, I am well aware that people think of us as horrible, vicious, anti-American scum.
The trouble is this. When people speak of security, it can mean two things:
When you write "His actions have actually made me feel more comfortable about my situation," you are clearly referring to number 1. I view 2 as being more important than 1. I also think that, in many instances, the sweeping measures taken support 1 at the expense of 2.
This is a fundamental philosophical difference, and I'm well aware that people who are concerned with 2 are a reviled minority. Consider the case of the ACLU pushing so that Nazis could march in Skokie. Most people think that's horrible, because people who are hated by Nazis have a right to feel comfortable. Personally, as someone who is Jewish enough for Hitler and Israel, I want Nazis marching. That's because I want to see and count them. Forcing them to stay in their homes doesn't make them or their hatred vanish, it just allows people to keep their head in the sand. I am well aware that most people consider my perception monstrous.
What concerns me about the recent legistlation is not the ostensible use to track down foreign nationals. Rather, it is the big bunch of riders that have been attached to these bills that grant more surveilance power over civilians. The FBI once got into a little bit of trouble for wiretapping Martin Luther King and about 10,000 other Americans. At the time, that was illegal. Now it would be perfectly legal. All the FBI would have to do is note that there were riots of black people, and that there were some inciting violence (therefore terrorists), and that even though MLK taught nonviolence, he was potentially associated with suspects. You may not care, but I don't think I like that.
Right now, I think that the FBI is too busy to bother too many private citizens much. However, in the past there have been actions on suspected Communists, people who wanted civil rights for black people, pornography, and supposed ritual satanic abuse in day care centers. I'm not sure what the next fad will be, but I'm pretty sure there will be one, and when there is, there will be less oversight. In the words of Spider Robinson, "we may even be making the problem worse, but hey, that's the price we pay for drama."
In addition, I think that, Serpico notwithstanding, the NYC police are pretty good, probably second only to the Austin, TX police. Not everywhere is it like that. There are, for example, the Washington DC police, who were responsible for more than 300 accidental shootings in the first 18 months after the introduction of the Glock 9mm, some in the words of one perpetrator because the cops didn't know not to put their fingers on the trigger unless they wanted to shoot the weapon. There's New Orleans, where one of my friends was hit by a beer bottle thrown from a Police car. I think my trust that they will always do the right thing is far from total.
Wow, have you applied for employment at Slashdot? Because you'd be a great addition. Thanks.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
A couple things. This is not really a new phenomina. Does the term "millitary industrial complex" ring a bell. Same process.
More importantly, the recent trend of "corporatism" is unlikely to go on much longer. Already you can see the rise of the independent professional, the enterprising individual. I know a lot of corportate people who got their first taste of enterprise and freedom at some now defunct
One associate of mine said he'd have to get a pre-frontal lobotomy before taking another corporate job. Backlash is on the way.
The truth is that corporations are beureaucratic. And because they don't have even the limited accountability/transparency of governments, they tend to be the most inefficient beureucracies around. They waste so much money and time it's rediculous.
And another thing...
What's up with all the pessemism? All the "you can't change people" and "people are going to be consumers no matter what". Come on, people: Cynicism isn't cool. Maybe it's fun to pretend when your a teenager so you can feel grown up, but in real life it's stupid. It doesn't get you anywhere.
People are not by nature consumers. It's just the current situation. Instead of sniping and whining, why don't we try and improve?
Try constructing positive arguments: don't just argue against something without arguing for something else.
Howard Dean for president
15 years ago I began studying politics intensely with the notion that there were real answers out there to public policy questions. Actually began my quest trying to figure out why my guy lost the election, I must obviously know something that 52% of the population didn't.
Now, as a PhD in political science I realize how true the following statement is: The fundamental nature of politics is the distribution of resources among people according to ones moral and ethical beliefs.
One can change the mechanisms for obtaining information. One can spend large amounts of money on campaigns, one can wire houses for some sort of electronic democracy. But these are only foolish dances around the core issues. Moral and ethical beliefs do not change significantly for an adult. Societal norms only change with new generations and advances in education and income (which allow individuals more liberty to contemplate instead of planting corn).
Technology will have an effect on politics, but only because it creates wealth and perhaps accelerates the underlying growth in access to education.
Sort of interesting to note that media exposure actually tends to result in more ephemerial political attitudes, not really a more serious contemplation.
The digital citizen would be smart, civil and rational, outgrowing labels like "liberal" or "conservative", engaged in civics, technology, business and government; transcending dogma and cant. Maybe he or she will pop up, but probably not in my life.
I think there's every bit of evidence that people who meet this description exist today. Mr. Lessig, as an example, would qualify.
I agree that the vision of a world where everyone is like this is unlikely to be met anytime soon. But the fact that every tree in the forest isn't the tree you're looking for does not mean the trees you are looking for do not exist.
Consider an issue like social-security. You are forced to support people you don't even know involutarily. You are their slave. Why? Because there are about 30+ million of them. Hey, they wants it, you got it. They dont say please or thank-you.
First of all, its only voluntary if they won't let you leave. You can leave. Second of all, if you pay social security, you get social security benefits. You're not paying for their support, you're paying for your own.
First, it's voluntary? I'd like to know how to opt out.
MOVE.
Second, you are paying for their support. When you pay social security, that money goes straight out to the people who are currently collecting.
So what? If I lend you a dollar, then try getting it back a year from now, is it fair for me to insist on receiving the same exact dollar I gave you, down to the serial number? Its a pool, put money in and you're entitled to get money back at a later time.
Another note: It's not just that there are 30+ million of THEM, it's that there are 30+ million of THEM and they VOTE. The AARP is one of the most powerful lobbies out there because their members vote in droves thanks to the invention of the electric golf cart.
The social security laws put into what in effect was a contract. They put in their share, they have every right to expect the government to do their part.
I'm not sure I agree.
I know the net has changed me... I often tell people that EVERYTHING is on the 'net, some where, it's finding it that takes real effort. That being said, everyday I learn something new off the net.
Example: hydroponics. Where I live, the closest hydro shop is 6 hours away. Sure, I could have done mail-order, but I would have had to find a catalog. Now, a search on google and I have 50 different places I can buy hydro supplies and another 500 pages with FAQs, how-to, etc. In a half an hour, I have a very decent understanding of why hydro involves, techniques, costs, etc...
Slashdot is a good example, too... like with the new WORM_GONE virus. Slashdot ran a story, and in that story I found 10+ links about the virus and other interesting things about Outlook, like obscure information about how to set up it's handling of attachments. In 20 minutes of reading, I found more info than I would have with hours of digging (ever try to find good on info in the MS knowledge base? Drives me insane sometimes).
I once read a that the really interesting things happen at boundary areas, i.e. earth is in boundary between a sun and the coldness of deep space. The same can be said about information... when two areas of knowledge run against each other, that's where the interesting things are. The net is this very thing... an nearly infinite set of info and ideas rubbing up against another. Granted, the noise level is high, and it takes work to do put it all together, but I feel that if a person is open to ideas and can filter out bulls**t, there is a lot to be had from the chaos of the net.
Has it empowered me? Yes, in some ways. Do I feel I can make a major difference because of the net? Nope, not yet anyway.
I really don't see how the fact that we still have the U.S. Congress changed Mr. Katz's original point. We haven't revolted or amended the Constitution to eliminate Congress, but we keep much better track of what they are doing now than we used to. Several times in the past few years modern communications have brought citizens together to pressure Congress one way or the other, and reversed a previously all-but-certain outcome. Private citizens have a lot more power than they (we) used to. (True, only as long as enough of us agree on something. But that's democracy for you.)
I'm not saying that you *can't* do more, just that things like the 'net will enable you do do more of what you already would. I don't think may people have truly changed their ways due to technology.
Consider the printing press. Changed the world? Yes, but the nature of people didn't change. Perhaps I'm being cynical, but I just think that humanity is stuck in it's ways, and technology becomes a tool to do more of what we do, rather than a motivator to do things 'better.'
T.V. was to be an educational tool. In ways it is, but I also get better access to propoganda, ads, and mindless drival.
Until the people who control technology change, I doubt very much any single technological advance will greatly modify humanity.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
We have similar person here in Afghanistan, he was shot in our soccer stadium. He has prophecised about computers linking all. I cannot wait until I can pamphlet for RAWA on my C64 and ending world hunger with mouse clik. Internet is GREAT!!!!! junis
Internet is Great!!! junis
Democracy and communism can coexist quite nicely, it's just that most examples of communist governments slipped into a fascist state of mind.
There is a reason why communist governments *always* slip into fascism. It's about property. Property is a form of power. As long as I have my property (including money), I have a certian amount of leverage that I can use to get what I want or what I need. When I have no property, I am dependant on whomever is in control of the "stuff" to dole out to me what I want or what I need. That person, or group of people, now has an unbalanced and unilateral means on power ovr everyone else. Power corrupts, and aboslult power corrups absolutly. When you give a small group of people total power to affect other people, they will become corrupt. If every single one of those people is good, then you can hold the system in place, but all it takes is *one* bad seed, and the entire house of cards collapses. One corrupt person can meet out the better goods and services for "his group" of people in order to overthrow those who share power with him but don't share his goals.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Where? I'm only free to move to another similar country!
Well, that's not the US's problem, its yours. This country can set its own policy, their only obligation is not to force you to stay.
Eh; That's why you become a socialist libertarian.
I'm talking about the majority.
And theres nothing i can do to make other people think a certain way, or enlighten people who dont want to be enlightened.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Actually, the more I thought about it, the more I agree with you.
/.?
I use the internet as a tool to find info because I want to... the internet didn't create my thirst for knowledge, it just happens to be a tool that allows me to find more info.
I think the internet could help or speed a change in a person, but they'd probably have to be prepped for that change by forces not necessarily originating from the internet.
So I agree with you =) How often does that happen on
Just because i think something is cool doesnt mean everyone else does.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
There's nothing about a corporation that's inherintly wasteful or beurocratic, and certainly nothing inherently evil. I work for a non-bankrupt tech company -- one of the best jobs I've ever had. My coworkers are clued -- hell, even the management is clued. I've come up with ideas for software to implement internally and been given the resources to actually implement it more than once; there's nothing stifling freedom there.
Yet, the company is organized as a corporation.
I've worked both for the government and for corporations, and in my experience the (better) corporations are far, far more efficient than the government. Why? Because they actually need to produce something the public believes is worth more than their money. Let's see modern government try to do that.
First off, Win3.x was never an OS. It was a GUI over top of MS-DOS, which was the OS.
The big deal, however, is that MS-DOS was a client OS. Microsoft didn't have a large share of the server market, which at that point, still had a population of mainframes (rumor is...WinNT is based on VMS/CP... I don't know if there's any truth to that) or was mostly Unix machines. There were apples running as file and print servers, but for the most part, MS products were not that well networked, even in the days of Windows for Workgroups.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.