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CNET Interviews John Perry Barlow
slothdog writes: "CNET has published an interview with John Perry Barlow. He talks about the evils of corporate totalitarianism (Microsoft, et al), the tech industry implosion, and the DMCA."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
is michael still here. what a fucking slut.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
postCount++;
w00t
Corporate evilness? Microsoft market controlled corporate state evilness?
Could someone please take the Captain America comics out of the hands of the
Thank You.
never had a first post before!
You damn leftists always miss the evils of the zionist threat.
I just heard the sad news on the radio. The #2 Linux kernel hacker ANAL COCKS was found dead in his home this morning. There aren't many details yet, but it appears he died from AUTOEROTIC ASPHYXIATION. Even if you never liked his work, you can appreciate what he did to little boys with his -ac branches of the Linux kernel and his MODPROBE. Truly a HOMOSEXUAL LINUX icon. He will be missed. :(
STOP ME BEFORE I POST AGAIN!
I was fascinated by this article, as I like to hear anyone's opinion and gather further fodder in my ongoing anti-M$ (et al.) quest.
But when article writers repeatedly use loaded words like "totalitarianism," which we as savvy minds comprehend to be the same as "virtual monopoly by way of market cornering," they are limiting their column to a small demographic (the savvy people listed above). It is equivalent to writing in some form of geek-code that only other geeks understand.
Basically, you limit the scope of your audience by your use of vocabulary. (IE, you will only reach other geeks by speaking in lingo.)
I'm just wondering who benefits from an article of this type - the nerds all know it, the non-nerds won't even understand it.
--
Disclaimer: The above statement probably includes half-truths, because real truth is too complicated.
You damn leftists always miss the real threat - the zionist threat.
To quote:
Presumably, you'll do more and more purchases online, and presumably, Microsoft will make it more inconvenient for you--unless you provide your consumer data to Passport (the company's database of customer information). At some point, are you going to cave and provide Microsoft your credit card and other data?
I don't know. (Long pause. Heavy sigh.)
I'm really worried about this, and I keep praying for guidance. These are really dark times. On practically every front that I care about, the voices of the foes are winning. I have a beleaguered optimism that this isn't going to continue to be the case, but this is a time to have your faith tested, that's for sure.
The solution is simple. Turn off your computer, and do your shopping and socializing the old fashioned way. The Internet is only popular while we, the collective, see it as a required part of our life. This is a lie that we have told ourselves repeatedly.
If you wish to have your life revolve around the computer, or around the media, then you choose to be a part of this 'mass hallucination'.
My grandmother taught me a valuable lesson: Believe none of what you hear, half of what you read, and all of what you see.
Oh, I forgot. Conspiracy theories are the in thing in this new Millenium......
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
but it seems to me that a lot of sites are running many stories that slashdot can get hyped about. Linux on the desktop, microsoft is evil, DMCA is drawn and quartered in court. In a previous thread someone said that slashdot was played for fools and that the linux desktop thing was to get more ad impressions, I'm beginning to think he was right.
Of course all this insane, conspiracy bumbling I'm doing might just be alcohol induced paranoia. Maybe I should goto bed.
Q. To play devil's advocate, isn't Microsoft simply selling a product that millions of people are willing to purchase at their own will?
A. <snip> In fact, it's become totally diabolical.
Q. If Windows is so bad, why does Apple have a meager 4 percent market share?
A. Four? Really? Jesus.
Hmm... Who said religion and computer science don't mix? :-)
---Celebrate "crash Windows XP with printf" week here.
I think Barlow has alot of it slated down pretty well. The internet is becoming less free and more commercialized. Ads are worse than ever, and we're seeing a return to something I think we left off in the 80's. It's not who you are, but what you buy.
/. community.
I especially hope that people will start to reflect a bit more on theiropinions of the music industry now that JPB has said it. Royalties are bullshit. Pay for the performance, not the music.
All in all, an excellent review. I just hope this reaches more eyes than the
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
You say "Igotta report this to /. , oh, wait, that's where i found it."{?]
c-
who is john perry barlow? michael's gay lover?
I spent many years as a dead head, though a somewhat mainstream one (IE. i maintained a job but had a fair bit of time to tour with em as well). And then a big part of the EFF...
i mean there is no way i couldn't like or support him, you would think...
But frankly he looks like he is gettin just a little exxagerated with his claims now, i love what he stands for and all, but you will never appeal to a broad audience making such off the wall claims (even if there is some basis for a bit of it). He could serve his position much better by making very rational points supported with good fact, rather than just saying all the things he speculates could *possibly* happen someday
Ok it's good. It's linked to the Dead and if we all do acid and chant real loud the rain will go away.
But the reality is that first big business had to garnter the economic forces able to put the goods and services in place to create the PC/Apple and net cultures. Not to forget that *in the beginng* the military, government, big business and academica made the WWW. So try as we do not to be overwhelmed by the immensity of the entities we create to produce such things as the net and space exploration it is possible we cannot do without them.
heuristic algorithm seeks stochastic relationship
Since when did CNet buy com.com. I can see it now - "We're the com in com.com"
I'm commercializing the internet any chance I can get though because that means money :) Money means you get to eat.
The system isn't set up to be productive so much to make sure there are elitists around... Otherwise government would be playing in the economy.
Intellectual property vs Science.
Steel mills + National defense vs Free Markets.
Out of control corporation in our nation vs out of control corporation paying taxes in someone else's.
Selling drugs for diseases vs curing them.
Its really alot of world issues coming up where money isn't the optimal answer. We're not living in blacksmithville anymore.
Got a few years and want to code true AI:
www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~sager
This guy mentions the word "evil" as much as president Bush does :)
The only smart quote that I noticed in the interview was : "To have a whole bunch of money at a really young age and see how completely useless it is--it trains a lot of folks in the real value of things."
The rest is not worth reading.
That's a very interesting interview, and I agree with Barlow on many points. But he really needs to take a step back and put things in perspective. Microsoft is not an evil empire. They are just a greedy company made up of a bunch of nerds in Seattle. They don't want to take over your mind and soul, they just want your money. If you don't like it, go outside and play. Find a hobby that isn't infested with broken standards, misleading hype, monopolies, and frustration. It will keep you from going insane.
As a self confessed libertarian, it's odd now that he's talking about the dangers of a free market economy. A place where corporations can run rampant, free of the restrictions of legislation.
Maybe he's come to realise that, yes, we do need Government. We do need a protector of our basic rights. It's a shame George W. doesn't look like the man to do it.
-- Huh, what?
Someone should make a theme song about the DMCA. Call themselves the Shire Persons and do stupid gay dances while singing it. Dress up like various Tolkien characters. Yeah.
Ever notice how Mr. Barlow looks like Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek TNG's 'Number One') is gonna look in about 20 years?
...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...
LONDON (Reuters) - Authors of emails and Internet postings that contain racist or xenophobic material may face criminal charges under a proposed European treaty that is dividing the Internet and law enforcement communities.
The proposal, drafted by the Council of Europe, would essentially outlaw the publishing of "hate speech" on the Internet. Welcomed by law enforcement agencies, it has been slammed by Internet firms as impossible to enforce.
The agreement would create a comprehensive legal framework for international crimefighters as they strive to identify and prosecute cross-border hate crimes on the Internet, an area politicians are eager to crack down on in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
"We must harmonize the laws first so that countries can cooperate in criminal investigations regarding the Internet," Peter Csonka, principal administrator at the Council of Europe, told Reuters on Friday. He added that many member states have already criminalized certain activities regarded as racist or xenophobic -- such as threatening a group on the grounds of race, color or religion -- and that the treaty would seek to extend that onto the Net.
FREE SPEECH OR RACIAL HATRED? The proposal has already provoked protest from civil liberties groups who maintain the proposal could criminalize free speech, and from some Internet firms concerned over liability issues.
Csonka said that telecommunications firms and Internet service providers have contacted the council asking for clarification on whether they would be held liable for hate speech posted or emailed by their customers.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) typically operate a policy of "notification and takedown," in which they will remove sites containing objectionable material if it's first brought to their attention. Self-policing in this manner, they say, is the best way to tackle hate speech online.
"It's almost impossible, and this is the consensus in the IPS community too, to monitor every single piece of Web space in the Internet community," said Paul Barker, director of corporate affairs at Freeserve, the British ISP owned by France's Wanadoo .
Csonka said the liability concerns raised by ISPs and Web site operators have not yet been addressed.
Civil liberty groups have also objected to the proposal, fearing it could bring the more rigorous anti-hate speech laws that exist in continental Europe to the more liberal UK and U.S.
For example, it is unlawful to post or sell Nazi regalia or propaganda on the Internet in France and Germany, but there are few legal curbs in the U.S. and Britain.
"This proposal could potentially outlaw free speech," said Malcolm Hutty, general director for Campaign Against Censorshipon the Internet in Britain, or CACIB. "That would be a great infringement of civil rights."
CACIB and sister organizations of online rights group, the Global Internet Liberty Campaign, have begun to formulate a campaign to raise awareness for the new policy.
The Convention on Cybercrime is the fruit of unprecedented international cooperation, receiving input from 43 European countries plus the United States, Japan, Canada and South Africa.
Drafted by the Council of Europe, a pan-European legal forum which works for the harmonization of laws across the continent, the treaty would need individual ratification by each before it is adopted into law. It has so far been signed, but not yet ratified, by 32 nations.
The "hate speech" amendment is expected to be brought into the convention this July, officials said, after the current public input period ends.
The goatse guy for president. Win one for the gaper!
It isn't paranoia if these companies really are trying to 'take over the world', but still, I think that Mr. Barlow could have chosen some more conservative wording to avoid looking like a member of the archetype "paranoid anticorporate radicalist." Hopefully his many, many accomplishments and reputation will help the more skeptical to realize that there is some real meat to what is being said.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Yeah, and CNet is a local non-profit collective.
How's that for oversimplification?
I guess it's better than the constantly repeated line, "the utilities are facing bankruptcy due to California's failed energy deregulation experiment." The deregulation experiment (crafted by the utilities) was a total success. They wanted to see if they could rob CA blind, and they did. Nothing failed about that experiment. If you live in CA then you heard that quote approximately 1.2 billion times.
There is also the one you always hear to the effect that the judge invalidating Thomas Penfield Jackson's remedies found that MS should not be broken up. I don't think that this is true. I believe that the judge found that the circumstances rendered the judgement invalid, and the remedies had to be decided in an unbiased manner, but never said that they were the wrong remedies.
And one more disturbing collapse of journalistic integrity - keep an eye on the bold quotes in the sidelines of BBC online articles. They will "quote" someone (no brackets to indicate paraphrase or elipses to indicate omissions), but when you read the quote in the article it it slightly different. I haven't seen any that twist the meaning, but a quote is a quote - you said it or you didn't. It prevents you from using it as a source for exactly what someone said.
Sorry to rant, but it pisses me off when journalists act like idiots.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
I know I've had submissions that were along those lines get rejected, even though they were better than some of the crap that gets posted.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
The government is nothing more than the biggest, baddest monopoly of them all. Plus they have the authority to kill you.
Saying that governmental power is the solution to corporate power is like saying a few sprinkles of salt will help save your garden from a drought. The government is not the source and protector of human rights; the Bill or Rights specifically mentions which natural rights the government isn't allowed to take away.
The goatse guy for president. Win one for the gaper!
Not to bad had some really good comments, OTOH some of his ideas should have died with garcia though....
ahh, the egg in the basket..
He's the co-founder of Electronic Frontier Foundation. You can read some of the thing's he's written.
Mod parent up. Apparently, even trolls are capable of posting good comments.
It's "Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see"
;-)
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
You are a dumbass.
Anyone who reads you is a dumbass.
Anyone who believes you is a dumbass.
Anyone who posts to this thread is a dumbass.
So, to all of you: FUCK OFF!! FUCK OFF!!! SUCK THE SHIT RIGHT OUT OF MY ASS!!!!!
Oh, and fuck off, thx.
Apparently, even trolls are capable of posting good comments.
If this surprises you, you must not read at -1 too often. The crazy shit they say *every day, 24/7* is what makes this site worthwhile! I think they're the smartest people on /.
I think John Perry Barlow spent a bit too much time in the parking lots of Grateful Dead shows. He rants like a man marinated in THC and unchecked, drug induced paranoia. But hey! He rants about MICROSOFT and that is all that is necesary for /.
What a joke.
I think you are ready to apply for Understatement Of The Year Award -and feel pretty good about your chances.
Wow, that sure is totally off-base from my perspective. I have a great community of neighbors (who are adults who have mostly lived here for a while). They bring over fresh vegetables. We give each other copies of our house keys in case we get locked out. People watch out for potential break-ins at each other's houses.
Our neighborhood has great diversity. There are many ethnic families around who have been in the neighborhood for more than a decade. I recently read a report which demonstrated (and yes, maybe the report is BS) that the decrease in diversity was grossly overestimated. From what I can see with my own eyes, this appears to be true.
I make eye contact with people all of the time, all over the city, and often end up talking with strangers and making new friends (I got a free painting this way). I have never had the slightest problem here resulting from making eye contact (except maybe downtown, sometimes the tourists think you are going to rob them if you make eye contact - but notably, the business and financial people (who live here, as opposed to the tourists) don't seem to respond that way).
"But I really don't like the society that has grown up around the dot-communists, who are all products of suburbia and television."
There was a big problem with the manners and morality of a lot of "dot commers". People who had lots of money, but no concept of tipping were threatening to drive the cappucino-makers out of the city. It was really getting to the point where the "dot commers" were going to have to make their own cup of coffee, because no one working at a coffee shop could afford to live here without tips hat they weren't getting. I know of one group of individuals who went to the local shop every morning and often had meetings there. They would each get a beverage and breakfast and leave no tip whatsoever.
On the other hand, I spent a short time as a San Francisco "dot commer" myself, and I do not own a television, never mind cable TV. The majority of the professionals I worked with were intelligent, critical thinkers who, although they read the CNN website, didn't mindlessly believe everything that they read. They were not frivolously spending on the latest stupid gadget that the media told them to buy. They were polite and mature, and had insightfull views about the world.
My point is that saying that all "dot commers" are evil is totally false and prejudicial. Just think of all of the statements that have been made about all hippies. This guy should know better than to criticize based on stereotype.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
Apple may have four percent of the desktop market, but here Barlow is not thinking logically. But to be fair, few people think this out.
Apple is NOT shrinking or losing by having a four percent market share. Think about it: they sell far more PCs to far more people than they ever have. They are a raging success.
What happened here is that the number of PC owners has grown by orders of magnitude since the eighties. Wintel grew, Apple grew. Both paradigms are successful.
By its very nature, Apple cannot succeed in the corporate world. It's about flair, being original, being artistic, being different. Since most of you do work corporate office jobs, you you that anyone showing such traits are not going to make it big -- conformity in large groups is essential to avoid conflict.
Yeah, a Mac is just a PC, but the idea is what counts. Try dropping an iMac into a Wintel office. Not conforming, not goodnik.
So before Barlow goes religious, he out to think of numbers of Macs used, not the proportion of the total PC base.
Ayn Rand and the perversion of libertarianism
The political controversy of the late 19th century was: whether
socialists (all those who believed in the individual's right to
possess what he or she produced) should engage in the political
process, seize control of the state, and use the state apparatus
to achieve liberation; or, whether a worker's state was inher-
ently contradictory, counter revolutionary, and would only lead
to the creation of a new ruling class whose interests would still
clash with those of the ruled that the state should be abolished
allowing for no transitional stage of any kind during which power
may have the chance to reconsolidate itself.
The situation has recreated itself with amazing similarity
almost exactly a century later.
Non-libertarian parties the world over (those who see authori-
tarian centralization the bulwark of civilization) are bankrupt,
economically and intellectually. The only viable intellectual
current today falls under that ambiguous term~ `libertarian'.
Today there exist beneath this umbrella as many splinter groups
as there were a hundred years ago under the umbrella of social-
ism. Two distinct trends, a right and a left if you will, are
clearly discernible.
One group, clearly the largest with a hierarchical organization
modeled on the other political parties, believes, like most
Marxists, in constitutional parliamentary republican democracy.
They believe that the state is a necessary guarantor of indi-
vidual safety and the product of the individual's labor, and in
gradual progress toward a free society through participation in
the political process.
The other group, much smaller and far more splintered, reject
the state as necessarily a tool of class domination and exploita-
tion.
This group believes that what Bakunin said a hundred years ago
is as true today, ``If you took the most ardent revolutionary,
vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse
than the Czar himself.''
The first group is in all fairness a direct inheritor of the
ideals of the American Revolution. In modern times, however, it
has only two roots: (1) the Austrian school of economics repre-
sented by Ludwig Von Mises; (2) the philosophy of Ayn Rand.
Von Mises never considered the libertarians. He answered the
Marxists and the Keynesians and defended laissez-faire capitalism
at a time when no one else would. His justification for capital-
ism was empirical~the greatest good for the greatest number.
Ayn Rand, however, attempted to offer a moral justification of
capitalism by substituting the word `capitalism' for the liber-
tarian meaning of the word `socialism'. She then attributed all
of the ills of capitalism to government interference with the
market and all of the world's wealth to the minds of the men whom
the world considered the robber barons.
The contrast between Ayn Rand's `Objectivism' and libertarian-
ism is deeper than mere substitution of terminology, however.
Several of her propositions or axioms place her clearly outside
of the libertarian tradition.
Her justification of the state is derived from a Hobbesian
state of nature theory:
``...a society without an organized government would be at the
mercy of the first criminal who came along and who would precipi-
tate it into chaos and gang warfare....'' [The Virtue of Selfish-
ness, 152; pb 112]
``If a society provided no organized protection against force,
it would compel every citizen to go about armed, to turn his home
into a fortress, to shoot any strangers approaching his door~or
to join a protective gang of citizens who would fight other
gangs, formed for the same purpose, and thus bring about the
degeneration of society into the chaos of gang rule, i.e., rule
by brute force, into perpetual warfare of prehistoric savages.''
[Ibid., 146; pb 108]
Ayn Rand's belief in the inherent depravity of human nature
which renders us forever incapable of living without rulers and
not descending to the level of `savages', clearly places her out-
side of the libertarian tradition which views human nature as es-
sentially good, capable of indefinite improvement through the
experience of freedom and the exercise of reason.
Her knowledge of anthropology is as embarrassing as her under-
standing of history. For example, in regards to her conception of
who are the savages, she describes America as, ``...a superlative
material achievement in the midst of an untouched wilderness,
against the resistance of savage tribes.'' [For The New Intellec-
tual, 58; pb 50]
To Rand, the essential characteristic of the state is that it
possesses a monopoly on the use of retaliatory force. How does
she justify this monopoly or national sovereignty? She accepts it
as a given, something not requiring a justification, and demands
that an-archy, the negation of the proposition, justify itself.
Her concept of national sovereignty is then something tran-
scendental, existing separate and apart from individuals. and
beyond the right of the individual to accept or reject according
to his or her own reason.
These propositions clearly place Ayn Rand's philosophy closer
to Hobbes, Hegel, and Marx, than to libertarianism.
The state, according to Miss Rand, must hold a monopoly on the
enforcement of contracts and the settling of disputes between
individuals, at least whenever this arbitration is not accepted
by both sides voluntarily. She fails to consider that the en-
forcement of contracts by the state fundamentally alters the
nature of free agreements. Agreements are made on terms which
otherwise might not be, because they are justiciable.
The terms of ``free agreements'' under law are titled in favor
of lenders over debtors, landlords over tenants, employers over
employees, in a way which would not exist in a ``free market.''
This leveraging of power is not `objective' at all. Depending
purely on legal convention, creditors may have debtors impris-
oned, tenants may be evicted without notice and their effects
confiscated, one human being may own another or the land on which
another lives and works, all to varying degrees.
To understand Ayn Rand's psychology it is helpful to know her
background. She was born to a wealthy St. Petersburg family in
1905. The position of her family in Czarist society must have
been considerable. At a time when the lives of most Russians had
changed little since feudalism, her family was wealthy enough to
afford a French Governess and take regular vacations to the Cri-
mea.
It should be noted that wealth in Czarist society was almost
wholly a measure of one's favor with the government. There were
few if any Horatio Alger stories about individuals who lifted
themselves out of serfdom without the patronage of the Czar.
At the age of twelve, she must have been very upset when those
nasty workers took over her father's business. Her family fled
St. Petersburg for the Crimea and the protection of the White
Army.
This experience rendered her forever incapable of seeing land
reform or any struggle of oppressed and exploited people as
anything more than hatred for the good and lust for the unearned.
She shared with Marx the bourgeois ideology that only a few
people were capable of running things. The masses ought to be
happy to have a job working for bosses. Any suggestion that an
enterprise could be run by the employees without having someone
in charge was to her absurd.
She shared with Godwin and Kropotkin the belief that the indi-
vidual is born tabula rasa~a blank slate, and all human knowledge
is derived from sense experience. She then proceeded, however, to
completely dismiss environment and socialization as the determin-
ing factor in the development of character.
People were to her good or evil, brilliant or indolent, depend-
ing solely on their volition. People should be judged by their
actions with equal severity regardless of their condition. Though
she insisted that the United States was not and never had been a
completely free country, she granted no such thing as extenuating
circumstances when judging an individual and had no qualms up-
holding the power of the state to inflict capital punishment.
A far more sinister legacy of Ayn Rand to libertarianism is
that of a moralizing autocrat who gathered about her an inner
circle which she ironically called, ``The collective.''
Outwardly, this collective professed egoism and individuality.
They were to be the vanguard of an intellectual renaissance. The
price of admission to this group, however, was slavish conformity
of one's life and professed philosophy to Ayn Rand's whims and
eccentricities. For example, she did not like men who wore facial
hair or listened to Mozart, and if you didn't give them up you
were unfit for Rand's inner circle.
This is particularly sinister if one considers that Karl Marx,
believed by millions to be the very symbol of liberation, was
also an autocrat who, though professed to be the ultimate champi-
on of democracy, resorted to extraordinary means to maintain
control of the International Workingmen's Association. He even
moved its headquarters to New York to exclude the libertarian
influence.
Today Ayn Rand is gone, but like Marx a century ago, hers is
the primary influence on the largest libertarian organization
existing. Even the pledge which all Libertarian Party members
must sign is taken directly from her admonition, ``I hereby
certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of
force as a means of achieving political or social goals.''
In spite of their pledge to non-violence, many libertarians are
frustrated with election laws and media censorship. An argument
which circulates among libertarians of the right is that, if they
were more threatening, the government may take steps to accommo-
date them as it did the black civil rights movement.
Ayn Rand's writings are not entirely consistent on the point of
non-violence either. In The Fountainhead, Howard Roark resorts to
the use of dynamite. In Atlas Shrugged, Ragnar Danneskjold
engages in piracy on the high seas and even shells a factory
which has been nationalized. In a clandestine rescue mission,
Dagny Taggart shoots a guard who stood in the way of her desired
end.
In the event of economic upheaval, ruined by unemployment and
inflation, tenants and home owners may refuse to make rent and
mortgage payments. The unemployed may seize vacant land and begin
to farm, and factory workers may realize they can run things
without stock holders.
It would not be at all surprising if there were to emerge
within the libertarian right, groups committed to direct action
and counter revolutionary violence, even a coup d'etat.
Imagine a charismatic and autocratic personality at the center
of such a group and you have the Objectivist Lenin.
Like the Marxists and right libertarians, Lenin and the Objec-
tivists are professed republican democrats. Lenin and the Bolshe-
viks promised that if given power, they would immediately convoke
a constituent assembly. When they realized, however, they would
not hold a majority in such an assembly they turned against the
idea of such an assembly.
Can anyone doubt that the cultist mentality which characterizes
most of Miss Rand's followers could lead to the creation of a
group of self appointed avengers of the capitalist class? That
they would suppress strikes, demonstrations, and factory take
overs? That they would not execute people for crimes against the
libertarian state?
Ayn Rand believed in a republican form of government with a
cleverly constructed constitution which would deny the majority
of the power to infringe on the rights of a minority as she
conceived them. If the majority supported a general strike
against rents and mortgages and supported the factory takeovers,
would not the clandestinely organized Objectivist libertarian
party be tempted to dispense with democracy in order to enforce
what they conceived of as the rights of the dispossessed bour-
geoisie?
In all fairness it must be admitted that Ayn Rand herself would
never sanction such actions, but the same argument is made
everyday by western Marxists that Marx would probably not have
sanctioned many of Lenin's actions and would certainly not take
credit for the Soviet Union.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks won power by promising, ``Land to the
peasants!'' ``Factories to the workers!'' When they took power,
however, they immediately set about liquidating the factory com-
mittees and nationalizing the land. They crushed work place
democracy by installing armed guards in the factories, and even
returned former owners to their positions as employees of the
worker's state.
Leon Trotsky stopped the practice of soldiers electing their
officers from their ranks and even restored former Czarist
officers to their ranks in the Red Army.
When the Russian Revolution began few people clearly understood
the gulf which separated the state socialists from the libertari-
ans. Many dedicated libertarians like Alexander Berkman, rallied
to the Bolshevik cause, willing to give them the benefit of the
doubt in hopes that seizing state power would only be a transi-
tional stage toward the development of the stateless/classless
society.
Many sincere lovers of liberty now flock to the standard of the
Libertarian Party, as they did the Bolsheviks, completely igno-
rant of the history of the last century. As Santayanna said:
``Those who forget the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat
them.''
What should be done? It should be obvious that government
enforcement of private contracts is not libertarian any more than
is taking state power to set people free. Libertarianism is and
always will mean socialism~the self emancipation of working
people.
Libertarians must stop courting the Republican right and return
to their intellectual roots. By standing outside of the political
process we deny the state legitimacy, and like the state tortur-
ers in Atlas Shrugged, they will come and beg for libertarians to
take over.
Remembering the experience of the Spanish libertarians, and
heeding the advice of John Galt, libertarians must refuse state
power even when begged. The state can never be a tool of libera-
tion. Only its complete and utter collapse will allow for the
emergence of non-statist institutions, libertarian coops, com-
munes, and free markets, to flourish and displace the political
state once and for all.
[This article appeared in issue #34 of *Anarchy: A Journal of
Desire Armed* (available for $3.50 postpaid from B.A.L. Press,
P.O. Box 2647, New York, NY 10009).]
-Commienst
Look, Ms Rosen if you continue to use language like that we're gonna have to ask you to leave......
Well said. That guy was full of shit. I bet he will never find out how Rand and Nozick and Co. hijacked the term Libertarian.
The corporate oligarchic republics like America hand the people a few shreds of rights they call freedoms. They do this to get idiots like mrgrumpy, focused on a narrow plane of thought and stuck in reformism. He gets righteous about freedoms, when he should be after freedom.
You will never obtain liberty under any government, all governments in history have existed to protect an opulent minority from the majority. Whenever this minority feels threatened or gets rapacious you will see your so called guaranteed rights go away real quick.
Mod Roto-Rooter Man up.
I am into the copy and paste.
My point about the quote is that they modify it without notation. The quotes in the sidebar have always been there, but usually they match up with the actual quote or else there is notation to indicate paraphrase or omission. The BBC is just modifying the quotes with no indication that they are not really quotes. This means that if I say, person X said, "blah," and you say, no they actually said, "foo," we can both go to BBC online and find evidence for the accuracy of our version of the quote. This means that you can't verify what someone really said, which is important.
The other issue is that people have a right not to be misrepresented. Changing quotes like this amounts to putting words into someone's mouth, potentially diluting or changing their meaning. They would be justified to react with total outrage - "that's not what I said!" The journalist may not understand the subtleties of the quote, and may destroy the meaning inadvertently. At least with a real quote you can go back to it and say, "this is what he said exactly - make your own judgement about what it means."
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
Being a confessed MS hater, you should use "i.e."
Sorry to be anal, but "IE" being in caps, I translated it out of the corner of my eye, before I had even read most of the post, as a reference to the crappiest "browser/integral operating system component" that I know of.
Again, sorry to be anal.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
That's like saying that if early car manufacturers had totally ruined the car industry through their antics that we could say - "oh well, you can always walk."
While this statemenet is true, the benefit of the automobile to society at large is great enough that it should continue to exist. Same with the internet. It is true that you don't need it but it could become something positve in life. Especially in the future - who knows what the internet could enable in 50 years.
I think the crowd that says that the internet is not a basic right and fundementally unnecessary are simultaneously correct and short-sighted.
Just clarifying the subject...
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
On the other hand, I never used to have a credit card. I never wanted one because I consider it to be a borrowing tool, and I have never been in the position where I needed to buy something which I could not afford (not that I am rich, I just don't buy it if I don't have the money).
There are two major problems with not having a credit card: 1.) I live in SF, and my family lives in MA. In order to buy plane tickets, I need a credit card (or else I have to borrow a friend's credit card). 2.) Since I never borrowed money, I had no credit record whatsoever. This could eventually prevent me from being able to buy a house that I could afford. It made it very difficult for me to get a credit card in the first place. They offer credit cards to students (worst case: mom and dad will pay), people with good credit (they will get their money back), and people with bad credit (they will get lots of money in interest payments).
So the problem arises when they make things that you really "need" contingent on participation.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
What you mean is "i.e."
Unfortunately, IE in caps sticks out off of the page and looks like an MS product out of the corner of your eye.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
So if car maker does better than the bulk of the market and is more profitible as a status car, why is apple being berated for 4% ?
Think about it, is it better to be in the top 4% of a market or the bottom 90 % ?
If there was more money to be made in bulk production of junk, then america would have more factories than china.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
I agreed with everything that article said, its nice to know that other people can see the light. The only problem i had with it is that he didn't come across too well. To me it sounded fine, but to others, i think he would probably sound like just-another-nutcase-conspiracy-theorist.
I especially liked the Microsoft theory - that they would try something stupid, it tied in with the whole raw-sockets thing, where MS would prove that the internet is not strong enough, and would try and implement its own closed system. The internet is definately closing - Flash, Passport, non-W3C compatable web pages. But he sounds way too confident that the corporations will loose.
IMHO, unless the mass public is very well educated about these issues, freedom will die. (no, slashdot is not the mass public, more like 0.00000001%)
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The military, government, big business had nothing to do with WWW. Cern needed a way to link to databases of academic interest.
Economics is merely a form of opinion as to why things make money. It is no more relevant than astrology is.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
Four? Really? Jesus. They really blew that one.
Allow me to put John's remarks into a little greater perspective...
John isn't just a Mac user, he's an Applemaster.
Romana: "How did you know?" Doctor Who: "Ah, well, knowing is easy. Everyone does THAT ad nauseum. I just sort of hope"
So you claim that Liberty is a left wing concept? Funny, I think you'll find Liberty is closest to anarchism.
If you want a revolution, don't get rid of capitalism, get rid of corporate control.
Do you really think america would be getting worse if the rules were changed to make the maximum market share of media companies less than 20% ?
Of course not, you need competition between private media, corporate media, government media to get those pieces of truth out there.
If you want liberty, you have to provide it yourself to ensure your freedoms are kept.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
You bloke I never said anything about liberty being a left wing concept. I was just talking about how the Libertarians hijacked the term libertarian. As an anarchist, I get pissed when I hear all of these Libertarian party tools hijack the word.
I know very well that the term libertarian refered to the anarchist tradition of Socialism long before Ayn Rand and other hacks were born.
I am into the copy and paste.
You think diversity is ethnic neighbours who've been there for just 10 years?
In my town (Wellington, New Zealand) diversity is ethnic neighbours who were there at least a decade before you got there.
I ussually give tourists directions, the only weird ones are the americans.
American tourists always act like you're about to take their wallet or beat them up. I laugh when I see them try to find their way from the maps.
New Zealand doesn't have tipping, we never ask for tips (I was a waiter for a while when I was a student) and nobody pays so little you need tips to live with your wages.
As far as coffee is concerned, Wellington has more cafes and restaurents per capita than New York City. We even have a few starbucks for tourists who want the taste of american culture.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
Anarchism has nothing to do with socialism, which is what your nickname implies is your belief.
I'm an anarchist but am totally opposed to socialism. It's possible to want anarchism without socialism.
The only Marx I accept as the truth was written by Groucho.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
Royalties are things that get paid to organizations and institutions that have thieved royalties from human beings. The idea that royalties need to be there to "incentivize" creativity is pretty abstract these days.
What you get paid for is the delivery of service. If you're talking about services, it's best not to view what is being served as a form of property.
Wow, that has to be by far the most intelligent quote I've seen in a while on the state of IP. I don't necessarily agree with everything he said in the article but the above quote is dead-on target.
--
Scott Brady
Let me guess, anarcho-capitalist?
I am into the copy and paste.
free market means it should be free of government control. What you're saying will make it more of a controlled market. Supply-Siders believe in less controll=better economy, which for the most part is true.
Fuck you moderators!
Or maybe, just maybe, he's an hypocrite. he'll only support government intervention if he can use it to his advantage.
I really despise these links to interviews with people, with no foundation as to who they are, or why they rank being interviewed, or why their interview ranks thinking about.
/. needs to change its tag line to "Inflamatory Blurbs to Get you Started".
I think
There is no news content here. If we wanted to read this article, we could just go pick up any one of the Jon Katz features. Not to mention that the related links section for this story should have a direct link to www.slashdot.org.
I think most of us are in agreement that MS is "evil", and a bad product, and Linux is the bright shining star of the future (at least that is what all the articles linked here say, and have for the last several years).
Those that aren't in agreement get shouted down.
The fact of the matter is that none of this matters to nerds. They already know the score, they already have an opinion. These articles, interviews, and rants don't enlighten anyone.
Slashdot has become like any other media outlet. They for go real journalism for inciteful impertinant crap that draws the lowest common denomenator to sell more ad space.
Lets get some integrity back into the news media, and start here.
Though imcomplete, it is still a good post.
There are many interpretations of the word "Libertarian", with the greatest variance found among the interpretations of those who use it to label themselves.
Some libertarians believe in a place for government. Some do not.
Some libertarians fear a corporation acting as government (a monopoly regulating the market, as Microsoft has done with their OEM contracts, for example). Others are willing to give corporations the same trust they deny the government.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Ok first, as a Deadhead - and someone who likes SCI for that matter - the statement, "I'm writing now for String Cheese Incident, which is like Grateful Dead 2.0..." is just ridiculous. I don't think the most diehard SCI fan would agree with that. SCI is a fun little jamband, the Dead was the focus of many people's lives. They're not in the same league at all.
Having said that, the problem with John Barlow is that he can't answer any questions. The interviewer was extremely friendly, led him a lot, and he still couldn't make many points.
It's easy to say now that Microsoft will be able to keep doing well because of their market share, but how did they get that in the first place? Barlow has no answer. "[Apple] blew that one," is not much of a response.
I like the guy. I like some of his ideas. Interviews like that though, only harm his cause.
Libertarianism talks about the rights and freedoms of humans. Nothing about it says that abstract constructs like corporations should get the same rights. Wanting to curb corporate power is entirely consistent with libertarianism, as far as I can tell.
In my conversations with Barlow, I've found it difficult -- in fact, impossible -- to break through and explain to him that reality, for ordinary, mortal non-celebrities, isn't at all like what he experiences. Barlow is able to champion the abrogation of intellectual property because -- having been the exponent of a wealthy ranching family and graced by the sheer good luck of falling in with the Grateful Dead via a high school acquaintance -- he has never had to struggle to earn a living. He hobnobs with "big names" (such as the Kennedy family) to whom few others have access. And he has never wanted for attention, popularity or adulation.... Wherever he goes, Deadheads fall at his feet, begging him to autograph T-shirts and other objects. He is thus utterly unable to understand the artist who struggles mightily -- and perhaps produces much better work that Barlow ever has or will -- but was not struck by fortuitous lightning. Barlow has plenty of money in the bank, and is paid outrageous sums to write articles and give speeches which are barely original (most merely repeat the same things he's said before, and/or borrow shamelessly, and often without attribution, from the work of others). Never having truly worked in his life, he finds it easy to say that artists should work for "tips." In short, he's out of touch with reality, and probably wouldn't find it pleasant if he had to contend with it.
John Perry Barlow is at times entertaining. But his sweeping, ex cathedra pronouncements should be interpreted with these things in mind, and taken -- by the critical reader -- with a few tons of NaCl.
--Brett Glass
This is precisely correct. Any group or person with absolute (or close to absolute), centralizing power must be democratically accountable to the people. However, simultaneously, we have to beware a centralized government that becomes too big, and thus too resistant to the voices of the people. A new check-and-balance needs to be created.
I favor the creation of a _third_ power force in the US and around the world: An augmenting governance mechanism coming straight from the people, using Internet technologies as a catalyst and ballot initatives as a basis. A deliberative, meritocratic assembly of the people who continuously make nonpartisan, legally binding decisions based solely on the merits of individual issues (but also don't trample individual freedom) is what's called for.
While this form of "more direct" democracy would appear to serve only as a check on our elected representatives, it also serves as a check on the overextending of corporate interests. For example, an assembly of citizens can very well decide to deliberate and vote on a resolution to boycott a company's products and then execute that without creating law, as boycotting is already a derivative right of all citizens in a free society.
The bottom line is that the people themselves have to start taking more direct action (either individually or collectively) against the centralized forces that menace them. Yes, it may seem to make more sense for the government to solve all or most of these issues. But if we allow government alone to work to protect us from corporatist control, then we end up with a government that's too big to not only be ineffective in protecting us, but also becomes a nasty, over-taxing, repressive bully itself.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Right, and he slightly misses the point. He talks about totalitarianism being caused by "corporate capitalism in a completely unregulated environment", but excessive regulation is precisely the problem. Without government guns enforcing the DMCA, the Sonny Bono Infinite Copyright Act, UCITA, and other consumer-hostile legislation, these corporations would not anywhere near as much a threat to liberty as they are.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
I think JPB has listened to too much Greatful Dead. "Corprate Totalitarianism?" Gimme a friggn break. I'm so sick of this slashdot reader conspiracy Microsoft is Big Brother Orwellian 1984 Linus is a God and fear the penguin elitist hate speech. Damn hippies. Where are my scissors...
Q: What did the Dead Head say when the LSD wore off?
A: "This music sucks!"
Have a day.
Not just anarcho-capitalist, I'm also a bit green. But I'm not impressed with most socialist greens.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
Blind me! Anarcho-capitalism[sic]. You cannot get more ultra right wing than that. Anarchism is against all forms of domination, not just the state, this would extend even to Capital. This precludes anarcho-capitalism from the greater anarchist tradition.
I am into the copy and paste.
...to be able to define words?
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Not really, I'm in favor of capitalism yet against corporatism. I believe that capitalism works better when it isn't hindered by mismanagement.
This means "first thing we do is kill all the lawyers", ban MBAs, prohibit the training of new accountants, lawyers, MBAs and all the other non productive management jobs.
If that's not anarchism, then nothing is.
The problem is not capital, it's corporate domination.
Who do you think is responsible for DMCA, WIPO, genetically modified food, global warming ?
It's the corruption of pure capitalism by multi national corporations that causes these problems. Not small businesses.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
Sorry, I was up late. For some reason I was thinking about knickers.
I guess it's the Loaded magazine calendar by my computer.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
Holy cow, as a believer in many things free, let me just say i believe he not only does not represent many people in the EFF, but he may actually alienate a fair amount of them with the hard line he does take. Obviously, it's his right, but i don't put MS anywhere near the totalitarian regime he describes, and I do not place them in the AOL/TW, Vivendi, Newscorp group at all. For better or worse, MS does not have the capability to influence the message in the world (barring some simplistic alterations of the message based on the browser). AOL/TW has the power to make news go away. MS is just a software company, they don't control any kind of reporting.
Though I prefer avoiding using labels, he seems a lot more communist/socialist than I feel comfortable with, and it annoys me when movements get painted with the views of some of their more extreme members. My $0.02.
You're retarded. You've obviously never been to Texas.
"Which companies or organizations constitute this totalitarian regime?"
When I read this I thought it said prostitute instead of constitute. I laughed to myself over my error until I realized that prostitute was probably a more accurate word to use in this case...
If it's supposed to move and doesn't, use WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape.