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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."
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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.
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.
Since when did CNet buy com.com. I can see it now - "We're the com in com.com"
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?
He's the co-founder of Electronic Frontier Foundation. You can read some of the thing's he's written.
The tone of the article was aloof and slightly patronizing. The quote:
"the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a 1998 agreement that banned online distribution of companies' intellectual property"
tells you which side CNET is on.
When he passes from the intellectual scene, there will be no more dissenting voices in his league left to interview. And so his observation is correct: eventually, given the arch questions in the article by the reporter, CNET and similar corporate-owned outlets will not interview such "flakes" as he. His (accurate) observations will no longer be part of public discussion, and one tone, one philosophy will prevail: corporate absolutism, with one or two conservative behemoths owning all the news media that matter.
After 20 years of watching the ongoing corporatization and the creation of a conservative media hegemony, I think the word "evil" applies.
.Net to own everyone's transactions. And maybe BillG doesn't care about your private life, but what about future BillGs twenty years from now, or forty? Absolute power is being channeled into boardrooms that have no government oversight of their actions. Enron shows us how intertwined the power/money brokers are with the government. They've become inseparable. And these characters are going to decide what we see and hear on the net and any other channel of info?
Bush has had a revelation from God. He believes that he has been charged with eliminating evil-doers from the planet -- not a joke --by God Himself. If you read what he says, he is on a holy war. Any formerly Commie country, except China of course, is evil. Anything that embarassed his daddy was evil. Anything Clinton did... never mind. Saudi Arabia was the source of the terrorists for the most part, but curiously our oil sources don't seem to be evil.
Barlow, on the other hand, sees a real evil: the almost absolute monopolization, coming Real Soon Now, of all news media outlets by mega-giga-corps, leading to the pasteurization of human thought on the planet. Dead real truth. Current forerunner of such: the almost complete adoration of the current president, and the complete lack of criticism of his past, his current policies, or his actual words. This is a top-down move from the highest levels of the corporations such as AOL-TW and GE and Disney. And across the country, in many city papers, editors and reporters that aren't toeing the line are being canned. Think about it: how many reporters and editors were fired for critizing Clinton? Interesting dynamic there, dontcha think?
Barlow is right, as should be obvious. We're being sewn up into a certalized corporatocracy by the day, and no one is noticing. MS will use
Listen to Barlow.
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?
Take a look at the actions of US oil companies in, say, Nigeria or Myannmar, and then tell me that AOL or MS is "evil".
Perhaps if the major media spent more time pointing out those atrocities, not to mention the fact that Bin Laden and co. would be nothing without money and weapons from the west (mostly from selling oil and being strategically valuable because of that same oil), the people might force change.
Who do you suppose is managing to consistantly fail to report on corperations slowly but surely becoming a law unto themselves but never missing a good car crash or apartment fire?
If MS and AOL get their way, all hope of peolpe waking up to these evils may go away.
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