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Flushing the Net Down the Tubes
netcetra writes "From a post by on CircleID by Phillip J. Windley: 'Doc Searls has written a brilliant piece framing the battle for the Net at Linux Journal. ... if you take the time to read just one essay on the Net and the politics surround it this year, read this one.' Quote from Doc himself: 'This is a long essay. There is, however, no limit to how long I could have made it. The subjects covered here are no less enormous than the Net and its future. Even optimists agree that the Net's future as a free and open environment for business and culture is facing many threats. We can't begin to cover them all or cover all the ways we can fight them. I believe, however, that there is one sure way to fight all of these threats at once, and without doing it the bad guys will win. That's what this essay is about.' Also see additional background on the piece on Doc Searls blog."
Blah Blah Blah ... invented by US military ... blah blah blah ... used by other people/organisations ... blah blah blah ... expect it to be free.
It might be cynical, but this was essentially my stance on the 'make the internet free' thing. Yes, I think we should make the internet free, but it's not up to the European Union to decide whether it's free or not, it's up to the US and it's their decision that matters.
And don't take this viewpoint too seriously, because at the moment it's based off my knowledge of current happenings, which may or may not be too correct.
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
The point is, when an act is accepted by a significant proportion of the population, chances are that act is ethical
Was slavery ethical? Was the holocaust ethical? A resounding "no" on both counts.
The only reason that it happens so frequently is because it can. Before the advent of the digital medium, copyright infringement didn't yield nearly the same quality and was quite a bit of trouble to boot. By contrast, all it takes today is a search term or two, a few mouse clicks, and whatever time it takes for the download to complete.
No matter how you slice it, dice it, or spin it, it all boils down to the fact that copyright infringement involves the acquisition of something of value, without the permission of, or compensation to, its owners. People who want change in the business models used by the content providers NEED TO STOP FUNDING THE CURRENT MODEL.
I don't see why me saying that liberals are running around screaming like the sky is falling is a 'cheap shot at liberals'. Personally, I completely agree with you. It is conservatives who should be running around crying doom. The fact that there is even a debate around gay marriage should scare the conservatives who worry about their social ideals shitless. If anyone can take a look at today and cry that the dark ages are upon us, it is the conservatives. They are slowly losing on every single bread and butter social issue that they have.
As you point out, from a liberal perspective, things couldn't be much better. Every single liberal social ideal is advancing. Sure, we are not all the way there, but the direction of progress is pretty clear. My point is that liberals need to take a very deep breath and get over Bush. Yes, he drives liberals nuts. Hell, he drives conservatives nuts some times. With an approval rating of 35%, it is safe to say he is driving close to everyone nuts. That said, stop giving the guy so much credit. 8 years of Bush is not the end of the world. He doesn't control every aspect of our lives and society. He isn't going to topple the US and or the EU before he is booted out of office. We survived Regan and Britain survived Thatcher. If it is any consolation, the Republicans survived Clintons first term and some how managed to keep from resorting to mass suicide under Carter.
My point is that society and culture is far more resilient then people give it credit. A simple example of this is the gay marriage debate. Before Bush's term in office, there was absolutely no debate on the issue. Now conservatives are in a panic and trying to quickly erect laws before their support vanishes, Massachusetts has legalized gay marriage, and unlike any time before in history in the US, there is an actual debate over the issue. If a debate over gay marriage can arise under Bush... I think that speaks pretty strongly about society and how little control a president really has over it.
Everything you cite are 'means' not an 'ends'.
-- corporations still had to claim to serve the public good
-- corporations had to act to benefit all their stakeholders to keep their charter renewed. When is the last time a corporations charter got denied because they didn't help the community at all?
I don't ever recall corporations having their character removed for not serving the public good. It might have happened on occasion, but I am very skeptical that it has ever happened in any larger number. That said, you could throw me a link proving me wrong.
More to the point though, this is simply a complaint about the 'means' not the 'ends'. The ends are greater wealth, an improved environment, less hunger, and longer lives. If you look at the world from the perspective of the ends, it is clear that whatever dysfunction we have socially, we are clearly advancing technologically quickly enough to compensate. A simple case in point is memory. 25 years ago, only an extremely wealthy person could own a storage device capable of holding half of a gig of memory. Just the other day, I bought a half gig memory stick for 20 dollars. That is only 4 hours of work even at the lowest minimum wage.
Public spaces were everywhere
There might very well have been a decline in public spaces. That said, I doubt that there has been a substantial decline. Further, there has been a dramatic increase in public spaces in other forms. Namely, us chatting away on Slashdot represents a massive increase in public interaction. 25 years ago, the thought of having thousands of people debate issues in an organized and coherent manner every single hour at any time of the day was completely unthinkable. Now no one even bats an eyelash over having a conversation with people from all over the world at all hours of the day on all topics.
People believed in govenment regulation as a net good. The only question was how much is too much?
Minimum wage, labor law... were rising and being enforced
This is purely a complaint about how the 'means' have changed. The real issue is the ends. Is your car safer today then it was 25 years ago? Will you keep your eye sight longer? Will you live longer? Can you buy things, that would be completely incomprehensible for someone 25 years ago to be able to buy? Buy most metrics that you can measure how things are today compared to yesterday, things are getting better. Sure, we might complain that if we used other means they could be even better, but the point remains. Things are getting better every day. Not only are things getting better, they are getting better faster and faster. There are things we can do socially to pick up the pace even further, but even with our most incompetent political blundering things are going to continue to steam ahead a faster and faster simply do to technology if nothing else.
A guy in 2005 has so much more buying power then a guy in 1970 that you can't even put the two on the same scale. Buy a 100 Mhz computer today. What would it cost you? Hell, you could probably get it for free at a swap shop at a dump or for $20 at techie pawn shop. Okay, now buy one in 1970. Did they even have super computers that fast? If they did, I can promise you that it would cost you will into the tens of millions. Just imagine that. Something we consider junk today would have been worth millions in the 1970's. People forget that technology does wonders to buying power. A guy in the 1970's would kill to have the buying power we have today.
As far as your point about debt, I almost completely agree. I think we are spending stupidly. It burns every fiber of my being that "conservatives" are hemorrhaging money on such a scale that would leave a Stalinist looking shocked and mortified. The conservatives should be lynching their own party for such recklessness. Every time I meet a self proclaimed fiscal conservative who voices support with the current government, I desperately want to smack him up side the head then shake him until he is able to see reality again.