From: "Ian Clarke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Seems to me like there is a fundamental gap between the right to >> expressing one's opinion and the right to distribute images, files, >> whatever. >And who decides what is a valid opinion, and what isn't? Your >government? You? The church of scientology? I'll try to jump back for a moment and sit on the fence. In the bigger picture, I can see Freenet just making a shift in the checks and balances already in place. Throughout history, there has always been good and bad amongst governments, and good and bad amongst individuals. Much of documented history relates to the struggle between group-conscious entities (eg government, family) versus the individual. One underlying theme here is the immortal debate of how one should allocate one's resources - identity, energy, field of consciousness, soul (or life force) etc amongst the various competing entities. Such entities include: individual, family, ethnicity, religion, culture, politics, nationalality, species etc etc. Simplistically, group-consciousness versus individual consciousness. The USA is historically amazing with its dual spiritual origins - Gnostic (eg Freemasons etc), and fundamentalist christian, with the former championing individual rights, and the latter largely striving to suppress them. (It makes me laugh that even the most extreme christians have to pay for things using pieces of paper bearing an image of the eye in the triangle :)) In my perception, Freenet is a natural born heir of the Internet. The Internet's conception and early development was largely influenced by the Gnostic element, with many of the legendary hackers holding strong sympathies (explicit or implicit) with pro-individualist currents such as Alchemy, Magick, Psychedelia, Thelema, Wicca, Yoga etc, and their grassroots manifestations. It's because of this legacy that freedom of interconnection is one of the Internet's cornerstones. In light of enormous pressure from the content industry (which is mostly empowered by group-consciousness), this liberty is gradually being eroded. Freenet is here to restore much of the balance of power back to the individual. For better *and* for worse etc... There are individuals who molest and disembowel little children, and there are individuals who sacrifice their lives in eliminating the suffering of millions. IMO, Freenet is predicated on the notion that the more individuals are trusted, the more they will conduct themselves in honour of that trust. For me, Freenet is here to stay. Every time I build a system, Freenet is one of the very first pieces of software to be installed. David _______________________________________________ Chat mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.freenetproject.org/mailman/listinfo/chat
