On Nov 5, 2013 8:32 PM, "Moon Jones" <[email protected]> wrote: > > Shava Nerad: > > Well, that is what the young people have been carefully taught but the > > makers and a great many more feel something missing. They are creating > > their own tribes and communities because no one left a copy of the social > > contract near the remote control, or maybe they clicked through the EULA > > too fast? > > There is no social contract, no EULA. > > > If these young people could dream together, on and offline, some hero's > > journey -- to change their world reasonably peacefully, fighting dragons, > > taking all that world building F&SF they love and putting that modeling to > > work IRL? > > Sounds like a Stalinist/1984 goal. I find your stance puzzling. You seem > to be against the current political way, yet you are pushing for a far > more totalitarian society. > I had to look up your FOSS involvement to make sure you weren't catfitz. ;)
How do you see that? I see this as a continuation of the work of movements such as the SCLC and the poor people's movement that followed. Were those totalitarian? Governments work to make us distrust popular movements because they can effect reforms. Public education, 40-hour work weeks, public libraries, womens sufferage, civil rights, divestiture, (cc), FOSS. Are these Stalinist? > > Why aren't more of us working on that? > > Us? Who? > Us, in LIBERATION technology. >From the description of the program: "Lying at the intersection of social science, computer science, and engineering, the Program on Liberation Technology seeks to understand how (and to what extent) various information technologies and their applications -including mobile phones, text messaging (SMS), the Internet, blogging, GPS, and other forms of digital technology - are enabling citizens to advance freedom, development, social justice, and the rule of law. It will examine technical, legal, political, and social obstacles to the wider and more effective use of these technologies, and how these obstacles can be overcome. And it will try to evaluate (through experiment and other empirical methods) which technologies and applications are having greatest success, how those successes can be replicated, and how less successful technologies and applications can be improved to deliver real economic, social, and political benefit." It might suggest this list comprises a list of interested parties. Why are you here? This field has been my vocational center for two decades, arguably three-ish. Seems we both care about it. I hope you don't have to protect the net from me. Heh… > > We can be academic and clever and analytic. But law and software and > > academic papers will not get rid of the USA PATRIOT Act or tame the cycle > > of constitutional abuse in Congress and the IC. > > The Patriot Act is a law. Another law can just erase it. It's quite > simple. Just enough people have to care. No need of mysticisms. > Were it simple, a lot of very smart people might have figured a way to do it in a decade. There is a lot of political machinery going into FUD, security theater, politics of fear -- you know these terms? To get people to care without *making* them care, but bringing them to care through a journey of understanding and discovery (which, in my hopeful moments, I see Snowden as a part of, although I waver… ) is far harder than scaring them out of their rights. Enough people have to care and stand against fear-based arguments. They need to be brave and take risks. They have to have a sense of meaning and identity with a cause, if not unity or nation (I come from generations of philosophical anarchists, myself, but that might take some hours of discussion to pin down pragmatically. Most often, I simply describe my politics as anti-obscurantist. Sometimes, a Spinoza-era liberal.). People caring doesn't happen without steward leadership and art and it never has. You can call that mysticism, poetry, zines, leafletting, soapboxes, folksongs, or propaganda according to your taste and the side you're on, in relation to the people when they begin to wake up and care. ;) Gandhi, MLK, and Mandela all got charged with mysticism. I am humbled. > > We need a popular movement, and today that requires social tools, funds, > > will within our networks, and a great deal of the Art of the Possible. > > Sausagemaking, my friends. Not just clever language and fine speechifying. > > This paragraph is precisely that: clever language and fine that thing. > Yes, which is why I am asking for help. If you aren't interested, this isn't your project. Might not be as evil as you presume. > We? Who? > > Nobody need a movement. The movement is there. Or is not. > Haven't studied much political science or history? Take free software or open source as examples. (I more often use feminism.) I see, in my "evil corporate view," a few dramatic and well-backed personalities and organizations, publicity engines, and catfights over art, philosophy, and meaning. (Maybe aided in this perspective by being FSF's first PR person). They annoy people getting the work done… now… but they still refine the memes and craft licenses and do significant catalytic heavy lifting and shielding, as well as spreading the ideas so much faster in resistant areas (including non-software areas of society). But sure, maybe you see, 1970s to now, I guess, people just clapped their hands, and fairy dust created a world movement. Hold on to that, profit off of others' efforts, and risk losing what they gained. Or, learn from the history, and save yourself from repeating it, and prevents others using their superior literacy hardcore organizational politics and power against you. Knowing methods doesn't necessarily make one an enemy -- it can make one a warrior for peace. I am not your enemy, I think. But you are right to not trust easily. How could I advise otherwise, with my background? Perhaps not so justified dissing someone on this list as totalitarian so very facilely. We've barely met. Shava
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