Hi, hth..
Carl Cerecke wrote:
Christopher Sawtell wrote:
On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 09:17, Nick Rout wrote:
more importantly a human is not a "device service or information"
While that's true from a strictly legal point of view, I assure you that there are many people who are stuck in the lower echelons of our society who feel that they have been reduced to that level. Haven't you heard people refer to themselves as being "Just a cog in the machine ..." ?
Yes, but, hasn't that been more-or-less true for all of human history? Today, more than perhaps anytime in the past, it is possible to get out of the cog-in-the-machine feeling. Still difficult for many, I'll admit, but certainly easier than times past. (I'm no historian, so feel free to correct me, anyone)
Cheers,
Carl.
Gladly, no. Tradition records the Garden of Eden, which was real & free for hunter-gatherers.
Then the competition for food exceeded supply, so territory and agriculture were devised (also violence, hierarchy, religion & war by 'sacred' military specialists). The higher productivity led to expropriable surpluses, state expansions and slave-based societies (the original 'cogs'). Early in the piece the steady displacement of peaceful farmers by aggrandising warlords & their animal herds started capital accumulation (by force) and the generalisation of slavery (dispossession - cogs made into commodities).
Jump forward 3,000 years to today, and the same system keeps intensifying - it's the commoditisation of everthing that creates ever new sources of profit; under debate here, the Internet & email (a 5c charge on every transaction would give M$/U$ global empire). Think of fish quota, water (power supply & telephone) as more recent examples of the debasing trend.
Now that history has been explained (expanding Bart's salient point), our question is what can we do about it (i.e. which way back to the Garden of Eden)?
To be con'td.
- Rik
