Re: nettime Rebirth of Guilds
Sampo Syreeni writes: On Wed, 27 Sep 2000, Gil Hamilton wrote: Then, too bad. They haven't *done* anything to you. A distinction without a difference, I say. Sampo, somewhere in the world today, there is a child starving to death. I have no doubt that you could have done something to prevent it. However, having chosen to spend your time reading and writing to the cypherpunks mailing list instead, you failed to do so. Hence, I think it only fair that you be arrested and charged with murder for having failed to save that starving child. Since you are so brave and caring, I know you'll have the decency to run down to the nearest police station and turn yourself in. Thanks. (On second thought, considering the thousands of people around the world who've starved to death over the years in the face of your inaction, I think it safe to say that you are actually a mass murderer many times over. I think you'd better turn yourself into the World Court for Crimes Against Humanity.) - GH _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
Re: Shunning, lesbians and liberty (was: Re: nettime Rebirth of Guilds)
Sampo Syreeni writes: On Mon, 25 Sep 2000, David Honig wrote: Exclusion harms you only if it bugs you ---you have to want to be a homosexual atheist boyscout for their exclusion to matter. Non-consensual violence always harms. I do not agree. I think shunning harms you regardless, if it is organized well enough. Say, you do something which causes your whole town to shun you. Where do you suppose you get food, shelter, whatever from there on? You'd say 'just leave', here, right? What if you do not have the means? You just die? This certainly gives one good reason not to piss off one's neighbors, eh? This is of course the whole point of shunning. It is a way of getting people to behave in ways that are approved of by their community. If they do not, they risk being left to their own devices for survival. No doubt you will argue that people must be forced to provide for those who offend them, at gunpoint if necessary. I also think I'm not totally wrong if I claim that even when the physical necessities of life have been taken care of, social contact *can* be essential to the survival of people raised up to be/genetically predisposed to being social or dependent, as modern people tend to be, on the surrounding society for survival. If this holds, shunning someone then becomes precisely as 'violent' as physical violence. Even if psychology isn't the hardest of sciences, it does suggest that isolation does significantly more than simply 'bug' people. Complete bullshit. In other words, "Violence is whatever I say it is." No, liberty is absolute, and probably not being exercised if *someone* isn't offended. I doubt that. Besides, that someone can be offended all s/he wants, s/he just shouldn't be allowed to do anything about it. (Except, of course, what the freedoms of expression/thought/association/whatever guarantee.) So, people should be allowed the freedom of expression, thought and association, yet they are prohibited from shunning? You simply can't have it both ways. Either one is free to not associate with someone or they are not (in which case, their "freedom of expression and association" are nothing but lip service). Your suggestion to "play nice" is quaint but irrelevent when talking about sovereign adults. I don't see it quite like that. In order to have meaningful freedoms one needs to have the possibility of enjoying them. Even if it requires *forcing other people* to do things they don't want to do. When someone claiming their rights in so doing limits the rights of others, I tend to resolve the conflict by limiting the rights themselves. In this case, demanding that people indeed 'play nice'. People must behave exactly as you define "playing nice". Otherwise, you think they must be forced to "play nice". Clearly, you're right and everyone else is wrong and everyone else must be forced to do things your way. "Oh, but if they'll just 'play nice' then everyone is free to do as they please!" This is precisely why freedom of thought and expression are so important and why they are usually thought of as inalienable - thoughts do not usually just jump out and start killing people. They are easy to protect since conflicts between other people's similar rights rarely arise. This is not the case with liberties involving physical violence, property et cetera. Except somehow merely refusing to associate with someone is categorized by you as physical violence. And apparently as a shop-owner I cannot exercise rights over *my own property* if what I choose to do is inconvenient for someone else. Tolerance means tolerating intolerant groups. The latter-day euros (germans and french esp.) don't get it. When you burn nazi literature you have become them. I agree. But the way I see it, tolerance applies to the intangible side of things, not the physical. I.e. you can hate and insult the somali or the Finnish all you want and webcast as much hate speech as you want but once you start beating people, you're off. Similarly, you have to tolerate the speech but not the actions. In the case of our proverbial lesbians, you have to tolerate their 'deviant ways' and even the occasional kiss, while they have to tolerate you speaking behind their back, insulting them and whatever else nasty you can do with ideas alone. What you do not have to tolerate is a lesbian kissing you (a bit of a bad analogy since you're male), or a shop owner throwing you out for a public display of love. The shop owner must be *forced* to tolerate behavior he doesn't approve of? What happened to his right to his own property? Must he also allow people to have sex in his shop? Or masturbate? Or curse? Or insult his customers? Or slander the shopkeeper? Or sing loudly? Which set of things must he be forced to accept? And if he throws someone out for engaging in one of these behaviors, which things will cause the Men With Guns to come and
nettime Rebirth of Guilds
Speaking of the devil... Cheers, RAH --- begin forwarded text From: "Ben Moretti" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 01:27:40 GMT Subject: nettime Rebirth of Guilds Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: "Ben Moretti" [EMAIL PROTECTED] [the actual report is well worth reading. i have held privately that the mutual benefit societies and groups that played an important role in south australia in the 19th century arose due to the inherent weakness of the state in the colony, and that these groups would re-arise due to the same reasons. i know adecdotally that there is a long line of these stretching back -- freemasons, mechanics institutes, mutual benefit funds, etc -- so it only seems logical as we move into a weak state mode of history, it would happen again. b.] http://mitsloan.mit.edu/news/releases/2000/guilds.html Rebirth of guilds-MIT Sloan researchers see a shift in workers' organizations CAMBRIDGE, Mass., September 1, 2000 -- Two researchers from the MIT Sloan School of Management predict that over the next decade or so, there will be a rise in guild-type organizations to serve the needs of workers who no longer have traditional jobs. "For workers to enjoy fully the opportunities this new economy presents, they will require institutions to help blunt the greater risks they face," said MIT Sloan Professor Thomas Malone, who co-authored the working paper along with Sloan Research Associate Robert Laubacher. Guilds could provide to contractors and temporary and part-time workers the financial security, benefits, career education, and social opportunities that traditionally were provided by long-term employers. "We are in a significant period of transition in how work is organized," said Malone. "The choices we make now will create the world in which our children and their children will live." Over one-quarter of American workers currently do not hold traditional, full-time jobs, but instead work as independent contractors or as part-time or temporary employees. Some of these people want full-time jobs but can't get them; others, many of them working parents, have voluntarily chosen the freedom and flexibility of working independently. Researchers Malone and Robert Laubacher, believe that the most mobile of these flexible workers, e-lancers-electronically connected free-lancers-will grow in number, as the new economy becomes more dynamic, and teams of individuals come together for projects and then dissolve when the work is completed. The guild approach doesn't rely exclusively on the "usual suspects"-employers and government-to provide traditional job benefits and support. Instead, it relies on a rich ecology of other organizations to look after the needs of mobile workers, as they move from assignment to assignment. "This guild model is a description of what we already see beginning to happen, a prediction what we think will become more common, and a recommendation for policy makers, employers, and others to consider," said Malone. "Nascent forms of these guilds have already begun to appear," said Laubacher. "For example, Working Today, a non-profit in New York, provides low cost health insurance and other services to freelance technology workers in Silicon Alley. These organizations are coming in to fill the gap." In addition, existing groups such as professional societies, unions, community organizations or temporary staffing firms could expand their offerings to meet more of the needs of their members. Another added benefit of guilds in this decentralized economy, "Guild membership might provide the sense of identity that many of us get from positions in large organizations," said Laubacher. This research is an outgrowth of the MIT initiative on "Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century which explored the new forms of companies and work settings as we move into this new century. The research is also based on findings from surveys and interviews conducted by CDI, a Philadelphia-based Management Recruiting firm, published in "CDI at Work: 21st Century Thinking." For a copy of the complete Malone/Laubacher working paper, go to: http://ccs.mit.edu/21c/21cwpmain.html and click on working paper #033. For nearly a half-century, the MIT Sloan School of Management, based in Cambridge, Mass., has been one of the world's leading academic sources of innovation in management theory and practice. With students from more than 60 countries, it develops effective, innovative, and principled leaders who advance the global economy. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECT
