On Thu, Nov 26, 2015 at 11:13 AM, Nic Roets <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 25, 2015 at 12:07 PM, Alan Levin <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Wed, Nov 25, 2015 at 12:02 PM, [email protected] < > > [email protected]> > > wrote: > > > > > > Multichoice have a bad track record when it comes to telling the truth > > > about anything, the company has its genesis in a concession granted > under > > > the regime of PW Botha. > > > > Jan Vermeulen, has an equally bad track record for believing everything > > that comes out of the nochoice monopolies arse... > > > > > We like to believe that the press is balanced, unbiased, fair and all that. > The reality is that it's a business in decline. They need to keep the > attention of readers. So, occasionally, they take a controversial stance. > > You have a business case for quality press right there - but not one that media companies are not following. You're only 10% of their audience, so expect to see only 10% of articles catering to you. And for those who focus on readers like us - have to consider that we're paying double: once for the content, and once for the time and attention in opportunity cost. Pop media follows the masses. Only when the masses have reached a certain level of intellectual maturity will the dynamics change. ...But there is a feedback loop. > Even in the USA, the press does not have the staff to properly research and > analyse everything. Then they rely on PR companies with a hidden agenda. > Read this insightful article: > http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html Anyone who has watched Superman knows how it works. But yes, we forget, in our naive strive for our ideals... Let's not demonize the media - At the core they're just holding mirrors up to us. I think we *would be surprised* at the amount of "in-depth research" it takes to spark up controversy and "invoke panic and fear". But ... thanks for giving me something to think about, today. *If you have 15 minutes more... why this isn't a simple matter* If fear and mistrust is not what the economy runs on, and if someone has come up with something better, I'd love to see it... in fact, I would love to dedicate my life to getting it out there. (I think I am... but I can't put it in commercial terms yet, because the commercial language and paradigm for that isn't quite here yet.) The is a very interesting topic - actually - because it is not a simple matter. It goes *right to the core of almost everything relevant in today's world. *We used to fight about land, now we're fighting about virtual land... because we evolved in a world of scarcity - it's in our DNA - yet, we evolved this tool, our mind, with which we are busy creating the promise of abundance. At the heart of almost everything is this conflict between our scarcity-survival-instincts, knee jerk, me-first emotions, versus our "I'm just a cell in the human organism"-human hearts-and-minds. Almost everything that the economy has done for us, to date, has been there to reduce our reliance on a few, and increase our reliance on the many. It looks evil, up close, but if you stand back - what's happening? Could it be? Is the economy growing the human family? Everything is sprinkled with subtlety. Opposites so far apart, or close together, it becomes easy to confuse the two and draw the right conclusions. What does money buy you? Doesn't it, at its core, simply replaces trust? What does the law buy you? It replaces trust. If you made a deal with someone, but you know the law better than him, you can pay a lawyer to undo the deal and to take what he thought was his. The whole economy seems to be a replacement for the core virtues in my life: trusting (and loving-following-leading) my neighbor. Money seems to lead you to believe that if you have enough money, that you won't be dependent on anyone and that you won't have to trust anyone - through no fault of it's own - that's all us. Our shortsighted, unenlightened interpretation, a result of our hasty judgement, the one that was necessary to survive in a world of scarce resources. How did the biggest hedge funds and financial empires grow? By playing all sides of the field. By spotting the correlations between everything - even when they couldn't rig everything in their favor. But what could Black-and-Scholes not work into their equation? Social dynamics. Political unrest. The short-circuit, me-first-and-me-only thinking that made possible the preservation of our most precious organ (our brain), through an evolutionary minefield*... The one that keeps us from seeing that, after all, we are the government workers, we are the law practitioners, we are the businessmen, we are the entrepreneurs. We are the media. But what does this all have to do with copyright? Brace yourself for more lay interpretations, from me - please do correct me if I'm wrong. Well, firstly, what is copyright? Copyright is there to protect money - money invested into a certain thing, in order for that thing to be able to grow with the money of the copyright holder. It is there to hedge/guard against the seed capital going to waste by virtue of someone else with more money/resources/influence/power to copy the idea. Why is this necessary? Because otherwise those who do not yet have enough of the above, would not stand a chance. (Ironically, there is a big layer of the population who even have so much less, than they can not even afford this "copyright" liberty afforded, supposedly to them!) So it affords a way for someone to be the go-to person for something. The responsible party. The "land owner". He can build a castle, or a town... and see if people are willing to live their under his rule. If it doesn't work out, it gives a deadline by which anyone can come and ... in a way, tear down his town - by building a better one next to it, and drawing everyone there, rather. So let's think ideologically... is this where copyright came from? When did creative works enter the equation? And where's the line between ideas, creative works and media/entertainment? Well, creative works seems a natural outflow of "ideas" and media/entertainment a natural extension of that. (But does it take into account the ecosystem of creative works/media/entertainment that leads back to new ideas? ... well, yes, it seems to - in that modifications are afforded...) ... But isn't everything, by extension, even our education, science, physics, accountancy, arguably copyright-able? ...And shouldn't it be? Does nature have some sort of natural copyright mechanisms built into it? (How does copyright relate to money and counterfeit notes?) (If you're a lawyer, you're probably by now fuming with my misuse of the word "copyright". So give me a better one! I'm trying to convey the archetype that underlies nature, that has lead to copyright...) It does seem obvious that copyright is only relevant in a world of scarce resources... one we still find ourselves in. . So shouldn't copyright-ability have a way of measuring whether something will lead to more- or less scarcity? And it only be warranted in the second instance? But how do you even measure this? And how do we get people to reach consensus that this is indeed the way to go? Well, lets look a bit at the media/entertainment side. If it can in fact change people's habits, minds, and beliefs... which I think we all know it can, and do it better than we'd like to admit - what is the essence of what is being copyrighted here? (Assuming that it is in fact relevant.) Isn't that essence, at it's core, the freedom to not be brainwashed? ... And if copyright law makes it more difficult for people to be brainwashed... by confining media to those willing to pay for it... It all kind-of comes full circle, back to the "Apple philosophy". The more you pay, the happier you are with your purchase. Because Mammon will make it so, pull the strings on his puppets to create the perfect hell of people telling people what life is all about. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, a Truman-show-like effect that's difficult to escape from. But one that elegantly seems to be taking care of itself. All you need to do is to decide if you want to be inside the bubble, or out. ...If only it was that simple. Because we are indeed caught inside... trying to find our way out. But do we need to prick the bubble to get there? Are we dependent on this bubble? And won't pricking it lead to us losing the good in it... and won't it inevitably lead to an even bigger one forming? But will that one be better? Will it be better, even if it's only the goalposts that have shifted and the words that have changed, but the basic dynamic staying the same? Doesn't that explain our dilemma of not being able to agree, because we can't even reach consensus on where we are, where we're going... and we seem to be burying everyone who is trying to draw up a map. Which leads us to the question: Should we follow what the rest of the world is doing? Should we try something new? Or have we, somewhere in our treasure chest, some idea that works - that we can stick with, and work our way back towards? One so good, that it is inevitably one that the world will copy and follow, from us. No copyright involved. Perhaps there's a higher ground, from which we can look back on all these silly misunderstandings... and see the diamond for all the different angles we've been trying to show out to each other, not realizing that the angle the other is seeing is just as real. -- * "An evolutionary minefield...?" - Or a machine perfectly tuned to creating our brains in its current form?... Where are we at? Why is 90% of all wealth in the hands of 10%? Is it because only 10% of us have the intellect needed to care for the rest? Or is it because only 10% of us think we need to, and pretend we are, while doing the opposite? How does this relate to pack mentality, and alpha males? How does gangsterism relate to corporatism? ... and where does this fit into the endless cycle of centralisation and decentralisation...? According to the MBTI (a flawed, but well understood and widely studied personality profile theory) - 75% of people act on information of the "sensory" type, who - simply put - cares about- and lives for today while 25% of people consider primarily their intuitions about the future. So... if you want to do something worthwhile, now, so you can be lazy later, you're already in a way, part of a minority... and you need to make money and keep it safe... (but have you worked out how much you really need?) ... and what do you invest in - and how do you hedge that investment against the biggest threat to it? What is the closest thing we have as a hedge *against *the economy - without it being completely wiped out? What will banks eventually end up using so that they do not have to trust each other? What has turned this concept of novelty.. perhaps the same one that underlies copyright, into a tradable commodity, one that will have value in the absence of any government enforcing it's value, but one that will give power and value even to the governments and banks of today... Coenraad Loubser WISH Networks (Pty) Ltd. 2nd Floor, Merriman Place, Cnr. Merriman & Bird Str, Stellenbosch, 7600, ZA Office: 087 805 7480 Skype: Coenraad_Loubser Email: [email protected] Cell: 073 772 1223 Web: http://wish.org.za -- Spending Money is like watering a plant. _______________________________________________ WikimediaZA mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza To unsubscribe, send an email to [email protected]
