On Tue, 24 May 2011 22:27:00 -0400, Daniel Kahn Gillmor <[email protected]> wrote: > On 05/24/2011 03:31 PM, James Vasile wrote: > > On Tue, 24 May 2011 16:05:04 -0300, Nicolás Reynolds <[email protected]> > > wrote: > >>> First of all is the use of "Free World"[0] to refer to a certain sector of > >>> the world. As the Wikipedia reference says, it was coined during the Cold > >>> War to refer to US and other non-communist countries. In case you don't > >>> know, during those times the US government and it's agencies[1] not only > >>> promoted unfreedomness in Latin America and other countries, but also > >>> supported and trained dictatorships that tortured and murderer people por > >>> political reasons (Argentina, for instance, has 30.000 missing persons and > >>> 500 kids that were illegally adopted by military officers, but only 100 of > >>> which were returned to their families during the past 26 years). So "Free > >>> World" actually doesn't mean anything like it to us. > > > > When Eben speaks of the "Free World", I take him to mean "the community > > of people who so love freedom that they love free software and the > > culture of sharing". > > If this is what he means, he must realize that he's making an allusion > (probably humorous) to the concept the OP refers to. I can see why such > an allusion wouldn't translate or internationalize well, unfortunately. > > There's a lot of political and cultural baggage in the phrase "the free > world", even within the USA (it evokes Ronald Reagan for me; not exactly > a non-polarizing figure). It's probably a good idea to think through > how this sort of language would play out globally before deciding that > we really want to commit to using it. > > --dkg >
My view is that by referencing the Free World and all its negative connotations, he highlights what we're building by comparison: true freedom. The kind of bottom-up power that makes it harder for governments to abuse and hegemony to form. I do take your point and I'll pass the feedback to him. -James _______________________________________________ Freedombox-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
