nice piece Doug! I am def on the side of the meliorists and all the others doing the actual work.
On Sun, Apr 28, 2024 at 11:22 PM Doug Schuler < [email protected]> wrote: > I'm still planning to send an introduction to the list but since this > seems so relevant I thought I'd pass it on straight away. > > My piece on "Neither an Optimist nor a Pessimist Be" was published a > decade or so ago in a now defunct magazine called Internet Revolution. > > > https://www.publicsphereproject.org/sites/default/files/Neither%20an%20Optimist%20nor%20a%20Pessimist%20Be.pdf > > I still stand by it, but I must confess it seems to be getting harder not > to fall into the pessimistic side... > > Thanks everybody! > > — Doug > > > > > > > On Sun, Apr 28, 2024 at 7:34 PM Kate Krauss <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Are we too techno-pessimistic? >> >> I pulled out this message from the introductions thread because it didn't >> get a lot of attention when first posted, but it's fascinating --thanks, >> Kaiser! >> >> I feel ill-equipped to discuss this but I'll get the ball rolling. >> *Folks on this list? I'd love to hear what you think about Kaiser's post >> (which is pasted below mine). * >> By 2013 and the Snowden revelations, tech activists were realizing how >> much both the US government, and as we already knew, platforms like >> Facebook were surveilling our lives. (Snowden also revealed how hard the >> NSA and GCHQ were going after Tor. And they didn't get it, ha.) >> >> I had also seen, previously, pervasive, all-encompassing surveillance in >> China of my activist friends. (They've stopped monitoring your phone calls >> and they're sitting in your kitchen--not good). So for me it was all of a >> piece, and I didn't have to imagine what could go wrong if governments >> conducted unchecked surveillance. And it motivated me to work on these >> issues. >> >> Meanwhile, in the wider US, in late 2015 Trump launched his presidential >> campaign by demonizing immigrants, then loudly criticized and sanctioned >> China's trade practices, and later he blamed COVID on China. And by the >> middle of the pandemic, Asian people in Philly were afraid to walk down the >> street. So a lot of racist Americans who didn't know much about technology, >> IP, or China, were mad at China. And there are always China hawks that >> sincerely or exploitatively go after China in DC. But those are different >> groups, obviously, than are on this list. >> >> The people I know who care about online privacy and digital rights >> believe (and feel free to speak for yourselves) that if you want privacy >> and human rights, you have to defend them, whether by building online >> privacy tools, censorship circumvention tools, or decentralized >> communications platforms, or educating people in avoiding surveillance, or >> blurring out your house on Google maps. You have to take action. >> >> I myself also think it's important to change laws and regulations, but >> you still need the technology. I remember that Griffin Boyce and others >> developed tools that made the Stop Online Privacy Act impossible to >> enforce. Another lesson from SOPA: Collective action can get the goods. >> (Thank you, Aaron Swartz.) >> >> So maybe we are techno-optimists and techno-realists at the same time? >> >> Mainstream Americans are still inured to a lack of privacy, and that is >> very dangerous. However, they are now suspicious of Facebook--and maybe >> that's a good thing. >> >> This doesn't mean that Chinese companies are always A+ and never >> steal IP. I went to a lecture in 2018 or 2019 where a Chinese scholar >> presented her research studying Chinese companies--and some of them lacked >> research departments because they were "borrowing" IP. Several things can >> be true at once. >> >> Other people on the list: What do you think? >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: kaiser kuo <[email protected]> >> LT <[email protected]> >> >> Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2024 13:20:43 -0400 >> Subject: Re: [liberationtech] Liberation Tech would like a word. >> Thanks, Kate, for stepping up to revive this effort — and for the low-key >> shout-out! >> >> I've written and spoken quite a bit on the seemingly sudden swing from >> the politically techno-utopian idea still present in this listserv's name >> to the techno-pessimism that seems so pervasive in discourse on the >> relationship between technology and authoritarian politics. We've gone, as >> I've often said, from believing that the spread of digital technology >> sounded the death knell for authoritarian governments to believing instead >> that tech is the loyal handmaiden of authoritarians, who've become adept at >> using them to suppress dissent and other nefarious ends. To an extent, I >> get why this has happened — the failure of the later color revolutions and >> the Arab Spring, when we too-eagerly appended the names of various American >> social media products to these revolutions (the "Twitter Revolution," the >> "YouTube Revolution," the "Facebook Revolution"); the Snowden revelations >> about Prism; Russian meddling and Macedonian troll farms; Cambridge >> Analytica, etc). I suppose some humility about it was needed, but have we >> (i.e. the national or "Western" conversation) overcorrected? I'd be curious >> to hear from list members with experience in different geographies to get >> their sense of how things have played out in the last decade. I put the >> inflection point at roughly 2016: that's when I started sensing the >> dramatic narrative shift. >> >> And I'm curious whether people think that's related to, or completely >> independent from, another narrative shift that seems to have been >> simultaneous when it comes, specifically, to China: At about that same >> moment, the narrative went from this disparagement of China's ability to >> innovate (blaming, in most cases, the lack of free information flows and >> academic freedom, and positing a relationship between innovation and >> political freedom) to a pervasive sense that China was out-innovating the >> U.S. and was an unstoppable juggernaut ready to eat our lunch. Obviously >> this latter narrative continues and has been made worse in recent years. >> >> Thanks! Once again, Kate, thanks for your efforts!! >> >> - Kaiser >> -- >> Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable. List rules: >> https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt. Unsubscribe, change to >> digest mode, or change password by emailing >> [email protected]. >> > > > -- > Douglas Schuler > [email protected] > Twitter: @doug_schuler > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Welcome to the Cybercene? > https://limits.pubpub.org/pub/j542e5lp/release/1 > > Public Sphere Project > https://www.publicsphereproject.org/ > <http://www.publicsphereproject.org/> > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution > (project) > https://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv > <https://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/> > > Liberating Voices! A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution > (book) > https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/liberating-voices > > What type of activist are you? The Activist Mirror knows! > https://labs.publicsphereproject.org/am > > -- > Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable. List rules: > https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt. Unsubscribe, change to > digest mode, or change password by emailing > [email protected]. > -- *Lorelei KellyResearch Lead, Congressional Modernization <https://beeckcenter.georgetown.edu/project/modernizing-congress/>* *Founder, Georgetown Democracy, Education + Service (GeoDES)*
-- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable. List rules: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt. Unsubscribe, change to digest mode, or change password by emailing [email protected].
