[freenet-chat] The Coming Storm
When I first read the slashdot article "Lawrence Lessig Answers Your Questions" (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/21/155221) I cried, which is really saying something as I do not cry often. And since them I have been having a wide variety of fixed emotions. But I think it settled down to being scared. Part of my fear can best be described by the following article "The Coming Storm" by Bruce Bell (http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/articles/comingstorm.html). The other part of my fear is the fact that very few people understand what the existence of the Internet really means, and even fewer people see the upcoming battle. I know I didn't fully grasp what is going on until I read the Lawrence Lessig responses. We have a fundamental paradigm shift on our hands and hardly any one sees it. Hardly anyone sees that in with the existence of the Internet it is going to imposable to control the flow of information, period. The only way to stop this flow of information is to ban people all together from the Internet. Any sort of censorship and copy protection is going to be defeated, plain and simple. What is even scarier is that if Richard Stallman article "The Right to Read" (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html) was worded slightly differently I have a felling many people will not see the problem with the picture he is painting. However, what really is upsetting me lately is that I have absolutely know idea how to get the typical person to understand the magnitude of what is going on. I truly fell that the upcoming issues over the free flow of information are major, very major. Even bigger than the terrorist attack on the U.S. However, hardly any one is even aware of it, and I don't know how to make them aware. So, my point of posting this is to hopefully open up some discussion on what is really going to happen and to address the key problem that has really gotten me down lately: How the hell do you get the average person to understand the full magnitude of what the Internet means? And how do you explain how the DMCA is just downright wrong, and how if the various media originations (such as the RIAA, the MPAA) had there way we would be living in a world exactly as Richard Stallman explains. Or even how to get them to understand that the picture Richard Stallman is painting is just wrong in more ways than once. I have never been so serious about anything in my life and would really like some input here. I have felt certain ways against other issues in the past but all of them are extremely minor compared to this. Also, if you know of better ways places to post this please let me know. Yours, Kevin. ___ Chat mailing list Chat at freenetproject.org http://lists.freenetproject.org/mailman/listinfo/chat
[freenet-chat] The Coming Storm
On Sat, 5 Jan 2002 23:11:12 -0500 (EST) Kevin Atkinson writes: > When I first read the slashdot article "Lawrence Lessig Answers Your > Questions" (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/21/155221) I I have no net connection, at least not till pay day, so I can't see this or any other internet article unless someone sends them directly to me or posts them on this list. I don't cry very often either, but when I do, it is usualy because something has made my mind unstable. I suffer from depression, and I am emmotionaly handicaped. Pressure doesn't sit too well with me, my emotions go crazy. > cried, which is really saying something as I do not cry often. And > since them I have been having a wide variety of fixed emotions. But > I > think it settled down to being scared. Part of my fear can best be > described by the following article "The Coming Storm" by Bruce Bell > (http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/articles/comingstorm.html). > The other part of my fear is the fact that very few people > understand > what the existence of the Internet really means, and even fewer > people > see the upcoming battle. I know I didn't fully grasp what is going Very few people understand anything about computers or the internet, hence the danger for children on computers. We need to educate people about computers, the internet, and the good and the bad that exist in the Cyber-World. We also need to educate people on the dangers of censorship and the degredation and destruction of our fundamental freedoms here in the US, and elsewhere in the so-called Free world. > on > until I read the Lawrence Lessig responses. We have a fundamental > paradigm shift on our hands and hardly any one sees it. Hardly > anyone > sees that in with the existence of the Internet it is going to > imposable to control the flow of information, period. The only way > to stop this flow of information is to ban people all together from > the Internet. Any sort of censorship and copy protection is going > to > be defeated, plain and simple. What is even scarier is that if Not only WILL they be defeated, they SHOULD be defeated. Censorship of any kind has always been the greatest weapon of tyrants and dictators and corrupt governments. We MUST NOT ALLOW ANY government or organization of of the power of Censorship. As for Copy Protection, it is so wrong it is rediculous. If they had had their way we would not have VCR or any other Audio/Video recording technology. Imagine haveing to miss your favorite TV shows or movies because you were not allowed by law to record them? They think that copying is automaticaly an illegal practice, but it isn't. We should have the right to create copies of our own things for our own personal use. What we do with those copies cannot be decided by the Music or Software industries. > Richard Stallman article "The Right to Read" > (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html) was worded > slightly > differently I have a felling many people will not see the problem > with the picture he is painting. However, what really is upsetting > me > lately is that I have absolutely know idea how to get the typical > person to understand the magnitude of what is going on. I truly > fell that the upcoming issues over the free flow of information are > major, very major. Even bigger than the terrorist attack on the > U.S. > However, hardly any one is even aware of it, and I don't know how > to > make them aware. I agree. I think that the terrorists are actualy winning, because our reaction to these attacks has been to destroy the very freedoms we are supposedly fighting to protect. I'm even beginning to wonder whether or not certain individuals in our government KNEW of this attack before it occured and were just waiting to grab at the chance to take away our freedoms. But then, I'm probably just being paranoid. Don't mind me. :) > > So, my point of posting this is to hopefully open up some discussion > on > what is really going to happen and to address the key problem that > has > really gotten me down lately: > > How the hell do you get the average person to understand the full > magnitude of what the Internet means? And how do you explain how > the DMCA is just downright wrong, and how if the various media > originations (such as the RIAA, the MPAA) had there way we would > be > living in a world exactly as Richard Stallman explains. Or even > how to get them to understand that the picture Richard Stallman > is > painting is just wrong in more ways than once. I wish I could help, I'm just as clueless. I'm not very good at convincing the average person to agree with me. I'm just not that good at understanding others. > > I have never been so serious about anything in my life and would > really like some input here. I have felt certain ways against > other > issues in the past but all of them are extremely minor compared to > this. > > Also, if you kno
[freenet-chat] deep philosophical question
On Sun, 6 Jan 2002 16:26:48 +1300 David McNab writes: > IMO, there should be laws passed that all unsolicited promotional > material have the string 'SPAM:' at the start of the subject field, > to > allow easy filtering. MSN does this, I'm sure of it, but only for messages that come from places they have already identified as SPAMers. I agree that ALL SPAMers should be required by law to put SPAM at the beginning of every subject line, or get a special kind of MIME code that MUST be embeded so that unwanted messages can be filtered out, not just by the Email Client a user happens to be useing, but by the email SERVER run by the ISP. GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. ___ Chat mailing list Chat at freenetproject.org http://lists.freenetproject.org/mailman/listinfo/chat
[freenet-chat] The Coming Storm
> I'm even beginning to wonder whether or > not certain individuals in our government > KNEW of this attack before it > occured and were just waiting to grab at the > chance to take away our freedoms. Do you really think our government would allow people to be killed, just so they can pass legislation? The government can't hide conspiracies. They are horrible at keeping secrets. That's why I never bought into the idea there's a UFO at area 51, simply because the government couldn't keep a secret for that long. They are too incompetent. I think that people often assume conspiracy when in fact there is incompetence. This comes from being inside many bureaucracies, including some government agencies. To summarize: They have their thumbs up their ass. They are so incompetent they couldn't orchestrate a conspiracy even if they were ordered to do so, let alone do their normal jobs. As a general rule, if you're a looser you want to work for the government because they will hire you and not fire you. Whereas a normal corporation won't hire you in the first place, or if they do they will soon figure out that you're incompetent and will fire you. Seriously, I worry that this government is too stupid and does nothing, far more often than I worry about them doing other things. I think the real issue here is why didn't we prevent this? Why was a plane able to actually crash into the pentagon? Don't they have an air defense? Why didn't they see it coming and evacuate the building? I see it as a perl harbor situation where our people were sitting on their ass (remember, radar told them we had incoming planes). I didn't think much of John Ashcroft, but when he denied the feds the ability to use the handgun purchase database (whatever its called) for the war on terrorism, I decided that he's not that bad of a guy. But my opinion might change. -Original Message- From: chat-admin at freenetproject.org [mailto:chat-ad...@freenetproject.org] On Behalf Of krepta at juno.com Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2002 8:42 PM To: chat at freenetproject.org Subject:Re: [freenet-chat] The Coming Storm On Sat, 5 Jan 2002 23:11:12 -0500 (EST) Kevin Atkinson writes: > When I first read the slashdot article "Lawrence Lessig Answers Your > Questions" (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/21/155221) I I have no net connection, at least not till pay day, so I can't see this or any other internet article unless someone sends them directly to me or posts them on this list. I don't cry very often either, but when I do, it is usualy because something has made my mind unstable. I suffer from depression, and I am emmotionaly handicaped. Pressure doesn't sit too well with me, my emotions go crazy. > cried, which is really saying something as I do not cry often. And > since them I have been having a wide variety of fixed emotions. But > I > think it settled down to being scared. Part of my fear can best be > described by the following article "The Coming Storm" by Bruce Bell > (http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/articles/comingstorm.html). > The other part of my fear is the fact that very few people > understand > what the existence of the Internet really means, and even fewer > people > see the upcoming battle. I know I didn't fully grasp what is going Very few people understand anything about computers or the internet, hence the danger for children on computers. We need to educate people about computers, the internet, and the good and the bad that exist in the Cyber-World. We also need to educate people on the dangers of censorship and the degredation and destruction of our fundamental freedoms here in the US, and elsewhere in the so-called Free world. > on > until I read the Lawrence Lessig responses. We have a fundamental > paradigm shift on our hands and hardly any one sees it. Hardly > anyone > sees that in with the existence of the Internet it is going to > imposable to control the flow of information, period. The only way > to stop this flow of information is to ban people all together from > the Internet. Any sort of censorship and copy protection is going > to > be defeated, plain and simple. What is even scarier is that if Not only WILL they be defeated, they SHOULD be defeated. Censorship of any kind has always been the greatest weapon of tyrants and dictators and corrupt governments. We MUST NOT ALLOW ANY government or organization of of the power of Censorship. As for Copy Protection, it is so wrong it is rediculous. If they had had their way we would not have VCR or any other Audio/Video recording technology. Imagine haveing to miss your favorite TV shows or movies because you were not allowed by law to record them? They think that copying is automaticaly an illegal practice, but it isn't. We should have the right to create copies of our own things for our own personal use. What we do with those copies cannot be decided by the Music or Software industries. > Richard Stal
[freenet-chat] The Coming Storm
> How the hell do you get the average person > to understand the full magnitude of what the Internet means? The problem is that the internet means different things to different people. Just like a highway means different things to different people. Some see a highway as a way ruin a perfectly good small town. Others see it as an opportunity to expand that town. For you it means a change in freedom of speech issues, but for others it means different things. It all depends on what your priorities are. When the printing press was invented, I bet people had similar philosophies as you do, except that democracy (aka the real meaning of new world order - don't answer to the kings) was probably #1 on their list, with freedom of speech being next. I think the printing press will go down in history as having a far greater impact on the world than the internet. To answer your question, I think you have 2 things here: your means and your ends. Your ends are political, and your means are technical (the internet). So you have to explain to people what your end goal is first (freedom of speech), then explain how the internet helps you accomplish it. I bet that will give you more success in getting your message thru. For me, the internet meant more billable hours, which lead to the ability to buy my own home, because the demand for my skills skyrocketed. It meant that I could take my girlfriend to Europe for a nice vacation. It also meant an easier way to buy and sell things (ebay), and a better alternative to BBS's when needing tech support to get my job done. It meant that more non-computer folks use email. After installing, maintaining, and upgrading internet infrastructure 40 hours a week, I never got into the online scene (until I quit that job) because I didn't want to mess with computers after already doing so all day. So for me, NOT enjoying the internet like many other technical people did meant that computers had become a profession, and no longer a hobby. It was a weird feeling when I recognized that. Now that I'm working on my own project full time, computers are finally a hobby again But I'm not getting enough work done on my project... ahhh, so much to read! (http://citeseer.nj.nec.com) -Original Message- From: chat-admin at freenetproject.org [mailto:chat-ad...@freenetproject.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Atkinson Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2002 8:11 PM To: chat at freenetproject.org Subject:[freenet-chat] The Coming Storm When I first read the slashdot article "Lawrence Lessig Answers Your Questions" (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/21/155221) I cried, which is really saying something as I do not cry often. And since them I have been having a wide variety of fixed emotions. But I think it settled down to being scared. Part of my fear can best be described by the following article "The Coming Storm" by Bruce Bell (http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/articles/comingstorm.html). The other part of my fear is the fact that very few people understand what the existence of the Internet really means, and even fewer people see the upcoming battle. I know I didn't fully grasp what is going on until I read the Lawrence Lessig responses. We have a fundamental paradigm shift on our hands and hardly any one sees it. Hardly anyone sees that in with the existence of the Internet it is going to imposable to control the flow of information, period. The only way to stop this flow of information is to ban people all together from the Internet. Any sort of censorship and copy protection is going to be defeated, plain and simple. What is even scarier is that if Richard Stallman article "The Right to Read" (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html) was worded slightly differently I have a felling many people will not see the problem with the picture he is painting. However, what really is upsetting me lately is that I have absolutely know idea how to get the typical person to understand the magnitude of what is going on. I truly fell that the upcoming issues over the free flow of information are major, very major. Even bigger than the terrorist attack on the U.S. However, hardly any one is even aware of it, and I don't know how to make them aware. So, my point of posting this is to hopefully open up some discussion on what is really going to happen and to address the key problem that has really gotten me down lately: How the hell do you get the average person to understand the full magnitude of what the Internet means? And how do you explain how the DMCA is just downright wrong, and how if the various media originations (such as the RIAA, the MPAA) had there way we would be living in a world exactly as Richard Stallman explains. Or even how to get them to understand that the picture Richard Stallman is painting is just wrong in more ways than once. I have never been so serious about anything in my life and would really like some input here. I
