Silicon Dreams

Slashdot | Dot-Communism Is Already Here

There is an interesting note (followed by an interesting discussion) on Slashdot about the trends toward communal behaviour on the internet and the way this is putting paid to many 50’s-era “myths” about communism and its evils.

Personally I think the first few responders have got it right.  Just as in most cases, the absolutes on either side are as dangerous as the other.  Absolute capitalism leads to economic collapse, serious gaps between the mega-rich and the starving-poor and a level of selfish viciousness that is astonishing to behold.  Likewise, absolute communism breeds -exactly- the same problems as the system set up to empower the workers is itself perverted to serve the comfortable few.

Luckily, the world has very few absolutes.  I have been watching the American media a bit lately and am constantly amazed by some of the things said, particularly on channels such as Fox News.  I often am led to wonder whether the presenters on this channel actually believe the things they say, or are cynically manipulating a public more impressed with theatrics and personal attacks then actual reasoned debate and knowledge.  To this day I’m unsure which I’d prefer to be the truth.

Watching the constant attacks on president Obama, constantly calling him and his policies and ideas “socialist” has been a complete laugh.  There must be a segment of the population who obviously believe America to be a pure capitalist society.  Truth me people, it isn’t – and you’ll be thankful for it.

The classic remark was from a Chrysler dealer not long after the company started shutting down franchises and giving them to other people, sticking the owners with stock they couldn’t sell and massive debts they couldn’t support.  The story was horrifyingly sad, but it didn’t prevent us noticing the absurdity of what this man said:  “How could this happen in America? I thought we were a capitalist society!”

The place where this sort of thing can most easily happens is a more “capitalist” society!  In a purely capitalist society the market decides and there’s nothing stopping someone who is paying you from deciding to pay someone else instead to do your job.  If they can do it cheaper, better, or hell, if they just like the look of their face more than yours.  That’s what capitalism is all about, free market.  (Emphasis on free.)

It’s a pretty horrible way to live for 90% of the people, so society decides to restrain the free market in various ways.  We put regulation on the way companies dump waste (free market economics demand that companies dump waste as cheaply as possible, which prohibits environmentally safe options), the way they treat labour (minimum wage restrictions, unfair dismissal laws) and how they build their products (national safety standards).

We step further from the free market in our social services too – some countries more than others.  Welfare, public school systems, public health-care (Australians, Canadians and plenty of other countries have it) are all “socialist” ideas that mix nicely with a capitalist economic system.  Its the citizens paying for services available to everyone.

So every time you hear someone spit out “socialised medicine!” like its some sort of disease, realise that there is no “capitalism vs communism” anymore.  Theres just the world, and individual societies who are each determining how much of their money they are willing to give to the government in order that everyone in the country should benefit from new services.

Personally, I find it a constant astonishment that a country who is so willing to spend billions of dollars for no other reason than killing the people of other countries is so allergic to spending some of that money to keep their own people alive.  In the end, it’s health-care and education that will keep your country strong far longer than just guns and muscles. 

And please don’t forget that communism and totalitarianism are not the same thing.  It’s not only the communists who have to worry about governments controlling and oppressing their people.  We -all- do.

Select O’Reilly Books Soon on Kindle, and as DRM-free Digital Bundles (Including EPUB) – Tools of Change for Publishing

Three cheers for O’Reilly, though I note they are still “examining custom watermarking solutions”. They don’t work either i’m afraid, but at least they don’t restrict usage for the purchaser. Could it be that publishers are finally starting to understand what so many authors have been saying?

The introduction to “Little Brother” by Cory Doctorow said it best. Most authors have far less to worry about from piracy than from obscurity – even in the competitive world of tech books – and by the time they’re popular enough for piracy to have an actual impact (more damage than good done), you’re also popular enough that the total losses are so small as to be absorbable.

On that topic by the way, anyone who hasn’t read Little Brother yet – go do it. Peer into the near future and understand just how terrible the world the government has planned for you is.

Enjoy the ride, Citizen.

I’m not the worlds biggest Doctorow fan i’m afraid.  I’ve read through some of his stuff, I remember enjoying “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” but I can’t remember much about it, which says it didn’t really speak to me.  (Something about community reputation systems as currency from memory).

I’m currently reading his latest “Little Brother” however, courtesy of creative commons, and i’ll be heading to my local bookstore tonight to ask them to get in a couple of copies if they don’t have it already, one for me and one for a workmate who I know will love it.

Cory Doctorow | The A.V. Club

Here is Cory talking about his new book, and other stuff.  I’ll post more about it once it’s finished but just from the first third I can say this: This is the book that every American must read.  The book that every Australian must read.  The book that every Englander must read. 

Simply said, this is the book that -everyone- must read.  It’s a warning of what might be coming, and soon, as well as an exploration of the things we can do to protect ourselves from our own government.

It’s brilliant.

Nicholas Carr has an interesting look at the changes being made to ebay shortly.

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: Crowd control at eBay

Personally I think this ideal that people have of romantic anarchism is, like some forms of socialism, something that looks good and paper and would work perfectly if you ignore the human element.

So, it doesn’t work.

People are selfish and self-interested, and any community of any kind that reaches a non-trivial size is going to have elements that will try and manipulate the system to gain an unfair advantage over the competition. As techs we have this fantasy that, with the internet, we’ve managed to discover some hitherto unknown way of governance, ie decentralised anarchy, that works perfectly, solves all outstanding problems in the current system, and will serve as a shining example everywhere.

We didn’t invented anarchy. Anarchy, like chaos, is the natural state of things.  What humans created was society, collectivism, community.  We band together for many reasons, as we are social animals, but the reason centralised authority develops isn’t because some charismatic leader with an army of thugs made us.  (Ok, sometimes that might have been how things started, but it takes more than that to keep a society together).  What draws us together are the benefits of working in concert. We can achieve things that we never could working alone.  The prime benefit of central authority is arbitration.

Some historians and sociologists tell us that people banded together for safety in numbers as it were, to help defend each other against outside predation.  We have central authority for the same reason, to protect us from inside predation.  Make no mistake, we will prey on each other as best we can.  Destroy all central authority and you wont have the cooperative anarchic utopia that some have dreamed of, but rather I suspect we would see form a series of small collective groups band together for protection.  Any group of a significant size would create some kind of leadership. Whether it be one man one vote on every issue, or a kingship, as soon as this happens we have abandoned anarchy for community.

We do this because it works.  I am a staunch libertarian, but even I do not yearn for anarchism. Just a government that arbitrates rather than mandates.

It’s not surprising ebay is to become such a community now.  In many ways, it always has been.  For a long time there has been a central place for appeals and requests for assistance, this idea of self governance was just a conceit, and obviously, not a very successful one.  It’s a pity, but it’s not a surprise.