Forfeiting plumbing for self-determination?
Paul D. Fernhout
the growing Orwellian surveillance society:
"The Electronic Police State"
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1229763&cid=27918753
"""
[by hachi-control (1360955)] "You know it isn't nearly as simple as that.
Especially since many governments are enacting this, there seems to be no
safe-haven from restrictions on freedom, unless we want to move to a
law-less place like Sudan. We want a place with a stable government that
cares about its population, is truly democratic, and cares about freedom,
and not the money it gets from lobby groups. And most of all, has fast
internet. ;)"
====
[by TarrVetus (597895)] [You wrote:] "And most of all, has fast internet. ;)"
I know you meant that tongue-in-cheek, but you bring up an interesting
concept. If you move to a place you feel is more free, it's nice if it's a
place that has a standard of living that is as good--or better--than you're
used to.
On the other hand, there is a point where the luxuries aren't worth the
cost of principles. When that happens, you end up with things like
rebellions, successions, and other transitions. People will forfeit
plumbing, transit systems, electricity, and even food for the chance to
govern themselves as they see fit, if the situation feels dire enough. The
world can beat them, or join them--either way, it makes little difference in
that situation, because the right to rule or be ruled as they believe, and
thereby control their futures, becomes the first, and most basic need.
The food, the water, the electricity, medicine, fuel: to a desperate
person, those things lose their worth. They're all tethers binding them to
something they hate. Time and time, again, it's shown that the people will
abandon or destroy them before allowing those things to hold them any longer.
"""
What I found interesting in the comment and reply was the perceived tension
between relying on (centralized?) manufacturing and freedom.
Anyway, it seems to be the general feeling of slashdot that there is no land
one can go to right now to escape these trends (other than perhaps the
future. :-)
Of course, even in the open manufacturing "utopia" at the end of Marshall
Brain's Manna story, there was no privacy:
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
"""
Another core principle is that nothing is anonymous. Eric grew up during
the rise of the Internet, and the rise of global terrorism, and one thing he
realized is that anonymity allows incredible abuse. It does not matter if
you are sending anonymous, untraceable emails that destroy someone's career,
or if you are anonymously releasing computer viruses, or if you are
anonymously blowing up buildings. Anonymity breeds abuse. In Australia, if
you walk from your home to a park, your path is logged. You cannot
anonymously pass by someone else's home. If someone looks up your path that
day to see who walked by, that fact is also logged. So you know who knows
your path. And so on. This system, of course, makes it completely impossible
to commit an anonymous crime. So there is no anonymous crime. Anyone who
commits a crime is immediately detained and disciplined."
"There has not been a murder in years. It is impossible to do it
anonymously, and everyone knows what happens when you murder someone else.
People do commit crimes occasionally. Mostly it is kids who have not
completed their education." Cynthia said. "They are disciplined and the
problem goes away. You'll learn all about this in the orientation."
"""
Another post in that Slashdot discussion makes the point that "Freedom" and
"Justice" are not the same thing as "Democracy" (even if they often may go
together). One can wonder if "Privacy" is orthogonal to those as well? Have
so many things changed that privacy is indeed history? On the other hand, in
the short story "The Skills of Xanadu", which is another open manufacturing
utopia, people had total privacy even in plain sight when they wanted it,
out of social conventions and a form of computer-mediated telepathy.
In any case, another implication of the earlier comment is that, for many
people, the conceptual goal for open manufacturing in a free society may not
need be as high as producing everything we have now (even indoor plumbing?).
Just producing enough to support a reasonably free and sustainable society
may be a good enough first goal? Anyway, there are bound to be a diversity
of opinions on that, I'm just drawing together some themes.
I remain convinced, along the lines of Manuel de Landa, that there is *no*
possibility of choice between hierarchy and meshwork, because all systems
have both aspects. One can at best talk about balances between the
centralized hierarchies and grassroots meshworks in different situations.
David Brin suggests in his transparent society that the only alternative to
one-way surveillance is for everyone to be able to inspect all surveillance.
That is closer to the Manna model.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society
--Paul Fernhout