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The first serious infowar is now engaged
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- organicgrant 16y agoEarly this morning, the WikiLeaks Twitter feed reposted a tweet from EFF cofounder John Perry Barlow. "The first serious infowar is now engaged," Barlow wrote. "The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops." Barlow is no stranger to theatrical overstatement; this, after all, is the guy who in 1996 penned "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" that opened with the lines: "Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather." Barlow was wrong about sovereignty. Despite its name, "cyberspace" runs on physical infrastructure that sits in various governmental jurisdictions, and when sites like Wikileaks start irritating those governments, sovereignty is quite powerfully brought to bear. -via @ARSTechnica
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- thefool 16y agoThe thing is, you still need some institutions to provide public goods within each region of the earth, and these invariably have to be governments.
- organicgrant 16y agoCan you be a bit clearer? I'm not seeing anything constructive yet. Roads aren't ideas, they're hunks of concrete.
- pronoiac 16y agoThe Information Superhighway is just a metaphor that requires no actual concrete.
- organicgrant 16y agoI gave roads as an example of a public good. Your Superhighway metaphor-metaphor is getting further into the ether, without adding substance (unless you can make your statement about concrete more concrete). Sometimes I wish there was an 'easy button' to figure out the context of comments.
- kiba 16y agoRoads suffered from traffic congestion. So they're pretty rivalrous.
- kragen 16y agoRoads are neither non-excludable nor non-rival. So they are in no way public goods. Therefore, they are irrelevant to the comment you were replying to by "thefool".
- organicgrant 16y agoAssuming it's not LA traffic, roads are for all intents and purposes, public goods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good
- kragen 16y agoThe article you are pointing to does not currently cite roads as an example of a public good, but it does give the definition I used above: non-excludable and non-rival. I didn't edit it. Tollbooths, roadblocks, and gated communities are a manifestation of the excludability of roads; traffic, traffic accidents involving more than one vehicle, and potholes are manifestations of their rivalrousness, to which we have responses such as traffic laws, road maintenance, gasoline taxes, rearview mirrors, and seatbelts. In short, every aspect of how we interact with roads and cars is pervasively shaped by the rivalrous nature of roads, and their excludability profoundly affects many social institutions. Only in the most rural areas are roads even approximately non-excludable or non-rival.
- daeken 16y agoRoads are by no means public goods, as it is very possible to exclude people from them, e.g. tolls. A good example is a dam. If you live in a valley that floods every year, the government may well come in and say, "we're going to build a dam." But by its very nature, you cannot exclude people from this -- the dam will hold back all of the water, not just for some of the people in the valley.
- ataggart 16y agoHow are you defining "public goods"? Most people don't mean anything so precise as "goods which are, by their nature, both non-rivalrous and non-excludable." Nor do they simply mean "goods which are presently provided by the government." Rather, I suspect what most people mean by "public goods" is these goods which, by their nature, only the government can provide. This question begging has little utility beyond lending the imprimatur of economic legitimacy to the state.
- _delirium 16y agoIt seems like a perfectly useful concept to me: if there are indeed goods that, by their nature, only some social arrangement like a government or a de facto government can provide, and if I think that at least some of these goods are things that ought to be provided, it follows that there are are reasons to favor having governments. I don't personally care much what phrase we use to describe them. I have in mind things that even relative state-minimalists like F.A. Hayek had in mind as legitimate roles for governments, like provision of basic health care, defense against invasion, police and fire services, and a social safety net. (One counterargument would be to claim that there are no goods that, by their nature, can only be provided by a government, but I don't read that as what you're arguing. Of course, another counterargument would be to claim that no such goods are desirable, or at least not desirable enough to justify government existing.)
- fexl 16y agoThere are no goods which by their nature require the initiation of force against other people to produce them.
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- smokeyj 16y agoA government by definition is a monopoly on violence, which leads to the next question - why would any goods or service require a monopoly on violence? I would argue a coercive monopoly on any market is counter-productive and unnecessary (they even claim to protect us from such monopolies, thanks SEC). Even if we're talking about delivering mail, UPS, FedEx and DHL are evidence that an involuntary service CAN be provided voluntarily. Voluntary is always better than involuntary. Does laying tar on the ground need a monopoly on violence? What about delivering packages? Collecting taxes actually DOES require such monopoly. Markets work because humans have preference. Even a democratic government cannot account for the preference of it's territory without disenfranchising a large population! If you don't like blockbuster, you can use netflix. Don't like UPS? Use fedex. Don't like Homeland Security? Well that's too damn bad.
- wladimir 16y agoThat's currently the case, but let's hope that will change or that at least the governments of the future will be smaller and will respect (real) freedom.
- borism 16y agoI'm not against governments, I'm against the way they're being run today.
- rue 16y agoIndeed. A government as a separate entity from "the people" should start going away (and communications technology is a key piece in that evolution).
- sukuriant 16y agoForgive me but, in part, wasn't that what the United States' government was made to be?
- rue 16y agoDunno, I wasn't there. To me it seems that the U.S. government is probably the furthest-removed from the people among western nations - and Americans are by far the least trusting of government.
- sukuriant 16y agoI was thinking of the Ghettysburg Address when I wrote that statement: http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/get... This wasn't written when the United States came into being, but I would like to think that Abraham Lincoln had the founding father's heart when he spoke it.
- kragen 16y agoYour statement is completely wrong, from beginning to end. (I am going to do my readers the honor of assuming they know what a public good is. If not, I suggest they look it up.) Science is a public good. Lots of science is funded by governments, but lots of science is done without government funding, too. Recorded music and books are now public goods, now that it is so cheap to copy them and to find instances to copy. Only a small fraction of them are provided by governments. Many of them are provided by individuals rather than institutions of any kind. TV and radio broadcasts are a public good. In some countries, they are mostly provided by governments, but in almost all countries, they are at least partly provided by private parties who fund them with advertising. In the US, many "public TV stations" are actually funded mostly by public subscription, using "pledge drives" in which viewers receive an item of nominal value in exchange for pledging to donate to the station if enough other people do so; this is a variety of the dominant assurance contract. Views of fireworks that go more than a few meters high are a public good. Here in Buenos Aires, they are provided almost exclusively by private individuals. At Christmas and New Year's, the sky over the entire city is filled with amazing displays. In countries with less freedom, such displays are sometimes provided exclusively by governments, but that is far from invariable. Lighthouses were public goods. Palacio Barolo, the lighthouse six blocks from my house, is now only operational as a lighthouse one night a month, and in any case it's been obsoleted by radio systems and impeded by the building of other, taller buildings between it and the river, but it was constructed by a wealthy businessman. Many public goods, including TV broadcasts, lighthouses, views of fireworks, and recorded music, are definitely not needed. In conclusion, you don't need anybody to provide public goods; entities that are not institutions often provide public goods; many public goods can be provided worldwide, rather than within particular regions; even in cases where public goods are provided by institutions, the institutions are often not governments or government-supported; and even in cases where public goods are provided by governments, those same public goods are also often provided by non-government institutions as well. I am not taking any position here on whether or not governments are necessary.
- carbocation 16y agoThe original title, "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace," is more compelling. Also, note that this is from 1996.
- Palomides 16y agointeresting how it is pertinent again with the .p2p effort to make a decentralized DNS system, independent of governmental authority.
- organicgrant 16y agoWikiLeakiaspora?
- afterburner 16y agoSo, two links near the top of HN are from 1996? Is December Internet History Month?
- sukuriant 16y agoOr internet discovery month, for those that did not travel this part of the internet during those times. The age of an article does not necessarily negate its worthiness of being read or spoken about.
- afterburner 16y agoSure, I just thought it was a funny coincidence.
- sukuriant 16y agoFair enough
- fjarlq 16y agoNote the title used here is from a tweet by John Perry Barlow yesterday: "The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops." -- http://twitter.com/JPBarlow/status/10627544017534976 http://twitter.com/JPBarlow/status/10627544017534976
- jhrobert 16y agoI know which side I stand.
- citrik 16y agoGreat prose, but honestly I was expecting (between wikileaks vs amazon and comcast vs netflix) that there was going to be a dissection of the actual infowar that is happening around us now. May we live in interesting times indeed...
- sudont 16y agoIt’s really ironic that history is boring as it’s happening.
- tectonic 16y agoSee also the excellent free, short story by Cory Doctorow that mentions this essay: http://baens-universe.com/articles/when_sysadmins_ruled_the_earth http://baens-universe.com/articles/when_sysadmins_ruled_the_...
- iwr 16y agoRemember the last Declaration of independence triggered a war. Don't expect the political to consider any accessible space off-limits.
- Helianthus16 16y agoremember the last Declaration was important, made by people with political power and influence. This is merely an idealistic essay rather than an action--it describes a movement, it does not _compel_ movement.
- organicgrant 16y agoPolitical power and influence usually begin with an individual writing an idealistic essay... Thomas Jefferson, Ron Paul, Adolf Hitler, (prisoner to Chancellor in under 10 years), Barack Obama (nobody to President in under 10 years) ...I could go on, but I'll let others add names and stories
- Helianthus16 16y agoThis is true but does not conflict with my assertion. The Declaration of Independence was an act of political power and influence. This is an idealistic essay that might spur actual acts of political power and influence. Veneration of a document must be earned.
- chopsueyar 16y agoI'm just glad the EFF is not considered a terrorist organization by the US government because of this. It does seem to condone the abolition of IP rights, though.
- kragen 16y agoNo, the EFF does not have a position in favor of the abolition of any of the random grab-bag of rights known as "IP rights". Some of its board members have such positions, while others have quite contrary positions. As a result, the organization compromises.
- chopsueyar 16y agoI meant the linked-to article's author, not the EFF as an organization.
- eplanit 16y agoIt reads like it was written by a young, naive child...like a "No Girls Allowed" sign on a tree house.
- plurinshael 16y agoOr, you're reading it like a young, naive child, whose mother won't let you up into the neighbor's tree house. One of those two.
- jdp23 16y agoGreat essay -- although parts of it are very 1996 :-) The whole "past trying to rule the future" dynamic he talks about here remains incredibly relevant. Oh yeah and this too: "In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media."
- ctkrohn 16y agoI love 90s techno-optimism. Pick up some old issues of Wired for this sort of thinking. The Internet was viewed as a transformative, unstoppable force for freedom. From an engineering point of view, we're closer to that ideal than we ever have been in the past, but people don't have the same outlook on the future. IMO you can date the death of 90s optimism to the NASDAQ bust and Bill Joy's essay "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us." Both happened within a month of each other.
- ichc-werker 16y agoBill Joy's essay: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html
- sudont 16y agoIt’s the same ideology that says progressivism is dead, despite that today’s yellow journalism is watered down, there’s no traditional war between organized countries, sanitation’s up, and we’re getting further along with promoting resource equality in LDCs. Not only that, but there’s complete ennui in living. I can go out in most parts of the world at night without worry of being beaten, killed or enslaved; the corner market to get fresh broccoli in winter. All of the programmers I know want to buy a house, settle down, and work an unpleasant job in an unfriendly country, when the internet allows any of us to pick up and move and still work. Welcome to the age of pessimism and cynicism. Also, bedbugs. Just because America is sliding doesn’t mean the world is doomed.