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This comment is veering into John Perry Barlow's "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" territory. The only thing that's become eminently obvious in

This comment is veering into John Perry Barlow's "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" territory. The only thing that's become eminently obvious in recent years is what an intellectually bankrupt ideology it is. And I think even most self-reflective "cyberlibertarians" (who are probably in there 40s, 50s, and 60s) would agree with that at this point. Technology is not inherently emancipatory. In fact it's being used to subjugate and oppress people all over the world. At best technology is neutral. Representative governments are sovereign. The only thing that is going to emancipate mankind are the things that have always: self-determination, rule of law, strong institutions, and people who adhere to enlightenment values. No one wants to be ruled by an unaccountable technocratic elite who are mostly from the west coast of the US.

dmix 7y ago
I mostly agree but how many people were really motivated with this ideology where it’s worthy of punishment? Even the average person in the Bay Area just wanted cool stuff and liked technology, automation, and the power software gave them to create anything from scratch with only their mind (and of course some capital and state support systems). The techno liberation ideas were typically pushed after-the-fact by journos looking for a narrative or a potential side benefit in the minds of founders. Obviously the original source of this was was all predictive of the future before it all took shape and critically before it reached scale. This why the whole idea of captain retrospect’s punishing people for once holding these views might be misguided. I remember even with Web 2.0’s whole wiki-fication, wisdom of the crowds, and semantic web stuff were all treated largely as academic/pop science narratives and was met with plenty of skepticism. Even from people who actively contributed to it. This isn’t the first time either. We’ve been battling the concepts of decentralization vs centralization forever. I’m remember reading some great critiques by HL Mencken about the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ type arrangements and from the 1920s when the debates over representative democracy were raging... thanks to the rise of anarchists, socialists, etc who challenged norms: > The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre—the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. Not all of HLs words are relevant to tech, but he’s right that scale is the critically important test in these liberations and wisdom of groups things, which IMO break down far faster the bigger the platform gets and sum of the whole gets a lot more mediocre in order to be tolerable to everyone. I also think this is why small countries like Canada and Scandinavia are more functional politically but that’s another story. The first French Revolution also worked great in war time Paris until it went to the country sides and they went back to monarchy for a few more decades.

dmix 7y ago

I mostly agree but how many people were really motivated with this ideology where it’s worthy of punishment? Even the average person in the Bay Area just wanted cool stuff and liked technology, automation, and the power software gave them to create anything from scratch with only their mind (and of course some capital and state support systems). The techno liberation ideas were typically pushed after-the-fact by journos looking for a narrative or a potential side benefit in the minds of founders. Obviously the original source of this was was all predictive of the future before it all took shape and critically before it reached scale. This why the whole idea of captain retrospect’s punishing people for once holding these views might be misguided. I remember even with Web 2.0’s whole wiki-fication, wisdom of the crowds, and semantic web stuff were all treated largely as academic/pop science narratives and was met with plenty of skepticism. Even from people who actively contributed to it. This isn’t the first time either. We’ve been battling the concepts of decentralization vs centralization forever. I’m remember reading some great critiques by HL Mencken about the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ type arrangements and from the 1920s when the debates over representative democracy were raging... thanks to the rise of anarchists, socialists, etc who challenged norms: > The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre—the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. Not all of HLs words are relevant to tech, but he’s right that scale is the critically important test in these liberations and wisdom of groups things, which IMO break down far faster the bigger the platform gets and sum of the whole gets a lot more mediocre in order to be tolerable to everyone. I also think this is why small countries like Canada and Scandinavia are more functional politically but that’s another story. The first French Revolution also worked great in war time Paris until it went to the country sides and they went back to monarchy for a few more decades.