9 ms·

Maddox - I hope SOPA passes

569 points by CWIZO 15y ago

wonderercat 15y ago
> There are a number of publishers on this list, including my own publisher. If the consensus I get from readers is that we should boycott publishers, I'll support the boycott even though it hurts me. As much of an asshole as he is, I've always respected the guy for his shocking lack of hypocrisy. If movie producers had the decency to make this kind of public stand, things might be different.
vezycash 15y ago
What is a Permanent solution to this stuff?
- necolas 15y ago
  You might find Lawrence Lessig's talk at Google interesting: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc However, the article suggests that if some terrible legislation passed it would ignite people into real action. That clearly failed to happen when the Patriot Act was passed. I'm sure there are many more examples. If the discourse surrounding legislation convinces enough people not to care (or fails to make it into wider public awareness), then there doesn't seem to be much standing in its way.
- rjd 15y ago
  Exactly what Maddox suggests, don't buy their products. This is about counterfeit goods, and access to cheap competition. Its nothing but building protectionist markets, the same ones most western nations have been fighting for the last hundred years because they entrap people, prevent competition, cause monopolies, and abuse customers. Its against the free markets, which (problems of market abuse aside) is getting money into developing economies and helping people. Its a great step backwards world economics and trade. So hit them where it hurts, they are obviously scared of the new markets enough to try and outlaw them. Take 30 minutes out of your day to write a letter to a company and explain to them you are disgusted, they have lost a customer, and you will from now on buy counterfeit goods instead of theirs. I will be doing my part by downloading all the mp3s I want, I'll go see the shows in person to make sure the artists get there dues, and I'll wait to see these middle men slowly fade... but I'm sure we are only about to see fireworks start, theres going to be some big noise as some of these guys go down.
  - sethg 15y ago
    I am generally skeptical of boycotts as a political tactic, because if the boycotts aren’t large enough to make a significant dent on the target company’s revenues, the effect is just noise. The Walt Disney company is grossing about $40 billion a year. How many people need to swear off buying Disney products, for how long, before the company even notices?
    - rjd 15y ago
      TBH companies aren't the problem. Companies are mindless automatons that act in one single purpose (to make money). Even people trying to change the world have to be money first to fund secondary projects. So the behaviour is expected, the real problem is the political system and the legalised corrupt behaviour. Maddox is correct, things are going to have to get worse. You need massive public anger to change what is essentially a few tiny aspects of how politicians deal with lobbyist, they are just gaming the system, they don't care if laws pass or don't as they get money either way, tonnes of it. The more ridiculous the law, the more money the get to push it. Tackle that issue and you'll liberate the whole country. So you need to get people mad, how you do that is up to you guys as I don't live in America, I just watch from the side lines shaking my head.
- wisty 15y ago
  Create mini congresses for subcommittees. For stuff that's absolutely massive, Congress does a relatively good job of threshing out the issues. They have real debates in the public eye. For smaller issues, it's farmed out to subcommittees, who put the legislation together in back-rooms, usually after "discussing the issue with relavant stakeholders". It would be to slow to do everything in Congress (that's why they have the subcommittees), but they could prepare the legislation in a much more transparent member. The members wouldn't like it, but that's their problem. You could also require that bills are only valid if they are well described by their titles. So, you couldn't call stuff "Stop Online Piracy Act" unless you were willing to have in knocked down in the Supreme Court for having a silly name.
- fleitz 15y ago
  Form a group, pick a person in a 'safe' seat, preferably a senator as those are pretty much the safest seats out there, and get them unelected over this issue. Ensure the issue gets media coverage as to your group. Anything else will do pretty much nothing. In two years get someone else unelected. Diane Feinstein would be a perfect target, she represents the valley, has been in the Senate forever, and won the last election by a HUGE margin. If you could get her unelected you would put everyone else on notice. The reality of the situation is that this won't happen. There is no permanent solution because everything is triangulated and marketed so well that it's virtually impossible to change it. People pass this legislation because no one cares and whatever negative ads get run during the 30 days before the election matter far more than anything else and quite frankly most people will be more upset about THEIR pet issue than YOUR pet issue. If you could get Google or Wikipedia, etc to focus solely on getting ONE person unelected then it would show clout. But they won't because it would cause such a shitstorm of unimaginable proportions because 1/3 of their user base votes for her party no matter what they do, and 1/3 dislikes both parties and something about keeping politics free from corporate influence, which is something both parties agree on unless that influence comes in the form of campaign contributions, PACs, lobbyists, etc. You've got a political system in which no one cares about habeas corpus. If they don't care about that then they aren't going to give a shit about dismantling the internet. Bread and circuses my friend.
  - gee_totes 15y ago
    Well, this is a "democracy" (in irony quotes), so there's no permanent solution to anything, as there will always be elections. Perhaps a better and more sustainable solution would to galvanize this energy around SOPA into a culture of activism. After calling our senators and representatives, we should move on to talking the media and call them out when they broadcast misleading statements from the MPAA/RIAA (like the oft-cited $770 billion(!) lost to piracy every year). This would help us build a base. Also, this fatalist attitude of things doing nothing is a) wrong and b) just gives you an excuse to give up. For example, remember the anti-war protests during 2003? Those were the LARGEST PROTESTS IN HISTORY. Yet they did not to stop the war. Luckily, everyone did not adopt the attitude of "protests do nothing, we need to do X". And those who did adopt the "protests do nothing, we need to do X" attitude were proved wrong yesterday. We did something yesterday. While it did not go as far a some people hoped, we did do something. And that is a victory we can build on.
- derefr 15y ago
  At minimum, a patch to the legislative system that requires actual voters' opinions (and not just lobbyist voters, but rather a statistically-random sampling) somewhere along the track to getting bills passed, even if it's just as a veto. Preferably, though, a more complete restructuring of the legislative system that more tightly constricts what an individual bill can do (so nothing can be "tacked on" to anything else), requires that bills expire and must be re-evaluated after some period, and perhaps enables something equivalent to the "double-jeapordy" condition of the judicial system, where once a bill has been rejected for containing particular offensive clauses, no bill may then be introduced from then on if it contains those clauses or anything which would be equivalent in effect to them.
  - jka 15y ago
    Small comment - actual voters' opinions isn't necessarily enough, if voters aren't informed about the actual consequences/implications of the legislation. When SOPA came up in discussion recently amongst a few folks I was talking to, as soon as they heard the full spoken name of the bill - 'Stop Online Piracy Act' - they began to put their support behind it. That's how quickly and easily opinions can be formed - it took some calm and open discussion before they began to even consider it as a potential gray area.
    - aprescott 15y ago
      That's a disheartening story. "You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing — that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something." — Richard Feynman I guess the effect you're describing could've been multiplied if SOPA had been a backronym too. "USA PATRIOT Act? How could that be bad! Just look at its name!"
    - TylerE 15y ago
      I wonder (seriously) if banning names for bills wouldn't be a bad idea. No more cutesy names or names that are a blantant sympathy ploy ("Rachels's Law", or whatever). Just make them refer to it as HR3415 or whatever the actual designation is.
- mikehuffman 15y ago
  There will be no permanent solution that works for "the people". Think about it, throughout history when a sufficiently powerful or profitable medium of information exchange has arisen (think radio, television, phones, mail), the govt. at the behest of rich corporations has legislated it. Every single time! Laws are first passed to "curb criminal elements", which is what we are seeing now, then a few years down the road laws will be passed to allow the activity with prescribed limits...imagine Internet permits. Then, finally, tax money will subsidize the actual sell of the medium to large corporations to dole out in prescribed amounts to the public...for a fee. This is how it is and how it will be.
- jedbrown 15y ago
  I think that changing the campaign funding model to small dollar amounts would make a significant difference. See http://rootstrikers.org http://rootstrikers.org and Lessig's interview with Jon Stewart (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-13-2011/exclusive---lawrence-lessig-extended-interview-pt--1 http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-13-2011/exclu..., http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-13-2011/exclusive---lawrence-lessig-extended-interview-pt--2 http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-13-2011/exclu...).
- exDM69 15y ago
  Vote with your wallet. Stop buying or consuming content from the IP mafia and convince others to do so. Don't buy records, especially don't listen to Spotify (all the money goes directly to the record labels, etc, almost none to the artists), don't go to the movie theater or buy movies, stop watching TV. The money you give (directly or indirectly through ads) to the MAFIAA racket will be spent on lobbying counterproductive laws. And then stop pirating that stuff, so you won't be a part of the statistics that are given to the politicians to convince that piracy is harmful. Sounds difficult? Maybe. I did this, I stopped watching TV in 1999, going to the movies in 2001 and listening to music in 2006. The content I would have wanted wasn't (and still isn't) available at a price and terms that I could accept, so I don't want it. Not that I paid for the media I consumed, I pirated most of the stuff. But I don't want to be a part of the piracy statistics to give excuses for killing the internet. I still enjoy music, though. Maybe even more now that I'm not constantly listening to it so the rare occasion when I do hear music, it sounds better. I do allow myself exceptions every now and then but most of the time I don't consume MAFIAA products or feel like I'm missing anything.
- nazgulnarsil 15y ago
  monarchy. until a democracy attacks you.
runn1ng 15y ago
This is a stupid article. He first explains how protests are meaningless, because not enough people do them, and then proposes.... protest, by boycotting almost everything.
- skrebbel 15y ago
  Yeah, because identifying the core of a problem and trying to do something about it makes you a hypocrite.
- philh 15y ago
  > He first explains how protests are meaningless He's talking about protests like "changing my profile picture". > because not enough people do them I don't remember him saying that. > boycotting almost everything. He proposes boycotting a few companies, and gives a list of possibilities.
- cheald 15y ago
  He's raging against slacktivism, and advocating for real activisim. Punch supporting companies in the wallet and get supporting congressmen unelected. He's right.
- oflannabhra 15y ago
  Did you read anything he said? While there's a lot of bluster to filter through, his points were more something like the following: 1) Americans want to "protest" by doing things that don't cost them their comfort. 2) We are (successfully) protesting SOPA/PIPA, but the real problem is not the legislation. The problem is how the legislation got created (companies lobbying Congress, and Congressmen acting solely in those companies best interest). 3) In light of 1) and 2), we should use what power we do have as consumers and voters to prevent such legislation from being created again. While we can debate the merits and effectiveness of boycotts, or voting, let's try not to strawman the article.
- dwyer 15y ago
  Protests and boycotts are not necessarily the same thing. History has shown that protests are usually ineffective. I believe however that boycotts can be effective, because essentially you're speaking with your wallet, and money talks, and unfortunately it's the only thing some people will listen to.
deno 15y ago
Does anyone else feel like they can predict what Maddox will say about any particular issue at this point? http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metacontrarianism/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metaco... BTW. The same could be said about DMCA, when it was passing. It just made everyone used to even more abuse.
- ChrisLTD 15y ago
  "The same could be said about DMCA, when it was passing. It just made everyone used to even more abuse." Bingo. Stopping legislation before it gets passed is the way to go. It's extremely difficult to get laws rescinded or overridden. And what would make anyone think a few websites getting taken down by the Feds would cause some sort of massive street protest? Our government has done some awful things in the last ten years involving war, torture and civil liberties and most people couldn't care less. Even when there were massive protests over Iraq, they were ignored.
Newgy 15y ago
At least two of the legislators on his target list have renounced support for SOPA: Dennis A. Ross (R-FL) Lee Terry (R-NE)
- ericflo 15y ago
  It doesn't matter. That was his whole point.
- biot 15y ago
  And Petzl claims to have never supported SOPA: http://www.petzl.com/us/outdoor/news-2/2011/12/22/petzl-americas-stance-sopa-and-protect-ip http://www.petzl.com/us/outdoor/news-2/2011/12/22/petzl-amer...
guelo 15y ago
I never thought I'd see the day that Maddox was on the front page of HN. With the redditization now complete pg should bring back the display of the comment scores since it obviously didn't help preserve whatever it was that he was trying to preserve.
- lusr 15y ago
  What exactly is your disagreement with the content of the article?
- CWIZO 15y ago
  Regardless of what you think of him and his articles this one simply deserves to be here. It makes a lot of sense and IMO he hit the nail on the head with what he is proposing. It's not productive to discriminate against someone simply because he is known to publish controversial stuff. ps: I submitted this and I'm not a reddit user ;)
ZeroMinx 15y ago
Not sure what this does on HN. Perhaps people don't know Maddox? Here's an old classic where he's judge art work done by other kids on the internet; http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=irule http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=irule Random hate mail; http://maddox.xmission.com/hatemail.cgi?p=1 http://maddox.xmission.com/hatemail.cgi?p=1
- masklinn 15y ago
  > Not sure what this does on HN. It's SOPA week, and his essay is pretty on-point and insightful? He's not the only one who expressed the thought contained in TFA either, for what it's worth. In fact, it's much more insightful than the masturbatory "13 reps have now stopped saying they're for SOPA (but would still vote for it or a variation of it if faced with the bill) the internet won!" we're facing today. In fact, he ends his rant with a call-to-action not unlike Reddit's Godaddy call. Only part which bothers me is that he calls for boycotting "two or three", and gives a big list of 50+ companies with little direction.
jorisw 15y ago
You really should read all of it before commenting on it. His point is that stopping SOPA is meaningless because it will simply be tried again. "It has to get worse before it gets better".
- tintin 15y ago
  No it is not. His point is: get to the root of the problem. And he notices that it has to get worse before people understand this. I totally agree with him. It's like the bugs get fixed, shitty lasts forever. Most of the time fixing a bug means getting tot the root of the problem.
  - ahel 15y ago
    I think that the root of the problem is not that generic "people" are unaware of anything(in this case that SOPA ). I think that the problem is money in politics through lobbyists, they sustain at the top of the hierarchy the corporations' will against what common sense wants or even urges.
- tommorris 15y ago
  Stopping SOPA isn't meaningless. Hopefully it'll give people pause before they try again. But, yes, Americans, you desperately need to fix your money-in-politics problem. That's the underlying issue for all this shit.
- michaelfeathers 15y ago
  The sad thing is, it's much harder to undo legislation than to pass it.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
gnufied 15y ago
I thought Apple withdrew support for SOPA?
- lukifer 15y ago
  They've been eerily silent on the matter. They also have content deals with pretty much all the major companies pushing for SOPA/PIPA.
  - tjogin 15y ago
    It isn't eerie when Apple is silent.
- logn 15y ago
  I don't think they ever (explicitly) supported it. The Business Software Alliance did which they're a member of so guilt by assoc. They did announce public opposition.
- tjogin 15y ago
  I don't think Apple ever did support SOPA. BSA did, of which Apple is a member, and BSA withdrew their support.
  - gnufied 15y ago
    yeah remember Apple & Microsoft threatening to cancel their membership, in light of SOPA support of BSA. Wondering, why is Apple on Maddox list though.
    - 5l 15y ago
      Do you have a reference for this?
onedewd 15y ago
So much efforts to stop law proposal X. Which is great. What about the idea of a Open-USA or other Open-Iran where a true Meta-Democracy or whatever open society model is implemented where all efforts would be PRO something instead of hateful stuff like protesting. This laws are proposed by lobbies that go against the interest of 99% of the persons. How is that even conceivable ? All this big companies opposing could create a github project for open government and then elect a person that implements that.
guelo 15y ago
What Maddox doesn't seem to understand is that "raising awareness" is the only way you win these battles long term in a democracy. For example, gay marriage is slowly becoming a reality because over the last 20 years gays have opened people's eyes to their plight. Once a cause becomes a moral issue for most Americans it wins. But most people have no idea what us tech geeks are bitching about so we have to educate them about our causes. And that is exactly what yesterday was about.
- irishcoffee 15y ago
  This may upset people, but in my humble opinion, gay marriage has been a pawn used by DC for political gain. Raising awareness worked because DC figured out a way to twist it into a campaign talking point. Makes me sick.
  - elmindreda 15y ago
    That's true of every issue that has succeeded without the backing of a powerful lobby. The same thing can happen here.
  - dhimes 15y ago
    Honestly, on that issue I don't think it happened that way. They were doing great with stem cell research and abortion- especially late-term. In fact, I frankly think gay marriage took DC by surprise. At first it was, "Oh, that's just Massachusetts. I'm surprised California doesn't have it." And then they realized it was a "serious" issue. My personal perspective, having lived in the DC area most of my life and moving to MA shortly after (or was it just before? I don't remember), is that yeah, I was a little worried about how to explain it to my young kids. Turned out not to matter. I personally don't think the government should give a rat's ass who you love.
    - tluyben2 15y ago
      Explain what to your young kids? People loving eachother should be allowed together or why your government is sometimes quite insane? I would think the second one is more of a worry to explain to your young kids... But dad, why do we live here if you think 'those morons cannot do anything right'? :)
erkin_unlu 15y ago
he is right but not complete, its not the fault with your senators or representatives, its about the system that feeds the so called democracy. We must learn why the companies are so interested in politics and what they gain from these bills like this one.
mike-cardwell 15y ago
Can anyone back up his comment about recycling with any indisputable or at least convincing evidence/statistics? "Even if you, your neighbors, and everyone you've ever met recycled everything and reduced your waste output to zero, it wouldn't even make an observable impact on overall waste production in the world. Household waste and garden residue account for less than 3% of all waste produced in the US. That's less than the average statistical margin of error, and most people don't even come close to producing zero waste." I've always suspected that this is correct, but I'd like to be able to back that up with some evidence.
- xlpz 15y ago
  I've seen some estimates saying that the total percentage of waste coming from households can be as lows as 2%, depending on how you count. For example, this cites an EPA study: http://www.zerowasteamerica.org/Statistics.htm http://www.zerowasteamerica.org/Statistics.htm The same page mentions a higher bound of 20%, but in any case it seems reasonably well established that the vast majority of the waste produced (at least in the US) comes from the manufacturing/industrial process itself, not from households. A book that goes into quite a bit of detail about this is "Gone tomorrow" by Heather Rogers.
  - morsch 15y ago
    Huh. Looking at statistics from Germany, the total waste is seperated into four categories: waste from building demolition and construction, waste from industrial processes, waste from mining, waste from private households and offices. Waste from demolition and construction makes up more than half of the total waste, the remaining three categories are split about evenly. I'm surprised that the construction waste is that high. Apart from that, it seems that manufacturing and construction waste is less dominant over here than it is in the US. Odd! Maybe I'm reading the numbers wrong or they're counting really differently. FWIW, Wikipedia says that the per capita waste amount is about 500 kg, referring to just the category of private households/offices I assume. Ref: http://www.bmu.de/files/pdfs/allgemein/application/pdf/abfallaufkommen_2008.pdf http://www.bmu.de/files/pdfs/allgemein/application/pdf/abfal... (German)
  - 15y ago
llambda 15y ago
Maddox is a polemicist. He actively enjoys and cultivates such a persona and to what end? It seems to me his goal is to play devil's advocate as a kind of link bait. What I've seen of his work is pointedly provocative in an intentionally non-PC way. However I don't feel that simply being clever, and holding points of view that are seemingly diametrically opposed to the mainstream, is actually an effective way to effect change. For instance, in this particular article, Maddox claims that we need a "spark to light the lazy tinder". There is here an implicated false dichotomy where either some draconian legislation passes, e.g. SOPA, and everyone "wakes up" or no other efforts will prove progressive. I don't buy it. In fact, I don't buy any argument that makes the claim that due to the current state of political economy we are unable to see the kinds of changes we want without total and complete revolution. I feel it's absurd to dismiss efforts such as yesterday's which net results that include some 13 new senators opposing the bills.
- math_is_life 15y ago
  He is being very blunt, but what he is saying rings true because none of this is a long-term solution. These are baby steps and soon enough it will lose this momentum and get passed someway. People could boycott and hurt companies with what matter the most, but most people do not seem to be willing to do this because it inconvenience them. I can see how NDAA got passed, but when it comes to the internet, you would think that most of these sites would be boycotting. If this can't spark boycotts than I have no idea what will.
- BudVVeezer 15y ago
  His point was "opposing the bills today." We'll have to do the same song and dance again in the very near future because the ignorance behind SOPA/PIPA isn't going away. So yes, we won the battle, but not the war, so to speak.
  - nooneelse 15y ago
    The solution to that isn't to not fight now in hopes that more people join later in outrage. It is to use current success to push the debate onto the opponents' turf. Counter the lobbying to (over)extend copyright protection schemes with lobbying to reduce them (more narrowly tailor them), which easily reads as increasing individual freedom and the scope of the public domain. Push back.
perfunctory 15y ago
This is the best piece of writing about SOPA so far.
drunkenmasta 15y ago
I first came across xmission.com back in 2004. I was immediately struck by his writing style. I always aspire to be as fearless and concise as Maddox is. Just look at his range of knowledge, he is able to write well on a variety of topics. (Applause)
nluqo 15y ago
Most of the calls to boycott companies seem pretty poorly organized (even this article is just a list on some guy's website, albeit one with moderate internet popularity). What about an app entirely dedicated to organizing boycotts? Users would suggest and vote on issues and companies to boycott. The end result would be detailed guides on which products/service to avoid along with alternatives. The site would only highlight one issue at a time to maximize the effect. I've been toying with the idea for a while (there are plenty of sites/apps built around single issues, but I've only found one site that does what I've described... though poorly implemented: http://www.boycottowl.com/ http://www.boycottowl.com/ ).
Terretta 15y ago
It's unfortunate that the companies he outlines to boycott (the ones marked in yellow) are the ones with the most legitimate complaints about counterfeiting. The word "piracy" is unfortunate, mixing up Hollywood's complaints about bit-for-bit originals being available, and, for example, Chanel's complaint about fake Chanel being manufactured and sold "mail-order" online through offshore commerce sites. Chanel and the like do need (but already have) protection by the law against counterfeit sales. They don't have a right to be protected for legacy distribution models. For example, Chanel shouldn't have a right to a law that says since existing Chanel stores only ship UPS Ground, any store shipping FedEx Overnight should be taken offline. A bill for "Stop Counterfeiting" would be better focused on the actual problem, instead of stigmatizing the medium or channel ("online").
- Roboprog 15y ago
  I was wondering why there were so many manufacturing companies and a couple of drug stores on his list. What's the dog in the fight???
  - zecho 15y ago
    Petzl clarified their stance when the list first came out: http://www.petzl.com/us/outdoor/news-2/2011/12/22/petzl-americas-stance-sopa-and-protect-ip http://www.petzl.com/us/outdoor/news-2/2011/12/22/petzl-amer...
- a1k0n 15y ago
  He isn't necessarily saying that the yellow ones are the ones to target, just that they're easiest to boycott. I am boycotting all of them right now, for instance, purely coincidentally, since I don't buy makeup or watch sports on TV.
edw519 15y ago
<BabyBoomerRant> I love this post and I'll tell you why... I understand that my age puts me in the minority here at Hacker News, but anyone who has ever followed anything I've said here knows that I really believe that's just a detail, not a real issue...I don't care as much about who you are as what you do and how you treat others. I grew up in the U.S. in the 1960's and it was a very different time for all kinds of reasons. The biggest difference of all had little to do with money, technology, or superficial lifestyle; it had to do with state of mind. Like all young generations, we were confused and didn't understand why things were the way they were. So, with lots of energy and spare time, we took action... We protested, we marched, we did whatever we thought it took to affect change. We took the side of the oppressed: blacks, women, gays, the poor and homeless, the environment, and most of all, we protested an illegal and immoral war. We ended the war and we changed the world. It's great to see that some things haven't changed: young people still find a way to channel their resources to try to make things better, but here's the problem: All I see with this worldwide Occupy movement is people complaining, "Where's mine?" It seems like it's all about "me", not "us". That's why these SOPA protests are so refreshing to me. It's the first thing I've noticed in years that reminds me of my youth, not so much in action, but in spirit. People have taken a few minutes to stop worrying about themselves to do something about the greater good for all of us. But the spirit of modern times prevents us from doing enough. We will take action so long as it doesn't cost us too much. Where is the sacrifice? Where is the "put your money where your mouth is"? I love the way OP points this out. I'm proud of Wikipedia. Craigslist came close, forcing its users to work to get to their local pages. But too many, like Google, just wimped out. All their black banner said was, "We care, but not that much." Listen to OP! For just a few minutes, fuck the "stake holders", the "money managers", the "players", the "metrics", the "ROI", and the "bottom line". Can't we just once pretend that it's 1968, and stop giving a shit about ourselves long enough to realize that a couple of extra bucks today will soon be worthless in a world going to shit if we don't do something about it? Only when we demonstrate the passion that comes from true sacrifice will the "normals" really take notice. </BabyBoomerRant, TimeForMaalox>
- mkr-hn 15y ago
  The Occupy movement is about exactly the opposite of "me." It is primarily about the growing disparity in wealth and power, and how that disparity hurts everyone (including the 1%). A little disparity is fine. It gives us something to aspire to. Occupy's message is that the balance of wealth and power has shifted too far away from the reach of aspirations.
michaelfeathers 15y ago
Nice sentiment, but I think boycotts are way less effective than many of the alternatives he discards. In this system, you change a congressman's mind and there's only two ways to do that: pour on the outrage, or contribute more money. Tongue in cheek, I think there is another alternative: the tech industry could simply buy the movie companies. Some of them are certainly sitting on enough cash.
- twentysix 15y ago
  "In this system, you change a congressman's mind and there's only two ways to do that: pour on the outrage, or contribute more money." If by contributing more money to a congressman you can affect the outcome of legislation/laws made in a country, doesnt that mean there is something wrong with the system that resulted in such a situation ? Shouldn't that be addressed and solved first?
  - michaelfeathers 15y ago
    It would be nice. I was looking for most effect for the least amount of effort, but yes, fixing the system would be great.
  - antoko 15y ago
    Ultimately fixing the system is the way to go. I don't think the OP's boycotts would do ANYTHING to address that issue. As a short-term fix having tech giants throw money at politicians would probably be effective. However then the tech industry is one of the vested interests in NOT fixing the system because they're a big player in it... Kind of a catch-22
  - axylone 15y ago
    This. All this effort into stopping single pieces of legislation could be better directed into fixing the political system. Everyone knows that senators can be bought, but we still play the game and protest the legislation instead of the process causing the legislation. Why don't http://rootstrikers.org/ http://rootstrikers.org/ and Laurence Lessig get brought up in these discussions more?
brador 15y ago
Boycotts alone don't work. You need an alternative. Look, I NEED tissues. I don't mind buying a different brand, but I'm not going to boycott my tissue company without an alternative. Boycott lists, like averages without variance figures, are borderline useless. You need the other part (alternative) to make the boycott list actionable.
- infocaptor 15y ago
  I did create my list of things to avoid and some alternatives. Everyone needs to create their own list of alternatives and post it for others benefit https://plus.google.com/u/0/103713120145925411926/posts/CbLDnkVZCUm https://plus.google.com/u/0/103713120145925411926/posts/CbLD...
sethg 15y ago
One of the problems in the American political culture is that wealthy interests set the terms of the debate, and the mass media goes along with that frame of reference, which means that certain political perspectives are dismissed as not worth considering before they even make their case. The Occupy Wall Street protests and the “Internet strike” were both successful because they changed the terms of the debate. In the former case, the mass media, which had spent months obsessing over deficit deficit deficit, suddenly took notice of income inequality, and Romney’s Republican primary opponents started attacking him over his vulture-capitalist history. In the latter case, the fact that there was opposition to SOPA/PIPA, and that these opponents are not just “pirates”, finally became mainstream front-page news. These are not legislative victories in and of themselves, but they are significant. The proper reaction is not “in the big scheme of things this is a small victory, so don’t feel smug about it” but “in the big scheme of things this is a small victory, so let’s build on it to go on to bigger victories”. Rome wasn’t sacked in a day.
- carbocation 15y ago
  If we set the terms of the debate, we didn't do a great job. We protested an "anti-piracy bill" according to the paper of record. Surely those are the sponsors' terms...
mrcharles 15y ago
This is the best post on SOPA I've read yet, and it really highlights the only way anything will get done for real: A targeted and wide-spread boycott of SOPA supporting companies.
jerfelix 15y ago
I read all the way to the bottom, and got stumped by this statement in the footer: 256,026,015 people think stopping SOPA will change anything. What do you suppose that means? That he has 256M hits on this page? Is he missing a "not" in the sentence?
- batista 15y ago
  Maddox writes the footer's himself (check other pages in his blog). It's an arbitrary number he put up to make a point.
  - astine 15y ago
    He writes the descriptions, but the number is a hit counter. You'll notice that it increments over time.
  - Jem 15y ago
    It's not an arbitrary number - it is the hit count.
    - batista 15y ago
      The fact that it increments over time doesn't mean anything, he could use some server side script to randomly increment the value. Are we supposed to believe he has had 256,056,823 (current value) visitors to his one-day-up SOPA page? Or is it the aggregate for total visits to his site, ever?
      - Jem 15y ago
        There has always been a counter on his home page, so I'm guessing aggregate total visits over X period of time. The majority of his 'articles' have one. Of course, he could just randomly increment the value using a script, but Maddox has been around a long time (I've been reading his site on and off for around 10 years) so I doubt he has need to.
brudgers 15y ago
The problem with boycotts is that they perpetuate the same logic which led to SOPA - that people are consumers before they are citizens and that the persons who matter politically are corporate, not flesh and blood.
- nooneelse 15y ago
  Indeed. Sure I vote with my wallet, but I don't see why that means I shouldn't also vote with, you know, my vote. Or speak with my voice.
tytso 15y ago
The reality is that you need both. Getting 4.5 million people to sing the anti-SOPA/PIPA petition and blacking out Wikipedia to so that lots of users notice is part of getting them to wake up. It's not everything, by all means. You also need to have smart people who are playing the inside game, which means donating money to organizations who can play the Washington D.C influence game. Yes, it's dirty; yes, you will have to compromise from time to time, including donating $17,000 to Lamar Smith over six years (although to be fair the last donation was a year before Smith started working on SOPA, and it's nothing compared to the $94 million dollars the pro-Internet-Censorship forces poured into trying to buy this legislation). No question, the sausage making factory is ugly; but like the patent system, sometimes you have to play the game with the current set of rules, even as you work to try to change the rules. (Which is why companies like Red Hat and Google are filing software patents.) So the big question is: what have you done on both fronts? Yes, anti-SOPA blackouts for the day are not effective, at least not as a standalone thing. But have you donated to the EFF? If you work for a computer/internet company, have you urged them to set up a PAC to try to influence legislation in Washington in the correct direction? And then have you donated to that PAC? I've personally donated to both the EFF and Google NetPAC. If you haven't done these things yet, today, the day after the anti-SOPA protests, is a great day to start. By the way, if you think fighting SOPA is hard, just do a bit of research how much money big pharma could pour into defending the patent system as it exists today. If we all aren't pushing to make sure there are lobbyists working just as hard to influence legislators in the other direction, patent reform doesn't have a prayer.
infocaptor 15y ago
Great post - more action oriented. I created my own list of things to avoid using the above list of companies. Everyone create their own list and post it on your blog, facebook, google plus https://plus.google.com/u/0/103713120145925411926/posts/CbLDnkVZCUm https://plus.google.com/u/0/103713120145925411926/posts/CbLD...
shn 15y ago
Most of the societies of today are broken, and western countries lead the way. Deep individualism and consumerism (I spend therefore I am) is the cause of the current state of the affairs however these are also result of weak communities and bond between people. The societies of old times that is belittled by modern man had much stronger bonds among themselves. Although today's current communication means help spread the word to some extent but unfortunately most are filtering the real issues. Although internet gave a bit of hope that these filters could be subverted but legislations like SOPA, which I believe many look a likes will follow, unfortunately will smother free speech (take the most broader possible definition) eventually. Countries under dictatorships easily squash it but in "free" world it is censored by ignoring it. Why and how? Concentration of wealth to a few. I don't blame them because it is nature of things, they seek perpetuating their rule. You can argue on some fact stated in the article, however it is irrelevant. The gist of this article is that the lack of inaction, conformism, and individualism cost societies a lot. 5K+ US soldiers, 1M+ iraqi citizens died for a bomb that did not exist (that is how they sold the war to you and then they mocked about it). How could this have happened in a "free" and "democratic" society. Anyone care to explain? How could a moron like George Bush could be elected in the first place in a country like US anyway? I am sorry but he is right, as long as we are who we are SOPA, PIPA and other legislations with alphabet soup names will follow and tire you.
resdirector 15y ago
Don't suppose someone could write a chrome plugin to block the sites he's listed as supporting SOPA? I can't remember the list off the top of my head and I do want to make an effort not to buy anything from them ever again. I suspect many other people are the same, which reduces the effectiveness of the boycott.
davcro 15y ago
I don't think protesting these companies is a good long term solution. We need a protect DNS act or anti-censorship bill. Big tech has more money and power than hollywood. They should lobby more aggressively.
j_baker 15y ago
I'm calling contrarianism. The fundamental premise behind this article is flawed. Things get worse without getting better all the time. We still have the Patriot act, the DMCA, the Copyright Term Extension Act, ACTA, etc. Make no mistake about it, if SOPA passes, it will be with us for a long, long time. I hate to break it to Maddox, but the current situation is nothing new. I think our founding fathers would smile to see what is happening around SOPA, because it's exactly what they designed our system of government for. We have to remain ever vigilant to protect our freedoms from whoever wants to take them. Because if we don't, our freedoms will be taken away.
haydenevans 15y ago
Maddox is still relevant?

569 points by CWIZO 15y ago

> There are a number of publishers on this list, including my own publisher. If the consensus I get from readers is that we should boycott publishers, I'll support the boycott even though it hurts me. As much of an asshole as he is, I've always respected the guy for his shocking lack of hypocrisy. If movie producers had the decency to make this kind of public stand, things might be different.

vezycash 15y ago

What is a Permanent solution to this stuff?

necolas 15y ago
You might find Lawrence Lessig's talk at Google interesting: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc However, the article suggests that if some terrible legislation passed it would ignite people into real action. That clearly failed to happen when the Patriot Act was passed. I'm sure there are many more examples. If the discourse surrounding legislation convinces enough people not to care (or fails to make it into wider public awareness), then there doesn't seem to be much standing in its way.
rjd 15y ago
Exactly what Maddox suggests, don't buy their products. This is about counterfeit goods, and access to cheap competition. Its nothing but building protectionist markets, the same ones most western nations have been fighting for the last hundred years because they entrap people, prevent competition, cause monopolies, and abuse customers. Its against the free markets, which (problems of market abuse aside) is getting money into developing economies and helping people. Its a great step backwards world economics and trade. So hit them where it hurts, they are obviously scared of the new markets enough to try and outlaw them. Take 30 minutes out of your day to write a letter to a company and explain to them you are disgusted, they have lost a customer, and you will from now on buy counterfeit goods instead of theirs. I will be doing my part by downloading all the mp3s I want, I'll go see the shows in person to make sure the artists get there dues, and I'll wait to see these middle men slowly fade... but I'm sure we are only about to see fireworks start, theres going to be some big noise as some of these guys go down.
- sethg 15y ago
  I am generally skeptical of boycotts as a political tactic, because if the boycotts aren’t large enough to make a significant dent on the target company’s revenues, the effect is just noise. The Walt Disney company is grossing about $40 billion a year. How many people need to swear off buying Disney products, for how long, before the company even notices?
  - rjd 15y ago
    TBH companies aren't the problem. Companies are mindless automatons that act in one single purpose (to make money). Even people trying to change the world have to be money first to fund secondary projects. So the behaviour is expected, the real problem is the political system and the legalised corrupt behaviour. Maddox is correct, things are going to have to get worse. You need massive public anger to change what is essentially a few tiny aspects of how politicians deal with lobbyist, they are just gaming the system, they don't care if laws pass or don't as they get money either way, tonnes of it. The more ridiculous the law, the more money the get to push it. Tackle that issue and you'll liberate the whole country. So you need to get people mad, how you do that is up to you guys as I don't live in America, I just watch from the side lines shaking my head.
wisty 15y ago
Create mini congresses for subcommittees. For stuff that's absolutely massive, Congress does a relatively good job of threshing out the issues. They have real debates in the public eye. For smaller issues, it's farmed out to subcommittees, who put the legislation together in back-rooms, usually after "discussing the issue with relavant stakeholders". It would be to slow to do everything in Congress (that's why they have the subcommittees), but they could prepare the legislation in a much more transparent member. The members wouldn't like it, but that's their problem. You could also require that bills are only valid if they are well described by their titles. So, you couldn't call stuff "Stop Online Piracy Act" unless you were willing to have in knocked down in the Supreme Court for having a silly name.
fleitz 15y ago
Form a group, pick a person in a 'safe' seat, preferably a senator as those are pretty much the safest seats out there, and get them unelected over this issue. Ensure the issue gets media coverage as to your group. Anything else will do pretty much nothing. In two years get someone else unelected. Diane Feinstein would be a perfect target, she represents the valley, has been in the Senate forever, and won the last election by a HUGE margin. If you could get her unelected you would put everyone else on notice. The reality of the situation is that this won't happen. There is no permanent solution because everything is triangulated and marketed so well that it's virtually impossible to change it. People pass this legislation because no one cares and whatever negative ads get run during the 30 days before the election matter far more than anything else and quite frankly most people will be more upset about THEIR pet issue than YOUR pet issue. If you could get Google or Wikipedia, etc to focus solely on getting ONE person unelected then it would show clout. But they won't because it would cause such a shitstorm of unimaginable proportions because 1/3 of their user base votes for her party no matter what they do, and 1/3 dislikes both parties and something about keeping politics free from corporate influence, which is something both parties agree on unless that influence comes in the form of campaign contributions, PACs, lobbyists, etc. You've got a political system in which no one cares about habeas corpus. If they don't care about that then they aren't going to give a shit about dismantling the internet. Bread and circuses my friend.
- gee_totes 15y ago
  Well, this is a "democracy" (in irony quotes), so there's no permanent solution to anything, as there will always be elections. Perhaps a better and more sustainable solution would to galvanize this energy around SOPA into a culture of activism. After calling our senators and representatives, we should move on to talking the media and call them out when they broadcast misleading statements from the MPAA/RIAA (like the oft-cited $770 billion(!) lost to piracy every year). This would help us build a base. Also, this fatalist attitude of things doing nothing is a) wrong and b) just gives you an excuse to give up. For example, remember the anti-war protests during 2003? Those were the LARGEST PROTESTS IN HISTORY. Yet they did not to stop the war. Luckily, everyone did not adopt the attitude of "protests do nothing, we need to do X". And those who did adopt the "protests do nothing, we need to do X" attitude were proved wrong yesterday. We did something yesterday. While it did not go as far a some people hoped, we did do something. And that is a victory we can build on.
derefr 15y ago
At minimum, a patch to the legislative system that requires actual voters' opinions (and not just lobbyist voters, but rather a statistically-random sampling) somewhere along the track to getting bills passed, even if it's just as a veto. Preferably, though, a more complete restructuring of the legislative system that more tightly constricts what an individual bill can do (so nothing can be "tacked on" to anything else), requires that bills expire and must be re-evaluated after some period, and perhaps enables something equivalent to the "double-jeapordy" condition of the judicial system, where once a bill has been rejected for containing particular offensive clauses, no bill may then be introduced from then on if it contains those clauses or anything which would be equivalent in effect to them.
- jka 15y ago
  Small comment - actual voters' opinions isn't necessarily enough, if voters aren't informed about the actual consequences/implications of the legislation. When SOPA came up in discussion recently amongst a few folks I was talking to, as soon as they heard the full spoken name of the bill - 'Stop Online Piracy Act' - they began to put their support behind it. That's how quickly and easily opinions can be formed - it took some calm and open discussion before they began to even consider it as a potential gray area.
  - aprescott 15y ago
    That's a disheartening story. "You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing — that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something." — Richard Feynman I guess the effect you're describing could've been multiplied if SOPA had been a backronym too. "USA PATRIOT Act? How could that be bad! Just look at its name!"
  - TylerE 15y ago
    I wonder (seriously) if banning names for bills wouldn't be a bad idea. No more cutesy names or names that are a blantant sympathy ploy ("Rachels's Law", or whatever). Just make them refer to it as HR3415 or whatever the actual designation is.
mikehuffman 15y ago
There will be no permanent solution that works for "the people". Think about it, throughout history when a sufficiently powerful or profitable medium of information exchange has arisen (think radio, television, phones, mail), the govt. at the behest of rich corporations has legislated it. Every single time! Laws are first passed to "curb criminal elements", which is what we are seeing now, then a few years down the road laws will be passed to allow the activity with prescribed limits...imagine Internet permits. Then, finally, tax money will subsidize the actual sell of the medium to large corporations to dole out in prescribed amounts to the public...for a fee. This is how it is and how it will be.
jedbrown 15y ago
I think that changing the campaign funding model to small dollar amounts would make a significant difference. See http://rootstrikers.org http://rootstrikers.org and Lessig's interview with Jon Stewart (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-13-2011/exclusive---lawrence-lessig-extended-interview-pt--1 http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-13-2011/exclu..., http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-13-2011/exclusive---lawrence-lessig-extended-interview-pt--2 http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-13-2011/exclu...).
exDM69 15y ago
Vote with your wallet. Stop buying or consuming content from the IP mafia and convince others to do so. Don't buy records, especially don't listen to Spotify (all the money goes directly to the record labels, etc, almost none to the artists), don't go to the movie theater or buy movies, stop watching TV. The money you give (directly or indirectly through ads) to the MAFIAA racket will be spent on lobbying counterproductive laws. And then stop pirating that stuff, so you won't be a part of the statistics that are given to the politicians to convince that piracy is harmful. Sounds difficult? Maybe. I did this, I stopped watching TV in 1999, going to the movies in 2001 and listening to music in 2006. The content I would have wanted wasn't (and still isn't) available at a price and terms that I could accept, so I don't want it. Not that I paid for the media I consumed, I pirated most of the stuff. But I don't want to be a part of the piracy statistics to give excuses for killing the internet. I still enjoy music, though. Maybe even more now that I'm not constantly listening to it so the rare occasion when I do hear music, it sounds better. I do allow myself exceptions every now and then but most of the time I don't consume MAFIAA products or feel like I'm missing anything.
nazgulnarsil 15y ago
monarchy. until a democracy attacks you.

runn1ng 15y ago

This is a stupid article. He first explains how protests are meaningless, because not enough people do them, and then proposes.... protest, by boycotting almost everything.

skrebbel 15y ago
Yeah, because identifying the core of a problem and trying to do something about it makes you a hypocrite.
philh 15y ago
> He first explains how protests are meaningless He's talking about protests like "changing my profile picture". > because not enough people do them I don't remember him saying that. > boycotting almost everything. He proposes boycotting a few companies, and gives a list of possibilities.
cheald 15y ago
He's raging against slacktivism, and advocating for real activisim. Punch supporting companies in the wallet and get supporting congressmen unelected. He's right.
oflannabhra 15y ago
Did you read anything he said? While there's a lot of bluster to filter through, his points were more something like the following: 1) Americans want to "protest" by doing things that don't cost them their comfort. 2) We are (successfully) protesting SOPA/PIPA, but the real problem is not the legislation. The problem is how the legislation got created (companies lobbying Congress, and Congressmen acting solely in those companies best interest). 3) In light of 1) and 2), we should use what power we do have as consumers and voters to prevent such legislation from being created again. While we can debate the merits and effectiveness of boycotts, or voting, let's try not to strawman the article.
dwyer 15y ago
Protests and boycotts are not necessarily the same thing. History has shown that protests are usually ineffective. I believe however that boycotts can be effective, because essentially you're speaking with your wallet, and money talks, and unfortunately it's the only thing some people will listen to.

deno 15y ago

Does anyone else feel like they can predict what Maddox will say about any particular issue at this point? http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metacontrarianism/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metaco... BTW. The same could be said about DMCA, when it was passing. It just made everyone used to even more abuse.

ChrisLTD 15y ago
"The same could be said about DMCA, when it was passing. It just made everyone used to even more abuse." Bingo. Stopping legislation before it gets passed is the way to go. It's extremely difficult to get laws rescinded or overridden. And what would make anyone think a few websites getting taken down by the Feds would cause some sort of massive street protest? Our government has done some awful things in the last ten years involving war, torture and civil liberties and most people couldn't care less. Even when there were massive protests over Iraq, they were ignored.

Newgy 15y ago

At least two of the legislators on his target list have renounced support for SOPA: Dennis A. Ross (R-FL) Lee Terry (R-NE)

ericflo 15y ago
It doesn't matter. That was his whole point.
biot 15y ago
And Petzl claims to have never supported SOPA: http://www.petzl.com/us/outdoor/news-2/2011/12/22/petzl-americas-stance-sopa-and-protect-ip http://www.petzl.com/us/outdoor/news-2/2011/12/22/petzl-amer...

guelo 15y ago

I never thought I'd see the day that Maddox was on the front page of HN. With the redditization now complete pg should bring back the display of the comment scores since it obviously didn't help preserve whatever it was that he was trying to preserve.

lusr 15y ago
What exactly is your disagreement with the content of the article?
CWIZO 15y ago
Regardless of what you think of him and his articles this one simply deserves to be here. It makes a lot of sense and IMO he hit the nail on the head with what he is proposing. It's not productive to discriminate against someone simply because he is known to publish controversial stuff. ps: I submitted this and I'm not a reddit user ;)

ZeroMinx 15y ago

Not sure what this does on HN. Perhaps people don't know Maddox? Here's an old classic where he's judge art work done by other kids on the internet; http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=irule http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=irule Random hate mail; http://maddox.xmission.com/hatemail.cgi?p=1 http://maddox.xmission.com/hatemail.cgi?p=1

masklinn 15y ago
> Not sure what this does on HN. It's SOPA week, and his essay is pretty on-point and insightful? He's not the only one who expressed the thought contained in TFA either, for what it's worth. In fact, it's much more insightful than the masturbatory "13 reps have now stopped saying they're for SOPA (but would still vote for it or a variation of it if faced with the bill) the internet won!" we're facing today. In fact, he ends his rant with a call-to-action not unlike Reddit's Godaddy call. Only part which bothers me is that he calls for boycotting "two or three", and gives a big list of 50+ companies with little direction.

jorisw 15y ago

You really should read all of it before commenting on it. His point is that stopping SOPA is meaningless because it will simply be tried again. "It has to get worse before it gets better".

tintin 15y ago
No it is not. His point is: get to the root of the problem. And he notices that it has to get worse before people understand this. I totally agree with him. It's like the bugs get fixed, shitty lasts forever. Most of the time fixing a bug means getting tot the root of the problem.
- ahel 15y ago
  I think that the root of the problem is not that generic "people" are unaware of anything(in this case that SOPA ). I think that the problem is money in politics through lobbyists, they sustain at the top of the hierarchy the corporations' will against what common sense wants or even urges.
tommorris 15y ago
Stopping SOPA isn't meaningless. Hopefully it'll give people pause before they try again. But, yes, Americans, you desperately need to fix your money-in-politics problem. That's the underlying issue for all this shit.
michaelfeathers 15y ago
The sad thing is, it's much harder to undo legislation than to pass it.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

gnufied 15y ago

I thought Apple withdrew support for SOPA?

lukifer 15y ago
They've been eerily silent on the matter. They also have content deals with pretty much all the major companies pushing for SOPA/PIPA.
- tjogin 15y ago
  It isn't eerie when Apple is silent.
logn 15y ago
I don't think they ever (explicitly) supported it. The Business Software Alliance did which they're a member of so guilt by assoc. They did announce public opposition.
tjogin 15y ago
I don't think Apple ever did support SOPA. BSA did, of which Apple is a member, and BSA withdrew their support.
- gnufied 15y ago
  yeah remember Apple & Microsoft threatening to cancel their membership, in light of SOPA support of BSA. Wondering, why is Apple on Maddox list though.
  - 5l 15y ago
    Do you have a reference for this?

onedewd 15y ago

So much efforts to stop law proposal X. Which is great. What about the idea of a Open-USA or other Open-Iran where a true Meta-Democracy or whatever open society model is implemented where all efforts would be PRO something instead of hateful stuff like protesting. This laws are proposed by lobbies that go against the interest of 99% of the persons. How is that even conceivable ? All this big companies opposing could create a github project for open government and then elect a person that implements that.

guelo 15y ago

What Maddox doesn't seem to understand is that "raising awareness" is the only way you win these battles long term in a democracy. For example, gay marriage is slowly becoming a reality because over the last 20 years gays have opened people's eyes to their plight. Once a cause becomes a moral issue for most Americans it wins. But most people have no idea what us tech geeks are bitching about so we have to educate them about our causes. And that is exactly what yesterday was about.

irishcoffee 15y ago
This may upset people, but in my humble opinion, gay marriage has been a pawn used by DC for political gain. Raising awareness worked because DC figured out a way to twist it into a campaign talking point. Makes me sick.
- elmindreda 15y ago
  That's true of every issue that has succeeded without the backing of a powerful lobby. The same thing can happen here.
- dhimes 15y ago
  Honestly, on that issue I don't think it happened that way. They were doing great with stem cell research and abortion- especially late-term. In fact, I frankly think gay marriage took DC by surprise. At first it was, "Oh, that's just Massachusetts. I'm surprised California doesn't have it." And then they realized it was a "serious" issue. My personal perspective, having lived in the DC area most of my life and moving to MA shortly after (or was it just before? I don't remember), is that yeah, I was a little worried about how to explain it to my young kids. Turned out not to matter. I personally don't think the government should give a rat's ass who you love.
  - tluyben2 15y ago
    Explain what to your young kids? People loving eachother should be allowed together or why your government is sometimes quite insane? I would think the second one is more of a worry to explain to your young kids... But dad, why do we live here if you think 'those morons cannot do anything right'? :)

erkin_unlu 15y ago

he is right but not complete, its not the fault with your senators or representatives, its about the system that feeds the so called democracy. We must learn why the companies are so interested in politics and what they gain from these bills like this one.

mike-cardwell 15y ago

Can anyone back up his comment about recycling with any indisputable or at least convincing evidence/statistics? "Even if you, your neighbors, and everyone you've ever met recycled everything and reduced your waste output to zero, it wouldn't even make an observable impact on overall waste production in the world. Household waste and garden residue account for less than 3% of all waste produced in the US. That's less than the average statistical margin of error, and most people don't even come close to producing zero waste." I've always suspected that this is correct, but I'd like to be able to back that up with some evidence.

xlpz 15y ago
I've seen some estimates saying that the total percentage of waste coming from households can be as lows as 2%, depending on how you count. For example, this cites an EPA study: http://www.zerowasteamerica.org/Statistics.htm http://www.zerowasteamerica.org/Statistics.htm The same page mentions a higher bound of 20%, but in any case it seems reasonably well established that the vast majority of the waste produced (at least in the US) comes from the manufacturing/industrial process itself, not from households. A book that goes into quite a bit of detail about this is "Gone tomorrow" by Heather Rogers.
- morsch 15y ago
  Huh. Looking at statistics from Germany, the total waste is seperated into four categories: waste from building demolition and construction, waste from industrial processes, waste from mining, waste from private households and offices. Waste from demolition and construction makes up more than half of the total waste, the remaining three categories are split about evenly. I'm surprised that the construction waste is that high. Apart from that, it seems that manufacturing and construction waste is less dominant over here than it is in the US. Odd! Maybe I'm reading the numbers wrong or they're counting really differently. FWIW, Wikipedia says that the per capita waste amount is about 500 kg, referring to just the category of private households/offices I assume. Ref: http://www.bmu.de/files/pdfs/allgemein/application/pdf/abfallaufkommen_2008.pdf http://www.bmu.de/files/pdfs/allgemein/application/pdf/abfal... (German)
- 15y ago

llambda 15y ago

Maddox is a polemicist. He actively enjoys and cultivates such a persona and to what end? It seems to me his goal is to play devil's advocate as a kind of link bait. What I've seen of his work is pointedly provocative in an intentionally non-PC way. However I don't feel that simply being clever, and holding points of view that are seemingly diametrically opposed to the mainstream, is actually an effective way to effect change. For instance, in this particular article, Maddox claims that we need a "spark to light the lazy tinder". There is here an implicated false dichotomy where either some draconian legislation passes, e.g. SOPA, and everyone "wakes up" or no other efforts will prove progressive. I don't buy it. In fact, I don't buy any argument that makes the claim that due to the current state of political economy we are unable to see the kinds of changes we want without total and complete revolution. I feel it's absurd to dismiss efforts such as yesterday's which net results that include some 13 new senators opposing the bills.

math_is_life 15y ago
He is being very blunt, but what he is saying rings true because none of this is a long-term solution. These are baby steps and soon enough it will lose this momentum and get passed someway. People could boycott and hurt companies with what matter the most, but most people do not seem to be willing to do this because it inconvenience them. I can see how NDAA got passed, but when it comes to the internet, you would think that most of these sites would be boycotting. If this can't spark boycotts than I have no idea what will.
BudVVeezer 15y ago
His point was "opposing the bills today." We'll have to do the same song and dance again in the very near future because the ignorance behind SOPA/PIPA isn't going away. So yes, we won the battle, but not the war, so to speak.
- nooneelse 15y ago
  The solution to that isn't to not fight now in hopes that more people join later in outrage. It is to use current success to push the debate onto the opponents' turf. Counter the lobbying to (over)extend copyright protection schemes with lobbying to reduce them (more narrowly tailor them), which easily reads as increasing individual freedom and the scope of the public domain. Push back.

perfunctory 15y ago

This is the best piece of writing about SOPA so far.

drunkenmasta 15y ago

I first came across xmission.com back in 2004. I was immediately struck by his writing style. I always aspire to be as fearless and concise as Maddox is. Just look at his range of knowledge, he is able to write well on a variety of topics. (Applause)

nluqo 15y ago

Most of the calls to boycott companies seem pretty poorly organized (even this article is just a list on some guy's website, albeit one with moderate internet popularity). What about an app entirely dedicated to organizing boycotts? Users would suggest and vote on issues and companies to boycott. The end result would be detailed guides on which products/service to avoid along with alternatives. The site would only highlight one issue at a time to maximize the effect. I've been toying with the idea for a while (there are plenty of sites/apps built around single issues, but I've only found one site that does what I've described... though poorly implemented: http://www.boycottowl.com/ http://www.boycottowl.com/ ).

Terretta 15y ago

It's unfortunate that the companies he outlines to boycott (the ones marked in yellow) are the ones with the most legitimate complaints about counterfeiting. The word "piracy" is unfortunate, mixing up Hollywood's complaints about bit-for-bit originals being available, and, for example, Chanel's complaint about fake Chanel being manufactured and sold "mail-order" online through offshore commerce sites. Chanel and the like do need (but already have) protection by the law against counterfeit sales. They don't have a right to be protected for legacy distribution models. For example, Chanel shouldn't have a right to a law that says since existing Chanel stores only ship UPS Ground, any store shipping FedEx Overnight should be taken offline. A bill for "Stop Counterfeiting" would be better focused on the actual problem, instead of stigmatizing the medium or channel ("online").

Roboprog 15y ago
I was wondering why there were so many manufacturing companies and a couple of drug stores on his list. What's the dog in the fight???
- zecho 15y ago
  Petzl clarified their stance when the list first came out: http://www.petzl.com/us/outdoor/news-2/2011/12/22/petzl-americas-stance-sopa-and-protect-ip http://www.petzl.com/us/outdoor/news-2/2011/12/22/petzl-amer...
a1k0n 15y ago
He isn't necessarily saying that the yellow ones are the ones to target, just that they're easiest to boycott. I am boycotting all of them right now, for instance, purely coincidentally, since I don't buy makeup or watch sports on TV.

edw519 15y ago

<BabyBoomerRant> I love this post and I'll tell you why... I understand that my age puts me in the minority here at Hacker News, but anyone who has ever followed anything I've said here knows that I really believe that's just a detail, not a real issue...I don't care as much about who you are as what you do and how you treat others. I grew up in the U.S. in the 1960's and it was a very different time for all kinds of reasons. The biggest difference of all had little to do with money, technology, or superficial lifestyle; it had to do with state of mind. Like all young generations, we were confused and didn't understand why things were the way they were. So, with lots of energy and spare time, we took action... We protested, we marched, we did whatever we thought it took to affect change. We took the side of the oppressed: blacks, women, gays, the poor and homeless, the environment, and most of all, we protested an illegal and immoral war. We ended the war and we changed the world. It's great to see that some things haven't changed: young people still find a way to channel their resources to try to make things better, but here's the problem: All I see with this worldwide Occupy movement is people complaining, "Where's mine?" It seems like it's all about "me", not "us". That's why these SOPA protests are so refreshing to me. It's the first thing I've noticed in years that reminds me of my youth, not so much in action, but in spirit. People have taken a few minutes to stop worrying about themselves to do something about the greater good for all of us. But the spirit of modern times prevents us from doing enough. We will take action so long as it doesn't cost us too much. Where is the sacrifice? Where is the "put your money where your mouth is"? I love the way OP points this out. I'm proud of Wikipedia. Craigslist came close, forcing its users to work to get to their local pages. But too many, like Google, just wimped out. All their black banner said was, "We care, but not that much." Listen to OP! For just a few minutes, fuck the "stake holders", the "money managers", the "players", the "metrics", the "ROI", and the "bottom line". Can't we just once pretend that it's 1968, and stop giving a shit about ourselves long enough to realize that a couple of extra bucks today will soon be worthless in a world going to shit if we don't do something about it? Only when we demonstrate the passion that comes from true sacrifice will the "normals" really take notice. </BabyBoomerRant, TimeForMaalox>

mkr-hn 15y ago
The Occupy movement is about exactly the opposite of "me." It is primarily about the growing disparity in wealth and power, and how that disparity hurts everyone (including the 1%). A little disparity is fine. It gives us something to aspire to. Occupy's message is that the balance of wealth and power has shifted too far away from the reach of aspirations.

michaelfeathers 15y ago

Nice sentiment, but I think boycotts are way less effective than many of the alternatives he discards. In this system, you change a congressman's mind and there's only two ways to do that: pour on the outrage, or contribute more money. Tongue in cheek, I think there is another alternative: the tech industry could simply buy the movie companies. Some of them are certainly sitting on enough cash.

twentysix 15y ago
"In this system, you change a congressman's mind and there's only two ways to do that: pour on the outrage, or contribute more money." If by contributing more money to a congressman you can affect the outcome of legislation/laws made in a country, doesnt that mean there is something wrong with the system that resulted in such a situation ? Shouldn't that be addressed and solved first?
- michaelfeathers 15y ago
  It would be nice. I was looking for most effect for the least amount of effort, but yes, fixing the system would be great.
- antoko 15y ago
  Ultimately fixing the system is the way to go. I don't think the OP's boycotts would do ANYTHING to address that issue. As a short-term fix having tech giants throw money at politicians would probably be effective. However then the tech industry is one of the vested interests in NOT fixing the system because they're a big player in it... Kind of a catch-22
- axylone 15y ago
  This. All this effort into stopping single pieces of legislation could be better directed into fixing the political system. Everyone knows that senators can be bought, but we still play the game and protest the legislation instead of the process causing the legislation. Why don't http://rootstrikers.org/ http://rootstrikers.org/ and Laurence Lessig get brought up in these discussions more?

brador 15y ago

Boycotts alone don't work. You need an alternative. Look, I NEED tissues. I don't mind buying a different brand, but I'm not going to boycott my tissue company without an alternative. Boycott lists, like averages without variance figures, are borderline useless. You need the other part (alternative) to make the boycott list actionable.

infocaptor 15y ago
I did create my list of things to avoid and some alternatives. Everyone needs to create their own list of alternatives and post it for others benefit https://plus.google.com/u/0/103713120145925411926/posts/CbLDnkVZCUm https://plus.google.com/u/0/103713120145925411926/posts/CbLD...

sethg 15y ago

One of the problems in the American political culture is that wealthy interests set the terms of the debate, and the mass media goes along with that frame of reference, which means that certain political perspectives are dismissed as not worth considering before they even make their case. The Occupy Wall Street protests and the “Internet strike” were both successful because they changed the terms of the debate. In the former case, the mass media, which had spent months obsessing over deficit deficit deficit, suddenly took notice of income inequality, and Romney’s Republican primary opponents started attacking him over his vulture-capitalist history. In the latter case, the fact that there was opposition to SOPA/PIPA, and that these opponents are not just “pirates”, finally became mainstream front-page news. These are not legislative victories in and of themselves, but they are significant. The proper reaction is not “in the big scheme of things this is a small victory, so don’t feel smug about it” but “in the big scheme of things this is a small victory, so let’s build on it to go on to bigger victories”. Rome wasn’t sacked in a day.

carbocation 15y ago
If we set the terms of the debate, we didn't do a great job. We protested an "anti-piracy bill" according to the paper of record. Surely those are the sponsors' terms...

mrcharles 15y ago

This is the best post on SOPA I've read yet, and it really highlights the only way anything will get done for real: A targeted and wide-spread boycott of SOPA supporting companies.

jerfelix 15y ago

I read all the way to the bottom, and got stumped by this statement in the footer: 256,026,015 people think stopping SOPA will change anything. What do you suppose that means? That he has 256M hits on this page? Is he missing a "not" in the sentence?

batista 15y ago
Maddox writes the footer's himself (check other pages in his blog). It's an arbitrary number he put up to make a point.
- astine 15y ago
  He writes the descriptions, but the number is a hit counter. You'll notice that it increments over time.
- Jem 15y ago
  It's not an arbitrary number - it is the hit count.
  - batista 15y ago
    The fact that it increments over time doesn't mean anything, he could use some server side script to randomly increment the value. Are we supposed to believe he has had 256,056,823 (current value) visitors to his one-day-up SOPA page? Or is it the aggregate for total visits to his site, ever?
    - Jem 15y ago
      There has always been a counter on his home page, so I'm guessing aggregate total visits over X period of time. The majority of his 'articles' have one. Of course, he could just randomly increment the value using a script, but Maddox has been around a long time (I've been reading his site on and off for around 10 years) so I doubt he has need to.

brudgers 15y ago

The problem with boycotts is that they perpetuate the same logic which led to SOPA - that people are consumers before they are citizens and that the persons who matter politically are corporate, not flesh and blood.

nooneelse 15y ago
Indeed. Sure I vote with my wallet, but I don't see why that means I shouldn't also vote with, you know, my vote. Or speak with my voice.

tytso 15y ago

The reality is that you need both. Getting 4.5 million people to sing the anti-SOPA/PIPA petition and blacking out Wikipedia to so that lots of users notice is part of getting them to wake up. It's not everything, by all means. You also need to have smart people who are playing the inside game, which means donating money to organizations who can play the Washington D.C influence game. Yes, it's dirty; yes, you will have to compromise from time to time, including donating $17,000 to Lamar Smith over six years (although to be fair the last donation was a year before Smith started working on SOPA, and it's nothing compared to the $94 million dollars the pro-Internet-Censorship forces poured into trying to buy this legislation). No question, the sausage making factory is ugly; but like the patent system, sometimes you have to play the game with the current set of rules, even as you work to try to change the rules. (Which is why companies like Red Hat and Google are filing software patents.) So the big question is: what have you done on both fronts? Yes, anti-SOPA blackouts for the day are not effective, at least not as a standalone thing. But have you donated to the EFF? If you work for a computer/internet company, have you urged them to set up a PAC to try to influence legislation in Washington in the correct direction? And then have you donated to that PAC? I've personally donated to both the EFF and Google NetPAC. If you haven't done these things yet, today, the day after the anti-SOPA protests, is a great day to start. By the way, if you think fighting SOPA is hard, just do a bit of research how much money big pharma could pour into defending the patent system as it exists today. If we all aren't pushing to make sure there are lobbyists working just as hard to influence legislators in the other direction, patent reform doesn't have a prayer.

infocaptor 15y ago

Great post - more action oriented. I created my own list of things to avoid using the above list of companies. Everyone create their own list and post it on your blog, facebook, google plus https://plus.google.com/u/0/103713120145925411926/posts/CbLDnkVZCUm https://plus.google.com/u/0/103713120145925411926/posts/CbLD...

shn 15y ago

Most of the societies of today are broken, and western countries lead the way. Deep individualism and consumerism (I spend therefore I am) is the cause of the current state of the affairs however these are also result of weak communities and bond between people. The societies of old times that is belittled by modern man had much stronger bonds among themselves. Although today's current communication means help spread the word to some extent but unfortunately most are filtering the real issues. Although internet gave a bit of hope that these filters could be subverted but legislations like SOPA, which I believe many look a likes will follow, unfortunately will smother free speech (take the most broader possible definition) eventually. Countries under dictatorships easily squash it but in "free" world it is censored by ignoring it. Why and how? Concentration of wealth to a few. I don't blame them because it is nature of things, they seek perpetuating their rule. You can argue on some fact stated in the article, however it is irrelevant. The gist of this article is that the lack of inaction, conformism, and individualism cost societies a lot. 5K+ US soldiers, 1M+ iraqi citizens died for a bomb that did not exist (that is how they sold the war to you and then they mocked about it). How could this have happened in a "free" and "democratic" society. Anyone care to explain? How could a moron like George Bush could be elected in the first place in a country like US anyway? I am sorry but he is right, as long as we are who we are SOPA, PIPA and other legislations with alphabet soup names will follow and tire you.

resdirector 15y ago

Don't suppose someone could write a chrome plugin to block the sites he's listed as supporting SOPA? I can't remember the list off the top of my head and I do want to make an effort not to buy anything from them ever again. I suspect many other people are the same, which reduces the effectiveness of the boycott.

davcro 15y ago

I don't think protesting these companies is a good long term solution. We need a protect DNS act or anti-censorship bill. Big tech has more money and power than hollywood. They should lobby more aggressively.

j_baker 15y ago

I'm calling contrarianism. The fundamental premise behind this article is flawed. Things get worse without getting better all the time. We still have the Patriot act, the DMCA, the Copyright Term Extension Act, ACTA, etc. Make no mistake about it, if SOPA passes, it will be with us for a long, long time. I hate to break it to Maddox, but the current situation is nothing new. I think our founding fathers would smile to see what is happening around SOPA, because it's exactly what they designed our system of government for. We have to remain ever vigilant to protect our freedoms from whoever wants to take them. Because if we don't, our freedoms will be taken away.

haydenevans 15y ago

Maddox is still relevant?