4 ms·

It's just politics... Replace "open internet" with "land" and imagine countries (ie people) are attempting to block others access to some resource. It was naive

by Rury 2y ago

It's just politics... Replace "open internet" with "land" and imagine countries (ie people) are attempting to block others access to some resource. It was naive to assume that the internet wouldn't adhere the nature of our reality.

ziofill 2y ago
That’s not a fair comparison: land is finite in a way that the open internet isn’t.
- shnock 2y ago
  Human attention and energy is relatively limited though, and the medium of the Internet and its control is just for that
- pahbloo 2y ago
  In fact, the most valuable resource on the internet is finite: atention with the possibility of influence those who give it to you. This is already a question of national security.
- lolinder 2y ago
  Yep. It's hard for us to un-learn the instincts taught by millions of years of evolution. We see scarcity in everything, even where there is none.
  - hnbad 2y ago
    The problem isn't that we "see scarcity", it's that we intentionally introduce scarcity. You can make more money with scarcity. It's a lot harder to make any money without scarcity, even. Instead of Napster letting you download any song anyone ever bothered to digitize, we now have a dozen different music streaming services giving you access to the music from whichever publishers they managed to sign deals with and you have to pay a monthly fee and can only use a number of devices at the same time and not share with friends and family unless they also pay for the access. Yes, of course there are good reasons for this: without paying, the artists don't get paid and that means making music becomes no more than an expensive hobby and yadda yadda but that's my point: we may have corporeal justifications for the scarcity we impose on the Internet but the scarcity exists and we deliberately created it and use the police and military to enforce it.
  - account42 2y ago
    Is it instinct at play here or is this what you are taught by those who depends on it? In my experience people are more than happy to share if left to their own devices.
- Rury 2y ago
  Clearly you miss the point or don't understand politics, if you think the matter or comparison I made has anything to do with finitism. Politics has everything to do with conflicts in wants. For example, some people want free speech, and other people don't want other people to be able to spread lies or what they perceive as lies. Do you see how these wants are at odds with each other, or that two people can have opposing wants? Such conflicts can arise wherever humans interact with each other, and the internet isn't different somehow because it is less finite. I mean, do you think there aren't people out there who don't want to police the internet? Simply, put, politics is not limited to matters of finitism. And the example I gave, is a perfectly fitting example of where politics is evident.

by Rury 2y ago

ziofill 2y ago

That’s not a fair comparison: land is finite in a way that the open internet isn’t.

shnock 2y ago
Human attention and energy is relatively limited though, and the medium of the Internet and its control is just for that
pahbloo 2y ago
In fact, the most valuable resource on the internet is finite: atention with the possibility of influence those who give it to you. This is already a question of national security.
lolinder 2y ago
Yep. It's hard for us to un-learn the instincts taught by millions of years of evolution. We see scarcity in everything, even where there is none.
- hnbad 2y ago
  The problem isn't that we "see scarcity", it's that we intentionally introduce scarcity. You can make more money with scarcity. It's a lot harder to make any money without scarcity, even. Instead of Napster letting you download any song anyone ever bothered to digitize, we now have a dozen different music streaming services giving you access to the music from whichever publishers they managed to sign deals with and you have to pay a monthly fee and can only use a number of devices at the same time and not share with friends and family unless they also pay for the access. Yes, of course there are good reasons for this: without paying, the artists don't get paid and that means making music becomes no more than an expensive hobby and yadda yadda but that's my point: we may have corporeal justifications for the scarcity we impose on the Internet but the scarcity exists and we deliberately created it and use the police and military to enforce it.
- account42 2y ago
  Is it instinct at play here or is this what you are taught by those who depends on it? In my experience people are more than happy to share if left to their own devices.
Rury 2y ago
Clearly you miss the point or don't understand politics, if you think the matter or comparison I made has anything to do with finitism. Politics has everything to do with conflicts in wants. For example, some people want free speech, and other people don't want other people to be able to spread lies or what they perceive as lies. Do you see how these wants are at odds with each other, or that two people can have opposing wants? Such conflicts can arise wherever humans interact with each other, and the internet isn't different somehow because it is less finite. I mean, do you think there aren't people out there who don't want to police the internet? Simply, put, politics is not limited to matters of finitism. And the example I gave, is a perfectly fitting example of where politics is evident.