LOL

You can sign mine Tri - except I haven't got a copy. Actually if you want to get a copy, sign it and send it to me I'd be quite happy to accept it.

Kev, let's consider the "global village" analogy. In a village, everybody knows everybody. Personality is recognizable - distinctive faces, voices, gestures, manners of speaking. Character too, is recognizable by word and deed, reputation taken at face value. Names too,have deep meaning - succession, tradition, even ties of responsibility to past and future generations (going far beyond individual accountability).

In most societies this has worked tolerably well. I brought up the "freeway" and "masquerade" metaphors as horrible examples of what can go wrong when recognition is taken out of the picture.

You say, "Unrestricted access = anonymity, it's that simple. Why must it be so? Because if the internet remains a source of great knowledge and power, it must be open and free to all; to political dissidents, fun-loving freaks, investigative journalists, scientists and malcontents alike."

This sounds like an accurate description of the Internet as it now exists, that is, a new kind of social and technological utopia with mixed blessings, and with parasitic powers lurking in the wings.

If you assume a concentration camp environment where we've already lost our basic freedoms, then we'd need to hide our identities to gain some small freedom of speech. IMO we don't live in that grim world, at least not yet.

Best, Emmett.

Freedom is lost one bit at a time. Someone decides not to speak out - " I am sure it won't come to that." - they think. Someone looks the other way rather than face an uncomfortable truth.

By about 2030 there will be around 9 billion people on this planet. Clean water will be harder to come by. There will not be enough fertile land left to feed everyone. Already China is buying up farms in Africa, western corporations too. Global brands are buying up water rights all over the world. Grim times may be just around the corner for our children and our grandchildren.

My father was one of the first British troops to reach Belsen concentration camp at the end of WW2. He suffered nightmares until the day he died. There was no freedom there basic or otherwise. Grim? Yes but the sad truth of the human race is someone always wants to be top dog. "The masses can't think for themselves so we have to do it for them."

Give up this freedom, this glorious, ridiculous free for all that is the internet, pirates, dragons, shysters and shills included, and what goes next?

...very much like America after 1776.



We do actually live in a world like that. Governments all over the world abuse their people, restrict their speech, punish political dissent. They resort to violence, conduct espionage and assassination, and spy on their own people. Defectors and political refugees speak out from hiding places. In many, many instances, freedom is grim indeed. I don't see many bloggers from China, no nifty avatars uploaded in Pyongyang, North Korea.

It so happens that we are insulated from these things. Our insulation derives from a short history of relative freedom in America, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. But even these things are perverted by parasitic powers which seek to control others...

Our global village is dysfunctional, totally disparate, totally chaotic and screwed up. One can earn a reputation as a troll and miscreant, only to disappear and reappear with a different identity at will. There isn't any limit to the horrors one can witness on the net at the click of a button. In some instances people are arrested, and rightly so.

I have never believed that the freedoms of ordinary folks should be restricted because of these cretins and trolls.

k

I'm reminded of the episode "Q Who" on Star Trek The Next Generation. Q and Picard have this exchange:

Q
(continuing)
Picard, you are about to move into
areas of the galaxy containing
wonders more incredible than you
can possibly imagine... and
terrors to freeze your soul. I
offer myself as guide -- only to
be rejected out-of-hand.

RIKER
I guess we'll just have to get
along the best we can without you.

Q
What justifies this smugness?

PICARD
We're not smug -- nor arrogant.
We are resolute and we are
willing. But more than that we
are determined. Your help is not
required.

Q
Well, let's just see how ready
you are.

GUINAN
Q -- don't do this!

He makes a move of his hand:

With that, the Enterprise is thown 7,000 light years across the galaxy, where they meet the Borg for the first time and are almost destroyed. Picard must admit he was wrong and beg Q to help save them. Once Q puts the Enterprise back in Federation space, they have this exchange:

Q
That was a difficult admission.
Another man would be humiliated
to say those words. Another man
would die before asking for help.

Picard gives Q a steady look.

PICARD
I understand what you have done
here Q, but the lesson could
have been learned without the
loss of eighteen members of my
crew.

Q
If you can't take a little bloody
nose -- maybe you had better go
back home and crawl under your
bed. It's not safe out here.
It's wondrous -- with treasures
to satiate desires both subtle
and gross -- but it is not for the
timid.

Q leaves in a Q Flash.

'nuff said.

Jim

Some of us are going to great lengths (especially me it seems) to make sense of a historic social issue upon us - how to behave and identify yourself (or not) on the Internet.

Freedom is a state of mind, part of our human nature, but at the societal level freedom is a rare luxury. Something has to come before. Certain conditions must be in place or else freedom degenerates into anarchy and mutual destruction.

So what comes before, cultural consensus or the power of diversity? Some say the age of Christianity created the right conditions (and others say it was Mel Gibson). If the Scots or the Celts brought about political freedom on their islands, it was with a passion.

I believe honesty and a peer group sense of fair play can lay the ground for personal freedom. I grew up with that ethic right here in the San Fernando Valley where some of the first suburban tract homes were built. I see none of that now except for traces remaining inside the heads of a few odd folks of all ages. That culture is gone.

The new model is hard and legal. The experts disagree. Lawyers endlessly bicker. The experts are mostly lawyers, trained advocates for one side only. They become our politicians, even our judges. This model is based on grand deceptions, worse than lies (paint a big picture, paint a little picture, whatever it takes to mislead the jury from the picture at hand).

IMO, a pervasive social honesty comes before freedom. We have an innate ability, eye contact, honest eyes, deceptive eyes, and the subtle instincts to draw our own conclusions. Now we have paperwork, contracts and volumes of laws and regulations. Middlemen have come between those honest eyes.

And now the Internet, an unprecedented social technology with the power to amplify good and evil, as with any technology, neutral. Still, I don't think any of the human and social "equations" change, as human nature is behind it all. Fairness and honesty first, IMO, and in great preponderance in the community, then freedom (with a passion) can fall into place.

Thanks Kev, for putting us through all this self examination and social introspection. And yes, maybe something constructive will come of it. Best, Emmett.

Hi Emmett,

I agree with all points. I never intended to foist a philosophical dilemma onto anyone, although I suppose it is inescapable when contemplating the issue. My point was primarily to bring this issue to the attention of the members here... that is, members of Congress are cooking up a bill as we speak to make this happen.

Anyone who has a voice or fingers to type should fight against such a bill when it rears its head... and it will, as sure as eggs is eggs.

Kev

This is what you are referring to Kev, right?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/25/national-strategy-trusted-identities-cyberspace

Dan,

No, not specifically. What I'm referring to is not a "voluntary" plan, but the mandatory one which is being discussed. I suppose ze Department of Fatherland Security fancies itself fair and cooperative by reaching out to the public for ideas and feedback, as if control isn't the reason for their existence.

We'll see how this pans out, but when these thugs start this sort of chatter it always means they want us to sacrifice something else in the name of security. I have 50 years of history to use as a barometer. It will happen, look for it.

I'll see where this link will take me (already read the white house propaganda on this, but went no further) and post on my findings.

Kev