Related
I wanted to start a thread of a subject I know nothing about. However, I am very interested in learning Marx's language within his writing. Capital is a great novel by Marx. However, the book is written with discussion in mind. I would like to know what you know about Marxism and how you agree and disagree...
marxism mean that all means of production is controlled directly by the government
everybody make the same salary
pro
no poor people equal opportunities for everybody no matter the status of parents
con
no way for risk takers and people with bright ideas and people who compete
to excel and make better products and cheaper prices and dreams for those not there
yet to strive to gain what the successfully gained
often see americans abuse these terms along with socialism which pretty much is the same deal
about countries with higher tax's more welfare and more strict gun laws then usa
one can feel what one like about those 3 things but it don't as I see it equal socialism
I feel Marxism is the most wrongly followed belief in the world. For any definition you can refer to wiki.
Marxism takes away all incentive to excel in any area.
Rudegar said:
marxism mean that all means of production is controlled directly by the government
everybody make the same salary
pro
no poor people equal opportunities for everybody no matter the status of parents
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One word: Utopia.
Cheers
^^^wrong. that would be the end of human progress.
It died a few years ago.
Marxism has a noble aim but - as already pointed out - is a disaster in practice.
We will have general elections next weekend. People are bored of the same platitudinous speeches of politicians. The campaign is made of scandals. There is no credibility. No values. No one believes, no one knows, the political philosophies of the parties. Not even them, I think. Abstention will be high.
Marx and Engels had a lot of innovative ideas and Marxism in its pure form is probably as close to a perfect society as humanly possible. It has never been implemented anywhere in the world.
It is debateable if Marxism would lead to stagnation of thought and progress. No way to know for sure, unless we get a real life example. I personally don't agree with that conclusion.
Communism is a perverted version of it that lets a small number of people on top of society enjoy anything they want and have a free hand with power and control while the common people live in poverty.
Capitalism and Communism have more in common than you know...
An interesting article that I came across today; bolded some points that struck me as dangerous grounds ...
Sound Check by Alan Cross
February 12, 2010 12:30 a.m.
Back in November, I wrote about ACTA, the secret anti-counterfeiting trademark agreement involving Canada, the U.S., Mexico, the EU and nine other countries. Representatives have been meeting behind closed doors for two years to hammer out a treaty that will inevitably affect every single person on the Internet.
Yet there has been almost zero transparency. None of the draft texts have been made public and those outside the inner circle are bound by tough non-disclosure agreements.
This doesn’t mean there haven’t been some leaks.
Aside from measures to fight counterfeiting, there have been discussions about a worldwide “three strikes” rule. Accused (not caught, proven or convicted) of file-sharing music three times by an aggrieved rights holder, and you’re banned from the Internet. For life.
Internet service providers and telecoms would be liable for copyright infringements by their users. To avoid prosecution, that means they’ll have to find some way of sniffing through all the data — YOUR data — that passes through their pipes. And even though you may have a legitimate right to, say, ship a music file from point A to point B, there’s the potential for red flags at the ISP. Accused three times (not caught, proven or convicted) and you’re done. Not just with your current ISP, either. They’ll be required by international law to publish your name to an Internet no-fly list that will prevent you from ever having an Internet account in your name ever again.
And it gets better. Within the document is a second called Border Measures. There’s the real possibility that some border guard will have the power to make you prove all those music files on that iPhone in your pocket are, in fact, not pirated. Can’t do it? Bye-bye, iPhone. Oh, and you could be charged and fined.
This is more than just file-sharing for stopping fake Louis Vuitton bags. It’s about privacy, civil liberties, and legitimate use of the Internet for commerce and innovation.
The seventh round of negotiations is underway in Mexico — secretly, of course, partly because U.S. President Barack Obama has declared this an issue of national security. Same thing for the next round in April in New Zealand.
And because this is an international treaty, it’ll just be rubber-stamped into law. No public debate.
Be informed. Read what the Electronic Frontier Foundations says at eff.org/issues/acta.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sources:
http://www.metronews.ca/toronto/com...ifetime-ban-from-the-internet-it-could-happen
http://www.metronews.ca/toronto/comment/article/509570--the-orwellian-plan-to-track-your-music
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/06/02/copyright-bill-clement-montreal.html?ref=rss
http://www.eff.org/issues/acta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement
Updates:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqE8SuLOQxo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2XPiqhN_Ns&annotation_id=annotation_910879&feature=iv
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=210429284986#!/group.php?gid=210429284986&ref=nf
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10467337-38.html
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/your-life-will-some-day-end-acta-will-live-on.ars
http://news.google.com/news/more?um=1&cf=all&ned=us&cf=all&ncl=d7q9CZNjAmTXtvMz0xI_8sjNmJ6cM
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6275575&postcount=40
* EDIT *
FYI; the EFF is a good starting point for those who decide they want to do something - they may also be able to recommend an equivalent organization in your country.
thats pretty messed up. if it happens in the us, im sure itll end up in the supreme court and declared unconstitutional. this is way above what the powers the constitution granted to the government. after all, the government needs consent of the people or else its not a democracy anymore.
Unfortunately, since ACTA is considered to be an International treaty, it can be passed into law without public debate.
... and that's just the "tip of the iceberg". All one has to do is imagine the scenarios and since most of the treaty is being kept confidential, we don't know how far the reach and impact of the treaty will be. Here's a few other ongoings that most folks aren't aware of:
Rein In ACTA: Tell Congress to Open the Secret IP Pact
https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=420
In The News: Cellular User Privacy at Risk
http://www.eff.org/press/mentions
Control is arriving to internet...
Wow,
It is amazing about this article.
I really hope this won't succeed, as this trespasses the limits of control and privacy.
As next meeting will be here in México, I´ll try to fond out more locally...
Wow, definately hope this is a No Go
If this has any truth to it, yet another reason why i hate obammer
I get the feeling though that for every ISP that followed the no-fly list, another ISP like Google's new high speed internet would let someone on that list connect.
It reminds me of "Home Taping Is Killing Music. And It's Illegal" campaign.
And a opposing campaigns called,
"copyright is killing music - and it's legal"
"Home Taping is Skill in Music"
"Home Taping Is Killing the Music Industry: Killing Ain't Wrong"
Hope this doesn't become a law. If so, we may have to migrate to Iran (where there is no copyright law).
zizou417 said:
I get the feeling though that for every ISP that followed the no-fly list, another ISP like Google's new high speed internet would let someone on that list connect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let's say for the sake of argument that this treaty is passed ...
As the majority of services are paid via credit card or pre-authorized bank debit, it would seem to me that the person would never be able to get another Internet service under their true identity. Speculating further, the "no-fly" list would likely contain name, address, location, financial, and possibly other government information that establishes a person's unique identity - passport, birth certificate, etc. Some questions that come to mind:
Would this mean that the person would be banned from using cellular or other dial-up means to connect to the Internet?
Should the person use someone else's identify, would they be exposed to criminal prosecution and would the person who's identity was used be banned as well?
Taking it one step further; let's say some disgruntled person or company decides they want to shutdown a competitor, website, or other person, all they need to do is report the key stakeholder anonymously to the authorities (or governing body) a sufficient number of times so as to exceed the threshold ... and voila, banned! In a matter of a few calls, a person such as the owner of a website could be banned from accessing the Internet therefore taking down their website in the process.
Furthermore, countries could be "strong-armed" into adopting the treaty if they wish to conduct commerce over the Internet with countries that are part of the treaty.
I think, it is less likely that some thing like this treaty coming into existence.
I do not know about other developed countries. But, in developing and underdeveloped countries, virtually everyone uses the internet to share the music,movie,software.... So, if you ban all the people form the internet what business these ISPs and e-commerce people are going to do?
And you know, the major market are these countries due to their population. So, developed countries doesn't want to jeopardize their market.
May be, a stricter law to curb such copyright infringement can be applied. But, I hardly see effectiveness of these laws in developing and underdeveloped countries.
(May be China is more happier to apply such law and ban everyone form the internet. Which it is already doing with different means ).
What a "Brave New World" we live in..
hmmmmm, interesting read. Don't agree with this to be honest, but not much I can really do....... I wonder if this could be applied to spammers
raghu13uk said:
I think, it is less likely that some thing like this treaty coming into existence.
I do not know about other developed countries. But, in developing and underdeveloped countries, virtually everyone uses the internet to share the music,movie,software.... So, if you ban all the people form the internet what business these ISPs and e-commerce people are going to do?
And you know, the major market are these countries due to their population. So, developed countries doesn't want to jeopardize their market.
May be, a stricter law to curb such copyright infringement can be applied. But, I hardly see effectiveness of these laws in developing and underdeveloped countries.
(May be China is more happier to apply such law and ban everyone form the internet. Which it is already doing with different means ).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed; but how does one determine a true copyright violator? And obviously, it won't stop at audio and/or video. And what is the purpose of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) then? Was that act not supposed to be for this purpose? And how many companies/people are aware that the ACTA treaty is in the process of being finalised behind "closed doors"?
Of additional interest is the provision to empower border security such that they can search any/all electronic equipment. As the article points out, this means that no information is confidential. So if one happens to encounter a border security person having a "bad day", one could be faced with confiscation of their cellular phone or laptop as a result of not being able to prove that the information found on the device was legitimately paid for (ex: audio, video, application). Attempting to retrieve a wrongly confiscated item is costly both legally and personally.
Additionally, there are numerous articles on the Internet that already highlight the fact that most authorities have the means to bypass most encryption algorithms so as to extract the contents of hard drives and cellular devices. In some countries, it is even a federal offense to use certain depths of encryption - for the longest time, France only permitted 40-bit encryption.
Imagine this scenario;
You're browsing the Internet while waiting for your flight. You happen to connect to a compromised website which redirects you to several pornographic websites. An announcement over the PA system announces that your flight has been moved to a different gate and you realize that the gate is at the opposite end of the airport.
You close your laptop, stuff it in the bag and rush to the new gate just in time to see that people are boarding the plane. You board the plane, stow you laptop and later during the flight, you turn it on to do some work and then stow it away again forgetting to clear your history and browser cache.
When you arrive at your destination, border security instructs you to provide your electronic devices for scanning. During the scan, they discover the browser cache full of pornographic images.
Now what?
Imagine this other scenario;
What happens if this treaty provides large corporations with the power they require to close down websites that are considered hostile to their revenue or websites that provide information on how circumvent mechanisms that are in their products? And what happens if the treaty empowers the authorities to obtain all of the trace-back information of all of the people who frequented such a website so as to ban/prosecute them?
If they do this, i'm gonna sue someone important!!!
I would NOT want to see this thing passed. It's our internet, and they don't have the right to kick us off of it. Watch this video on the topic here, this one is more likely to happen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqE8SuLOQxo
What happened to that law that stated we could use any type of music/media as long as we don't make a profit on it?! this is so wrong imo. Sorry saw this thread and had to join.
I would much rather see tax dollars going to matters of national security, and helping the job market right now, then pay for big expensive servers that dedicate their time to crawling through everyone's internet, filtering out everything that's deemed "bad." What if you have say, a niece or nephew, that comes over to your house frequently and gets on the computer. They in turn download music, or go a a forbidden website, or something stupid like that, more than a few times. Bam! Your banned for life because of your brother or sister's child's mistake? I would be furious.
I can not see this going into effect without a HUGE public uproar. From us, as consumers, but also from the ISP companies. They will start taking HUGE revenue losses because of this.
Oh, and the border filtering... you've GOT to be freakin kidding me, right? Before I say any of this, let me make it perfectly clear that I am no racist. I either love, or hate people based on their personalities and actions. Okay, not a racist? Understood. Okay. Why not, instead of filtering electronic devices through the borders, they protect the borders a little better? I'm all of immigration, let them all come over, if they want, but make them do it the legal way. That's all. If that technology filter is applied at our borders, then I can see a huge uproar from a lot of racists, and non-racists, in the Texas, California areas.
There are way too many holes in this. It'd be like trying to hold water in a mesh container. In it's current state, there's no way this will be effective.
2012: The Year The Internet Ends
This will happen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2XPiqhN_Ns&annotation_id=annotation_910879&feature=iv
Badwolve1 said:
If they do this, i'm gonna sue someone important!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You won't be alone, let's make it a Class Action lawsuit!
I'm sure there will be plenty of constitutional lawyers ready to pounce on this one...
Ok, so I figured this would be the best place to post this. This directly relates to EVERYONE here.
If this lawsuit gets passed we are ALL screwed. Essentially, Sony is trying to get a case passed against some security researchers that have been able to "jailbreak", "root", "reimage" their PS3s so that they can once again put an "OtherOS" on like when they originally released. BUT, they are not stopping their, they are trying to get a precedent passed that would allow a device manufacturer to bring legal actions against people for modifying their devices AFTER they have purchased them. Meaning, in our case, if you buy a phone and modify the OS from exactly what the manufacturer has "approved" YOU are committing a CRIMINAL OFFENCE.
I SAY "F-YOU SONY!!!"
This is directly from the EFF, Electronic Frontier Foundation, if you are unaware of who they are or what they do I stress to everyone here that you learn a little about them from www.eff.org.
January 19th, 2011
Sony v. Hotz: Sony Sends A Dangerous Message to Researchers -- and Its Customers
Commentary
Co-authored by Corynne McSherry and Marcia Hofmann
For years, EFF has been warning that the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act can be used to chill speech, particularly security research, because legitimate researchers will be afraid to publish their results lest they be accused of circumventing a technological protection measure. We've also been concerned that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act could be abused to try to make alleged contract violations into crimes.
We've never been sorrier to be right. These two things are precisely what's happening in Sony v. Hotz. If you have missed this one, Sony has sued several security researchers for publishing information about security holes in Sony’s PlayStation 3. At first glance, it's hard to see why Sony is bothering — after all, the research was presented three weeks ago at the Chaos Communication Congress and promptly circulated around the world. The security flaws discovered by the researchers allow users to run Linux on their machines again — something Sony used to support but recently started trying to prevent. Paying lawyers to try to put the cat back in the bag is just throwing good money after bad. And even if they won — we'll save the legal analysis for another post — the defendants seem unlikely to be able to pay significant damages. So what's the point?
The real point, it appears, is to send a message to security researchers around the world: publish the details of our security flaws and we'll come after you with both barrels blazing. For example, Sony has asked the court to immediately impound all "circumvention devices" — which it defines to include not only the defendants' computers, but also all "instructions," i.e., their research and findings. Given that the research results Sony presumably cares about are available online, granting the order would mean that everyone except the researchers themselves would have access to their work.
Not content with the DMCA hammer, Sony is also bringing a slew of outrageous Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claims. The basic gist of Sony's argument is that the researchers accessed their own PlayStation 3 consoles in a way that violated the agreement that Sony imposes on users of its network (and supposedly enabled others to do the same). But the researchers don't seem to have used Sony's network in their research — they just used the consoles they bought with their own money. Simply put, Sony claims that it's illegal for users to access their own computers in a way that Sony doesn't like. Moreover, because the CFAA has criminal as well as civil penalties, Sony is actually saying that it's a crime for users to access their own computers in a way that Sony doesn't like.
That means Sony is sending another dangerous message: that it has rights in the computer it sells you even after you buy it, and therefore can decide whether your tinkering with that computer is legal or not. We disagree. Once you buy a computer, it's yours. It shouldn't be a crime for you to access your own computer, regardless of whether Sony or any other company likes what you're doing.
Finally, even if the researchers had used Sony's network, Sony's claim that it's a crime to violate its terms of use has been firmly rejected by courts in cases like United States v. Drew and Facebook v. Power Ventures. As those courts have recognized, companies like Sony would have tremendous coercive power if they could enforce their private, unilateral and easy-to-change agreements with threats of criminal punishment.
Sony's core arguments — that it can silence speech that reveals security flaws using the DMCA and that the mere fact of a terms of use somewhere gives a company permanent and total control over what you do with a device under pain of criminal punishment — are both sweeping and frightening, and not just for gamers and computer researchers. Frankly, it's not what we expect from any company that cares about its customers, and we bet it's not what those customers expect, either.
Attachment Size
Sony_Complaint.PDF 2.59 MB
Sony_Motion_For_TRO.pdf 207.03 KB
Related Issues: Coders' Rights Project, DMCA, Free Speech, Innovation, Terms Of (Ab)Use
Related Cases: Facebook v. Power Ventures, US v. Drew
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
looks like they wont be releasing the bootloader for the x10 any time soon....
Next thing you know car manufactures will be trying to get legal approval so if somebody modifies the car in anyway they will be committing criminal offense.........yeah right! lol
But seriously, we pay so much money for a device and not being able to modify it freely is just dumb. Personally I would sell those devices and not bother to buy any anymore since I wouldn't want to support such a company with such a attitude.
I think it is kinda fun.
As I jumped to the page I had been logged out and what was the add that was displayed in my original post??
Discounts on PS3s, games, and move. Ironic, dontchya think??
LOL
Actually even if sony wins it will only apply to consoles (for now), but if they lose the legal precedent will be changed from allowing mobile phones (a closed system) to be modified to allowing game consoles, mobile phones, and who knows what else. This is a bit of old news if you keep up on the psp/ps3 scene though but still interesting and at times funny. If you guys want to see the guy in question here http://www.ps3-hacks.com/2011/01/14/attack-of-the-show-with-geohot/ it's the same guy who jailbroke the iphone for the first time. He beat apple before, now let's see sony go down and even more systems open up legally.
But seriously, we pay so much money for a device and not being able to modified freely is just dumb.
start getting use to it now
it used to be that the huge companies couldnt stop people from hacking, so they just kept tabs on it and used the threat of losing your account as 'leverage'.
now that they have the upper hand, the law will work with them much more.
sony always had the updates trick. again, they couldnt stop people hacking, but the hackers couldnt hide it either, so a new update messed up your hacks and sometimes your device.
now they are gonna give you all hell...
you think sony wants you to play your own mp3s and watch your own videos???
if sony had the power to stop you eating food that you didnt buy through playstation, they would happily watch you starve to death.
its the entertainment industry. key word: industry, ie, to make money.
if they made a better device, with more fair options instead of trying to milk everyone dry, then they would gain so much from the people like me (and millions others) that dont want to give them our money because they are ****s.
I bet they'd make a lot more money if they allowed modifications, and supported them (for a price!)
wow... if they did that android devices would go extinct... theyre barely functional without mods
You guys are missing the point. If sony wins it only applies to systems not already in the DMCA which right now says "mobile phones". We're safe regardless unless you're also into console/handheld modding. Sony is just throwing a hissy-fit because their security got bent over a barrel.
I though people jailbroke the PS3 so they can play PS2 games because, you know, the PS3 can't do that.
j/k I think this is a bad move by Sony. How is jailbreaking a console any different than jaibreaking a mobile phone? Someone please explain that to me.
kizzmyanthia said:
...they are trying to get a precedent passed that would allow a device manufacturer to bring legal actions against people for modifying their devices AFTER they have purchased them. Meaning, in our case, if you buy a phone and modify the OS from exactly what the manufacturer has "approved" YOU are committing a CRIMINAL OFFENCE.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what if i steal a phone, and modify it, or if someone gives it to me as a gift
corporation > human
so
money > human
thats how it is nowdays
btw didnt apple try the same thing with jb-ing and they ruled jb is legal but voids warranty at the end ?
are u some apple fanboy or ur head just got pulled out of something warm and moisty ?
souljaboy said:
corporation > human
so
money > human
thats how it is nowdays
btw didnt apple try the same thing with jb-ing and they ruled jb is legal but voids warranty at the end ?
are u some apple fanboy or ur head just got pulled out of something warm and moisty ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Methinks the jailbreak precedent makes it impossible for Sony to get any traction in this case. The jailbreak precedent has been set in stone and the judges have already tossed out cases involving jailbreaks.
The only winners in this case will be lawyers.
sakai4eva said:
Methinks the jailbreak precedent makes it impossible for Sony to get any traction in this case. The jailbreak precedent has been set in stone and the judges have already tossed out cases involving jailbreaks.
The only winners in this case will be lawyers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thankfully you're right. This has been covered by the cydia case.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Hi all,
I just had a brainwave. I am a reviled patent attorney and I have been flamed by the open source community for years because I support software patents.
The most common anti-software patent argument is that so many software patents were obvious but the Examiner didn't find the disputed software feature in the prior art and incorrectly granted the patent.
I have the solution within the current state of the law.
Statutory Invention Registrations.
Any time a open source supporter comes up with something they believe is innovative and should be shared with everyone, that person should file a SIR to their invention.
The SIR serves as a block to later attempts to patent the idea by any other AND thereby simultaneously dedicates the disclosed innovation to the public, to EVERYONE.
As long as the open source community comes up with it first and files the SIR, the software giants will be completely unable to obtain patents to the feature.
It couldn't be more simple really.
What do you say???!!!!!!
Rise up and use the system against itself.
Comments?
It's kind of a good idea against the giant corporations, BUT it would eventually lead to further corrupting the already corrupt system. People cannot be trusted with software patents, and neither can corporations (as has been proven).
If software implementations were patentable, we'd all be stuck in 1985.
Hey, look, I wrote this:
for i = 1 to 100
do stuff
next
Now no one else can do it, because I got a patent.
No. There are corporations that have been pulling this crap for decades. Look at the E-Bay "buy it now" issue. It's a prime example of abuse of the system.
Patents need to go away, and so do community design patents (as Apple blatantly proved to us). Copyright your work, sure, but patents were meant to encourage development, but all I've seen for the past decade is it being used to stifle entire communities.
In the software community, there is too broad of a user group. If I do one thing one way, and you just happen to do it the same/similar way, but you patent it, now I have to pay you royalties or lose my entire product. That's a BS system ripe for the picking by patent trolls. You can keep your patent system, tyvm.
Soo...being a patent attorney, why are you posting this advice to the open source community?
majorpay said:
If software implementations were patentable, we'd all be stuck in 1985.
. . .
If I do one thing one way, and you just happen to do it the same/similar way, but you patent it, now I have to pay you royalties or lose my entire product. That's a BS system ripe for the picking by patent trolls. You can keep your patent system, tyvm.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First, software is patentable and has been for a long long time.
Second, to patent something, it has to be NOVEL and NON-OBVIOUS. The Examiner's at the PTO take these requirements seriously.
Third, if you do something first, I cannot patent it. It is no longer NOVEL (new).
TheRomMistress said:
Soo...being a patent attorney, why are you posting this advice to the open source community?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am giving this advice because its . . . reasonable advice. I don't want patents to be issued to my clients that are INVALID. Patents are very hard to obtain and if it gets invalidated anyway, (because of prior use of the claimed invention which is discovered later), that is bad for me and my client.
SIRs would provide a better prior art knowledge and might avoid situations in which something does get patented which were just obscure but documented.
Open Sourcers feel they have no way to effect the patent system. This is one way, under current law, that they can.
Also, I am tired of people claiming that patents are issued on things that have been around for forever. Such claims are made constantly but very seldom is there any proof (or even attempts to prove it).
Most things that get patented should be patented. Sometimes things get patented which shouldn't. There will always be stupid exceptions but that is reality.
Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.
Governments derive their "just" powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.
You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.
You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts, invade our privacy and take us from our homes. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract . This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.
Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.
We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or place of birth.
We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.
Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.
Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge . Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.
In the United States, you are trying to create/pass a law, The Stop Online Piracy Act & Protect IP Act (SOPA/PIPA), which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis etc. These dreams must now be born anew in us.
You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.
In the United States (and eventually the entire globe), you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty & freedom by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.
Your increasingly obsolete information industries, your dinosaur business model(s) would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech, song & video itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another corporate industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.
John Perry Barlow - A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.
****not my writing but thought I would share****
I see that you said you did not write this but, who did?
Even though not your writing, the author deserves credit. If its not written by "anonymous"
John Perry Barlow - A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
Bump. .
The amazing part was, if you find the original of this, it had "the Telecommunications Reform Act" instead of SOPA/PIPA.
This was originally written in 1996.
https://projects.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html