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Election 2006 (and beyond): Digital Copyright Canada
From: russell_-at-_flora.ottawa.on.ca
Date: 29 Oct 1998 22:56:44 -0500
References: <3637956E.3A751BE5@tao.ca>
This message is Cc'd to comnet-www to be archived publicly on the
Website. Ongoing discussions will happen in the TAO Y2K discussion group.
Subscription instructions and archives are at: http://www.tao.ca/~y2k/
On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, adam wrote:
> I have been putting together a document. It can be found at
>
> http://www.tao.ca/~y2k/workinprogress.html
>
> I'd be interested in hearing comments -- I'm not so concerned about
> grammar and spelling at this point, more about logical thought
> progressions, whether my ideas make sense, and whether other have things
> to contribute. Don't be to harsh, however, its not like Y2K has a huge
> historical body of knowledge (like poety or political change)to pick
> from -- you kind of fly by the seat of your pants...
Did any of you heard me on CKCU this evening - I was interviewed and
tried to bring up some of my own perspectives. CKCU is interested in
putting a panel together on Y2K for an upcoming show.
I'm one of those people who is said to have a foot on both sides of the
fence and consider myself to be part of "progressive computing". I am
actually looking forward to Y2K as an opportunity for positive change and
for revealing the frailties caused by bad decision making. I sometimes
worry that the activist community is playing into the hands of "Them"
(Whomever you believe them to be - to me they are the Neo-Classical
economic religion-like zealots) by pressing a view that Y2K will be "The
event" that causes problems. Fortunately the paper above asserts that "
Y2K has been happening for years -- it is not about a specific date."
In putting the panel together they are looking for a wide range of
views. I can represent the "Untrustworthy information" branch of the
subject. Other possibilities might include a "Y2K Survivalist/Apocalypse
believer" and a "Corporate/Industry/government apologist".
As to the document referenced above, I will make comments as I read:
- Glad that Y2K isn't made out to be some "special" event. The words
aren't used, but the general feeling is that there is a "trust of
untrustworthy information" (Information == software). Was that just my
reading of things? I'm not quite one to believe that complex systems will
always end in failure, and believe that accountability, education and
democratic (citizen involvement) principles are the keys here to avoiding
collapse of complex systems of any type.
- "The 'chances' of something NOT happening are remote...".. This is
true regardless of Y2K. Even taking a more important and pressing issue
such as "climate change", we know that either the human species itself
will die off, or the current economic systems and models will collapse.
Let's not loose sight of the fact that Y2K is pretty much an insignificant
issue (When compared to others) that is for the most part just distracting
people from the other issues. The "positive" side of this is that some of
the preparations for Y2K might also get people thinking of the unreliable
and unsustainable systems
- "economic slowdown/shutdown". Nobel laureate Amartya Sen discussed
some relevant issues here. I will try to find online references to this
paper, but here is the jist:
"He gained international recognition in the 1970s for his work on
famines in Saharian Africa, Ehiopia and Bengal. He found in each case
that food supplies were not significantly lower during famines than in
previous years. It was sharply rising prices (often the result of civil
conflicts), hoarding and the failure of distribution systems that put food
out of reach for most people."
This is where some of the discussion of panic come to mind - if there is
a perceived problem, it will become self-fulfilling regardless of the
seriousness of the original problem.
- "As Noam Chomsky often suggests, democracy is really a code word for
free market enterprise and isn't really democratic at all in terms of
people having a influential say in what happens in their own lives."
Chomsky tend to bring up controversial and complex issues. "Free
markets", and the monopoly-markets of todays economics are not the same
thing. The word "free" as used with "free markets" and "free trade" has
many meanings which are often used purposefully to mislead people. The
terms have been mis-used to mean "Without government intervention", when
the original intention of these words were to encourage innovation and
forward-moving competition. As with a race you can get to the finish line
two ways: by being the fastest running (Liberated markets and level
playing fields) or by crippling the other runners (Monopoly economics,
etc). I am involved in the Free Software movement (Think ``free speech'',
not ``free beer.'') and am constantly having to explain the same issue.
For those who want to read up more on that, please see my signature and
my recent commentary on "Is Microsoft a Monopoly". If nothing else,
wonder into the paper I reference by KAZ Vorpal entitled "Intellectual
Monopoly Laws versus True Intellectual Property."
- There is duplication of text following ``Why do the bureaucrats,
technocrats, CEOs and CIOs still rampantly try to "fix" Y2K rather than "
"bite the bullet" .....
- "The systems that begot Y2K did start with computers, however.".
This starts to get into that supposition that complex systems are in and
of themselves faulty. Complex structures require certain support in order
to work - in progressive governance we discuss accountability and
democratic citizen involvement. The problem is not the technology itself
(the computer), but the misuse of that technology by short-term thinking
individuals and organizations. Computers were not necessary for this
problem to happen, they just became the scapegoat. You have a choice:
"Pay not attention to the man behind the curtain", or don't let technology
mask the people in control.
> Adam
---
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.org/russell/work/>
http://www.flora.org/russell/work/closed-ms1.html Is MS a Monopoly?
CKCU Funding drive, FLORA, Y2K http://www.flora.org/?ckcu
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