I normally wouldn't post so much as a link to a Wired.com article, but since it was posted on /., figured it would be worth posting the news item, as /. typically has some intelligent commentary.

from the wired article in question:

"Most people in the West, including myself, were indoctrinated with the notion that extending the power of individuals necessarily diminishes the power of the state, and vice versa. In practice, though, most polities socialize some resources and individualize others.

Most free-market economies have socialized education, and even extremely socialized societies allow some private property.

Rather than viewing technological socialism as one side of a zero-sum trade-off between free-market individualism and centralized authority, it can be seen as a cultural OS that elevates both the individual and the group at once.

The largely unarticulated but intuitively understood goal of communitarian technology is this: to maximize both individual autonomy and the power of people working together.

Thus, digital socialism can be viewed as a third way that renders irrelevant the old debates."

Nevermind the concept of the third-way popping up yet again, thus rendering the old debates still entirely relevant.

Thankfully, one of the comments on the article over @ slashdot (properly titled "The Invisible Gun", sans spell-check) has managed to get enough upvotes to be read:

from user: thtrgremlin's comment

Middle ground? There is no middle ground.

What DOES exist is different questions, but not middle ground. If one tends towards a better society, than a mix of both is certain to be a failure.

The problem I see is that people (of certain political tendencies) give government certain god-like qualities, most common believing government has perfect knowledge, or that anything the government does is "free".

Government is simply a business that "we" have authorized a virtually unlimited use of force.

Beyond that they have no special super powers.

Government can help organize a military to protect against foreign invaders, police that can neutrally handle disputes over violations of social contract, courts to handle issues of contract law and establish statutes regarding the interpretation of contract language to help encourage mutually beneficial voluntary exchange of goods and service.

To say "we need the government to blah blah blah..." is to say that violence is a necessary means to an end. To paraphrase Jonathan Gullible, the penalty for all crimes against government is death / loss of life.

This is the difference between taxes and charitable donation or voluntary exchange; people will be most compelled to be charitable with a gun to their head, how could we ever expect to get so much from people on a voluntary basis?

If it is a one time thing, I would be inclined to agree, but can you really argue maximum net production through such means?

This implies that a robber could keep robbing the same home repeatedly and that their gain will be proportional to the number of times they rob the house.

Does knowing which houses are the richest change much?

The "problem" with the government trying to regulate the Internet is where do you point the gun, the governments only tool?

The government does not do work, it only consumes, with the intent and strength to intimidate by threat do do what it desires... but it is ok because it is the will of (51% of) the people, right?

Mind you, not everything he says is on spot, but one must cheer when & where one can as much as possible these days.

On an ending note, I would like to point to the following links for better coverage on what actually is communism, & how it can be viewed that communism & anarchism are by no means, the same thing, despite the quizzical tolerance of communists by some anarchist communities, like say, the anarchist sub-reddit.

Additionally, some links provide arguments that quite the contrary, the Internet is far anarchistic than communist, & even if what one would dub the "first" Internet were to be regulated into a pathetic, hyper-television existence, the very idea & concept of the social enviornment such as the Internet, & it's use as alternative & stateless-society friendly infrastructure, will most assuredly press on, in some form or another, in the grey & black markets.

Paternalistic political parasites be damned, I say.

"Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright" by Eben Moglen

"The Future of Copyright" by Rasmus Fleischer

"Anarchy & The Internet"

"What Is Communism?" by Paul Bowman

"Why Communism Failed" by Bettina Bien Greaves

"Communism, Copyright, & The Internet" by Campbell Vertesi

Labels: commentary, statism

Truly, it is a case of pseudo-ADD; the same type of ADD that almost everyone causally admits to having in today's society, from the newbie to computer technology that is your grandparents, to the crackberry addled wall streeter who quotes Gordon Gekko @ cocktail parties.

Despite aspiration & occasionally acknowledged "potential" w/ writing, such pseudo-ADD partially explains why the only thing I consistently write are responses in debates, forums, etc, which, despite sometimes being rather wide-ranging, have incentive enough due to another person in the debate, to remain more or less on point.

Still in an "information hungry" mode as a reaction towards previous forays into the misnomer that is labelled "higher education" (college), this results a majority of time spent on consuming information (via Internet, books, etc.), & not as much (not yet) producing.

No doubt, some of our greatest philosophers would probably find themselves bitten by the information bug, although perhaps Diogenes would distract them long enough by chucking rocks at their monitors to prevent such an anachronistic occurrence.

Perhaps the "beta" tag should be worn still?

Ironically, this entry could be seen as a meta-commentary on information overload & my attempt to overcome it, so perhaps it wasn't entirely a waste of time.

From personal experience, having literally grown up on The Internet (renting circa- 1999; ownership began in late 2000 with the purchase of my first computer), the implications are not far off & can be rather disturbing, especially with the known effects of multi-tasking (an activity any internet citizen is more than aware of) has on the brain & how the brain learns less effectively versus mono-tasking (one task at a time).

The prospect of more & more people multi-tasking, becoming constantly busy, forever having their attention monopolized by the increasingly statist monopoly over the "maintenance of life" doesn't bode well for things that do require attention & time: thinking, questioning, argumentation, study, intelligence, etc.

At times, both the "limits of human knowledge" & "opportunity costs" seem to give credence to the reformists attitude of utilizing the "system" to reform it, as everyone of us, no matter how radically we adhere to our ethics & morality, have to learn to subsist in state-society to maintain our own existence.

Be it from the direct evil of working within the government, or from the morally better option of working in the markets that are constantly being marginalized & controlled by the government itself, to achieve this.

However, there is also the observation that learning to "deal with" state society is a waste of resources in of itself, since utilizing any portion of it necessitates some sort of reliance upon state-society, unless one were to abdicate oneself to nature completely (& somehow managing to find a portion of land where no state or individual of state-society can interfere with you).

This entry has given me an idea regarding analysis paralysis itself, & it's importance in the ever solidifying information economy, & the effects on individuals it might have, including the genesis of new "mental disorders" or psychological problems.

Existential depression, internet addiction disorder (IAD), & pathological indecisiveness are a few candidates that come to mind, although the current specifications (let along the wikipedia entry) for IAD are frankly laughable, imo.

I now end this post with the danger that the above written was absolutely nothing new (not surprising), but the hope that utilizing the information regardless, eventually leads towards new avenues of argument & thought for myself, & if I'm lucky to be so influential, others as well.

2 much information, 2 little time (using '2' is more efficient than 'too', no?).

フィン

Labels: memetics, statism