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My Idea | |
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< | The ideas behind the free information movement, and the idea of anarchist production and distribution, are compelling to me. They are particularly compelling to me in light of the conditions that are brought to our attention in the course, that: 1) the net is a social condition, a new and now inevitable reorganization of society; 2) society is organizing so that "users" of the net are becoming its endpoints; and 3) a loss of choice, a forfeiture of freedom occurs as a result of the society organizing around the net this way.The implications of these ideas are far reaching, but I do not think that they should amount to a panacea. Still, if we mute the economic arguments over these ideas, I hear a moral question humming the tune of structure and agency, and a practical question. By my account, the question of structure and agency permeates the discussion, and the discussion may become more well-rounded by addressing how the movements would rout the issue of hardware. | | | | |
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> | The ideas behind the free information movement, and the idea of anarchist production and distribution, are compelling to me. Our course introduced me to the following ideas: 1) the net is a social condition, a new and now inevitable reorganization of society; 2) society is organizing so that "users" of the net are becoming its endpoints; and 3) a loss of choice, a forfeiture of freedom occurs as a result of the society organizing around the net this way. I gather from the lectures, what I have read in Snowden's "Permanent Record", and my few childhood memories involving computers linked to the internet, that the net began as a more free, but less accessible and less accessed space. When more people began to log in, it prompted companies to monetize the net and governments to control it. The success of the free software movement stands to open countless doors for innovation, but it could also counteract the current trend towards users becoming the endpoints for technology. By making software free, more users would become innovators and creators. Users would be able to manipulate their software to program their devices to their own needs instead of purchasing the product and molding themselves around it and in some cases being molded by it. Everyday users would become more comfortable with making small adjustments to their software and with time, the person who did not make some change to the software that they downloaded to accommodate their needs, would be the odd man out. Hardware with a limited ability to interpret customized software would become barbarous. Hardware options might not move far past their current limits, as companies and factories would still be the ones to gather the raw materials and assemble them into usable components. Even still, as people became more accustomed to modifying their software, they too might begin to opt for assembling their own hardware instead of purchasing it completely assembled from a manufacturer. By moving in this direction, the direction of free software, we would be moving in the direction of both sharing and individuation. Both are important to homo sapiens' experience and are ruined by the top-down approach that exists at the other end of the spectrum. | | | How I Came by The Idea and How it Relates to Other Ideas | |
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> | Now that I understand the idea, the concern, I can see it presented in various media and I can recognize it being discussed. In all honesty, I did not understand the idea to this extent last year when I took Professor Moglen's course, I understood a fraction of it or I understood the whole of it through a hazy veneer. After taking the course, I ruminated on the lectures. I didn't read much of the assigned reading, but I did pay attention when I was in class and after the course, I continued to pay attention and assimilate new information into what I had learned. I understood that people were not in control of their devices, that we respond to our software instead of making it respond to us. I did not see how free software would change that.
In the spring semester after our class or in the summer, I began reading some books on psychology, hermeticism, and Jungian metaphysics in my free time. The telos behind this stuff shifted from wanting to make a comeback from a traumatic event, to improving in my career and schoolwork, to improving as a person and pursuing things that are truly and consistently meaningful. During my literary journey I encountered the idea that we could reprogram our minds. | | | Prior to this class, I had not made much study of the ideas of the free software and ".communism", so I was confused when I read about them. When I reviewed my reading, I understood the breadth of the ideas and favored them because increase in agency, freedom of choice, resonates with me, but also because they stood in opposition only to the dead dogma of property law. During the lecture, after we understood the possible ways in which free software might change the prospects for people globally, and meet demands quicker, one of my classmates raised a question about whether more people being able to access and improve software was worth ignoring the dead dogma that patents protect innovation, given that maybe few out of the many people, will make use of the software as intended.The professor made it clear that what utility came of the free software was persuasive to his decision, but that what controlled was a freedom of choice. So I began developing this idea there. | |
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> | I know enough to know that I cannot give an appraisal of what positive impact free software could have on the world. Hardware, meaning computational devices, is everywhere. Hardware interprets software, and so each piece of hardware can be made to have a number of applications. Memory, processing power, and other factors impose hard limits on the amount of applications that hardware can serve, but the human minds that create the software push the possibilities closer to infinity. I can't grasp the benefits, so it is difficult to push back on the moral argument for free software in earnest. | | | I started thinking about her question after class, careful not to bend it out of shape. In doing so, I saw that I was learning more about anarchist economics and ".communism" by pushing back on some of the ideas.I started to try to think about concerns and questions. It became clear that I could more readily come to agree with these ideas if I understood more about the values embedded in them that assured that self interests would accede to the interests of the society that is reorganizing, and how the need for the hardware that interprets the software, would be met. | |
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Objections, Expansions, Limitations | |
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< | One might object to my focus on the values behind the ideas of anarchist economics and ".communism", urging that the economic arguments are more central.I would respond that I am still working through these ideas, but that the economic arguments are highly intuitive. Yet they are secondary, as the Professor called our attention to the discussion of values when he explained that the freedom to choose is more important than what choices are made.
One might object to the idea that hardware could be the arena for the fight for digital equality if these movements' goals are realized. I would welcome that criticism that as well. when it is made. Perhaps at a later phase in the process I might rebut. | | |
Conclusion and Continuations | |
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< | While the ideas behind free software and freedom of information present opportunities abound, I wanted to ensure that I 2qw understanding them, their criticism, and the alternative, which lead me to considers things that lead me to write this essay.
I believe that as my familiarity with this topic and topics surrounding it increases throughout the semester, my thoughts and the way that they're expressed here, could change. | | |
First improvement needed is thorough proofreading. No lawyer's writing should ever go abroad without proofreading and double-checking. Make it a habit and you will never have occasion for regret. | | | "Structure" and "agency" are what Raymond Williams called "keywords," embedding so many meanings and intellectual histories in the compass of one sign that they almost always need careful unpacking everywhere they're used. | |
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< | This draft has many sentences in it about caution in the thought process. Writing is so often a matter of "show, don't tell." Here too: the next draft improves not by declaring caution, but by showing confidently the results of balanced thinking. | >
> | This draft has many sentences in it about caution in the thought process. Writing is so often a matter of "show, don't tell." Here too: the next draft improves not by declaring caution, but by showing confidently the results of balanced thinking. | | |
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