Comments on: Musing about Digital McCarthyism and Digital Nonviolence http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/02/02/musing-about-digital-mccarthyism-and-digital-nonviolence/ a blog about information Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:20:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: YGG http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/02/02/musing-about-digital-mccarthyism-and-digital-nonviolence/comment-page-1/#comment-94413 YGG Fri, 02 Feb 2007 20:09:41 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/02/02/musing-about-digital-mccarthyism-and-digital-nonviolence/#comment-94413 One of the things I remember from gandhi (& that humbles me every time) is "you must become the change you want to see in reality" (quoted from memory)... so what does it say about DRM? I'm not sure... One of the things I remember from gandhi (& that humbles me every time) is “you must become the change you want to see in reality” (quoted from memory)… so what does it say about DRM?
I’m not sure…

]]> By: Digital Gandhism to counter Digital McCarthyism at Blogbharti http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/02/02/musing-about-digital-mccarthyism-and-digital-nonviolence/comment-page-1/#comment-94403 Digital Gandhism to counter Digital McCarthyism at Blogbharti Fri, 02 Feb 2007 19:56:17 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/02/02/musing-about-digital-mccarthyism-and-digital-nonviolence/#comment-94403 [...] JP Rangaswami writes about the need for Digital Gandhism to counter Digital McCarthyism. As Mr. Rangaswami says, the open source community is doing just that At the rate we’re going, the battles about IPR and DRM are going to get uglier, to a point where we’re going to see something none of us wants. Digital McCarthyism. What we’re seeing in the software and music and film spaces already begins to feel like that. [...] [...] JP Rangaswami writes about the need for Digital Gandhism to counter Digital McCarthyism. As Mr. Rangaswami says, the open source community is doing just that At the rate we’re going, the battles about IPR and DRM are going to get uglier, to a point where we’re going to see something none of us wants. Digital McCarthyism. What we’re seeing in the software and music and film spaces already begins to feel like that. [...]

]]> By: Stephen Smoliar http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/02/02/musing-about-digital-mccarthyism-and-digital-nonviolence/comment-page-1/#comment-94354 Stephen Smoliar Fri, 02 Feb 2007 18:08:34 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/02/02/musing-about-digital-mccarthyism-and-digital-nonviolence/#comment-94354 As I see it, Gregg took the first step along a path that was continued by John Kenneth Galbraith (particularly in his treatise on money that was then presented, in abbreviated form, in THE AGE OF UNCERTAINTY) and most recently picked up by postmodernism, which I have tried to invoke in previous comments: http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/10/14/more-musing-about-project-management-and-communication/ The extent to which the money economy reflects the postmodern condition has probably best been articulated by Gabor Steingart in his book, WELTKRIEG UM WOHLSTAND: WIE MACHT UN REICHTUM NEU VERTEILT WERDEN (which translates as "War for Wealth: The Global Grab for Power and Prosperity"). In my last blog I reported on the excerpts from this book that were translated into English and appeared on SPIEGEL ONLINE: http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-Mff23hgidqmHGqbcv.lfskakEtS6qLVHUEMFUG4-?cq=1&p=154 As I see it, the postmodern condition affirms Gregg's provocative assertion that JP quoted. Science, art, and technology have now all been enslaved to funding processes based in the money economy; and, just as money itself is nothing more than a "fiction of convenience," the practices of science, art, and technology now all depend on similar fictions of convenience. This is the politest way in which I can describe a situation in which nothing gets done without submitting and getting approval for a proposal for funding. (I defy anyone who has written such a proposal to deny the the critical role that fiction plays in such documents!) JP seeks inspiration from Gandhi. I sympathize, but I think JP is looking in the wrong direction. It is not the lesson of nonviolence that applies here, but the lesson of homespun. The globalization of science, art, and technology has taken all three practices from Gregg's "hampering" to the threshold of undoing. They can only be recovered if we think about their practices in a far more localized (community-based?) context. Can we really do that when all three technologies have locked themselves into a dependency on expensive equipment? I have my doubts, but I suspect that it is the only path that would honor Gandhi's teachings! As I see it, Gregg took the first step along a path that was continued by John Kenneth Galbraith (particularly in his treatise on money that was then presented, in abbreviated form, in THE AGE OF UNCERTAINTY) and most recently picked up by postmodernism, which I have tried to invoke in previous comments:

http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/10/14/more-musing-about-project-management-and-communication/

The extent to which the money economy reflects the postmodern condition has probably best been articulated by Gabor Steingart in his book, WELTKRIEG UM WOHLSTAND: WIE MACHT UN REICHTUM NEU VERTEILT WERDEN (which translates as “War for Wealth: The Global Grab for Power and Prosperity”). In my last blog I reported on the excerpts from this book that were translated into English and appeared on SPIEGEL ONLINE:

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-Mff23hgidqmHGqbcv.lfskakEtS6qLVHUEMFUG4-?cq=1&p=154

As I see it, the postmodern condition affirms Gregg’s provocative assertion that JP quoted. Science, art, and technology have now all been enslaved to funding processes based in the money economy; and, just as money itself is nothing more than a “fiction of convenience,” the practices of science, art, and technology now all depend on similar fictions of convenience. This is the politest way in which I can describe a situation in which nothing gets done without submitting and getting approval for a proposal for funding. (I defy anyone who has written such a proposal to deny the the critical role that fiction plays in such documents!)

JP seeks inspiration from Gandhi. I sympathize, but I think JP is looking in the wrong direction. It is not the lesson of nonviolence that applies here, but the lesson of homespun. The globalization of science, art, and technology has taken all three practices from Gregg’s “hampering” to the threshold of undoing. They can only be recovered if we think about their practices in a far more localized (community-based?) context. Can we really do that when all three technologies have locked themselves into a dependency on expensive equipment? I have my doubts, but I suspect that it is the only path that would honor Gandhi’s teachings!

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