[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> From Sea to Shining Sea

[Jim Carrico <jim@at.org>]

>
>From: Larry Blunk <lblunk@yahoo.com
>Subject: Re: [dvd-discuss] Text of draft Security Systems Standards and
>+Certification Act
>Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 23:09:34 -0700 (PDT)
>
>    This is how I believe this act will play out:
>
>   1) This act will sail through congress thanks to the heavy lobbying of
>      the copyright cartels.


What frightens me most is that people are already talking about this 
like it's a done deal.

it's been obvious for at least a year that this is the strategy that 
the media cartels are going to go with - because it's the last ditch, 
fall-back plan to maintain their faltering stranglehold on 
information, on what the masses of the public are allowed to see and 
hear and what sort of ideas they will be exposed to.  the alternative 
is obviously unthinkable, implying as it does the inexorable erosion 
of the ability of money, and ultimately, mafia-style muscle to 
dominate modern culture.

the point is, a purely technical solution is impossible - police 
powers must be invoked. For our own good of course - the internet is 
so scary - we need to lock out all the bad guys. and if you disagree 
you must be a bad guy.

all this with a straight face.  a recidivist criminal organization 
which produces the most insanely insecure software ever devised is 
about to be handed responsiblity for controlling access to all 
information, entertainment, and commerce. it's not that they're just 
being allowed to do this, they're being compelled to do it. it's 
almost mathematical - a monopoly operating system, tied to a 
state-mandated hardware architecture is the only way to maintain a 
pyramid of power in the information age. in this direction lie 
horrors beyond hitler's wildest dreams.

the response has likewise been obvious for a while now -  build out 
an alternative architecture, and move *our lives* there.  not as 
"cyber-citizens" but as real flesh-and-blood humans - not as voters 
or consumers but just people - it's now or fucking never.

the protest movement that has been building in the "first world" 
since seattle represents the best chance to step out from under the 
trap before it springs shut -  not as a protest movement but as a new 
social form -  leaderless, spontaneous, yet guided by common goals 
freely chosen, openly debated. just like the free software that, in 
case anyone has forgotten, still supports most of the internet. the 
indymedia network represents the intersection of these related 
tendencies, and may be the most alarming development yet for those 
who depend on being able to lie with impunity, without risk of 
embarrasing revelations from the great unwashed.

this new social form needs to find its economic corollory - my hunch 
is that some mutation of crypto-cash with the LETS community-currency 
model may provide a 'kernel' for a new financial 'OS' that will let 
us begin to withdraw our deposits from the bank of neo-feudalism. the 
future of technology lies not in business models but *lifestyle 
models* - the killer app is revolution...


Jim Carrico
http://www.potlatch.net





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