[11166] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Clifford Lynch, Scientific American (March) -- a NARROW view!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (PACS-L Moderator)
Thu Mar 27 20:15:12 1997
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 17:24:06 -0600 (CST)
From: PACS-L Moderator <libpacs@UH.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
From: Jim Warren <jwarren@well.com>
Subject: Re: Clifford Lynch, Scientific American (March) -- a NARROW view!
>From: Jack Kessler <kessler@best.com>
>Subject: Re: Clifford Lynch, Scientific American (March) -- a NARROW view!
>
>Jim Warren,
>
>You said,
>
>>... first and foremost, the net is perhaps the ultimate
>> tool for soundless *speech* ... and for uncensorable inkless *press* ...
>> and for egalitarian faceless *assembly* to seek irresistable redress of
>> grievences -- unfettered electronic speech, electronic press and
>>political assembly.
>
>This sounds great, Jim. I am with you on this. I just don't think it is
>going to happen automatically. Information doesn't necessarily "want to be
>free": it takes a lot of work to get it free and keep it that way. ...
Especially when the major publishers and info peddlers are doing everything
they can -- with the active/zealous support and efforts of the Clinton
administration's Copyright, Patent & Trademark Commissioner, Bruce Lehman
-- to impose much more draconian chokeholds on every word and phrase when
uttered electronically ... with essentially NO "fair use" exemptions from
penny-ransoms per syllable.
>> More briefly, what goes on on the net is functional *speech* --
>> unfettered speech -- polite, abusive, logical, emotional, unbiased, ...
>
>... But it doesn't go on everywhere, and it goes on very little on the
>commercial online services. I am for it, but I see it
>less and less -- a rapidly increasing trend -- online. I do see a lot of
>commercial advertising, though.
Geee, sounds just like newspapers and magazines, doesn't it? (re
unfettered commentary, as well as masses of advertising)
Uh, I assume you are referring to the two or three "major" online
"services" -- Compu$erve, AOwwwL and Plodigy (which started *out* as an
advertising delivery system).
>... Ted Nelson's dreams are a real part of this too.
Though Ted is an old friend, please keep in mind that a -- perhaps *the* --
major purpose of his Xanadu project was that every writer would have
pennies flow into his/her coffer each time anyone read any of hzr words.
>... I think that you have mis
>- read my posting, mistaking the nightmares for the dreams.
Ahah! Possibly imperfect expression of his/your views ... read by a
most-imperfect reader. First time it's ever happened on the net. :-)
>Free speech and populism are great things. Both are threatened by the
>censorship trends which you oppose.
>
>They are threatened as well, though, by the rising split between
>"information haves" and "information have nots",
Except *possibly* for a few rural areas, I propose that there are FEW
"information have nots" ... except those who are "information WANT nots."
(Unless you are also equally concerned about the social gap between the
"drivers" and the "drive nots" -- about which we rarely see much
hand-ringing.) Why?
* A used computer with modem can easily be had for less than the price of
one of the several TVs that are in most homes -- even the most desitute
homes.
* Learning to "drive" the net is an order-of-magnitude easier than, say,
learning to drive a car ... perhaps on the order of learning difficulty of
the byzantine welfare system, though with much less need to wander all over
town to grovel before bureaucracies.
Thanks for your feedback. :-)
--jim
Jim Warren (jwarren@well.com)
GovAccess list-owner/editor, advocate & columnist (Govt.Technology, MicroTimes)
345 Swett Rd., Woodside CA 94062; voice/415-851-7075; fax-for-the-quaint/<ask>
[self-inflating puffery: Hugh Hefner First-Amendment Award, Playboy
Foundation;
James Madison Freedom-of-Information Award, Soc.of Prof.Journalists-Nor.Calif.;
Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award (in its first year, 1992);
founded InfoWorld, DataCast, the Computers, Freedom & Privacy confs, etc. :-).]
