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miriam_eI had an interesting realisation this morning. As I ascended to wakefulness I joined a few things together that I wouldn't normally have.
A while ago I was listening to an amazing talk by Lawrence Lessig on the over-regulation of copyright and the inversion of its meaning (its original intent was to force works into the public domain quickly -- origially 14 years after first publication) and how this leading to a slowdown in uptake of new technologies in places where copyright law is tightest. He pointed to broadband in the USA and Japan, for instance, and how it has stalled lately, yet in Korea where people can happily send movies over the wire broadband has flourished.
Another thing I was thinking was how I have been trying to replace all my thousands of paper books with electronic ones. I have bought a few, but the electronic locks they put on them are too risky. On a few occasions I have been locked out of stuff I'd bought when my computer failed and the digital locks refused to recognise my repaired computer as legitimate. So now I've taken to replacing them with peer-to-peer downloaded books. They are a hassle because often peer-to-peer books are shared by people who scan their favorite books into the computer. This means they are often full of typos. Also, there will be many books I won't be able to find because such sharing is hit or miss. I would much rather buy them, but publishers keep the prices high and the aforementioned locks are a risk I refuse to tangle with anymore. I've noticed that most of the books on the peer-to-peer share networks are in Spanish and other languages. English is no longer the main language on there. People in non-English-speaking countries are taking up peer-to-peer sharing in a big way.
Lastly, I was thinking about some of the Cold War propaganda systems promoted by the CIA to infiltrate Western culture into target countries. They would direct radio and TV broadcasts into those regions. I always thought it was a good way to conduct a war -- you turned your enemy into your friend without ever firing a shot. Of course, it often meant domination and loss of local cultures, but that's better than bullets and bombs, and culture can be regained, whereas lives can't. Also I happen to think the West in general, and the USA in particular have a lot of good things to pass on.
So I put these things together and what came out?
The West is accidentally killing its own culture and allowing the others to flourish. In some ways this is a good thing. Other cultures may well have a lot of good things to bring us. This is redressing a dangerous imbalance, where the military might of the US and allies has made their controllers too cocky and led them to perpetrate terrible injustices, simply because they know they can get away with it. That very power is slowing the West. The rest of the world, without such a burden is able to continue in its headlong race to the future. If things continue like this for just another few decades they will get there well ahead of us. And that could be a very good thing.
A while ago I was listening to an amazing talk by Lawrence Lessig on the over-regulation of copyright and the inversion of its meaning (its original intent was to force works into the public domain quickly -- origially 14 years after first publication) and how this leading to a slowdown in uptake of new technologies in places where copyright law is tightest. He pointed to broadband in the USA and Japan, for instance, and how it has stalled lately, yet in Korea where people can happily send movies over the wire broadband has flourished.
Another thing I was thinking was how I have been trying to replace all my thousands of paper books with electronic ones. I have bought a few, but the electronic locks they put on them are too risky. On a few occasions I have been locked out of stuff I'd bought when my computer failed and the digital locks refused to recognise my repaired computer as legitimate. So now I've taken to replacing them with peer-to-peer downloaded books. They are a hassle because often peer-to-peer books are shared by people who scan their favorite books into the computer. This means they are often full of typos. Also, there will be many books I won't be able to find because such sharing is hit or miss. I would much rather buy them, but publishers keep the prices high and the aforementioned locks are a risk I refuse to tangle with anymore. I've noticed that most of the books on the peer-to-peer share networks are in Spanish and other languages. English is no longer the main language on there. People in non-English-speaking countries are taking up peer-to-peer sharing in a big way.
Lastly, I was thinking about some of the Cold War propaganda systems promoted by the CIA to infiltrate Western culture into target countries. They would direct radio and TV broadcasts into those regions. I always thought it was a good way to conduct a war -- you turned your enemy into your friend without ever firing a shot. Of course, it often meant domination and loss of local cultures, but that's better than bullets and bombs, and culture can be regained, whereas lives can't. Also I happen to think the West in general, and the USA in particular have a lot of good things to pass on.
So I put these things together and what came out?
The West is accidentally killing its own culture and allowing the others to flourish. In some ways this is a good thing. Other cultures may well have a lot of good things to bring us. This is redressing a dangerous imbalance, where the military might of the US and allies has made their controllers too cocky and led them to perpetrate terrible injustices, simply because they know they can get away with it. That very power is slowing the West. The rest of the world, without such a burden is able to continue in its headlong race to the future. If things continue like this for just another few decades they will get there well ahead of us. And that could be a very good thing.