David Golumbia on Wed, 6 Jul 2011 01:17:40 +0200 (CEST)


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Re: <nettime> Are the Open Data Warriors Fighting for Robin Hood or the Sheriff?: Some Reflections on OKCon 2011 and the Emerging Data Divide


thanks for this thoughtful post, which by dint of its expansiveness and
insight is sure to be (indeed, must be) ignored from now on.

you seem to fail to realize that--well, here's a comment from a news site I
was just reading about the shutdown of "google realtime" in the name  of
Google's effort "not to be evil" by taking over every computational function
in the world that it can lay its hands on (otherwise someone might have
noticed that it is launching a dual Facebook- and Twitter-killer the very
week that it has to hire upwards of a dozen publicity and legal firms to
deny that it is the monopoly it absolutely is):

  <http://disqus.com/twitter-6783422/>
Kurt Stoll, Today 04:35 PM
  Bad move on Google's part. Open always wins. That's why Android is gaining
market share on IOS.


OPEN ALWAYS WINS. There is no such thing as the iPhone; the iPhone is not
driving the handheld market; Google is fundamentally open; in fact, if you
did your research, you'd know "information wants to be free." OPEN and FREE
thigns magically fix the world by themselves, and nobody need pay for
anything anymore except for all expensive computing equipment, networks,
food, clothing, and healthcare. Of course if we did real research we'd know
that Stewart Brand *actually* said:

On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable.
> The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the
> other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out
> is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting
> against each other. (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free)
>

But that would fit into your curmudgeonly thesis that siding with the powers
that be will free us, and it's obviously wrong; only the first phrase needs
be repeated. What does Stewart Brand know anyway?

THE WORDS "OPEN" AND "FREE" CAN BE PASTED ONTO THE SITUATION YOU DESCRIBE.
THEREFORE YOU ARE OPEN AND FREE. PLEASE STOP DEBATING. NOT ONLY THAT, THAT
IS CLEARLY WHAT THE FRAMERS OF THE CONSTITUTION AND JESUS CHRIST WANTED AND
MEANT. IN THE NAME OF OPENNESS AND FREEDOM, PLEASE STOP SAYING WHAT YOU ARE
SAYING OR WE MAY HAVE TO QUIET YOU WITH FORCE.

http://www.uncomputing.org/?p=93
http://www.uncomputing.org/?p=89
&c., &c.,

Privacy is dead; a bunch of 18-to-20 year olds on Facebook decided that the
American experiment was a big failure. Now they're ready to "hack" into it
to save it from itself and from us. Of course they're on our side!!!!!!!

On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 10:36 AM, michael gurstein <gurstein@gmail.com>wrote:

> (Original Blogpost with links and extensive reader comments can be found at
> http://wp.me/pJQl5-79)
>
> I spent the last couple of days at a fascinating (and frightening) event in
> Berlin-OKCon-a convention for the (in this case mostly European) uber-geeks
> who are in the process of recreating governments and potentially governance
> itself in Western Europe (and beyond).
 <...>

-- 
David Golumbia
dgolumbia@gmail.com


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