[lbo-talk] Alternatives to libertarian attitudes in tech journalism?

Blackmail blackmail.is.my.life at gmail.com
Tue May 9 19:09:15 PDT 2006


I interviewed Steve Gordon for Pitchforkmedia.com about the R.I.A.A. but he comments on various subjects and was recently received a Fulbright scholarship. I found he and his colleagues at Digital Music News a pretty nuanced group.

The interview can be found here:

http://pitchforkmedia.com/features/weekly/06-04-03-live-at-the-witch-trials.shtml

Brace yourself: it's 4,300 words!

Cheers, J T.

On 5/9/06, Tayssir John Gabbour <tjg at pentaside.org> wrote:
>
> kevin island wrote:
> > Could anyone point me to tech writers who eschew the usual libertarian
> > biases? I'm especially interested in people commenting on net
> > neutrality and the wider availability of broadband access.
> > (Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee expressed sympathy with net
> > neutrality, but they seem to issue their views from a fairly
> > lofty plane: http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/132.)
>
> I'm sure you know these guys, but just in case...
>
>
> Richard Stallman has impeccable tech credentials. He founded the
> successful Gnu, which uses direct action for various tech issues. He's
> essentially a left-liberal in US terms.
> http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9350
> http://www.stallman.org/rss/rss.xml
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/
>
> Larry Lessig is a Stanford law prof (lawyer-producing lawyer), very
> qualified.
> http://www.lessig.org/
> http://www.archive.org/details/LessigAtSwarthmore
>
> Bob McChesney is the best historian of US media I know. His radio show
> has interesting guests who occasionally discuss net neutrality. However,
> he's not really about tech, but rather the wider context of media...
> really points out how media filters work, what biases the "unbiased"
> press hold, etc.
> http://www.will.uiuc.edu/am/mediamatters/
> http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2427/
>
> Incidentally, if you want to read Bernays' _Propaganda_, I hear it might
> be available from a bittorrent site... if it's legal in your nation.
> Comes to mind because McChesney spoke of the ability for politicians to
> censor things by simply not talking about them, which Bernays covers.
> http://www.pentaside.org/article/propaganda-bernays-1928.html
>
> Slashdot is pretty much the hub of serious tech journalism. People love
> deriding it, but whatever.
> http://slashdot.org/
>
>
> Tayssir
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> > People who affect a "from the trenches" voice often express alarm when
> > the idea of enforcing net neutrality comes up. Here's a good example of
> > the kind of thing I often find:
> >
> > http://www.telepocalypse.net/archives/000822.html
> >
> > and
> >
> > http://scrawford.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/11/11/1381605.html
> >
> >
> > An excerpt:
> > "I am as committed to the ideal of the open internet as the next guy,
> > and my dream is to have OneWebDay support that goal. But the mischief
> > that can be done to our future (in so many unexpected ways) by insisting
> > on statutory and regulatory definition of neutrality seems to outweigh
> > the possible benefits of this path. There is so much nonsense, so much
> > horse-trading, between where we stand now and the glorious goal of
> > neutrality. The sad fact is that Americans don't mind vertical
> > integration one bit, and the duopolists know that. Not only that, but
> > price discrimination in a competitive market is actually a good thing.
> > Now all we need is a competitive market.
> > I'd rather see a future that doesn't depend on a "third pipe" but that
> > includes broadband internet access that is neither cable nor DSL. I can
> > imagine a network owned by its users, or by a cooperative, or subsidized
> > by a large company that has no interest in controlling use of the
> > network. Our devices will be doing most of the computation, so there
> > will be no way to tell the difference between devices and routing.
> > We'll have network-aware applications, too.
> > This admittedly techno-determinist view fits with how the internet was
> > supposed to work. Routing is not supposed to be centrally determined,
> > and the idea of mesh networks pushes this even more to the edge --
> > individual devices will make decisions about routing. As long as we
> > don't make this kind of broadband provision illegal (even by accident,
> > by some casual legislative drafting), it will likely emerge in time."
> >
> >
> > Many tech-oriented people seem to think that a regulatory or political
> > solution will have the unintended (and tragic) consequence of squelching
> > the emergence of the ultimate (and superior) technological solution. I
> > have my doubts. Even if we accept that people should be free to vote
> > with their feet, who is to say they will have anywhere to walk to?
> >
> > Will a "third pipe" (say, broadband wireless in addition to cable and
> > DSL) make a big difference? I'm interested in the potential for
> > community or municipal broadband; however, large incumbent service
> > providers have been lobbying against these efforts.
> >
> >
> >
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> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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