[lbo-talk] Notes from old Berkeley Tossers

Chuck Grimes cgrimes at rawbw.com
Fri Nov 7 17:53:11 PST 2008


``I'd hoped that posts such as this one: `Windows Vista as Neoliberal Instrument' demonstrated that I wasn't a tech-head alone, but a person who tried to understand the social and political implications of technology..'' .d.

Well, I certainly read that one with great interest. So when I was building my new box, I tried to stay away from Vista. When I accidently screwed up the FreeBSD drive, I finally capitulated to XP, instead of Vista, partly on your post and other reasons. I had also lost patience with FreeBSD for moving stuff so much and completely failing to keep current with hardware drivers.

Anyway, about the time I was discovering all the bio-medi-agri-pharma patent systems and connections with bio-sci, I also finally saw the way Microsoft as a corporation and corporate model for neoliberalism was starting to make in-roads into the arts and non-tech academic worlds. The plan that alarmed me involved Gates' purchase of various photography archives. The threat of sealing and controling non-tech academic research as a knowledge base which I expected to come from Microsoft through a proposed deal with the Cal State University system, instead came from Sun Microsystems. But Sun never pursued that deal as far as I know. And then there was the obnoxious blossoming of the on-line, subscription only journal consortiums. Chuck0 used to rant on these from his days at AAS. Part of the method of control, involved the development of Adobe's PDF format as a substitute for the TeX world which already had a completely free software system that was and is heavily used by AMS and most of the hard science communities. The very first software systems I downloaded on XP were Emacs and TeX LaTeX stuff. Screw Adobe. I was fed up with them since the font wars.

Mike Perelman wrote a couple of good books about the whole process (Steal This Idea, Class Warfare in the Information Age). Of course there was the more well known, Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace.

``I haven't posted more about this because I'm not sure there are many people interested in the topic, though it deeply affects our lives...''

I am interested and so was Ravi (too bad he left in a huff). There are others. Although, in `real' life whenever I've gone off the deep end in comp-sci, math, science, or art, I certainly get the glazed eyed look. That's the main reason I post on those topics here---not enough conversational satisfaction or input in the `real' world.

One funny and interesting note. The old tossers of the ultra left around here (yes, the very ones I was praising) really glaze over fast on these topics. Meanwhile the younger math-physics-comp-sci crew brighten up in hurry when I start spouting on the command and control neoliberalism you've mentioned. But shag is right about the latter's proclivity for libertarianism---enough to mentally block out any marxist or materialist ideas and ideologies that might lead them left. Well, as if to say, oops don't want to go there.

So, there is an interesting social dynamic going on. I think the odd reciprocity between the two groups is, they are each working out the ways of the world from a different knowledge and experience base.

I've convince myself at least, that US science and technology has been deeply deformed by the historical purges of the late 40s, and we keep seeing those effects. Meanwhile, the capitalist and especially the capital on steriods neoliberal oriented modes of production keep re-enforcing and re-introducing these effects: individualism and competitiveness to the point of combat, ownership of ideas, etc. Noting that most scientific papers list a group of names is no solice to me, since there is a distinct and very customary hierarchy to such a list. In the other direction, when I go back to the history of math and physics in Weimar, all I can see is a deeply `socialistic' spirit in the great cooperative efforts that laid the foundations of modern math and physics. And within that era, one of the dominate themes was to make the ideas and work public and understandable.

Gotta leave it there...

CG



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list