/usr/share/doc/cfi-en/html/ch15web.htm is in cfi-en 3.0-10.
This file is owned by root:root, with mode 0o644.
The actual contents of the file can be viewed below.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 691 692 693 694 695 696 697 698 699 700 701 702 703 704 705 706 707 708 709 710 711 712 713 714 715 716 717 718 719 720 721 722 723 724 725 726 727 728 729 730 731 732 733 734 735 736 737 738 739 | <HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>CDNE Chapter 15 - The Cybernetic Society</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#c9e1fc" BACKGROUND="background.gif" LINK="#666666" ALINK="#ff0000" VLINK="#999999" LEFTMARGIN=24 TOPMARGIN=18>
<P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR=BLUE size="2" face="Times New Roman"><B><a href="ch14web.htm"><img src="arrowleft.gif" width="45" height="54" align="absmiddle" name="ch1web.htm" border="0"></a></b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+1" color="#999999">
<a href="mainindex.htm">INDEX</a></font><B><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+1" color="#999999">
</font><a href="ch16web.htm"><img src="arrowright.gif" width="45" height="54" align="absmiddle" border="0"></a></b></FONT></P>
<FONT SIZE=+2 FACE="Times New Roman, Times, serif" color="#000000">
<p align="center"><B>Chapter 15<br>
THE CYBERNETIC SOCIETY</B></p>
</FONT>
<table width="620" border="0" align="center">
<tr>
<td>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"><b>I will now</b> try to summarize what
I've written so far, and synthesize this with a number of modern philosophical
ideas about people and our society. A cybernetic society is a society
of people who live in symbiosis with machines. To understand a society,
I employ a simplified concept of an individual, in which he or she is
viewed as a construct of information, communicating with the environment
by means of <i>symbols</i>.</font></p>
<p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><br>
<img src="Image3.gif" width="334" height="137" border="1"> </font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"> In the figure, <b>memory</b> stands for
the stored patterns in the brain's neurons, <b>thought</b> is the reflections
and dreams (daydreams included) that we all have, and the <b>symbols</b>
are those chunks of information we exchange with the <b>environment</b>,
which can be single individuals as well as the entire family or society
that we live in. Such symbols can be human language, but also other conventions
that we don't think about much, such as pieces of paper with numbers on
them perceived as possessing value, or a certain type of clothing perceived
as indicating a certain status. For natural reasons, science uses well-defined
symbols called <i>paradigms</i>, which define:</font></p>
<ol type=1>
<li>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"><b>What to observe<br>
</b> </font> </p>
<li>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"><b>What questions to ask<br>
</b> </font> </p>
<li>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"><b>How the questions should be asked<br>
</b> </font> </p>
<li> <font face="Times New Roman"><b>How the answers should be interpreted</b></font>
</ol>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">(I'll take the opportunity to state that
I interpret the sociological-scientific concept of a symbol, as well as
the concept of a paradigm, in a very pragmatic and personal manner - raise
a hand, whoever cares. This is high-level hermeneutics. Pardon the ten-dollar
words).</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">It is these concepts that the hackers, with
Zen and Gödel behind them, contest in their motto number 4: <i>Hackers
should be judged for their hacking, not according to suspicious criteria
such as academic performance, age, race, or social status</i>, and in
3: <i>Distrust authority.</i> It's an attempt to break out of a system
that is perceived as wrong. Marvin (the guy with the telephone cards)
spoke in a radio interview of his dissatisfaction with companies hiring
people with degrees instead of caring about their <i>real</i> skills and
in this way pointed out the shortcomings in our formal social system.
Burroughs thought that society would try to increasingly control the thoughts
of its citizens, whether its public servants wanted to or not. It is said
that an enlightened individual must have the ability to <i>exit</i> the
system to see the real patterns behind it, which can't be described using
words, paper, or clothing. At the same time, the symbols are vital to
our communication as well as our society as a whole. An intelligent individual
can, using symbols, detect intelligence in him- or herself as well as
in other individuals. We can now view society from a similar perspective:</font></p>
<p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><br>
<img src="Image4.gif" width="334" height="137" border="1"> </font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"> But what's this? It looks just the same!
That's right. In this case, <b>memory</b> is the collective memory in
the form of books, films, CDs, or computer programs, stored in libraries
or in our homes. <b>Thought</b> is the same as <i>culture</i>, the ongoing
process that continuously affects our living conditions. Note also that
the <b>symbols</b>, in this case our relationship towards other societies
or aggregations, is not the same as our culture. Sociologists often refer
to this model as the <i>collective consciousness</i>. As for myself, I've
nailed together the concept of <i>superindividual</i> for this model.
</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">The symbols show only those parts of our
thoughts, culture, that we <i>want</i> to show. As is well known, this
is also how an individual works. An intelligent society detects intelligence
in other societies <i>and</i> individuals. The individuals that make up
society can very well endeavor to analyze the thoughts that society thinks,
but the task is virtually insurmountable, like if the individual neurons
in our brains were to try to understand the thoughts of the entire brain.
(These arguments originate in research of artificial intelligence in non-formal
systems and sociological science). This model is not limited to describing
societies and individuals as intelligent organisms, but can also be applied
to corporations, military organizations, and others. It is this <i>formal
system</i>, the complex society, which sociologists study as scientists,
William Burroughs criticizes as an author, and Zen debunks as a philosophy</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Now that we've agreed on a common view of
individuals and societies, we can start defining cybernetics. I said earlier
that cybernetics means <i>people or society in symbiosis with machines</i>.
To illustrate, here's a practical example:</font></p>
<p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><br>
<img src="Image5.gif" width="298" height="123" border="1"> </font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"> We see two individuals, A and B, communicating
by way of symbols. So far there's no problem. If we, for <br>
example, suppose that these individuals communicate by sending <b>letters</b>
to each other, a problem could occur if one of them has a slight vision
problem.</font></p>
<p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"> <img src="Image6.gif" width="301" height="102" border="1">
</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"> Since people are so ingenious, they naturally
find a way around this problem. They attempt to <i>improve</i> their natural
conditions. I will illustrate this with an invention that was created
around 1290 AD:</font></p>
<p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"> <img src="Image7.gif" width="304" height="110" border="1">
</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"> We have here one of the very first cybernetic
innovations. Reality has been improved by a small opto-mechanical construction
that we take for granted in today's society. All people that wear glasses
are therefore <i>cyborgs</i>, people who live out their days on Earth
in harmony with machines. We're so used to this that we hardly ever think
about it. If you're a little more vain, you can get contact lenses, and
then you invite the machine into your own body. Glasses constitute one
of the modifications that are meant to improve our ability to communicate
with the rest of the world. Other cybernetic modifications are aimed at
making life more comfortable and bearable for the individual: the wheelchair,
the cane, etc. Some are vital, like the pacemaker. Of course, now I've
just listed inventions that "correct" human disabilities. Naturally,
you can "improve" regular people too, with the aid of binoculars,
electronic devices for night vision, etc. The telephone, for example,
improves us so as to allow us to communicate over enormous distances.
We can also establish <i>hyper-communication</i>.</font></p>
<p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"> <img src="Image8.gif" width="307" height="151" border="1">
</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"> One such medium is hypertext, which is
better than normal text. We can also improve our possibilities as a society
to exchange and distribute information with the help of transaction systems,
satellite TV, etc. Yet another improvement of our perception - and the
most revolutionary - will be Virtual Reality. There are, however,
a few uncanny aspects of this society. Like, for example, the previously
mentioned <i>NetNanny</i>, or when Aftonbladet on July 15, 1995, reassuringly
announced that TV sets can now be fitted with a chip that is programmable
by parents who don't want their children to watch excessively violent,
pornographic, or otherwise unsuitable programs. When the kids try to tune
in to a blocked program, the screen turns blue. Fantastic. The question
is just who is being programmed: the chip or the children? One of the
parents interviewed by Aftonbladet wants to prevent the kids from watching,
among other things, <i>SOS - På Liv och Död</i> (cf. the American
TV show <i>Rescue 911</i>), which is a program that shows films of real
accidents and rescue efforts. What's next? Isn't it just as well to turn
off those terrible news, so that you can raise your children in a protective
bubble, as far removed from the world as the Russians ever were under
Stalin? The risk of abuse of this, and similar, invention is terrible
and great.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">And this was only an example of what a relatively
stupid chip can accomplish. We are already forced to note that our society
is no longer formed solely by people, and that not even <i>people</i>
are formed solely by other people. When almost every store has electronic
anti-theft systems on every product, there's no longer a need for honesty
as a virtue, because it becomes <i>impossible</i> to act dishonestly -
and thus, moral limits are turned into real, physical limits with the
help of technology. We are so singularly obsessed with the public good
provided by these machines that we don't question what is happening. A
store alarm is nothing to complain about, since it only concerns itself
with thieves… <i>One fine day</i>, we'll be hanging around with machines
that automatically inject sedatives into all individuals with violent
tendencies, naturally only to prevent them from committing violent crimes.
That's no concern of yours, is it? You're not a violent criminal. Or?</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Just to give an example from a few years
ago: in 1984,<sup><a href="#FTNT1">(1)</a></sup> the computer at Värnpliktsverket
(the Swedish national military conscription administration) experienced
problems with the result that orders to report for rehearsal training
were not sent to all personnel that were obliged to do so. These people
received phone calls from authoritarian military officers that interrogated
them as to why they hadn't reported for duty. The authorities had received
information from a computer, presumed to be reliable, that orders to report
had in fact been sent. What's interesting here is not so much that a computer
could experience an error, but that it could really <i>control</i> a large
military organization. Some of our most respectable military institutions
therefore have names that could be used as product labels for various
computer brands.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Then, there's artificial intelligence. When
intelligent agents enter the picture, complexity increases. We may be
forced to ask ourselves if it's perhaps the case that we interact with
digital individuals, seemingly possessing their own free wills. A digital
individual is created when a computer system becomes so complex that it
gains a <i>consciousness</i>, similar to that of humans. This probably
hasn't happened yet at the time you read this. The most disturbing example
I can think of is a program from Hectare Ltd, which can generate trashy
novels for women, i. e. stuff similar to <b>Barbera Cartland</b>'s, in
a never-ending stream. If you ever suspected that a computer could generate
mainstream fiction, your fears have been realized. The program really
works, and it's not even very large and comprehensive. Similar programs
can reformulate pre-written passages to infuse them with a certain style
of writing.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">One of the most dangerous power factors
with AI is that it can easily produce an endless flow of seemingly intelligent
bull, which diverts attention from real problems. To coin a conspiracy
theory, I'll propose that there are already publications whose content
is wholly or partially computer-generated. Those who wrote the programs
are probably mostly concerned with making money and don't care whatsoever
about the moral aspects. <i>Wouldn't you?</i> The public doesn't notice.
They think they see a human, but it's really a robot. But then again -
what's the difference? Curtains.</font></p>
<p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"> <img src="Image9.gif" width="507" height="136" border="1">
</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"> This is just one of the many possible applications
of artificial intelligence. It is the case, however, that the digital
individual will one day become so intelligent that it can produce a dialog
without any input from one of the persons speaking. The established authorities
can then control the individual in any manner they choose. Imagine calling
the utility company about having no hot water. You think you're speaking
with a human, but you're actually talking to a computer. Everything you
say is turned into statistics, with no need for the responsible parties
to react to any criticism. The powers that be can filter out your complaints
in order to make independent, emotionally neutral decisions… and
right about here the argument becomes so fuzzy that I might as well leave
it to the reader to finish. (I'm not really a philosopher, just a dabbler
in the art). It is at least an amusing thought experiment.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif" color="#000000"><b>Cybernetic
Society vs. Copyright<br>
</b></font><font face="Times New Roman">It is obvious that the cybernetic
social model entails changes in our way of viewing information and its
role in society. Some things that we now take for granted may become fundamentally
altered. An example: copyright. Copyright is the right to own information,
or in the case of a <i>patent</i>, the right to own knowledge and make
money from it. In jargon, it's called <i>intellectual property</i>. Copyright
was created in conjunction with the art of printing, since before that
time it wasn't very important to know who owned information and the right
to publish it. All knowledge and ideas were in those days considered public
domain, and not property. <i>Information was free</i>. Th possibility
of owning information is inseparable from the presence of machines like
the printing press, fax machines, or computers. Without these, the book,
painting, etc., become unique works of art as opposed to a mass of reproducible
information. Thus, copyright is an attribute of the early cybernetic society
that associates <i>information</i> and <i>knowledge</i> with <i>economy.</i>
This applies to all information, printed text or photographs, film or
software. </font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">We can then trace the origin of copyright
to the emergence of the printed symbol. To emphasize the importance of
this development (in order to strengthen the argument), I will summarize
the development of modern symbols below:<br>
</font></p>
<table border="1" align="center">
<tr>
<td><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif" color="#000000"><b>Symbol</b></font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif" color="#000000"><b>Population</b></font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif" color="#000000"><b>Cultural
Basis</b></font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif" color="#000000"><b>Time
Period</b></font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">Primitive symbols</font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">Animals</font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">Genetic culture </font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">Prehistoric</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">Speech</font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">People</font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">Oral culture </font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">40,000 B.C.</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">Text</font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">Civilization</font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">Written culture</font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">3,000 B.C.</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">Print</font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">Industrial society</font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">Distributed mass-culture</font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">1,500 A.D.</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">Hypersymbols</font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">Information society</font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">Information culture</font></td>
<td><font face="Times New Roman">2,000 A.D</font></td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>T<font face="Times New Roman">he dates indicate the origin of the respective
symbol, rather than the date it became widely used. Normally, the transition
from oral to written culture is considered to have taken place around
500 B.C., and printed material wasn't very widespread before the Enlightenment
(1700s and 1800s). The first date is very hard to ascertain. This is really
not that important: the question is not one of dates, but of the history
of symbols. It is clear that information technology is causing a change
in society which effects are comparable to that of the printing press
(at least!).</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Symbols change with time. What we consider
valuable today can become worthless tomorrow. For example, most people
think gold is valuable. If, let's say, a small planet made of gold collided
with the Earth, making gold the most common metal on the planet, our view
would instantly change to where gold was worth less than iron. By the
same token, we would gladly trade all of our gold for food if we were
starving, since we also have certain physical needs. You could even say
that we have psychological needs, which are (in our modern society) largely
generated by advertising, making us willing to trade our economic means,
in monetary form, for stereos, sodas, etc. We thus have a conception of
the value of things that is based on supply and demand. Supply and demand
are controlled partly by nature, and partly by other people. This is what
makes us consumers. These concepts are found in all major ideologies.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">When other people want to influence our
consumption, they use symbols to do so. This can be done by, for example,
establishing a certain brand of clothing as synonymous with the symbol
called <i>status</i>, or a brand of soda as synonymous with <i>freshness</i>
and <i>youthfulness</i>. But this is only the most conspicuous part of
the top of the iceberg. In reality, our entire societal system is
built by symbols. This is what sociologists cal <i>symbolic interactionism</i>,
which is a scientific theory usually associated with a guy named <b>George
Herbert Mead</b> - something of a genius of a philosopher, who unfortunately
didn't directly write anything, but had a great influence on the field
of sociology. Mead defined many of the symbols I've mentioned in this
chapter. Mead also touched upon the concepts that will be found later
on; among other things, he suggested that the French Revolution was a
turning point in modern history, where people for the first time realized
that they had a right to change or correct society, and that the state
wasn't based on some divine principle. Philosophically speaking, he was
a pragmatist who thought that ideas and theories should be checked against
reality before being awarded any value or authority. Mead for sure was
a supporter of the <i>hands-on imperative</i>. (The pragmatic school of
thought is an extension of fallibilism, which is basically the same as
Zen).</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Ok, fine. What about copyright, then? That's
the point I'm supposed to get to. We, as the people of the Earth, have
reached an agreement that says that we should view information and knowledge
as property. This concept of property, or ownership, is a <i>symbol</i>
that we endorse. With the introduction of the information society, the
<i>morality</i> created by these symbols becomes fuzzy, to say the least.
Morality, or ethics, tells you that you shouldn't trespass on the territory
of others, not to harm, not to steal someone else's property. These are
commonly accepted moral imperatives when it comes to material property.
But when it comes to <i>intellectual property</i>, protected by copyright
and patents, we've reached a breaking point. IT forces us to re-examine
these principles: it is <i>immoral</i> to enter certain commands in a
certain order from your keyboard. Other command sequences are fully acceptable.
I can program my own computer, but not someone else's over a network.
I am permitted to copy some programs as much as I want to, some not at
all, and some with conditions. We become uncertain of what to think, and
some succumb to dogmatic condemnation of software piracy, in order to
be certain.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Since legislation isn't the same thing as
corporate policy, I get mixed signals, like when the gaming company Nintendo
asserted that it was forbidden to engage in second-hand sales of computer
games. Of course Nintendo is of this opinion, since if people can only
buy new games, that lets Nintendo sell more of them and make more money.
Under Swedish law, Nintendo doesn't have a leg to stand on. We are faced
with conflicting messages from the government and established industry,
with the result that we start thinking on our own. Since corporations
share economic power with governments, we view both as authorities. We
start questioning these authorities - we start thinking independently,
and make our own decisions in the absence of clear directives from society.
Remember, once again, Rule #3: <i>Distrust authority.</i> The hackers'
ethic leads the way through turbulent times.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">The hackers discovered severe injustice
with regards to information. On the Scene, the 13-14-year-old hackers
couldn't for their life understand why only the youths with rich parents
should have access to all the fun software. Among the phreakers, there
was total disbelief over why only companies and institutions should be
allowed free communications - since this was a way to grow! Why accept
this? Granted, one could call this lack of respect and lack of understanding
of the workings of society, etc. However, no one lowered himself or herself
to discussing the issue. The message that the hackers received from the
establishment was: <i>"You are criminals. Period."</i> What
amazing hypocrisy!</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">I conclude that <i>the more cybernetic a
society becomes, the more difficult it becomes to define private domains
of knowledge.</i> The more computers and the more refined technology we
get, the more meaningless the concept of <i>intellectual property</i>
becomes. This is especially the case with software, for which patents
are granted for methods that didn't require any large investment in research
and equipment, but only perhaps one or two nights of intensive hacking.
The ideas didn't cost anything - it's mostly a case of "early bird
gets the worm", and it gets the <i>only </i>worm. It is no longer
possible to defend intellectual injustice with material analogies.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">This forces us to pose the question: where
is the line between freedom of expression and property? What may I copy
and what may I not copy? When does knowledge cease to be public property
and change into private property? What is happening is that technology
is de-boning our entire social systems, holding up its skeleton for all
to view. We can see how large areas of cyberspace has arbitrarily been
sold out to the profit-hungry gold diggers of the information industry.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Software is an extension of the human mind:
of the ability to create, understand, and generalize knowledge. To reserve
such a powerful tool only for those who can afford to burn hundreds of
dollars on it is not sustainable in the long term. I'm not saying that
parasites like the Chinese Triads or other piracy syndicates should be
allowed to take the right of ownership from the large companies. What
I <i>am</i> saying is that it shouldn't be prohibited for private individuals
to freely distribute software and help each other use it. This doesn't
exclude competition from established companies, as long as they can provide
something that the local hacker can't: printed manuals, 24-hour service,
instructional resources, etc. Who knows these things better than the one
who created the software? <i>Software is a product that lacks inherent
value</i>. It is not the ownership of software that drives society forward,
it is the ability to use it, and to teach others to use it. What we should
buy and sell in the information society isn't software, but applications
and advice - in one word: <i>Support</i>. </font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">As necessary as copyright was in the industrial
society, as meaningless it is in the information society. The problem
is not separating printed information from electronic information. The
problem is that it's no longer possible to separate <i>information</i>
from <i>knowledge</i>, and <i>owned knowledge</i> from <i>public knowledge</i>.
The line between an <i>idea</i> and the <i>application</i> of the same
is being erased as people communicate more and more using machines that
have been constructed for that very purpose. By extension, the line between
<i>thought</i> and <i>action</i> is also threatened by the development
of virtual reality.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Let the software companies fight syndicates,
mafias, and criminal groups that make a killing off piracy - this doesn't
bother me at all. But, for God's sake, don't condemn the private copying
of software between friends with no profit interests involved! This distribution
is <i>not</i> immoral, but simply a way of transmitting knowledge. It
is <i>wrong</i> if such copying is illegal, and it <i>should</i> be permitted
for private individuals to copy as much as they want. It is the <i>dirty
money</i> that should be removed from the software business, not the burning
interest and enthusiasm of the amateurs! The moral limit is not drawn
over the right to copy programs or not, but the right to <i>make money</i>
from a program or not! This is the right that should be reserved for the
author, if he or she so wishes.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">In Sweden, today, I can go into any public
library, retrieve any book that I want, go to the copy machine and copy
as many pages as I want. Some legislator, in a moment of clarity, realized
that preventing this would be an infringement on the freedom of the individual
and the possibility of personal development *Code 1993:1007). Information
gives birth to intelligence! <i>There is no reason that this freedom should
be limited to printed matter.</i> Films, CDs, computer programs…
it's only a matter of definition. All of this is information, and nourishment
for human intelligence. It is not healthy for the individual to be prevented
from copying information. It is sick. <i>SICK!</i></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Patenting a certain sequence of characters
- strings of information - sound waves and videograms - insanity. If the
people who first invented words for human language thought in those terms,
we would have never learned to read or write. Whistling a patented song
on the town square one sunny afternoon is a "public broadcast",
and royalties should be paid for it. When you're not engaged in making
a profit off information - which is by extension to increase your power
- when you're simply out to spread joy and knowledge, then information
should be <i>free</i>. Period.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">There's no point in dragging out an argument
about it, and legislate left and right. Sooner or later, we'll reach the
<i>jaywalking</i> criteria (Translator's note: in Sweden, it's only illegal
to jaywalk if you end up actually interfering with traffic): this is when
a crime becomes so common and widespread that it's pointless to fight
it, like jaywalking or copying music CDs to tape. Rather, governments
and legislators should concern themselves with their own integrity.<sup><a href="#FTNT2">(2)</a></sup></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"><b>Conceptual Breakdown (Copyright Does
Not Exist!)<br>
</b>With the decreased clarity of our symbols, what should we expect to
happen? To have something to build on, I will with impunity borrow an
idea from <b>Thomas Kuhn</b>. Kuhn is a philosopher of science, who has
exciting ideas about the way science grows and changes over time. Kuhn's
theories are reminiscent of ideas of social development, the emergence
of various ideologies, and how we humans grow and change our environment
in general. In short: the man describes what happens when people use their
intelligence. The most thrilling part about Kuhns theories is that they
are very reminiscent of Gödel's theory of formal systems. The basic
premise is the following: you have a clear picture of the world, a <i>paradigm<sup><a href="#FTNT3">(3)</a></sup></i>,
such as:</font></p>
<blockquote>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">You know that information can be owned,
because otherwise this and that company would go bankrupt, and that
means this or that to you, which is not good, and therefore you should
accept that information can be owned. </font></p>
</blockquote>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"> Or:</font></p>
<blockquote>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"> You know that money is valuable since
it's based on the country's productivity and quality compared to other
countries, and therefore you should accept that a note with some numbers
on it is worth money, so that the government (and other governments)
doesn't suffer a crisis of public confidence, because then your standard
of living is threatened. (Note: slight sarcasm here. Other people might
say this in complete seriousness, though ;)</font></p>
</blockquote>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Kuhn thought that paradigms changed over
time like this:</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"> Paradigm -> normal conditions ->
Inconsistencies -> Crisis -> Revolution -> New Paradigm</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">With the premise that people generally develop
norms (rules for action, bases for judgment) in the same way that scientists
form paradigms (models, bases for judgment), I'm applying this system
to our society. (Norms and paradigms are kind of the same - both are grounded
in human intelligence, and are oriented towards bringing order out of
chaos by erecting philosophical systems). These conceptual systems
live around us while we don't think about them. For example, there's no
law of nature that says we have to divide the day into 24 hours - we would
do just as well with 10 or 50. No one forced us to separate musical tones
into 12 per octave, because 8 or 16 would work fine too. We define our
environment in common terms to avoid conceptual confusion. Sometimes we
reflect on these concepts so rarely that we take them for granted, as
a natural order, and for that reason we consider people who come up with
new conceptual systems delusional. William S. Burroughs expresses this
more conspiratorially and ruthlessly:</font></p>
<blockquote>
<p><i>"There is no true or real 'reality' - 'Reality' is simply a
more or less constant interpretive pattern - the pattern that we accept
as 'reality' has been forced upon us by the authorities of this planet,
a system of power that primarily seeks total control."</i></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">(From <i>Nova Express</i>)</font></p>
</blockquote>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"> When <b>Erik Satie</b>, the poor genius,
played his furniture music which broke with traditional patterns of musical
creation, he got booed out. When <b>Picasso</b> broke with classical art
concepts, many considered him to be an idiot. Cross your heart - how many
of you has <i>not</i> at some point complained about art which <i>"you
can't see what it's supposed to be"</i>? Gödel went so far as
to prove that even something like <i>time</i> is subjectively perceived,
philosopher or not. With hackers, we find this rebelliousness in, for
example, the B1FF language, where our pre-established notions of the functions
of signs are given a serious twist. Many BBS and Internet users write
flaming posts when they see someone write a sentence like: y0YO!#%$!!
wH4+zZ h4pP3n1n' 4r0uN '3r3 +H3zZ3 d4yZzZ?#$!%??. The question repeats
itself: <i>how groundbreakingly creative are you allowed to be?</i> And
at which points in time?</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">From the start, after some turbulent times
we've established a closed conceptual system that we have accepted, we
live in a stable condition where production and consumption live in harmony
with an established societal system, with all that it brings of class
divisions and territorial thinking. Now, when the information society
brings things to a head, internal inconsistencies emerge inside the system.
Is money really based on production? What are the production forces, in
that case? Can knowledge be owned or not? This is the period in which
our society currently finds itself, and will remain in for quite some
time. This is the turbulent era of the <i>post-industrial society</i>.
We are breaking out of the complete, near-mathematical system that our
society has been stuck in, almost like Gödel broke out of mathematical
systems and Zen debunks philosophical theories with direct answers. The
<i>Patriarchy</i>, which the feminists want to break down, is another
system whose foundations are cracking. (Within sociological science, this
condition is called <i>anomie</i>, which means that there is a lack of
functioning norms in society, like in today's post-Soviet Russia). This
phase is also characterized by mushrooming subcultures and a reinforcement
in religious sects, both of which are a result of an anxious search for
definite norms not found in ordinary society. Eventually, there will be
a <i>crisis</i> that precedes the <i>real</i> information revolution.
This is when the most comprehensive societal changes will take place.
(We are talking about a social revolution, no necessarily a bloody one).
After this revolution, we form a new set of assumptions about how society
should function, and it is only then that we have achieved the real information
society. Many micro- and macroeconomic equations (or <i>axioms</i>, to
be scientifically nit-picky) that are valid in the industrial society
will become totally worthless in the information society.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">In order for the changes to occur at all,
someone has to push them through, committed to partially tearing down
old norms to make room for new ones, albeit with some respect for the
old society. These are Nietzsche's disciples, or in our case, the most
militant cyberpunks with the hackers at the front, who dare to stand for
their ideals in a new age. To quote Nietzsche himself: <i>"I'm not
closed-minded enough to stick to only one system, not even my own!"</i>
It's about tearing down the norms of industrial society to make way for
the ones that will put information society on track. It doesn't have to
occur outside the established system; what Nietzsche (and others) says
is that it <i>may</i>. </font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Since the 50's and 60's, the younger generation
has assumed the role as pattern-breakers, questioning old systems and
building new ones. In Nietzsche's time, students and intellectuals were
the most rebellious. There's been a shift to where radical ideas are associated
with youth, and conservative ideas with age. This is one of the worst
pathologies of our system of roles - many young people actually dislike
the role as revolutionaries, and become, like in <b>Tom Petty</b>'s partially
self-biographical song <i>Into The Great Wide Open</i>, rebels without
a clue. The pressure to revolt can in some cases become the straw that
breaks the camel's back, pushing youngsters into crime and drug abuse.
Many acts of rebellion are unfounded and arbitrary, aimed solely at provoking
more conservative older folks - but there are some acts that <i>are</i>
justified. The revolt against the informational dictatorship of corporations
and governments is not unreasonable. It is an ideologically grounded revolution,
which deserves being taken seriously.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Tolerance for new concepts and points of
view is one factor that determines how closed or streamlined a society
is. Nietzsche, in his time, appreciated the majestic music of <b>Richard
Wagner</b>, which was another attempt to break out of a degenerating musical
paradigm. Even though Hitler later admired both Wagner and Nietzsche,
nazism was an ideology that condemned any effort to create new systems
of concepts. Towards the end of the 30's, they organized an exposition
in Berlin for "ugly" art, mostly modern, which they considered
sick or twisted. That's the nature of fascism: after a shining ascension,
it loses all interest in creativity and strives only to preserve itself.
Can a society like ours, with corporations large enough to intimidate
governments, accept an orderly and reasonable debate about the existence
of copyright? Or will the system violently seize the power to decide what
is public and private property, bypassing pesky democratic channels through
lobbying and executive decrees with no debate whatsoever?</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Dear readers: I suppose that on your journey
through this book, you've discovered how close we really are to the information
society.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">It's my honest and upright opinion that
such a society will either be free of copyright and software patents as
they exist today, or it will be an informational dictatorship run by either
governments, corporations, or mafias. The latter is the society William
Gibson warns us of in his cyberpunk novels. Let's avoid it. I have do
not know exactly how this change will occur, nor what the final result
will be, just that it <i>will</i> take place.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"> <b>Cybernetic Society vs. Class Perspectives
- The Mechanisms of Power<br>
</b>The British sociologist <b>Basil Bernstein</b><sup><a href="#FTNT4">(4)</a></sup><b>
</b>viewed the mechanisms of society like this:</font></p>
<p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"> <img src="Image10.gif" width="310" height="234" border="1">
</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"> In this system, we can see society divided
into a production sphere and a sociocultural reproduction sphere. In the
<i>production sphere</i> (corporations, organizations, legislature, executive
branch, and counties), <b>power</b> is created, economic, political, and
public. The <i>socio-cultural reproduction sphere</i> (parts of the media,
entertainment industry, educational system, etc.) exists to justify and
perpetuate the patterns suitable to the production sphere.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">At the bottom of the picture, we find the
nexus of these relationships. The <b>Code</b> is our language, in all
its forms. It's actually every social symbol used to exchange information
between people and society. The <b>Code</b> is <i>pure information. </i>It
is the foundation for the entire hierarchy and social order. Through the
linguistic code, society is constantly structured and reinforced in the
same ways, which is why Zen, Nietzsche and Burroughs criticized language
- they felt subordinated to a social and cognitive system which never
changed in any substantial manner. Additionally, language has more levels
than the spoken or written. There is pictorial language, music, and all
kinds of symbols to use. Basically, all vessels for the transfer and storage
of information could be said to be part of this code.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Many believe that the information society
will naturally generate the same kind of structure, just because it's
always happened before. There is no evidence suggesting that this would
be the case - rather, evidence suggests the opposite. The information
society inherently elevates public consciousness of society itself to
a level which bares its mechanisms. What's actually happening is that
the basic units of society become aware of their own role in this gigantic
information system, which in turn leads to their desire to improve it.
Social progress can thus be further accelerated, like always (you with
me?).</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Let's employ an illustrative example: a
current controversy on the Internet concerns (as I mentioned in Chapter
8) the Church of Scientology and its questionable copyright on the religious
documents it produces. According to believers, the documents contain material
describing the movement's so-called <i>clearing technology</i>, which
is a quasi-science demanding comprehensive and very expensive courses.
The Church thinks that only members of the movement have a right to this
information. Roughly, you could say that clearing technology consists
of hypnosis and science fiction. </font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">The Church of Scientology is a sect, and
as such, a society within society. It provides all the functions a society
normally provides for a human being. It affords her opinions, morality,
social orientation, and so on. The only reason for a member to venture
outside the limits of the sect, is to earn his or her own living and thereby
nourishing the sect also. Sects, among which I also place the Plymouth
Rock people, Jehova's Witnesses, and Livets Ord (a Swedish religious sect),
live like parasites on our social system. Almost every clear-headed individual
is aware of this. One way of seeing how hermetically closed a sect is,
is to apply Bernstein's model on it. Any reader with some imagination
shouldn't have much trouble doing this.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Now, participate in a thought experiment
that is taboo. Imagine that society is a sect, and that your thought patterns
are externally controlled. Imagine that copyright and freedom-of-expression
legislation exists to limit your awareness and maintain the social hierarchy,
just like a sect's leadership rules its members. Imagine that, despite
all of our freedoms, we might be blinded by the delusion that our society
is free! Members of a sect are completely convinced that they have made
an independent choice to join it, and that they are free individuals.
All sect members are convinced that the sect's account of things is the
one true account, and all renegades are vehicles of, for example, Satan.
Suppose that all members of society are convinced that society's account
of reality is the true one, and that criminals, hackers, and other non-conformists
are painted in a bad light because it suits its purposes. No sect leaders
force their members to obey and serve out of sheer lust for power, but
because they actually believe in what they're doing. No politician or
CEO forces citizens and employees to do their bidding out of sheer malice,
because they also believe in what they're doing. Do you understand Burroughs
a little more?</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Look society and power in the eye. Why is
the Church of Scientology one of the first authorities to cry for law
and order, wanting control of information? Why is society not so far behind?
Why do we want to keep tabs on the information that spreads through subcultures?
Suppose that there are truths you never dreamt of, outside the universe
of society. Isn't it the case that behind this jovial façade of the
social community a force is concealed, which wants to replace organic
sympathy with mechanical obedience?</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">So what is this superior power? I've already
shown what it is: supervisory intelligent entities, thinking units consisting
of constructs of people: Corporations, Governments, Nations, Counties,
Concerns, Mafias…. they consist of individuals, but they don't <i>think</i>
like individuals. They are intelligent, but their intelligence is not
human. They can benefit us, but they can also do us harm. They are <i>superindividuals</i>,
individuals made out of individuals, united through the control of information,
or to put it in another way: <i>power</i>. The problem is that we, as
humans, have a horrible time seeing the forest for the trees.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Too many myths are flourishing around people
and their society. One of the most despicable ones is the delusion that
society is "free". Every society is founded on the <i>lack </i>of
freedom - giving up some of your freedom in exchange for security. What
every individual should know is that unless you apply anarchistic principles,
you have to go through life constantly sacrificing parts of your freedom
to superior forces. These can consist of the kinds I enumerated above,
and others. The basic obligation a superindividual has to an individual
is to inform the individual that <i>"this is what I claim of your
freedom, and this is what you get in exchange."</i> Symbiosis, not
domination. The nastiest of these superindividuals are those that operate
behind the scenes, intentionally controlling and influencing individuals
without their knowledge. These are often referred to under a collective
term: the "Illuminati", the glowing ones, the "good"
people, the circle of initiates.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Look at a new world with open eyes. Break
out of the system. Only after doing so, can you understand what you can
do for society. (And don't forget to ask yourself if I am, in fact, just
a nutty conspiracy theorist trying to see something where nothing exists.
That possibility exists, you know.) </font></p>
<hr>
<font color="#666666"><a name="FTNT1"></a> 1. Wasn't it an exquisite coincidence
for this incident to happen in 1984?<br>
<br>
<a name="FTNT2"></a> 2. Here's a present for the libertarians: if the right
of ownership is sacred, why do people not respect it when it comes to music
CDs, etc.? Would you? <i>Why</i> is the market unable to solve this problem,
if the legislature is really so powerless? Say, are there any problems that
can't be solved either by the market or the state?<br>
<br>
<a name="FTNT3"></a> 3. This word is one of those that have escaped down
from the esoteric, academic levels into normal language. Be careful if you
use it around people with scientific training, since the keyword of science
is <i>precision</i> - paradigm means one specific thing, not a category.
Using the word outside the philosophy of science could be viewed as a vulgar,
though common, practice. The opposite of scientific language is found in
New Age culture, where it's important to be as fuzzy and imprecise as possible.
Popular culture, of which this book is an example, must attempt a balancing
act between these two extremes.<br>
<br>
<a name="FTNT4"></a> 4. Bernstein, who was originally a linguist, belongs
to some structuralist or post-structuralist school of thought, which isn't
really too important in this context.</font></td>
</tr>
</table>
<FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Times New Roman">
<p align="center"><img src="arrowleft.gif" width="45" height="54" align="absmiddle" name="ch1web.htm" border="0">
<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+1" color="#999999"><a href="mainindex.htm">INDEX</a></font><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+1" color="#999999">
</font><a href="ch16web.htm"><img src="arrowright.gif" width="45" height="54" align="absmiddle" border="0"></a></b></p>
</FONT>
<p align=center> </p>
<p align=center><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif" size="1">Design and
formatting by <a href="mailto:nirgendwo@usa.net">Daniel Arnrup</a>/<a href="http://www.voodoosystems.nu">Voodoo
Systems</a></font></p>
</BODY>
</HTML>
|