[Gllug] DIGITAL MAOISM: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism - Jaron Lanier

[John G Walker]

Sunday, June 4, 2006, 1:01:06 PM, Nix wrote:

> On Wed, 31 May 2006, Chris Ebenezer stated:
>> On 5/30/06, John G Walker <johngwalker at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
>>> My opinion of the article is that it was written by someone who has
>>> typed a lot of words in order to disguise the fact he has nothing to
>>> say. But I'm willing to be convinced that I'm wrong if anyone can give
>>> me a one-sentence summary of his argument,
>> 
>> He's a cyber-libertarian (appears in various magazines, where his
>> dreadlocks are taken as a sign of being a 'radical turbonerd').
>> 
>> Summary: "Libertarianism good, markets good, collectivism baa-ad".

> Simply the use of the words `hazard' `collectivism' and `Maoism'
> together in a short distance makes that quite clear :( you hardly
> even need to bother reading the article.

At the risk of dragging on something that should never have started in
the first place, I don't think that Chris's sentence does summarise
the article. The article is about open source software and wikipedia,
which Chris's sentence does not mention.

If the the sentence is a quote from the author of the article, then it
merely emphasises my point. It can't remember having seen so much
political confusion crammed into six words. As a libertarian myself,
I'm can't quite see why oppression by the market should be regarded
as preferable to oppression by any other human institution. And what,
may I ask, is wrong about the collective defence of liberty? It seems
to me the only way to do it.

But anyway, we've probably got better things to do than discuss the
outpourings of the confused,

-- 
All the best,
 John

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