This simple fact of our distributed souls and talents has had scant respect from the centralized systems of the digital world, which would rather lead than follow us, and rather guess about us than understand us. That’s partly because too many of them have become dependent on surveillance-based personalized advertising (which is awful in ways I’ve detailed in 136 posts, essays and articles compiled here). But it’s mostly because they’re centralized and can’t think or work outside their very old and square boxes.
Read the whole post. It is hard to excerpt.
Centralization looks attractive when you have Fear Of Others’ Liberty along with confidence that those who have power will exercise it the way you want. When people you despise are de-platformed, you’re all for it.
There is a parallel with the argument between libertarians and FOOLs over gun control. In fact, the phrase “when crypto is outlawed, only outlaws will have crypto” has been around since Bill Clinton’s first term. On guns, the FOOLS argue “Look at all the homicides and suicides.” The libertarians retort that if you take away people’s ability to self-protect, they will be at the mercy of either criminals or government or both.
I have a feeling you might be interested to revisit the history around the sack of Rome.
Coming from a position of the ‘old netheads’ who wanted to create a better society through freedom and initiative, a very positive version of human nature, the current system looks like a nearly unaccountable disaster – of the ‘I can’t believe they are screwing this up’ form. Like the old Yellow Pages, which is now totally dead and buried.
The question from this perspective; we know that centralization will be a disaster and society will be the worse for it, and we can’t stop it from happening at the core. How do we avoid getting trampled by it, and what form will the horde of not-centralized that will eventually overwhelm it take? Human nature wants to create another center of power to oppose it, to unite against it; but that concept fails on many counts. So how do the people who are putatively subject to its functions – deplatforming, involuntary disconnection – turn their individual weakness into collective [destructive] strength? Is there a way to avoid it being purely destructive? Are we confident enough in that coming demise to look beyond it a la Asimov?
The notion that “political power grows from the barrel of a gun” is a belief that libertarians oddly share with Maoists and seems to me to be true only under conditions of civil war. If political power is understood as the ability to get others to accept your version of reality then guns are only one means and far from the most effective at producing that outcome, especially under conditions of normal civil society. Who is more politically powerful, Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh and their microphones and (until recently) Tweets or some random militia, its members bristling with weapons? The movements that overthrew repressive regimes in Egypt and Tunisia were not armed movements and it’s hard to see how their less-than-successful aftermaths would have been improved if everybody also had guns. The collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites in Eastern Europe was not caused by citizens with guns. Libertarians should not reflexively accept this proposition. Even as a defense against criminals the proposition is suspect. The number of cases in which the presence of a gun in the hands of a law-abiding citizen in a fraught situation produces a better outcome than if the gun had not been present is outnumbered by the cases in which it contributes to a worse outcome. But that is an argument for another day.
“The number of cases in which the presence of a gun in the hands of a law-abiding citizen in a fraught situation produces a better outcome than if the gun had not been present is outnumbered by the cases in which it contributes to a worse outcome.”
So, in a self-defense situation, are you willing to live by your creed and play the odds? And, are you willing to force other people to play by the odds even if they would prefer to defend themselves with a weapon?
My personal preference in a potentially deadly encounter is to patiently wait for my turn, introduce my weapon and then go to work based on my training. Please prove me wrong.
As a test case, how would you react in a situation like this?
https://youtu.be/s5NzuGSkL2E
You are just describing the old saying, “the pen is mightier than the sword.”
The civil rights movement in America would have failed without black Americans willing to bring firearms to protests. You don’t see them in the news reels because they had the organizational infrastructure to put photogenic young people in their Sunday best up front. This is well documented. One good place to start is a book called “That Nonviolent Stuff Will Get You Killed”.
You know when else centralization looks attractive?
When you are corporation looking to maximize profit.
Mr. Searls is 100% correct. Unfortunately, the time to make this work was 20 years ago. Now we have a set of 4 trillion dollar godzillas roaming the earth ravaging everything before them.
BTW, I think it is still worth fighting for the types of decentralized prescriptions he is proposing. I’m just pointing out what this is up against.
Libertarianism was my gateway to the gun culture. And, I’ve found nothing but friendly, practical and safety oriented folks within the gun movement.
Over the past year, there were literally millions upon millions of the new gun owners added to the ranks in the US.
My challenge to them: you just bought a nice set of shiny new golf clubs, but it doesn’t end there. Time to learn how to actually play golf. Have fun, be safe and be a diplomat to all things 2A related.