[Prev|
Next| Index] i inadvertently registered this page twice
while the democracy server was down.
the result is that you can see this as sort of a crossroads.
[Prev|
Next| Index] the future has
no places of power
for small men,
frightened of change.
they are aware of this fact.
Millions of years ago, we all lived in the same place. Over the centuries, we drifted apart to the far corners of the world and, as Black Elk (a Lakota Sioux in North America) put it, the sacred hoop was broken. We no longer seemed to be One People.
The differences between us that developed were used by small-minded members of our species for control over us. "THEY are BAD. THEY are the ENEMY. Follow ME so we can protect ourselves from THEM". For hundreds of thousands of years, we have listened to these small-minded members of our species (whether dressed in general's armor or priest's robes), and for hundreds of thousands of years, we have fought against each other. Brothers have killed sisters, fathers have killed their sons. Often a very unhappy time.
With the growth of the Internet, there's no more "THEY" -- the globe gets much smaller. Sure there's been television and radio, but I don't have a TV station in my house, and my neighbor in Guatemala isn't likely to have a radio station in her back yard. As has been said before, "Freedom of the Press is only guaranteed to those that own a press." With the web, we can all own a press (or at least many, many of us). How are governments ever going to be able to pull one of those "Yellow Peril" or "Red Scare" acts over on us if we can access regular folks in those places, make our own friends in those places, and make our own decisions?
We're not naive enough to think that the Net will magically produce world peace next Wednesday. Maybe the week after next though. As more and more humans around the world become net.citizens, small-minded members of our species will have less and less effectiveness when they try to tell us "THEY are BAD." We will respond, "I just talked to THEM yesterday, and THEM is us."
The unrestricted global flow of information is a serious threat to powers that be. "Decentralized" and "open" are dirty words number eight and nine to small-minded members of our species that want power-over others. The net promotes power-with others.
We make no apologies for the sleaze and the "MAKE MONEY FAST" messages and the flame wars. John Perry Barlow said it most eloquently in the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace , "In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat."
The unrestricted net can mend the sacred hoop, and make humanity whole again. Some small-minded members of our species stand to lose a whole lot of money if that happens.
You can have my web browser
when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.Thank you for your time,
Brian Hill
slack Magazine
Madison, WI, USA
2/18/96
