Name: RMS 2009-05-02 11:12
Copyright laws are among the most significant in shaping the world as we know it. Copyright laws are not about entertainment, but rather, about thought control.
As a species we are standing on a crossroads never before faced by any species on the planet.
I argue that the single most significant contributor to our supremacy over this planet is our capacity for meme-exchange. We have taken mammalian peer-learning to an unprecedented level. The fact that every member of our species frequently expends great energy in the singular business of meme-aquisition, and that we spend just as much energy in the business of meme-distribution, serves as a testament to its survival-utility and evolutionary effectiveness.
Are we to embrace this freedom, allow the currents of information to flow unrestrained, and see where our exponentially-increasing rate of technological evolution (which, from a more metaphysical perspective, is not so different from our genetic evolution) takes us?
Or are we, on the other hand, going to lock ourselves down and block this flow, all in the name of preserving the economic prosperity of a select few?
Is our future one of wild change and uncertainty, or one of regularity and control?
As a species we are standing on a crossroads never before faced by any species on the planet.
I argue that the single most significant contributor to our supremacy over this planet is our capacity for meme-exchange. We have taken mammalian peer-learning to an unprecedented level. The fact that every member of our species frequently expends great energy in the singular business of meme-aquisition, and that we spend just as much energy in the business of meme-distribution, serves as a testament to its survival-utility and evolutionary effectiveness.
Are we to embrace this freedom, allow the currents of information to flow unrestrained, and see where our exponentially-increasing rate of technological evolution (which, from a more metaphysical perspective, is not so different from our genetic evolution) takes us?
Or are we, on the other hand, going to lock ourselves down and block this flow, all in the name of preserving the economic prosperity of a select few?
Is our future one of wild change and uncertainty, or one of regularity and control?