Sopa on a Ropa
It’s been about a month since my last post because I was pre-protesting SOPA. Ok actually I’ve been knee deep in code, doing my best to transition to a new life beyond the soul-sucking job. There’s so much I want to say about that adventure over the last year, and I will, but not today. Instead I want to talk about people that tell other people what to do.
I’ve come to realize that the systems of control we live under are mostly self-imposed. That’s a controversial statement so let me explain. When we think of the rich and powerful, we might imagine that they have resources that they can recruit to inflict harm upon us if we disobey them. That’s true if we are just looking at punishment. If you don’t pay your rent, your landlord will call the cops and they will kick you out of your apartment and you might find yourself in small claims court (but probably not, because the opportunity cost of hassling with you is higher than just finding another tenant, but I digress).
Myopic legislation like SOPA and PIPA is trying to do the same thing. You share a video online, they come kick you out of your website or whatever. Fine, we get it.
But I think this is only part of the story. The real threat of force that’s pervading the current political climate and protests around the world, in everything from the 99%/Occupy movements to the meltdown of the Euro and disenfranchisement/austerity measures of less capitalism-driven countries, is not really so much about violence at all. It’s about withholding opportunity.
If you don’t do what we say, we won’t let you play the game.
This isn’t just videos on youtube. This is about free speech and the pursuit of happiness. The core values that started America are at odds with the goals of those in power. That means that their power is phantom power. It only exists because we believe they have it. It doesn’t mean we’ll fight and die for them. Stop playing their game and the power goes away. Or more specifically, stop desiring the “opportunity” they claim to extend and they become more mooch than provider.
So much of what we think of as necessity turns out to be liability. Credit cards. Cars. Oil. Capitalism. Entertainment. These things used to be fun but now they take all of our time and effort. Lo and behold, those in power mete out these things. What we want is what makes them rich.
But there is this whole other world out there. When you step back from the rat race and remember what used to drive you as a child, your life purpose, the goal you strive to achieve, it should be obvious that these worldly desires are at odds with that. I’m not saying we should all give up our possessions and live like monks. But I am saying that instead of buying CDs and movies, maybe we should go to local shows and support independent film. Maybe we should ride our bikes instead of driving.
Maybe we should quit working for corporations. But we may lose our homes, cars or health insurance. Our children may not have the money for college. We all have to decide for ourselves how far to push the envelope in pursuit of our dreams, but we should make an informed decision, not one based on a fear of losing whatever comfort we imagine ourselves to have. Because that fear is what props up phantom wealth and power. It’s what prevents us from seeing the possibilities that open up when we stop playing into a sick system.
Maybe if we push back against the fear, we’ll start making progress as a people again. Instead of competing for a small piece of the pie, maybe we’ll work together to create more wealth for everyone. Maybe someday housing, transportation, health care and college will largely be free like in many parts of Europe and the rest of the world. I’m not making this up. Ask someone who’s been there about Finland or Costa Rica. There are other ways of being.
One of my favorite quotes is “for every step you take towards your dreams, the universe takes ten”. I’ve heard that when people achieve a certain level of wealth, they start to worry about things like their health. When the money is no longer important, they see what really is. I say, why not start now. Realize right now, this moment, that if we don’t live with dignity for a higher purpose, then we are slaves to phantom authority. People and organizations that have no better understanding of life than you do, but who choose for you, feeling entitled to, because of numbers in a bank account or a misguided understanding of their own purpose, perpetuated by the same fear and desire that ensnared us.
When POOPA or whatever they call the next censorship bill passes…nothing will happen. First off because it won’t be enforced, because legislating morality at that level is impossible.
But say they try to enforce it. Say they start doing the unthinkable, taking away people’s internet (the future’s equivalent of speech, liberty and happiness). 15 minutes after that, hackers will release new tools that create a kind of darknet we haven’t seen yet. Imagine everything encrypted. Everything onion routed. Everything anonymous. $5 wireless boxes that network neighbors, blocks, cities and eventually countries, the world and space automatically, at full bandwidth, and with automatic configuration. For free. This is a fairly easy thing to achieve, certainly much easier than maintaining linux kernels or writing the next 3D game engine. Just extend hashing networks like bittorrent to all traffic. There are millions of hackers out there, much smarter than any politician or lobbyist, and only a finite number of steps to create something like this. Some part of me dreams of it, some part of me fears it.
This is the inevitable conclusion of the intellectual property arms race. If we ever get to mutual annihilation, then communication channels will be mathematically unstoppable, so they only thing left to do will be to take away communication. They’ll have to make the internet illegal somehow, because users will be inadvertently forwarding fragments of illegal files just by using it. But they can’t make speech illegal without full authoritarianism, meaning the end of society. It’s a paradox. We’re perhaps a decade out from the arrival of the darknet, but I often wonder what will happen after that.
In fact, the more I think about it, we’re only a decade away from a lot of things that threaten power. People living off the grid. Inflatable plastic greenhouses growing practically free hydroponic food tended to by roomba-style robots. Virtual assistants and automatons that can work harder than people at any task forever. Solar powered trikes with unpuncturable tires that store their power in ultracapacitors and last forever with little to no maintenance. Clothing printed at home from polymer that costs $20 a gallon. Even the silly easy ideas now are compelling. And inevitable, on a long enough timescale.
So I’m starting to digress again and will try to keep this post digestible. The growing pains we’re seeing as the 1% tries to hold onto its remaining influence were inevitable and predicted. At some point in the near future, we’ll have a choice to make. Do we continue the class war with them, the inevitable outcome being that they become vilified, losing their wealth to pay for the crumbling society they’ve helped destroy… Or: do we stop our obsession with punishment and see beyond to what’s possible with cooperation, creating real prosperity that eclipses their phantom wealth, and with it, memories of scarcity-based limits on liberty like SOPA?
