Like many other Advogatians, I work for a business. Like
most (I presume), if I could have my
druthers, I'd rather spend my work-time reading lots of good
books and magazines; thinking about weighty philosophical
issues; advocating open-source; writing open-source
software; and toying with my own handful of Perl- and
PHP-scripted websites that implement whatever
nifty little idea or service I'm currently crazy about.
So I bide my time, waiting for that dream job to come
along where I can spend all my time doing
that, and meanwhile squeeze a little bit of interesting
computer-science-ish
stuff
into my free
time, while trying to focus mostly on my family life.
Lately, however, I've been distracted -- and frankly, a
little depressed -- by my growing perception
of what this world is becoming, especially as relates to
technology and the internet, and
especially concerning intellectual property and
freedom of speech.
For me, the glass is usually more full than empty, but
I've had a hard time remaining optimistic
lately about the future of our society in light of recent
events and problems such as the
DMCA,
the DeCSS
ruling,
the Napster et al hullaballo,
recent tendencies in US patent policy,
possible
future tendencies in foreign patent policy,
rampant political corruption (note that this is coming from
a citizen of the US; I certainly do
not attempt to speak for all US citizens, let a lone those
from other countries; others' outlook on
the political scene may vastly differ), and the list goes
on.
It seems as though the individual has no voice and no
choice but to be swept along by increasingly
concentrated and powerful corporate and political forces.
Comments to the effect of business completely
throttling
the Internet
are no longer able to be laughed off.
Wherever there is money (the Internet), big business and
law will not be far behind. Internet
regulation is inevitable in my opinion. Yes,
technology has so far been able to stay a few
steps ahead of business and law, but I don't think that
business and the legal profession will quietly
sit on their hands and let this happen to them. Inevitably
the Internet will be regulated by law and
controlled by big business. (Aside: I am not of the opinion
that business is wrong, merely corporatism;
in addition, law is not inherently bad, simply its misuse.
For example, if you create a web business in
the US, you will likely fill out the normal small-business
forms -- that's not a terrible thing. It is
when law stifles creativity and innovation, as is happening
all around us, that I take issue.)
All is not gloom and doom; we're not about to go
Orwellian or anything terrible like that. Yet, I have
become disillusioned with the direction things are moving;
the general trend I see when I look around is a
downward one. I'd much rather deal with it now than deal
with the ramifications later. I have reached
the point where I feel helpless to do anything (except
complain) about what is going on. Granted, I could
probably write to my political representatives as a start,
but I hardly know where to start, and especially
how to avoid sounding like a crackpot.
What I wonder, is this: what
constructive things can we do to combat this downward
spiral?