Found on a blog. A rant against the idea of intellectual property. It's deliciously over-the-top and I didn't want to keep it from you guys :lulz:
from https://humaniterations.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/on-the-subject-of-genocidal-rage/
On The Subject Of Genocidal Rage (https://humaniterations.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/on-the-subject-of-genocidal-rage/)
The moment someone brings up "intellectual property" or the like my mind instantly goes to a place with terms like "cordwood" and "open graves", and it always has. It's a struggle to reign myself back from that blood fury, made worse by my total incomprehension of why that would be the wrong response. If someone tries to censor you you kill them until they can't censor you any more. There's no other sensible response.
To govern the information one has access to or can send is to imprison one in the most fundamental way. It claims dominion over one's contact with all external reality. To rip away one's capacity to say, torrent books is akin to ripping away one's sense of smell or touch. A massive branch of one's capacity to register and act. It's viscerally heinous in a way that passing violations like brutality, betrayal and coercion pale before. You can starve, beat or rape a person, you can enslave them at gunpoint towards some task, but chopping off their hands lest they write illicit 1s and 0s or ripping out their nose lest they discern your proprietary ingredients is its own realm of abomination. No deeper hell is fathomable for an active mind than isolation from stimuli. And no branch of interaction with the external universe is comparably critical to civilized society than communication. Without the capacity to communicate, wholly and fully, there is no reason to respect the lives of others, no hope of resolution of conflict or domination save bloodshed.
When they can take your voice — when they can carve away what you can say and how you can say it — you've no recourse left but to take their lives. Forget enlightened reasoning, even threats require a voice to speak them. All that remains to be won is the victory of animals: elimination of the other.
If there's anything worse than sensory deprivation it would be the sort of domination intended not just to determine your actions but to reshape your thoughts. "Intellectual Property" doesn't just attempt to sever the content and reach of 21st century communication, it decrees that merely having certain memories will be punished by brutal force. The particular medium of course does not matter. Hardly anyone uses our precious grey matter to store facts, experiences or detailed arguments anymore. From paper journals and sketchpads we've moved to cybernetic augments. Laptops and phones have become as critical and fundamental to our near-singularity minds as any other bodily organ. But eidetic memory is now forbidden. The moment we leave a movie theater the experience must be ripped from our minds by gunpoint leaving only the hollowest of impressions and afterimages, lest an .avi file in our silicon lobes deter them from potential profits. This is considered "fair" because it only reduces us to the level of prehistoric primates. When we leave a company they have the capacity to slice away our plans and ideas. Our neural structures are not our own. Those in power have begun a campaign whereby armed soldiers bust in our doors and murder us if we resist.
I try — I really do — to think of responses that don't involve the bodies of these most evil of men piled in the streets. I want to believe that mathematics will simply leave the proponents of IP no more than shrill would-be-tyrants screeching about their "right" to profit. But they control the cables. And at the end of the day all our strategies are no more than chance and hope. When communication itself is confined, whittled away at, it would be foolish to assume nonviolent possibilities reliant on communication will work.
I know our culture's priorities view violent resistance to censorship as 'disproportionate' rather than rational and inevitable. I encounter their horrifyingly alien perspectives all the time ("but how will I have a middle-class lifestyle if I can't use a gang of thugs to beat up people who don't give me money every time they have or share thoughts similar to mine?"). I recognize that my outrage, if voiced, will place me outside the pale of most conversations. And so, even though it makes no sense, I try to scale my rhetoric back to something far more tame than my actual feelings.
But all throughout these debates I remain snarling inside, straining at these pretenses, ready to slip outside the realm of communication they're laying siege to and start slitting throats. Sometimes the most rational response is to stop pretending rational persuasion is a worthwhile frame of mind. Anyone with an active mind who's ever been imprisoned or significantly abused knows the score. Sometimes "thinking your way out" is a trap. Sometimes the best approach is to simply kick, bite and scratch as much as you can on the off chance they die instead of you.
Now there's a guy who really, really wants free stuff.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 04, 2011, 04:11:40 PM
Now there's a guy who really, really wants free stuff.
:lulz: Not just free stuff.... free
entertainment. I have to assume that anyone who feels that strongly about their entitlement to free entertainment has never suffered any significant hardship, and produces little of intellectual value themselves. In other words, a spoiled baby; a freeloader who contributes nothing but feels entitled to everything. Someone who has little to no understanding of what "Intellectual Property" actually means.
Part of The Problem.
I don't know, Nigel... I think you should honor his polemics, and send him all the beads you made last week (postage included).
Speaking of which, Bijijoo is suing NBC over a 30 Rock episode in which Tina Fey appeared holding a ham in a top hat.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 04, 2011, 04:43:32 PM
I don't know, Nigel... I think you should honor his polemics, and send him all the beads you made last week (postage included).
:lulz:
Also maybe I should send him a dozen or so stories and essays to publish under his own name. It's only fair.
Quote from: Nigel on August 04, 2011, 04:44:46 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 04, 2011, 04:43:32 PM
I don't know, Nigel... I think you should honor his polemics, and send him all the beads you made last week (postage included).
:lulz:
Also maybe I should send him a dozen or so stories and essays to publish under his own name. It's only fair.
If I sudenly became a sculpture artist that worked in fecal matter, would it right or wrong to mail him all of my portfolio?
I fucking love it :lulz:
Quote from: Nigel on August 04, 2011, 04:44:05 PM
Speaking of which, Bijijoo is suing NBC over a 30 Rock episode in which Tina Fey appeared holding a ham in a top hat.
I hope he wins. :)
Quote from: Jenkem and SPACE/TIME on August 04, 2011, 05:27:49 PM
Quote from: Nigel on August 04, 2011, 04:44:05 PM
Speaking of which, Bijijoo is suing NBC over a 30 Rock episode in which Tina Fey appeared holding a ham in a top hat.
I hope he wins. :)
Me too! His settlement offer was to send them this painting:
(http://bijijoo.com/blog/hyrax/2011/06/Tina-Fey-with-Ham.jpg)
They refused. Here's the correspondence so far: http://personagesholdinghams.com/
I think they assumed that he was just a crank, but conveniently, he works for an intellectual property law firm and his colleagues are delighted by this turn of events. :lulz:
Quote from: COL Coyote on August 04, 2011, 04:46:21 PM
Quote from: Nigel on August 04, 2011, 04:44:46 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 04, 2011, 04:43:32 PM
I don't know, Nigel... I think you should honor his polemics, and send him all the beads you made last week (postage included).
:lulz:
Also maybe I should send him a dozen or so stories and essays to publish under his own name. It's only fair.
If I sudenly became a sculpture artist that worked in fecal matter, would it right or wrong to mail him all of my portfolio?
Neither beads nor sculptures are intellectual property, they are physical goods.
Look, I know this is over-the-top, and I don't really want to defend what this guy is saying, I just thought it was hilarious.
But if you need to, there are so many points on which to completely shoot down this article, why you pick two examples that completely miss the point??
I'm pretty sure all of you do know the basics of copyright law and intellectual property. Whatever :|
Aw, we're just having fun with it.
But I still contend that a book is representative of a person's time and effort, as much as a bead or sculpture would be. Just because you can digitize it doesn't mean the author shouldn't be able to turn a profit off his work.
Quote from: Triple Zero on August 04, 2011, 06:02:47 PM
Quote from: COL Coyote on August 04, 2011, 04:46:21 PM
Quote from: Nigel on August 04, 2011, 04:44:46 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 04, 2011, 04:43:32 PM
I don't know, Nigel... I think you should honor his polemics, and send him all the beads you made last week (postage included).
:lulz:
Also maybe I should send him a dozen or so stories and essays to publish under his own name. It's only fair.
If I sudenly became a sculpture artist that worked in fecal matter, would it right or wrong to mail him all of my portfolio?
Neither beads nor sculptures are intellectual property, they are physical goods.
Look, I know this is over-the-top, and I don't really want to defend what this guy is saying, I just thought it was hilarious.
But if you need to, there are so many points on which to completely shoot down this article, why you pick two examples that completely miss the point??
I'm pretty sure all of you do know the basics of copyright law and intellectual property. Whatever :|
Like I said
Quote from: Nigel on August 04, 2011, 04:44:46 PM
Also maybe I should send him a dozen or so stories and essays to publish under his own name. It's only fair.
The gist of dude's tantrum seems to be that once a creative endeavor is created and released, it should be free for anyone to reproduce, share, alter, or republish in any way they see fit. So, by his entitlement reasoning, if I were to write a book of tutorials on making my beads, it then becomes his right to alter and distribute it at his whim, with his own or any name on it that he desires.
The guy is hilariously over the top, and I say that as someone sympathetic to IP reform (more in the area of medicine than anything else).
I mean, as you get to the lower paragraphs, it starts sounding like some PKD nightmare world. Ripping memories out of brains? I lol'd.
Yeah, it was funny, much in the same way that Rush Limbaugh is funny. :lulz:
Funny, my immediate response to this guy's rant was apparently exactly the same as his response to people who want to be able to profit from their creative works.
:lulz:
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 04, 2011, 04:11:40 PM
Now there's a guy who really, really wants free stuff.
INTERNET OVER.
LMNO WINS.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 04, 2011, 06:12:22 PMBut I still contend that a book is representative of a person's time and effort, as much as a bead or sculpture would be. Just because you can digitize it doesn't mean the author shouldn't be able to turn a profit off his work.
Yes I agree there are similarities, which is why the topic of Intellectual Property Law takes such pains to be extremely clear on the differences.
Quote from: Nigel on August 04, 2011, 06:41:51 PMLike I said
Quote from: Nigel on August 04, 2011, 04:44:46 PM
Also maybe I should send him a dozen or so stories and essays to publish under his own name. It's only fair.
Of course, that makes sense. It's the part where intellectual property was being conflated with physical goods that I was facepalming about.
(okay to get nitpicky about it, in IP law, "copyright" and "right of attribution" are also two separate things. most important difference is that copyright is transferable, while the right to have your name attached to a work you made is not. which is why, even if a ghostwriter signed a contract and everything, there's nothing legally preventing from claiming their name to their work years later [proof, is of course another issue])
(also, that means that IMO the guy in the OP would have better spoken about copyright than about IP in general, except that "intellectual
property" rhetorically makes a better phrase to rant against)
Quote from: Doktor Howl on August 05, 2011, 12:30:50 AM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 04, 2011, 04:11:40 PM
Now there's a guy who really, really wants free stuff.
INTERNET OVER.
LMNO WINS.
that bit, I LOLed :lol:
I'm thinking about significantly changing the meaning of his rant and then distributing it around various venues. Just for fun.
I wonder how long it would take him to claim that it was a violation of his intellectual property?
Quote from: Nigel on August 05, 2011, 05:55:16 AM
I'm thinking about significantly changing the meaning of his rant and then distributing it around various venues. Just for fun.
I wonder how long it would take him to claim that it was a violation of his intellectual property?
:lulz:
4, 3, 2...
Quote from: Nigel on August 05, 2011, 05:55:16 AM
I'm thinking about significantly changing the meaning of his rant and then distributing it around various venues. Just for fun.
I wonder how long it would take him to claim that it was a violation of his intellectual property?
HAHAHAHA :lol:
that would be hilarious!!
I mean, unless he really doesn't care. In which case you just need to poke harder.
though I gotta repeat the difference between copyright and "right to attribution"--I mean even if I put something in the public domain, that means people can do whatever they want and change it, but they don't get to claim I wrote the changed version.
which is strange. I think he just doesn't realize both are considered IP law. he should have been ranting against copyright and possibly patents (personally I just disagree with software patents, not patents in general, but that's a whole other discussion).
Quote from: Nigel on August 05, 2011, 05:55:16 AM
I'm thinking about significantly changing the meaning of his rant and then distributing it around various venues. Just for fun.
I wonder how long it would take him to claim that it was a violation of his intellectual property?
:lulz:
You are a bad person.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on August 05, 2011, 05:19:48 PM
Quote from: Nigel on August 05, 2011, 05:55:16 AM
I'm thinking about significantly changing the meaning of his rant and then distributing it around various venues. Just for fun.
I wonder how long it would take him to claim that it was a violation of his intellectual property?
:lulz:
You are a bad person.
:thanks:
Jesus fuck. https://humaniterations.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/something-about-makhno-and-the-right-approach/
QuoteThe recent ELF attack on a nanotech research center in Europe throws into sharp relief the problem of division within the anarchist milieu. What happens if two factions end up viewing the other as just as much (or worse) a threat to liberty as any traditional outside enemy?
In the last century we've been lucky enough to be able to gloss over most of our divides. Emphatic partisans may in some instances refuse to collaborate with certain others, but general rules of solidarity nevertheless prevail. We work together, share friends, projects and hopefully at least some commitment to rejecting power dynamics. I would like to think that despite some profoundly different avenues of exploration we might all feel the tug of a certain bellweather, keeping us in some level of mutual engagement and bending us back home when we stray. But that's mostly wishful thinking. What keeps the milieu together is largely just mutual marginalization and alienation, mixed with some desperately believed myths. We are not all working towards the same root thing. There are almost as many concepts of liberty as there are folks wearing the identity of 'anarchist.' Many of these are closely reconcilable, different facets of the same fundamental. Some are within reach of rapprochement. But some are not.
I've made no bones about it, I think there's a strand in primitivism that simply can't be reconcilled with the rest of anarchism. There is no fury like that of a former partisan, and I've spent years rolling back the influence its had. I think any goal of freedom that doesn't include the capacity to explore every depth of the world and reshape oneself as one pleases would be a deplorable half-measure, and the embrace of submission and conformity to some sort of natural identity or role is beyond abhorrent. Our read of history is entirely at odds too. Where they see any substantive inquiry and creativity (science/technology) as the fountainhead of oppression throughout history, I'm with those who read it as locked in a struggle with power, an arms race where Empire spreads itself progressively thinner trying desperately to steer and coopt the engines of our collective inquiry/creativity.
Of course there's plenty of perfectly admirable anarchists who identify as primitivists, sadly lowering their hopes (as I once did) to deal with the assumed certainty of civiliational collapse and horror of ecological collapse. But the other tendency within their ranks is still problematic. It's hard to reconcile with someone so scared of life, so petrified by freedom, they want to go back to being a mentally sendentary biological machine, comfortably trapped in a limited body, with limited aspirations, limited knowledge and limited horizons. Now by all accounts the primitivist wave broke a long time ago and they might simply continue fading away or thankfully remove themselves from our movement (as with DGR). But not necessarily. And I think there's broad value in investigating the possibility of a true and permanent break within anarchism.
Perhaps the best historical comparison available is the split in the 1st International. Some marxists and anarchists continue to this day to work together and extend lines of solidarity — with those idiots on our side almost always surprised at the inevitable betrayal, but I digress — however to most anarchists the divide in fundamentals runs too deep for any meaningful sense of alliance. Our ethical motivation, goals and methods too deeply at odds to ever forget the danger posed by the other. And in many contexts we're simply unadultured enemies.
A more modern example would that of the early struggle against white supremacy in the skinhead milieu. With more primitivists embracing their bioconservatism these days and aligning explicitly against transfolk among others there's certainly some added salience. The amorphous but tense division, the attempts for peace and pan-identity, the outside voices (Jensen) driving recruitment... Not a pretty picture as the refusal to organize and confront voices with so many mutual social connections led to such a widespread rot that by the time violence became unavoidable the original skinheads were a minority. It's kind of sad to compare the whole of the social anarchist 'movement' to a subculture, but there's truth enough to set one to unease. Should we be organizing the equivalent of Antifa / ARA / SHARPs to deal with our primitivist currents? Do enough of us have the stomach for that kind of awful, dragged out fight? On the otherhand, is it the height of irresponsibility to put it off?
I think it comes down to what sort of lines get crossed before "anarcho"-primitivism might finally wither away. The ELF attack obviously crossed a lot of people's lines and peppered my feeds with shock, concern and outrage. It's strange to hear and take part of the shift in terms to "not part of my movement", "not my ally". A long time coming perhaps, but scary in a sense all the same. I'm really fond of Zerzan in person, and most of my transhumanist friends these days started out as primitivists like me. But you know the composition of their opposition to science — however much we may like to believe otherwise do you really think they'll see any difference with sabotaging the launch of a satellite telescope or murdering a math professor? What use would it be to continue dealing them with solidarity gloves when the damage they're doing to our collective freedom, our capacity to engage with the universe, outweighs any positive actions they might happen to undertake in the social sphere? How much does proclaiming yourself an "anarchist" and sharing some acquaintances buy you? The day comes when you find people in your community burning the equivalent of jewish community centers and you have no choice but to turn around and fight them in the streets.
Whether or not it comes to a true schism, whether or not primitivism even lasts that long in identification with anarchism, we need to be aware of the possibility. Five summers ago a friend and I harried all the greens we knew to answer a simple question: "Say that the collapse and all its horrors could be prevented — I know, I know — for shorthand imagine something like cold fusion comes along that sates all our infrastructural needs. And you had a button in front of you that would stop this, that would artificially force a collapse of civ, the deaths of 7 billion people and incidentally the permanent limitation of the survivors' understanding of the cosmos. Would you push it?" About half bit the bullet.
Why is it that anarchists universally seem to lack the intellectual sophistication to check their own ideals against each other for consistency?
Quote from: Nigel on August 05, 2011, 05:37:44 PM
Jesus fuck. https://humaniterations.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/something-about-makhno-and-the-right-approach/
QuoteThe recent ELF attack on a nanotech research center in Europe throws into sharp relief the problem of division within the anarchist milieu. What happens if two factions end up viewing the other as just as much (or worse) a threat to liberty as any traditional outside enemy?
In the last century we've been lucky enough to be able to gloss over most of our divides. Emphatic partisans may in some instances refuse to collaborate with certain others, but general rules of solidarity nevertheless prevail. We work together, share friends, projects and hopefully at least some commitment to rejecting power dynamics. I would like to think that despite some profoundly different avenues of exploration we might all feel the tug of a certain bellweather, keeping us in some level of mutual engagement and bending us back home when we stray. But that's mostly wishful thinking. What keeps the milieu together is largely just mutual marginalization and alienation, mixed with some desperately believed myths. We are not all working towards the same root thing. There are almost as many concepts of liberty as there are folks wearing the identity of 'anarchist.' Many of these are closely reconcilable, different facets of the same fundamental. Some are within reach of rapprochement. But some are not.
I've made no bones about it, I think there's a strand in primitivism that simply can't be reconcilled with the rest of anarchism. There is no fury like that of a former partisan, and I've spent years rolling back the influence its had. I think any goal of freedom that doesn't include the capacity to explore every depth of the world and reshape oneself as one pleases would be a deplorable half-measure, and the embrace of submission and conformity to some sort of natural identity or role is beyond abhorrent. Our read of history is entirely at odds too. Where they see any substantive inquiry and creativity (science/technology) as the fountainhead of oppression throughout history, I'm with those who read it as locked in a struggle with power, an arms race where Empire spreads itself progressively thinner trying desperately to steer and coopt the engines of our collective inquiry/creativity.
Of course there's plenty of perfectly admirable anarchists who identify as primitivists, sadly lowering their hopes (as I once did) to deal with the assumed certainty of civiliational collapse and horror of ecological collapse. But the other tendency within their ranks is still problematic. It's hard to reconcile with someone so scared of life, so petrified by freedom, they want to go back to being a mentally sendentary biological machine, comfortably trapped in a limited body, with limited aspirations, limited knowledge and limited horizons. Now by all accounts the primitivist wave broke a long time ago and they might simply continue fading away or thankfully remove themselves from our movement (as with DGR). But not necessarily. And I think there's broad value in investigating the possibility of a true and permanent break within anarchism.
Perhaps the best historical comparison available is the split in the 1st International. Some marxists and anarchists continue to this day to work together and extend lines of solidarity — with those idiots on our side almost always surprised at the inevitable betrayal, but I digress — however to most anarchists the divide in fundamentals runs too deep for any meaningful sense of alliance. Our ethical motivation, goals and methods too deeply at odds to ever forget the danger posed by the other. And in many contexts we're simply unadultured enemies.
A more modern example would that of the early struggle against white supremacy in the skinhead milieu. With more primitivists embracing their bioconservatism these days and aligning explicitly against transfolk among others there's certainly some added salience. The amorphous but tense division, the attempts for peace and pan-identity, the outside voices (Jensen) driving recruitment... Not a pretty picture as the refusal to organize and confront voices with so many mutual social connections led to such a widespread rot that by the time violence became unavoidable the original skinheads were a minority. It's kind of sad to compare the whole of the social anarchist 'movement' to a subculture, but there's truth enough to set one to unease. Should we be organizing the equivalent of Antifa / ARA / SHARPs to deal with our primitivist currents? Do enough of us have the stomach for that kind of awful, dragged out fight? On the otherhand, is it the height of irresponsibility to put it off?
I think it comes down to what sort of lines get crossed before "anarcho"-primitivism might finally wither away. The ELF attack obviously crossed a lot of people's lines and peppered my feeds with shock, concern and outrage. It's strange to hear and take part of the shift in terms to "not part of my movement", "not my ally". A long time coming perhaps, but scary in a sense all the same. I'm really fond of Zerzan in person, and most of my transhumanist friends these days started out as primitivists like me. But you know the composition of their opposition to science — however much we may like to believe otherwise do you really think they'll see any difference with sabotaging the launch of a satellite telescope or murdering a math professor? What use would it be to continue dealing them with solidarity gloves when the damage they're doing to our collective freedom, our capacity to engage with the universe, outweighs any positive actions they might happen to undertake in the social sphere? How much does proclaiming yourself an "anarchist" and sharing some acquaintances buy you? The day comes when you find people in your community burning the equivalent of jewish community centers and you have no choice but to turn around and fight them in the streets.
Whether or not it comes to a true schism, whether or not primitivism even lasts that long in identification with anarchism, we need to be aware of the possibility. Five summers ago a friend and I harried all the greens we knew to answer a simple question: "Say that the collapse and all its horrors could be prevented — I know, I know — for shorthand imagine something like cold fusion comes along that sates all our infrastructural needs. And you had a button in front of you that would stop this, that would artificially force a collapse of civ, the deaths of 7 billion people and incidentally the permanent limitation of the survivors' understanding of the cosmos. Would you push it?" About half bit the bullet.
Why is it that anarchists universally seem to lack any intellectual sophistication at all?
Fixed that for you. :lulz:
I was kinda scared myself to click around and see what other things this guy must have written. Seems I was right about that :lol: