Three challenges for the web, according to its inventor

Posted Mar 16, 2017 21:27 UTC (Thu) by ssmith32 (subscriber, #72404)
In reply to: Three challenges for the web, according to its inventor by angdraug
Parent article: Three challenges for the web, according to its inventor

A nitpick: even accepting your assumptions, it's equivalent to *intellectual* slavery (I own your thoughts vs I own your physical being).

Economic slavery, it is not. DRM is not a particularly strong force in coercing individuals into de-facto slavery based on their economic conditions. It can be used either way. Other forces in our societies take care of that just fine (misogony, racism, any kind of arbitrary solely gene-based attribute used for socioeconomic and legal class sorting of individuals)

Three challenges for the web, according to its inventor

Posted Mar 16, 2017 21:52 UTC (Thu) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link] (2 responses)

> A nitpick: even accepting your assumptions, it's equivalent to *intellectual* slavery (I own your thoughts vs I own your physical being).

That isn't really any better. They might only claim to "own your thoughts" but if you "think" the wrong things they will seize your physical property, and put your physical being in jail or worse if you resist. It's limited to the intellect only so long as you comply. The threat of physical violence against anyone who does not comply is exactly the same as regular non-intellectual slavery. This absence of any sense of proportion in enforcement is one of the more straightforward arguments against intellectual monopoly.

Three challenges for the web, according to its inventor

Posted Mar 16, 2017 22:01 UTC (Thu) by ssmith32 (subscriber, #72404) [Link] (1 responses)

Oh yeah, it's definitely worse a lot of the time. I mean, I can accept being poor, or beholden to idiots due to economic conditions it's been done on my part before. But I have never been comfortable with the idea that someone owns my thoughts.

One reason I pointed that out :)

Three challenges for the web, according to its inventor

Posted Mar 17, 2017 4:03 UTC (Fri) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link]

I didn't say "economic slavery", I said "economic equivalent of slavery". I'm not referring to economic enforcement of servitude (in another place I would gladly elaborate on the meaning of "wage slavery", but here, it would go too far off topic).

Instead, I'm equating the economic impact of intellectual property to that of slavery. Most obviously redistribution of wealth (from individual creators to corporate owners) and stifling of innovation and creativity, but also the inherent need to replace positive motivation with disproportionately violent enforcement, combinatorial explosion of legal complexity, and so on, create chilling effect on all economic activities involving intellectual labour.