Image Map

SOPA – A symptom of something much bigger

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Sasha • 30 Comments

 

Technology is a mode of revealing. Technology comes to presence where revealing and unconcealment takes place, where altheia, truth, happens.

Martin Heidegger as translated by William Lovitt

Throughout his essays on technology Heidegger grapples with grand questions concerning technology. He tackles with its essence, what it is, how it works and what it does. In the quotation above he talks about technology’s power of revealing our world as resources (thinks cogs in a grand system) and the questions that it begs when the world (humans included) is revealed as a part of that system – this is what is meant by “truth, happens.”

What is interesting about the SOPA debates are how people, the resources that evoke the greatest control over our global capitalist system, are dealing with the revealing that technology has brought to the world of intellectual property. We grapple with semantics, language, economies, effects, predictions and all without really looking at where the ideological fissure has opened and who sits on either side.

It is clear once you see the list of backers and opponents of SOPA its hard to not to identify the generational differences between the two. The majority of the opponents are those businesses that have adopted the new economic value system that emerged from the original propagation of the Internet. To understand its value origins you simply need to spend some time with Steven Levy’s Hackers and the ethos of MIT’s model railroad club. The backers of SOPA clearly come from a more traditional economic reality fixated on managing scarcity – a problem that Copyrights and Intellectual Property (IP) was created to manage.

Technology, in this case the Internet, has revealed the elements of system that are forcing us to deal with the fundamental truths of what this system is, how it works and how we all fit into it. The battlefield today is Information Technology and IP but this is just the beginning. The ideological war has begun and people are drawing sides based on which set of ideological values they are most vested.

Heidegger was right when he talked about the revealing that takes place where truth happens. But technology is also an ideological accelerant, furthering the values it adopts at exponential rates. As more of our world becomes information this whole dust up we call SOPA may well just look like a bar scrap in comparison to what the fight that the Occupy movement is starting. With that being said, its time to nerd up, draw sides and hope, like with most major ideological battles, the aging process benefits the young in search of progress. Because the movement is the ideology and its time to get our act together.

Image from Rosalyn Davies under a Creative Commons license

Filed Under: Legality and Censorship
  • http://twitter.com/JohnHinnegan John Hinnegan

    Font is so hard to read.

  • Val A

    Its so faint its barely legible

  • http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/8591?return=%2Fideas%2Findex%2F10%2Fcompany%3Agolinharris Len Kendall

    Made it a bit darker. How’s that? Also, we’d like to keep the theme of the blog a combination of modern tech and antiquated. Kind of steam-punk if you will. What other fonts would you guys suggest?

    • http://twitter.com/CodeTheInternet Ed Lerner

      16px instead of 13

    • http://twitter.com/danielhonigman DanielHonigman

      In the spirit of being antiquated, how about Zapf Dingbats?

  • http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/8591?return=%2Fideas%2Findex%2F10%2Fcompany%3Agolinharris Len Kendall

    Have we (society) ultimately always given up technologies to the government because we simply can’t manage it efficiently or fairly in a free-market system? Taking basic examples of technology like plumbing, farming, or electricity, we know that all these items can be produced and used independently of a governing body, but we’ve all been comfortable giving up various degrees of control of this tech once it became more costly to us personally to manage it on our own. On the flip side, governments have generally welcomed taking control of technologies because it helps them make the overall process more efficient (in theory) and help make their governing body a more desirable one for others to want to trade with or immigrate to.

    The question I have is, is there a turning point where the majority of the people feel it IS best for the leadership to take full control of a technology or utility, and if the internet is such a utility, have we simply not reached that point in collective agreement? Will we ever? When we weigh the pros and cons of a centralized management of the internet versus what we have today, the pros seem infinitesimal to the average citizen, they only seem to have a great value to a few key interest groups. But utilities aren’t meant for the minority, they’re meant for the majority, and if the centralization of its management doesn’t create a system that supports that end, to me, it doesn’t seem to make sense to willingly hand over this technology away from the free market.

    • http://twitter.com/goonth Gunther Sonnenfeld

      Interesting questions, Len — I’d say overall that this should be a co-managed process. Hark back to the early days of government: The town hall was comprised of political officers and community leaders alike, and they solved problems by establishing consensus around what those problems actually were and what they could actually do about them. I think the same applies to the free market — what constitutes “free” or “not free” is a matter of common interest. This is not to say that technologies should be decentralized, but rather to say that depending on the needs of the market (the people) they should be co-managed accordingly, both by way of distribution and legislation.

      • http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/8591?return=%2Fideas%2Findex%2F10%2Fcompany%3Agolinharris Len Kendall

        I’m starting to feel optimistic in this taking place. A few weeks ago I was very worried that the masses would be blindsided by legislation that neither side truly understood, but luckily people (and more of our business/government leaders) came to their senses before brash precedents were set.

    • http://twitter.com/SashaG Sasha

      Questions of control are interesting but inconsequential given the limitless bounds, entanglement and diffuse control of the internet. It is entirely alien to the hierarchical leadership structures that currently exist in our neo-capitalist world. The risk lies in looking to old world mechanisms to govern a new, foreign entity like this.

      The question to me also lies which ideology will prevail … traditional neo-capitalism or a new form of hacker-inspired ethos. We are wickedly vested in the traditional market-based system which threatens our very existence. The best thing we can do is convince those folks that have benefited immensely from the internet not to jump ship to the market-based nonsense of the old world. My sense at least :)

      • http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/8591?return=%2Fideas%2Findex%2F10%2Fcompany%3Agolinharris Len Kendall

        Sasha, I think in the long-run you’re right, but in the near term, control has a lot to do with what the internet becomes or what networks emerge as a result of the destruction of its current state. We have the luxury of worrying about financial models because both sides of this equation still have a chance to fight a fair battle. If we see the powers-that-be chop off the limbs of anyone opposing the “traditional model” there are going to be some huge obstacles for the other side. I am confident that the hackerati will eventually find a way around this and convince a great deal of the masses to come with them, but realistically the success of things like SOPA could set our countries technological progress and economic development back by several years.

      • http://twitter.com/goonth Gunther Sonnenfeld

        Neo-capitalist… or neo-feudalist? ;)

  • Pingback: SOPA – A symptom of something much bigger | What Would The Internet Do? | Exploring Change Through Ongoing Discussions | Scoop.it

  • http://twitter.com/Sioflynn siobhan o’flynn, phd

    A few quick thoughts:

    One, re. regulation – my hope would be that regulation would be undertaken by an informed government. The internet already is regulated in varying degrees in different nations around the globe – The Citizen Lab in Toronto is a must-watch in terms of their reports and research on net censorship and cyber attacks.

    Two, one significant flaw in SOPA’s attempt at regulation is that it is founded on a conceptual model of content on the net as utility-based re. resource & revenue management. This attitude exemplifies Heidegger’s warning against modern technology (techne) as that which controls, manipulates, contains, reduces, and enframes (a most tricky Heideggerrian term), constructing the world as a mechanized system of resources for exploitation. The second aspect of techne which his essay reasserts is the association of techne with poiesis, which in the Greek meant ‘making’ or ‘creation’ and which is the root of our words, poetry and poetics, In this second mode, what is revealed comes into being in its own terms and is not controlled: ‘that revealing which, in the sense of poiesis, lets what presences come forth into appearance.” (trans. Wm Lovitt).

    This dichotomy between what I might term mastery and spontaneity goes to the heart of what arguably underlies the fight against SOPA, the protection of what Donald Rumsfeld called the “unknown unknowns” (Yes, I am citing Rumsfeld – with slight disbelief – but there we go). We don’t know what new technologies, platforms, and modes of artistic expression will emerge in the next decade, which could well be deemed criminal under SOPA. But, we do know that repressive systems have never stopped people from breaking rules and creating counter-movements. If SOPA were to pass, we would likely see some highly creative and disruptive responses.

    • http://twitter.com/SashaG Sasha

      Loving your adds … One point that I partially disagree on with Heidegger is his point on modern technology (techne) as that which controls, manipulates, contains, reduces and enframes, constructing the world as a mechanized system of resources. While it does do these things it does so in application of an ideology not in its own regard. What’s missing in Heidegger’s essay on the essence of technology is its role as an ideological accelerant. Technology needs orientation for its effects to be felt and in our case it is most usual application is in service of capitalism. But a funny thing happened along the way … the internet was born. It not only violated a few fundamental facets of capitalism, namely an economic sacred cow called scarcity, but it also bred a new ideology which is yet to be named … I call it a blend of Occupy+Hackers+Open technocracy. This is the ideological fissure that has opened up and SOPA is the first attempt of the old to reclaim the new …

      But then again what the hell do I know :)

      • http://twitter.com/Sioflynn siobhan o’flynn, phd

        sure – totally get your point. My phrasing leaves out the agency of who creates & uses technology – humans. I like the idea of the internet as the wild card in a global capitalist system, though it enables both disruptions and of and pushes towards a more destructive capitalism. Too bad ‘Haccupy,’ “Hackerupy’ ‘Hoccupy’…doesn’t quite work in type.

        Maybe McLuhan’s statement ‘We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us’ is also relevant in this context for all that we don’t know & can’t name & haven’t imagined yet!

        • http://twitter.com/SashaG Sasha

          Yeah … the agency point is a little soft for me though … I think it goes beyond its human agents but let’s save that for a real philosophical debate ;-)

          And kudos in evoking the McLuhan … always relevant and poignant :)

          • http://twitter.com/goonth Gunther Sonnenfeld

            There seems to be a loose operative identified here: Agency.

            To avoid waxing the philosophical, I’d just say that “agents” become those default operatives that can act within, alongside or completely outside of government. The Internet is literally this evolution — once an internal military communications hub (ARPANET), then eventually an extranet for public consumption and interaction. Some consider this to have been a happy accident (the story goes that the Internet was born from a bastard project…), but really what this says is that techne — to address Sasha’s point — are really defined by human actions taken prior to ideology (and those which form it), and lean more towards pure, human necessity — a reaction of sorts to physical, political and social environments.

            Just a few examples would be:

            - The 16th Century Reformation (Luther’s campaign, the subject of a recent Economist article).

            - Tiananmen Square — students sparking the revolt with very limited technological means (early forms of email, faxes, etc.).

            - Haiti — a similar uprising sparked by special interest and humanitarian groups who eventually used socialized media to build the groundswell effort.

            - Bilin, Palestine — a similar, socialized effort in which protestors over land rights sparked a movement by taking on characters from Avatar to influence a position within press outlets like AOL News.

            Agents align and coalesce, techne fall into specific roles. Perhaps new ideologies fall out of those intersections of thought and action.

            So… leading back to SOPA, construed as a clear means for control to diffuse the inevitable, as opposed to cultivating behavior that contextualizes the needs (compromise, amendment or otherwise) between church and state.

          • http://twitter.com/SashaG Sasha

            Can actions actually pre-date ideology … don’t beliefs beget actions? This is the trap of definition and the truth that is revealed. The internet is forcing an ideological debate on local rules to govern IP & Copyright. If emergent theory is right, and I think it is, the assault on the local will manifest changes in collective behaviour that align either to a capitalist notion OR something different (the hacker-inspired ethos I mention).

            Sometimes it is MUCH MORE radical to demand something small and specific than it is to protest an entire system. We must be relentless in our defence of the specific.

          • http://twitter.com/goonth Gunther Sonnenfeld

            Noted, BUT beliefs beget ideology, if we are to look at history. Not sure this is so much of a linear evolution…

          • http://twitter.com/Sioflynn siobhan o’flynn, phd

            Oh I’m so on with Sasha here, if Foucault’s arguments re epochs, ideology & power are correct, there is no pre-ideology. Ideologies shift, morph, change, pre?? don’t buy it

          • http://twitter.com/Sioflynn siobhan o’flynn, phd

            humans are soft ;)

    • http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/8591?return=%2Fideas%2Findex%2F10%2Fcompany%3Agolinharris Len Kendall

      I’m still unclear as to what exactly SOPA is holding a jurisdiction over. Is it every computer, every wire, every server that pumps information in and out of “the internet?” If I have a server running from my house to my neighbors house and there’s no outside connection, is it still subject to being shut down should a government official find us sharing copyrighted material? What if I print out a piece of paper that has a copyrighted image and mail it to my neighbor through the United States Postal service? What if I think about it, and sketch that drawing and then sell it to my neighbor for 25 cents? This is obviously a ridiculous set of examples, but it also (in my humble opinion) shows the ridiculousness of bills like SOPA and unobtainable ability to enforce the rule fairly across every citizen or entity. In the end, I think the “unknown unknowns” will emerge. I just don’t want them stifled for no reason.

      • http://twitter.com/Sioflynn siobhan o’flynn, phd

        I LOVE your scenarios! The ridiculousness of how far regulations could be pushed and/or enforced just begs for art/activist projects demonstrating how ridiculous enforcing it could be.

  • http://twitter.com/Sioflynn siobhan o’flynn, phd

    Heidegger in the afternoon! aieee!

  • Peterstannack

    The battlefield is, and always has been information. The more we can subvert existing information delivery and structuring models the better, even if its through an xbox with a linux OS

  • Nilofar Ansher

    Great post and the comments are so … juicy, they’ve kept me hooked! I have always wondered, where did this notion of the Internet as a free-for-all, citizen-centric ecosphere originate? Correct me if I have figured this wrong, but hasn’t it (Internet) always been a government-owned-and-provided service: govt provides telecom licenses to companies, who in turn provide us Internet. It’s the same with any public utility that’s regulated in the market: gas connection, fuel, education, transport, healthcare, media and information, etc.

    But the problem of seeing the Internet as a utility tool is that we are not merely consuming and paying for a service (that’s infrastructure), we are actively transforming the very nature of the service. We also need to define if the Interwebz (the web as an organic entity, not commodity) is part of the public sphere or Statehood?

    From a political point of view, if Internet is considered a right, then constitutionally the State cannot infringe or impose on the appropriation of the service by citizens in the privacy of their homes (under reasonable stipulations). But we have seen that governments are increasingly infringing on personal domains – healthcare and reproductive rights, sexual and gender rights, privacy and security, religious expression, etc.

    The definition of what the Internet is also differs culturally, from one country to another, as reflected in the laws of censorship, regulation, surveillance and rights of expressions in countries as diverse as China, India, Iran and Sweden. So, do we treat it as a geographical/political idea and let each country set its own stipulations?

    As the net keeps evolving and defies explanations to contain or tame it, I feel it’s just too early to decide the course for the future. It’s been barely two decades since the public came to use it, and beyond that its mutating versions – Web 2.0 and upwards – means that in each era, governments, corporates and citizens would apply different forms of interventions to appropriate the use of the Internet – as an infrastructure and as a function.

    My comments are from the perspective of the ordinary common man and don’t have any academic or scholarly underpinnings, so forgive me if I have been too verbose :)

    • http://twitter.com/SashaG Sasha

      While the internet originated as government controlled it is grown so far beyond it that it could even be classified as ‘too big to fail.’ It has become so big in fact that a fledgling ideology has begun to develop from its local rules. The distributed, redundant nature of the internet frustrates the very fabric of capitalism, authoritarianism, communism and any other command and control structure.

      If you think about it is this new ideology that underpins the Occupy movement and frustrate the establishment. While we can take some time to think and evaluate what this new ideology is we must, in parallel, fight the specific threats that continue to come our way. SOPA is a capitalist attack on the fabric of the commons and is the first of many more on the horizon in my humble opinion.

      Thanks for contributing!

  • Pingback: The Mechanism » Elementary

  • http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/8591?return=%2Fideas%2Findex%2F10%2Fcompany%3Agolinharris Len Kendall

    And now the MPAA is doing this…

    MPAA attacks Ars for “challenging efforts to curb content theft”
    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/mpaa-attacks-ars-for-challenging-efforts-to-curb-content-theft.ars

Copyright © 2013 What Would The Internet Do?