Computing Our Liberty: May 2005

Posted by Libervis on May 5, 2005 1:12 PM EDT
Libervis.com; By Danijel Orsolic
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"Humanity has made so much movies about threats from space, and yet, space is calm and friendly to us while the biggest threat comes from those who are threatened - human beings!"

Somewhere in the milky way galaxy, far far away from some alien's home, on a third blue planet around the yellow giant star that its inhabitants call Earth, on a northern hemisphere, continental formation called Euroasia, country called Croatia, on a hot spring, but summer-like day, in a camp-house-like "box", a small and fragile human being writes another small letter to the world, one to be transmitted throughout the international network, one that is once more - computing our liberty. A loose "rant" with a purpose - to keep up the voices!

What a beautiful planet we have here, in a beautiful part of the space (if there is such a thing as an "ugly" part of space), so rich, so vast, so inspiring - bound to make us create and then again create upon as we get inspired again, getting better and better at it - until we created a civilization, a civilization of the 21st century - aware of the world around us, even more, a space around us. But is this civilization as civil as it ought to be? Is this society as societal as it ought to be? Do human beings really care about this world, a world of humans?

If an alien being from a distant world is reading this, it would most likely frown at the very questions posed above? Of course humans should care about its own human society?! Why the question?!

Well, the answers to these questions called for a question to be asked because the answers are not as simple, however illogical it sounds to you, fellow space citizen.

There are human beings so blinded with variables such as "power" that they have indeed, in its essence stopped being human beings, because all they care is *power* over others, not the *others* which, in the end, brought them to the world (they didn't give birth to themselves, now didn't they?). Hunger, never satisfied is driving their thoughts and actions - ones that are against humanity as a whole. There is nothing human about being anti-human. Prove me wrong!

If the above isn't true then why software patents? Why the INDUCE act? Why making most of our nations criminals with an over-extended copyright regulation? Why the self-destructive "permission culture"? Why killing over oil? Why more jets in hamilton? Why? Why? Why do some human beings act like the "space invaders" coming to destroy our culture by suppressing what makes us human, our imagination, creativity, ability to learn and build upon and even our liberty to live like a human - because that's exactly what is being done???

Humanity has made so much movies about threats from space, and yet, space is calm and friendly to us while the biggest threat comes from those who are threatened - human beings!

Are you one of the shortsighted "un-human" humans? Or you are one of the open-minded humans?

Hopefully you are the latter, because then you will most likely listen.. there is hope for you as millions of your kind, real human beings, strive to stop the self-destructive trends of humanity by fighting to preserve freedoms that make humanity thrive. No, this is not *just* the free software movement.. "wake up" all you free software advocates and activists (that are doing a great job) - free software movement and it's "open source" "child" is actually just part of the much bigger picture - free culture movement/s. Not only "software freedoms" need saving and preserving. What about freedom to copy, use, share and build upon music, movies, designs, creativity as a whole, and human knowledge? Internet affects these freedoms as well - it makes humanity to progress in ways never imaginable before by distributing knowledge and creativity, by giving power to *everyone* not just some, and thus it is the biggest target of the industry of the past, one coming from an era where what is possible today wasn't possible then - an industry that tries to impose a "permission culture" on the internet-powered world in order to "regain" the control.

They disguise this intention under the label of protecting progress and innovation, while the reality is just the opposite. They don't care about innovation and progress, they care about control and power which they see threatened by the internet.

Internet is ours folks. No, really.. it is! The mere fact that you're just now searching your brain with arguments that tend to disprove that is the fact that makes you blind to the real argument: you have the power because you are one of the many. Few can't control many if they don't wish to be controlled. You see, a big part of the problem is us and our laziness, unwillingness to really "give a damn". Oh yes, we can blame them for "brainwashing" us. But hey, did you have to let yourself get brainwashed? Well, snap out of it, go and search the net once more with keywords such as "free culture" and "free culture community", read, research a bit, you're the boss, you can think with your own brain and look with a clear and open mind - you have the power. You CAN join a forum and carve your understandings of those issues further, challenge your current presuppositions, make alliances for freedom. You CAN open a blog, submit news and articles to independent media, even start your own free world-friendly project, and join the many voices! You CAN speak up! You still CAN do something! Don't ever admit control of your life and freedoms to someone else. YOU have the power.

Those are some of the reasons why libervis.com expanded last month - becoming a full scale "free culture community" portal - a "nexus of the free world" as i like to say. We need to unite all the movements, sub-movements and communities of the opposition to the "permission culture", proprietarization of creativity, criminalization of the nation, self-destruction of humanity.. The idea is that a "unified" online community might just help that goal, by not focusing only on one "sub-movement" like free software and open source, or creative commons, but at all of them, at the whole culture and the whole "free world" that it forms. If you use GNU/Linux, don't like monopolies, like the idea of creative commons and don't blindly believe everything on your TV, you should effectively be part of the free culture - your voice is one of the potential voices to be raised - it's enough to clear the virtual throat and say (post) it. . The stance of libervis.com is not one sided however. The official position of libervis.com is the average position of it's community in regard to the given issues - not mine, despite being a founder, my voice is just one of the other voices here.

Join me and there's gonna be one more. You don't need to join libervis.com if you don't wish so (although it is encouraged, yes:). If you are a student i encourage you to consider freeculture.org, get involved there as well. For reliable news sources make sites like indymedia and lxer.com your top resources (although we at libervis.com prepare a newswire to include news from both and much more of the free culture/free world news sites in one place). Browse through creative commons content for music, designs, photos and more that you can share and even build upon. Be a free man or free woman, a true human being. Join the free world!

Thank you Danijel Orsolic [/rant]

From: http://www.libervis.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articl...

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