Speaking from North America, I've been disappointed that I
have NOT seen huge banners warning the international public of the
threats this poses -- even to the future existence of civilization.
I'm serious about the latter: Both former US Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara and Daniel Ellsberg (of "Pentagon Papers" fame) have
said that as long as large nuclear arsenals exist, it is only a
matter of time before some misunderstanding leads to a nuclear war
killing at least a third of humanity -- primarily in the Northern
Hemisphere. However, Ellsberg further says that such an event will
almost certainly lead to a nuclear winter as a result of which 98%
of the survivors will starve to death. I've estimated over a 10%
chance of such an event in the next 40 years.[1]
Media organizations like Wikipedia are part of the solution to
this and virtually every other substantive problem facing humanity
today, in my judgment: Progress on every substantive issue I can
think of is blocked, because every countermeasure threatens someone
with substantive control over the media. People with power are
threatened by the Wikimedia project, because it's a source of
information they cannot control.[2]
If you see things that people outside Europe can do, please
let me know. So far, I'm primarily focused on anti-nuke work and
improving the media where I live.
Thanks for all your hard work in support of the Wikimedia
project.
Spencer Graves, PhD
member of the Boards of KKFI.org, the Friends of Community
Media (
ourfcm.org) and PeaceWorksKC.org
and
Founder
EffectiveDefense.org
4550 Warwick Blvd 508
Kansas City, MO 64111
m: 408-655-4567
[1] Wikiversity, "Time to extinction of civilization"
(
https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Time_to_extinction_of_civilization).
[2] See other articles in Wikiversity, "Category:Freedom and
abundance"
(
https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Category:Freedom_and_abundance)
On 2019-02-07 07:04, Eva Lepik wrote:
So, to be clear: are we all waiting
for a Great Leader to step up, start coordinating and handing
out the orders according to his/her master plan?
Or shall WE start coordinating here and now, what shall WE do,
quickly?
This is our Internet which will be ruined.
Regards,
Eva
On 07.02.2019 13:52, Jan Ainali wrote:
I believe a coordinated effort could have good
effects. The proposal as it is right now (there will be
trilogues next week that may change it) is so bad that it
might be possible to sway some MEP votes to completely block
the directive.
In reply to Eva's question ("Do your chapters
have an action plan?"). No, at the moment WMNL does not
have a plan yet. Will there be coordinated action by
Wikimedia affiliates like last year?
Sandra Rientjes
Directeur/Executive Director Wikimedia
Nederland
tel. (+31) (0)30 3200238 (ma, di,
do)
mob. (+31) (0)6 31786379 (wo, vrij)
Mariaplaats 3
3511 LH Utrecht
Op wo 6 feb. 2019 om
22:56 schreef Eva Lepik <
eva@kodu.ee>:
Dear all,
the conclusion to the copyright directive is
approaching. The outcome
seems to be horrible, as described for example here:
https://twitter.com/paul_keller/status/1092912540194099200
or here: https://juliareda.eu/2019/02/article-13-worse/
Implementation of article 11 (link tax) and article 13
(content
filtering) will have a severely negative impact on the
digital
environment. We don't know how much the link tax will
affect the
references in Wikipedia and Wikidata yet. As such, we
cannot predict how
much poorer the new liability regime will make our
digital environment.
The numerous outcries of digital rights organizations
regarding the loss
of freedom of speech and expression should be our
concern, too.
The final plenary vote will most probably take place in
March or April,
some weeks before the elections of the next European
Parliament. It
will be the last chance to stop this disaster, after
that we shall be
left with damage control. Do your chapters have an
action plan?
Best regards
Eva Lepik
Wikimedia Eesti
chairperson
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