[Foundation-l] Sexual Imagery on Commons: where the discussion is happening

[Noein]

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On 13/05/2010 13:01, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> I don't know that reaching everybody was ever a stated goal. Being
> theoretically available to everybody is a different matter...
Ah, that's the part that is not clear to me. If you talk about the
intrinsic properties of the Big Project, I agree that the core must be
free, uncensored resources.

My concern, however, is about the interface with the real world, that
is, the way this project containing information, ideas and knowledge
(specifically set in the context of the 21st century, mostly english
language, mostly western, mostly rich users) interacts with mankind.

Allow me to explain:

My current vision is that there are several main obstacles to a free
interaction, for example:
- - illiteracy
- - no internet access
- - cultural rejection
- - political censorship

With this context, I wonder if being theoretically available is enough,
or if the Foundation and community should worry about solving or
circumventing the pragmatical obstacles.

I understand the debate of the last days as an example about what I call
a political censorship, in a very generic meaning: an arsenal of
cultural values and technological means that forbid some ideas to
circulate, thus governing the minds into certain authorized or tolerated
behaviours (and thoughts).

I think most of mankind feel some kind of taboos are necessary to
achieved a civilized society. This feeling leads to the need (and thus
acceptation) of laws, which can be viewed as a legitimized form of
censorship.

Because of this generalized feeling towards laws, it is impossible to
sum up all the knowledge of humanity without offending each of these
cultural laws, and thus incommoding their believers. Abiding to the
cultural laws of a community gives a sense of belonging, of identity, of
security... It's a strong, common urge.

Let's add to this fact that many of those laws are in the hands of
"tutors" who use them as a tool to shape their "protected ones". (It
doesn't matter if I agree with their values or not, I'm focused on the
mechanism.)

The result is that you have deciding people between the foundation
projects and their potential users, deciding people that have control of
the flow of information. If they lose this control they lose power and
their community (or child, for example) will lose faith in the official
values and may start differing. From their perspective, it's the
beginning of chaos.


So, back to Wikipedia an Commons. Allowing such conflicts (free
universal information versus locally controlled information) would
antagonize the leaders and "disturb" the society order (which may be
viewed as good or bad from our point of view, but is usually terrifying
from theirs).

The pragmatical approach seen in the debates is to compromise enough to
avoid the conflicts and keep reaching the censored masses, minimizing
the compromise of principles.

The idealistic approach seems to only care about the internal community.
For example:

> David (a real thought leader) Goodman wrote:
>> If there is a wish for a similar but censored
>> service, this can be best done  by forking ours; 

But the wish to censor is not internal (except for parent maybe), thus a
fork wouldn't be followed by users. It's not users who want the
censorship system, it's detractors who don't want any out of their
control, free access to information to begin with.

My impressions from the last events is that people who believe in
Wikipedia and Commons projects don't wish major changes to the
censorship system that is satisfactorily self-managed by the users and
editors.

I think the people who feel strongly threatened by the lack of
censorship on Wikipedia and Commons are whether from an opposing side or
on a confused, testing phase. Because there is a war of influence, I
wonder if we are robust enough to ignore the "enemies" we're creating by
our very existence, given that they are influential. Fox News, Iran,
China are just symptoms: what's happening here is that we're beginning
to be a threat, imho, and that an escalation of hostility is to be
expected the more we are successful and they become aware of us.

Is it wise to ignore how the rest of the world reacts to the free access
of information? Can the community thrives only on the shoulders of the
people not offended by our current handling of information, or not?

I don't know the answer, but I think we should be attentive and
realistic enough to avoid a war, for example. That is not saying that we
should change or compromise just to please. But if we choose to
compromise, in this case allow some kind of censorship, forked or not,
we need to know what's at stake and the dangers.

Most of the libertarian communities that I know failed because they were
too disturbing / annoying for the surrounding powers. There should be a
constant acute perception of that. Maybe I've been too long in South
America to have blind faith in our enemies, but a net with a few key
nodes (which is our current organization, if I'm not mistaken) is
extremely simple to disassemble.

Note: my position is not that they are enemies, but that they feel like
we are. I think misunderstanding is the root of wars.





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