redbaiting by the oblivious: Ed Rothstein of the New York Times.
-
Archives
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- May 2011
- March 2011
- November 2010
- October 2010
- August 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
- August 2005
- July 2005
- June 2005
- May 2005
- April 2005
- March 2005
- February 2005
- January 2005
- December 2004
- November 2004
- October 2004
- September 2004
- August 2004
- July 2004
- June 2004
- May 2004
- October 2003
- September 2003
- August 2003
- July 2003
- June 2003
- May 2003
- April 2003
- March 2003
- January 2003
- December 2002
- November 2002
- October 2002
- September 2002
- August 2002
-
Meta
Article includes “Expectations of social and human transformation by the Internet have been greatly exaggerated.”
Actually they’ve been largely minimized (including by the piece at hand!).
I wonder what Bro. Rothstein would think if he were accused of idea plagiarism, which is what underlies the controversy. Judging by where we are at birth in terms of creative output, it’s pretty clear that we all owe royalties to all previous creators and are owed them by everyone who follows.
What is not plagiarism is chaotic nonsense.
Love.
Perhaps I missed something, but I think your one-line response is a little unfair. Obviously Rothstein doesn’t agree with you, but why does that makes him “oblivious”? Isn’t your response the very sort of thing you deplore in others?
As for “redbaiting,” I assume you’re referring to this throwaway line, the meaning of which is a little opaque:
“Traditional arguments over public good and private rights have taken a turn; this time, idealism confronts materialism, socialism confronts capitalism, beliefs about communal virtue confront conceptions of individualism.”
Obviously debates are more complex than pairs of nouns, but I don’t think this rises to “redbaiting.” If you interpret it as an attempt to paint your side of the debate negatively by association with “socialism,” I’m not sure the other side comes off better, since they are evidently “materialist.” Who wouldn’t rather be an idealist?
For him, the other side is “capitalism” (“socialism confronts capitalism”)
As to who wouldn�t rather be an idealist, if the comparison is wooly-headed idealists vs. hard-headed materialists (which is the harsher form), well, the terms of debate are similar.
It’s also sprinkled throughout later: “[SV] champions “information anarchy” … using rhetoric that echoes the anti-globalization movement.”. Or “a realm originally meant to be a refuge from commercial interests” (which, amusingly, is quite wrong).
*Shrug*. Generic Critique Number X+1. If you’ve seen one of these, you’ve basically seen them all. Only the tone varies.
So, Seth, you think this “generic critique” that looked to me to be fairly polite in tone deserves to be called “redbaiting by the oblivious”?
Ehhh, personally, I tend to cut activists some slack when they’re annoyed at FAQ-type (Frequently Asserted Querulousness)
criticism. Why wag my finger and attempt to define precise degrees of justification of irritation? I know I’m not pleased when people become fussbudgets at me.
I don’t know what Lessig’s complaint is, but I’d take: “Expectations of social and human transformation by the Internet have been greatly exaggerated” one step further. Many problems have been made worse by computers, including students not writing their own term papers, people’s personal information and money being stolen, hate groups finding more supporters, and public libraries being full of kids playing video games. It makes me wonder why money is being raised for “causes” like building $100 laptops for poor children. Give kids who need help $100 worth of tutoring or counciling or books or something. Not all poor kids need a computer to do well in school.
I also agree with:
“The continued success of the operating system Linux, for example, is partly due not only to the ways in which varied individuals are freely contributing to its evolution, but to the ways in which companies are supporting it, and panels of overseers and a strict organizational procedure govern its specialized licenses; those procedures lead to reliability and uniformity.”
The author is being exceptionally fair by saying that Linux is a success without mentioning that Windows is far more successful and even safer than Linux. Here’s some information in it. The news article I had read about it might contain newer information and seem more impartial (though it basically came to the same conclusion), but I didn’t try searching for it.
Also see this.
I can’t tell if you’re intentionally being funny or if you are really as clueless as you sound.
Seriously.
Grey hat discovers bug in Windows:
1) write microsoft about the bug
2a) wait until they fix it (while the black hats go right on cracking machines)
2b) they finally say “we fixed it”
or
2b) the never say “we fixed it” so grey hat must consider risk of imprisonment of fines under the DMCA before proceeding to…
3) release information on the exploit
When a grey hat discovers an exploit in linux
1) file a bug report in bugzilla
2a) send a security notice to redhat (ubuntu, debian or whomever)
or
2b) send a security notice and the patch to redhat (ubuntu, debian, or whomever)
3) patch system when fix is released (usually within hours – if she’s not the one in 2b, above)
So far as the black and white comparisons between socialism and capitalism, there’s a very simple (not so blackj and white) response: what has copyright and patent law in the US become beyond corporate welfare? For proof one need only look at the result: giant sociopathic corporations too bloated and lazy to compete, instead exploiting legislation to ensure their continued feast at the taxpayer teat.
From the Article:
Ok, this is news to me. Linux is under more than 1 license?! Can someone please expain that to me? Can a kernel be under more than 1 license? I thought it was only under the GPL. Sheesh…I have a lot to learn!
And another thing…
Umm, I think Ed forgot one tiny detail about what the kernel Linux owes its success to. Ever heard of the GNU system? You know…the other 99+% of the code that comprises a complete operating system written before the kernel was even a twinkle in Linus Torvalds’s eye? Hey Ed, where do you think Linux would be on the scale of success if it weren’t for the GNU Project? Methinks somewhere around the current user base of Minix…
Barry said:
Are you serious? Students simply can’t cheat in that sense – at least not on me. It’s precisely because of computer technology and the Internet that they can’t. You are talking about technologically incompetent teachers – not computers. Any teacher that has any sort of tech savvy is going to use it to make it virtually impossible for a student to plagiarize. Sure, there are teachers who wouldn’t know how to catch plagiarism if it slapped them in the face, but that is the teacher who is the problem – not computers. In time, we won’t face this problem. I see more and more young teachers come into the teaching profession who know how to use a computer competently. I believe the exact opposite of you. Computers will actually decrease the amount of plagiarism – not increase it.
Computers make this worse? Umm, no. And even if you are talking about bank system cracking, that is so extremely rare it’s not even worth mentioning except for sensationalist value. Any sort of thievery in this case is usually due to the computer user being careless with a password or other info needed to steal. You’re much more likely to be mugged for your money than have a cracker break into your account and steal money. And hey!, if you only have a bank card useable in a computer the mugger won’t get any money anyway! As well, your information being stolen is also highly unlikely. More likely is dishonesty with the holders of your info – as they go off and sell it. But that is a human issue, not a computer issue.
Are you seriously trying to say that computers cause hate to go on the rise? I’m not even going to bother with the absurdity of that belief. If anything, the global dissemination of information is actually killing off inferior and divisive ideas rather than nurturing them. Welcome to the noosphere.
What the hell is the librarian doing installing video games on public library terminals?
That depends on what you mean by success. Yep, if this was a popularity contest, the GNU+Linux system is absolutely getting its arse kicked by Windows.
But the GNU system gives us freedom – if we want it. “Success” isn’t even a word that comes close to describing the beauty of that fact.
url=http://www.touchweb.com.cn 手写屏
GNU/Linux less safe than Windows? OK, is this a troll?
As to whether computers and the net are good or not, this is the same kind of argument that arises about any technology. Conservatives say it is bad because it changes productive relations and they’re scared of change, and progressives say it’s good because it changes productive relations and they don’t like the current ones. Cars make such things as drive-bys, traffic accidents and easier flight from police possible. In fact, cars kill more people than all terrorism put together, for example. (Don’t go on the “people kill people” bullshit, people don’t wilfully kill people in traffic, in the general case.) However, I think if someone said that personal automobiles have little social effect, they’d be shot down at once.
Same for computers.
I’m not going to get into the corporate/individual contributions to Linux argument because it’s more complex than I’m willing to write about atm.
I don’t buy the “vulnerability” argument when measured in # of bugs found.
The fact that most Windows/IE proponents like to neglect is that Unix-like operating systems are designed in more discreet modular pieces. Therefore, even if Internet Explorer for Windows has a fewer number of bugs, it doesn’t deal with the issue that an attack on the browser can do much more harm than an attack on a browser sitting on top of the Linux kernel.
Windows is generally one big blob of goop that has holes often reaching through multiple layers of software. Addressing the # of bugs is rather irrelevant. Bugs should be looked at on a case-by-case basis to determine the quality of a piece of software. What each bug causes is what is important to look at – not the quantification of bugs in general. “More” or “less” bugs is hardly a deep investigation when comparing two pieces of software.
This also seems to willfully ignore the “free as in speech”/”free as in beer” disctinction. As I recrall the quotation is actually “Information wants to be expenseive … information wants to be free,” (but mentioning that would undermine the rhetoric). Further, my icon Larry Wall added that “Information wants to be valuable” (and in some cases making it free makes it more valuable, e.g., the public domain, the commons). But then again, maybe it’s not willful ignorance, maybe it’s intentionally confused to paint the enemy as freeloading “plunder”ers. The ‘socialist’ card plays a lot better to some crowds than the ‘radical libertarian’ card. Either way, it’s easy to see why the cartels and their corporate mouthpieeces (not that Rothstein is one) would be opposed to either.
http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/II/IWtbF.html
“Students simply can’t cheat in that sense – at least not on me.”
Maybe not on you, but I heard statistics about a year or two ago (websites like turnitin.com were around in those days too) and the incidence of plagiarism was so high that term papers were totally useless and unfair to the honest students.
I can’t believe that people’s private data isn’t more at risk when the data is in company databases that are accessible through hacking over the internet. Have you heard of hacking? The more people there are who have computers, the more hacking there will be. That doesn’t make computers bad, but it’s another thing against them.
“What the hell is the librarian doing installing video games on public library terminals?”
I mean web based video games. There was some ruling in NY requiring librarians to allow it…or a policy decision or something. I remember from when I used to need to use the computers.
“Are you seriously trying to say that computers cause hate to go on the rise? I’m not even going to bother with the absurdity of that belief. If anything, the global dissemination of information is actually killing off inferior and divisive ideas rather than nurturing them. Welcome to the noosphere.”
I don’t recall if they went on the rise or fall, but I’ve heard in numerous reports that the internet’s influence on hate groups is that it increases membership. I even heard one anti-hate group representative mention your theory and say that it didn’t work out that way. It would be easy to find quotes to this effect from the anti-hate experts, but I didn’t bother looking.
I guess you can say the teachers, the consumers, the librarians, and the gullible are to blame, just as “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Whatever.
As for Windows being safer than Linux, my reference didn’t help with some people, which is one reason I didn’t search for more references for the other issues, and I have nothing more to say about this.
I have nothing more to say about this…
You know, you haven’t really said anything yet.
We’ve seen enough of this kind of oversimplification of the CC position. It needs a cute name. Something that captures polarization, oversimplification, and deliberate or negligent mischaracterization…
But funny, brief, and cute. Gimme a night’s sleep, I’ll think of something…
I appreciate you taking to time to cntoirbute That’s very helpful.
cS1byc dluadfwnguzs
mGzxTi atvvomfrctek