There is more than one way to poison the soil in which profound ideals might otherwise flourish. The most obvious blight, perhaps, results from the kind of cynicism or fatalism that prevents germination in the first place.
This shows itself, for example, in the frequent assumption that powerful commercial interests — corporate “big money” — must unavoidably subvert the Net’s liberating potentials in favor of the crass profiteering whose results are so vivid in the television wasteland. On such an assumption, how you and I manage our choices (whether as corporate employees or as consumers) counts for nothing at all. But ideals can be destroyed by excessive hope as well. The plant oversupplied with artificial fertilizer may show rapid, impressive progress, but its growth is rank, weak, and unsustainable. The first good rain will lay it flat. Similarly, much of the enthusiasm for the Net as an agent of desirable social change betrays an artificially reinforced hope.
The following paragraphs, which circulated on the Net in 1994, illustrate this enthusiasm in an extreme form. They were part of a recruitment campaign for a movement calling itself DigitaLiberty.
DigitaLiberty believes that technology can set us free. The economies of the developed world are now making a major transition from an industrial base to an information base. As they do, the science of cryptology will finally and forever guarantee the unbreachable right of privacy, protecting individuals, groups, and corporations from the prying eyes and grasping hands of sovereigns. We will all be free to conduct our lives, and most importantly our economic relations, as we each see fit. Cyberspace is also infinitely extensible. There will be no brutal competition for lebensraum. Multiple virtual communities can exist side by side and without destructive conflict, each organized according to the principles of their members. We seek only to build one such community, a community based on individual liberty. Others are free to build communities based on other principles, even diametrically opposed principles. But they must do so without our coerced assistance.
Effective communities will thrive and grow. Dysfunctional communities will wither and die. And for the first time in human history, rapacious societies will no longer have the power to make war on their neighbors nor can bankrupt communities take their neighbors down with them.
This shows itself, for example, in the frequent assumption that powerful commercial interests — corporate “big money” — must unavoidably subvert the Net’s liberating potentials in favor of the crass profiteering whose results are so vivid in the television wasteland. On such an assumption, how you and I manage our choices (whether as corporate employees or as consumers) counts for nothing at all. But ideals can be destroyed by excessive hope as well. The plant oversupplied with artificial fertilizer may show rapid, impressive progress, but its growth is rank, weak, and unsustainable. The first good rain will lay it flat. Similarly, much of the enthusiasm for the Net as an agent of desirable social change betrays an artificially reinforced hope.
The following paragraphs, which circulated on the Net in 1994, illustrate this enthusiasm in an extreme form. They were part of a recruitment campaign for a movement calling itself DigitaLiberty.
DigitaLiberty believes that technology can set us free. The economies of the developed world are now making a major transition from an industrial base to an information base. As they do, the science of cryptology will finally and forever guarantee the unbreachable right of privacy, protecting individuals, groups, and corporations from the prying eyes and grasping hands of sovereigns. We will all be free to conduct our lives, and most importantly our economic relations, as we each see fit. Cyberspace is also infinitely extensible. There will be no brutal competition for lebensraum. Multiple virtual communities can exist side by side and without destructive conflict, each organized according to the principles of their members. We seek only to build one such community, a community based on individual liberty. Others are free to build communities based on other principles, even diametrically opposed principles. But they must do so without our coerced assistance.
Effective communities will thrive and grow. Dysfunctional communities will wither and die. And for the first time in human history, rapacious societies will no longer have the power to make war on their neighbors nor can bankrupt communities take their neighbors down with them.
