Re: [-empyre-] cybernetic liki

[John Hopkins <jhopkins@uiah.fi>]

> On May 3, 2004, at 12:13 AM, John Hopkins wrote:
>
> > And also, isn't a UA  just simply an application of one of the 
> > tired forms of top-down relation (setting up a power-relation 
> > dialectic between criticalware and user)?
>
> Sorry, but no. A user agreement is a necessity in our litigious 
> world of intellectual property squabbles. Without a UA, users can 
> send us cease-and-desist letters whenever they feel like it, and 
> we'd be forced to somehow remove or erase portions of liken.
>
> Which may not seem like a big deal until you realize that everything 
> in liken is interconnected. We allow users to save paths 
> ("savegames") of their journey through liken. If you start removing 
> nodes, you start breaking paths and savegames.

then that is a mapping of the impact of the hierarchic reality of the 
social system on that way of going.  just another environmental force 
shaping the outcome.  does the fact that it is a force from the macro 
social system that it is embedded in make it different than, say, an 
individual who dislikes something that is posted and so erases it...?

I guess I still haven't seen a satisfactory answer to the question 
about the efficacy of tearing down the Masters house with the Masters 
tools...

> I don't know what the climate is like in Finland, but in the United 
> States, if you don't have defensive measures set up, you're 
> *actively* hurting yourself. Our UA is just a very fair way of 
> letting everyone keep the rights to their own work, while allowing 
> criticalartware to exhibit, compile or remix it.

but isn't this a point -- that what is needed, or is necessary is to 
evolve/embark upon a sustainable pathway that doesn't even nod at the 
existing structures (not even a short sharp kick in the groin either, 
no opposition), but simply maps another way?  (too utopian maybe?) 
are there ways of doing this without the nod?

Finland, well, it's a locked down system like the rest of the 
developed world, although Scandinavia still laughs incredulously (and 
incomprehensibly) at the litigiousness of the US society.  Personal 
responsibility is measured differently, for sure.

hmmm

but of course, one could just ignore this UA issue and get on with 
it, as well.  the critical part of the endeavor has little to do with 
that -- it's the building of a community that will, as a natural 
extension of its living-process, generate a vital dataspace.

I framed that problem thus: "By nature, networks are human-scaled and 
exist in human-scaled time.  They develop at the speed of life."

jh