[-empyre-] pirates and clapping

[davin heckman]

Thinking on this point of being "products of the Google" and their
famously banal motto, "Don't be evil," I wonder if some of what we are
experiencing a flattening out of ethics.  "Don't be evil" sounds like
a fine corporate motto, but I think it really speaks to an absence of
what it is that we should strive for: "The Good."

Nobody wants to bother defining it, and in the process we are left to
the default system of value offered by capitalism.  The only thing
that matters is what end you are willing to serve in exchange for
access to greater means (by which you can barter someone else into
serving your ends).  Piracy is attractive to me because it lays this
bare.  Like true Teenagers from Mars, "We want, we need it, we take
it."  There's a raw honesty to this sort of existence that exposes the
shame of capitalism.

But this is precisely the concern of politics: to hammer out a notion
of "the good" and to negotiate means within which we can pursue it.
Maybe the best we can do is "Don't be evil" or "Get what you can."
But I think Michel is onto something when he speaks of getting beyond
the avoidance strategies offered by resistance.....  at some point,
people forget about what they are against and get into what they are
for.

Davin

On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 9:44 AM,  <magnus at ditch.org.uk> wrote:
>> At the inauguration ceremony, the Google representative said that the
>> company is looking forward to
>> the research outcomes, and that "they are glad to anticipate the outcomes,
>> which will help us to
>> make better products."
>
> Yes, it's worth extending our piratic probe to institutions, newly created
> and pirated. Open Access is one response to constraints on knowledge
> sharing.
>
>> we are the products of Google, not clients, nor "pirates."
>
> An interesting point. Can you elaborate?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Magnus
>
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