[-empyre-] OSW: open source writing in the network

[Mike Stop Continues]

> The rights we assume we have, to personal property, a job, a private
> identity, education, healthcare, pensions, etc, are likely to be wiped
> away.
>
> In many ways the Western way of life our governments have indulged us in
> has been unsustainable all along and now we are waking up from our
> comfortable sleep to realise the nightmare our lives really are.
>

Simon, I can't fully agree with your assessment, as the reasons for which a
job, education, healthcare, and pension WILL not be sustained are very
different from the reasons private identity and personal property CANNOT be
sustained. In the former case, this is specifically due to corporate greed
siphoning capital ever upwards. If there's one thing we're capable of as a
species, it's ensuring that everyone has the a complete education, optimal
health, and a job. In industrial society, as more and more labor jobs go to
machines, while there is not necessarily a greater need for educated
workers (teachers, doctors, scientists, engineers, etc), there is a greater
surplus of them. In NYC, dentist techs currently make more money than most
dentists in the area.

As for privacy and personal property--beginning with *intellectual
*property--it's
the very motion of technological development that makes these concepts
unsustainable. This can be thought of as evolutionary, human being now
reproducing the patterns of organization that lead to the high-order
multicellular organisms with technology. Evolution demands that our species
fuse into a singular entity, and to do so requires the progressive
abolition of secrets (both in terms of personal and intellectual). Our own
bodies have multiple modalities of communication, the big ones being
neurological and hormonal, and it is evident in our design that where
communication breaks down is where problems arise, most notably
psychosomatic illness and habitual deficiencies.

I'd argue that the nightmare is precisely what we have right now, and while
there is the potential for the dream to get much, much worse, our world and
our species is fully capable of sustaining our current population (much as
we'll need to enact a species-wide population cap), if only a great enough
number of us demanded it.
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