[p2p-research] Historical anti-materialism

[Ryan Lanham]

 Stallman also wrote the following before them...
**

*“Shouldn't a programmer be able to ask for a reward for his creativity?”*

There is nothing wrong with wanting pay for work, or seeking to maximize
one's income, as long as one does not use means that are destructive. But
the means customary in the field of software today are based on destruction.

Extracting money from users of a program by restricting their use of it is
destructive because the restrictions reduce the amount and the ways that the
program can be used. This reduces the amount of wealth that humanity derives
from the program. When there is a deliberate choice to restrict, the harmful
consequences are deliberate destruction.
The reason a good citizen does not use such destructive means to become
wealthier is that, if everyone did so, we would all become poorer from the
mutual destructiveness. This is Kantian ethics; or, the Golden Rule. Since I
do not like the consequences that result if everyone hoards information, I
am required to consider it wrong for one to do so. Specifically, the desire
to be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world in
general of all or part of that creativity.

_____

He suggests that anyone should be able to be paid so long as the borders and
boundaries they create are not destructive.  But then isn't all admissions
to universities destructive by such logic?  Isn't any barrier to any given
use by anyone destructive in the same thread?  Shouldn't we all be able to
sleep where we want and eat whatever is grown?  If maximum use is the
criteria of value, then any restriction on any property is
absurd--intellectual or not.  Surely professors don't own their research
notes, their journal articles, their books or their lectures.  And the idea
of security on all machines should be given over to simply a write-only
problem--everything everywhere should be readable so that it can be used!
And no one need cite another author because that limits value!

Aren't all books and journals that are not open to any publication or
viewing destructive?  Isn't the failure to share any thought or idea that
might have value to anyone a failure by such standards?  Stallman's writing
suggests the absence of intellectual property--not the freedom to share.

Once again, nihilism and fantasy instead of logic, responsibility and
sharing.  P2P deserves better.


On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 10:33 AM, Christian Siefkes
<christian at siefkes.net>wrote:


> Ryan,
>  Ryan Lanham wrote:
> > It is my own view that the anti-market rhetoric becoming so dominant
> > here is destructive to P2P.  The giants of the field are certainly not
> > against markets, productivity, merit, opportunity nor are they against
> > profit.   The discussions of endless surplus and no money are silly and
> > have no basis in reality that anyone can see, touch or experience.  It
> > isn't futurism, it is nihilism--serving to destroy good while advancing
> > the nonsensical.  I feel that if it is not called out, the field of P2P
> > research risks becoming absurdly nihilistic just as the general
> > discourse of neo-Marxism is absurdly nihilistic.
>
>
>    In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the
>  post-scarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to
>    make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities
>    that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten
>    hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling,
>    robot repair and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be able
>    to make a living from programming.
>        -- Richard Stallman, The GNU Manifesto, 1985
>
> The idea that we haven't yet reached the best of all possible worlds, that
> scarcity and want aren't necessarily eternal and unchangeable constraints
> of
> the human condition, and hence, that money and similar want-management
> mechanisms may someday become superfluous, isn't something foreign to the
> concept of peer production that had to be imported from the outside. It was
> there from the very start.
>
> I'll refrain from further comments.
>
>
> Best regards        Christian
>
> --
> |-------- Dr. Christian Siefkes --------- christian at siefkes.net ---------
> |   Homepage: http://www.siefkes.net/   |   Blog: http://www.keimform.de/
> |   Better Bayesian Analysis:           |   Peer Production Everywhere:
> |   http://bart-project.com/            |   http://peerconomy.org/wiki/
> |------------------------------------------ OpenPGP Key ID: 0x346452D8 --
>
>  I suspect the only taboos that are more than taboos are the ones that are
> universal, or nearly so. Murder for example. But any idea that's
> considered harmless in a significant percentage of times and places, and
> yet is taboo in ours, is a good candidate for something we're mistaken
> about.
>        -- Paul Graham, Hackers and Painters
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> p2presearch mailing list
> p2presearch at listcultures.org
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20090622/c14cebb7/attachment.html>