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Re: [ox-en] The Hipatia Manifesto



Hi Stefan,

I agree with your comments on the hipatia manifesto. So I think would
many hipatians. Diego Saravia, as the main author, is the one who defends 
it most strongly, but he also accepts it may need to be changed (IMO many
of the problems could be removed by shortening it drastically, and making
it less of a poem and more of a manifesto!)

Was there any special reason why you sent this to the ox-en list and not
the hipatia or hipatia-en list? Could I forward it? ( believe the 
hipatia english language list currently only has Georg Greve and Hong Feng
as members (in splendid isolation ;-) so it would be best on the main
list, in spite of the language. 


Graham



On Sat, 23 Aug 2003, Stefan Merten wrote:

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Hi!

2 months (75 days) ago Stefan Merten wrote:
Taken from

	http://www.hipatia.info/index_en.php

After finally being able to use Emacs for editing Wiki pages while
reading it I overworked the German version. I used the English version
as a reference so I can only hope that there are no big losses.

I'll comment a bit on the English version.

*Free knowledge, in action for the peoples of the world*

The manifest focuses on the term knowledge. I have some problems with
this term in this context.

Earth, water, air and fire were the elements of the classical
world. Since Einstein we have understood the world in terms of
two kinds of analysis and synthesis: the matter/energy pair, and
information.

I don't understand the last sentence.

Since its beginnings in the eddies of the energy flux, life has
become ever more complex; locally decreasing entropy;
'progressing' through natural selection; maturing; including
itself in its mental models, as it gains consciousness of its
reality; and preparing itself to 'improve' as a function of its
emerging objectives.

Phew - heavy stuff...

The 'information age', telecommunications and computer science
will allow us to build communication networks unimaginable
today. The interconnection of mobile phones and computers with
our neural pathways will allow things that we once believed to
be fantasy: telepathy and telekinesis, for example. Interfaces
between the human brain and computers, artefacts of all kinds,
videocameras, and other objects, will become normal. Only our
limited imagination prevents us from seeing what we could achieve.

Sounds very much like cyberpunk ;-) .

The growth of communication capacity, only hinted at by the
Internet, will allow future humanity to evolve towards
meta-organisms interconnecting humans. An entelechy of greater
complexity than any we know of. One or more superimposed beings
of which we are mere cells.

Phew - the Oekonux thoughts are a bit less science fiction ;-) .

- From what I understand until this point is that the Hipatia manifest
focuses very much on the increased communication possibilities. I'm
not sure whether this is really the point of information society. Ok,
it is easier to communicate with virtually everybody on the planet.
But is it *this* what makes the difference? Well, there may be a
point.

The telephone made possible bidirectional communication between
two points in a network: a model of communication between peers.
Television and radio allowed unidirectional communication from
one point to all other points in the network: one point
generates, while all the others consume. The Internet allows all
to all communication that is both horizontal and transparent.
The computer becomes a communications centre which superposes
the powers of telephone and television on those of processing.
Each model defines a mode of participation and institutional and
human organization which is different. The Internet has no
centre, no control, the only central body which defines
protocols is elected democratically, and every node administers
its own connections.

The part about the body defining protocols is definitely wrong. As far
as I understood the IETF - or what is meant here? - is not a
democratic entity.

The need to cure and the certain possibility of improving the
quality of life of the disabled, among others, drive the public
support for the development of these technologies, while greed
for profit mobilizes huge investment funds to new ventures.

What is meant by the first part of the sentence? At least in Germany
the care for the disables is only a very small incentive for public
funding of computer related research.

It is reasonable that someone who realizes an increase in human
knowledge should have rights as a result.

Is it really? Isn't this another form of exchange? This time between
the individual and the society which materializes as the state giving
- - and protecting - rights. For some time now I thought that this "it
is reasonable the creator has the right to benefit" is flawed somehow.
For the first time I think I have an idea *why* it is flawed. It's an
abstract exchange. The benefit is alienated from the created good. Ah,
along these line there will be an argument :-) .

It is therefore necessary to separate out the meanings and refer
to each concept separately, as author's rights, patents,
trademarks, etc.,

That's the Stallman argument.

finding suitable legislative frameworks for
each one, without thereby treating them as property.

How should this work?

In times before the digitalization of information it might have
made sense to apply the legal structures that fitted
matter/energy to information, since the material basis of
information was so important for its use that it defined the
modes in which it could be managed: use, exchange, and
assignment of value.

Digitalization makes information ubiquitous, changes its
character, and allows its manipulation both en masse and in
detail in ways completely different from the traditional ones.

The application of the concept of property to digitally encoded
artefacts is completely artificial.

This is interesting insofar it separates analog information from
digital information. However, in their argumentation this is
logically. Interesting...

    V - Programs

Phew - I'll stop here for now.


						Mit Freien Grüßen

						Stefan

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