Friday, April 24, 2009

Mike's gifts

If you enjoy The Online Photographer like I do, consider a voluntary "subscription". It's tax free for Mike, and he deserves it, it's one of the most intelligent and entertaining sites on the web. (I chose the highest level, six bucks per month, but for more casual readers there are lower levels.) Info here.

33 comments:

Aniko said...

Nice to learn more about the economy of giving things for free and getting voluntary gifts.

if the world could work like this... :-)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

It may have to, if the doomsayers are correct about digital file sharing.

Aniko said...

"It may have to, if the doomsayers are correct about digital file sharing."

Well... Now in France there is a law project about controlling file sharing. We will be observed... Doomsayers here see dark times coming for file sharing. You see more file sharing coming from there?

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I don't think file sharing can be stopped, and even limiting it is very difficult.

Aniko said...

Well... I guess in China they can limit that, can't they?

Now there is this law called Hadopi coming up in France. They plan to monitor if you use file sharing programs. Get your IP address, cancel your internet access is you don't stop after the second warning.

Some say the aim is just to get the IP addresses connected with the names and real addresses.

I don't know if it really feasible, but brings a great atmosphere of freedom here! :-)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

... I'm less keen on France after you started telling me about it. :(

Aniko said...

I love France !!!
Really. It has such a tradition of freedom, intellectual sparkling, culture...
Of course with flaws too, it isn't perfect. But love it.
I am not french.

Now direction has kind of been kidnapped. The actual government, there since 2007, is quite autistic in its communication and making great neo-liberal changes at a very high speed, attacking the public services: the health system, education, post, forcing this "hadopi" law etc. But people are in the streets, universities are on strike since february, it is not letting itself. One month ago, 3 million people manifested. On the 28th of april, there will be new wave of demonstrations. History live! :-)

Actually this is not only about France, it is a very general and global state of affairs of hard neo-liberalism arriving and threatening the european public services and freedoms.

In education, there is right now a european summit in Louvain,

http://www.vagueeuropeenne.fr/?lang=en

The things I am writing about are new and really appalling... but this is not France! These are threats against the country, against the population... And I see that more and more people wake up and start to get organized. And for this, I really like France!

Sometimes, one has to fight for the rights. Seems now it's a period when it is necessary.

I've been here three days ago, a nice way of manifesting:

An article in The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/07/protest-france

/Planning to make a post on this... But quite busy these days... /

Aniko said...

This is the one I wanted to post for european education.

Worth reading.

http://www.vagueeuropeenne.fr/European-call-for-a-counter-summit

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

"hard neo-liberalism arriving and threatening the european public services and freedoms."

I'm not sure what neo-libralism is. But I thought liberals were *for* public services?

Aniko said...

And me again, forgot to mention:

Actually not much of this goes in the public media.

But internet is free. I hope it will stay that way.

***

(But the actor-humorist I mentioned in a previous comment came back to the small screen. Only not authorized in one radio station. :-)

Aniko said...

"I'm not sure what neo-libralism is. But I thought liberals were *for* public services?"

Very quickly (I have some work to do, but can't resist to the temptation of answering, so this is a compromise)

I have writings and references... but in french. :-)

There were times when there were sectors of life where the rules of the market would apply (typically economy, trade), and other sectors would be out of it: education, health care, police, post, fire-works, water supply, energy supply.

This is called liberalism.

Of course, there is always a subtle law of market, some schools are better, etc, but the whole thing is maintained by the government, from tax money, from everybody to everybody, and it is not oriented at making profit. (It is not a problem if it is profitable, but making profit is not what determines the policies.)

But as business is more and more ruling, there have been more and more negotiations, in the WTO, that these possible sources of income should be opened for the market. Because you have to realize that these are possible sources of income that are not exploited at their best if the government rules them.

So liberalism is when there is a space for market, and a space for social services.

Neoliberalism is when everything is a commodity, and you try to make as much money out of it as possible. This goes through the privatization of teh social services. The only institutions that are not privatized are the ones needed by the state: police, military.

It is already there in many african countries. Sometimes the privatized water or electricity costs more than in France.

Until now Europe was safe.

It isn't any more.

Changes are coming at an incredible speed. Actually the process started more than ten years ago, but I, for example, was not conscious of it.

It feels as if the fundaments of the cosy house had been eaten by termites for a decade or two... Some could see it coming, but not me... And now the house is starting to shiver, walls cracking.

But, well, history in on its way!
There are big changes coming.

/ Couldn't make it short...
I start to write as much as Pascal... :-) /

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

It just seems to me that this would be a conservative agenda, not a (neo)liberal one. It's always the conservatives who's been for privatization and smaller government, I think.

Aniko said...

I don't know much about the politics in your area, names may change. In France there is left and right, (beginning to be more and more similar).

Here, as far as I read in reports (I repeat myself)

"liberalism is when there is a space for market, and a space for social services.

Neoliberalism is when everything is a commodity, and you try to make as much money out of it as possible."

I don't think it is really a political party's ideology. As I see it, neoliberalism is an economic direction Europe has taken, led by those who have the money, and governments tend to follow.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Sounds to me like using the word "neo-puritanism" for "having as much sex, food, and fun as possible". :-)

Aniko said...

Why not... :-)

I have to confess I don't know much about the meaning of liberalism as you know it. Where do you know it from, what context?

I though it has to do with freedom in trade, free markets. So to me neoliberalism, as a more extreme application of liberalism, does not sound unlogic...

But as I started to be more closely interested in political concepts not so long ago, I don't know much about "liberalism". What I know much more about is the actual "neoliberalism".

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Maybe I'm too influenced, sadly, by the way American conservatives are using the word: so it means left-wing, socialist.

Aniko said...

Really ! Amazing! :-)

Would be funny to track down how these different meanings happened... :-)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yes. If you read over all the definitions, it's really hard to get a firm grasp of the word.
(This is of course not unusual. Seems humans can't think.)

But that's what "liberal" means in the US today, and I'm exposed to a lot more US culture than European, because I don't read newspapers or watch the news, but I do read on the Net. In fact it's bizarre to me that none of the definitions I see on answers.com fit with this at all.

When you listen to the kind of person who is a Bush supporter, the people they attack are always "liberals". Never heard this?

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

O god, look at this:

http://tr.im/jSjL

I'm not going to read all that!
Good grief, humans can't hold a thought in their head for five minutes without changing it.

Aniko said...

Haha! :-)

What occurs to me is that this means it is a central and controversial concept. I guess there would be a lot of definitions of "well educated", or "moral duty", or... "intellectual"! :-)

"Good grief, humans can't hold a thought in their head for five minutes without changing it."

Haha!

I guess any word can be used as an insult as far as you pronounce it often enough with an insulting intonation... :-)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

C'est cas.

(I think that means "there's that" or "that's how it is".)

neeraj said...

... the economy of giving things for free and getting voluntary gifts.Other examples of voluntary gifts asked for, which come into my mind, are there in the freeware scene:
- "cardware": the author asks for a nice postcard of the area where you are living, or
- "beerware": the author asks for a bottle of beer typically of the area where you are living ;-)

I'm sure there are other examples.

I loved very much the atmosphere of voluntarily giving in the ashram in Pune ... helping somewhere in order to support the whole thing e.g. by cleaning, or chopping vegetables, helping to prepare food for thousands of people, dish washing, whatever else and whenever you WANTED to do, not as a do-gooder, but just following your own authentic goals, because you are living there ... leading to a kind of "higher synergy" - the world CAN work like this :-)

But internet is free. I hope it will stay that way.I hope, too ... right now, it seems to be a global fight to introduce censorship in the internet, and in Germany, too - actually the excuse is no more "terrorism", but "preventing child abuse", which is ridiculous if you know about the psychology of abusive people and the structure of the internet.

NO! It's a historical fact: Whenever a state or a church is saying to the flock something like: "This you must not read, that is not allowed for you to look at or to learn about ..." then the inevitable result is tyranny, despite any good or holy motivation.

Deutsches Grundgesetz, Artikel 5:
"Eine Zensur findet nicht statt."
I wish all people here in Germany would remember the terrible experiences having lead to the Grundgesetz. And I hope that our Bundesverfassungsgericht (loooong word;-) will defend it.

I try to follow the discussion here (and to contribute). Many are now seeing to come a new fascism, a "4. Reich", with technical possibilities of surveillance never having existed before. And many are already thinking about leaving the country. But what are the alternatives?

And sadly the people seeing this are still a minority (mainly I know about people trained in IT) related to 80 million people, who seem to be much more interested in the fact, that some socker club has got a new trainer, or about the result of a strange casting show :-(

Concerning exchanging any data uncensored I'm using the good old usenet (and Virtual Private Networks if needed), which is a much better choice than any file sharing protocol, as long as it will still exist - but there is also a big fight behind the stage between the providers and the content industries. And defending the basic right of privacy is very very very suspicious ...

I hope the best (trying to contribute), trusting into the creative forces of the universe.
I think, it was Schiller saying:

"Denn, wo Gefahr ist,
wächst das Rettende auch."

(Trying to translate:
"When there is danger,
rescue is growing, too.")

What a detailed (Pascal-like?) comment, but I felt the urge to do so - so, I give freely ;-)

Aniko said...

Ok Neeraj, we have a new adjective for comments:
"pascalish"! :-)

This is how concepts materialize ! :-)

Eolake:

C'est ça!
That's it!
(Meaning more or less: yes, that's right.)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Thanks.

--
Alternatives: pascalian. or pascalesque. "wordy, but insightful".

neeraj said...

"pascalish" ... sounds nice - I like it!:-)

This is how concepts materialize ! :-)
Yes => a new Mem?

Any objection from Pascal?

Who has the copyright, or is it free public license? ;-)

Right now I have seen the alternatives ... now I'm a little bit confused, which one to use?:-)

Aniko said...

I prefer Eolake's suggestions. I like both. Pascalian may be easier to write. Pascalesque is so funny.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

And it doesn't get more French than that!

neeraj said...

After some thinking I conclude that "pascalesque" would be most appropriate ;-), and funny, too ...

Couldn't make it short...

I remember from school (so, maybe wrong, because so long ago) that a teacher mentioned about Goethe writing a letter to a friend:

"Dear friend, right now I have no time to write you a short letter. So, you get a long one ..." ;-)

(captcha "spedi" => speedy?:-)

Aniko said...

"Dear friend, right now I have no time to write you a short letter. So, you get a long one ..." ;-)

Now I have to present all my research in 6 pages. I think it will take much more time and energy than if I could do it in 12 pages... :-)

neeraj said...

Yes, I know that, too ...

But it's in a way a "good" exercise in order to see the main aspects better and more systematically - hopefully ;-)

Aniko said...

Hopefully! :-)

Now I will not connect to internet for a week -- otherwise I will never get it done, discussions just get too interesting on this blog ! :-)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

OK, see you in a week. Have fun.

Aniko said...

Thanks ! I'll try... :-)
No, I will!