Like Democracy, the Web Needs To Be Defended 108
climenole tips a great article by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in Scientific American. Quoting:
"The Web evolved into a powerful, ubiquitous tool because it was built on egalitarian principles and because thousands of individuals, universities and companies have worked, both independently and together as part of the World Wide Web Consortium, to expand its capabilities based on those principles. The Web as we know it, however, is being threatened in different ways. Some of its most successful inhabitants have begun to chip away at its principles. Large social-networking sites are walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web. Wireless Internet providers are being tempted to slow traffic to sites with which they have not made deals. Governments — totalitarian and democratic alike — are monitoring people's online habits, endangering important human rights. If we, the Web's users, allow these and other trends to proceed unchecked, the Web could be broken into fragmented islands. We could lose the freedom to connect with whichever Web sites we want."
Democracy is the means... (Score:4, Informative)
...by which we ensure we are governed no _better_ than we deserve.
The grandparent poster is not "funny" he's "correct".
The U.S. was supposed to be a "representative democracy" not a "democracy" in an attempt to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. The fact that both corporate interests and modern sound-byte media have caused the thing "represented" to no longer be "the general welfare" and instead to be the "corporate welfare" and the "sound-byte of momentary passion" is where things have failed.
The U.S. of A. was always supposed to be a Socialist regime (e.g. union for the ultimate good of the people). Our stupid electorate however cannot tell that apart from National Socialism (union for the ultimate good of the nation) or Soviet Socialism (union for the good of the bureaucracy). Nor do they understand the difference between "unionism" (voluntary commitment to common goals) and "fascism" (compulsory commitment to uniformly dictated structures).
This leads to some oddities. By definition if you think "my country right or wrong" then you are a National Socialist. And if you believe in the unrestrained free market you are an Anarchist.
We often describe a collapsed and irredeemable social construct by saying "it is just a popularity contest". Keep that in mind the next time you look at any election campaign.
Anarchy is good for the web and "the internets", just as it is good for the high seas. Since there are no whales or fisheries in the internet, and there is no real chance of _actual_ piracy or salvage, that anarchy is good. As soon as people try to turn the high-seas of the internet into territory and real estate things will fall to pieces.