I realize that title will give some readers heartburn, even those who are inclined to agree with me much the time. After all, “collectivism” is a term that packs some rhetorical punch and leads to quick accusations of red-baiting. I addressed that concern in a Cato Unbound debate with Lawrence Lessig a couple of years ago after he strenuously objected to my use of that term to describe his worldview (and that of Tim Wu, Jonathan Zittrain, and their many colleagues and followers). As I noted then, however, the “collectivism” of which I speak is a more generic type, not the hard-edged Marxist brand of collectivism of modern times. For example, I do not believe that Professors Lessig, Zittrain, or Wu are out to socialize all the information means of production and send us all to digital gulags or anything silly like that. Rather, their “collectivism” is rooted in a more general desire to have–as Declan McCullagh eloquently stated in a critique of Lessig’s Code–rule by “technocratic philosopher kings.” Here’s a passage from my Reason review of Wu’s Master Switch in which I expand upon that notion:
This is the second of two essays making “The Case for Internet Optimism.” This essay was included in the book, The Next Digital Decade: Essays on the Future of the Internet (2011), which was edited by Berin Szoka and Adam Marcus of TechFreedom. In my previous essay, which I discussed here yesterday, I examined the first variant of Internet pessimism: “Net Skeptics,” who are pessimistic about the Internet improving the lot of mankind. In this second essay, I take on a very different breed of Net pessimists: “Net Lovers” who, though they embrace the Net and digital technologies, argue that they are “dying” due to a lack of sufficient care or collective oversight. In particular, they fear that the “open” Internet and “generative” digital systems are giving way to closed, proprietary systems, typically run by villainous corporations out to erect walled gardens and quash our digital liberties. Thus, they are pessimistic about the long-term survival of the Internet that we currently know and love.
Leading exponents of this theory include noted cyberlaw scholars Lawrence Lessig, Jonathan Zittrain, and Tim Wu. I argue that these scholars tend to significantly overstate the severity of this problem (the supposed decline of openness or generativity, that is) and seem to have very little faith in the ability of such systems to win out in a free market. Moreover, there’s nothing wrong with a hybrid world in which some “closed” devices and platforms remain (or even thrive) alongside “open” ones. Importantly, “openness” is a highly subjective term, and a constantly evolving one. And many “open” systems or devices are as perfectly open as these advocates suggest.
Finally, I argue that it’s likely that the “openness” advocated by these advocates will devolve into expanded government control of cyberspace and digital systems than that unregulated systems will become subject to “perfect control” by the private sector, as they fear. Indeed, the implicit message in the work of all these hyper-pessimistic critics is that markets must be steered in a more sensible direction by those technocratic philosopher kings (although the details of their blueprint for digital salvation are often scarce). Thus, I conclude that the dour, depressing “the-Net-is-about-to-die” fear that seems to fuel this worldview is almost completely unfounded and should be rejected before serious damage is done to the evolutionary Internet through misguided government action.
Here’s the first of two essays I’ve recently penned making “The Case for Internet Optimism.” This essay was included in the book, The Next Digital Decade: Essays on the Future of the Internet (2011), which was edited by Berin Szoka and Adam Marcus of TechFreedom. In these essays, I identify two schools of Internet pessimism: (1) “Net Skeptics,” who are pessimistic about the Internet improving the lot of mankind; and (2) “Net Lovers,” who appreciate the benefits the Net brings society but who fear those benefits are disappearing, or that the Net or openness are dying. (Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with these themes since I sketched them out in previous essays here such as, “Are You an Internet Optimist or Pessimist?” and “Two Schools of Internet Pessimism.”) The second essay is here.
This essay focuses on the first variant of Internet pessimism, which is rooted in general skepticism about the supposed benefits of cyberspace, digital technologies, and information abundance. The proponents of this pessimistic view often wax nostalgic about some supposed “good ‘ol days” when life was much better (although they can’t seem to agree when those were). At a minimum, they want us to slow down and think twice about life in the Information Age and how it’s personally affecting each of us. Occasionally, however, this pessimism borders on neo-Ludditism, with some proponents recommending steps to curtail what they feel is the destructive impact of the Net or digital technologies on culture or the economy. I identify the leading exponents of this view of Internet pessimism and their major works. I trace their technological pessimism back to Plato but argue that their pessimism is largely unwarranted. Humans are more resilient than pessimists care to admit and we learn how to adapt to technological change and assimilate new tools into our lives over time. Moreover, were we really better off in the scarcity era when we were collectively suffering from information poverty? Generally speaking, despite the challenges it presents society, information abundance is a better dilemma to be facing than information poverty. Nonetheless, I argue, we should not underestimate or belittle the disruptive impacts associated with the Information Revolution. But we need to find ways to better cope with turbulent change in a dynamist fashion instead of attempting to roll back the clock on progress or recapture “the good ‘ol days,” which actually weren’t all that good.
Down below, I have embedded the entire chapter in a Scribd reader, but the essay can also be found on the TechFreedom website for the book as well as on SSRN. I have also includes two updated tables that appeared in my old “optimists vs. pessimists” essay. The first lists some of the leading Internet optimists and pessimists and their books. The second table outlines some of the major lines of disagreement between these two camps and I divided those disagreements into (1) Cultural / Social beliefs vs. (2) Economic / Business beliefs.
Over at the Brain Pickings blog, Maria Popova has posted an amazing 1972 documentary based on Alvin Toffler’s famous 1970 book, Future Shock. The documentary, like the book, focuses on many of the themes we hear Internet optimists and pessimists debating all the time today: “information overload,” excessive consumerism, artificial intelligence and robotics, biotechnology, cryonics, the nature of humanity and how technology impacts it, etc, etc. Again, all the same stuff people are still fighting about today.
Popova correctly notes that “The film, darkly dystopian and oozing techno-paranoia, is a valuable reminder that… societies have always feared new technology but ultimately adapted to it.” Indeed, at one point in the film we hear, “The future has burst upon us… [but] is technology always desirable?” And that’s just in reference to the (now-obsolete) supersonic jet transport, or Concorde! “Changes bombard our nervous systems, clamoring for decisions. New values, new technologies, flood into our lives… Escape from change in today’s society become more and more impossible. But change itself is out of control.” Geez.. how did we make it past 1972!
The documentary is narrated by Orson Welles, which makes it even more fun. Welles had a presence that just made everything seem larger than life, and his voice-of-God narration here really added a nice touch to this film.
It’s an absolutely great find. Here’s the first 10-minute segment from the documentary. Watch all five segments over at Brain Pickings.
In his new book, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, Evgeny Morozov aims to prick the bubble of hyper-optimism that surrounds debates about the Internet’s role in advancing human freedom or civic causes. Morozov, a native of Belarus, is a tremendously gifted young cyber-policy scholar affiliated with Stanford University and the New America Foundation. He’s an expert on the interaction of digital technology and democracy and writes frequently on that topic for a variety of respected media outlets.
In Net Delusion, as with many of his previous columns and essays, Morozov positions himself the ultimate Net “realist,” aiming to bring a dose of realpolitik to discussions about how much of a difference the Net and digital technologies make to advancing democracy and freedom. His depressing answer: Not much. Indeed, Morozov’s book is one big wet blanket on the theory that “technologies of freedom” can help liberate humanity from the yoke of repressive government.
Morozov clearly relishes his skunk at the garden party role, missing few opportunities to belittle those who subscribe to such theories. If you’re one of those who tinted your Twitter avatar green as an expression of solidarity with Iranian “Green Movement” dissidents, Morozov’s view is that, at best, you’re wasting your time and, at worst, you’re aiding and abetting tyrants by engaging in a form of “slacktivism” that has little hope of advancing real regime change. The portrait he paints of technology and democracy is a dismal one in which cyber-utopian ideals of information as liberator are not just rejected but inverted. He regards such “cyber-utopian” dreams as counter-productive, even dangerous, to the advance of democracy and human freedom. Continue reading →
Well, even though I just recently put to bed my annual list of the “Most Important Info-Tech Policy Books of 2010,” I’ve already started investigating what new titles we’ll need to pay attention to in 2011. Accordingly, I’ve started this list and hope that others can suggest other books I may have missed. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
Wow, what a year for cyberlaw and information technology policy books! Both in terms of number of titles and the gravity of the books released, 2010 was one of the biggest years of the past decade (perhaps matched only by 2006 or 2008 in terms of significance). So, here’s my annual list of the Most Important Info-Tech Policy Books of 2010.
First, however, as is the case each year [see my 2008 & 2009 lists], I need to repeat a few disclaimers. First, what qualifies as an “important” info-tech policy book is highly subjective, but I would define it as a title that many people — especially scholars in the field — are currently discussing and that we will likely be referencing for many years to come. But I “weight” books in the sense that narrowly-focused titles lose a few points. For example, books that deal mostly with privacy issues, copyright law, or antitrust policy do not exactly qualify as the same sort of “info-tech policy book” as other titles that offer a broader exploration of policy issues / concerns. For that reason, “big picture” info-tech policy books tend to rank higher on my lists.
The second caveat: Merely because a book appears on my list it does not necessarily mean I agree with everything in it. In fact, as was the case in previous years, I found much with which to disagree in my picks for the most important books of 2010 and I find that the cyber-libertarianism I subscribe to has very few fans out there.
With those caveats in mind, here are my choices for the Most Important Info-Tech Policy Books of 2010. Continue reading →
What Mueller is doing – better than anyone else, in my opinion – is becoming the early chronicler of the unfolding Internet governance scene. He meticulously reports on, and then deconstructs, ongoing governance developments along the cyber-frontier. He is, in effect, a sort of de Tocqueville for cyberspace; an outsider looking in and asking questions about what makes this new world tick. Fifty years from now, when historians look back on the opening era of Internet governance squabbles, Milton Mueller’s work will be among the first things they consult.
Mueller’s goal in Networks and States is two-fold and has both an empirical and normative element. First, he aims to extend his exploration of the actors and forces affecting Internet governance debates and then develop a framework and taxonomy to better map and understand these forces and actors. He does a wonderful job on that front, even though many Net governance issues (especially those related to domain name system issues and ICANN) can be incredibly boring. Mueller finds a way to make them far more interesting, especially by helping to familiarize the reader with the personalities and organizations that increasingly dominate these debates and the issues and principles that drive their actions or activism.
Mueller’s second goal in Networks and States is to breathe new life into the old cyber-libertarian philosophy that was more prevalent during the Net’s founding era but has lost favor today. I plan to discuss this second goal in more detail here because Mueller has done something quite important in Networks and States: He has issued a call to arms to those who care about classical liberalism telling us, in effect, to get off our duffs and get serious about the fight for Internet freedom. Continue reading →
THE MASTER SWITCH was written to be readable and hopefully entertaining. But its real goal is to urge readers to examine our relationship with all forms of centralized power. There are deep contradictions between a fully centralized society and a free one; indeed I am not sure the two can co-exist. Its message to libertarians is this: if human freedom is truly the value that matters most, we need pay attention to the size of the institutions that govern the most important human functions.
As this suggests, while my book is designed to be relatively easy reading, at deeper levels it is a meditation on human freedom. And while this may be unkind, I will respond to Thierer’s review to show how I think that contemporary libertarianism has begun to lose its way and betray its own creed. Instead of a philosophy of freedom, it is at risk of becoming a theory of villanization, where every single wrong must be traced, somehow, to “government;” to say otherwise is to betray the movement. To my mind that’s not true libertarianism in the tradition of John Stuart Mill, but just another theology of blame.
(N.B. I am grateful for Adam for inviting me to post a response. Why we disagree in profound ways, I am flattered by his engagement with the book, and his readiness to give me space to respond).
Let’s get to the basics. I define a libertarian as someone who is, at the deepest levels, prioritizes freedom over other values. He is willing to forgo a preferred substantive outcome he might prefer, in exchange for a system that gives him freedom. The classic example, of course, is the speech system: many of us might prefer that certain people to shut up forever (pick your favorite), but nonetheless still support a system of free speech.
Anyone deeply interested in freedom as a value should, by implication, be interested any non-chosen limits on that freedom, no matter what the source. Continue reading →
It’s appropriate that Kevin Kelly’s new book, What Technology Wants, was published in the same year as Jaron Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget. Although Kelly and Lanier are on opposite sides of the Internet optimist vs. pessimist divide, they come at the issue of technology’s impact on society in thoughtful, but at times quite controversial, ways. I found both books to be remarkably interesting, but also, at times, deeply troubling.
For example, Lanier’s book, which I reviewed here in January, contained an excellent critique of the extreme varieties of quixotic techno-utopianism, which he labels “cybernetic totalism.” Lanier was taking on the belief by some extreme digital age optimists that a “hive mind” or “Noosphere” is coming about. He made a strong case for appreciating individuality and stressed caution when it comes to embracing technology in an over-zealous or quasi-religious fashion. But Lanier’s critique was too sweeping and his worldview too morose. He unfairly indicts the entire digital generation and wrongly claims most modern culture is moribund and little more than “a petty mashup of preweb culture.”
Kelly’s What Technology Wants is basically You Are Not a Gadget in reverse. Kelly does a nice job placing modern technological advances in a more reasonable context, but he is also guilty of some of that kooky “noosphere” thinking Lanier nicely critiqued in his book. Continue reading →
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology. Learn more about TLF →
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.