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RE: [dist-obj] Ubiquitous Virus (was: The Future's so bright...)

At 3:58 AM -0700 05/12/2000, Philip Eskelin wrote:
>Yeah, all good stuff . . . but I say we FUCK the "I Love You" virus 
>and we FUCK Neal Stephenson and we FUCK Microsoft!  My responses 
>were centered around what really might happen next.  What should 
>happen next?  I don't know.  Moreover, I am secure with the fact 
>that my own thoughts on that topic have little to do with its 
>outcome.

Aren't these all symptoms of the information wants to be free 
mentality that has dominated this industry throughout its 50 year 
history, and whose consequences are becoming apparent in outbreaks 
like the love bug?

>Right now I am banking my Vegas dollars on a future that does not 
>change what we have today, but instead *extends* it.

Isn't this like Geronimo (American Indian Chief circa 1800) insisting 
that the future will unfold much like the past while trainloads of 
European settlers with very different ideas of the future descending 
around his ears?

I'm referring to the communitarian worldview of indigenous tribes 
(the nerds) versus the property conscious world view of the settlers 
(the MBAs/newbies), who have displaced the indigenous tribes every 
time they've met (to my knowledge).

>Think of the logical 7 OSI layers.

No, that's part of the meager 50 year history of computing. Isn't it 
time we think of the millinea-long history of human-kind that 
preceeded the comuter industry.

A central theme in that longer history is that property-conscious 
value systems displace communitarian ones. Every. Single. Time. 
They've. Met.

Isn't it time we start figuring out how to enforce property rights 
when the property is made of bits instead of atoms?

See http://superdistributed.com for my own best efforts in that regard.
-- 
---
Dr. Brad Cox; bcox@superdistributed.com
Phone: 703 361 4751 Fax: 703 995 0422 Cellular: 703 919-9623
http://superdistributed.com: A new paradigm for a new millinneum
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