Aaron has noticed that a simple goal like "transparency" can't be immediately, directly implemented, because the system is such that it's like trying to dig a hole in water. Of course, you can put a hole in water, since that's what a boat is, but doing it incrementally (a piece here, a piece there, then bailing out the water, checking for leaks, etc) is going to be much more difficult than just building a boat out of the water and putting it in. Activists always seem to start out wanting to "just make these specific changes" from within the system, and that usually works, in general, when the changes are in the direction the system is already going, "with the flow," as it were.
If you want to make a change that is against the flow, it's far, far easier to make the change away from the system and then drop it in so that the system (government, a corporation, a church, or whatever) is forced to deal with it whole.
This is a very interesting topic: part economics, part psychology, part politics, and more; I've spent a lot of time thinking about it over the last 10 years, but I am just an egg, understanding little. :)
Re-reading, I notice that this is still unclear, so what I'm saying is that we need to focus on solutions that are primarily technical, because social and political solutions almost never work in the first place and tend to roll back as soon as the pressure lets up. The internet is killing copyright in a way that we anti-copyright folk would never have been able to do with "education" and "reform".
what I'm saying is that we need to focus on solutions that are primarily technical, because social and political solutions almost never work in the first place
Really? I think the opposite. I can think of very few times where a social problem has been solved purely by technology.
(Anyway, I think the real answer is you need to attack the problem on all fronts at once)
Aaron has noticed that a simple goal like "transparency" can't be immediately, directly implemented, because the system is such that it's like trying to dig a hole in water. Of course, you can put a hole in water, since that's what a boat is, but doing it incrementally (a piece here, a piece there, then bailing out the water, checking for leaks, etc) is going to be much more difficult than just building a boat out of the water and putting it in. Activists always seem to start out wanting to "just make these specific changes" from within the system, and that usually works, in general, when the changes are in the direction the system is already going, "with the flow," as it were.
If you want to make a change that is against the flow, it's far, far easier to make the change away from the system and then drop it in so that the system (government, a corporation, a church, or whatever) is forced to deal with it whole.
This is a very interesting topic: part economics, part psychology, part politics, and more; I've spent a lot of time thinking about it over the last 10 years, but I am just an egg, understanding little. :)
Re-reading, I notice that this is still unclear, so what I'm saying is that we need to focus on solutions that are primarily technical, because social and political solutions almost never work in the first place and tend to roll back as soon as the pressure lets up. The internet is killing copyright in a way that we anti-copyright folk would never have been able to do with "education" and "reform".