Re: [OT] Yahoo's Antispam proposal
Hi David
'xcuse the top post but what a well reasoned argument.
You get my vote ;)
Thanks
Clive
On (24/05/04 20:50), Katipo wrote:
> David P James wrote:
> >On Sun 23 May 2004 18:56, Katipo wrote:
> >
> >
> >>David P James wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>On Sat 22 May 2004 14:07, John L Fjellstad wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>David P James <dpjames@rogers.com> writes:
> >>>>
> >>>>Not everybody has the same buying power. A few pennies might not
> >>>>be much for someone living in the Western World, but it might mean
> >>>>a meal for someone from Somalia or Vietnam. Should email be
> >>>>limited to those who can afford it?
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>If someone is living such a hand-to-mouth existence it's highly
> >>>unlikely they'll even have access to the internet.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>Incorrect.
> >>There are projects in India and Extremadura,Spain for example, that
> >>qualify for exactly that definition.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >No they don't. Those people are poor, no doubt about it, but they don't
> >fit in the same category as the previous example of Somalia or to a
> >lesser degree Vietnam either.
> >
> >
> I'm afraid you are sadly misinformed.
> You need to live in India to appreciate what you just said.
> Begging is a profession there.
> Fathers mutilate their children so that they can bring in more money.
> They cut off their legs, so that they skate around on trolleys.
> A friend knew of a boy that had his arm oxy welded to the side of his
> body, bringing about scar tissue inches thick, to create the kind of
> reaction that would bring in a few pennies/day.
>
> A social experiment was arranged whereby a computer was mounted into a
> wall, with internet access, to see what these people would make of it.
> Some had mastered it within a day, including email. They have made it a
> permanent project now. And you want to charge them money for it?
>
> I have many friends from Vietnam, some have gone back to initiate
> business ventures.
> They have asked if I would like to go there to live, and invest (You
> have to be Asian to understand an invitation like that).
> These people want me to share in the rebuilding of their country.
>
> I have a number of personal acquaintances from Somalia.
> One is the eldest son of the ex-prime minister.
>
> I know the situations with respect to both Vietnam and Somalia.
> I wonder if you see the common factor with them?
> I say again, you are sadly misinformed.
>
> >
> >
> >>If you introduce any aspect of the internet as a commodity available
> >>for a price, you also introduce the concept of the price rise.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >And that's a problem because...?
> >
> >
> This is inane.
> I'm sorry. I simply cannot believe you are an economist.
>
> (1)Pricing brings a requirement for control.
> (2)Control limits accessibility.
> (3)Given the time factor, open access ceases to exist.
>
> You're a one man army determined to bring about your 'Tragedy of the
> Commons.'
>
> >
> >
> >>>No system is ever going to be completely accessible to the
> >>>destitute,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>So let's make sure they stay where they belong?
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Take that back - right now. Take it back. I neither said nor implied any
> >such thing.
> >
> No, in the terminologies you employ, you accept the situation and
> thereby condone it.
>
> >What I wrote was a statement of what I believe to be a
> >fact, not a desireable outcome.
> >
> It is a fact.
> Something can be done about it.
> All it takes is a change in mental attitude.
> These people are not merely to be written off as 'Collateral Damage.'
> They are one of the many costs not incorporated into economic theory.
>
> >The reasons for that is a whole other
> >issue, but it's safe to conclude that free email access isn't going to
> >solve their destitution (because if it would, it would already have
> >happened or at least be underway).
> >
> >
> Communication is the beginning of every solution.
> It *is* under way, e.g:-
>
> http://www.globalcn.org/es/article.ntd?id=178&sort=1.11
>
> http://europa.eu.int/comm/regional_policy/innovation/pdf/award/extremadura.pdf
>
> The implementation of open source software, along with internet access
> and associated email, is creating the basis for an economic (in the
> comprehensively true sense of the word) revolution in Extremadura.
>
>
> >
> >
> >>>and I doubt that the current system serves them at all anyway (if
> >>>anything, if they have access at all, they're likely to find
> >>>themselves on the same ISP as a spammer and consequently blocked by
> >>>other ISPs and users using RBLs). The current state of email is
> >>>another example proving the economic concept known as "The Tragedy
> >>>of the Commons".
> >>>
> >>>
> >>The concept of 'The Tragedy of the Commons', was first expounded by a
> >>biologist describing reasonably accurately, what happens at, say, the
> >>bacterial level, and then adopted as a false universal principle, and
> >>applied to the broad spectrum.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Where did you come up with the idea that it was based on what happens at
> >the bacteria level? About the only accurate fact there is that it was
> >developed by a microbiologist and ecologist, although he pointed out
> >that conceptually it had existed for a long time.
> >
> >
> It is not a concept.
> At the microbiological level it is a reality. A bacterial colony on an
> orange will only expand to the size where it is killed off by its own
> effluent.
> My point is that in being more highly evolved, human beings are capable
> of discerning where the point of suicide lies. This is where the
> 'Tragedy' scenario fails. When a shared dependency upon a particular set
> of environmental circumstances exists, it has been established in the
> past that we are capable of curbing destructive activity by way of
> common consensus. This is Nietzsches' definition of justice ('A
> Genealogy of Morals'). This is how the commons works.
>
> Just because we distance and insulate ourselves from that set of
> environmental circumstances, doesn't mean that we have separated
> ourselves from the situation. As E.F. Schumacher, one of the few
> economists born with any intelligence said, "If man ever finds himself
> in the position of winning his battle with nature, he will automatically
> find himself on the losing side."
>
> This is germane. The environment here is the web. An aspect of the
> commons is being wastefully overused and abused. We need to speak up,
> yes. We even need to deliver an ultimatum. We have the right, it is our
> commons too. We do not need to charge them money for the privilege of
> continuing to abuse our shared environment, to continue to encroach upon
> it, to the point where they possess it, and the commons no longer
> exists. Your tragedy is a reality then, yes, but only because of
> complacency and a preoccupation with placing band aids on tumours.
>
> >
> >
> >>>Any
> >>>valuable 'free' resource (I say 'free' in the sense of free to the
> >>>user) will be overused, in some cases to the point of exhaustion or
> >>>depletion.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>Rubbish. This is 'The Tragedy of the Commons'.
> >>This idea has been disproven any number of times.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Really? many species of whales, fish, elephants/rhinos for ivory,
> >erosion of pasture and farmland, depletion of forests, waterways filled
> >with pollution, roads congested with traffic, etc etc. All of it Common
> >or treated as such, all of it driven to
> >depletion/exhaustion/extinction.
> >
> >
> All of it was *supposed* to be a commons. And at at least one stage, it
> was. Dominant interests displaced the mechanism of the commons so that
> the vast majority of the common administrators had no vote in
> proceedings. Corporate greed, ably assisted by misinformed and corrupt
> political entities, misappropriated the commons from the majority of its
> rightful community owners, allowing only one factor of the community to
> usurp the common ground. This is not a failure of the commons, how can
> it be? The environment of the commons was not permitted to operate, it
> answers more to the definition of grand larceny on a national and
> international scale. All rationalised at the time, by economics.
>
> >
> >
> >>Economics begins with the concepts of 'rivalrous' and non-rivalrous'
> >>resources in the commons.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Uh, no it doesn't.
> >
> >
> In this context it is. We are O.T. enough. Let's not introduce an
> expansion into the entire evolution of economic theory.
>
> >
> >
> >>Please elucidate, just for example, how a
> >>'non-rivalrous' resource is overused to the point of depletion or
> >>exhaustion. How is an idea depleted in the sharing of it?
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Ok, I'll give you credit there - a non-rivalrous resource is one not
> >subject to scarcity, so it would have been more precise of me to say
> >"Any valuable and scarce 'free' resource will be overused, in some
> >cases to the point of exhaustion or depletion."
> >
> >
> >
> >>There will
> >>be just as much of this email left over after you have finished
> >>reading it, as when you began. No matter that you merely delete it to
> >>rid yourself of the inconvenience of the views expounded.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >What are you trying to say here? What has this got to do with anything
> >else?
> >
> >The resource in question here is an individual's inbox.
> >
> No, I'm afraid the resource here is the open accessibilty of the web.
> Placing mechanisms of control within the network, instead of maintaining
> it in a simple state, and retaining the technology at the 'edge' of the
> net, and therefore in the possession of the enduser, compromises the
> freedom and the creative innovation that belongs to *all* of us. Not
> _just_ corporate interests.
> Any control concept that the large 'anti-communities' wish to introduce,
> will be double-edged, and the back edge will be the sharpest. Yahoo,
> AOL, and MSN are only interested in maintaining their captive
> audience/market. With the introduction of any control mechanism, they
> will seize the opportunity to employ it to expand and exclude. This will
> be a tragedy, but only if through short-sightedness we leap to
> inaccurate conclusion. And they are ever observant for opportunity. We
> have the right to maintain possession of our own.
> Regards,
>
> David.
--
http://www.clivemenzies.co.uk
strategies for business
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