norm defying community, part two.
this is gonna be a shorter entry, in which i'm going to try to continue the thread started by this post and perhaps draw some preliminary conclusions. or something.
so. i'll set overgrow aside for the time being, and talk about filesharing. i don't really think there's any filesharing software that's as conducive to the construction of virtual community as bittorrent. the product's main website describes their programming efforts as an endeavour to make "publishing files on the web painless and disruptively cheap." which eloquently states what bittorrent does.
filesharing is the cause célèbre of geeks like me, and favourite demon of the corporate interests that hold the mechanisms of our entertainment in their tightly-clenched anuses. i've been on-board since before napster, having started onto the MP3 bandwagon with mp3.box.sk, which began as a simple FTP search engine for mp3s. i then quickly discovered the joys of napster, to which i shan't provide a link, because its paid-content model disgusts me, and because everyone knows about it already. following the demise of napster, i moved on to the short-lived audiogalaxy, which was a wonderful service and in many ways presaged the development of bittorrent. after audiogalaxy, too, was shut down, i was without a decent service for the downloading of music, and as a result i listened to basically the same music for a very long time. until i discovered the joy of bittorrent.
music was, in fact, only the beginning. bittorrent is effectively the mechanism of my escape from corporate dominance of the cultural sphere. i can get all the shows i want to watch, commercial-free, from myspleen, which features shows available only on the [adult swim] network in the US, that i pretty much can't get in canada. i can get any video game i'd care to play, without having to pay 70+ bucks, and any new movie from torrentspy. and, of course, i can get literally any music i could want to listen to from OiNK. what's most notable about these sites, beyond simple pirated media, is that they all function as online communities. less so with torrentspy, just because it's got so much information and so many people, but myspleen and oink particularly foster discussion and dialogue between the site's participants. and bittorrent is uniquely structured in that it requires some sense of community to function properly. without going too much in-depth into the software behind the system, torrents from torrentspy tend to be of much poorer quality than myspleen or oink, because the site does not require membership.
the essential basis of bittorrent, like FTP's of yore, is that one must upload as much as one downloads. so, on myspleen or oink, once i download a movie or piece of music or something, i need to leave the torrent running on my computer and upload to other users as much as i had previously downloaded. this is kept track of via a ratio system which is persistent and associated with the IP address that i've logged in from. unless i maintain a decent ratio (ie, i give back to the community as much as i have received), then i get banned. with oink, the community is even more exclusive in that it requires an invitation to join; you have to know a member to join, and once you've joined, you can't invite new members until you've uploaded 20 gigabytes of material.
so, i'm not gonna lie; the ethical dimensions of piracy are pretty much foreign to me. i haven't purchased an album for well over a year, and haven't thought twice about it. i go to the movies very rarely; pretty much only when i feel that the theatre can offer me something that my living room can't. but really, i'm a student. i haven't got the money to buy even a minuscule fraction of the entertainment commodities that i enjoy. without filesharing, i basically wouldn't hear any new music, see any new movies, or play any new games.
what's the point of me talking about overgrow and bittorrent? so what, i'm a stoner who likes to steal music. big friggin deal. well, that may be the case. but both are examples of alternative media which serve to allow the average citizen an unprecedented amount of self-determination and enfranchisement. the government, and the corporate interests it largely serves, sets bounds on our self-determination in law. we are, of course, always free to transgress those bounds at our peril. yet our peril is fairly remote in these situations. the chances of prosecution for participating in either of these communities is minimal. if someone's getting busted for growing, it's not because of overgrow; simultaneously, someone sued for filesharing isn't being punished because of bittorrent. so, even though people have always been technically free to violate the norms of the larger community, they have in the past been denied enfranchisement or communal participation altogether if they chose to do so. overgrow and bittorrent mean that the groups of people who transgress the norms of the larger community can form their own, separate community to suit their needs.
this is, of course, a not un-problematic concept. based on what i've described so far in relatively neutral terms, similar alternative media could and do quite obviously form to suit the needs of comparatively more reprehensible norm-defiers. pedophilia, terrorism, and violent crime writ large are all acts which transgress social boundaries, and which have employed the mechanisms of alternative media to create communities whereby they could more effectively pursue their nefarious goals.
in conclusion, then, how can i justify the intuitively substantial difference between communities i feel are relatively harmless, and communities which pretty much anyone rational would deem destructive to the fabric of society as a whole? well, let's think philosophically. in my opinion, there are some laws which are clearly in our 'enlightened self-interest.' thus, i do not murder, rape, or rob because i would not wish to be murdered, raped, or robbed. these are clearly aspects of a social contract to which i would agree. one ought not to perform such acts as one would not wish to be subject to; indeed, one must give up one's right to do such things in order that all others might similarly give up their right. yet in the cases i described, it is unclear how exactly these could be construed as destructive to the fabric of society. marijuana should be legal, and the cost of cultural products is predicated upon a ridiculous lie central to the capitalist mode. would i be worse off living in a society in which everyone grew pot? of course not. i'd love such a society, in fact. haha. the question of filesharing is a bit trickier, but not much - would i be worse off in a society in which everyone stole intellectual property? perhaps not in general. but, how about a society in which record companies, television and movie studios were constantly being robbed, to the point the whole system of cultural industry collapsed. i'd be perfectly, PERFECTLY happy to pay a few bucks for a CD to cover the cost of production and get a decent living wage directly to the artists who poured their heart and soul into it. but paying 20 bucks to cover the costs of a whole bloated, unnecessary bureaucracy that destroys everything sacred and wonderful about culture, and hardly even compensates the artists? not so happy to do that. so, bittorrent is my cheap wannabe civil disobedience.
and that's enough for now.
so. i'll set overgrow aside for the time being, and talk about filesharing. i don't really think there's any filesharing software that's as conducive to the construction of virtual community as bittorrent. the product's main website describes their programming efforts as an endeavour to make "publishing files on the web painless and disruptively cheap." which eloquently states what bittorrent does.
filesharing is the cause célèbre of geeks like me, and favourite demon of the corporate interests that hold the mechanisms of our entertainment in their tightly-clenched anuses. i've been on-board since before napster, having started onto the MP3 bandwagon with mp3.box.sk, which began as a simple FTP search engine for mp3s. i then quickly discovered the joys of napster, to which i shan't provide a link, because its paid-content model disgusts me, and because everyone knows about it already. following the demise of napster, i moved on to the short-lived audiogalaxy, which was a wonderful service and in many ways presaged the development of bittorrent. after audiogalaxy, too, was shut down, i was without a decent service for the downloading of music, and as a result i listened to basically the same music for a very long time. until i discovered the joy of bittorrent.
music was, in fact, only the beginning. bittorrent is effectively the mechanism of my escape from corporate dominance of the cultural sphere. i can get all the shows i want to watch, commercial-free, from myspleen, which features shows available only on the [adult swim] network in the US, that i pretty much can't get in canada. i can get any video game i'd care to play, without having to pay 70+ bucks, and any new movie from torrentspy. and, of course, i can get literally any music i could want to listen to from OiNK. what's most notable about these sites, beyond simple pirated media, is that they all function as online communities. less so with torrentspy, just because it's got so much information and so many people, but myspleen and oink particularly foster discussion and dialogue between the site's participants. and bittorrent is uniquely structured in that it requires some sense of community to function properly. without going too much in-depth into the software behind the system, torrents from torrentspy tend to be of much poorer quality than myspleen or oink, because the site does not require membership.
the essential basis of bittorrent, like FTP's of yore, is that one must upload as much as one downloads. so, on myspleen or oink, once i download a movie or piece of music or something, i need to leave the torrent running on my computer and upload to other users as much as i had previously downloaded. this is kept track of via a ratio system which is persistent and associated with the IP address that i've logged in from. unless i maintain a decent ratio (ie, i give back to the community as much as i have received), then i get banned. with oink, the community is even more exclusive in that it requires an invitation to join; you have to know a member to join, and once you've joined, you can't invite new members until you've uploaded 20 gigabytes of material.
so, i'm not gonna lie; the ethical dimensions of piracy are pretty much foreign to me. i haven't purchased an album for well over a year, and haven't thought twice about it. i go to the movies very rarely; pretty much only when i feel that the theatre can offer me something that my living room can't. but really, i'm a student. i haven't got the money to buy even a minuscule fraction of the entertainment commodities that i enjoy. without filesharing, i basically wouldn't hear any new music, see any new movies, or play any new games.
what's the point of me talking about overgrow and bittorrent? so what, i'm a stoner who likes to steal music. big friggin deal. well, that may be the case. but both are examples of alternative media which serve to allow the average citizen an unprecedented amount of self-determination and enfranchisement. the government, and the corporate interests it largely serves, sets bounds on our self-determination in law. we are, of course, always free to transgress those bounds at our peril. yet our peril is fairly remote in these situations. the chances of prosecution for participating in either of these communities is minimal. if someone's getting busted for growing, it's not because of overgrow; simultaneously, someone sued for filesharing isn't being punished because of bittorrent. so, even though people have always been technically free to violate the norms of the larger community, they have in the past been denied enfranchisement or communal participation altogether if they chose to do so. overgrow and bittorrent mean that the groups of people who transgress the norms of the larger community can form their own, separate community to suit their needs.
this is, of course, a not un-problematic concept. based on what i've described so far in relatively neutral terms, similar alternative media could and do quite obviously form to suit the needs of comparatively more reprehensible norm-defiers. pedophilia, terrorism, and violent crime writ large are all acts which transgress social boundaries, and which have employed the mechanisms of alternative media to create communities whereby they could more effectively pursue their nefarious goals.
in conclusion, then, how can i justify the intuitively substantial difference between communities i feel are relatively harmless, and communities which pretty much anyone rational would deem destructive to the fabric of society as a whole? well, let's think philosophically. in my opinion, there are some laws which are clearly in our 'enlightened self-interest.' thus, i do not murder, rape, or rob because i would not wish to be murdered, raped, or robbed. these are clearly aspects of a social contract to which i would agree. one ought not to perform such acts as one would not wish to be subject to; indeed, one must give up one's right to do such things in order that all others might similarly give up their right. yet in the cases i described, it is unclear how exactly these could be construed as destructive to the fabric of society. marijuana should be legal, and the cost of cultural products is predicated upon a ridiculous lie central to the capitalist mode. would i be worse off living in a society in which everyone grew pot? of course not. i'd love such a society, in fact. haha. the question of filesharing is a bit trickier, but not much - would i be worse off in a society in which everyone stole intellectual property? perhaps not in general. but, how about a society in which record companies, television and movie studios were constantly being robbed, to the point the whole system of cultural industry collapsed. i'd be perfectly, PERFECTLY happy to pay a few bucks for a CD to cover the cost of production and get a decent living wage directly to the artists who poured their heart and soul into it. but paying 20 bucks to cover the costs of a whole bloated, unnecessary bureaucracy that destroys everything sacred and wonderful about culture, and hardly even compensates the artists? not so happy to do that. so, bittorrent is my cheap wannabe civil disobedience.
and that's enough for now.
posted by ali at 6:54 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home