Thoughts on Internet

So a Senate Committee approved of a rather controversial bill today, and it will moving into the voting phase soon. The bill is known by most as the IP Act, the IP standing for intellectual property. It is, obviously, an anti-piracy bill designed to give private parties and the US gov an upgrade in their legal recourse when it comes to combating piracy. If the bill becomes a law, a website that  has copy write infringing content on it, Private parties or government entities can seize the website and all its assets with a simple court order. That tenant applies to domains located in the US. For foreign websites that have copy write infringement, the private parties or government can force search engines like Google to removed the website from their search engine, force Internet Service Providers to black list the sites, making them inaccessible to their customers. Lastly, they can force Advertisement and payment services such as Ad-Sense and Paypal to remove any ads or payment service from the website. This bill would strike a serious blow to the movement for an Internet uncensored by governments and corporations. It has been supported heavily by many large corporations in the TV, Motion Picture and Music industry. While many view it as an Anti-Piracy bill a large group of people fear the eventual abuse of the powers granted through this bill. Anonymous has already planned an attack on some government websites and what not. I think them taking a stand on a lot of issues lately is pretty cool. I think that sometimes they may be a little but over the top, and misdirected. Most of the time though their "attacks" are pointed and relevant. I have to agree that Internet censorship is a very bad thing, in countries like China and Egypt it has run rampant, but I think the seeds of similar systems are being planted right here in America. I think the whole piracy is rather ridiculous. I remember getting into an argument with my economics teacher from high school about it.  We went back and forth about whether or not it was stealing. Eventually I conceded that it was technically stealing, but it was so rampant and uncontrollable that it has become socially acceptable. It kind of comes back to the whole tragedy of the commons thing. If the individual makes the decision to not "illegally" download music, good for them and their morals. Millions of others will continue to have free music and the individual has to pay cold hard cash for his tunes, while the piracy continues to raise prices for him/her. Basically what is the point of not doing it.
To sum it all up, I don't want the government to choose what parts of the Internet I am able to see. Down with censorship!



-Kyle Griffith McChesney

Thoughts on some pretty deep stuff...

So as promised I spent my day coming up with something of significance to blog about. What I ended up with was going to the beach, walking on the board walk and having a very interesting conversation. Don't ask me how we got into such a random topic, but basically we were "arguing" how to live ones life in relation to other people. Pretty broad sounding topic but it got rather pointed during the discussion. I centered my argument around the topic of the ocean, seeing as how we were right next to it. Basically my view has a lot to do with the tragedy of the commons. If you don't know exactly what that is I will summarize. Any resource, commodity or space that is available to everyone in an uncontrolled capacity will without fail be abused by someone. The ocean is literally the textbook example of the TOC theory, it was in my Biology textbook. So fishing in the ocean my be controlled in countries, perhaps like the USA. Our government regulates how many fish, what kinds of fish, etc. etc. The tragedy is that the USA is not the only country that is fishing the oceans. All countries in the world share the same ocean and some countries may not be as "developed" as the USA and thus their regulation on ocean fishing may not be up to par. I go a bit beyond "up to par" and say that due to the greedy streak in human kind, some people out there will just grab as much fish as they possibly can. So while some countries try to regulate and protect the ocean and it's fish, other countries or groups of people could careless. They earn money off the fish and no one can really control how much fish they take from the ocean. So eventually the ocean runs out of fish. But wait! we here in the USA regulated our fishing. We made sure to only take what the ocean could replenish and were careful not to damage the ecosystem, why do we get screwed out of the deal. That is because not everyone cares as much as you do and did abuse the system if you will. So the final result is that no one has any fish, and the regulations by the USA may have stalled the inevitable outcome, but did not change it. So my opinion is that why not live life acknowledging that in situations where something similar to the TOC could occur, BE REALISTIC. Don't short-change yourself under the pretenses of saving the planet, or taking the moral high road, when in reality all you are doing is stepping out of the way for the less moral, and more greedy person to come and abuse the situation. I must clarify that I take this view on some but not all issues. I am not saying live life as an immoral and greedy bastard, all I am saying is that people need to put some thought into their actions, question whether they do certain things because they are actually helpful to a situation or if they are simply portrayed by society as being "positive".

As for my mother, I will do my best to summarize it. It is her view and if I miss represent it she will have me fix it. I think that: My mom's view is that in these situations, like being active in ecological preservation work, the outcome is more or less irrelevant. You take the action because you are true to yourself, and you feel that it is the right thing to do. Whether or not you may be hurt by the eventual outcome is again irrelevant. You took action in a positive manner because you felt that it was the right thing to do. In the end the only thing you have control over is yourself. No matter what happens to you, no matter what people do to harm you, they can never control how you think or feel about it.

I think that she thinks I am to cynical, but I think I am just being realistic....
What do you think?



-Kyle Griffith McChesney