Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!unido!ztivax!tumuc!lan!foessmei
From: foessmei@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de (Reinhard Foessmeier)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re^2: New Communicational Morality
Summary: Why do you feel threatened?
Keywords: software, copyright, society
Message-ID: <784@infovax.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de>
Date: 7 Apr 89 11:50:56 GMT
References: <754@infovax.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de> <3687@ficc.uu.net>
Reply-To: foessmei@lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de (Reinhard Foessmeier)
Organization: Inst. fuer Informatik, TU Muenchen, FR. Germany
Lines: 125


In his message of Wed Apr 5, Jeff Daiell <jeffd@ficc.uu.net> comments on the
"Perspectives of a New Communicational Morality ..." (H. Frank),
posted by me.

I feel that my posting about Frank's theses were a little misleading,
and failed to convey the meaning of the original article.  I shall
therefore comment on some of your statements from my knowledge of Frank's
whole paper.

> Whoa!  Bookburning time again!  Big Brother is going to protect
> us against things we don't need to and shouldn't -- in *his*
> opinion, of course -- know.  

> Aside from being authoritarian and elitist (Lyndon LaRouche rides
> again!), this is sheer sophistry.  Material pollution violates
> people's rights, in that there is no choice involved.  But every
> individual has the option of whether to watch TV, switch on the
> radio, buy any given publication.  To be perfectly -- well,
> "frank", about it, Just Say No To Censorship. 

I could not agree more to your last sentence, and I am sure so would
prof. Frank.  I am a little in doubt about the "option of whether to
watch TV ..." -- I am, e.g., somewhat concerned about those channels that
broadcast cartoons all day long -- are you sure all parents resist
the temptation to leave their children in front of the TV set when
they are busy?  Certainly that "option" is a bit restricted in the
case of children.  And certainly it has become difficult to avoid
certain channels of information, so-called "obtrusive" information.
Frank says in his article: 
  ".. liberals may demand the right to damage or destroy themselves
  by poisonous pharmaceutical drugs. I do not oppose this demand...
  ... liberals may demand the right to stupefy themselves by
  soul-destroying cultural drugs. I do not oppose this demand.
  Yet we should all demand protection against an *obtrusive*
  effort to familiarize us to soul-destroying information flooding,
  and protection from an *inevitable* informational molestation."
  (*...* emphasized by me)


|>2. The development of international scientific communication with the goal of
|>   future advances is more important than short-sighted, frantic acceleration
|>   of present advances in any special branch.  In a nutshell:  Advances for
|>   future communication are more important than communication of present
|>   advances.  ["Maxim of the priority of the communication process"]

> I'm not convinced the two are incompatible -- but if they are,
> who decides which is more important?  And how is that enforced?

They are not mutually exclusive -- the term was "priority". And it is
not enforced, it is discussed, and anybody can make his choice.
For instance, learning a foreign language takes some time
that cannot be used for scientific research, yet it will enable us
to communicate our results to a larger community and possibly avoid
the same work to be done over again in another country. Doesn't that seem
obvious?


> Several thoughts here.  First: *again*, we have to listen to the
> old mind/body dichotomy crap?  That is, in this case, once again
> the nonsense that there's a difference between intellectual
> property and material property?  That while people have a right
> to the fruits of their manual labor, they don't have a right to
> the fruits of their mental labor?

Of course there *is* a difference between intellectual and material
property -- if I steal the first one, you still have got it,
if I steal the other, you don't.  That is, information can be *copied*,
while matter cannot.  I agree with you that people have a right to
the fruits of their mental labour, and that copyright is a way to
ensure they do get it -- the question is, is it the only way?  Copyright
as we know it, has some drawbacks; if I publish a book in a "Western"
country, there may be a lot of people in the world who could never
afford that book, yet they cannot reprint it in their country because
of copyright.  Yes, I see there would be the danger that third-world
reprints would be smuggled into the original country and sweep the
original book from the market -- t'if there were no problems, we'd
need no discussion.  But does this mean we cannot consider it?
Apart from that, copyright has been weakened by photocopiers, and
to protect software against copying is really a nightmare -- could
it be in the interest of authors that we are discussing alternatives?

> Second, note that Numbers 1 and 3 seem to be contradictory.
> First, Datafuhrer Frank wants to protect us from too much
> information for our poor little untermenschen minds to handle --

I think the above remarks cleared up this misunderstanding.

> Fourth - uh, is Datafuhrer Frank trying to tell us that material
> communism has worked well enough to be a role model that
> the information sciences should adopt?  If so, what planet
> is he living on?  Material communism has meant poverty,
> oligarchy, mass murder, brutal repression -- the list goes
> on.  Is *that* what he wants the software field to emulate?

It is hard to argue against such a flood of emotions -- please note
that I was not yet alive when my country was ruled by the "Fuehrer".
You may have a look at the field of scientific research, where
information is free (and people get paid from funds).  This is
a limited form of informational commun-ism; it is widespread practice
in many countries (including God's own country), and I don't think
this practice has restricted the efficiency of scientific research.

> I'll defend Herr Frank's right to support authoritarian
> elitism.  But count on me to oppose any attempts to
> implement it.

I call elitism the attitude of those among my colleages that think
those who speak and publish in English are worth more than the rest
of us.  (This is not directed against you as a native speaker of English;
o es Ud de Tejas?:-) Frank is speaking in favour of equal linguistic
rights, and I cannot see any elitism in his maxims.  

> I hope anyone who gets a chance to contribute to this "international
> discussion" points out that Datafuhrer Frank's positions do not
> represent a "new communicational morality", but a very old, very
> tired immorality: Big Brother Knows Best -- and I hope contributors
> will work against such abominations.

The "chance" to contribute is there, and you have taken it!  In my opinion,
Frank's theses are anti-Big-Brother, but this is just an opinion.
-- 
Reinhard F\"ossmeier, Technische Univ. M\"unchen |        "Matena horo
foessmeier@infovax.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de |  estas plena je kapdoloro"
   [ { relay.cs.net | unido.uucp } ]             |         (Zamenhof)