Tag: politics

An Open Response to Peter Sunde

Dear Peter:

I read this morning on Motherboard that you have “given up your fight for the Internet.”  This is the second time I’ve come across a public statement in which you say you are throwing in the towel on the ideological principles you, your partners, and your political allies believe were manifest by operating The Pirate Bay. And it’s the second time I’ve been motivated to respond.

The aspect of your recent statement that I find most striking is that one of your core complaints about the Internet we have today—the money-for-nothing Internet—is actually aligned with many of the same criticisms that I and my copyright-supporting colleagues have of the business models that tend to dominate Silicon Valley enterprises.  But the thing you clearly don’t get, Peter, is that this is the Internet you helped create.  You say the following:

“Look at all the biggest companies in the world, they are all based on the internet. Look at what they are selling: nothing. Facebook has no product. Airbnb, the biggest hotel chain in the world, has no hotels. Uber, the biggest taxi company in the world, has no taxis whatsoever.

The amount of employees in these companies are smaller then ever before and the profits are, in turn, larger. Apple and Google are passing oil companies by far. Minecraft got sold for $2.6 billion and WhatsApp for like $19 billion. These are insane amounts of money for nothing. That is why the internet and capitalism are so in love with each other.”

In a sense, you’re exactly right.  The stock market valuation of these companies is insane and most likely toxic. Many of these Internet giants that produce neither goods nor jobs nor any real progress, are designed predominantly to cannibalize what already exists in the market; and they entice investors with short-term ROI while creating no apparent long-term value.   But Peter, this is the culture you and your colleagues promoted.  This is what comes of evangelizing the idea that it’s okay to exploit other people’s investment of real labor and real capital in goods and services that would otherwise have regenerative value. And exploiting these types of investments is precisely what you and your colleagues did with The Pirate Bay.

At least part of the Internet you don’t like is what comes of preaching to a whole generation that they can have whatever they want, free of charge, as long as it’s just a mouse click away.  And indeed, we are lately seeing the wheels come off that naive (and frankly predatory) idea. As the leaders of Pandora and Spotify begin to see that “freemium” isn’t a business model; as Facebook’s video service “freeboots” the promised ad-share value out of the pockets of YouTube creators; and as the global network of pirate sites is revealed to be a malware-infested and sophisticated black market that preys on individual consumers, you seem to have missed the point, Peter. The “fight” you lost is not with the MPAA and the principles of real capitalism—but with the unfettered greed you helped foster on the Internet you asked for.

Capitalism isn’t really the problem. Done right, capitalism is by-and-large how a truly free society prospers.  And I believe that in my country—which is both free and capitalist—we have unfortunately regressed since the late-20th century in striking the right balance between the free market and necessary boundaries imposed upon that market. As a result, we have fostered a dangerous state of wealth consolidation and a corporate influence on public policy almost matching that of the Robber Barons of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These forces are fueling a reactionary and populist trend in my country’s politics that you have stated you hope gets worse quickly so the whole capitalist system fails fast, so that people like you still have time to “fix” the world.  You say that you have failed, Peter, and you have. But you don’t understand why.

You do not recognize that you and your friends already ran a computer model on the world you envision and watched it fail.  Yet, you have learned nothing from your experiment.  You say, “I know Marx and communism did not work before, but I think in the future you have the possibility of having total communism and equal access to everything for everybody.”  This may be one of the most revealing statements that an evangelist of the “pirate ethos” has ever made.  Because, Peter, you have already personified—even dabbled in—the worst ills of capitalism that Marx accurately identified, but you are also mucking about in the absurdity of communism to which Marx was entirely blind.

As founder/operator of The Pirate Bay, you became a rapacious capitalist, exploiting human labor and rejecting certain legal boundaries designed to protect the rights of that labor.  Marx warned against this kind of exploitation, and he was right.  But in your persistent belief that technology alone—like Marx’s abolition of private property—will naturally create “equal access to everything for everybody,” you are as naive as Marx in that you forget to do the rest of the math. You fail to ask the question, “Who is going to produce the everything to which everyone is entitled equal access?”

Perhaps you forget that Karl Marx lived a great deal of his life sponging off the generosity of his pal Friedrich Engels, much as you perhaps still don’t seem to understand that The Pirate Bay only existed by sponging off the works of filmmakers, musicians, etc.  And even as you admit defeat in what you believe was a fight for the soul of the Internet, it’s interesting that you do not see a parallel between the collapsed Soviet Union and your failed experiment in media piracy. Both quite expectedly transitioned from a centralized—perhaps even idealized—form of labor exploitation to what is now a broadly distributed network of corruption and organized criminal activity.

I realize that your native Sweden is among the most socialist nations in Europe, that it enjoys a very high standard of living due to its unique fortune to maintain a golden balance between socialist and capitalist policy. I also recognize that a belief that “communism could still work” is a popular notion among many millennials, including some number in the United States.  But I strongly believe this sentiment is partly due to pure naiveté; it is partly a reaction to our failure to reign in the worst abuses of capitalism; and it is partly the result of your generation growing up spoiled by all the free stuff available via your digital toys.  (And that last part is your fault, Peter.)  While I do believe my country might learn a few things (e.g. in areas like education and healthcare) from our more socialist cousins in Europe, there is always a danger in failing to at least understand whence things come, whether we’re talking about a habitable planet or a work of fiction or even those digital toys themselves.

In fact, the computer or smart phone in your hand, which has so profoundly shaped the world view of your contemporaries, would not exist without the very systems you hope come crashing to a halt so that you can presume to “fix” them. I know I cited these details in another post, but do you even know what’s in an iPhone, Peter?  Five metals that have to be mined in places like Chile, Peru, South Africa, and Australia; eight rare earth minerals, nearly all of which are mined in China; human labor performed in conditions of varying degrees of decency and depravity around the world; global shipping protected by international navies; stevedore and trucking and other labor regulated by various local unions or other systems of commerce; and a staggering array of international trade agreements and treaties, all so you can have a device on which you may tweet that you hope we have a “total system collapse.” Really?

Like so many people in your generation, Peter, you have passion and you have talent.  But if you want to change the world, you first have to grow up and get real about how it actually works.

Donald Trump: A Candidate for Our Times

Years ago, I heard a great discussion among a group of veteran, political journalists; and they were talking about the cliché in which candidates say, “I don’t want to get into a character debate. Let’s talk about the issues.”  Although that particular sentiment was a byproduct of the “family values” rhetoric of the GOP, one of the journalists made a very sound argument that, in fact, character, in the true meaning of the word, is probably a more valid indicator as to how a candidate is likely to govern than anything he or she says about a particular issue during the campaign.  Candidates, he suggested, will campaign on agendas they want to achieve; but given the realities of governance, which is filled with obstacles and unpredictable events, the character of the individual is a pretty reliable indicator as to the kinds of moment-of-truth decisions a leader will have to make while in office.

How that insight is helpful is another matter, since Americans will be as divided on assessments of character as they are on any policy issue, which is one reason I think it’s a shame that we’ve demoted veteran political reporters—those people who traditionally live with candidates on the campaign trail—to the pejorative status of elitist in favor of the more populist platforms of social media.  And so, it strikes me as just a little too perfect that the GOP front-runner happens to be a guy vying to be Asshole-in-Chief of the United States. By “too perfect” I mean that Donald Trump’s present shooting-star status (soon to burn out, I imagine) is a predictable manifestation of what political discourse has become despite living in—or perhaps because we live in—the Information Age.  It’s no surprise Trump appeals to a lot of voters. After all, he sounds just like so many citizens on social media sites and comment threads, who like to make smug, uninformed, and even offensive statements.  Trump is basically a troll.

Okay. Nate Silver beat me to this particular accusation with his article aptly titled Donald Trump is the World’s Biggest Troll.  I had a similar thought a while back, but Silver did actual work, like research and stuff; and so, his article compares and contrasts some of the mechanics that seem to be driving the—presumably temporary—dominance of candidate Trump with populists of the recent past, who have rapidly risen and fallen during primary season.  Silver makes a number of interesting points, but I was particularly drawn to the questions posed in this paragraph:

“Social media allows candidates to make news without the filter of the press. It may also encourage groupthink among and between reporters and readers, however. And access to real-time traffic statistics can mean that everyone is writing the same “takes” and chasing the same eyeballs at once. Is the tyranny of the Twitter mob better or worse than the “Boys on the Bus” model of a group of (mostly white, male, upper-middle-class, left-of-center) reporters deigning to determine what’s news and what isn’t? I don’t know, but it’s certainly different. And it seems to be producing a higher velocity of movement in the polls and in the tenor of media coverage.”

No doubt American politics today is different, though there is an argument to be made that the contemporary tone reflects a regression to the volatility of the late 19th century rather than progress made since the more moderated late 20th.  So, although Silver is reluctant to say whether or not the “tyranny of Twitter” is better or worse than the traditional filter of the press, I’m less inclined to be so neutral on the matter.  If things are not worse, I have to ask why it is that literally every subject—I mean every subject—has become aggressively politicized to the extent that both liberals and conservatives seem willing to ignore any number of technically apolitical realities in order to stand firm in their often futile convictions?  Isn’t that the opposite result of what a “better informed electorate” was supposed to produce?  Every day on Facebook, I see declarations of both left and right-wing outrage based solely on a misleading headline from some dubious source that is predicated on a complete distortion of facts that should never have been political in the first place.

But every topic feeds the circus now, and I guess that’s good for the people who own the proverbial tents, rings, cotton candy concessions, and sideshows; but it should be no surprise, then, when the most outrageous clown in the act winds up becoming the main attraction. Because, of course, Trump is troll-like inasmuch as his obnoxious comments lead serious people to wonder whether he means what he says, or if he’s purposely using divisiveness as a tactic. But this is hardly a distinction worth making because there is arguably no presidential material behind the troll, even if it isn’t an act.  (I mean, you could almost hear the collective spit-take by the Joint Chiefs the day he casually suggested “bombing Iraq’s oil fields.”) But I think Trump is serious about his candidacy, which means he’s technically not a troll. To the contrary, he is a known quantity — a character who’s been part of our culture, for better or worse, for nearly 40 years. I’ve often thought of him as my generation’s Malcolm Forbes, but without being, y’know, interesting.

And this is perhaps the real reason Trump’s polling status is such a natural byproduct of our times:  because he is a pre-digital-age master of what we might today call YouTube entrepreneurism. Trump has been “cultivating his personal brand” since long before the people were born, who now evangelize that idea on the stages of TEDx. His ego has been front and center since his earliest days developing real estate in New York City, and he has nurtured his personal brand into an icon of the American Boss—a cult of personality bizarrely based on the kind of guy you’d think nobody would ever want to work for in real life. Trump’s brand is being one of America’s biggest assholes, a role he has thoroughly embraced and even monetized. He trademarked the declaration “You’re fired”™ for crying out loud.  Trump is to American politics as Kim Kardashian’s ass is to American culture, and maybe it’s working for now because we’ve migrated from the shallow waters of the sound-bite to the dry lake beds of click-bait.

“Friends” and Politics

This article by Ann Friedman for New York Magazine begins by focusing on the presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton as a polarizing force, even among likely political allies.  But Friedman’s point isn’t politics per se, it’s friendship.  Specifically, she offers thoughts on the effect Facebook might have on friendships once politics enters the equation.  And it seems to me that politics always enters the equation — certainly far more often on social media than it typically does in face-to-face social interactions.  In many real life situations (e.g. the work environment), I think we still adhere to the old rule that says, “Don’t discuss religion or politics in polite company.” But on Facebook, Man, we just have at it, don’t we?  And to Friedman’s point, friends with whom we assume a political alliance will invariably reveal some annoying heterodoxy that not only disappoints but even produces rancor that might never have revealed itself without this platform.

Friedman reminds me that I’ve wondered for some time about the effect of Facebook on friendships and family relationships.  When my wife and I first joined the network, it was particularly fun because we’re both alumni of the same, small, slightly dysfunctional college with a gaggle of friends who are like extended family to us. We splurged on an instantaneous connecting spree, exciting as a scavenger hunt, unearthing friends we hadn’t seen or spoken to in more than a decade. It was great. At first. But after the initial rush wore off, Facebook felt a little bit like the school reunion that wouldn’t end or like having a hundred house guests who wouldn’t go home.  A brief period of recalibrating the role of this new social environment in our lives was necessary.

When it comes to friends and politics, we don’t traditionally relate to one another by first standing on soap boxes and affirming some strongly held belief. Imagine showing up to a party carrying a big poster of Hillary Clinton with words printed on it saying “Unfriend me now if you don’t support this woman for President.” Then, everyone in the room can align themselves, start squabbling, and eventually disintegrate into schisms within both the pro and the anti-Hillary sides. This is not only a total buzzkill for the party host, but is also amusingly futile considering the only tangible action any individual in the room can really take is a single vote in one direction or the other for the candidate.  No, we don’t generally behave like this in real life, but it’s more or less how things go down on Facebook. And maybe that’s a good thing.

Let’s face it, the evil geniuses who invented this country have got to be grinning from on high and laying round-the-clock bets while watching the intellectual cage match they created. America is custom-designed to foster argument, so maybe the tech-utopian view that platforms like Facebook are a positive extension of that principle is correct. If these forums are used to truly engage in discussion, then maybe it’s better to see our friends reveal more diversity in their politics, even if discovering one another’s peccadillos might lead to chilling relationships.  On the other hand, those evil geniuses also designed a republic that was meant to move rather slowly on policy because in that stateliness is relative stability. By contrast, social media engagement tends to fuel radical (meaning spontaneous not subversive) and fleeting reaction.

For whatever reason (and I suspect it’s mostly due to the fact that social media is designed for sharing things other people say), political chatter is not only more common online than it has been in pre-cyber social environments, but it is absolutely dominant if my own feed is any indication. Nearly all of my friends are left leaning; and I would say that a significant amount of the political stories that make it into my newsfeed contain headlines about something radical that was reportedly said or done by someone on the extreme right.  “Gay Marriage Will Destroy Migratory Patterns of Bald Eagle,” says Indiana pastor.  And you just should not click on that stuff because if American politics teaches you anything, it’s that you gotta take the long view and not get distracted by every heckler in the cheap seats.

Yet, thanks to these platforms, we are treated to quite a few of these little stories that would otherwise go unnoticed beyond the reach of local papers. Sometimes they’re compelling human-interest articles; but in terms of real politics, I think an apparent deluge of crazy stuff can make one’s personal views feel under siege even if they are not. For instance, same-sex marriage rights are actually moving at a pretty remarkable pace toward universal ratification compared to other hard-won civil rights in American history.  And so in this example, I often wonder in what way the cause is benefitted when friends amplify the litany of lunatics on the issue. Because I don’t think even Justice Scalia is likely to weigh his decision thinking, “Well, I was on the fence about the ol’ gay marriage, but when I heard Pastor McDumbass say that thing about the locusts and frogs, that was the clincher for me.”

On a more grim note, I think about these troubling events in Ferguson, New York, and Baltimore; and I’m admittedly pretty cynical about the idea that social media offer much help with whatever it is may be happening to race relations in this country. This is partly because I believe there are dynamics at play that transcend race; thus any shorthand commentary that reduces everything to black and white (literally and figuratively) probably isn’t anywhere near discussing the true nature of the problem.  As these tragic events unfold, Facebook and Twitter offer various bandwagons for us to climb aboard, but heading where exactly? And yes, plenty of thoughtful articles are written and shared, and that’s a good thing.  But in the opposite extreme, the wrong-headed, violent responses are also inseminated and spread through social media in ways that are unique to our times.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the vague middle ground of all this, contemporary white college kids, gazing at screens in the safety of their dorms, post memes about Kent State because they don’t know what they’re talking about and because it’s easier to click on some fleeting image from an event that happened 50 years ago than it is to delve into what might really be going on today. And hell yes black lives matter, but I can’t help but find the hashtag itself just too damn trivial relative to the gravity of the situation. Or am I alone in thinking that so much of this new form of engagement feels so fundamentally unengaged?

It’s an odd dynamic to me. I can sit here in the relative security of my role as a white, middle-class, straight, male and spend half a day clicking things on Facebook that say let my gay friends marry and let my black friends live their lives without harassment by the police (these are just current examples), and I can feel good about my clicking and sharing despite the fact that it’s almost entirely useless. Because what will matter is who’s the mayor in a city or the police chief or who the Supreme Court Justices are. Policy will matter, which means what will matter above all is the economy. Meanwhile, statistics and anecdotal evidence suggests that the college kid who naively shared the Kent State meme might not even bother to vote because he thinks representative government is poisonous and the Internet is the antidote.

Ann Friedman concludes her article with advice as to how one might behave with friends online when politically-fueled disagreement flares up.   “It’s hard to imagine saying to a friend, ‘If you disagree with me, you can just hang up the phone right now.’ That’s not how real-life friends do things,” she writes.  I agree with her of course.  As with the example of a vote yay or nay for a candidate, does it really matter if a friend has some quirky reason for liking or not liking said candidate?  In many ways, social media environments like Facebook really are a new kind of petri dish for conducting that great experiment called America — always trying to see just how much we can fight and still remain friends.