January, 2006

Capitalism and More

One must, I think, move in fairly rarefied libertarian circles to think that capitalism is over-defended. I also think that pleas of poverty on behalf of academics are overstated. Academics make less than people who make a lot, but they make more than most Americans, for work that is pleasant, interesting, and largely free from [...]

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The Road to Professorial Liberation

Eric, Regarding long-time-fandom, thanks very much and the feeling is mutual. But you haven’t described my views accurately.
I’m not pleading on behalf of academics; rather on behalf of humanities and social science academics, a group of which I am not a member. As I pointed out, professors in the sciences have [...]

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Sticking Up For Capitalism

Dr. Gelernter, I’m a long-time fan of your writing. I normally find it crisp, incisive, and refreshingly free of either the left- or right-wing varities of political correctness. You’ve been on my short-list of computer scientists I most admire, and have hoped to meet personally someday, for many years.
Against that background, I have [...]

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On Capitalism and Jaron’s Views on Capitalism

I consider myself a conservative Republican; I am in fact a Bush administration appointee, in a small-potatoes way. (I’m on the board of the National Endowment for the Arts, and was confirmed by Congress.) But capitalism strikes me as the spoiled brat of the political and philosophical universe.
I strongly agree with Jaron: people don’t [...]

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I Love Capitalism. Really!

How much love do I have to declare for capitalism before it’s possible to point out that it isn’t the only active or worthy principle in human affairs, so that I won’t be pounced on by libertarians? I love capitalism this much! (He stretches his arms out wide.) As I’ve said in this discussion and [...]

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Keeping it Cozy

I think that everyone would like to keep a sense of community. Jaron writes:

The main point for me is noticing the warmth and generosity of what’s happened with the net.
But then he follows it with this:

The problem with capitalism is that it works too well and can distract people from noticing beautiful things. If you [...]

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Be Clear. Be Crisp. Be Concise.

Jaron,
I cheerfully affirm that the ideas expressed in your essay are your own. With one or two important exceptions that I think I’ve already specified, I wouldn’t want any part of them. Nor did I suspect you for a moment of “ripping off my rants.” You are perfectly entitled to use [...]

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Kicking Off the Conversation: Replies to Comments

Jaron Lanier expands on “tweakage denial,” his abiding Utopianism, the trouble with the command line, “free market fanaticism,” and much more in his reply to the comment essays. Stay tuned over the next several days as our commentators step from the seminar room to the lounge for a lively free-form blog conversation. Why not pull up a keyboard and join in?!

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Best of the Blogs: Internet Liberation Roundup

Cato Unbound aims to start conversations that spill from our humble forum into the vast online marketplace of ideas. Bloggers and discussion board denizens, riffing off Jaron Lanier’s lead essay, have tackled software “brittleness” and “lock-in,” natural monopoly, the way open and closed systems play into the evolving capitalist economy, the nature of the “file,” and more . . .

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Reply to Lanier

While taking issue with a number of Lanier’s specific claims, Yale computer scientist David Gelernter signs on to what he takes to be Lanier’s underlying message: “the software world doesn’t understand itself clearly enough—doesn’t understand where it’s been, where it is, and where it’s going.”

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Reply to Lanier

Ten years after his “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,” John Perry Barlow insists that “the Internet continues to be an anti-sovereign social space, endowing billions with capacities for free expression that would have been unthinkable a generation ago.” A liberating future is still ahead, Barlow argues, but we must be on guard against a deep fact of both biology and markets: “New success inspires creativity. Old success tries to kill it.”

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