[ale] OT: The Amazing WEB

[Charles Shapiro]

Peace.

Oog. I sometimes get tired of seeing Libertarianism characterized in
this uninformed way.  The alternative to the "greed motive and
unregulated capitalism" is to have some people with guns enforce their
standards of behavior on others.  Free people engage in trade and try to
better their circumstances. Slaves fight and claw to become free. The
greed motive and unrestrained capitalism are the very things which give
us the wealth to engage in the wonderous gift economy which is the Net.
Places where people are forced to be anything other than what they are
become miserable and poor. Not many folks have net access in Afghanistan
or China. When people are free they give of themselves in new and
amazing ways.

Greed is necessary. Get over it.

-- CHS


-----Original Message-----
From: aaron [mailto:aaron at pd.org]
To: ale at ale.org
Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 4:49 AM
To: ALE list
Subject: [ale] OT: The Amazing WEB



One of the most unique, sustaining and powerful aspects of community
that 
is consistently found in non-M$ computer organizations is an 
extraordinary level of generosity and altruism. An odd and parallel 
aspect is that the membership of these organizations often tend to 
evangelize Libertarian ideals that promote theories of greed motive and 
unregulated capitalism to levels of divine decree; a seemingly complete 
contradiction to the many selfless contributions upon which these 
communities thrive.

Whether in spite of this anarchy and contradiction or because of it, 
there is little argument that countless "Altruist Libertarian" computer 
communities have played significant roles in transforming a handful of 
publically funded, open source University projects into the freely 
accessable information technologies that comprise and sustain the 
phenomenal, ubiquitous entity known as the World Wide Web.


<<snip>>

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