Is the "Establishment" dying?

[Fletchette]

They don't have to terminate the Internet, they just need to filter out the undesirable elements...that would be easy.

Yup. The government isn't about to destroy a useful tool to control information; they will seek to control it. Taking out malcontents (radical bloggers) will be the first step. They will say something like, "he was promoting the overthrow of the U.S. Government". Then those that are only mildly critical; "He was undermining the war effort". A few other bloggers taken out with McCain-Feingold for illegal "contributions", and the internet will be effectively controlled. Anyone who says something critical would have their blog shut down at the ISP and be hauled away on bogus charges. And since the web is now regulated, you won't hear about it...unless they want you to.

I think we as a community need to start thinking about alternate communication methods.

 

[beerslurpy]

Or we could take a hint from the piracy groups and host our blogs in countries that dont give a crap about what the US govt thinks. Kind of like how certain chinese groups host their stuff in our country.

The only way the US govt can control the internet is by essentially destroying it. At which point the goose stops laying the golden eggs.

 

[Fletchette]

Or we could take a hint from the piracy groups and host our blogs in countries that dont give a crap about what the US govt thinks. Kind of like how certain chinese groups host their stuff in our country.

The only way the US govt can control the internet is by essentially destroying it. At which point the goose stops laying the golden eggs.

I really wish that were true. But take a moment to analyze your analogy;

Chinese dissidents host their stuff in the U.S. because the Chinese government would shut them down if they were hosted in China.

The U.S. government will (presumably) shut down dissadents within the U.S. that are critical of the U.S.

China is now in the WTO.

WTO convenes and decides on enforcing mutual "trade" laws...see where I am going with this?

 

[dustind]

The internet and other cheap technology is the best thing that could ever happen to pro freedom types. We can finally get our voice out there.

I credit the huge RKBA victors over the last several years to the internet. Look at how big the gun control movement was ten years ago. It is pretty much gone now thanks to the free exchange og information. Also look at the types of lies that made it in the past. So many people believed things that any knowledgeable person could have debunked in minutes if only given some airtime.

 

[c_yeager]

The advatage of information availability on the internet is largely negated by the erronious nature of that information. ANYONE can put any amount of information on the internet with ZERO fact checking. That fact alone makes the entire thing a dubious source at best.

 

[Waitone]

ANYONE can put any amount of information on the internet with ZERO fact checking. That fact alone makes the entire thing a dubious source at best.

So Thomas at the Library of Congress is suspect information? CBS' information is suspect? Illuminati-R-Us.com suspect also?

All three entities use the internet to distribute their product (well, I made up Illuminati-R-Us). They range in reliability from rock solid Thomas through questionable CBS to unreliable and waaaay out there Illuminati-R-Us. Are there questions because of the means of distribution or because of their individual bias and content? What the internet allows me to do is place all three side by side while I sit in my BVD's and evaluate the reliability of each one's content. Something not possible until the internet showed up. Previously I would have to go to great pains, cost, and time to collect the information OR rely on a supposedly disinterested third party like NBC or NPR or Noozweak to make an evaluation. Then I'd have to put windage on the opinion of the evaluator.

No more. Now it is quite easy for me to see who is lying or deceiving or misrepresenting or propagandizing. It is much easier and faster for me to yell "BS" .

 

[R.H. Lee]

ANYONE can put any amount of information on the internet with ZERO fact checking. That fact alone makes the entire thing a dubious source at best.

And conversely, bogus information-if it's important enough- can and will be quickly exposed.

I think we as a community need to start thinking about alternate communication methods.

I've thought about this before and agree with you. Not because I think the Internet will be taken down- what if there were some emergency that required we work collaboratively? (and I don't know what that might be).

 

[shermacman]

ANYONE can put any amount of information on the internet with ZERO fact checking. That fact alone makes the entire thing a dubious source at best.

We the sheeple should wait for the official organs of the Nanny State to report the news. After all, The Nanny knows which news is fit to print....

 

[RealGun]

And conversely, bogus information-if it's important enough- can and will be quickly exposed. - RileyMC

Yes, but whose expose' will you believe? At what point is information truly factual, in context, and conclusions objective?

You have to go to a partisan source to get the version you like to hear. You trust it because it is what you want to hear or might expect. You predefine what the truth will be. I am sure I am not the only one who has a short tolerance for listening to the other side's version of the truth.

Who says Thomas is absolutely reliable? That's a matter of faith, correct? There are also closed session proceedings, records of which are not published. Since all floor proceedings are on CSPAN, a great deal of it is staged or certainly with an awareness that the whole world is a potential audience. A lot goes on in private caucus and committee meetings that we never hear about. We only see the implications or hear the spin.

 

[Waitone]

"Reliable" does not equal "Exhaustive"

 

[RevDisk]

I think we as a community need to start thinking about alternate communication methods.

There are already out there. Amateur radio networks, Freenet or any other node system (encrypted traffic through a mesh of nodes that pass on information anonymously.)

The methods already exist, just check around.

For reasons I previously stated, the internet will never be shut down by the politicians. They will attempt to censor or control the internet. The internet will see such censorship as damage, and simply route around it. If US censorship laws get too bad, move your server to a foreign country. If it gets raided, move to another country. There are more than a few 'data haven' countries out there, you know.

 

[Gray Peterson]

It's not also a matter of establishment. Back in 1985, nearly all "pro-gun" people were all conservative. Now you have a small minority, but fast growing amount of political leftists that are starting to realize that guns are in fact the human rights guarantee. Mostly because Bush is regarded as someone who'd declaring martial law is a certainty to them. That usually wakes them up.

 

[dustind]

ANYONE can put any amount of information on the internet with ZERO fact checking. That fact alone makes the entire thing a dubious source at best.

The same is true of the media. Heck you would be suprised how much stuff I was taught in public schools that I later learned was extremely biased or wrong.

At least with the internet more people know that they can not trust everything they read unlike with other sources that are taken as gospel.

 

[Fletchette]

ANYONE can put any amount of information on the internet with ZERO fact checking. That fact alone makes the entire thing a dubious source at best.

Actually, there is fact checking...IF free speech, and thus an open dialog, is allowed.

No one knows "The Truth" about much of anything. We think of "The Truth" as the ideas that we, as a majority, arrive at by consensus. In the scientific world this is called "peer review".

Censorship destroys all of this.