libresociety/discuss/libresociety-1.txt

At the time of writing this reply, Erica's original message hasn't
reached the list yet, shouldn't be a problem.

The Libre Society Project
=========================

On 22/01/10 01:06PM, Erica Frank wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 10, 2022 at 9:44 AM Andrew Yu via libreplanet-discuss <
> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org> wrote:
> 
> > Hi, friends at Libreplanet.
> >
> > During a discussion in #fsf, we were quite critical of modern society,
> > especially on copyright, patents, "intellectual property", healthcare
> > and Capitalism.  A (possibly sarcastic of modern society) suggestion
> > was raised to build islands in the middle of oceans from plastic waste
> > and run a free society there.
> 
> This has been tried. Multiple times. It flops horribly because (1) the
> people throwing money at it would like to believe that they won't be bound
> by international treaties & local laws and (2) it's invariably started by a
> group that wants to be a master class, and imagine they will bring in
> servant-types at some later date, and that those servant-types will be
> content to live and work under conditions that don't give them the
> protections they have from existing laws.
> 
> Examples:
> 2014 https://www.vice.com/en/article/bn53b3/atlas-mugged-922-v21n10
> 2016
> https://www.gq.com/story/the-libertarian-utopia-thats-just-a-bunch-of-white-guys-on-a-tiny-island
> 2017
> https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/30/colorado-springs-libertarian-experiment-america-215313/
> 
> 2020
> https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project
> 2021
> https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/07/disastrous-voyage-satoshi-cryptocurrency-cruise-ship-seassteading
> And the shiny new attempt for 2022: https://cryptoland.is/

I should have made things clearer.  The whole island thing is just a
intro to what made me think of this project.  I am not trying to build
an island, make specific policies to how it runs, or similar things.
I'm thinking of a theoretical base for a modern nation should such
oppurtunities open up.  Of course, setting up a new government at any
country is unlikely.  This doesn't matter to this project; a general
base is good enough, for example, on how to handle power, how to vote
(blockchains might be good here, but proof-of-work and proof-of-stake
do harm to the environment or causes polical inequality) and the way we
write laws.  We're not defining the legal system itself; we're creating
an algorithm to define such legal system indirectly via legislators.

> A "free" ocean nation is possible... if you don't need wifi or other
> technology that comes from land; if you don't need to buy food or get
> medical services from land; if you don't need to dock a ship anywhere; if
> you don't intend to export goods or services to any country. If you do plan
> to maintain connections with the mainland, there's a host of laws and
> international treaties that will apply. And most of the "live free"
> movements want that to be "live free *and rich*," not "find somewhere that
> we can do subsistence farming where no gov't will care enough to notice
> us." You can live free by moving to any number of remote, inhospitable
> locales. In groups, even. But you can't live tax-free and still participate
> in commerce with people who pay taxes. (Well, it's possible, but the setup
> for that isn't "invent a country in a spot nobody's claimed"; it's "invent
> a business that shuffles money in so many directions that governments get
> dizzy trying to find the cup with the ball under it.")

Aside from the fact that this is theoretical, a real implementation (if ever)
would need to be a fork (branch) of the theoretical model, usually taking
account of nearby countries, trade, and other things that deal with "normal"
countries.

The amount of money you have mostly depends on how your parents are
doing, at least for two generations.  The amount of work they do (and
the intelligence they put into it) compared against their wealth in
money doesn't give a constant result---the poor have a much higher
ratio.  Money is an ancient system of economics, I don't think using
money to request for social stuff is appropriate.

Free Software
=============

The replies below are mainly targeted at free software, doesn't have
much to do with Libre Society any more.

> > I thought: Why aren't we doing a great job convincing users to switch to
> > free software as a replacement to the proprietary software they use?
> > Some classmates that I tried convincing into using Trisquel GNU/Linux
> > noted that most modern programs that they use day-to-day only run on
> > Android, Apple iOS, Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows,
>
> The reason people don't switch to Linux is that support for new users
> SUCKS. You'd think that, after 20+ years of Unix-based software, there'd be
> a plethora of "How to Dump Windows And Switch To [version] Linux!"
> websites. There are not. Instead, plenty of Windows users who try to switch
> discover "I have installed this new OS.... and my wifi doesn't work." Or
> their audio doesn't work. Or they try to install WINE so they can use the
> apps they need for work, and it doesn't work. Or they try to play games and
> discover that Steam-for-Linux and Steam-via-WINE have two different feature
> sets, and one of them doesn't work for their favorite game. And so on.

On the topic of free software, this is true.  My new strategy that works
better (seems so to me) is to convince friends to use OnlyOffice when
they can, use my Jitsi instance instead of Tencent Meetings when they're
hosting meetings, etc.  The Jitsi part isn't doing well, probably
because people are bought into the ecosystem of Tencent, but it has
helped two or three people.

> (I have two adult daughters who have switched from Windows to Linux. They
> both hate Windows. Neither has strong software requirements. Both
> occasionally have to wipe their system and reinstall the OS because they
> can't figure out how to fix the odd problems that show up. ...Neither of
> them has work-related content or settings that would be destroyed by a
> reinstall.)

Yeah that happens some times, some people say it's a side effect of the
freedom we have, which is understandable.  I've also had issues with my
Windows VM and I have to reinstall (actually, restore from snapshot).

> I am on Windows because I'm a power user of several apps with no Linux
> versions: Acrobat Pro, InDesign, MS Word, FineReader (you've probably never
> heard of it, and that's very reasonable). I'm a regular user of other
> programs with no Linux versions. And seeing the nightmares my kids have had
> with using WINE does not make me happy at the idea of switching. (I'm aware
> that there's LibreOffice and other free software that cover most of what
> Word does. They don't cover everything that Word does, and they won't cover
> the 25% extra time it'll take me to find everything for a few months while
> I get used to them. A big part of my job is "Hey here is a document; it's
> got [list of problems]; fix those and get it back to me within an hour
> before the client meeting." I can't do that on unfamiliar software.) I do a
> lot in PowerPoint, not because I like PPT (nobody who has actual editing
> experience likes PPT), but because the company does a lot with PPT. And
> opening word/ppt/excel/etc files in non-MS programs sometimes has weird
> results - changes the hidden formatting features, and so on. So they'd look
> fine to me, and I hand them back, and they discover the fonts have changed
> or the images have moved around.

Comptaibility is the biggest issue in terms of users switching to free
software.  There are projects like OnlyOffice that does this pretty
well, and if put on Nextcloud or its own document server can match MS
products (actually more like Google Docs) in terms of collaboration.
Personally I use LaTeX2e, but I do support developing office suites.

> Anyway. If you want free software to be more popular, find a way to make it
> easy to switch for people with decent awareness of technology and *no
> command-line experience*. I can pick up command-line work - when I started
> learning computers, there was nothing else - but there are no simple guides
> for "so now you're using Linux; here's the two-page cheatsheet for
> Ubuntu/Gnome/Mint/whatever."

Absolutely!  I've met people who needed help bring up the Help
application in GNOME 3.  Distributions that are designed to fit new
users are awesome, like Linux Mint.  Obviously they don't provide
"future links" to completely free distributions, understandable, but I
hope some distro does that---when the user switched to totally free
software already, that's a good step.  I'll note down the idea on
cheatsheets.

> You can usually search Google or DDG for "here's my error message; how do I
> fix it?" And the answers are often on StackExchange or similar - and they
> are often hostile and condescending enough that I am never, ever going to
> ask for Linux help for specific problems in public. The result is: I'm
> using proprietary software with an unknown amount of data harvesting, that
> sometimes changes or removes the features I rely on - but I'm not being
> regularly insulted (or threatened) by sexist jerks who think I'm an idiot
> for not having encountered this problem before.

In my experience, things have gotten better over the years.  Currently
I'm mostly on BSD systems, and reading the manuals help a lot.  These
manuals are mainly for command-line programs(1,8), system calls and
functions(3,9), file formats(5,7) and what not.  I like reading these,
but I can imagine the feeling of a new user reading a manual page
telling them to add themself to a UNIX group in order to use serial
ports (maybe for accessories).

Social Stuff Again
==================

> > I asked myself:  Why do people choose convenience over freedom?

> The simple, quick answer is "I see you don't have children of your own."
> All of human history has been a matter of giving up some freedoms in
> exchange for convenience. It has *always* been possible for almost anyone
> to go off alone and survive by scrounging or potentially even farming.
> There are exceptions - some types of slavery, most prisoners, etc. But for
> most of history, most people have been free to pick a direction and walk
> until nobody else is in range. Unsurprisingly, most of of them choose to
> remain in contact with others, which means giving up some autonomy for the
> convenience of a community.
> 
> If you mean, "why do people choose *this particular* convenience over a
> freedom *I believe is readily available*" - then you have to get into the
> details. Because a freedom that looks obvious and simple to you may not be
> as apparent - or as easy - to someone else.

Yup.  This reminds me of the veil of ignorance by John Rawls.  When I
vote for something, I use the best of my knowledge of society,
notwithstanding who I am and my personal interests*.

  * It should be noted that my view on freedom, as explained by Erica,
    could be considered something of personal interest.  However, I mostly
    believe that it's my stance on social freedom, not anything of
    personal interest per se.

> >  I have a theory that it's a combination of
> > social pressure and coorporate brainwashing,
> 
> Humans are social critters. We thrive in communities. All communities
> involve giving up freedoms. There is no brainwashing involved in "convince
> people to go along with the group instead of following their every
> impulse"; that's the socialization that begins in infancy. (The end result
> is: we get communities so that a broken leg doesn't mean death, so that
> children live past the age of two, so that we can eat something other than
> raw fruit in season and meat cooked on sticks over a fire. And, y'know, so
> we can have books and houses and chat with people in other countries, but
> those aren't *why* we have communities; they're just some of the more
> recent benefits.)

The social contract stuff has been stuck in my head for long.  Of course
we need to reach a comprimise between liberty and security, but exactly
how is up to discussion.  It's also questionable to what extent should
we help people.

My drama teacher in Grade 7 (who comes from the US) had a pretty bad
time with the heat when he came to Shanghai the first time.  He even
threw up at the door of a small restaurant.  He said that the staff of
the restaurant asked if he was okay and gave him a cup of water.  This
is not rare here and is a good demonstration of socialization as in
helping others.  My intuition tells me that if this was to happen in the
US, it'd have been much worse for the him.

> There are corporations taking advantage of that, and warping our social
> drives for profit, to the long-term detriment of both communities and the
> planet. But the problem isn't "people are prone to accept whatever's
> easiest and go along with the crowd."

I'd say most coorporations that normal people know today count.

> > My family has been to the US in 2013.  One of my biggest negative
> > impressions was that health care was terrifyingly expensive.
> 
> > A ride in the ambulance costs 10 dollars on
> > average in Shanghai, but thousands in ths US.  (Note that by "the US", I
> > am referring to the state I was in, I do hope that there are saner ones.)

> There are not; the US medical industry's costs are absolutely shocking to
> most of the rest of the world. An ambulance trip in the US can run
> thousands of dollars even with good insurance; there are no states where
> that's not true. Some states are somewhat better about medical costs - or
> rather, some states regulate who pays for the costs better - but the costs
> are still being set by profit-seeking insurance companies rather than
> having anything to do with the actual cost of services.

That's indeed pretty shocking to me.  Capitalism has enabled the
development of our economy and has propelled industrilization (Today we
think of it as something good, except environmentally.) and general
welfare, but leaving everything to the invisible hand causes things like
this.  There are things that are rare in supply (ambulance services),
rare in demand, but when there is demand, it's an emergency with the
life of a fellow somewhere. 

> > For a government to be able to handle social needs, it must not be
> > corruputed.

> [citation needed]
> ...can you name some non-corrupt governments as examples?

I mean, for a government to do things efficently.  I'd say most
governments handle things badly, so the point is kind-of there.

> This is important. Listing problems with a government is easy. If the
> solution were simple, we wouldn't have these problems. Even with as much as
> the current people in power will fight to maintain that - if there were a
> simple solution that resulted in better living for everyone, that *didn't*++>
> result in thousands of small-to-medium disasters (at a minimum) during a
> transition phase, we'd have put it into place.
> 
> That doesn't mean I think improvement is impossible, just that it's not a
> matter of "swap this government system for that other one, and things will
> be better immediately and much better in the long term."

Agreed.

If you take a look at China's revolution in the 1910s, people didn't
bother with it.  It was just a thing of the people who understand what
democracy is.  Therefore people started the social movement in the
1920s, educating the general public about democracies, science, and the
very monarchy they've been living in.

Outright just changing the system of government is no use for sure.  Of
course we need social changes, especially of how people think of money.
I don't have much to talk about in this aspect yet, when I have more
spare time I'll include it in the project.

> For example: Copyright, trademark, and patent laws are currently horrible,
> and causing a lot of damage. However, just removing them wouldn't help -
> that'd just mean that mega-corporations could use anyone's work to make
> profit for themselves without paying for it. It'd mean a return to private
> patronage and extensive contracts involved before you can read a book or
> watch a movie.... and ordinary citizens would not be the ones with the
> advantage in that situation. (...What I want is an end to the Berne
> convention, copyright dropped to about 25-30 years automatic, and requiring
> registration & growing fees to extend it. $100 US for the next 10 years, in
> the US - a nominal fee that covers registration costs. $1000 for 10 years
> past that: you have to still be making money to bother. $10,000 for every
> ten years past that - if Disney wants to keep *Snow White* in its control,
> it can do so, but they have to pay the public to keep the monopoly. And
> that's per work, not per franchise: Every episode of *Star Trek* would need
> to be registered and extended.)

Yes.

> > Theories such as the separation of powers exist, but in
> > contemperory times, implementations such as the US have
> > sometimes-corrupt but almost always ineffective governments.
> 
> On the one hand: yes, I get that.
> On the other: cars do not regularly run people over on the sidewalk in my
> neighborhood. The wiring in my house does not cause fires. The food I buy
> at local restaurants does not poison me. My neighbors do not burn tires for
> heat in the winter. The water in my kitchen sink is safe to drink. And for
> all the gun violence in my local area, nobody sits on their front porch and
> does target practice on other human beings. My family's doctors do not
> demand intimate favors in exchange for health care services.
> 
> My government has a lot of flaws, but it also has successfully provided
> enough safety regulations that I can be comfortable enough to criticize it.

Not false.

Though here where I live you can't be sure about the last point.

> I don't mean, "we should just celebrate the good that governments have
> done." I mean that saying "it's horribly corrupt; we should throw it out"
> needs to start with an awareness of the thousands of small benefits that
> laws have brought. Any anarchist/libertarian "free community" needs to
> first decide, "can you burn waste in your backyard? If so, what kinds; if
> not, who's going to enforce that rule?" ...Will you have private land
> ownership, and if so, can you cut down all the trees on "your" land? Can
> you throw waste into "your" river?
> 
> ...Can you have a business selling heroin to teenagers? How about alcohol?
> Tobacco? Caffeine?
> 
> What toxins are acceptable to sell to anyone, which are restricted, and
> which are forbidden? Who decides, and who enforces those rules?

I'll reply to this when I get more of social contact theory.

> I am firmly in favor of free software. I would like to see governments be
> required to use free, open-source software for government purposes - to not
> be beholden to any business or company for essential government functions.
> (Or even optional government functions.) But I am aware that the visible
> government--currently-elected legislators--is a small portion of a complex
> system, and that there is no possible simple, sweeping reform that will fix
> the current batch of problems (and there are so, so many problems) without
> bringing in a host of others. And I am not so sanguine as to trust the
> people who say "eh, we'll deal with those when they come up."
> 
> if you want to build a government that's free-and-equal, start by talking
> to single mothers with kids under 5 years old, and asking what they need
> from a government. Design a system that works for them, and you'll have a
> foundation that can be extended to support any size of community.

Good idea.

> (Sorry this has gotten rather far from "free software" discussion. I think
> it does all tie together - one of the reasons free software has problems
> catching on, is corporate influence over governments, so the very structure
> of government is part of the discussions. But it does wind up getting
> pretty far from "why can't schools just use Linux-based laptops?")

The LibrePlanet mailing list isn't just a place to discuss about free
software, I suppose.  Social ideas are of course good here, there've
been people discussing about nonfree software requirements in COVID
tests, which went on to social stuff.

Regards,
Andrew