
Have Cyberlibertarians digitally deleted the Left? - eltondegeneres
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/12/cyberlibertarians-digital-deletion-of-the-left/
======
PaulAJ
I hoped to find a discussion of the tension between the formulations of
freedom in the "Cyberlibertarian" and "Left" viewpoints. But this article just
asserts that because cyberlibertarianism doesn't agree with the Left it must
be part of the Right Wing Conspiracy, knocking down a few straw men along the
way.

~~~
pessimizer
What does a quote frequently used to paint Hillary Clinton as paranoid have to
do with either the Left or this article? It's notable that you use it in a
sentence accusing others of setting up straw men.

~~~
glenra
Paranoia about the Koch brothers secretly controlling everything behind the
scenes - or even their being particularly relevant and central to whatever
specific political debate position you don't like - does seem like a direct
modern descendant of the old "right-wing conspiracy" meme. Doesn't it? Hilary
doesn't own a copyright on the phrase.

Though if the parent post had included the word _" Vast"_ you'd have more of a
point. :-)

------
gopher1
Sorry but they lost me when they disparaged anti-SOPA efforts as being
"information exceptionalism".

There's a very big difference between information property and "real"
property. Until we can make perfect copies of land and houses at the click of
a button, the two are not at all the same.

------
glenra
The Libertarians were pretty dominant online in the age of Usenet but the Left
seems pretty dominant on Tumblr and Wikipedia among others. I find this part
of the intro puzzling:

> _If digital communication technology promotes leftist values, why has its
> spread coincided with such a stark decline in the Left’s political
> fortunes?_

Um, WHAT stark decline? Can you give some metric that shows this "decline" as
a tangible, measurable thing, or is this just a vague sense of nostalgia for a
mythic past when the Left seemed actually radical, when it was _fighting_ the
establishment, before it _became_ the establishment?

Various flavors of "the Left" currently control the presidency, most of the
newspapers and television networks and universities and most of congress.
Mandatory "universal health care" is now being inflicted upon the populace,
which means we're finally at a point where _every plank on the socialist party
platform of 1928 has become law_. So if there IS a decline, perhaps it's just
that diminishing returns have set in on the whole project. But I'd still like
to see the evidence.

( [http://libertarianmajority.net/socialist-party-of-
america-19...](http://libertarianmajority.net/socialist-party-of-
america-1928-platform) )

As a side note, it's amusing the author doesn't realize "self-described
entrepreneur" is Silicon-Valley-speak for "unemployed". :-)

------
PaulHoule
What is the left?

30 years ago you had a number of credible single issue groups on the
environment and such and also various sorts of socialist and revolutionary
organizations.

Today you have 'people who vote democrat' and 'professional democrats', a few
bizzare singular cases (nyt editorial page) and a few marginal groups, often
super single cause (don't track in my back yard.)

Professional leftists know where their bread is buttered on and they are
unyielding advocates of yellow cabs, teacher's unions, phone companies, big
content, rent control, anything that gives somebody a legal advantage over
somebody else to create an alternative status hiearchy.

They have nothing for cyber libertarians since once the former graduate from
the uni they are no longer a protected group.

People like Stallman refused to take the opportunity to talk about the
influence of the military on computing because they too know where the gravy
train is. Again no connect to the left.

And none of the race class gender people know enough to complain that female
and non WASP voices get distorted by cell phone codecs...

~~~
jayd16
You complain about rent control but you want to enforce equal opportunity
audio-codecs?

~~~
001sky
wait, do codecs create a protected class of voters?

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theorique
It's strange to hear a person referring to a monolithic "Left". Makes me think
of a bunch of aging red diaper babies, with beards and long braids, singing
dreary protest songs over a bland vegan potluck ...

Not that there's anything wrong with that - just sounds very 1930s-1960s. What
is "The Left (tm)" now? Occupy? The Green Party? Unions? University student
groups?

------
Grue3
The entire history of 20th century should have deleted "the Left" forever, and
yet, somehow, they are still around. Doing the same thing over and over again
and expecting different result, indeed.

------
lfhlghglhdbdg
So, the spell checker recognised English languages words, but that's as far as
parsing the article got. What a lot of nonsense. Cyberlibertarians? We can
just make up words now? And hope they sound impressive enough, and perhaps
cromulent enough that the author of the so-called article can huff and bluff
their way through? Is this is the kind of tripe the left want to publish, then
yes, maybe it is best deleted!

~~~
pessimizer
[http://techliberation.com/2009/08/12/cyber-libertarianism-
th...](http://techliberation.com/2009/08/12/cyber-libertarianism-the-case-for-
real-internet-freedom/)

source: TFA

