
Steve Wozniak: Internet should not have gatekeepers or regulators - MrBlue
http://rt.com/usa/news/wozniak-interview-dotcom-freedom-396/
======
rickmb
The title is completely misleading, given that Wozniak concedes:

 _“Every freedom we have in the United States, every one of them, was given to
us by congressional regulation. It’s called the Bill of Rights. That is what
gives us our freedom and yet it was from the government. It was government
regulation.”_

Bottom line is that there will be regulators. The choice is between regulation
by those that own the infrastructure or by a democratically elected
government.

~~~
wissler
Government is merely a set of people. These people don't give you your rights
any more than some random person on the street gives you your rights. Both
merely either respect them or not.

America, in spite of its contradictions, was to a significant extent based on
the idea of "inalienable rights", and is why it was so successful. The
verbiage in The Bill of Rights was intended to recognize, not confer rights,
and it was intended to restrain government from violating them.

~~~
slurgfest
If my exercise of my rights is restricted then it hardly matters how much
respect or recognition I find in some verbiage - in practical terms, I am
denied those rights.

This is unfortunately common, so that most freedoms cannot actually be
realized without the help of law and the judicious use of institutional force,
far beyond what I or almost any citizen can personally wield. And it is not
even vaguely exceptional that the source of the problem is coming from non-
governmental entities.

Law is much more than "a set of people."

I think it's fairly clear that the Constitution is also intended to restrain
non-Governmental entities from violating personal rights. Otherwise, the 13th
Amendment would only make Government slavery unconstitutional while reserving
it to the states or the people, which would be nonsensical and useless.

The rights of plantation slaves have surely existed all along, but they didn't
make any difference until a lot of blood was spilled to change things.

~~~
danielweber
_I think it's fairly clear that the Constitution is also intended to restrain
non-Governmental entities from violating personal rights_

That's question-begging a bit. If I hire you for my radio show and you say
something stupid on the air, am I not allowed to fire you, lest that be a
violation of your personal right to free speech? If I refuse to sell you a
gun, am I denying you your right to bear arms?

 _Otherwise, the 13th Amendment would only make Government slavery
unconstitutional while reserving it to the states or the people, which would
be nonsensical and useless._

That seems to argue against point. If the whole Constitution was meant to
restrict non-governmental actors, then they wouldn't have limited it just to
slavery.

Also, the Fourteenth Amendment generally applies the restrictions on the
Federal government to State governments. I'm unaware of any restrictions it
places on non-goverments.

------
lubos
3 months ago Steve Wozniak said he is going to buy Facebook shares at "no
matter what price"

I mean this guy just happened to be co-founder of Apple. He hasn't been with
Apple for like 20+ years and hasn't done anything noteworthy for decades.

Does it really matter what he says?

~~~
pan69
To be fair. He didn't just happen to be in the room when other people at Apple
where inventing great things. He invented it.

Yes. It matters a lot what this guys says because every self proclaimed
journalist want to talk to this guy and he happens to speak for what a lot of
people are thinking but not get the exposure he does.

------
samstave
If you have no safety in your sharing of information, you have no freedom.

------
majani
I've found in my experience that gatekeepers to any system will always bubble
up. It's almost evolutionary that someone controls the flow of things. The
most you can hope for is that the gatekeeper be good-hearted and neutral.

------
flustered
I totally agree with what Woz is saying. I do wish that there were tools more
readibly available built into our browsers filter content, but I think that is
just an opportunity for tools like NetNanny, etc. if Mozilla, Apple, Microsoft
(except for Bing), Google (except for Google search), and Opera aren't doing
it.

I wish we had the same freedom here in HN, but we don't, and I'm not sure why:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4385454>

------
rayiner
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_pk0lW3oJ8#t=01m01s>

~~~
jonathanyc
Relevant how, exactly?

~~~
aspensmonster
From the youtube link:

"Men must be governed. Often not wisely I will grant you but they must be
governed nonetheless."

"That's the excuse of every tyrant in history. From Nero to Bonaparte. And I
for one am opposed to authority. It is the egg of misery and oppression."

"You've come to the wrong shop for anarchy, brother."

And from the RT interview:

"The trouble is, a lot of it [network neutrality] has to be enforced by the
government, and conservative types and libertarian types say 'government
shouldn't have any say and control over that; that takes away our freedom.'
Wrong. It takes away the freedom of the companies that are taking away the
freedom from us."

I'd assume the clip from youtube is meant to reinforce the inherent necessity
of an authority to enforce order. The "conservative types and libertarian
types" would likely consider authority the "egg of misery and oppression." But
Wozniak argues that "men must be governed. Often not wisely... but they must
be governed nonetheless." Wozniak is addressing the oft-repeated mantra
amongst conservative and libertarian types that government is inherently
inefficient and should be limited in order to maximize freedom; his argument
is to highlight the paradoxical observation that from a lack of authority
grows the very oppression -- non-neutral networking -- that these types claim
to deplore.

~~~
thinkingisfun
> "I for one am opposed to authority. It is the egg of misery and oppression."

I agree with that, but with the distinction of natural and force authority, as
e.g. Erich Fried or Noam Chomsky make it. If a little kid runs on the street,
and the parent (or even a random stranger for that matter!) grabs it by the
arm to save it from harm, the kid has NO vote, and that is fine. Everybody
knows and understands that.

In that sense I agree with some regulation being needed to stop people
infringing each other's freedom; but I strongly have to disagree with
governance for the sake of governance. CHILDREN must be governed, not free
men. Free men govern themselves. That is an important distinction, and anyone
who shrugs it off is certainly my enemy.

Governance is NOT the end, and actually, all authority which is justifiable
should also always seek, or at least hope, to be obsolete some day. E.g. the
child grows up, or people are too busy prospering in peace to deceive and
oppress each other, and have inherited the values and methods you teached
them. But as long as you have to "be the parent", you haven't solved the
problem, you just made it possible for all parties to survive until it is
solved.

And always watch out for secretly not _wanting_ the other to grow up, your own
authority becoming obsolete. Kafka said this about parents and their children,
how parents tend to use them just based on petty ego - how much more is it
true for structures of huge power, and insane profits. Sure, Apple ain't the
firm I associate with grown up stuff and equals considering others equals; but
even broken clocks get it right twice a day. Still, the devil is in the
details. I'd rather have eternal vigilance and freedom than rounding a corner
here and there.

~~~
rayiner
> n that sense I agree with some regulation being needed to stop people
> infringing each other's freedom; but I strongly have to disagree with
> governance for the sake of governance. CHILDREN must be governed, not free
> men. Free men govern themselves. That is an important distinction, and
> anyone who shrugs it off is certainly my enemy.

This is silly non-sense rhetoric. Complex systems need organization. The more
complex, the more organization is required. It's something you see throughout
nature, at all scales. "Natural rights" and whatnot is just mumbo-jumbo with
no empirical basis.

~~~
thinkingisfun
You are mistaking organization with authority, and go on about strawmen, none
of which address a peep of what I said -- after accusing ME of non-sense
rhetoric? The nerve.

~~~
rayiner
"Children must be governed. Free men govern the selves." That's silly
rhetoric. The traits that cause children to require governance persist
throughout life. There is no magic biological distinction that allows the
latter to be autonomous when the former is not.

As for organization versus authority, the latter is a means of implementing
the former. So long as we are animals, and the only biological fact in play is
that we are indeed animals, authority with the threat of force will always be
necessary to organize us.

~~~
thinkingisfun
> "Children must be governed. Free men govern the selves." That's silly
> rhetoric. The traits that cause children to require governance persist
> throughout life. There is no magic biological distinction that allows the
> latter to be autonomous when the former is not.

Oh ffs. you really think I was talking about biological children? Or that
parents are always right, and children always wrong, just because those are
the roles? nah. I was just being brief. So congrats on making up a silly
strawman, and pointing out it's silly.

> "the latter is a means of implementing the former"

I disagree. Justified authority is a result of organization, not the other way
around.

> "So long as we are animals, and the only biological fact in play is that we
> are indeed animals, authority with the threat of force will always be
> necessary to organize us."

That's silly rhetoric ^^ Actually, only total sociopaths would _only_ react to
force.

And where did I say authority is automatically and always bad? I didn't, I
just made a distinction between two types of authority , which obviously went
over your head. Authority needs to always be questioned; justified authority
survives the questioning.

------
gdi2290
you gotta love that confirmation nod at the end of the interview

------
wseymour
Oh Woz, you're so confused. You want the Internet to stay unregulated, yet are
in favour of Net Neutrality?

~~~
guelo
The pipes themselves must not be regulated based on the content. In other
words, freedom for users, not necessarily for ISPs.

~~~
wseymour
What difference between end-users and ISPs means that one party may have
freedom but the other may not?

~~~
k-mcgrady
The difference is that we give ISP's the use of our countries spectrum.
Without that, they wouldn't have a business. So it's fair that we can prevent
them from screwing us through regulation.

~~~
danielweber
If we are talking wireless, then you might have a point, but you can always
lay more wire.

~~~
k-mcgrady
True but it's easier said than done. The huge cost involved in laying more
wire is a big barrier to entry. And I would guess there are limits to the
amount of cable that can be laid.

------
maeon3
Freedom is won with the barrel of a gun. You do not ask for rights, you get a
weapon, and you point it at your oppressor and say: Leave me alone Or I will
shoot you.

That is how freedom works, not with words. With actions.

~~~
vacri
Really? England banned slavery without having guns pointed at the government.
Women have achieved right to equal pay and privilege without threatening to
shoot men. Canada became fully independent from the UK by simply asking for
it. Stop being so macho.

