Animal Rights are a Reflection of a Society’s health
A society is not measured by what it does best, but by what it does worst. The way we treat the sick, the poor, the innocent and the animals is the true measure of our advancement as a species.
Sign a petition for the recognition of animal rights.
http://www.wspaanimalsmatter.org/ca/?action=signup
Published on October 15, 2007Anarchy Today
Building on the debate in the previous post. Chomsky’s dream of a “free” society is actually emerging via the internet. Just read the book Wikinomics in which the authors argue that mass collaboration is the way of the future. Some of that collaboration is free and other is paid. The point is that people are being liberated from their life commitment to a company.
With increased education, increased access to information and amazing communication tools – the socialist anarchy that Chomsky’s dream is coming true. It will take a few more years to see what really happens, but the trend towards open-source is growing exponentially.
Also, the self-regulating online communities (second life, wikipedia, linux…) are proving that humans do have an ingrained idea of right and wrong. They do not need to be taught by institutions what to do – contrary to Foucault’s assertion that the judicial system is a class control mechanism.
We have a natural desire to learn and work.
Published on August 29, 2007Another Thought on Open-Source
Is regular society a form of knowledge sharing? The difference between general society and open-source is the ease with which you can obtain information.
If we break down Leadbeater‘s assertions on the essential components of successful open-source software we can draw the following parallels:
- Ease of access to information = schools, universities, libraries…
- Central network to create links = rule of law, courts
- Ability to test theories and be accepted by the community = capitalism, supply & demand…
Though we may not realize it, we are all indirectly contributing to the forward movement of society. Ultimately it is not a zero-sum game, meaning that regardless of appearances we are actually making progress.
Even apparent steps backwards – war, genocide, famine – are actually contributing to the forward movement because we learn from our mistakes and better our behaviour (usually).
The access to telephone service is a fundamental factor to economic growth and thus the improvement of society. One of the driving forces behind Africa’s improvement (yes, they are improving) is the cellular telephone. Here we see the number of telephones per 1000 people in relation to Income per capita. There is a very strong trend of increasing GDP per capita with more access to information and communication (telephones). Not the other way around – more telephones with more GDP.
Internet Users with relation to Life expectancy. We see the tremendous growth in access to internet – perhaps the best tool for information transmition – between 1990 and 2004. In the similar vein to telephones, internet is tied to GDP and to other forward movements – democracy, life expectancy, low child mortality…
Everything is connected.