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Television is melting

By David "Lobser", on September 16th, 2012

Eben Moglen’s speech – innovation under austerity – is a stern warning to remain vigilant in the face of centralized control over technology, education, and the internet.  He suggests a roadmap for intellectual and financial indepence through disintermediation of technology and education.  Said briefly, Eben is pro wikipedia, pro maker geekery, pro hacking, pro privacy, pro edX and anti Facebook (created by “a little thug in a hooded sweatshirt”), anti surveillance, anti middle man, anti stifling IP laws.
His argument stems from a desire to see a robust, creative and innovative society capable of facing down the challenges looming ahead.  Totalitarianism and social control are his boogeymen – but the argument extends easily to environmental calamities.  A society of mindless consumers won’t have the capcity to innovate and will acquiesce too easily to groups bent on control for the purpose of accumulating personal power.
While the internet is an incredibly open and democratic tool, Eben warns that the technology that have made the internet so powerful can also be used to control it and the individuals that use it.  He is a strong proponent of anonymity and decentralization.
Eben states, “innovation comes from the simple process of letting the kids play and getting out of the way”.  We are in this scene at a critical moment in the history of technological development and there are titanic battles to wage and a world to save.  We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of dreams.

September 16th, 2012 | Category: Innovation under Austerity

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