more on Looking for Benkler opponent

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Seth Finkelstein <sethf () sethf com>
Date: January 28, 2007 11:42:29 AM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>, ip () v2 listbox com
Cc: "David S. Isenberg (Netidentity)" <isen () isen com>, ncarr () mac com
Subject: Re: [IP] Looking for Benkler opponent

[For IP, if worthy]
> David S. Isenberg
> Date: January 28, 2007 10:14:14 AM EST
> Benkler's hypothesis, in a few words, is that lowering the capital
> requirements of information production (1) reduces the value ...
> (2) encourages a wider range of motivations ...
> (3) allows large-scale, cooperative information production ...

        I'd suggest looking more towards enlightened skeptics than
"conservative thinkers". Someone like, e.g. Clay Shirky, who wrote a
popular piece on the theme of "Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality"
http://shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html , and has been
active in debunking the hype over "Second Life"
http://valleywag.com/tech/second-life/a-debunking-in-five- 
acts-224499.php

        Or Nick Carr, see this piece against blog-evangelism
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/08/the_great_unrea.php

        Looking to "conservative thinkers" may yield someone doing a
riff about how standards are degenerating and the world is going to
hell in a handbasket due to the uncultured barbarians. Which I suspect
will be the equivalent of "taking a dive" for the type of audience at
Freedom-To-Connect.

        The key issue running throughout the book is the implication
those information production changes have for liberal democracy. To
oversimplify for brevity, this is the old cyber-utopian argument
come round again (oldtimers may remember the days when strong
cryptography was going to create libertarian techno-anarchy, as
money moved to reputation-capital-driven data-havens, destroying
government's ability to collect taxes - how's that working out?)

        Some discussions:
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003368.shtml
http://crookedtimber.org/category/benkler-seminar/

--
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer   http://sethf.com
Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php


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