digital file sharing […] has had MASSIVE benefits in information sharing and accessibility of some information […] but has also prompted artificial scarcity

You mean artificial scarcity of those resources by, for example, companies charging access fees, as is the case with scientific journals?

I think that problem is still inherently a cause of scarcity. File sharing is cheap enough that it doesn’t have to be scarce, but companies want money, and they’ve figured out a way to make those resources artificially scarce. But if food and shelter and whole bunch of other stuff wasn’t scarce, companies wouldn’t even need to exist. Why work if all resources are readily available for free?

Do note that I’m talking about some Startrek-esque future utopia with basically unlimited availability of electric power, natural resources and automation. Maybe we’ll get that far as a species someday, but for now I guess there’s plenty of scarcity to go around. Pun intended. ;-)

Just going to reply to myself after giving it a little bit more thought…

The problem is scarcity. There aren’t enough resources to go around for everybody, so we have conflict with each other over those resources. If we could use technology to increase the amount of resources available such that there is no more scarcity, we wouldn’t need conflict anymore, and as a consequence there would be no point to having power, and no need for governments.

The big question is: is there a limit to technology which will prevent us from getting enough resources? We’re already using up this planet’s resources and soon we’ll start using the resources of our solar system. Mankind will simply expand to fill this new abundance of resources, because procreation is our nature. Resources will start getting scarce again, meaning we’ll have to venture out into our galaxy. But can we even do so, technologically speaking? The speed of light is finite, so the very laws of nature may mean a never ending scarcity of resources available to us.

That’s gonna be a tough one, and probably a world which you wouldn’t want to live in.

People are inherently selfish. It’s in our genes. We’re constantly in conflict with all other people over resources which will allow us to procreate. In order to get those resources, we need power over other people. It’s basically impossible to equally divide power amongst all people.

There will always be a small inequality, where some have a little bit more power than others. That small inequality will quickly grow, making a handful of people by far the most powerful. Over the history of mankind, we’ve seen that happen time and time again. Empires conquering Europe, landlords, slavery, modern capitalism, etc. There’s no escaping it.

So what we need is a system of checks and balances for those with the most power. Government is an integral part of that. It has the power to fight against the (selfish) interests of industry, hyper-wealthy individuals, other countries, etc. Naturally, government’s power must also have checks and balances, which is why, amongst other things, we have democracy: the power of the people to choose their government and to keep their power in check.

None of it is ideal, none is without flaws. Sure, sometimes governments will use their power to enact things that are against my personal best interests, but that’s the whole point: I’m selfish and so is everybody else, so government will always need to find a balance between everybody’s interests.

Technology can aid us in keeping those checks and balances. It can increase our privacy and help with communication. This is why we have to be so careful of letting a single power dictate how we use technology. But in the end, technology is just a tool; it can be used for good and evil. It’s not a solution for anything, merely an aid to make us more effective and efficient.

In short: there will always be rulers, it’s just the nature of things. We need to keep the rulers in check. One way we do that is with governments. A tool to aid us in doing so can be technology.

FOSS, but I think their principles can be taken to other aspects of life too.

Absolutely. FOSS is about freedom first, software second if you ask me. Lots of people that identify with FOSS values also strongly identify with freedom values in other places. I mean, there’s a reason why so many people in FOSS are also star-trek fans ;-)

I want to try to limit the amount of money i spend to big corporations

I personally have no problem giving my money to big corporations, as long as they act fairly. Obviously, that’s diametrically opposed to the goal of big corporations: to make as much money as possible. But it doesn’t have to be. This goal is mostly due to being a publicly traded company with share holders. As such, I find our current financial market … disgusting.

Now im thinking of avoiding chain stores for food

There are plenty of chains that aren’t big evil faceless corporations who’s only goal is to squeeze every last cent out of us. Where I live there are a bunch of consumer co-operative franchises from supermarkets to banks, insurance, etc.

I still prefer small independant shops or local farmers, if only because it fosters competition. But if I need a mortgage or a place to stash my life savings, I’d like it to be a more stable (read: large) organization.

Hope youre having a nice day :)

Thanks, you too!

UDP joke:

Hi, I'd like to hear an UDP joke!
...
Hi, I'd like to hear an UDP joke!
...
Hi, I'd like to hear an UDP joke!

I looked into your claims a little bit because I’m one of those people who doesn’t believe everything anybody says in the internet.

So the claim here is that Emmanuel TV (some christian television network), that broadcasts on DSTV, is homophobic or whatever. While I can’t find any other evidence of this, I’ll just assume this is true.

The link between Emmanual TV and Irdeto appears to be that Irdeto is owned by MultiChoice (although other sources claim it’s owned by Naspers), and that MultiChoice also ownes DSTV, which broadcasts Emmanual TV.

So they’re not directly linked and it seems that Irdeto has basically nothing to do with Emmanual TV other than that some grandparent company owns both.

All this sounds like conspiricy thinking to me. I’m not even going to further investigate any of the other claims, as I value my time too much.