Aaron Swartz and the right of free access to information

Dave Scotese — The tragic death of Aaron Swartz made far less news in mainstream media than one would expect. The general belief about this activist is that he stood for making academic information available for free to all and that there should be no censorship on the internet. Green Heritage News asked me to discuss whether he was right and what role intellectual property plays in this analysis.

[caption id="attachment_17925" align="alignright" width="318"] Aaron Swartz[/caption]

I don't know the theory behind the position that academic research should be free to all because its cost is a "public expense". I have a hard time agreeing with this position simply because I recognize "public expense" is a euphemism for the proceeds of the institutionalized theft people call "taxation". However, for those who have no moral qualms about such theft, the claim they make (and which Aaron made, as far as I know) is very reasonable: The information produced from such expenditures belongs to the public and should therefore be available to the public for free. We bought it, so we own it, and anyone trying to prevent us from accessing it is behaving badly.

The tools and ease with which someone from the public accesses this information that he or she owns (along with everyone else) are a different story. Some may claim that JSTOR provided a valuable indexing service and ought to be compensated for it. I agree that a valuable indexing service provider should be compensated for its efforts, but when it has a monopoly on access to the information it indexes, the argument fails miserably. In the end, JSTOR finally did what Swartz urged them to all along (and what he did for them through stealth while they insisted on not doing it), perhaps in recognition that their position was immoral (blocking access until a member of the public PAID for information already owned by the public).

Free access to information is also intimately related to censorship on the internet, which is what Swartz is said to have stood against. We might ask what kind of censorship should be allowed on internet and what kind of information be protected as private.

Any kind of censorship should be allowed as long it is enforced without violating anyone's rights. Unfortunately, enforcing censorship without violating rights is nearly impossible. I censor myself without violence, as do most people, but when someone else (Swartz, Assange, The Tenth Amendment Center, FIJA, members of The Free State Project, etc.) is able to release information that someone (the government, a business like JSTOR or Monsanto, or a politician like Obama or Bush) has a reason to hide (profit motive, or perhaps fear of retaliation from the masses), "censorship" is just a euphemism for all kinds of violence, such as imprisonment (Assange, Manning), harassment (Swartz), fines, vengeful prosecution (Peter E. Hendrickson), and property confiscation.

On the point of hacking into computers and stealing academic information, it is important to recognize that as time goes by, what is legal and what is moral grow further and further apart. Schools teach students that following the law is the essence of the conscience. This has horrible effects. Since governments survive on the acquiescence of their victims, they learn early in life the clever Judo skill of using the enemy's efforts against him. Swartz may have realized that his situation was providing the government with fodder for its efforts to quell the modern trend toward agorism. In fact, as government regulation continues to increase in both breadth and depth, it becomes less important to fight it and more important to simply ignore it. Cuba is an excellent example of how black markets can fill in the holes created by rampant authoritarian control.

It is interesting that Swartz's case was called "United States vs Aaron Swartz." Was it really an entire nation against a sole citizen? In legal terms "The United States vs X" does not mean X has offended the entire nation. Often, the crime X has committed is a "victimless crime." When a government creates laws that criminalize behaviors that harm no one, then the cases it prosecutes to pass sentence on those who break such laws are described this way. So obviously, the description has little to do with the actual people of the nation and much more to do with the government itself.

But the biggest question in this case undoubtedly is whether Swartz died as a hero or a coward. Most people will not come to their own conclusion on the question of whether Swartz died a hero or a coward. Rather, they will allow others to make this decision for them. In an effort to forestall this tragic lack of self-worth and confidence in one’s own judgments, I'll provide arguments from both sides in order to drive my lazier readers to frustration with their own lack of effort, and to leave open the path to agreement with my more astute and resourceful readers regardless which side their judgment falls on.

On one hand, Swartz allegedly gave up in the midst of an important display of state depravity. Had Gandhi or John Lennon committed suicide because of the frustration they felt with the systems against which they were working, the world would be a far worse place. On the other hand, he may have been conveniently terminated through an apparent suicide in order to prevent some of his better arguments from becoming more widely known, or he may have determined that his personal existence had become a stumbling block for a movement that was more important to him than his own life.

As a voluntaryist, it is important to me to recognize the evil created and promulgated by the publicly acceptable coercive actions of government. Swartz's death highlights both the ugly effects of government interference and the extremes to which governments go in the direction of inhumanity. He was a hero before he died because of what he was fighting for, and one act of cowardice before his death, if that be what killed him, can't undo all the heroic things he accomplished.

 

About the Author

Dave Scotese is a software consultant, writer, founder of the literary community Litmocracy, and the webmaster for http://www.voluntaryist.com. 

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Gun control – the solution to civilian safety?

Dave Scotese — “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” These are the words of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The first ten amendments were added to the constitution as the “Bill of Rights” because too many founders believed that the government would otherwise violate these rights. They were recognized as rights, inherent to the people, rather than privileges which had to be granted by any kind of authority. The constitution itself suggested power that some of the founders felt would be abused.

The right to bear arms, enshrined in the second amendment, is used by many as an argument against gun control. They are providing sanction for the government's use of violence as long there's no document or rule or law prohibiting it. In this way, the Bill of Rights is a distracting solution to the problem caused by such social sanction of violence. The better solution is for those willing to break the law to do so whenever the law violates their rights, for juries to understand inherent rights and nullify laws that violate them, and for law enforcement to refrain from enforcing such law. The right of self-defense is universal, both for citizens of free states needing the security of militia, and for those who aren't. There is no good reason to respect laws dictating what tools we use to defend ourselves except to avoid the immoral enforcement of bad laws such as gun control.

Many people would like to see more gun control because they believe that James Holmes would have caused less damage if he had no access to guns, AND that he would not have had access to guns if there were more gun control laws. Both of these beliefs can be easily challenged. Google has 2.5 million hits for the phrase "homemade bomb". Would such a device have killed more than 12 people in the theater, or injured more than 58? Perhaps we should be glad he used a gun instead of something else.

The underlying problem is that people would like to eliminate violence completely. The only way to do that is for the world to end. The more realistic goal is to limit violence as much as possible, and for that, gun control is a worthless deterrent. Gun control reduces the perceived threat that every would-be shooting-spree nutcase faces, thus emboldening them to their foolery. It also reduces the actual protection that guns afford – both to those who own and know how to use them, and to others in the vicinity. When gun control is effective, the only people with guns are the most hardened and brazen criminals, and there's no one left to put them down.

There has been some speculation that James Holmes' behavior in the theater and again in court is the result of mental imbalance brought on by experiments such as MK Ultra. While this speculation provides low-hanging fruit to those pundits who play on the thoughtless dismissal of conspiracy theories, it cannot be written off. As reported in The Observer in 1994 by Elizabeth Nickson, the government ordered the destruction of its own records regarding the project, and even that was botched. Perhaps the real reason for Holmes' lunatic killing binge will never be known by the public. If such violence is the result of efforts to justify more gun control, let us help reason to prevail.

What if every human being, upon reaching puberty, gained the ability to kill by staring? You stare at someone and concentrate on ending them, and in a few seconds, they pass. This would certainly have shortened Mr. Holmes' spree, if he were still alive that fateful day in the first place. We already have the ability to injure one another once we weigh 100 pounds or so, but we don't generally bother doing it because we fear retaliation, for one thing; but also, we happen to enjoy peace. If everyone had a gun and knew how to use it, criminals would either shape up or ship out. Even if just a significant portion of the population was carrying at any given time, all violent criminals would have to develop some (at least superficial) moral integrity simply to protect their own physical integrity.

The demise of the self-guided student is a consequence of moderneducation

Dave Scotese — The compulsory public schooling system of educating children has been open to criticism for years. Delinquency, crime, and failure to develop intellectually are way too obvious companions of this system of education to call it satisfactory. Hence the question: what does our current schooling system make of a child?

Public school homogenizes students so that they are more alike. It pasteurizes them so that they lack all the elements that endanger an authority structure. It classifies them, generally into a failure track, a middle track, and an elite track. These tracks are more representative of pliability than actual ability, so that the least pliable students, regardless of their innate wits, motivation, and creativity, will get onto the failure track, hate school, and generally leave it to become "criminals”.  Often, these dropouts start off with pretty good morals, not generally violating other people until they recognize that their moral behavior doesn't benefit them when they get caught for victimless "crime" like possession or sale of marijuana.

The most pliable students will be molded into tomorrow's leaders, given perks (see my discussion of the Student Body Association here), and generally held up as a good example for others to follow. The middle track is for those not extreme enough to be useful in the sick game. While this is a very cynical description of what our public school system has turned into, it is a natural result of the goals handed down to local school boards by intelligent men who wished to control society.  In her book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, Charlotte Thompson Iserbyt chronicles the development of this horror.

The important question many have been debating in various forums is that of the biggest problem with this kind of education system. The answer, to be concise, is the degradation of the natural human tendency to explore and learn. A close second is the degradation of relationships within a family. Many students see their parents less than they see the teachers at their school. That is one reason why an increasing number of people are now opting for homeschooling. Homeschooling is a better option, though it maintains the paradigm that human beings learn best when they are taught. On the contrary, human beings learn better when they are not taught, until and unless they explicitly request a lesson in something, as children do when they respond to every answer with "Why?"  In his many books, John Holt has explained these characteristics of the learning human being.

All kinds of schooling tend to replace the innate motivation to learn with an expectation of being spoon-fed knowledge and the rebellion that naturally follows being forced to go at a speed and in a direction other than one's own. Spoon-feeding results in weaker jaws and poor coordination. It also atrophies the learner's innate tendency to seek the knowledge that will most improve his life, or, to extend the analogy, it atrophies the tendency to choose the foods that contain the most needed nutrients.

Now imagine a situation where a child’s parents or guardians decide not to educate their kid via formal schooling but train them in a profession while allowing them general knowledge and essentials of social life and interaction in society. A child in that situation is blessed with a foundation for knowledge. Whatever the profession, it exists because other people are willing to work in order to be served by that profession. This is generally the reason parents train their child to help – to maximize their value to their community. This is a solid foundation. Parents in America have been taught to delay the maturation of their children. Suze Orman has explained the dangers of an allowance that requires nothing but the normal responsibilities of living. They should be watching their parents undertake enjoyable work, earn from it, and then enjoy the rewards, and thus be inspired to identify and pursue their own enjoyable work.

This begs for an alternative policy to this compulsory schooling which is sorting humans into strata that produce class struggle and unfulfilled lives. Rather than have a policy in order to control the education of children, however, it would be best for society to respect parents and expect and trust them to raise their own children. Certainly, there will be bad parents who fail in this responsibility. Whether or not school does any good in such cases is very questionable. Such a large portion of society spends several hours a day with the children and the parents separated from each other that there's no way to determine how much stronger family bonds would be if they were left intact through the school years. Upon reflection, most people realize that a lot of their youth was spent struggling either in cooperation or rebellion with school instead of bonding with friends and family. What have we missed? We have no way of knowing.

What does it mean to be a Voluntaryist?

Dave Scotese — Voluntaryism is a purposeful misspelling of volunteerism or voluntarism (take your pick) because it is not founded on providing services for free. Instead, it's founded on the non-aggression principle. More precisely, it's founded on the idea of never threatening to violate another person's rights. That makes it sound very common, and I believe it is, but threats of right-violation can be hidden. For example a tax is a state demand for property, and if it weren't backed by the threat of violation of property (seizure) or movement (incarceration), then it wouldn't be a tax. Sadly, most people accept taxation while also remaining largely voluntaryist otherwise. I believe this duplicity has been a core reason for human suffering for many centuries.

I like to provide some work for free to new clients and allow them to encourage me to work more by paying me. If they don't like my work, they don't pay, and I don't work for them any more. This way, there's no contract. My view of contract itself has changed too because to me a contract is merely a written specification of an otherwise joint agreement, intended to nail down details that might otherwise be forgotten. I would never rely on a contract in court, but rather, if I have kept up my end of a deal but the other guy hasn't, that's my fault for trusting someone who is untrustworthy. If you read "Woe Unto You Lawyers" by Fred Rodell, you'll see that both myself and my clients are protected from the legal profession through this strategy.

About 20 years ago, my friend Brian Gladish suggested that when we vote, we are attempting to control the ways in which we can violate each other. One guy says we can take more money from everyone and spread it around to the less fortunate. Another guy says we can take more money from everyone and use it to spread Democracy. After thinking about it, I realized what he meant. Both of these guys want it to be OK to raise taxes and spend them on various presumably good efforts. But taxation, as described above, is stealing. Voting is generally just an attempt to control what we do with our plunder, which is managed by the state. He asked if I had read Atlas Shrugged and I said yes. He said that explained some of the advanced understanding I seemed to have.

A couple years before I met Brian, I noticed that the Internet was connecting people, which presented a tremendous opportunity for cooperation. The problem is information overload. I wanted to find or build a website that would allow the readers to increase or decrease the likelihood that other readers would see a piece of writing. That way, information that was useless would only have to be seen by a few people before it got filtered out. My friend Jeff Hardy said "Like slashdot?" I'd never heard of slashdot, so I checked it out. One of the posts I found there mentioned Condorcet Voting, so I checked it out. It is one of the best mechanisms for finding consensus, but it isn't used much. Brian and I shared an office, so I mentioned Condorcet Voting to him one day, and that led to his point about taxes.

I built my website, litmocracy.com, based on this voting method, used to accomplish my goal of filtering out the less appealing writing submissions. What it has taught me is highly instructive: When the Condorcet Method is used by a large group of people, the group naturally separates itself into multiple pieces, each with its own set of values. For example, women tend to like one kind of writing better than another, whereas men like the other. Democrats and Republicans do the same thing, and so does subject matter: funny, about food, about animals, philosophical, etc.; each has its set of followers. In terms of picking someone to rule you, the lesson is this: Every person who wishes to be ruled should choose his or her own ruler. No ruler should be imposed on someone who doesn't want that ruler to rule them.

The non-aggression principle is more important than filtering out low quality information, so when I think about what the Condorcet Method taught me through my website, I conclude that we don't need rulers - we need leaders. My friend Don Eminizer said I am one, but I don't have enough exposure. Another friend, Ernest Dempsey, said my writing is good and wanted to use it on a site he works with. Voluntaryism rejects electoral politics and so do I, but Ron Paul is a great leader and educator, and if you're going to keep trying to force me to obey rules invented by politicians, then I urge you to choose someone like Ron Paul (or Gary Johnson) to be the president. Just remember that you are supporting what Bastiat explained: "The state is that great fiction by which everyone attempts to live at the expense of everyone else." It is a tool of oppression and the more people stop using it and instead defend themselves and others from it, the better. And that means being a Voluntaryist.

Rite of Passage – Dave Scotese weighs power of pen against sword

Ernest Dempsey — Dave Scotese, founder of the online literary community Litmocracy, is a brain at work – whether online or offline. Dave is a software consultant whose interest borders on the language of advanced gadgets, philosophical matters, and the human situation in the broader context. Above all, Dave is a critic gifted with the faculty of looking beyond the obvious. No wonder then that a question I recently happened to ask him led us into talking about power and subordination. Dave pointed to Tolkien’s popular fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings in which the bearer of the ring is influenced by its immense power, compelling him to venture into dangerous situations. What parallels we find in our lives with the motifs of slavery, possession, and power are the central element of the following discussion with Dave Scotese.

Ernest: Dave, let’s get directly to “power”. What does it mean to you and how do you relate it to “authority”?

Dave: Power, to me, is the ability to intentionally cause change. Of course, there are uses of the word that attribute it to things that can’t have intention (powerful cars, powerful lights, etc.), but I’m assuming that you mean powerful human beings. So how does the ability to intentionally cause change relate to “authority”? Authority is two-faced. On one hand, the marriage of openness and intellect can make a human being into an authority on whatever subject the human wishes. I am an authority on the computer systems of my largest client. On the other hand, the marriage of secrecy and coercion can make a human being into an authority over other human beings. My father explained a distinction he’d heard from someone that this second kind of authority is “official” whereas the first is not. There is no office that recognizes the authority of an expert whose openness and intellect put him in the position he holds. Without an office to legitimize the use of coercion, however, the other kind of authority cannot exist.  How does the ability to intentionally cause change relate to these two versions of authority? Both kinds are effective at enhancing a human being’s power, but one leads to war and the other to peace. Since I believe that the pen is mightier than the sword, it follows that over time, we move closer to peace.

Ernest: What determines whether a relationship—particularly between humans—is one of “master” and “slave”?


Dave: There are many factors that contribute to the division of people into slave/master relationships and the, unfortunately, small minority who refuse the game. At the top of my list are the conditions under which one is raised. While good parents will help turn their children into creatures who will always struggle against slavery, “effective schools” can turn them into creatures who offer up their liberty for security. When such creatures have their own children to raise, the parental efforts to raise free people are much weaker and it takes a loud minority to remind them that individuals do not own each other, and that happiness flows from choice.

The Rite of Passage seems to me to be a point in the life of a child where they are to choose the mindset: Am I to remain a slave to whatever force I think can care for me, or become my own responsible party? I am an example of a creature who will always struggle against slavery, because I saw that choice after I finished college and took the second route. I have enough faith in myself to take the red pill, so I did. I was once an employee; but, since I wasn’t playing that master/slave game, I quit when I didn’t like the conditions. The same group of people still uses my services, but I have to please them, and they have to please me in return in order for us to continue our relationship. Many people with jobs have replaced their parents with their employer, or their government. They have chosen the blue pill, perhaps because their childhood drained them of faith in themselves. I think most people can see that happen a lot in schools.

Ernest: Let’s take the point a little deeper here. Do you see close similarity between the way a computer is programmed and how a child is led into, or away from, a particular way of living?


Dave: Certainly there is a similarity, but it’s quite shallow. The intent of the programmer is met to whatever degree the programmer follows the deterministic workings of the machine. The programmer aims to arrange the computer to exhibit certain behaviors. Likewise, a teacher or parent aims to arrange a child to exhibit certain behaviors – at least the poor ones do – but the crucial distinction is the will of the child.  Computers have no will, but children do. The better approach for teachers and parents is to guide that will in achieving whatever goals it sets for itself.

Ernest: How have religions—and I mean organized, institutionalized religions like Christianity, Islam, etc—used and still use the average human through  authoritarianism and dominance?

Dave: Your question makes an assumption with which I strongly agree, but which many people will find offensive. The trick here is to help them see freedom in the words of the prophet Jeremiah, who wrote “the law of God is written on the hearts of men.” It’s actually right there in the book of Genesis too – to eat of the Tree of Knowledge is to claim for oneself a knowledge of Good and Evil. To avoid making a claim for yourself on such knowledge is to discard the gift of self-determination. This is what most religions unfortunately encourage by providing earthly authorities and books (books “authored” by God himself, according to… the books themselves…?) to interpret and explain “the law of God”. While religions attempt to make people better at living together in peace, the individual people need to cross that Rite of Passage: if you think a behavior will do more harm than good, but it is “evil” according to your religion, which will you follow, your reason, or your religion? Which does your religion tell you to follow? Don Eminizer interpreted Nietzsche as explaining it thus: Religion tends to replace the self with a godhead.

Ernest: Now from a political angle. In our contemporary, mainly democratic world, we choose our own leaders—at least it appears so—and determine our own laws. Are we “free” in this sense, like living in “self-rule”?


Dave: What the voters of democratic states choose are not leaders, but rulers. Choosing your master does not make you free. It makes slavery more palatable. If that is what we are doing, and many of us appear to be doing that, then it doesn’t make us free. “We” is not a conscious being, capable of intent, freedom, or “self-rule”. Individuals are required for that. Speaking of individuals and government, Bill Thornton (of 1215.org, an homage to the Magna Charta) explains that a plaintiff is someone who holds a court. A court is a place where the sovereign (aka plaintiff) explains his own laws and then proceeds to publish evidence (to those attending court – a jury nowadays) that a defendant has violated those laws. The jury then decides, primarily whether the laws are just and reasonable; and, if they are, whether or not the defendant violated them and therefore deserves to be coerced into making restitution. If we ran things that way, then we could choose leaders (who can offer guidelines, but not enforce rules), but we wouldn’t need elections (your leader doesn’t have to be my leader), and we’d still be sovereigns, able to determine our own (individual) laws, and be free. Some of us already do that, and we recognize the state as a criminal violating our laws, but we have no court because there aren’t enough of us. However, our number grows: Check out The Dollar Vigilante (http://www.dollarvigilante.com/), the Free State Project (http://freestateproject.org/), the Fully Informed Jury Association (http://fija.org/).

Ernest: In general, does contemporary education system—like that in America—serve to enable a child to grow into a truly independent person?


Dave: In general, nowadays, as I mentioned above, it tends to postpone or even suppress the Rite of Passage, leading to the slave/master mentality. However, for those with strong wills, either inborn or developed by wisely challenging parents (as I like to think of myself), school indoctrination can provide a child with opportunities for real learning about the mechanisms of the parasite (another term for “master”), as well as a bit of useful real-world knowledge. This, however, requires constant vigilance on the part of parents and students, lest they be sucked into the trap. For example, Student Body Associations (SBAs) are political organizations that students can apply for and possibly be accepted into, and then enjoy privileges that are available not through the efforts of the SBA, but through the efforts of those who support the educational institution (usually “tax slaves”). By providing the kids with benefits, this leads them to believe that such political arrangements are good. By letting them share in the perks of the master for a while, the slavery system buys their loyalty.

Ernest: Like the ring’s power in The Lord of the Rings, is the human fascination with power or mastery a burden that makes life difficult for some segment of our population on this planet?


Dave: I suppose it does, but a warm sun likewise comes as a burden to the vacationer who has finished off his soda. It dehydrates him and will eventually kill him if he doesn’t get another drink. If he does get another drink, the warm sun can be converted back into the pleasant life-giver it was in the first place. Likewise, the fascination with power is not the essence of the burden. The essence of the burden is an unwillingness to endure that Rite of Passage through which children become adults. The Ring encourages this unwillingness, either through coercion or the sharing of the master’s benefits, and so freer people, whose freedom, by the way, makes them far more prosperous, suffer from hordes of slaves/zombies who, rather than thinking for themselves (fruit of the Tree), follow orders blindly. The Power of the Ring is “evil”, but either Frodo or Smeagol could have tossed it into the lava before it took them over. Instead, they fought like children. Every individual has the power to enslave weak-minded people, and any concentration of such power (a state, the Ring) will attract those who wish to use it. Wars are fought in earnest for the tribute of the citizens (tax slaves) in the conquered territory. When there are no such citizens, there will be no point to (earnest) war. Dishonest war, on the other hand, encouraged by the sellers of arms, might still be waged. Better people discard the wish to use concentrations of political power because they recognize the much higher value of people who will always struggle against slavery.

Ernest: So can you think of some forms of power that are essentially constructive – that don’t cause people to compromise their freedom?


Dave: The pen, as an open expression of intellect. That better kind of authority leads to “essentially constructive” power. For example, Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet called Common Sense, which argued that the American colonies would be better off without Great Britain as a (parasitic) protector. His power came from his healthy understanding of things and his ability to write. Words themselves. Socrates, to my knowledge, never actually used a pen. He asked a lot of questions, and because his questions penetrated, he is regarded as an authority in philosophy. The names and ideas of the people who forced him to drink poison are all but forgotten, but the “Socratic Method” is still widely used to… free people’s minds. The essentially constructive forms of power don’t just avoid causing people to compromise their freedom, they actually encourage people to defend and strengthen their freedom. This power is based on the mind and its ability to reason, rather than the body and its ability to suffer.

Ernest: And my last question here: as I have read and experienced personally, in the state of creative imagination, we attain freedom—or at least have the illusion that we do. How do you respond to this view?


Dave: Watch the movie Brazil and pay attention to what the protagonist experiences at the end of the movie. His is the pinnacle of freedom. When you reach that place, you no longer have anything desirable to the parasites. When there’s no one left for it to live off, it will die. I can’t wait!

Ernest: Thank you Dave! It’s always a pleasure to discuss questions with you. Hope to have another discussion soon with another topic of human interest.


Dave: Thank you Ernest!  I enjoyed your questions.