Prompted by “The Perfect Storm in Digital Law”: http://alistapart.com/article/the-perfect-storm-in-digital-law
National Internet borders are coming, at least based upon common sense — and that’s obviously not a good thing, because it defies convenient international organization of the masses to form a dominating force against abusive governance.
Some nations already stifle international communications ‘to protect the children’, so have already set up their national digital borders.
The prompting article targets web designers and developers, and accuses them (us — I’m one of them) of failing to organize into a political force representing our interests on the matter, but this post extends to target anyone — because the court of public opinion internationally is far more important to address and protect firmly now.
If you want a rather tough read involving torturously complex government navigation, then read the prompting piece.
Here’s some conveniently readable highlights for you intertwined with my (preferably fully) logical expressions.
In a matter of months we have seen “experts,” courts, and politicians suggest that website administrators should get rid of comments, social sharing, analytics, links, and shopping carts, all as a means of coming into compliance with European legislation. Even pro-European developers are at their wits’ end dealing with the deluge of uninformed advice about how their websites are apparently supposed to work.
The response of web professionals outside the European Union to 2015’s legal developments has been, quite understandably, “Well, I’m not in the EU, so these laws don’t apply to me, right?” To their surprise, legislators have been clear in their expectation that any website in the world accessed by any European citizen must comply with European digital laws. In response, developers worldwide have had to invest countless unpaid hours and resources into understanding their compliance obligations, despite much of the guidance being incorrect, outdated, or even incomplete.
Given the severity of the complexities of the international collection of relevant laws for which no small business with a website could possibly manage properly, counter judicial protections (e.g. ones requiring a national Internet border, so websites can only be accessed nationally by default) will be the most “sensible” solution.
Any website owner then wanting to reach out internationally will have to do so carefully via a system similar to physical business expansion. How many small businesses physically expand internationally? I can’t think of one offhand. Chalk up a serious benefit for oligarchical strengthening (masses continue to be traditionally damned to support that strength).
There doesn’t need to be a web builders’ lobby in this case, because the small business lobby will press hard upon finding wisdom, but I digress a bit here.
Some digital laws do indeed make the web a better place…
Name one. The prompting author doesn’t, and I cannot think of one good digital law. They’re all presented as publicly good, but scrutiny finds only questionable (if not outright selfish) oligarchical power grab ‘to protect the children’.
Of course, no one is saying that the makers of the web should be exempt from compliance with digital laws, helpful or otherwise.
I’m saying that. Humanity isn’t going to succeed, if small “players” online are destroyed by law (i.e. the inability to stay legal online).
Only large (i.e. oligarchical) players have the leverage to manage complex lawful compliance, and they’ll even have the serious power to influence judicial “progress”.
Enter oligarchical warfare on the Internet (international) battlefield, and the inevitably accompanying severe digital distortions forming rampant lies and other abuses.
War obviously has a horribly destructive impact, and that logically includes informational and (usually highly politicized) judicial warfare.
The war of personal agendas apparently largely without public safety care is complexly and stylistically unpredictably ripping society apart (a globally monstrous unhealthy stress signature and its consequent mass suffering).
Way too many people continue to “bury their heads in the sand” to be safe, but oligarchical players don’t need to reach your head, when an inviting ass is exposed to their sadistic smile and other ‘phallic devices’.
Indeed, greater legal understanding is desperately needed within our industry. The problem is that these obligations are not only global, but carry frightening levels of legal liability. In a single day, a developer may have to code in compliance with European privacy law, Japanese VAT, and Spain’s “Google Tax.”… Add those obligations to the fact that some digital laws directly conflict with each other—at times, within a single web page—and what results is having to make a personal judgment on which laws to break and which laws to comply with.
An added complication in digital law is the glacial process of internet regulation. Laws governing code can take six, eight, or even ten years to travel from proposal to implementation. Web development works a bit faster than that.
Judicial complexity is judicial strangulation and communicative stagnation. Laws are supposed to protect society, but reality delivers the harshest truth via many conflict of interests only ultimately directly rewarding oligarchical players.
The severe discrepancy between the speeds of technological and judicial development form a serious “red flag” for society — one being flatly ignored at severe societal risk.
Wildly subjectively defined law (which is the only form of law anywhere in the world throughout history) is deeply conflicting with the success of objective progress.
The only rational answer to change that reckless outcome merely presented as responsible is updating language itself to include more certainties against misunderstanding and dangerous vagueness, and solely relying upon those objective constructs to shape legitimate law.
That naturally fits with the fact that objectivity is required for fairness, and fairness is required for justice by definition.
Government legislation must be thorough, deliberate, and measured.
Don’t be delusional. Name me one legislative result sanely concluded as thorough, deliberate, and measured. Wildly subjectively defined law via a complex ‘king of the hill’ mentality is tumultuous. Civilized governance remains an oxymoron under these globally harsh circumstances, and especially traditional leftists (e.g. the prompting author) need to abandon their outrageous denial on this critical front.
When an industry working at light speed meets a political process working at committee speed, what results is a surreal state of play where professionals are required to comply with digital regulations that are already outdated by the time they become law.
Society must become immediately aware that the scientific method must be brought into law. There’s no logical way around that fact, and no logical reason to deny it. Humanity is at a massive crossroads, and stupidity born from easy manipulation floods the global populace into serious denial.
Logically speaking, that stupidity is a death sentence for our species.
Fear leading to appeasement only leads to civilized failure.
We cannot expect governments to deviate from the consultative model that works for every other industry in the world to accommodate our personality quirks. Whether we like it or not, we have to start playing their game by their rules.
Their “game” (having seriously powerful impact upon all of our lives reaching into posterity) should be to protect the public, and the public should obviously put a firm stop to the contrary.
Their rules should be formed only by those obligated to “play” by those rules.
Basically repeating for emphasis, bending over for selfish government insanity is obviously unwise, but that’s clearly dominantly society’s ‘bury heads in sand’ approach to the logical detriment of us all.
The Internet should be its own international zone beyond the reach of any government.
It basically started off that way, because governments were helpless to deal with the unprecedented nature of this rapidly progressing and global phenomenon — one demonstrating the one fact that all oligarchies never want the masses to understand, which is the sufficiently organized masses are by far the most powerful human force capable of crushing any government and private sector force.
The only exception is domain name governance (and such), which simply ensures the Internet basically functions internationally.
Only governments demanding the power to unethically limit free speech (because freely expressed logic would quickly crush their illegitimate power hold in part or whole) want to nationalize Internet reach offensively.
The public at large bends over willingly, because that’s historically what the public at large does. Have I basically stated that fact enough yet? Ending that bending only sensibly suffices to stop that repetition.
This, then, is the perfect storm over our heads. The foundations on which we have built the web are being torn apart; the international matrix of compliance obligations grows more complex by the month; those who speak up are being attacked; and our everyday tools have become political footballs.
What can we do about it? In order to weather the storm, we must move past our tribal mentality and literally professionalize. We must redefine our craft as a profession, and that means acting like one: having organizations, industry bodies, and political representation.
The prompting author speaks of web builders’ political organization.
I speak of Liberty Shield — the scientific constitutional force internationally flexibly defending liberty itself from oligarchical pressures against society and ironically themselves when understanding that defeat is ultimately mutual (according to the best application of mainstream science), so defeat wisely, because dominance is never free.
Liberty Shield could be internationally and deeply powerful, simply by everyone caring about liberty (logically everyone) investing just $1 yearly into our ‘conflict of interest free’ (due to purely strictest adherence to the scientific method) organization, so producing enormous financial power to work against judicial warfare nationalizing Internet borders and much more on behalf of humanity’s survival and “thrival”.
Even politicized “science” (i.e. at best “scientific” suggestions leveraged as affirmations for political advancement) is flatly rejected by Liberty Shield. That includes the ironically unscientific notion of a scientific consensus being adequate for that advancement. Strictest application of the scientific method can only ever mean 100% scientific consensus.
I don’t ultimately govern Liberty Shield, because the responsibly flexible framework is logically much larger than yours truly. The only Liberty Shield rule is strictest application of the scientific method to define harm (so liberty). Everything aside from that rule (including cultural styling and language) is up to you.
Money received by Liberty Shield goes into the fundamental administration of the framework, public awareness raising efforts, lawful presses to ensure Liberty Shield (including any relevant trademark) is lawfully ever owned by the public domain, technological advances of communication for public safety (including maximally private social networking), and anything else reinforcing the defense of civilized liberty for us all.
As my posts on the matter remain largely ignored, I wonder what grounds form that rejection. This is obviously a terribly critical issue affecting us all, so I deeply appreciate anyone constructively dropping a comment on the matter for genuine advancement.
Your support is appreciated and necessary, so why the silence and/or dismissal?
Cat got your tongue?
I am an honest freak (or reasonably responsibly balanced "misfit", if you prefer) of an artist working and resting to best carefully contribute towards helping society. Too many people abuse reasoning (e.g. 'partial truth = whole truth' scam), while I exercise reason to explore and express whole truth without any conflict-of-interest -- all within a sometimes offbeat style of psychedelic artistry.
Spirit Wave Journal 
Leave a Reply