Let’s talk about open-source software. I expect it’s a common topic in your circles.
No? OK, let’s talk about how we can make the world, or our community, or even our household a better place. Oddly, it’s the same conversation as that obscure software thing.
Sheep are not like ideas.
The cultural commons,
particularly software,
doesn’t get used up
when more people contribute to it.
In fact, it gets better.
– Seth Godin
Seth’s launching point was the tragedy of the commons, a phenomenon where it seems to make sense at the individual level to use more than our fair share of a common, unpriced resource. If lots of folks do it–or even if a few people do it excessively–the commons can be ruined. Then he contrasts the physical commons with the cultural commons.
Sheep are not like ideas.
Seth states–and I have no reason to doubt him–that open-source software is the backbone of the internet. Open-source means that people publish their code for others to use for free. The implicit deal is that the user will add to or improve the initial code or both. But, as always, openness leads some to take advantage: in Seth’s words, “to take without contributing.”
It’s a fair general point, innit? Just as I opened my eyes one day to find a useful internet developed and sustained by others, so do I open my eyes every day to find a useful society developed and sustained by others. My skills don’t lend themselves to improving the open-source software underlying the internet, but maybe I can help to improve society’s “open-source software”: the ideas underlying how we live together.
The bad news is that I can’t contribute more than I take. My whole life depends on the cultural structure that generations before me have built: actual laws, accepted conventions of behaviour, ways of doing things, habits of thought. What could I possibly contribute that would even repay that debt, much less put me ahead of the game?
The good news is that I don’t have to achieve that standard. Ideas are not like sheep: They don’t use up the field they’re on. Although the ideas needed by the world may be beyond me, the ideas needed by my community and household seem a little more straightforward: clear thinking, informed discourse, respectful disagreement, generosity of spirit, general helpfulness. Those should be within my capacity, at least occasionally. On a good day.
I can’t contribute more than I take, but I can contribute something. So can we all.
Actually, there is a way that we can contribute to open source software by sending donations to Mozilla or to some other organization that supports the “free Internet.” You can also sign up for their products, in Mozilla’s case, the Firefox browser.
When you itemize values that contribute to intellectual honesty, fairness, generosity, and compassion, you can become aware of and possibly avoid the software that undercuts those values, which includes most branches of the insidious AI taking over chunks of Internet activity, including government operations that were intended to enshrine human values, judgements, and intelligence. Software isn’t the only insidious threat to those values. I followed a thread from Paul Kingsnorth last night about the application of commercial values to human birth in the surrogates market. Yes, “market.” The use of surrogate pregnancies to provide babies for couples who cannot conceive has turned into an international commerce with legal implications for those babies that are horrifying. Consider the fate of hundreds of Ukrainian babies stranded by war where pay-as-you-go non-natural parents could not claim them? Some of us have been content to limit the “proprietor” status of the developing fetus to the mother under the banner of a female’s exclusive “right” to what is happening inside her uterus. The male impregnator has been sidelined until and unless he becomes a “deadbeat dad.” This schism widely supported in the legal profession denies the male parent of any “rights” he has as a male producer of children. Many women, especially lesbians (a few of whom I know personally), welcomed this overturn of traditional rights and responsibilities of males. Is it surprising that some males also relinquish their responsibilities under such circumstances? I am intimately (no intended pun) acquainted with the male parent of our children whose interest in their welfare preceded insemination and followed their pre-birth development with devoted concern and interest. I see other such couples expressing similar attitudes in public, notably during the last US election. We allow “the values that bind” to erode at the peril of our social systems.
Laurna – Thanks for the tip re Mozilla. I do use Firefox (probably at a son’s suggestion, years ago), so it’s good to know (to be reminded? sigh) that they’re part of the open-source effort.
Thanks also for your thoughtful comments on AI and surrogacy. None of us want to see human life turned into a commodity. Paul Kingsnorth is well worth following, in my opinion.
Isabel
You contribute so much. Particularly in the way of ideas and thoughtful opinions.
Tom
Tom – Many thanks.
One can contribute in many ways. One is by not taking more than you need, so to leave something for others. The 1% were said to contribute through “trickle-down” economics. That ship has long since sailed. I sense they are now getting in position, through their corporations, to bail out the US government, taking on its enormous debts in order have control every bit of the economy.
Barbara – Indeed, the contribution options are endless. Just Do Something!
Thanks for this thoughtful and optimistic perspective.
Lorna Thank *you.*