the death of the internet? not damn well likely.

Some ado over the past few days about a supposedly 'leaked' plan to 'kill' the internet by 2012--effectively reducing all access to a small number of corporate websites. This would reduce the internet's role as a medium from the almost pervasive dominance it now enjoys to something more or less akin to the radio. This is made all the more unsettling by the recent news that the nation's three largest internet carriers are banning Usenet outright.

There are several problems with this hypothesis. The first and most obvious is competition. While the analogy is tenuous at best in the context of net-neutrality debates, it's a bit different here. If a coalition of internet providers collude and decide to limit access to certain websites without any due cause, then there will likely be legal problems that even the Orwellian US government will have problems allowing. The agreement between the NY AG and internet providers to ban Usenet will no doubt be challenged in court. If any such challenge succeeds, then all the better for my argument. If it fails, it will probably fail because of a 'prevailing interest' argument on the government's part to the effect that blocking access to child pornography is an overriding interest of the government's and therefore free speech takes a back seat.

If this works--which is yet to be seen--then the burden will still be on the shoulders of whichever telecommunications company decides to restrict access to certain websites.

Similarly, the fragmented nature of the internet means that there will likely be a way to access the websites anyway through more devious means (off-shore proxies). US businesses are already too invested in their online operations abroad to allow telecommunications providers to simply block access to their sites from abroad. Again, like I mentioned in my earlier posts about how the 2008 elections will turn out, I think that the commercial interests of the united states are by and large behind the internet, and this election cycle will see the election of a more liberal congress if only because commercial interests both inside and outside the U.S. are afraid of the power that the telecommunications industry has been trying to exert over the internet.

Lastly I think the 'last ditch' safety against this turn of events is a common friend: Google. Google has been buying hundreds of miles of dark fiber, and noone really knows why. I think that regardless of Google's intentions, it is in their interest and their business philosophy to keep the internet an 'open' marketplace (as evinced by their fervent opposition to Ebay's attempts to monopolize the methods of payment available for auction sellers and buyers). Similarly, if we see the ascendancy of an internet that is without the freedom of movement and information currently afforded users, Google will step up and provide an alternative platform that will allow free communication.

Why I support Barack Obama

The cult-like following that surrounds Barack Obama (converts to which are second only in fervor to those followers of Ron Paul who I affectionately deem 'Paultards') serves mainly to obscure the man himself, and his vision. Network news is not to be relied on for any accurate depiction of world events themselves, much less what is going on in the mind of any given presidential candidate (though since I consider McCain to be so vapid that any fair comparison between him and another sentient organism would probably only be fair if the object of comparison were a nematode--but I digress).

The video above is a visit that Barack Obama made to the Google campus in Mountain View, CA; anyone who is interested in Obama's policies with regard to US technology would do well to watch this video (and its accompanying Q&A, available on youtube). I think that where Barack Obama succeeds in seeing a viable vision for the future of this country is in his understanding of just how essential technology will be towards the future economic viability of the United States.

Now, I could go into a further diatribe about what bothers me about the other candidates in the race, but I think that it would fall outside the confines of this Blog; and in any case those who would be in any way interested in seeing me rail against Hilary Clinton have probably already seen me do it in real life. The internet, in any case, has no lack of polemics, and I hope to subtract from the vitriol with this blog, not add to it.

free will?

I just watched John Searle's talk at Google about the question of the existence of 'free will'. I'm going to gloss over the details (the video is above for anyone interested in reading it), but Searle offers two contradictory theories of Free will:

Theory the first

The mind, like all physical objects, is directly affected and determined by physical processes. Thus all thoughts that are considered 'free' are actually determined by a long, causal chain of events.

Theory the second

The mind's processes are at base determined by quantum-mechanical models of reality, and free will arises from these quantum-mechanical processes, which are not deterministic.

If you are an adherent to the philosophy that Free will exists, Searle argues, then you must accept theory #2. However this theory is unsatisfactory because Quantum processes are only 'random' insofar as we cannot understand them fully. If we come to understand Quantum mechanics fully, we will come to understand this randomness as part of our physical picture. Additionally, this 'randomness' of quantum-mechanics does not do justice to our notion of 'free will'--our decisions are not 'random' when we make them, though they are free. Therefore the two concepts are actually incompatible.

But Searle is begging the question: what exactly was the point of free will in the first place? In the past we believed it was important that an earth-centric astronomical model be proven, because otherwise the importance of the human race (at least, with relation to god) would be diminished.

Now, what is the real consequence of conceding: yes, there is no 'free will', as such? Well, if this makes you decide to simply let life come to you, and let yourself slip into indolence, then you are simply fulfilling your own destiny. Indeed, the importance of 'free will' is just that: even if it is a mere figment of our imagination, it impels us towards achieving the most we can in life, and helps us keep at bay the dismal thought that life does not amount to anything at all, and that the collective existence of humanity is nothing but a small pebble tumbling through the downward, unstoppable flow of the sands of time and space.

So does it matter, strictly speaking, that free will can be explained by cognitive science to be mere epiphenomenological froth? Nay, I say. We must speak in these matters with regard to use, not simply verificationist 'truth'. If physics can explain biology, does this demand that we discard biology in favor of it? Both are simply conceptual systems used to explain the phenomenological milieu. Why not say the same of 'free will'?

Google Android and the Apple iPhone

Dan Farber of cnet news.com writes about the recent release of the iPhone SDK and the effects this will have on the brewing war between Google and Apple for control of mobile computing in the next 10 years. Although Farber wants to say that the battle will not be between Apple and Google but between Google, RIM and Microsoft, I think he is wrong on this count.

We are at the tipping point of mobile technology. To anyone who has used an iPhone before, it is easy to see how someday a device that fits in your pocket could replace a laptop, especially if a user only needed word processing, e-mail, image editing, and web surfing capability. In this sense the coming battle is going to be between Google and Apple, because what Google has managed to do is create a mobile OS that is both easy to use and good-looking and appeals to carriers and manufacturers because it can be freely modified to suit a specific purchaser's needs.

Microsoft and RIM, to be certain, will play a large role in which permutation of mobile technology will become the 'de nouveau' progenitor of the next generation or itineration of mobile computing devices. However Microsoft and RIM are limited in the sense that they can only cater to business customers. What the iPhone has demonstrated, quite remarkably, is that personal, private demand dictates the demands in the business market. It should not be surprising, but there is little attention paid to this fact in the current analyses of the mobile market. Apple's iPhone is making waves in the business world not because of its capabilities. When I was interning for a small private equity firm in London this summer, almost all of the executives there were drooling over the iPhone. This is not because it possesses some capability which the RIM blackberry does not: by all accounts, the Blackberry is far and away the most capable business mobile device on the market. The reason they were jonesing for one was simple: they found the iPhone aesthetically pleasing, and the 'personal tech' features such as youtube videos and google maps far exceeded the Blackberry's.

This means that Google must first and foremost create an operating system that appeals on a visceral level (it seems like they are well on their way). If Google can stimulate on a purely sensory level, then the game is Apple's to lose, and Google's to win. Farber, in the article above, quite astutely points out that the current distribution model for the iPhone means that Apple must face the same problem with its iPhone as it faced with Mac OS: whether or not to confine it to its own hardware or to license it out to other manufacturers. Apple has of course taken its traditional view and is aiming to create a reliable revenue stream from hardware sales instead of software licensing. But this is exactly why Apple has so far failed to make a dent into the enterprise market for software computers, and it is exactly why Apple will not penetrate the business mobile market. Google, on the other hand, has the chance to succeed where RIM and Microsoft have both failed (by creating an operating system that is intuitive to use and pleasing to the eye) and also to succeed where Apple will undoubtedly fail, by creating a mobile operating system that can be used by any handset manufacturer and adapted to any carrier network. This is crucial for the success of any OS in the Business world, and Google seems well on its way towards realizing this goal (even more than RIM has so far).