Thompsonism
2002-12-10
Attended a talk at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art) with Stewart Morris.
The talk was given by Bill Thompson, former Guardian journalist and somehow associated with CB1, the Cambridge cybercafe.
Basically, he'd read the first Lessig book and correctly concluded that Lessig is a dangerously naïve optimist. The Thompson thesis is that the total lockdown Internet doomsayers such as me have been predicting is actually inevitable and will have the beneficial property that justice will become possible on the Internet as it'll be possible to control things. Thompson seems to believe that foreign firms are going to put up with pesky European social democratic governments telling them what they can do with their (actually, your) property.
Apart from disputing the probabilities - it isn't going to happen as quickly or as completely as Bill fears - I had very little to disagree with in what was said. The sideswipes at Raymondism/Slashdotism were particularly welcome.