Geeks are not known to be political or highly vocal (outside of our own circles)- this must change if we want things to improve. So here is my list of things people of all shapes, sizes and sides of the debate need to know. Some of these are obvious, others may not be meant for you. But hopefully, some of these will inspire you to do the right thing and others will help you frame the next discussion, debate or argument you have on these topics.

1. Reclaim the term ‘hacker’. If you tinker with electronics, you are a hacker. If you use things in more ways than intended by the manufacturer, you are a hacker. If you build things out of strange, unexpected parts, you are a hacker. Reclaim the term.
2. Violating a license agreement is not theft.
3. All corporations are not on your side.
4. Keep in touch with everyone you can vote for and make sure you know where they stand on the issues you care about.
5. More importantly, make sure they know where you stand on the issues you care about.
6. Everything will enter the public domain some day- even Mickey Mouse.
7. Read the original 95 theses. Yes, they are irrelevant to these causes. Yes, they are religious- and not even close to my religion. And yes, they are 500 years old. But they do demonstrate how stating your beliefs clearly, effectively and publicly to challenge the status quo can change the world. Of course, I have no delusions of grandeur!
8. Use TOR for privacy and anonymity.
9. Trusted computers must not be trusted.
10. Democrats may seem to be on your side, but keep an eye on them. They may only be the lesser of two evils.
11. Republicans may seem to be the enemy, but that is only because they are in power now. The true enemy is a lack of accountability.
12. Read Eric Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar.
13. Why do I have to jump through hoops just to get video off my own home movie DVDs?
14. Know the DMCA so you know what you are up against.
15. The true enemy is the line: “If you haven’t done anything wrong, what do you fear?” The problem with that line, as Schneier has said, is that it assumes that the desire for privacy implies wrong-doing.
16. Proprietary data formats must never store public information.
17. Some corporations are on your side- find them and reward them.
18. No one has ever told me where I could play my 45 RPMs. Why are my MP3s any different?
19. The analog hole is not a hole. The world is analog.
20. If you are in the US, let your Senator know what you feel.
21. Treating your customers like criminals- or potential criminals- will turn customers away.
22. This bears repeating, treating paying customers as potential criminals is a losing strategy.
23. Some corporations may seem to be on your side, but are not.
24. Fair use is a good thing.
25. Use multiple operating systems regularly so you truly understand interoperability.
26. Write to your local newspaper- they can shape the opinions of the people do not understand the issues we care about.
27. Do not follow the Electronic Frontier Foundation, participate in it.
28. Read of Thoreau’s words on civil disobedience.
29. Data mining will not stop terror.
30. Express your opinion in public.
31. Blog.
32. The GPL is not gospel, but it comes close.
33. Use multiple MP3/music players so you truly understand interoperability.
34. If you are in the US, let your house representative know how you feel.
35. Those in favor of suspending some liberties for security, answer this: “Who watches the watchers?”
36. Except for extreme cases, the government should not be in the business of parenting our children.
37. When arguing with people who disagree, be polite, but not condescending.
38. RFID is just a technology- its existence does not make us more secure.
39. Now and in the future, presence of encryption implies nothing. In fact, whatever it does imply is none of your business. Without any other probable cause, the user must not bear the burden of explaining reasons for use of encryption.
40. Flame wars help the other side.
41. New technologies to promote and develop media will prosper because of computers and the Internet, not inspite of it.
42. Security is a trade-off- what are you willing to give up?
43. Calling Microsoft evil buys you nothing- it only polarizes the argument.
44. Holding Google to its “Don’t do evil” mantra buys us a lot.
45. Read of Gandhi’s actions in civil disobedience. Discover Satyagraha.
46. Use Creative Commons.
47. Understand the difference between civil disobedience and breaking the law.
48. Can’t find anything to watch on network TV? Watch Democracy TV.
49. Frame the argument in terms of the average person, not the edge-case geek. These problems affect geeks first, but will affect everyone in the future.
50. Privacy, civil liberties and civil rights are a slippery slope. The reason we continuously fight for them is not that we all seek a utopian society where doves fly free- in fact, I seek a perpetual ‘tug-of-war’ where the rope gradually slips in the direction of my beliefs.
51. Users do not want the permission to use digital media; they want to own digital media. This means using them as they choose, where they choose, in the device of their choice without fear of litigation or sudden inactivity. These users are customers- treat them with respect.
52. Support the free, public domain archives of information.
53. Undermine censorship by publishing information censored in oppressive countries.
54. And then, there is the 12-step plan for the games industry.
55. Corporations and producers of digital media must trust their own consumers. Sales will reward trust.
56. Breaking the law because you disagree with the current law is not the way to solve the problem in a democratic society.
57. ID cards do not make us more secure.
58. Voicing your views in a Slashdot comment thread is good, in your own blog is better, but in places that non-geeks frequent is best.
59. DRM does not work because the customer/user has the key, cipher and ciphertext in the player. (thanks Cory Doctorow)
60. Bloggers have rights- be aware of them.
61. Find out why electronic voting machines are regulated less than casino gaming machines.
62. Find out about Spimes- they are in your future if things go well.
63. Have a global perspective in ideas of geek civil liberties, intellectual property rights and so forth. Do you like your country’s policies in this respect? Can you help people from another country?
64. Geek activism is not all about extreme positions. There is a gradient- find your position on it.
65. Read the PATRIOT ACT- know what you are really up against.
66. In the US, put a few technologists in power in Washington. Abroad, do the same for your own seat of government.
67. Write to mainstream media- they have more mindshare than they are given credit for.
68. Read what your founding fathers said before taking someone’s word for it. Quote the founding fathers back at them- there were so many of them, and they said and wrote so much, that you will find a quote for each situation. Try this one for starters, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – Benjamin Franklin. Read more Bejamin Franklin. Read more cool quotes
69. Read more.
70. Mixed tapes are legal. Time-shifting TV is legal. Regardless of the media.
71. Decide what is offensive for yourself- don’t let the government decide it for you. If you do not, pretty soon, you may only see one side of every argument.
72. Music purchases should not be governed by determining which seller has the most clout among the player manufacturers.
73. We do not lock the door to our bedrooms or bathrooms because we have something to hide. We do not secure our networks, conversations, emails and files because we have something to hide.
74. Make sure that if a vendor locks you in, you lock them out.
75. 80% of games are not rated M.
76. You may agree with Richard Stallman, but make sure you understand the opposing point of view.
77. An email tax to certify that it is “legitimate” is an awful idea.
78. Know your rights and be prepared to defend them.
79. Open source is not free.
80. Free is open source.
81. The ESRB game rating system exists for a reason- so that parents can be parents and the government can get on with more important stuff.
82. Do not allow corporations to get away with assisting oppressive regimes. Let your voice be heard.
83. Linux is no longer a philosophy- it is a good piece of software. Use it if it fits your needs.
84. There are reasons based in mathematics that establish the NSA wiretaps and other similar brute data mining ideas do not work.
85. Multiple nag screens that warn us of possible insecurity do not make us more secure.
86. More information available to the most number of people is a good thing.
87. There are DRM free alternatives for music you can play anywhere.
88. Vote.
89. Free as in free lunch is good. Free as in a free people is even better. For software and for everything else.
90. Quoting Schneier’s blog: Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, “If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.” Watch someone long enough, and you’ll find something to arrest—or just blackmail—with. Privacy is important because without it, surveillance information will be abused: to peep, to sell to marketers and to spy on political enemies - whoever they happen to be at the time. read Bruce Perens, Cory Doctorow, Bruce Sterling and even Richard Stallman. Read Schneier to find practical reasons why stupid security mechanisms are stupid. Read them even if you disagree with them- it will help frame your point of view.
91. Read our modern geek philosophers
92. DRM only keeps an honest user honest.
93. You have the right to anonymity on the internet.
94. Be proud of being a geek, a gamer, a privacy advocate, promoter of free speech and an innovator without fear of litigation, of government or restrictions on liberties- a geek activist.
95. Most of all- have fun.

About author
Devanshu of www.scienceaddiction.com can be reached at: skywalker@galaxyfaraway.com

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Of course, Burt’s Bees is no longer the tiny honey and beeswax candle business that Burt Shavitz and Roxanne Quimby founded in Maine in 1984. In fact, since 1993, the bearded Burt has not even owned the business that markets his face and his bees. More to the point, in 2004, 80% of Burt’s Bees was acquired by an investment group and by 2006 the company had grown into a professionally managed $250 million business selling lipstick, toothpaste and hand cream in grocery store chains throughout the United States and around the world. Thus, like the Cheshire Cat’s smile, the brand will survive the Clorox acquisition even though the small cottage industry Burt’s once was will have disappeared like so many honey bee colonies around the world.

I cannot really condemn Burt’s Bees for selling out. For $925 million I, too, might consider letting Clorox use my name to market Zbig-branded cosmetics. On second thought, make that 925 million euros, because if, Gisele Bündchen [1], one of the world’s best known fashion models, refuses any longer to be compensated in devalued US dollars, I see no reason why classy products like Zbig’s Zlipschtik should be valued for anything less.

* * *

Burt’s Bees is just the latest example of the typical fate of “alternative” local businesses that make the big time. Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, once the Vermont poster child of all things good and natural, was purchased by Unilever, the multinational conglomerate, in 2000. In 2001, Coca Cola purchased the California fruit juice company, Odwalla, for $181 million. You simply cannot tell from the package who really profits when you buy what you think is a small, natural, local or organically produced product.

In fact, according to the research of Associate Professor Phillip H. Howard [2] at Michigan State University, a vast number of (apparently) small brand name packaged products - including organic dairy products, chocolate, soup, vegetarian packaged foods, soy products, beverages, cereals, tea, soaps, and condiments - are owned, directly or through holding companies, by the likes of Coke, Pepsi-Cola, Dean Foods, Heinz, Kraft, Nestle, and General Mills. Notwithstanding the comforting names of Horizon, Health Valley, Cascadian Farm, Celestial Seasonings, Naked Juice, Bearitos, TofuTown and others that line the shelves of your local “natural” food stores, behind these brands might lurk some very large, very profit-oriented enterprises, some of whom, for social or political reasons, a person might not wish to patronize. Even “organic” farm produce is often now grown on an industrial scale using petroleum based technology, financed by the usual channels of capital, and shipped all over the world using petroleum based transport. There are, at the moment, just a handful of national independent organic food producers, such as the cooperative dairy Organic Valley [3], and the few truly local farmers who are constantly under financial pressure.

From news media predators like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, to the 800-pound computer software gorilla, Microsoft, to omnivorous grocery store chains like Whole Foods, the trend is for large companies to gobble small ones and for a few giant corporations eventually to control everything. More than a century ago, Marx described that as the natural monopolistic evolution of capital. Nevertheless, we are not yet at the tipping point of capitalism collapse disorder that Marx predicted. We are not there - yet - because Marx did not fully take into consideration the work value of hydro-carbon energy sources, as in the cheap petroleum that has, heretofore, permitted western civilization to flourish for the past couple hundred years. As natural energy sources diminish, however, the oft prophesied demise creeps closer, and more and more people are feeling the pain that results from economies in actual contraction that is camouflaged as “growth”.

But sitting back and just waiting for the collapse is no more an option than waiting for a left wing version of right wing Christian rapture. Pardon my skepticism, but Christians - especially the militant and materialistic flavor of Christians who spend their moral capital praying for their own personal salvation and the divine slaughter of everyone else - can no more expect to be vacuumed into their eternally boring lyre-strumming paradise in the sky than wistful liberals can expect capitalism to voluntarily transmute itself from a raptor into a chicken.

Capitalism was, and still is, very powerful. Although rooted in rather primitive motivations of greed, acquisition and domination, capitalism remains one of the most successful, innovative and virulent systems of human socio-economic organization. Capitalism is based on strong, if evil theory. In a Darwinian sense, like America’s Republicans and Democrats who seek to strangle every viable third party that threatens their hegemony, capitalism attacks and kills every potential political-economic competitor as it fights to replicate itself and to remain the king of the hill.

Capitalism survives precisely because there is not yet an alternative system of socio-economic organization that can survive the bruising, no-holds-barred competition with it. Feudalism gave way to capitalism because, in a hydro-carbon world, agriculture yielded supremacy to technology. Organized religion cannot compete. Instead, religion always enters into its customary accommodation with the economic lords of state. Nationalism cannot compete. It eventually morphs into corporatism or fascism. Centralized state communism could not compete. It succumbed to the very organizational rigidity that it championed. General notions of pacifism, love, community, primitivism, individualism, populism and progressivism cannot compete (or have not yet successfully competed) because they, and the like, are abstractions and aspirations, one or two dimensional expressions of an idealized vision, not fully developed systems of organization in themselves.

Systems of alternative and benevolent organization abound. However, none can compete because they have either inadequate theoretical underpinnings or inadequate means of replication. Equally as important, most “alternative” systems of organization lack adequate means literally to defend themselves against, and repel, such a heavily militarized, aggressive, supremely deceptive, thuggish, unprincipled and merciless competitor as capitalism. Still, capitalism collapse disorder approaches unrelentingly. The central problem for us all is to conceive the more benevolent substitute to replace the current decrepit system of socio-political organization.

There is great urgency in this because, if history is our guide, when social and economic systems start to thrash, the natural human tendency is to become more totalitarian, not more democratic; more mean, not less; nastier and more violent, not less; more intolerant, more irrational, more vicious, not less.

Embryonic systems of self-organization, such as exist in the sub-currents of the almost anarchic international community of free and open software (FOSS), or the massively collaborative Wikipedia, offer some hope (which is precisely why the capitalistic, proprietary technology interests seek to squash them) if only one knew whether and how these models could work with anything other than computer software. So, for now, these are just that - embryonic ideas, and something more mature is desperately needed.

These are the phenomena of our time: the rapidly alternating pumping up and deflating of stock or real estate bubbles; pyramid schemes of collateralized debt obligations; massive inflationary infusions of money [4] into a system paralyzed by a loss of confidence in its own institutions; manic manipulation of interest rates to save the worlds interlocked stock markets; the danse macabre of banks, insurers, hedge funds and the financial services industry inextricably digitally tangled in the morass they made for themselves (thanks to the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act [5] under Alan Greenspan’s and Bill Clinton’s administration); and the intensifying reliance on military force to monopolize the last vestiges of a depleted world’s energy and natural resources. All of these phenomena signal a socio-economic system in deepening crisis.

In the absence of thinking through the details now of a new, probably hybridized, possibly mixed system of social and economic organization, life could get more brutish, rather than less so when capitalism collapse disorder finally occurs. One senses that time is short. Out of the ashes of collapse we could reap ashes.

Burt’s Bees could not resist the capitalist system that swallowed it. Nor can anything or anyone resist for too long without a theory as powerful as the capitalism that would consume it. It is imperative to concentrate time and energy on the development of a new, viable, alternative theory of social and economic organization before capitalism collapse disorder occurs. _______

About author
Zbignew Zingh can be reached at: Zbig@ersarts.com

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