HackingIdeologies AgainstFreedomOfSpeechAndDemocracy
From What The Wiki?!
Contents |
when
DAY 4 (Sunday), Tent 3, 13:00-14:00
what
In the opening speech by Rop and Emmanuel i.e. the keynote [1], concepts Freedom OfSpeech and Democracy where mentioned on several occassions, drawing some of the loudest applauses. In a sweeping move, being hacker was tied up both to stand for, and wanting to promote worlwide, those two concepts. What hackers widely agree on - valuing knowledge and sharing, desire for exploration, obtaining new skills, reusing techniques and materials in the least expected way, striving to excellence, removal of any obstacles to the these - was tied to loose political concepts, serving unchallenged, unspoken off, goals.
In other words: The spirit was enslaved to the language of the Masters.
Terms defined not by hackers, but primarly by ideologues of the state and the Kapital, became key signifiers.
Many question arise. To put it in more familiar lanuage: words are variables. Meaning gets assigned to them. If they are used withouth an explanation, in most cases it is the predominant i.e. the strongest meaning that prevails. Today, those meanings are, together with human rights, and free market, most important idelogical tools in the hands of strong state, and capitalist, machineries.
More fundamentally then, these are the same states most hackers consider as obstacles, hinderance, and sometimes even as opressive - as we heard from Rop's and Emmanuel's examples of jailed hackers.
In disbelief, at closing moments of the keynote, it felt like being in a live conference centre of some major mainstream news media: scarily reactionary, and unlike the hacking spirit that I know.
summary
What democracy and freedom of speech? On whose behalf? Defined by whome To do what?
Or, are hackers at large such state and Kapital loving bunch, and i just came to the wrong place.
session format
Session will depend on people's reaction, and those who decide to participate. If you're interested in participating, find me and talk to me somehow. Or talk to speakers office and they'll try to track me down for you.
