User Sovereignty
This is an unfamiliar topic to some users of computer and internet. Below, you will find a life preserver, thrown to us by people who have put more thought into it than the average CPA or accountant.
I preface these readings with one simple observation: people are born free, and are inherently free. There cannot be any tyranny or exploitation but by the ignorant surrender of one's natural freedom. We are all free to act according to our own interests. Nothing is forcing us to subordinate our wishes to the wishes of companies who would like to exploit us.
Today's computer hardware and software are profoundly shaped by the imperative of making money for their vendors. Computers are not a pure utility like foodstuffs, minerals, or energy but rather, contain a whole spectrum of tricks and techniques that create additional income for vendors. We have gradually allowed another "broadcast industry" model in which we gave away 1/3 of our precious time to advertising, and allowed the commercial selling imperative and message to permeate even the editorial content of newspapers, radio and TV.
In the accounting software industry, these have gotten so far out of hand that they threaten small business' ability to exist in the marketplace, alongside larger companies. Before the internet, it was not a fatal problem that your vendor locked in your data and refused to provide interfaces. But today, if you cannot buy, sell, and pay and receive money over the internet freely, you may be blocked from access to markets themselves. You cannot access goods and services at the best prices, and you cannot sell for the best prices.
When you go out to evaluate accounting and business software, keep it in mind: the software should work 100% for the interests of the owner. Not one single bit or byte should be allowed to pursue the interests of the software vendor, or tax collectors, or accountants, or employees, agents, contractors or any other third party, against the interests of the owner.
Owners do have social responsibilities, and responsibilities under contracts, and under laws. But until those software vendors or laws require owners of businesses to install automatic enforcement machines in our own homes and businesses, taking away our freedom, it is sheer lunacy to buy them voluntarily.
* Todd F. Boyle CPA http://www.GLDialtone.com/
* tboyle@rosehill.net Kirkland WA (425) 827-3107
* XML accounting, webledgers, BSPs, ASPs, whatever it takes
http://www.openresources.com/documents/
http://opencode.org/h2o/
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projects/governance.html
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projects/opencode.html
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projects/security/
http://www.flora.org/flora.comnet-www/1472
http://internet.tao.ca/
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/pcs10/revised3.htm
http://www.buildfreedom.com/ft/internet_freedom.htm
So, what would the internet look like if it had been designed to serve users instead of .
What if there was a vast, infinite storage space, just a whitespace and you could put unlimited content out there. What if everybody on the network was required to use 1024 bit encryption because it was built into the clients on the network and therefore, even dumbshits encrypted 100% of their stuff. That's the way Windows and Unix and Linux could have been designed, but they were not. They were designed for top-down control. The client for this network? a pure w3c XML parser and XSLT transformation engine. Is there any kind of content or processing that can't be done or rendered, etc. by an XML processor? And, when you go to read your stuff or process with it, you draw upon all the CPUs that are sitting idle nearby... That would be a computing environment worth having, because it would take back control of security from sysadmins and affix it firmly in the leaf nodes. heh heh! Giving access control over the data to the individual, permanently and irreversibly. The data storage could be same as today, either peer to peer or on some ISP or ASP or even a relational database. Why not? Finally, a good use for an RDBMS. As soon as the peer network has a general ledger built into it, it would start to be adopted. Right now, there is noplace to put your quarter to pay for your resources. Isn't that ridiculous? Surely, this won't continue much longer.
Capitalism and the ideology of self determination unleash much greater economic growth because more people get more of what they want. The entire economic system is organized around discovering desires, amplifying them with advertising, and satisfying them. The whole psycho limbic system of the body and mind of customers is tapped. The worker is harnessed more completely. Everybody is compelled to work within a single, pooling of interests. There is only one road system. Only one downtown. Only one school system, telephone and banking system.
Our combined power makes us a more powerful society. We can out-produce any country that opposes us, or destroy them if that serves our desires more efficiently. This is democracy because we can vote every 4 years. This proves the people are in control.
Isn't that nice? We have this radically symmetrical economy, tuned in to the average desire of all people. We are completely harnessed to serving our neighbors' base desires for oil, SUVs and sports arenas. What next? Is this freedom? Is this the way it's going to be?