[wsfii-discuss] Freddy invites you to join Zorpia

[jeff buderer]

Dear All,

I think we have exposed something significant here.

Connecting to the Wireless and Community Wireless (trying to link our 
topic with the wsfii discussion group) is the idea that we need 
alternatives to these online corporate systems that seem often very 
antithetical to our values (we might also consider our values as some 
struggle to get wsfii.org back up and also about any plans to update the 
site).

I would like to consider openly some of the issues and concerns that we 
have with people controlling and developing these companies and also the 
fact that their values seem more like the old model of domination and 
control cloaked in the PR friendly aura of liberal democracy than as 
envisioned by net pioneers such as Tim Berners Lee, Doug Engelbart, Tim 
Leary and Steve Wozinak who saw the internet and personal computing age 
as ushering a bold new age for the use of technology to truly empower 
humanity. Increasingly these social networking site are becoming an 
extension of our social lives and yet it seems we are conferring an 
corporation or handful of corporations an unprecedented degree of power 
- where is the accountability?

I dont think I am unique in seeing a power struggle in play now between 
grassroots networks like wsfii and those who appear to have mindset that 
is "accumulation and status oriented." It seems they are in a race to 
accumulate things. Through their mastery of the "game of global 
capitalism," they now disproportionately control the global economy and 
its media, financial, governance and production systems.

The battle or struggle is over whether we will make the internet as it 
was envisioned; a tool for participatory governance and personal 
empowerment at the community level pushing back corporate centralization 
or it is relegated to simply another top down driven technology that 
further extends the grip of the establishment power structure into our 
lives, while further reducing our real autonomy as human beings.

I dont want to sound too grandiose but I really feel we are at the 
crossroads...Right now...

What we do at this point in history will determine the kind of future 
the coming generations will face.

Jeff Buderer
> On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 9:10 AM, Alex Toland <alex at fertileground.de 
> <mailto:alex at fertileground.de>> wrote:
>
>     Apparantly "everyone can join" but it's not so easy to leave once
>     you're
>     in. Nowhere under terms did I find the word "unsubscribe" or
>     "cancel"...
>
>
> I had the same problem, I really understood that was an error to have 
> joined facebook, the only way I found was to deactivates the account 
> in the preferences .
>
> Same problem with Skype , you can't delete your account , and it seems 
> to be written in the terms which I should have read ...
> -- 
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