DISQUS

I find it distressing that a law can be coined based on mangled paraphrasing of Lincoln. Chris should tone down his tendency to brand ideas and deal with the simple reality that we are all partially concealed to others. It's not news that people are sometimes open and often secretive. I'd agree about keeping mum about a bad meal when you are a guest, but, at some point, a veteran should be open with his kid about what happened to him in a war....

But people are not institutions, so it is unreasonable to draw institutional analogies to personal privacy. And there's George W. Bush's face up there, so let's talk about institutions.

When we accept public office, there are clearly defined rules -- or were, between 1905 and 1980, and even less during the most recent administration, which ignored those rules -- about what one must disclose. One of the standards of political practice should be a thoroughgoing effort to disclose everything possible to the people in order to provide an opportunity for informed debate. We do not elect people in the U.S. to protect us from reality, but to represent us in the face of reality. There are very few items of information that really need to be "secret," and it is demonstrably true that the creation of levels of classification within government increases the secrecy of previously open information.

Companies are not under that regime of disclosure to the same extent, but I believe they benefit from being mostly open. Too often, companies behave as though their secrets are all that keep them from failing in the marketplace, which is really an indicator of how little they concern themselves with the customer's concerns.

Secrecy for secrecy's sake is the indicator that one is keeping too much back from your constituents or your customers.

Actually, the patronage model could easily include the "commissioning" of music before it is recorded. It's one of the things SongSlide can facilitate in their pricing model explicitly, by paying in advance (by sliding the payment higher) for music for a given period of time. A band should be able to collect money and deliver a song or a year's worth of production.

The problem is the industry still thinks in terms of the unit of distribution rather than the value to the customer. Music needn't necessarily be sold by the song, just as we know now it isn't necessary to make an album to be successful.

Bingo. You have to have a little humility to learn from history. That's often in short supply in Silicon Valley. Come to think of it, it's distinctly lacking in many centers of power, especially in the United States.

The problem with these laments, and they come from all over these days, not only from Mike Arrington, is that people make the mistake of thinking that because they are doing something for first time, it has never been done before.

Cross-posting this from the comments in my blog:

Matthew—Dave made a number of statements about the viability of Audible's business that do relate to his competence to make such statements.

Pointing out in response to Dave's repeatedly saying (without bothering to read my comments in response, apparently) that Audible is suffering from a downturn—in the face the fact the company reported dramatically improved revenue and customer growth—he doesn't seem to have the business insight to make a sound judgement is, if anything, as direct Dave's use of words like "shitty" to describe a product I worked on. He left money on the table in his own business, which suggests he's not always accurate in his assessment of the performance of a business. Why should someone apologize for pointing that out?

As I pointed out in another posting, you cannot have a discussion with Dave without it being personal since the technology and business are interchangeable in his view of the world. He made a pronouncement based on his authority to judge how to best monetize technology, so let's do look at his qualifications.

Also, you say on your blog that I called Dave a thief in my posting. I didn't. Please, read back and tell me where I did that. I pointed out carefully that he suggested stealing content not available under the terms he feels are reasonable. If the terms don't work for him, he should choose not to use the content rather than suggest that, although it's not fair to the creator (his words), he can get the content elsewhere in violation of the creator's terms. That's advocating theft, not thieving.

This is not to characterize my feelings about copyright, only to examine Dave's position, his qualifications to make certain statements, and the meaning of his words.

So, no, I would not apologize and it was not an ad hominem attack, because it was not aimed at Dave, but the underpinning of his statements.

Richard -- Forget it, I'm not even going to try to deal with the irreality field you live in. I'm not on the far left; I am a centrist and only look like I am at the far left because you live in a far-right hallucinatory state.

According to the National Association of Nonprofit Associations, the "states are suffering their worst fiscal crisis since World War II. Contrary to popular belief, the state fiscal crisis is not caused by state overspending. Rather, it is caused by structural problems in the states? tax systems, and those problems are exacerbated by the slowing economy.?Unfortunately, the crisis is not expected to diminish for another few years."

In my state, Washington, we're looking at a record deficit that, in terms of a proportiion of the state budget outstrips that of California.

Here's the governor of Arizona on the situation there: "I see both sides of Arizona, and my goal is simple: We must ensure that prosperity wins over desperation and becomes the norm for all Arizonans. And to do this, we must come back together as one, united in the knowledge that we need each other, and bound by our commitment to each other.

"My friends, we are all in this together.

"We must lift this state out of its budget crisis without sacrificing education and the long-term future of Arizona."

If you search the National Governors Association site, you will find that 17 governors mentioned their state's "budget crisis" in their 2003 state of the state speeches.

The NGA also says that the nationwide state budget crisis is impacting everything from prisons to education and health care.

Richard, are you blind, deaf and stupid? A little less attack mentality would do you a world of good, but as long as you're dishing it out, take what you serve up. Back to reality, where we have some real problems to deal with that the election of an actor or the mangled logic of the Bush Administration are never going to solve.

Richard -- there's nothing wrong with recalls or the initiative process in a widely informed society. When there are very few sources of news and they militate with political groups to elect someone who reads scripts but doesn't speak extemporaneously, they leave something to be desired. The recall was great -- I'd have liked to have seen it go the other way, since the budget crisis is the result of Pete Wilson's misguided energy deregulation and collusion by the Bush Administration with the energy industy and its general failure in domestic policy leading to the bankrupting of the states -- but I don't contest the right of citizens to organize to get a recall on the ballot.

Richard -- As usual, you let your ideology get in the way of real insight. You misrepresent my position on political participating entirely, as I don't think everyone should participate in every decision. Rather, they should have the ability to organize to influence any individual issue through representatives and by addressing problems themselves without having to rely on top-down policies that aren't effective or efficient in their community. Leaving everything to professionals, who care more about their own power than about the people they are supposed to serve is a problem, whether you want to see it or not. I remember when Republicans believed that, but you exercise your selective memory here in the omphalos, picking at the mental lint you've collected and we'll get on with making the United States into a real republic, again.

Does Bush need to go? Yes. He is undermining the Constitution and the democratic process, besides killing a lot of young Americans for a misguided foreign policy designed primarily to distract the electorate from the awful job he's doing here at home. More .

You've totally ignored the argument that Joi's paper was intentionally focused on tools, as well as the fact I was replying to your narrow reading. Instead, you insult me. Proves my point -- no engagement.

As a 20 year veteran of a lot of the same things, including blogging, lobbying, covering politics and standards as a reporter, I stand by my conviction that you're not even dealing with the question raised by Joi Ito and the emergent democracy discussion.