Culture and Empire: Digital Revolution

by Pieter Hintjens

The whole planet is getting connected and building vast new communities. Billions of us are online, all the time. This online world thinks faster, and thinks differently. Smart, fast, and creative, our new communities are a very real challenge to old power and old money. And old money -- after its War on Drugs and War on Terror -- is now launching its War on the Internet. What is going on, and where will this lead us? Pieter Hintjens -- author, programmer, and activist -- tells all in this vast story of Culture & Empire: Digital Revolution.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Philosophy, Programming, Technical, Economics, Technology

396 pages, Paperback

First published November 2, 2013

About the author

a software developer and past president of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), an association that fights against software patents. In 2007, he was nominated one of the "50 most influential people in IP" by Managing Intellectual Property magazine.

Reviews

[Teo · Rating 5 out of 5]

2016.05.20–2016.06.30

This is an interesting book on the possibilities of digital society and those for and against them. It's downloadable for free as PDF/ePub/Mobi @ https://www.gitbook.com/book/hintjens.... The author is an expert in distributed computing, having written over 30 protocols and distributed software systems. He founded the ZeroMQ free software project in 2007, and in 2013 launched the edgenet project to build a fully secure, anonymous peer-to-peer Internet. He's been a strong critic of the patent system, leading the European effort to ban software patents from 2005 to 2007.

I loved the poetic beginning of Chapter 4:

Once upon a time, there was a great Empire that ruled the known world. It owned all the lands, the wealth beneath, and the wealth above. The Empire was run by an old, faceless society of criminals. It ran on cheap oil and cheap blood. It smashed its opponents in the name of Peace. It burned their lands in the name of Reconstruction. It enslaved them in the name of Freedom. It built massive castles of edict and punishment to govern its populations, and it fed them a river of pap to keep them docile. It was powerful, invincible, and paranoid.

Far away, in a different place, a civilization called Culture had taken seed and was growing. It owned little except a magic spell called Knowledge. The Culture ran on light, and built little bubbles of fire and hope. It seduced its critics by giving them what they wanted, no matter how unusual. And as it pulled in more people, it grew and built more of its bubbles.

When the Empire first encountered the Culture, it was puzzled. There were no armies to crush, no statesmen to corrupt and recruit, no castles to loot and burn. So it ignored the Culture and its pretty bubbles, hoping it would go away.

The Culture grew, and grew faster than you could follow. In less than a generation, it had started to build cities, impossibly beautiful spheres of fire and hope, massive, and yet gentler than the breeze. More people quietly left the castles to move to the cities of the Culture, where they too learned to build their own bubbles of flames and joy.

The Culture seemed harmless. However, the Empire depended on its vassal masses. If the masses left to go to the Culture's cities, the Empire would starve and die. Total War was inevitable. Both the Empire and the Culture knew it, and prepared for it in very different ways.

The Empire attacked. It tore down the cities closest to it and told the Culture, stop building or we will come back. And for each city it burnt, a hundred others sprang up. Culture shrugged and said, "We enjoy building new cities." So the Empire sent its infiltrators and spies into the cities to try to corrupt them. And the Culture laughed, clapped its hands, and exclaimed, "We do much worse to ourselves every day. Look, we enjoy this game!" And it opened its hands. And there lay some of the Empire's darkest and deepest secrets, for all to see.

So the Empire, the cold finger of fear touching its heart, smiled its most sincere smile and welcomed the Culture into its lands. And then it began to erect a far wall so wide and so high that it could cover all the cities of the Culture in darkness. If the Culture ran on light, thought the Empire, then it would destroy light.

I also loved Hintjens' "Social Architect's toolbox", of 20 tools, "each covering one aspect of a community or group. These tools work in two ways. First, you can use them to measure an existing community, giving a rating of zero or more. Second, you can use them when you design a community, to help you focus your effort on where it will be most useful."

– Strong mission -- the stated reason for the group's existence
– Free entry -- how easy it is for people to join the group
– Transparency -- how openly and publicly decisions are made
– Free contributors -- how far people are paid to contribute
– Full remixability -- how far contributors can remix each others' work
– Strong protocols -- how well the rules are written
– Fair authority -- how well the rules are enforced
– Non-tribalism -- how far the group claims to own its participants
– Self-organization -- how far individuals can assign their own tasks
– Tolerance -- how the group embraces conflicts
– Measurable success -- how well the group can measure its progress
– High scoring -- how the group rewards its participants
– Decentralization -- how widely the group is spread out
– Free workspaces -- how easy it is to create new projects
– Smooth learning -- how easy it is to get started and keep learning
– Regular structure -- how regular and predictable the overall structure is
– Positivity -- how far the group is driven by positive goals
– Sense of humor -- how seriously the group takes itself
– Minimalism -- how much excess work the group does
– Sane funding -- how the group survives economically


I was halfway through the book when I learned of the simultaneously sad and awesome existence of this reddit AMA called I'm writer and free software author Pieter Hintjens and I'm dying of cancer, ask me anything! Dying in the digital society, he seems content with his legacy: "There are three sets of things I'm really proud of. First my children, who astound me every day with their quiet confidence and maturity. Second, my books, which speak for themselves. And then my communities, my friends and colleagues, and the work we've done together."

Contents

Hintjens P (2013) Culture and Empire - Digital Revolution

Introduction

Preface
• Cost Gravity: The Endless Fall to Free
• What Happened to Wall Street?
• The Digital Revolution
• The Counter-Revolution Today
• Creating the Future

1. Magic Machines
• From Bricks to Bits
• Cost Gravity and the Digital Petri Dish
• The First Law
• A Brief History of the Internet
• What Drives Digital Society?
• • Cheaper Communications
• • Entertainment
• • Communities and Social Networks
• • Business
• • Politics
• • Globalization
• • Defiance
• Of Mice and Dinosaurs
• The Establishment Under Assault
• It's All in the Remix
• The Lost Continent Gets On Line
• • Poverty on Purpose
• • The First Wave
• • The Second Wave
• • Power to the People
• The Asynchronous Society
• The Economic Quickening
• From Innocence to Authority

2. Spheres of Light
• The Wisdom of Crowds
• Wiser and More Constant than a Prince
• Origins of Social Architecture
• The Toolbox
• • Strong Mission
• • Free Entry
• • Transparency
• • Free Contributors
• • Full Remixability
• • Strong Protocols
• • Fair Authority
• • Non-Tribalism
• • Self-Organization
• • Tolerance
• • Measurable Success
• • High Scoring
• • Decentralization
• • Free Workspaces
• • Regular Structure
• • Smooth Learning
• • Positivity
• • Sense of Humor
• • Minimalism
• • Sane Funding
• Sidebars
• • The Market Curve
• • Volunteer Burnout
• • The Myth of Individual Intelligence
• The Collective Intelligence Index, or CII
• Final Thoughts

3. Faceless Societies
• Humanity as a Wise Crowd
• Sports Break
• The Face in the Mirror
• The Borgia Hypothesis
• Natural Born Killers
• Stupid, Mad, or Bad
• Sporting Colors
• Stupidity is Not Random
• Society Versus the Individual
• How The Bandit Got His Gang
• • Week One: Losing Myself
• • Week Two: Bye-Bye, Mama
• • Week Three: A Brave New World
• • Week Four: The Enforcer
• From Bandits to Bakers
• The 4B Hypothesis
• How Geography Drives Society
• Extraction Economies
• Fixing the Sick Men
• Summing Up

4. Freedom in Chains
• Defining Human Freedom
• The Cost of Subjugation
• Enemy of the State
• Kisses in the Park
• The Modern Police State
• The Elementary Freedoms
• • Freedom of Participation
• • Freedom of Organization
• • Freedom of Knowledge
• • Freedom to Share
• Summing Up

5. Eyes of the Spider
• Enter the Spider
• The Dollar Yoltabyte
• The Drying Lake
• Bad Things Come in Threes
• The Listeners
• Analysts Retentive
• The Whale Shark's Maw
• Skynet, I Presume?
• The Bogeyman Cometh
• The Unmentionable Canary
• Zombie Conspiracies
• Footsteps in the Blood
• The Ring of Steel
• The Price of Privacy
• The Naked Future

6. Wealth of Nations
• In Search of Meaning
• Why the State Exists
• Arbeit Macht Frei
• Property as Game Theory
• A Rough Timeline of Property
• The Most Liquid Asset
• Copyrights
• • How Good is Copyright Law?
• • A Replacement for Copyright
• Patents
• • How Good is Patent Law?
• • Answering the Pro-Patent Arguments
• • Costs to Society of Patents
• • A Replacement for Patents
• Assets and Property in the Digital Economy
• • Content
• • Domain Names
• • Trademarks
• • Standards and Protocols
• • Licences
• • Identities
• • On-line Games
• • Communities
• • Knowledge
• Money in the Digital Economy
• • Credit Cards
• • PayPal: the Web's Bank
• • Micropayment Systems
• • Digital Currencies: From E-Gold to BitCoin
• The New Billionaires
• The Price of Salt
• Conclusions

7. March of the Kaiju
• The Death of Politics
• The Insecurity Business
• Peeling the Onions
• The Dangerous Young Men
• The Fires of Change
• The Protected Computer
• The Golden Rule
• • Built for Terrorism
• • Attack of the Regulators
• • Licensed to Make a Killing
• The War on the Middle
• • The War on Drugs
• • The War on Health
• • The War on Wealth
• Wrapping Up

8. The Reveal
• One Planet, One Future
• Once Upon a Time in America
• Fairy Tales
• The Story Teller's Hammer
• A Theory on Theories
• Poisoning the Well
• Irregular Violence
• Battlefield Earth
• Pandora's Box
• Crooks and Liars
• The Global Awakening
• The Anti-Narrative Market
• Where's the Steel
• The Third Front
• Occupation Costs
• What Ended Apartheid?
• A Strategy for Resistance

Postface

Appendix 1: edgenet
• Living on the Edge
• The Invisible Fabric
• Anonymous Communities
• Social Networks

[Aydin Yasar · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me longer to read this book however I believe it is worth every single moment i spent on it! Amazingly informative, eye opening book that is not conspiracy but reality of the existing world situation and ongoing battle in our private lives.

You may just simply love quotable sentences that Pieter has written and encouraging readers to share. Besides he supports open source culture therefore he published the book freely and you buy it only if you want to. Because he wants knowledge to be spread and Culture to win over cults and bandits!

[Fran Macilvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Culture and Empire’ by Pieter Hintjens

‘Culture and Empire’ takes a broad look at the development and growth of the internet and the challenges virtual technologies face in their dealings with the established military-industrial complex.

The sweeping narrative, encompassing numerous ideas in relatively few pages and arguing for them fluently and cogently, with well-considered hypotheses and examples, is pleasing and refreshing. Hintjens consistently ensures that his language is readable and laced with dry humour, which helps to sustain the interest of non-specialists. I am grateful for his considerate clarity and his enthusiasm in engaging with those of us who are unfamiliar with the intricacies of the internet.

I am very taken with his arguments for a collective human intelligence, which he applies not only in specialist virtual business models but also to human culture more generally. That he is able to demonstrate how collective intelligence originates, develops and can be allowed to flourish, is most attractive, arguing for a consistent road to enlightenment.

If I have any comments regarding the text, these must be taken as the personal opinions of a virtual beginner. Using human co-operative intelligence as his basic ideal, Hintjens shows how communal intelligence is scaled up in human society generally, and how its best characteristics can be, and often are, subverted by those with vested interests to protect. This makes compelling reading, yet the darker aspects of the human story, which emphasise tribalism, territorialism and the manipulation of power, are curiously devoid of any reference to the influence of what we might call the ‘female’ dynamic.

At its best, the internet demonstrates many of the networking and co-operative talents which may be considered 'feminine'. Yet, as Hintjens has written elsewhere, * the development of the internet, its software, standards and protocols has remained almost exclusively a male preserve. It is reassuring to reflect that bad outcomes appear to have more to do with bad management than gender politics. In itself, that is a liberating discovery.

Hintjens is a passionate advocate for personal and group freedom, and many of his considerations make sobering reading. Yet we must grasp the unpleasant realities behind many of today's headlines if we are to retain our liberties. Hintjens' conclusions remain optimistic, and come from a deep belief in ability of our species to work together for altruistic and heroic outcomes.

I recommend this text as an interesting starter, a provocative introduction to the influence of the internet, its power and its future progress. Readers will find much to ponder and little to argue with.
• http://hintjens.com/blog:73

[Baldur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome book. First time I saw cost gravity described in such detail. The first half of the book was awesome, the second half of the book is much more about security, hidden government practices and feels little bit like conspiracy theory. There is a lot of valid point, but only time will show if Hintjens was right or not.

From the book I think we have yet to see digital revolution as the cost goes down the possibilities will be endless.
Banks will have hard time as cost of the infrastructure goes down rapidly. 40 years ago you need to invest a lot of money in networking and computing power, these expanses are minimal these days and in 40 years they will be next to nothing.

[Alain O'Dea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Each chapter has an overarching theme, but the author jumps from thought to thought within them in a somewhat bewildering way at points.

Overall, it gathers a lot of troubling pieces together to form an incredibly dark view of present surveillance society. It salves that with an optimistic confidence in society's ability to resist and regain liberty in the face of what the author identifies as a growing surveillance para-state intent on occupying and controlling the world.

I think it's worth reading, but be prepared for the disjointedness and leaps in it at certain points.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

My expectations were set high after reading The Psychopath code. This book, however, starts great, then turns into a very long-winded rant. Rants are good. But I found this one to be an overly broad and shallow attempt to take many events and weave them together into an improbably view of the world.

It's worth the read if you're into online privacy in order to get a unique perspective on this topic, but otherwise there are far better positions out there.

[Geert Hofman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book with almost 400 pages in the printed edition, is really thought provoking. It is very critical for the current state of affairs of the society we live in and although it is written in 2013, it portrays a society where being paranoid is the only way to find truth. You would almost think Trump times already started back then. Pieter Hintjens is indeed very critical for president Obama.

This attitude reminded me of the many texts I studied of Theodor Adorno for my master thesis. The only way to resist the current state of affairs is to not propose any positive future but only to portray the negative aspects of the reality we live in. Trying to propose positive alternatives is due to fail because we are so contaminated with the governing stories that surround us and that are clearly blatant lies. You could consider this book as an actualization for the current digital society of Adorno's project as it mainly suggests tactics to resist and see clearly in troubled times.

It is only in the first quarter of the book that the story is more positive. Pieter Hintjens gives a lot of practical tips and tricks on how to build an online community. In fact, if you only read that first part, you might think that the book is about the benefits of the digital revolution. As I already mentioned that is clearly not the case and although I think that he is right to be suspicious of what he calls the Spider and its bandits, I miss a bit of a positive perspective in the later parts of the book. Only in the last chapter he compares our situation with that of South-Africa under the apartheid regime, giving the reader some hope that ultimately economics will force the oppressor (the Spider) to give in and make way for a more positive future, but only after a long and hard struggle.

I suppose we will have to wait and see, but the current evolution with would be dictators like Putin, Erdogan and Trump, the way out of this mess has certainly not become clearer. Reading this book along with books like 1984 or The Man in the High Castle, might just help us stay alert enough to be able to resist in the long run.

One advantage of this book is that you can even download it legally as it is published in Creative Commons. Find it at https://www.gitbook.com/book/hintjens....

[Panos Diakakis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book introduced me to the effect cost gravity has in our analogue and digital world with well rounded examples. More than that Hintjens explains the intangible qualities of knowledge and the ways they manifests themselves through software: "Software represents distilled knowledge about how to approach specific types of problems that can be solved using general-purpose computers" p. 27. There is a very thorough section on patents and patent law at p. 245. If you, just like me, have no idea about how money is made on inventions and ideas that should have been free to remix and reuse then this part will give you a clear understanding of it. Overall I enjoyed reading this book a lot and found it very informative on the struggle of Digital Society to claim its rights agains the established industrial money and politics.

[Mehdi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about our right to privacy, freedom and potential threats to them. The author introduces a model called "Cost Gravity", which is constantly changing the world by making (digital) tools & technologies cheaper and affordable to individuals and independent communities.

What I liked the most about this book is the way it describes the digital society and its current and future state. Pieter Hintjens has put a lot of effort to accompany his statements with numerous references to other researches and reports.

This book is highly political, it demands the readers to act and respond wisely to the "narratives" that have been provided to them by various authorities.

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in privacy, internet and digital era.

[Jörn Dinkla · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book contains some good ideas and it is a good start. But who says that there is only one narrative? "Capitalism is bad, we need more (socialistic) government" told by Russel Brand is another one. And a third: "economy is bad, we need more politics". Or "government is controlled by the rich. we need more government to protect us". In the end i enjoyed this book.

[Allele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing, insightful.

[James Cripps · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you! Someone needed to talk about WTC7. Not to mention all the other crimes that the Para-state has committed

[Kenneth Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book! Very well thought out.

[U. P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read to get a glimpse on where our world is going!