i-sako.com

Last week I attended a lecture by Larry Lessig, which was fantastic, but this is the first time I’ve had a chance to sit down and write about it...nearly a week later. I hope things will calm down a bit after the holiday season comes to an end. It would be nice to be able to write more than one entry each month!

Anyway, back to Lessig. 

A lot of really good ideas were presented at that meeting, but most of them boil down to one idea: The current political/business climate is unhealthy and potentially dangerous to innovation. Lessig advocates a “commons” approach to Internet technology, one that excludes no one and makes the same opportunities available for all—not just those running the leading company’s software.

There were too many interesting ideas for me to present in the few minutes that I have left to write, but one that I found very pratical was his suggestion about copyrights. If a copyright is a temporary, government-backed monopoly, existing purely to provide incentive (read as “profit") for creativity, it stands to reason that monopoly should expire at some point (which copyrights do). The recent trend toward extending copyrights, Lessig argues, is fruitless, because nothing new is being created in exchange for the extension.

A much better solution for companies (or other entities who want to retain control of copyrights that retain commercial value after the copyright expires) would be to institute a copyright tax. Lessig suggested that the first 50 years of a copyright should be tax-free. Anything after that should require a nominal tax, say something like $10 a year for every year after the 50th. Copyright holders who fail to pay the tax after 50 years would lose the copyright and the copyrighted material would then become part of the public domain. This is a much better idea than simply extending the term of a copyright to 100 years, because only material that really deserves copyright protection (that is to say, is still earning money) would continue to get it after the normal copyright term expires.

Clever guy, that Lessig. I’m looking forward to reading his books. 

One of my Japanese coworkers recently returned from a two-month business trip overseas. Before he left, someone gave him a book as a farewell present. Nice gesture, right? Well, yes and no.

Japanese culture is rooted in a sense of mutual obligation, you see, so now this guy feels obligated to show how grateful he was to receive the book by telling the person who gave it to him how much he enjoyed it. The problem is that he has no intention of enjoying it—except perhaps vicariously.

The subject of this book, America’s foster-care system, is of no interest to my colleague. (Don’t ask me why someone thought a book about foster care would make a good going-away present, because I have absolutely no idea.) Also,the fact that the book is written in English makes my colleague even less inclined to read it. It’s not that his English isn’t good enough—on the contrary, he’s quite fluent—but simply that he’s a busy guy who doesn’t want to make time to read a book, in his second language, about a subject so completely divorced from his daily life. (Take my word for it, even among bilingual professionals, not a lot of people enjoy reading for pleasure in their second language. I rarely do.)

So what does he do? He gives the book to me, of course!

“Here, I thought you might be interested in this book,” he said. “Because you speak English natively, it would only take you a couple of days to finish it, right? Great. Enjoy! Oh, by the way, could you give me a basic outline of the content by Friday? Thanks!”

So here I am, holding a book in which I have probably less interest than he does—and probably as little time in which to actually read it. What a hassle!

You’re probably wondering why I would agree to do such a thing in the first place, right? Well, remember what I wrote about Japanese culture being rooted in mutual obligation? My obligations to this guy run pretty deep. He’s done a lot for me in the time that I’ve worked here; now he’s asking a favor of me in return. It would be rather boorish of me to say no, under the circumstances. After all, he’s even presented this book to me as yet another gift! Japanese people are clever like that.

“So, tell me, what good is a Web journal if you never write anything in it?”

Good question. I’ve been meaning to write all kinds of wonderful and interesting things, but just never seem to find the time. But that’s about to change. I’m just a little bit more than 100 hours away from completing my 28th lap around the sun, you see, and I’m beginning to realize that my life will probably come to an end before an abundant amount of free time falls into my lap.

With that in mind, I will try my best to write something, anything, in this space every day. I used to be concerned that doing so would result in little more than a “haircut blog” (i.e., “Today I got a haircut. Nothing much else to write about..."), but I’m not going to worry about that for now. We’ll see how I feel after tomorrow’s haircut.

Here are some of the things going on in my life these days:

• I got a raise! Woo hoo!
• Yuko’s grandma is in the hospital. She’s having a cancerous growth removed from her stomach. Not much fun involved in that operation, I imagine.
• I’m still very disappointed with the results of the mid-term elections in the U.S. Much of what our government is doing these days really bothers me.

Judging by the headlines at Google News, here’s what’s going on in the rest of the world:

• WorldCom settles with SEC
• AIDS now striking men and women equally
• Aide to Canada PM quits over ‘Bush is a moron’ flap

On the whole, I’d say my daily life parallels the trends we see in the media: Economic news comes first, health next, then politics.

And I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who thinks Bush is a moron!

As the Bush team steamrolls its way towards a war in Iraq, we find this message from Henry Kissinger: 

“It is not in the American national interest to establish preemption as a universal principle available to every nation.”

Mr. Kissenger also writes:

“American military intervention in Iraq would be supported only grudgingly, if at all, by most European allies.”

I can tell you that it’s not only the European allies that would be unlikely to support action in Iraq--Asia doesn’t seem to be too fond of the idea, either.

Speaking of Asia, here’s what Mr. Kissenger had to say about that particular region:

“The most interesting and potentially fateful reaction might well be that of India, which would be tempted to apply the new principle of preemption to Pakistan.”

So, not only is this war likely to alienate our allies, destabilize the Middle East, and give Islamic fundamentalists even more reason to hate the U.S., but it will also give other nuke-toting states a precedent for aggression in the guise of preemption. Great. Tell me, just how far are we willing to let Bush go to ensure Republican victories in November? (Which is, in my opinion, the real reason Bush wants this war so much: To drape the flag around his party, thereby ensuring Republican dominance in government.)

I’m afraid I am forced to agree, once again, with Mr. Kissenger:

“America’s special responsibility, as the most powerful nation in the world, is to work toward an international system that rests on more than military power—indeed, that strives to translate power into cooperation.”

No cooperation, no war. It should be that simple. Why isn’t it?

Brace yourself for digital enslavement. 

Now that Microsoft has started moving forward with its plans for Palladium, it is not hard to see how it will quickly clamp down on all computing. The scariest thing about Palladium is not that it threatens to make Open Source irrelevant (or worse, perhaps even illegal) or that it gives Microsoft more control over your computer, but that it puts Microsoft in the position of defining your rights. 

Normally this is what governments do.

If Microsoft is successful in promoting Palladium, I imagine it will only be a matter of time before it renders conventional notions of governance obsolete. It already issues (actually, it doesn’t issue, it requires) its own Passport, after all.