Ali Razeen

Here’s a very thought-provoking documentary: The Betrayal by Technology: A Portrait of Jacques Ellul. As the title suggests, it’s a general portrayal of a man who has questioned the dominance of technology in our lives. If you’ve already been questioning yourself, then his thoughts would likely spur your quest for a better understanding of the conditions we live in.

There is a time to admire the grace and persuasive power of an influential idea, and there is a time to fear its hold over us. The time to worry is when the idea is so widely shared that we no longer even notice it, when it is so deeply rooted that it feels to us like plain common sense. At the point when objections are not answered anymore because they are no longer even raised, we are not in control: we do not have the idea; it has us.

- Alfie Kohn in Punished by Rewards

I really like it when every so often, when I read something, I come across a paragraph or a line that has wisdom behind it, wisdom that illuminates. Just take the scene from Guards! Guards! where the dragon king debates with Wonse on his non-confrontational approach of getting people to do the king’s bidding:

Wonse flung up his finger-spread hands in a conciliatory fashion. ‘Of course, of course,’ he said. ‘But there are ways and ways, you know. Ways and ways. All the roaring and flaming, you see, you don’t need it …’

Foolish Ape! How else can I make them do my bidding?

Wonse put his hands behind his back.

“They’ll do it of their own free will,’ he said. ‘And in time, they’ll come to believe it was their own idea. It’ll be a tradition. Take it from me. We humans are adaptable creatures.’

The dragon gave him a long, blank stare.

‘In fact,’ said Wonse, trying to keep the trembling out of his voice, ‘before too long, if someone comes along and tells them that a dragon king is a bad idea, they’ll kill him themselves.’

The dragon blinked.

For the first time Wonse could remember, it seemed uncertain.

‘I know people, you see,’ said Wonse, simply.

The dragon continued to pin him with its gaze.

If you are lying … it thought, eventually.

‘You know I can’t. Not to you.’

And they really act like this?

‘Oh, yes. All the time. It’s a basic human trait.’

Wonse knew the dragon could read at least the upper levels of his mind. They resonated in terrible harmony. And he could see the mighty thoughts behind the eyes in front of him.

The dragon was horrified.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Wonse weakly. ‘That’s just how we are. It’s all to do with survival, I think.’

There will be no mighty warriors sent to kill me? it thought, almost plaintively.

‘I don’t think so.’

No heroes?

‘Not any more. They cost too much.’

But I will be eating people!

Wonse whimpered.

He felt the sensation of the dragon rummaging around in his mind, trying to find a clue to understanding. He half-saw, half-sensed the flicker of random images, of dragons, of the mythical age of reptiles and – and here he felt the dragon’s genuine astonishment – of some of the less commendable areas of human history, which were most of it. And after the astonishment came the baffled anger. There was practically nothing the dragon could do to people that they had not, sooner or later, tried on one another, often with enthusiasm.

You have the effrontery to be squeamish, it thought at him. But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless, and terrible. But this much I can tell you, you ape – the great face pressed even closer, so that Wonse was staring into the pitiless depths of his eyes – we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.

A really long time ago, I was in my school’s debate team. I wasn’t very good. The first time I went for a competition, I was ultra-nervous, I was speaking really quickly, I didn’t take any questions from the opposing team, and I did every mistake that a debater wasn’t supposed to do. Yes, we didn’t win. Weeks later, I gave some excuse and quit the team. I wasn’t frustrated with losing but I had issues with the concept of debates. I mean, here we were, arguing for or against something and then the judges choose the winner and the best speaker. But so what? At the end of the day, nothing ‘productive’ seems to have happened. The world goes on about its own course and things continue the way they were. But hey, I didn’t dwell on it too much. After all, I was only 15-years old; there were plenty of other things to worry about!

When I got to my pre-university institution, I decided to just pop by one of the debate team’s meetings and I found something that shocked me. In my earlier school, teams were given the topic to debate on a week before the actual competition. Here, the norm apparently was to give the topic about an hour before the competition. How was anyone supposed speak on anything and make sense after only an hour of research? Even if one was well-read, one needs time to think deeply and clearly about a situation and reason about its nuances to give any kind of judgement. This then raised the question: what the hell was the point of these debates other than a temporary boost of ego to the winning team?

Okay, I admit I am being very harsh to those who love debates and enjoy them. I’ll concede that me not being good in debates or verbal arguments in general might have something to do with my dislike. But that said, I personally find debates annoying and I try not to pay attention to them. Neither do I participate in them. If anyone wants to argue about something substantial to me, they better do it in writing and give me time to think before responding. Besides, writing also forces them to state their views clearly. That’s a plus.

But really, how useful are written arguments? It seems to me that people gravitate towards articles and books that are sympathetic to their point of view and ignore the rest that aren’t. For example, let’s take the group of people who hate free software or the GPL. I’d really like to know how many of such people have actually read Richard Stallman’s articles. I’ve had conversations about free software with a few people. This one person said: “I don’t believe in free software. I am a capitalist, why should I give away software for free?”. Another person said (I’m copying verbatim): “I know [free software] was your fundamental belief. But the thing is that all big companies are ultimately for-profit, and the world does need for-profit companies. Being for profit gives them the ability to be big, to have the resources to innovate, disrupt, etc.”.

If these two people spent some time reading Richard Stallman’s essays, they would have known that the “free” in “free software” stands for “freedom” and not price. They would also have known that selling free software is ok! But let’s say they did read Stallman’s essays. How likely is it then that they would change their opinions and think “oh yeah, proprietary software is bad, free software is good.”? Intuitively, it just seems like very few would. The rest would just give some other justification for proprietary software.

So what now? Because, honestly, we seem to be in a pickle. If verbal and written debates “don’t work”, what would? The answer might be engraved in Karl Marx’s tomb stone

Karl Marx’s tomb stone. Click for a larger version and read the engraving.

or in Elvis Presley’s song.

The king of rock and roll. Click to see one of his music videos.

So what matters, apparently, is what we do. It doesn’t matter so much whether I think or say that free software is important. What matters is whether I use free software, make free software, and contribute to the community. Now, this does seem to be a great way of looking at things. After all, who cares what my friend working in Microsoft says. I’ll just continue doing what I do for free software. Any time I spend debating with him is time away from my work. I’ll just focus on my own thing and do what I think is right. Incidentally, this also seems to be how the world works. Ever heard of the phrase “silent majority”? Maybe the silent majority are silent precisely because they just want to get on with their lives instead of being caught up with the squabbles of the vocal minority.

But this too is problematic. If every group does its own thing without regarding the other, then how could anyone hope for a progressive movement and a better future? Each group will just circle about on their own until they inevitably clash at some overlapping point. Such clashes can be frequently observed between the free software and proprietary software movement. A recent one is the controversy surrounding Microsoft’s secure-boot requirement for ARM-based hardware. Microsoft doesn’t allow certified ARM-based hardware developers to provide users the option of disabling secure boot, making it impossible to boot alternative operating systems. Free Software activists argue that this goes against the user’s freedom but apparently there are also those who find no problem with the requirement. How are such clashes resolved? Probably not via a mutual agreement and understanding.

So what matters? How should the world progress? How should people discuss conflicting ideas and agree on a common path forward? How does cooperation take more of an active place in society? I have no idea.

Today is my first day, since August 2007, as a person no longer affiliated with NUS; I officially ended my term as a research assistant yesterday. It has been a crazy 5 years but it was some of the best years I’ve had. From some of the friends I made to the many things I learnt, I had an absolutely brilliant time and a lot of opportunities. Since I have the time now, I will have to start writing a few of these experiences over the new few days.