Cory Doctorow in Helsinki

Corey Doctorow talks about his point of view on the future, and his main point is on what he sees as the big picture, which is self determination.  He sees self determination as a good thing, which i completely agree with.  A perfect example is of the rat in a cage, which is given a shock at a regular interval, and how it can be perfectly normal, but if the rat is shocked at random times, it can go crazy.  This is a perfect analysis of human beings, and what the future will bring.  People in the future will be so self determined, and in self control, but if you take away the regularity of something in someone's life it will leave them with no hope or desire to go on.

But with the lack of self determination that is able to be used today (because of things like copyright's and stuff), it is similar to us being like an inmate or like a child, he points out.  He goes on to talk about the capabilities of cell phones, and computers, however, there are many restrictions that programers make for these that limit us.  He talks about how the technology of today is built to limit the self determination of its users.  We are not able to do anything "of use" on our phones without the permission of the phone companies.  The best thing about technology is that we can communicate easier with other people, and interact with them, not just using what is given to us by the companies, but by being self determined and being able to use the tools without limits.  Self determination is why people like wikipedia so much, because they can fix or add anything that they want on it, its not just some set information that is not able to be messed with, however it is something that people can be involved with.

Creativity today is very limited because of things like anti-features that companies use, and the restriction of being able to copy will eventually lead to the downfall of mankind he believes.  The best thing that you could have is total determination over your tools, and have the ability to make them do whatever it is that you want them to do.

Corey Doctorow hopes that in the future we will essentially destroy the carriers and reform the companies.  As of right now, he feels like the companies act like they are kings, slaying their users, and treating them as they wish.  However, he believes that if we inject some type of genuine competition, and make them actually compete with their customers to deliver to them the service that they actually want, then and only then will we truly have the freedom we need for self determination.

Team 1