Social Architecture 2: freedom of expression

Part of the reason of USSR failure was going against human nature. The ruling party tried to standardize everything: how people speak, what they wear, sometimes even what they think. That contradicted with human desire to create something new, to differentiate from others, to find oneself style and identity. People were jealously looking at the West, scrambling whatever bits they can get from there (jeans, VHS players, gums anyone?). This was a huge contributing factor to the crash of the empire: people wanted to be liberated.

Capitalists, on the other hand, played upon human psychology instead of fighting it: they understood the basic human needs and they pushed them above the initial meaning. Capitalists created *new* needs, and this is still how our market evolves (take any Apple product as an example). Remember what they say in business "If you are competing, you've already lost"? Now think about it again, now within the context of consumerism culture.

Now, back to USSR. The reason soviets unified everything was not only the need to control the crowd. It was also the most efficient way to manage available resources (manufacturing, materials, work force, etc). In a sense, this was a real *economy*, while capitalists were not concerned about it on the global scale. The interesting bit here that I found is that Communism in general does not require unification, it was just a technical limitation in this particular implementation.

Imagine a city of the future again (say, the Venus Project). People share everything they can (outside of their rooms). There is freedom of thought, because there of no need to control everyone: people are self-organized, and most decisions are made by a smart computer program. There is freedom of style and expression, because everyone can design their own appearance, or a commodity, and 3d-print it, thus making the design instantly available to anyone else. What happens is the advanced computing and manufacturing technologies allow us to express ourselves while still preserving the earth resources.

Concluding, it just wasn't the right time for Communism to be adopted. We needed to transit from the industrial to informational era. We needed the Internet, computing power, 3d printing, and other key technologies to be developed in order to build the new order. *Now* can be the right time. Delay half a century longer - and there will be nothing to save: our irresponsible treatment of Earth will change the atmosphere and the biosphere to the point of no return. We need to stop consuming and start thinking: about how we live, where we live, and what we can do to sustain ourselves.

My Internet

I've been accustomed to the Internet as we know it: fire up a browser, read email, feeds, visit FB/G+/Twitter, buy something on Amazon with a Visa card. It is indeed convenient, especially if you don't care to look under the hood, or explore the limits of your freedom. And the fact is: there are big companies there (providers of "free" services) that gather all information about you.

One of the ways to use that information is to chose the advertising that you'll see. Honestly, I don't care about ads too much. Most of the time I block them anyway, and when I see them - I'll appreciate a featured anime figure more than some silly pills. But ads are just the tip of the iceberg, the only part of it we actually see. The real problem is the power you give them, the power that limits your potential, because no one cares about your weird habits until you become big.

In an ideal society, everyone can know everything about everyone. But we, as a species, are not ideal, thus making it a matter of protection to choose what information to share, and what to hide. Once your information can be bought, you never know who and when may turn it against you. Imagine a robber aware of your vacation schedule. The security question stands right near the privacy one. Your information is stored in a centralized manner: it could be denied of service, or it could be stolen - it's vulnerabile.

Now, how do we work around that, while still keeping it simple and convenient? There are several solutions for different sub-issues:

DNS. Generally provided by your ISP, thus may have some areas blocked (i.e. Wikileaks). They know wherever you go, and also redirect the "address not found" queries.
Solution: OpenNIC, any neutral DNS like Google DNS

File sharing. Exchanging music, books, and movies is prosecuted by RIAA & MPAA, even if you give it to your friend and delete it locally. They want you to rent things for an undefined period instead of owning them.
Solution: Torrent, private hosting if you can afford it.

Social network. This is where you expose the most of yourself. You need to preserve the rights to the content you create, and to share it only with those you care.
Solution: Disapora*.

Money transfer. Your Visa/AMEX/Mastercard knows everything you buy, everywhere you travel, and steals around 3% for each transaction. Also, you never know when your government decides to print more money, making whatever you have less valuable instantly.
Solution: Bitcoin.

Those solutions will only become valid once they gain a critical mass of users. I hope that my post aids this goal a little, making Internet a better place in the nearest future.