Thoughts and life
I sometimes wonder about the purity of our ideas around things like free speech and media freedom.
WHO's free speech, exactly? Who's media freedom? Are George Bush and Clear Channel any less 'free' to spew out what they consider free speech and their version of media freedom? Bush would have you think his thoughts are 'the right thoughts'. Clear Channel would have you think that by determining how to buy up most of the radio outlets in the major markets of the US, they've earned the right to say and do what they want. It's their freedom. Their capitalistic right.
And they are both, in their own ways, correct.
BUT, and yes, there's is always a but, this brings us back to a more philosophical argument around pure capitalism vs. community and the rights of a group of people that bind together into a community. At what level do you take away the rights of that community? And at what level do you consider a community to be 'natural'?
Some say that the size is around the 200 people. That's a group that's considered 'knowable' by everyone in the group. Interestingly, this matches the size of the average human village that existed for thousands of years. Get much larger and you start to lose the intimate personal nature of the the village.
I'm not sure our minds can hold more than 200 peoples worth of 'knowingness'.
And.. that brings us back to pirate radio. I think the best possible way to use it would be to have it address an area that covers about 200 people. A 'neighborhood' radio station, so to speak. Man.. that would be cool. 10's of thousands of tiny little stations playing news and updates, music and musiings from the 200 or so people in the community.
Of course, this is bullshit in the real world. But it's fun to dream every so often.
Monk@kbfr.org
I sometimes wonder about the purity of our ideas around things like free speech and media freedom.
WHO's free speech, exactly? Who's media freedom? Are George Bush and Clear Channel any less 'free' to spew out what they consider free speech and their version of media freedom? Bush would have you think his thoughts are 'the right thoughts'. Clear Channel would have you think that by determining how to buy up most of the radio outlets in the major markets of the US, they've earned the right to say and do what they want. It's their freedom. Their capitalistic right.
And they are both, in their own ways, correct.
BUT, and yes, there's is always a but, this brings us back to a more philosophical argument around pure capitalism vs. community and the rights of a group of people that bind together into a community. At what level do you take away the rights of that community? And at what level do you consider a community to be 'natural'?
Some say that the size is around the 200 people. That's a group that's considered 'knowable' by everyone in the group. Interestingly, this matches the size of the average human village that existed for thousands of years. Get much larger and you start to lose the intimate personal nature of the the village.
I'm not sure our minds can hold more than 200 peoples worth of 'knowingness'.
And.. that brings us back to pirate radio. I think the best possible way to use it would be to have it address an area that covers about 200 people. A 'neighborhood' radio station, so to speak. Man.. that would be cool. 10's of thousands of tiny little stations playing news and updates, music and musiings from the 200 or so people in the community.
Of course, this is bullshit in the real world. But it's fun to dream every so often.
Monk@kbfr.org
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