[pp.int.general] A Pirate Ideology

[Pat Maechler aka Valio]

I would be happy to recieve your critical comments on the text below.
You can send them either directly to my personal message box (pirate
[at] valio.ch ) or to this list.
Please be assured that I will read them, but will probably lack the
ressources to reply to them (also concerning the actual question if I
consider them sound or not).
Yes I know it's fucking long...if you want to have the short version
jump to "A Pirate Ideology and It's Explanation" and read the proposed
ideology core inbetween the stars.
But be careful by judging it, before reading the entire text; possibly
I just missed the right words in that particular sentence.

fair winds
-pat

** A Pirate Ideology **

*Content*
- A Foreword on Ideologies and Our Current Democracy
- The Core of Succesful Ideologies
- Previous Approaches to the Pirate Parties Ideology
- A Pirate Ideology and It's Explanation
- What Makes the Proposed Pirate Ideology Appealing
- Afterword
- References
- License

*A Foreword on Ideologies and Our Current Democracy*

I have thought a certain time about writing this mail. I was thinking
longtime what is the pirate ideology? You know; I particularly don't
like ideologies. This partly comes from the fact that I think that
they are often used to an extreme which primes people in a certain
way, which may clutter their ability to judge in a rational way. In
fact I'm not that certain that these ideologies are the best for our
current political system.
Succesful ideologies are a bit like very stupid essentials which you
try to apply everywhere. Why is that? Who tells you that it's a sane
assumption? If you built upon such ideologies in a democracy where
politicians have to decide almost everything then you are forcing
politicians to become an expert in every field, which is completely
bogus in a world which is becoming more and more complex and where
it's difficult for an individual to keep all relevant things in mind.
It's really no surprise to me that politicians are often influenced by
lobbyists in dubious ways. I personally would like to see liquid
democracy as a possible option for a new kind of democratic system.
I'm not talking about using Liquid Feebdback for discussing things in
your party; that's a nice variant, but a mediocre thing at best; I'm
talking about a radical democratic approach where topics are split
among multiple parliaments (how this is to split should be up to the
people) and where people have the option to not just give their vote
to a certain politician which will try to apply the respective
ideology to everything, but where they have the option to give weight
to a certain politician in a certain area, but give weight to another
one in another area. Let's consider the following example: Eve thinks
family values are of high importance and she highly approves of the
family values by the Christian party, but not of their view on
ecological issues; however apart from that she dooesn't like the rest
of the Christian ideology but thinks in general we should strive for a
sustainable world which is rather a concern in the Green party;
however their open family model probably does not really fit her ideal
of a family (keep in mind, that it's just an example). In another
instance Eve thinks, she's the only that has enough knowledge on the
financial system to know what would be best to prevent another
collapse.
So in a world where Eve can only give her vote to one or the other
party, she's stuck between deciding the lesser negative aspect; either
the not so sustainable Christian party or the not so approved family
model by the Green party. She might as well start her own party with
those 3 topics, as then people might be then more willing to listen to
her arguments about the financial system, if she's running for
elections. But will this party be really succesful? And what if it is
succesfull? Should she retain to the 3 topics or does she need to
broaden the program, even though she has only a mediocre understanding
of all those other topics? Should she real take that hassle? This
conflict would not exist if she could vote for once in the favour of
the Green and the other time in favour of the Christian party and
could be running herself for elections for the parliament that is
responsible for discussing the financial system. That would be the
real radical idea behind that system that is called "liquid
democracy". It's a completely different world of what we currently
name as "democracy".

*The Core of Succesful Ideologies*

But let's get back. As said succesful ideologies are a bit like very
stupid essentials which you try to apply everywhere; at a certain
point it may hardly not matter to you anymore if they are sane
assumptions to a certain extend or not.
Examples? Neoliberalism basically says that the state should be kept
out of all things even if it may not serve "the interest of the
people" (as some may define it), Socialism basically says the state
you should always intervene in the interest of the people where it's
democratically decided what is "in the interest of the people". So
what we see here is that ideologies usually build up one very simple
things that can be described in one sentence and that should be
applied to everything.
You will tell me now that there are counterexamples, such as the
Christian party which builds up on the bible, which says many complex
things in many sentences. That is correct; however it becomes
extremely difficult for Christian parties to advocate that. What can
be seen nowadays is that Christian parties either take not every
sentence in the bible literally and also goes to something simple
(like "the family and the faith (without partcular extremum) is the
basis of society") or if they do take it literally in very obscure
Christian parties, they are usually not voted on because educated
people nowadays realize that if everything would be taken literally in
the bible, we would be likely living in a contradictory and insane
society, rather than in one that should be achieved on the grounds of
morality.

*Previous Approaches to the Pirate Parties Ideology*

>From my knowlegde there has been only one really visible thus notable
approach to the pirate parties ideologies: namely the ones put forward
by Rick Falkinge, founder of the Swedish and first pirate party.
Given that I do approve the work Rick has put in the Eight Spokes of
Piracy [8], as it explains the de facto situation where we are based
on, but it's far from an ideology and one should be careful by
applying it in this form. Why is this? Well put simply if you put your
weight on several different areas instead of a single sentence, you
will rather likely run into a situation where the party will start to
dispute within itself if one of the principles is really a sane
assumption.
Then people will start to argue about it and there will be no definite
answer. Then the party will more likely split up in 2 different
branches; the one who care for that aspect and those who don't. You
will likely not run intp that hallway of internal dispute if you start
to apply a simple, single-minded principle; because then it's an
All-Or-Nothing-Thing. Either you agree to it or you do not. If you
don't agree to it, you can go and fuck yourself in the corner, as
you're not welcomed in the party then (you may consider to start your
own one, but it may hardly attract people just by that if they don't
care for it enough themself). We can clearly say that this does not
apply to Rick's Eight Piracy Spokes text.
There are nice graphs which show how this spokes are intertweened, but
there is no real common ground on which each spoke stands.
Once "humanism" has been suggested at the center [9]. Well; to be
honest I'm not against "humanism", just as I'm not against "ecological
protection" but these terms are often defined in very odd ways and
it's not clear how to interprete them in certain situations; is
allowing women to have abortions for or against humanity? It clearly
depends where you're standing; either close to freedom-loving people,
or close to people that give fetuses the same rights as to every
already born person (for whatever reasons, rational or irational).
Same goes for "ecological protection"; depending on your situation
this is a term that can be interpreted to various ways; something that
is between "doing a bit that nature does not degenerate that fast" and
"nature has to become the same as before". While those 2 terms give a
certain exclusion of certain actions that certainly do not apply to
them (there are things that can't sanely labeled as "humanism" or
"ecological protection") they do not define an aim by themselves. That
is a problem as people will start to argue on non-rational ways if
their definition of the term does match their actions. You will have
more or less extreme interpretations of the terms, but nothing that
can be agreed on them just by that. It depends what other goals you
have as well.
You are free to correct me here and show me how you would argue that
"this" or "that" is inherently closer to "humanism" or "ecological
protection". Even better: provide me a coherent definition for it,
which can be directly used to infer if situation described above what
is the action that is clearly for "humanism". Clearly Rick himself has
seen that this kind of term is probably not the best one to put at the
core [4].
In the most recent version "Empowerment" has been suggested as the
core [3][4]. While I like "empowerment" I don't see the argument why
it is something that should be achieved. Why is "empowerment" of
everyone our ideal? Why should we have "good faith" in everyone? Why
is not each human just a wolf which needs to be controlled by a system
of society (see Thomas Hobbes)? The argumentation is clearly missing
there. I'm not saying that it's impossible to come up with an
explanation. But it will be likely influenced by arguments that are
harder to rationalize. In this proposal I try to avoid the non
rationalizable parts as much as possible, that are part of need that
is as intuitive as possible and needs to be fulfilled (from my
perspective).
Furthermore a real ideology usually does not start by stating a
certain amount of things you think it is supported by what you are
striving for. Because if those things are not naturally connected to
each other you may as well add another "random" topic. There are few
sound arguments why - if you already have a number of things of topics
you are in favour for, but which show no inherent self-standing
ideology - you should not add something else as well. Then again we
will have a fight again about what is the core of the pirate ideology.
That is something we usually want to avoid in the name of the common
ideals we are standing for.

*A Pirate Ideology and It's Explanation*

In the following paragraph I hereby state what I think could be a
possible pirate ideology. Consider that I write "a possible pirate
ideology" instead of "the pirate ideology". I'm not that arrogant to
assume that I'm the one that should define "the pirate ideology"; also
I'm not that blind to think that there are no other possible
interpretations to the current pirate topics. This one just tries to
be as intuitive as I can come up with.
You likely will disagree on this one; you may accuse it of beeing of
this and this category (likely you will accuse it of beiing a partly
"green ideology"); just go on. But consider the explanation which I
give when you start to argue against it. So the pirate ideology as I
would define it as follows:
*****
The longterm goal of humanity is to sustain as species on this world
in peace and with equality where nature can co-exist. Knowledge is the
only natural thing that can keep humans not equal in possibilities and
measures such as control or censorship that keeps people from sharing
knowledge stripping them of self-control, qualitative inequality that
can lead to war and dictatorship is a non avoidable thing to come.
*****
I admit: It's not one sentence and you may could make it shorter; or
you may come up with your own ideas of a pirate ideology that leaves
certain parts out; but please really read on, before criticising.
After I stated this to several people likely the first fight will
start to continue among speciest and non-speciest ("extreme animal
rights people" if you want to have the mainstream term). However even
the most extreme non-speciest will hardly want a world where humans
are extinct (okay, we all nowadays realize that this would be probably
to a certain extent better for "nature", however one may define it;
however no one going into politics will strive for that publicly) or
where he basically strives for living on the trees (one burgeois
relative once told me that the greens want us to "live on the trees
again" but that's of course nonsense apart from a few extremists). Yet
neither any speciest want to live completely without any sort of
nature. Okay, I admit; I'm from a country where people in cities are
at least 99% still aware that milk is coming from cows and not
machines.  I admit that this definition is based on the assumption
that there is only one material world, and we are the ones that have
to take of it. If you believe in an afterlife you are probably less
eager to care for this world, as you consider that you and all
possible successors (that are behaving by the ideas of your belief)
will come to some sort of paradise anyway.
I agree when you tell me that "sustainability" is - according to our
insights in physics - possibly only an illusion as our universe will
probably end up in a state where energy has been distribted evenly on
all matter and where it can't be used anymore (I guess all of you had
thermodynamics and the history of the universe at some point in
school; but probably not all of you saw the implications of what has
been teached there?). Still it's better to strive for the
sustainability of our species than for more or less distanced death of
our species. Maybe we may even overcome that named obstacle (if it is
the case that the universe is expanding and energy goes down to the
last level, I assume not; but that's not the question) by getting more
insights into the universe in the longterm. It's basically a game
where we have to decide how we should use our ressources that are
currently available.
Even if you do not dispute this aspect, you may all disagree what is
the most important part of human existence then (if it can and should
be sustained). Even those that are in favour of a hedonist approach
here (the basic is that everyone gets as most joy as possible), will
agree that it would quite terrible if we keep the whole waste for our
children to clean up and therefore not having more but clearly less
things to enjoy in the world. You may say it's for "striving for
knowledge" and I agree particularly on that, but that's not important
for the core of the ideology; it's rather a nice addition to the core,
which could have rather stand for itself. "striving for knowledge"
also may help to get a better relationship with nature again, but it's
not like this is any sort of necessary aspect; it's more one way to do
it.
Why should we strive for peace? Well basically said anything else than
peace means suffering for certain. You may not be aware of that, but
war is nothing to joke about. I hope it will keep an option that is
not taken any country near mine, but also on the world; and if it's
taken then only as a really "last option", not as something that is
fueled by economic interests which could have been solve politcally as
well.
Why should we strive for equality? Well, equality is the one thing
that keeps the society together. You can always clearly observe if the
inequality rises to high in a country (especially in a country where
the poor part of society can hardly survive) the likelihood either for
dictatorian or for internal wars rises. But hardly anyone sober wants
war. Officially there are "losers" and "winners" but in general it's
nothing but that both sides loose to a certain extent.
Now let's get to the second sentence; it reads "Knowledge is the only
natural thing that can keep humans not equal in possibilities". Okay
at least marxists will know attack me by saying "what about production
means? what about money?" I say, yes, well they matter. But  the
tangible production means are something that can be usually always
taken; either by war or revolution. Of course there are dark fantasies
where people have lost so many tangible means that they are even
unable to resist the regime. But that's something which will hopefully
never happen. Also equality incorporates this of course. About the
second thing..."money"...well that's actually only a human invention.
It's not that people could not live without it. They did so "before
money". It's harder, but usually possible. "Money" is nothing more
than an idea itself; most of the money does not have a value by itself
(it's a bit of metal, special ink and paper), but money only is been
given value in a system where people . So you can keep that out of the
equation completely. One can think of societies which use money and
such that don't use any money. It actually does not really matter in
the long-term perspective that much if you have realized these
aspects.
The only natural thing that can be really controlled to an extent
which is hard to take by revolution or war however is information. You
can use information to spread your propaganda, you can thus use it to
influence the public. Information can be used against you; if you see
such information and feel threatened by it, you will try to control it
by whatever means possible. Information comes before all other things.
If you would have no means to communicate you will have a very hard
time to control other people. You can do so by force, but force is an
element which is bound to our tangible world and as said the tangible
world could be usually be taken away by war or revolution. Only in
combination with information the malice control over the tangible
things becomes a real problem. With information you can spread ideas
in people's head which will hinder them to revolt against you, with
informtion you can dictate your subordinates to control those that you
don't want to rebel against you.
Accidentely information is also the only thing that can be shared
indefenitely. It does not diminish; everyone can profit from it. There
are 2 arguments to be made here.
First information does not only diminish it is als the only natural
thing that can grow by sharing more of it, but which on the other side
does not reduce others from the possibility from enjoying it.
Information does not reduce ressources in general. Now some will argue
that the Internet is using a huge amount of ressources and cannot be
sustainable. But the current Internet is only one option to have a
society where information is shared. If we want to keep the Internet
(or similar information exchange systems) for our future generations
we will have certainly to find a way to put the ressource usage to a
minimum. Of course even consuming information as a human beeing uses
tangible ressources as our bodies and primary our brains need chemical
decomposition to work. However I'm positive that it's possible to get
to a point where the ressource usage can be reduced to a minimum that
can be fueled by the sun. If you think about information in the terms
of "memes" [5] you will realize that allowing for a free information
exchange is actually a measure in order to allow memes to commit
evolution. A huge amount of our society is based on people who have
taken up a meme someone else conceived before them and started to
refine it into something even better. The previous memes therefore had
"sex" in the mind of that person an thus where brought foreward in
evolution.
The second argument is that a culture where information is shared
freely, is likely a culture where there's not such a high level of
inequality. If people get access to information for education, if
people get access to information on a non-exlanatory inequal
distribution, if people get the means to spread their information on
an equal level, inequality is not necessary eliminated, but it's
rather unlikely not to be elimnated. Furthermore in a wealthy society
where people are encouraged to share information they are rather aware
of inequalities themselves and will rather strive for helping those in
a worse situation than they are themselves to a certain extend.
You will notice that one may not necessarily come to "privacy" at this
point. Well I did never say, that I will come up with something that
weights all pirate topics equal. Privacy for me again is an addition
here. However one can argue, that in a society where equality is not
the weighted the same as hedonism often is, those who are wealthy are
more likely to control information. They are more likely to control
those that are less wealthy e.g. because the can blackmail them or
similar and because they have more means to defend themselves against
diffaming information for them. But then they are breaching the very
basic premise of sharing information. So in a world where judgement is
partially still not based on rational grounds, but more on the level
of sensationalism like "oh! look that is a dirty politician!" privacy
is condition which should be met, because it allows a several level of
self-control instead of foreign control. Same goes for most "citizen
rights" in general (where privacy is often mentionned), while this
ideology itself does not say that the current citizen rights are the
correct one, one can likely state that a society without any citizen
rights will likely strip people to exert self-control.
If you have a society which believes in information sharing, some
amount of equality and a care for future generations, an open and
honest democracy is a rather natural thing to come. Admittetly such a
kind of democracy would be less open for approaches that would
completely disregard the needs of future generations; but seriously,
are we that selfish to allow that? I'm not talking about questionning
measures where it's dubious if they are really a contribution to
sustainability. I'm talking about political decisions that clearly
disregard sustainability completely alltogether. Decisions that do not
do that should not be taken from my perspective, as there can be
nothing but selfishness in such a decision.
Why is the opposite of sharing information a natural way to war or
dictatorship? Well in a society where not even information is shared
to a certain extent, the only thing that can be shared without
diminishment it will rather come to social inequality. Thereby it will
come a situation where those that have more will either need to
control those with less (often by information again) or those that
have less will likely rebel at a certain point of time, if the
inequality becomes unbearable. Thus sharing information is one of the
first steps towards equality and to a society where each individual
can exert their respective part of information control and therefor
self-control. Because freedom is only freedom if all people can exert
it. Freedom that is only for you and which diminished the freedom of
someone else is a kind of freedom that is illusionary. You are
basically enslaving someone else for your own means. If you can't
control your own information, you're basically in the same information
as the convicted offender in Franz Kafka's roman "Der Process" [1] how
is stripped even of the knowledge on which ground he has been
convicted. If you're still not convinced why information control is
bad, you may also read up on Judith Butlers "Excitable Speech" [2]
which basically says "if information is censored, it may backfire by
allowing a society not to change even for the better".
"What about capitalism with your ideology?" Well this is actually not
said anywhere. I see capitalism, just as idealistic communism (I'm not
talking about the one that has been implemented for the worse) is just
a society system. However it should be obvious that sustaining growth,
which is a crucial issue for sustaining the species and nature, is a
very delicate issue. Some will say this is completely contradictory,
others will tell else. However  I see it as quite unrealistic that
endless economic growth will be sustainable. With wealth comes to wish
to consume more, even so the wish comes to consume stuff that does not
really help your life. In western countries people are hardly more
happy than 30 years before. Why exactly should we produce stuff that
no one needs, that does not alleviate happiness, but in contrast is
likely to consume ressources which can't be recycled in a sustainable
way? If you ask me there is no reason for that. I can be a very lazy
and hedonistic person myself; I do like a certain amount of luxury.
But if my lazyness leads to a world where the future generation will
get a way less luxury way of life due to ressource scarcity, I'm
rather going to limit myself to an extend which is still better than
"living on the trees" and question economic growth that does not
improve my mood a lot.
"What about drugs legislation?" Well, drugs are not information
themself. They are something which can be applied both sides to the
proposed ideology. If people loose their amount of self-control and
get into a state where they are addicted, then this rather contradicts
the theory of exerting self-control. So having addicted people that
can't exert self-control is nothing this ideology wants. On the other
hand if the usage of drugs is generally prohibited you strive people
of their possibility to consensually alter their mind. Now this is
something which you don't want neither. E.g. certain drugs can be an
excellent tool as they allow you to separate them from the common day
meaning and to bring the evolution of certain of your memes foreward
in your mind, which would have been difficult if not impossible
without the usage of drugs. Thus the usage of drugs is - from my
perspective - a thing that people should have the option to use, but
which should be also controlled to an extent where they do no loose
self-control.

*What Makes the Proposed Pirate Ideology Appealing?*

What contrasts the previously proposed pirate ideology from all other
succesful ideologies is that at it's core it states that information
shall not be controlled. Other ideologies do not state this at their
core. As we have seen information control is a way to power and power
is the only thing ideologies usually strive for. Thus all of these
other ideologies will come to a point where their representatives will
naturally consider to (ab)use information control, because it does not
contradict their ideology; be it while aspiring for power or be it
after succesfully getting into power in order to retain their power.
Of course the proposed pirate ideology would be the same when it comes
to aspiring for power, as this is a natural intention of ideologies.
However in contrast to other ideologies the proposed pirate ideology
would naturally contradict itself if it tries to control information
in an amount as has been done e.g. in communist states, in facism
states and probably also in neoliberal states. It is therefor one of
the few ideologies that can't be used to aspire for power and then
abuse this power by information control as this would inherently
contradict the ideology at it's very core.
The ideology states that at it's core those that are in favour of
controlling information on just one side, are the ones that want to
dictate people instead of giving all people the same amount of
influence.

*Afterword*

As said before this text should be "a pirate ideology" and never "the
pirate ideology". I am very well aware that I'm in a privileged
position to have conceived this text and I'm not entirely happy about
that; if you're a male, caucasian and western person, you have so much
more possibilities than anyone else (and I think everyone should be
given the possibilities to conceive such ideas). Actually I think it's
not my idea alone, but that I would have been unable to conceive it
without my connections to the pirate movement; without all of the
fruitful environment and the exchange of ideas. It was a remix of
memes which I got from several pirates, possibly including you.
I think these ideas should spread freely. I want to have this text
connected to the pirate movement 'though, that's why I would like to
publish it as CC-BY 3.0 unported [6], as those who want to make use of
it, are obliged to cite where the idea sprang from (I know this is
contradictory to real free flow of ideas, and I may reconsider that
decision later on). Now who's the author? Most people living in the
copymonopoly world would say it's mine. I would say that I'm just the
writer and "the pirate movement" is the actual author as described
above. But if people begin to cite "the pirate movement" with this
text, they are not unlikely to confuse that all pirates agree on that.
Then again that could be seen at a level of high arrogance by myself.
So probably you may cite this as "conceived in the pirate movement,
written by Pat Mächler". I'm still not happy with that solution but
it's probably best until the text is acknowlegded as such; after that
I'm happily considering applying the CC-0 license to it, which I don't
do for now 'though (so, please don't use the text without proper
citation for now).
Up to now I considered myself rather a "classical liberal" (and not a
"green" as some might judge from the text); but I think I have gone
now to a "pirate". Certainly even some pirates might categorize me now
differently, as they do not agree on the text. I don't care that much
actually about judgements. Categorization and judgements are old times
politics. I'm happily considering criticism that is directed at the
text, but I will likely not consider personal ones, that have no
connection to what is actually said in this text. Currently I am
likely unable to see numerous problems in stringent philosophical
argumentation in the text and I don't mind if you point these out. In
fact I think that would be an overall positive thing to do, as
ideologies can only be as strong as the assumptions and interferences
that are used within them. Every ideology can be attacked at a certain
position, but some are easier to attack than others, as great care was
used to select sane assumptions and sound argumentation lines.
A lot of people will probably consider this a "leftist" text, as it
incorporates elements of ecology and socioeconomic equality. Actually
I never would describe myself as "leftist". But I would consider
myself to be an idealist to a certain extent. I'm always dubious when
it comes to development aid. In fact I think certain form of
development aid are rather harmful as they advise people to accept the
gifts instead of getting out of their situation, while other forms of
development help that advise people in how to exactly get out of their
situation can be extremely helpful. Neither do I consider myself
"green"; not all measures that are taken in the name of "environmental
protection" are show forms of sustainability. In contrast
"sustainability" is a rather clearly defined term, which can be
rationalized to a high extent; that is if you take not the every day
definition of "sustainability", but the scientific definitions such as
the one put forward by the Brundtland Commission [7].
Probably I used a dubious name for this work. Because if another
pirate wants to propose another pirate ideology it's not avoidable to
use another name. Anyway, I guess it's "first come, first serve"
sometimes when it comes to titles. ;-)
Oh...by the way...if you think this is insane (you likely will when
you read this the first time) consider that there are some Maya
calendar believers who tell people that the world will end in 363 days
from now on. That is crazy shit man! ;-) (I doubt that "the world will
end", but I admit that I'm currently a bit afraid of another world war
breaking out; that would be terrible enough for humans and other
lifeforms on the planet)

* References *

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Butler#Excitable_Speech:_A_Politics_of_the_Performative_.281997.29
[3] http://falkvinge.net/pirate-wheel/
[4] http://falkvinge.net/2011/08/12/is-empowerment-the-core-word-of-the-pirate-ideology/
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
[6] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability
[8] http://falkvinge.net/2011/03/23/the-eight-spokes-of-information-policy/
[9] http://falkvinge.net/2011/03/28/putting-humanism-first-row-center/

*License*

"A Pirate Ideology" conceived in the pirate movement, written by Pat
Mächler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
License [6]. Please respect proper citation rules for now.