Darknets

Tuesday now.  Good night of sleep behind me.  Some tea in the body to wake me up.  Less than two weeks to go before Easter and my first cup of coffee for forty days.  Smelled a cup yesterday and almost started drooling.

Our mutual little circle of friends reading each other and offering up in the commons of blogger and wordpress are dealing in "content" sharing.  Now, in other times and other worlds, these would be letters.   We would post them to friends and when the content was good, they would be shared with other friends of friends and the thought would propagate.  Now, I am by no means comparing us to him, but if you look at the thoughts of Cicero, you will get the idea of what simple correspondence among friends can do.  Another example of this phenomenon are the letters of Abelard and Heloise.  These letters added significantly to the thought in medieval Europe and some of the ideas still resound today

What we are doing here is exchanging letters among a group.  Some of our work is pretty good, a lot of it is derivative, some of it really stinks up the place.  But this interaction is an ancient and effective manner of getting thoughts and ideas about.  We are using a minuscule fraction of the corporate space that is currently defined as the "Internet" to propagate our ideas.  The cost is free (currently) and the satisfaction immediate.  We can even count our successes and mourn our failures because the soap-box that we mount in order to voice our thoughts monitors us constantly and even lets us look to see how we are doing (read here: google analytics).

I am thinking that maybe this open exchange of letters and ideas is not in everyones best interest.  The combination of the corporate and the political arms of a country gives rise to a culture where non-conformity is beaten down ruthlessly.   If we continue to have free and open exchanges of thought, there may be a need for a non-refereed platform to do so.

Darknets currently have a smelly reputation.  But there is really nothing immoral or illegal about the idea of a trusted web of individuals.  Especially if all that is being exchanged is ideas.

Got check out Retroshare.  If you find the idea intriguing, download it and get it running.  Send me a comment in this blog with your e-mail and I will set my system to go look for you.

This might be a decent alternative folks.  I hope that you will all consider the possibilities here.