As much as we like to stay away from letting real-world politics bleed over into our ongoing discussion of tech politics, I found an interesting essay over at The Economist's "Democracy in America" blog that draws a parallel between Apple's Mac/iPhone user-friendly ecosystem and the Microsoft Windows freer-but-more-chaotic ecosystem and how that lines up along the authoritarian/libertarian spectrum of real-world political division. They don't mention Open Source in this essay, but I'm sure it could make an interesting addition to the discussion. The essay's main point is that, in governance, attempts to make life more user-friendly for citizens usually ends up giving them less freedom of choice, and a certain segment of the political establishment will reliably oppose such moves. The idea that the tradeoff between choice and usability persists into the world of governance really set me to thinking. What kind of country would you rather live in? An Apple one, a Microsoft one, or an Open Source one?
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Member since:2008-07-15
Member since:2006-01-10
really?
can people handle school choice? Alberta, Sweden, Chile, British Columbia.. hmmm.. apparently they can and society does not collapse!
Can people handle drugs? Hmmm, Holland isn't collapsing.
Can people handle sexual morality? Hmm, yep, society is not collapsing as sexual freedoms have arrived.
Can people have guns? Switzerland, Finland, even USA. Despite the rhetoric, crime in the USA is not that much higher (as in orders of magnitude) than other western countries with more gun laws.
Yep, looks like people can actually handle freedom.
Member since:2009-01-03
Member since:2008-08-25
Member since:2006-01-10
What I mean by managed freedom is there is the appearance of freedom. But the society does not actually want that freedom. So they try and manage it.
For example, the recent bank bailouts are an example of managed freedom.
Society does not want to deal with bank failures...
Nor do they seem to want to heavily regulate banks...
Yet, rather than nationalizing or heavily regulating the banks to prevent such failures, they simply choose to let the banks run wild with freedom, but they try and manage that to make sure no banks fail.
As to windows is managed freedom... well this is an odd article comparing OS to freedom 
Windows is like the US banking system.
It's a free for all and everyone can go nuts writing applications and drivers and Microsoft just tries to manage everything and hold it all together.
It's not as cohesive and centrally planned like Apple.
It's not as free as open source which is total freedom in the software world.
Nothing is a perfect example
Member since:2009-01-03
Member since:
2006-01-10
Freedom > Central Planning > Managed Freedom
I really dislike using American health insurance as an example of freedom. It is not.
1. Doctors hold a monopoly over practicing medicine. Perhaps valid for quality reasons, but this is not freedom.
2. There a million and one regulation mandating certain types of insurance, and drug companies...
3. There's price controls. Medicare pays a fixed amount. No doctor is going to offer a cheaper price than medicare.
...
So how can you claim it is free? Or an example of liberty?
It is as I call it, managed freedom.
I will agree to this statement
central planning is better than managed freedom.
The Canadian health system is better than the American health system
However, neither is as good as a free society. Singapore while not free is freer than both and offers some of the best healthcare in the world.
Windows is simply managed freedom.
Edited 2009-10-01 02:41 UTC