Anyone that is aware of the net neutrality debate has an inkling of what this post’s title means. But its the most important concept of this decade, if not this century.

Prologue to progress

Technology, not for the first time in human history, has enabled communication on a formerly impossible scale. One of Lawrence Lessig’s talks, at TED, talked about how each advance of technology, from the printing press to the radio, at first, enabled wider communications for all. But then, they became commercialized, and what was once a two-way line of communication became one way; companies creating content, and consumers consuming content.

This is the way companies like it. To them, technology for the masses, means more money, more consumers for their content. Radio, reached millions of people without needing wires, yet, to reach them all, it required a large radio tower- a hefty investment. For this reason, radio quickly became, in the mainstream at least, less about conversations and sharing between two or more people, but about popular consumption.

We are facing the same problem, yet again, where a gigantic advance in communication has spurred a rash, no, a plague of creation like none before. Technology enables, always. It enables advance, progress, profit, and enlightenment.

Changes to communication

This current advance, the internet, has even spurred changes in what were formerly one-way communications technologies. Unable to afford to publish newspapers, we published blogs and podcasts. Unable to use radio to communicate, we began to use bbs(later known as forums), chat rooms, and instant messaging.

You can tell when a new technology or derivative thereof is reaching the mainstream when a store like Radioshack(aka The Source by Circuit City in Canada), sells home products meant for such technology/services. Radioshack/The Source sells a home stereo system, that can tune into most of your favourite internet radio stations!

Thats pretty mainstream, if you ask me. But that example is only one-way, broadcast communication, which is not the internet. Merely an old form, redone with the internet. Radio has become cheaper to do, thanks to the internet.

Enabling encouragement

That however, is not my point. Technology enables people. So long as it is two-way, so long as people can participate, it can inspire and further society and art. So long as there is open and neutral access for all, can technology enable societal advance.

We’ve seen, time after time, how groups can either self-destruct, or achieve great things. And thats the best part, the potential for that to happen. So long as there is the potential to do great things, be they code(Linux), music(OCRemix), etc, then it will be achieved. By someone, by a group somewhere.

This, though, galls the corporate overlords. They have no control over these productions. Why, god damn it, they’re not even making any money off of this! Thats just not right. To them at least. They want us to consume, to suckle at the teat of consumption. Then they can make money. Then they can control things. Creativity that is not shackled to corporate goals scares them. It genuinely scares them.

Let them be scared. Write, compose, direct, create. Make them scared. Challenge them on net neutrality, and take hold of your progress. Don’t be spoon-fed content, never be content with that. Always do, and create, instead of consume.

Moxie Motto’s!

If you do create, and realize that people want what you can create, never fall into the trap of the corporate overlords. The value of what you create, is the potential. Encourage participation, work, insight and criticism. Become better, enrich others. Participate.

That is the motto of this new generation, of this generation of poets and writers and programmers and artists.

Our motto:

I create, therefore I am human.

One thing that myself and Ruby would like to do with OddCo’s products, be they music, comics, games, or movies, we want to do whatever we can to make things better. By better, I mean, showing people how to deal with the mental issues that plague western culture.

Our culture has both great and bad things about it, and that should not be seen as ‘just the way things are’. A culture that encourages fun, by taking drugs? Has a few problems at the least. Its not the drugs, or the usage, that is the problem, but the prevalence. And yes, I consider alcohol a drug as well.

The manager of the government run liquour store near my work came in the other day. They had just done $100,000 in sales. And it was just 4 o’clock. And, his store is in a slow area of town. He makes only one quarter what the liquor stores downtown make! Theres two downtown, and thats almost a million dollars in booze in one day.

Its Christmas, so people are buying more liquor, so they can deal with their family. You know, the ones that in some other cultures are valued, and even treated with respect when they are older. Us, we send them to retirement homes.

A culture that thinks the only way to have fun, is to use drugs (completely negating all of those anti-drug ads in comics, like the Archie’s “You don’t need drugs to have fun!”) No, I’m not kidding. Canadians spent $1.3 billion dollars on beer, wine and liquor stores. (source)

(Of course, thats excluding bars and clubs which would likely be an even higher number!)

In September. One month. Just one. Lets divide that by the approximate number of adults that can legally purchase liquour(27,612,646 adults according to the CIA factbook). Which comes to an average of $47 on booze each month. Of course, thats just the mean, but consider the median liquour purchaser, and how much they spend a month.

By no means, do I have an issue with drinking itself. Or even any drug use. Its the maturity and response to the drugs that matter, in my view. Far too many people do not handle drugs, even the legal ones, well. According to a study by the McGill university, 300 000 university students will eventually die due to alcohol related issues. Those are people that did not handle their drugs well.

We need to equip our population with effective tools that help them deal with this problem, among others. There are measures in place, but still, 300 000 deaths. Avoidable deaths, if their friends had stopped them, if they had recognized the problem themselves.

And those were deaths caused by a legalized drug. Imagine the amount of money spent on other, harder drugs not controlled by the government. Imagine the senseless, wasted deaths from those. Now, don’t you wish you knew better ways to deal with these issues? In your life, in a friends life? I do.