Choice or no choice?
Published: Fri, 10/31/14
Some friends cleared their father's flat after he died
recently. Their father collected books and the flat was piled high
with them. I was asked if I would like to have a look and see if
there were any volumes I was interested in. I came away with a box
full including a 1970 novel by R F Delderfield called 'God is
an Englishman' and it may not be his finest work (That was
probably the 'Horseman Riding By' Trilogy) but I am finding
it fascinating. It is set in England in the 1860s and concerns a
Crimea War veteran who decides to develop a business providing road
haulage using horse drawn carts on routes the railways are not
covering. It is extraordinary to realise that by 1860 the railway
network was very largely established as it is today. Those parts
of the country that were adequately served by rail links
flourished, areas that were not risked a return to medieval
standards of living. When we held the Stav course in Norfolk last
year a couple of people needed to come by train and getting from
places like Liverpool to North Norfolk proved to be slow,
expensive and very tedious. The one person who did make it by
train actually travelled the last part of the journey in a carriage
drawn by steam engine. (Only in Norfolk!).
Apparently in the late 18th and early 19th century there was a
highly successful road building programme which covered the whole
country and it was possible to get to Newcastle from London by
coach and four in about 30 hrs. However once the railways
dominated the main routes across the country the road network fell
into disrepair.
Something similar has happened in the past twenty years, not so
much in the movement of people and goods but in the availability of
information. Over a period of about 100 years the development of
mechanised printing, the postal service and telephone networks
created possibilities of communication undreamed of by previous
generations. Then comes computing and then the internet which on
one level opens ups huge possibilities for the human race in terms
of communication and sharing of knowledge. However there is a big
problem developing. Up until now the internet has been a bit like
the network of carriage roads which developed in the early 19th
century, there for everyone to use as and when they needed. But
once the railways arrived you could get places faster and cheaper,
but only if the railway went there and you travelled according to
the railway schedule. Yes, new railways could be built, if they
could get the investment and if those who owned the existing track
would allow the new route to connect. The railway network
effectively became a transport monopoly until well into the 20th
century.
There is something similar happening in the world of IT. In theory
no one can control the internet but how many people do not use MS
Windows to access computing of any kind? Do not use Google to
search online? Use an outlet other than Amazon to acquire content
whether digital or hard copy? Add in Youtube and Facebook and
hopefully you can see where I am going with this. Yes, there are
alternatives, Apple, if you can afford it and Linux works fine,
except when it doesn't. For example for many years Adobe used
to provide a version of their PDF reader for Linux, just recently
they have stopped doing so and it makes life slightly more
difficult relying on Linux than it used to. I could give a lot of
other examples which cannot be just oversights, it is common for
example with on demand video that I can watch trailers, but not the
main content, but there is no problem if I log in using our old
Mac, yet I can watch stuff on Youtube and many other platforms.
This means that people who do try out alternative operating systems
tend to fall back on Windows because they don't feel they have
any choice. If this does not bother you then I am happy for you.
Even if there is no sinister intent behind creating this monopoly
there is still the fundamental problem of monopoly. You have
little choice and there is no reason for those who own the monopoly
to give you any choice because you have no where else to go, not
without a great deal of inconvenience anyway.
Does this have anything to do with Stav? Yes, for two reasons.
Firstly, Stav is about seeing the web, from back in time to the
present day and onto possible futures. Very little that happens in
the future is a complete surprise if you can see the web. You also
get some choice as to which future you allow to occur. Secondly,
one area which is thankfully not dominated by monopoly is Martial
Arts, yes some systems are more popular than others, Tae Kwon Do
for example and others are relatively little know such as, well,
Stav I guess. And things change, Matt Easton has just launched a
new HEMA group on FB and it already has several hundred members it
is called UK HEMA if you are interested in joining it. As soon as
I have posted this I will be going on FB to promote my Stav
Self-defence Seminar in Salisbury on the 15th of November
http://www.iceandfire.org.uk/train.html and there is also one at
the Stav Centre in Crewkerne tomorrow at 10am.
regards
Graham