If you’ve spent any time around the blogosphere, or looking at thinktank websites, you’ll be aware that the following opinions tend to go together:
* widespread ownership of guns saves lives
* tobacco smoke is harmless (if not to smokers then to anyone who breathes it second-hand)
* global warming is a myth
There’s not too much mystery about this. The kinds of characteristics that would encourage the adoption of any one of these beliefs (make your own list) obviously encourage the others. What’s surprising to me is how frequently, at least among thinktanks, these opinions are correlated with support for Microsoft, and, more particularly, denunciation of open-source software.
This thought struck me in relation to the much-denounced study of Linux being peddled by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute. As Tim Lambert shows with chapter and verse, “ADTI are anti-Linux, pro-tobacco and anti-global warming shills.” ADTi doesn’t appear to have weighed in on gun laws (yet), but Flack Central Station hits the quadrella, as you would expect. In Australia, our own offshoot, the Institute of Public Affairs manages a similar feat, toeing the party line on tobacco, guns and global warming and also being a strong supporter of unfettered monopoly rights for owners of “intellectual property”.
The question that puzzles me is, why does Microsoft find itself in this kind of company? Of course, all the groups I’ve mentioned are pro-corporate, but plenty of other corporations manage to advance their interests without descending to this level. And, while I don’t like either Microsoft’s products or its attitude to intellectual property, I’m obviously in the minority on the first point at least. Again, while I don’t warm to Bill Gates at a personal level, he’s certainly shown more interest in putting his wealth to good use than the average billionaire. I find it hard to believe that he really wants to subsidise the general activities of groups like those I’ve mentioned.
On the whole, I incline to the view that Microsoft, as a corporation, has got beyond the point where even its founder can control it. But I’d be interested to hear other theories.
{ 16 comments }
Steve 06.21.04 at 12:02 am
As I noted in the post suppressed by the Trilateral/Reptilian/House of Windsor conspiracy (and before this thread is again sidetracked by debating whether global warming is real and whether cigarettes are bad for you and whether hysterical defenders of the public weal sometimes exaggerate their claims), if you don’t think Ken Brown’s AdTI report on Linux was a hatchet job, read Andy Tanenbaum on his experiences with Brown. Tanenbaum and Linus Torvalds don’t like each other (Tanenbaum thinks Linux is an amaterurish hack, and Torvalds thinks is full of sour grapes, basically), and, as the person whose ox would have been gored by any theft of MINIX code, Tanenbaum certainly seems like he would have every excuse to treat Brown’s claims charitably. But he doesn’t think there’s a lick of truth to the idea that MINIX code was pilfered for Linux, and the independent expert Ken Brown hired to prove AdTI’s case agrees.
You can certainly believe that there wasn’t a quid pro quo between Microsoft and the Alex de Tocqueville Institute and argue about them not being paid shills, but all the evidence points to Brown’s conclusions being determined well before he started looking for evidence.
paul 06.21.04 at 12:20 am
On the Microsoft sympathizer argument, as I commented in an earlier version of this disappeared post, someone noticed that the AdTI had retracted and re-published their article: the newer version was very different. The “Open Source is e-e-e-e-e-vil” argument was pushed much harder, though with no more solid a foundation.
http://www.idealcorp.com/About/PressCenter/000088
And at the risk of replying to a comment that also disappeared, the idea that more guns make for a safer society makes me wonder how Australasia, the EU, and Canada manage to do it with fewer guns: could it be that a more civil society with a greater respect for the law and one’s fellow citizens is more effective? (And as an aside, this would seem to knock the idea of a genetic propensity for crime — one of the theories behind transporting convicts to Botany Bay — on its head).
If more guns in the hands of an educated populace worked, I would expect to see the NRA working on low-cost or subsidized handguns, free education programs and shooting practice, and expedited carry permits.
The Left is often accused of defending communism, claiming it would work if it were done properly, though I have never heard anyone say that: perhaps some municipality will arm its citizens and see what happens. You go first . . . .
NB. I know Kennesaw, Georgia, requires every household to have a gun but the law is not enforced: that’s not the same as requiring people to carry them.
tc 06.21.04 at 12:29 am
Which bloggers are against open source? I know about the AdTI and TCS, but given the disproportionate numbers of techno-libertarian types online, I would think that plenty of gun-loving global-warming-skeptic right-wing types would have no problem with it.
Brett Bellmore 06.21.04 at 1:37 am
“If more guns in the hands of an educated populace worked, I would expect to see the NRA working on low-cost or subsidized handguns, free education programs and shooting practice, and expedited carry permits.”
We work on keeping the government from BANNING low cost handguns. We’re responsible for most of the firearms training in the country. And we’ve been successfully fighting to expand non-discretionary issue of carry permits. So I guess guns in the hands of an educated populace DO work, huh?
asg 06.21.04 at 1:57 am
I’m actually kind of glad my earlier comment got wiped out as I posted it in a bit of pique. Focusing on the open-source issue, I am not at all opposed to open source as a method, but I am opposed to it as an ideology, just because software engineering techniques make for poor ideology.
In my subfield (computer games), it is commonplace to run across open source ideologues who feel that the only reason new, original, cutting-edge games are not made according to open source is ignorance on the part of developers like me, and perhaps some Microsoft conspiracy. I remember attending a career presentation given by a well-known independent studio (this was when I was still a student, before I got into the industry). The venue was the CS department at the University of Maryland. After the presentation, the two guys who came from the studio were relentlessly grilled by the graduate students about why they didn’t use this or that open-source graphics library, and why the only possible reason for their not simultaneously developing their latest game for Linux release was that they were obviously on Gates’ payroll (this despite the fact that the PC release was with another publisher, a Microsoft competitor). I pointed out during the discussion that when game developers are trying to figure out the target market for their games, it is often difficult to justify spending millions of dollars of development money targeting an audience that is ideologically opposed to paying for software. The open-source advocates confidently proclaimed this a “myth”.
In other words, I have much more of a problem with the advocates of open source than with open source itself. They are often anti-business, which of course I am not, and suffer from the “if you have a hammer then every problem looks like a nail” mentality (just because open source has worked well for operating systems does not mean it will work well for games or edutainment or any other software product where art and content are paramount).
John Doe 06.21.04 at 2:08 am
On smoke: I thought second hand smoke was shown to raise lung cancer risk by about 17% (admittedly extremely slight compared to smoking itself)?
On guns: violent crime has risen dramatically in Britain after anti-gun and anti-self-defense legislation was recently enacted.
John Quiggin 06.21.04 at 2:34 am
I’ve amended the post slightly to clarify that the correlation between the first set of opinions and support for Microsoft is evident among thinktanks – as various commentators have said, it’s not true for bloggers in general.
john doe, I suggest you visit Tim Lambert’s site and check your stats on British crime – the results you cite sound to me as if they come from John Lott.
Old Ranger 06.21.04 at 4:15 am
Guns may well have saved lives 200 years ago, when the planet was not overcrowded with humans and when parents stayed home with their children and taught them gun safety. Microsoft and Wal-Mart were probably beneficial until they reached behemoth status. Most people who believe that clap-trap don’t know an unpaired electron from Hillary Clinton, they are just ignorant. How do those who don’t believe in global warming explain the disappearance of Mt. Kilimanjaro’s snow cap?
There is a time and place for everything, and Microsoft’s place is on the ash heap. Those who believe that the experts know best need to examine the State Department’s terrorism report.
asg 06.21.04 at 1:23 pm
Regarding Lambert’s site, while I generally think he is honest and performs a useful reality-checking service for people with my views, he’s not immune to a little cherry-picking himself.
For example, in the graph he reproduces from the England/Wales Crime Statistics 2000 report, which shows that handgun robberies have increased since 1997 but not since the early 90s, he omits the other trendline in the report showing that all other handgun offenses (excluding robbery and criminal damage, which were separately graphed) were steady throughout the 90s, until the handgun ban in 1997 at which point they started a steady upward climb. He doesn’t mention this omission or the trend it suggests in his post. (See his post on Joyce Lee Malcolm’s 2002 article on English crime rates.)
Now since he is a statistician and I am not, perhaps there are perfectly good statistical reasons why the “other offenses” trendline was irrelevant of which he is aware and I am not. But it would have been nice to know those reasons.
Jim Henley 06.21.04 at 3:22 pm
I’ve looked at Lambert’s data for both American and UK crime trends. You know what? Concealed carry makes no difference one way or the other. It neither increases nor decreases crime. Other factors completely swamp any effect gun ownership may have. Frex, in the British case, the elephant in the room is postwar demobilizations.
So while concealed carry permits don’t decrease crime, neither does gun control. Since gun control represents a loss of liberty in its own right, with no measurable attendant benefit, there seems no reason to support it. And British anti-self defense laws visit measurable injustice on identifiable citizens (the ones with the temerity to save themselves from attackers).
Anyway, this was another of those Quiggin posts that assumes much of what it wants to prove, such as that Microsoft is somehow evil and that opposition to hounding it legally is part and parcel of opposition to open source software.
Steve 06.21.04 at 4:23 pm
Anyway, this was another of those Quiggin posts that assumes much of what it wants to prove, such as that Microsoft is somehow evil and that opposition to hounding it legally is part and parcel of opposition to open source software.
Jim, you’re conflating two things. I can see every reason that Microsoft’s defenders in the antitrust case would tend to side with the libertarian/anti-regulation right; the only reasons I can see that Microsoft’s support in their anti-Linux campaign would come from the same people, honestly, are Microsoft’s attempts to portray Linux and the entire open source model as somehow Communistic (and not a market success) or Microsoft throwing money around to people who will churn out AdTI’s sort of dubious argument.
Tim Lambert 06.22.04 at 2:49 am
asg, the point of my post was to demonstrate how Malcolm cherry picked her statistics. I plotted gun (not handgun) robberies because that is what Malcolm mentioned. If you read the report, you will also find that the “other offences” numbers were affected by the change in the counting rules in 1998, while the robberies numbers were not.
asg 06.22.04 at 3:40 am
Tim, I’ll take your word for it. What was the nature of the change in the counting rules?
John Quiggin 06.22.04 at 4:47 am
Jim,
I think it’s obvious ex ante that concealed carry laws ought not to have a measurable effect on crime stats. The change is simply too small to be detected (absent some exceptionally clever statistical method I can’t imagine).
As regards begging the question, I’m not entirely satisfied with the post, but I clearly didn’t assume that Microsoft is evil. OTOH, I did assume that, at the very least, TCS, ADTi and IPA are routinely dishonest. I’m happy to back this up with chapter and verse if you want.
Tim Lambert 06.22.04 at 5:28 am
asg, you don’t have to take my word for it. Just read the explanation in the report.
Jim, “anti-self defence laws”? Seems like you have swallowed more of Malcolm’s cherry picking.
Lance Boyle 06.22.04 at 6:49 am
“…while I don’t warm to Bill Gates at a personal level, he’s certainly shown more interest in putting his wealth to good use than the average billionaire…”
Shown more public display of interest in putting.
The actual cost in terms of sacrifice to Gates personally, materially, of that charitable giving is precisely nil. And he gains substantially reputationally.
Which dovetails neatly with the attendant question of why his Leviathan consorts with other wounded behemoths seeking reviction. PR says I. A painted face for the public appetite.
Since Microsoft’s nucleus is third-party legal ownership, that may explain the fundamental horror caused by open-source. Gates’ MS bottlenecked the evolution, metered the flow, and created its bloated self out of an inevitable demand for what it owned. An open-source culture would have made that impossible.
And yes to the idea that corporations generally subsume their masters.
–
I’m sympathetic to asg’s position that the toil of gamester engineering would go unrewarded in an open-source world. But then there’s all those solitaire games (the real ones, with cards).
I’m thinking, what? Prisoners? Ladies-in-waiting? Medieval speed-freaks doing 4-day runs with home-made Tarot decks? Whatever the social context the point is they gained their makers little but recognition in an immediate local context. Today we know nothing of the inventors themselves.
I’m not saying it’s equivalent, that computer games would have evolved as presently constituted in an open-source environment. But then language did, didn’t it? And football, both kinds?
Music has been an essential human thing since we became human. It’s only been third-party-ownable for a hundred years.
Open-source is a return to what we’ve been doing for virtually all our history. Sharing innovation. It refines things so much better – no artificial demand, no deceptive obsolescence.
We might lose the competition-driven complexity and glamor of a lot of current entertainment modalities, but we’d gain unimaginable things. Unimaginable now, from this dungeon of commerciality.
It must seem absurdly wasteful, to young bucks seeking the main chance – the idea that so much of human progress, virtually all of it until the rise of the guild halls, was done with no copyrights at all.
Everything we use now came from the open-source pool. Everything you make your intellectual property with came from there.
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