Samuel Kenyon

There is only one sign in my cubicle at work--it states: "Adapt or perish." It appears that many industries refuse to do that.

This seems like news from five or ten years ago, and yet it's happening now: LimeWire being shut down [injunction proposal] and/or forced to pay one billion dollars in legal fines. Many have pointed out the financial scale might be greater than BP's fines for dumping vast wads of oil into the ocean.

We've already left the Noughties, and yet the old fashioned record companies and their policedog RIAA still lumber on, trying to suck money out of the new breed (new 15 years ago, that is) of music distribution systems, and still trying to maintain the mainstream. I guess iTunes didn't satisfy the industry.

I am part of the newer culture that wants to share information and art and choose where our money goes. I haven't bought a song or album since about 1997. What I pay for are live shows, and occasionally a T-shirt sold by the artist. I also go to DJ'd events, and in turn those DJs often buy vinyls or CDs.

This is relevant to transhumanism because part of human enhancement is the system of humans, i.e. society, not just the individual instances of human. We long ago entered the world of copying bits willy-nilly so as to experience high-variation and high-quantity music. There's no turning back after that.

"If evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve" may be a mere bon mot, but it seems quite true in this case. Cultural informational evolution is just as important as phylogeny.

Speaking of pirates, I will be splicing the mainbrace tonight at a pirate-themed goth-industrial party in Central Square. I'm sure the swashbuckling (ok, dancing) will render me in great form for the H+ summit tomorrow morning. Of course, since I'm an anti-rush-hour night owl, this 0800 start is going to be painful no matter what.

Play this like you stole it:


We by Monosurround