End of the Beginning

OK.

[Deep breath].

Time to decloak, as the Trekkies would say.

Been busy in the secret underground laboratory of Monkeybear Island for awhile now, cooking up various long-term projects. Decisions have been made, dilithium crystals retrofitted, space-time curvatures altered.

Part 2 of the "Meditations on Geopolitics", covering the period 1648 to 1775, is now up in PDF format and OpenOffice format. Future essays are coming, but I'm focusing on the book project for now.

A word on the present. I always have -- and always will -- follow the principle of nonviolence as a core political practice. But the degeneration of US national politics these days makes even me want to break things.

First, our plutocratic-auction-disguised-as-an-election. Christian Gabriel nails it. Yes, Clinton is the continuation of the neoliberalism we must struggle against, but Dumbass Donald, the Human Dumpster Fire, would be inconceivably worse (and no, I'm not going to dignify the brand name of that serial con artist with a fake university, a fake tan, fake hair, and fake billions with a searchable tag -- we digital debt slaves can play the attention-scarcity game, too). This schmuck won't even release his tax returns like any other candidate for any political office, ever. Bottom line: you don't fight the flu by chopping off your arm.

Second, the US Left is in a state of complete, utter disaster. Instead of a Green Party, we have a greenwashed Putinism pretending to run for office. Yes, Jill Stein actually wants to hand over 45 million Ukrainians over to the same Russian imperialism which murdered 5.5 million of them in 1931-1933. Read it and weep.

One of the most terrible ironies of imperial history is that the sins of empires weigh with special force on those who dissent from their empire. This curse bedeviled the 19th century abolitionists who were against slavery, but remained entrenched racists in all other ways. It also weighed on the 20th century opponents of the British and US empire who became enthusiastic supporters of post-1917 Soviet-Russophone and post-1949 Han-Chinese imperialism.

The paradox is that neoliberalism is in deep structural crisis. The world economy is just barely functional, Europe is in crisis, Brazil's entire political class is being arrested for corruption, China's export model has hit the wall, Ukraine is giving Russian imperialism the spanking it deserves, digital social movements are on the march in Indonesia, in the Philippines, in rural India and urban China -- heck, even NFL players are openly demanding racial justice.

Digital connectivity is growing at an exponential rate, and that means the potential for digital solidarity is growing exponentially too. It's up to all of us to help this solidarity out, with whatever tools we have, and in the context of whatever communities we engage with.

From the Digital Commons to the Digital Commonwealth

In 2001, fan media and modding first become a significant -- albeit still relatively minor -- source of innovation in videogame culture.  By 2008, fan media and modding had become linchpins of some leading franchises (e.g. player creation tools in LittleBigPlanet and, after 2009, Minecraft). By 2015, fan media and modding had become powerhouse institutions larger and more influential than most videogame studios, spawning works of art such as CD Projekt's The Witcher 3.

Today, videogame culture stands at a crossroads. The institutions of fan media and modding, whose sole motivation is fan happiness, are coming into open conflict with the corporate monopolies and digital companies whose sole motivation has always been profit. A prime case in point is Bethesda's announcement that Sony has refused to allow modding on the PS4 version of Fallout 4.

Sony's refusal is pure profiteering, of course. Microsoft's XboxOne already offers Fallout 4 mods, and there is no technical reason why the PS4 cannot offer mods as well. The real issue is that modders require access to a wide range of open source and freeware tools -- audio and video codecs and other minor pieces of software. For all of Microsoft's past and present sins, they understood the utility of allowing this software to run on their platform. Give users freedom, they will respect the commons.

Until Sony's policy changes, I personally will not be purchasing any further media content for the PS4. Nothing means nothing. No Bluray discs, no addons, no further videogame purchases. From now on, it's personal computers for me. I don't even own a game-capable machine just yet,  but will have to build one.

That's fine. It's time for us digital commoners to fight back against the monopolists, the corporate greedheads, the Wall Street swindlers, and the petro-colonialists who think they own digital culture.

They do not.

It's up to us to take back the Commonwealth -- mod at a time.