> There's 195 nations on this planet. Should every company lower themselves below every nation? Without question?

My honest response to this would be: “yes, if they want to do business in said country”. Otherwise we end up where we’ve been, with Facebook being the sole way to access internet in some places. Why should an organization seeking to make a profit hold more sway than the institutions that allow such a profit to be made in the first place (not to mention the protection of their citizens).

To be clear, I realize that in practice, many governments don’t operate in as much good faith as I’d like. But I’d also argue that’s largely due to business holding outsized sway across the globe.

> There's far more provinces with some lawmaking capability. How logistically do we even begin to figure out how to obey each & every single local rule?

There is no inherent right to do business internationally. Requiring that companies adhere to the laws wherever they choose to operate is hardly unreasonable. If they cannot comply — if the logistics are too expensive — then obviously they’re not successful enough to expand into these new countries.

But the idea that companies — where the ultimate goal is profit — should outrank governments — where the ultimate goal is a functioning society — seems ludicrous when stated plainly. The fact that our current society is largely modeled by outsized corporate influence is proof of that.

One can argue that not all governments, or even most, seek a functioning society in the way I’ve described. But even then, one must realize that the governments in question are beholden to corporate interests.

All the way back to the East India Company and beyond, one can demonstrate that globalized corporate influence harms society. So these are hardly ridiculous questions to ask.

To me it's up to nations to determine whether they want to be connected to the rest of the planet. If you want to make a bunch of rules for yourself, you get what we have here, I hope: your country having to shut off that part of the internet.

You phrase it as doing business. But to me, these people in these other places are coming to us. They are connected to us. The onus is not on the rest of the world to adapt ourselves to these pilgrims. That's not what interconnection implies. We cannot flatten ourselves to be a lowest common denominator to all.

The East India Company feels entirely inapplicable here & is a gross & toxic countersuggestion. That was a case of a nation expanding outward. This is the opposite. This is visitors from afar, visiting us across the internet, a system begat of a free & democratic people.

That all said I am interested in some kind of cooperation. But I have a hard time imagining what a usable basic framework would be. It has to start with realizing sovereignty across boundaries is weak, enormously weak, a supplicant. And working from that start.

In your scenario, you’re calling this the opposite of an expansion. But aren’t the companies literally “expanding” into these countries? Otherwise, what’s the issue? Unless you’re saying they should have sway regardless of whether they’re doing business there or not?

And to be clear it is “doing business”. Nobody is forcing companies to ship anywhere they don’t want to. Nobody is forcing them to allow IP connections from countries they do not operate in. The internet connects us all, sure, but to accept payment for any service, that company must have a financial relationship in place within that country — or with another country that’s already doing business with the first.

And I must disagree about the EIC being inapplicable. There is not so great a difference between weaponizing dopamine and transporting opium.

I’m truly not trying to be inflammatory here, fwiw, and I appreciate your perspective and the way you’ve gone about conveying it. I just disagree with your premises on a fundamental level.

If I don't have any servers in your nation, I don't see how you could possibly even begin to regard me as having expanded into your nation. Your people are leaving your nation to come to me. That seems quite factually rooted.

> If I don't have any servers in your nation, I don't see how you could possibly even begin to regard me as having expanded into your nation.

Simple — by making sales and/or servicing customers for profit in my region, your business has “expanded” into my region. Server location is irrelevant — as you’ve pointed out, the internet is everywhere.

You need to disconnect yourself if you are going to have authoritarian stances over every place your people can connect to. Your fake dominion over others will never happen nor should it. What a trash fire impossible facetiously crap un hackable perspective you offer. Complete egocentristic imposition, that those who connect can dictate terms. A joke. Absolutely the hell not.

Do you have even a single token offering to make? Is there any limit whatsoever in any way that anyone connecting from afar should have? Or should theirocal laws immediately apply in full force wherever they connect? That seems to be the stance here.

Gotta say, I think we’re speaking past each other here. I don’t understand what is authoritarian about believing a business entity wishing to sell their goods and services to a region should do such business by the laws of said region. After all, you’re using the region’s public infrastructure to do business.

I’m also a bit disappointed this is where your line of argument has ended up. I have many, many flaws, but a desire for absolute power is not among them.

Indeed, advocating for respecting a diverse range of locales, with a diverse range of laws, would seem to me to provide far more freedom than a system of centralized control under a single, for-profit structure. Isn’t that what free market advocates are always harping about? Competition of the marketplace?

I agree my fake dominion over others will never happen, nor should it! But I remain puzzled as to why you’re so stridently coming after me in defense of a system that prioritizes the right of the ruling class to make money over all other concerns. Historically, such systems tend heavily and inevitably toward the authoritarianism you so eloquently rage against.

I don't understand why voltaireodactyl's comment was downvoted because he or she is pretty much on the right track with respect to the current legal regimes. Those still promoting Barlow's ideas in 2023 are living in a fantasy world.

It's because the legal regimes are absurd wrong & on a crash course for unsustainable conflicting tangles of lawmaking, and don't recognize the international kerfuffle created by letting any nation anywhere apply se I tree rules to any business. Each nation thinks it has the right, but doesn't consider that that implies every other nation also has fiat right to do make up whatever rules it wants against any other company, purely because said company can be reached over the internet. The nations are insane & power drunk.

And voltaireodactyl phrased it as someone doing their shit in the US being an invader & colonizer of other nations, just because other people can so happen to connect to the US. Which is further absurd & unsustainable madness.

I didn't down vote. But down vote to the nations of the earth, who are idiots, making mockery of themselves & the law itself by planting the seeds of tyranny by giving themselves arbitrary power over everywhere on earth. These nations are in the wrong. I agree with you that this resembles the current legal climate, but the legal climate is being actively hostile to humanity, is being absurd, is wrong, and in a number of cases we have gotten right up the brink of nations having to disconnect services to actually have any power, to maintain their laws, and alas the major nations tend generally to keep backing down. This is their only real power, to disconnect, and this untenable situation will lead to more and more breakdowns over time, and I hope we see more disconnects, rather than the constant spread of every random ration having arbitrary power over everyone.

* * *

Have you read the American Declaration of Independence? It is definitely pompous and arrogant -- and also full of lies. It is genre requirement.

The inevitable result will be the destruction of the internet as we know it today. The international network will fracture into multiple regional networks with heavy filtering at the borders as nations seek to impose their laws on it. Regnet, if you will.

I'm glad I got to experience the true internet. It was great while it lasted. Truly a wonder of humanity.