One of the people I have come to admire most on the interent is Paul Graham. I just relish reading his essays about anthropological and social things, as well as those about his experiences helping businesses come into being in the tech world.

He's what is known as an "angel investor" - or more formally - as a "venture capitalist." He made his own millions creating the software that would later become "Yahoo store." Today, he invites pairs and triplets of university students to Cambridge Massachusetts each summer to found new startup companies. He accepts applications throughout the year, and when folks' projects are accepted, he gives them enough money to live and eat for the summer, and buy the tools to begin creating their vision for a new company. Later, he gets his money back, when a successful business goes public in an IPO, or when it is sold to a larger company for a large sum of cash.

He's the quintessential "ethical investor" - and really likes to see cool trends come into being through the kinds of projects that he funds.

His latest invitation is for people to come up with business ideas that will "kill Hollywood." Read about it here.

My readers may have noticed that I've recently been posting a few links about the current battle around SOPA and PIPA - or how the old 1900s media organisations are trying to hamfistedly preserve their business models in a new technological age.

I'd like to briefly write about my personal thoughts on the matter, today.

It seems to me that the advent of the internet marks something of a change in the "laws of physics" in regards to how the world works. The internet functions through copying. The only way in which your computer at home is able to read a blog post, or see a picture, is that it was copied from a computer somewhere else in the world. You have an exact duplicate of that item on your machine.

Copyright laws were created hundreds of years ago and were applicable to a world in which the printing press was the only way to quickly distribute copies of text and images. In that era, there wasn't even a way of distributing music except via a new performance of a score, and movies hadn't yet been invented.

If you go back a few hundred years further, the very act of copying required so much time and effort that there was no point in most people learning to read. Books commissioned by the first king of England - king Athelstan - cost him and his court $150,000 each in today's money. They were printed on animal hide (vellum) rather than paper, and they were hand lettered and illustrated.

As we move forward into the 21st century, the technology is iterating faster and faster. Not only do we have Gutenberg's printing press to contend with, but also mp3s and CDs and the structure of the internet, itself. There's no way to take laws written in the 1600s and make them apply to the lay of the land as we know it, today.

If people who spend time and effort and money creating artistic and literary works, they will need to develop a new business model for getting a return on their investment. They're going to need to start from scratch. The RIAA and MPAA and other behemoths of the 1900s aren't showing us that they have the wit or the skill to adapt to the modern age. Their business model, just like Kodak's is doomed to failure - and like dinosaurs, they will become extinct. Filmmakers and musicians, however, will remain with us - and they will scramble to innovate.

SOPA and PIPA are examples of these old media companies trying to change the physics of the world they live in, instead of building business models around the new physics. They can't use standard digital containers like the mp3 format and the compact disc and the DVD - and expect to avoid the inevitable wholesale copying and file sharing of their product. It's like expecting gravity not to be in effect when you leap off the top of a building.

There probably are effective ways to create digital rights management systems. Computer programmers show us one way forward that ought to be explored. Individual hobbyist developers routinely create executable computer programs which each have unique kinds of copyright protections in them. I'm not sure how you'd apply this on a large scale. One problem is that your music or film might be constrained to one platform, and it might be difficult to make it available across a wide range of consumer electronics (although, given how Linux computers are becoming cheaper and smaller, these days, perhaps that's not a hurdle, after all). Another problem is scaling up; I don't see how it would be possible to standardise this kind of system - because once the same system is used for every piece of music and every film out there, it will immediately be circumvented by some diligent hobbyist technician who decides to burn the midnight oil for a few days.

Another way forward would be to cease making the sale of copies of music and films your main business model. Hollywood could work to embellish and improve the experience of theater-goers, so that people overwhelmingly want to see things on the silver screen rather than in their lonely bedroom or living room. Music and film creators could add some embellishments to the purchased product that could never be available to the product that is copied and shared online. Subscription websites for fans could be set up in a way that turns a profit for musicians or filmmakers. Musicians could become more skilled at drawing in revenue from live performances (apparently, this is already the main source of income for big-name acts).

A look back at the history of old media companies fighting the advent of new technological playing fields (courtesy of MentalFloss magazine)

This is a very clear and straightforward explanation about how flawed the proposed SOPA and PIPA bills are (this is a matter of USA politics) - by one of my favorite internet gurus - Salman Khan of Khan Academy.

One thing that he didn't mention, but which became clear to me while watching the film, is that fundamentally, the legislation is designed to make the USA like an ostrich which sticks its head in the sand and thinks he's hiding that way. It's kind of silly. If offending foreign sites aren't accessible to US citizens, they're still accessible to the majority of other human beings in the world.

Just a note, before I get started, here. I have made a promise to myself to avoid a confrontational style of writing on this blog. For the most part, I've adhered to that standard. I'm going to make an exception today, however. I've found that setting the cat among the pigeons is actually quite a good way to get people to rethink the way they see the world. Being meek and humble doesn't accomplish that as quickly.

Furthermore, I see that the nature of British debate these days is fairly brusque, and so I don't feel too bad about entering the fray with the same sort of approach.

If you've been following the news in the UK in recent months, you'll know that that a secessionist political party - the Scottish National Party - has gotten itself a majority in the Scottish parliament. It's interesting to see the machinations in another country when there is a movement afoot to split it up into its component regions. At the same time that the UK seems to be considering pulling up stakes and leaving the European Union, Scotland is considering splitting from England and Wales and becoming it's own independent nation again for the first time in 300 years. I find it fascinating to see how British people identify themselves as English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish first and as Britons only secondarily. It's inspirational to me to see the renaissance of the ancient languages of Scotland, Ireland and Wales - and to even see television and radio programming produced by the BBC in those tongues.

However, I don't wish to talk today about the possible political breakup of this European island nation today, but instead about a loss of social cohesion and personal contentment and the generous spirit over the last century in this once-great nation.

I have devoted a lot of time over the past couple of years, to watching BBC television programming through the internet at their Iplayer website. The BBC focuses quite heavily on history. The UK, much like other nations like Italy, sees itself as having an identity rooted in the past.

After watching several programs about how children were raised in the UK in the early 1900s, and many more programs about how children are raised today, it strikes me that the UK is dying from within. Even though the UK suffered through two wars in Europe during the first half of the twentieth century (and a season where children were sent out into the countryside to live with strangers so they wouldn't suffer from the bombings of the cities) - it seems to me that the country had a very sound pedagogy - and a set of good ethics about how parenting ought to be done. Children received a lot of guidance and nurture.

In contrast to that, I remember seeing a series of films (the "Seven Up series" by Michael Apted) which started off by following prepubescent children in school in the 1960s... I was shocked by the how childcare and education seemed to have fallen apart. All of a sudden, you see authoritarian patterns emerging - which draw on the idea from earlier years of children conforming to common standards, but where nurture is suddenly missing, and where in its place we see only unreasonable demands. The poorer London schools in the early 1960s were simply zoos. The children had mass brawls on the playgrounds, and the teachers did not think it meet to step in at all to protect the children from each other. The wealthier schools were run like military academies with lots of corporal punishment (in many cases, administered by appointed fellow students).

Then, we see the anti-establishment movements led by university students in the 1960s which spread like wildfire all over the world - even to the Far East and places like Japan. This was a culture war, where people ostensibly fought for individual freedoms and campaigned against the structures of social mores and customs which their parents had adhered to. It's not surprising that those children raised in the dysfunctional schools of the 1960s, and who heard the anti-establishment cries of their older siblings who were at the university should get a very jaded view of traditional values. Every generation of parents since, seems to have resolved to raise their children in quite a hands-off manner.

Interestingly enough, the USA, across the Atlantic from Europe, has really benefitted from a society which values individualism more. The 1960s movements - the Civil Rights movement, the anti-establishment sentiment, and the peace movement - were boons for us. It really is in our cultural genetic makeup in this country to think and live that way. It suits us a lot better to be glib and casual and carefree, than to be buttoned up and living in a "Leave it to Beaver" kind of society.

Unfortunately, I think the UK has a very different genetic makeup - and consequently the culture war which started in the 1960s ended up making it a very ill society, today. The intellectual passion of those wonderful bright-eyed children of the early 1900s has served the country well for a long time. The BBC is a tribute to their sensibilities about the world. The tradition of critical thought, and analysis is very much alive in Britain - but, for how much longer? It's interesting how shocked Britons were at the attitudes of the young London rioters this last year. Those are the kind of human beings that British families are churning out of their homes in their late teens. It's not like Edwardian times anymore, now is it? Kids are neglected in the UK. Their parents work too hard and have no time for them. There isn't a sense that parents need to be in charge, and set boundaries, and guide the children. Instead, the children are left to puzzle things out for themselves, in a crazy world.

British culture has developed a decidedly selfish streak. Comedy in the UK is marked by derisiveness and raucousness. Debate about the topics of the day tends to be biting and cold, rather than genteel and elegant.

So, what does the future hold? Well, I think that the light of the torch of the intellectual tradition of the UK is going to burn ever dimmer as it is carried on the road further into future decades. I don't think that today's youth, or even today's middle aged Britons have much of an appetite for the kinds of high-brow things that the BBC produces. The "most popular shows" queue on the Iplayer shows you what mainstream Britain values. I think the UK will soon become a hollow shell of what it once was. It will need to go through "a dark night of the soul" and will need to do some very earnest soul-searching.

Meanwhile, what does it mean for the rest of us in the anglophone world? Well, it represents a sea change. The UK has been a shining tower - a light on a hill - for all English-speakers for a long time. Other Commonwealth countries like the Australia, Canada, and New Zealand fawn over the UK, and the deep-thinking nature of Britons has been a perfect compliment to the more down-to-earth everyday reasoning which is prominent in those nations. British accents are still associated here in the USA with intelligence. Geographically, Washington DC is fairly close to London. I think a lot of British frames of reference about the world rub off on our politicians on Capitol Hill.

There will be a niche for a new brand of intellectuals which opens up. We'll have to see who they are.

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As kind of a postscript, I want to deal briefly with one thing that I see as common misconceptions that people have about social cohesion. It's common for people to believe that homogeneity of ethnicity helps to create an even keel for society. The Japanese, for example, believe earnestly in this notion. I think Edwardian Britain would have been prone to think this way, as well. The EDL in the UK, and the KKK in the USA still cling desperately to this idea. However, I believe we in the USA have disproved that theory. We have become a truly multicultural society which is easygoing, friendly, and happy. It's kind of odd, because the flashpoints of heated debate in a country are amplified in a nation's mass media and soon seen to characterize that nation, overseas. A nation may have worked through 90% of its problems in regards to an issue, and still be unsatisfied with its own progress. Consequently, abroad, foreigners still think that the country is characterized by the problem.

As I see it, there's a lot less similarity between the American black person, and the British black person than there is between people of various ethnic backgrounds within either of those countries. Skin color does not make us who we are. What we believe, and how we see the world, and how we relate to the world define our character. There are commonalities of mindsets and approaches to life that are prevalent from border to border within a country, because of the nature of its mass media, and because of the social expectations people have of each other in school, in the workplace, and out in public.

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I also want to point you to a case study of a modern education system in a very unique society - Japan. I just finished reading a book written by a guy from the US state of Georgia who went to Japan and taught for a year in a rural school there, north of Tokyo. I think there are a lot of similarities between Japan's school system today and the nature of the fabled "grammar schools" of the UK in the early twentieth century. We in English-speaking countries today are liable to look at both things as strict, uncompromising, and overbearing. We are likely to heap scorn on it. However, looking closely at Japanese schools, I don't believe anyone can help but see that in actual fact, it's not an authoritarian system. Japanese students may be the best of the best when it comes to math and science - however, teachers focus much more on how to be happy and how to be a caring person of good character than they do on academic subjects. From what I've seen, it's not a hard-nosed system, at all - in the way it's reputed to be. Nor were the grammar schools of the early 1900s in the UK.

I have had many conversations over the past few years on the internet, with people who don't understand that there are fundamental differences in the character of each Western nation (even when comparing anglophone ones). Certainly, we each have our pick of where we want to live - the environment which will nurture us, and validate us the best. The assumption that people have, is that Western countries are homogenous... the idea is that it's pretty much the same living as a middle class person in the UK, as it would be in Australia or in the USA. That would be both true and false. There's something that people call "culture shock" - which is a phenomenon which happens when you live for an extended period of time in a foreign country or region. People in various regions and nations have slightly different social values, and expectations, and even facade habits. The way people expect others to respond to certain situations is different nation by nation. All of these various subtle ways in which people respond to various situations on a daily basis become, in aggregate, a rhythm that people live their lives within. There's a saying that a professor shared with me a few years ago about how difficult it is to "teach a fish to see water." When people are immersed in a situation, and have become accustomed to it, they often won't be able to think critically about what their environment consists of, the same way someone who is brand new to the situation can.

I just recently discovered "The Japan Times." It's really a breath of fresh air, when compared to journalism in most Western countries. There aren't the same tired old patterns of thinking that you find in the West.

It's odd that it's taken me this long to discover the good things about the Far East. My family has a lot of ties with China and Japan... I always heard about how exotic these countries were, and I learned specifically about customs - but my family somehow never put it into perspective for me the ways in which these Asian countries are better the West. There's a profound maturity and inner beauty which you see in those countries, and this article is one which talks about a couple of these comparisons.

Language imperialism — 'democracy' in China

Of all the apps I've downloaded for my new Android Nexus S phone, this is the one that I value the most. This allows you to fully manipulate the sound quality from your headphone jack, your speaker, and your bluetooth audio connection. I find it quite odd that Google itself hasn't put these tools into the system natively.

Make your Android sound come alive!

Now, I just wish that there was a similar app for adjusting screen color and gamma!

I've taken an interest in learning foreign languages, recently. I was an exchange student in Germany in high school, and I have found a few hours of weekly children's programming in German, which is a good way to collect vocabulary words. One great thing they're doing right now is reading the German translation of Rudyard Kipling's "Jungle Book." I can get the public domain German text of that novel, and then listen to the audio, and make long vocabulary lists. One thing I'm seeing is that in any one book, the author (or translator) will tend to use the same vocabulary over and over - so reading a novel is a good way to see words in all kinds of different contexts.

I've chosen Norwegian as a next language to study, because I really admire the Scandinavian way of thinking about the world. Also, Norwegians seem to me to be the people who master the American English accent with the most finesse. This must say something about the society's pedagogy when it comes to language instruction.

I bought this great introductory audio course for learning Norwegian by Margaretha Danbolt-Simons. It's only for absolute beginners like myself. It's very well designed to help you to perfect a good Norwegian accent. Grammar issues are introduced in a very easy to digest way - but things are told to you as soon as you need them. Again, this certainly is NOT something that people will want to buy if they have any background at all in the language already.

It seems to me that Norwegian is probably one of the closest languages to English. The northern parts of the British Isles were heavily influenced by the Scandinavians, before the Normans (French) took over in 1066. It's quite refreshing to gaze deeply into the roots of one's own language.