Some Good Ideas

            While it may seem the largest pitfall of the book leaves people with a negative and narrow minded view of the world, as is demonstrated in the negative post, there are many reasons Burkart gives that should turn people around and leave them more open to the idea of creating a world where patent and copyright laws are less influential.  One of Burkart’s best arguments is the idea where he compares the ideas behind Pirate Politics to the Environmentalist movement.  He explains how, in the Environmentalist movement, there is no claiming of individual aspects of the environment; it is not his forest, their pond or her mountain.  Instead, it all works together to create a system that functions as one.  All the individual parts depend on the other to be a successful whole.  Without the influence of the other, the whole system will not be able to function properly.  This then relates to the system of free flowing information Pirate Politics is trying to create.  
            If information was not claimed as property that could be owned but was allowed to flow freely between people, we would be able to create a much stronger and more efficient system.  Bouncing ideas off of people helps to stimulate new and stronger ideas and create never before thought of inventions that could greatly benefit society.  However, with the current copyright system in place, it is extremely difficult to spread this information between people to allow it to flow as one big system that works together.  However, if copyrights and patents become weakened, it will be much easier for information to flow through and between people, allowing many different ideas to work together as a sufficient system (Burkart, 2014).      

            Looking at the platform from the environmentalist angle helps to bring light to another major problem in society which could be solved by the Pirate Party’s ideas.  This problem is the digital divide.  The digital divide is the idea there is a divide among people who have access to information technology because of reasons such as age, gender or the proper funds (Dijk, 2006).  When Jan van Dijk, a professor of communication and sociology in the Netherlands, speaks of the digital divide, he talks mainly about people who have access to computers and technology and people who do not.  I believe he does a disservice to this idea as one can take the topic even further by expanding the concept to people who have access to certain aspects on the web and those whom do not.  Some people have access to certain copyrighted material on the internet, leaving others behind while they profit, mentally and monetarily, off of it.  Some people have access to many different copyrighted and patented materials because of their position in life while others’ positions in life prevent them from having such access.  This thus creates a digital divide that hinders society. 

            Unless something is done to fix this problem, it is only going to get worse.  In order to see how this is so, one can relate this idea to the gap in literacy skills.  According to Debora Brandt, an English professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison, if one has a higher socioeconomic status, they are more likely to develop more sufficient literacy skills that will allow them to excel more than others at the opportunities life throws at them (Brandt, 2001).  This can be compared to the current divide between people who have access to patented material and those who do not.  Those who do are only going to have access to more patented material and be able to use those ideas to influence themselves to build off of the ideas in front of them to design and create new and improved inventions.  Unfortunately, the people who do not have access to these patents will not be able to work together to create new ideas and have the power of multiple minds working together.  They will not be able to work as one, having all the units flowing smoothly together to create the best possible system.  In order to fix the problem at hand, we need to heed Burkart’s optimism towards Pirate Politics and take to the new political movement.  His positive arguments far out weigh the one I have criticized and is thus why we need to adopt the new movement.  It will produce a great society for us to live in, as the environmentalist movement describes, that works together to create the best functioning system possible.