Free as in Choice

Geeks often talk about "Free as in Beer" or "Free as in Speech". Providing just these two possibilities gives the false impression that they are the only two ways something can be free. It isn't, of course.

"Free as in beer" is when you get a product or service for free, without paying for it. Gratis, free of charge. "Free as in speech" is when you are free to say or write or publish something. It is the option most associated with liberty, with freedom.

See "Gratis vs Libre": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_Libre

But the word "free" is a bit problematic in English, because it covers several different kinds of free. "Free as in beer" and "Free as in speech" only covers some of them. The latter sort of calls forth the lack of censorship, the ability to express oneself freely, without worrying about anybody shutting you up. But that's not the most important type of free.

The more interesting freedom, I think, is the freedom of choice, in the sense of the widest possible range of options, the ability to act freely.

It is well expressed in the idea of Requisite Variety. pespmc1.vub.ac.be/REQVAR.html It is a term from cybernetics. The "Law of Requisite Variety" says essentially that the larger the variety and range of motion of a control system, the better it can keep a complex system stable. If you want to influence a system in a useful way, you need more flexibility at your disposal than what you're likely to encounter in the rest of the system. The most flexible part, with the widest range of freedom wins.

What something originally cost and what you can say about it matters much less than what you're free to do with it, and where you can do it, and how you'll do it.

A complex system, say a society, where a maximum number of components/participants have the maximum freedom, maximum range of freedom, can potentially be much more adaptable, productive and efficient than a system that is rigidly structured and regulated. A network can be much more useful than a hierarchy. Potentially. If the control mechanisms for the useful stuff one can do are more flexible, if they have more range of motion, than the perturbations, the not so useful stuff that can happen.

Free beer and free speech are great, but they aren't fundamentally going to change the world. A sufficiently wide range of freedoms and potential range of motion is more likely to do so. I.e. somebody invents something that you're free to do more stuff with, and you do.

The world is rapidly becoming more complex, full of more stuff, more information, more possibilities, more events. Yet the control system - you - is limited by a great many rules and laws, by one's unconscious attempt to conform to normalcy, and by software that doesn't let you do what you want to do.

To keep up with the world, we need to maximize freedom of choice. We need tools, systems, methods, principles, metaphors that allow us to keep up with the chaos of the world. We need more freedom of choice, as opposed to just having the choice of which set of restrictions we prefer.

There might be ways of measuring this, or at least of comparing the relative freedom of choice or range of motion available in different alternative systems.

Oh, my proposal? This could be a speech, or a discussion.