Bullies everywhere should be shaking in their jackboots. The 'net, with its millions of machines and its entry points in more than a hundred nations, defies control. "The Net tends to interpret censorship as damage, and routes around it", says John Gilmore (one of my favorite wired heroes, who founded the "alt" newsgroup hierarchy, paving the way for lively conversation on unapproved topics.)
Do you still fear a future in which every transaction, act, and thought is monitored, taxed, registered, judged, recorded, or prohibited by some government agency or other? Most of human history has been about attempts to contest the spread of new ideas and technologies. What happens when anyone who cares to be heard can open their own worldwide broadcast channel for commerce, information and entertainment?
I and others of like mind are working to assure that you will not be denied access to the tools you need to build a great future. You will have access to resources, procedures and information that could extend your life and increase your intelligence, no matter what is written in local law. New technologies can and will be transmitted freely across borders, untaxed and unimpaired.
We are, each of us, not merely consumers, but creators of culture. The value and power of each individual, and thus our individual responsibility, grows every day. What you choose to do, and whom you choose to become, matters much more than where you happened to be born. The World Wide Web makes possible a truly consensual society of individuals. No longer fed from a narrow menu of "approved" truths, each of us will face a vast and dubious smorgasbord of ideas, produced by the human mind in all its amazing diversity. Each of us must learn to choose well; attention is a most precious resource. Every time you invest attention in an idea, a written word, a television show, every time you buy something, every time you believe something, every time you act, the texture of your future, and mine, is subtly changed.