I think what we need to work on is improving the political clout of engineers, not destroying hollywood. We've won this one (I hope) but it took rather extreme measures. Blacking out wikipedia isn't something which can be done every time congress threatens to do something stupid. It's a bit like going on strike - a negative act which can turn people against us if overused. We need mechanisms which can influence politics on a day-to-day level, so we don't need to do these last-ditch operations.
Nevertheless, defeating SOPA is hugely significant, because it shows that we CAN be politically effective. Politics can operate as a kind of nonviolent intimidation: if our opponents have the reputation of being politically effective, and our group has the reputation of being politically ineffective, individuals think it's not worth their time trying to influence politics.
Take software patents. Whenever this comes up, there are always gloomy posts saying that we will never defeat the patent lobby. This perception deters everyone from trying to.
EFF does a good job. But I think more of us need to be active as individuals, on a day to day basis rather than just when the trumpet sounds like this. Suppose there was a website where you could sign a pledge which said: "I will spend 1/2 hour a week working against internet censorship". and then provided stack-overflow-like facilities whereby activists could suggest useful actions and vote on which are the best; and collect data on which arguments seemed most effective. Not only would this make us more effective, it would declare that we were a force to be reckoned with.
It's not about engineers vs. "Hollywood". I'm not even sure what either of those categories are, and I doubt the people who fall into those categories could agree who belongs in them and who doesn't. Also, the distinction is completely meaningless when you consider that many of the labor interests behind the "Hollywood" position are scientists and engineers who do the logistical grunt work of the on-screen magic.
Lose that false dichotomy and the rest of your post stands on its own: we won't win if we give up.
You need to convince millions of people not to watch Dark knight Rising, Transformers, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Twilight, Mission Impossible, and hundreds of other blockbusters and TV Shows, every year.
Then, the hardest part, you need to come up with something that is Waaaaaaaaaayyyy waayyyyy better than all those movies and TV shows combined -- and do it every single day.
The reason this worked out right (still crossing fingers) in my opinion, was because much of the tech community were on the same side in this one. But there are other occasions where this would have been a mess. So, the message would not have been clear. The congress and media would have thought "some people say yes, some people say no... nothing new".
No, I think congress and the media don't normally think about the tech community's opinion at all.
[editted to add]
You are right that division makes the message harder to put across. But it's not as simple as that. Take software patents: some people think software patents should be banned altogether, some people think they should be limited to five years, some people think 'obvious' patents are the problem. But most people think that the system is broken. As engineers, our automatic response is to start figuring out what the solution would look like. But the roadblock is not a lack of a solution, but lack of political influence. We can't agree on a solution to the software patent problem, because we won't find out which one works until we get to try one of them out. And the roadblock to doing that is lack of political influence.
I agree. Sadly, political influence costs lots of money. And thats the hardest part to overcome. So, we should first settle our differences (in your sample, how to solve the broken system) to avoid wasting time and money.
Buying political influence is generally a high ROI activity. In absolute terms, it may appear expensive, but in terms of "value" its quite cheap.
More importantly, there are other ways to gain political influence outside the DC money flow. The fight against SOPA and PIPA are an example of that.
As for the idea that differences need to be hashed out so a united front can be presented before trying to influence US politics. Even if such an outcome were desirable or possible (I'm not convinced of either), it would be a mistake to wait.
I think, underneath it all, part of the strategy is to create a legislative and regulatory environment that imposes disproportionate costs on upstarts and small players. In such environments, entrenched players can defend their positions.
Nevertheless, defeating SOPA is hugely significant, because it shows that we CAN be politically effective. Politics can operate as a kind of nonviolent intimidation: if our opponents have the reputation of being politically effective, and our group has the reputation of being politically ineffective, individuals think it's not worth their time trying to influence politics.
Take software patents. Whenever this comes up, there are always gloomy posts saying that we will never defeat the patent lobby. This perception deters everyone from trying to.
EFF does a good job. But I think more of us need to be active as individuals, on a day to day basis rather than just when the trumpet sounds like this. Suppose there was a website where you could sign a pledge which said: "I will spend 1/2 hour a week working against internet censorship". and then provided stack-overflow-like facilities whereby activists could suggest useful actions and vote on which are the best; and collect data on which arguments seemed most effective. Not only would this make us more effective, it would declare that we were a force to be reckoned with.
Anyone up for making such a website?