One of the best videos Hank has ever made, I think.
“I freaking love street performers, John. They remind me of the Internet: you never know what you’re gonna find, you don’t know whether it’s gonna be amazing or horrible, sometimes what they’re doing borders on illegal, it’s often very freaky, and, yeah, much of the time, they’re using copyrighted content.
The Internet is like a street in the French Quarter of New Orleans, except that it’s infinite, it can be accessed from anywhere, and every street corner is the same distance away from you at all times. And just like a street corner in New Orleans, there’s going to be a lot that offends a person of average sensibilities, and if anything goes wrong and people are in danger, we can count on the government to protect us.
In any system, things are going to happen that we don’t anticipate … We have to deal with those things on an individual basis. But SOPA isn’t about the government protecting people: SOPA is about protecting these new sorts of people which we used to call corporations. And you just can’t regulate an infinite street the way that you can regulate a normal street in the normal world.”
-Hank Green
This is why I love the vlogbrothers so much: they are so goddamn eloquent.
