I have a lot of thoughts around rewilding that I haven’t expressed publically. Every time I go to post them, I think, “What if someone steals these and presents them as their own?” After feeling like two prominent internet figures took many of the topics and discussions from this website and gave no credit to their origins, I now fear that posting some of my more “innovative” thoughts on rewilding will simply be usurped. It makes it challenging to have a dialog here about issues that I am very concerned about. There are certain issues that I think are fine because I know they will not copy them, but others that I know they would if they could. This isn’t a problem per se with those two, but rather a larger problem of the internet. There is a perception that everything is “creative commons” at this point. Images, text, ideas. It’s all available for the taking and using. This is great in a lot of ways, in that certain ideas can get picked up and shared and become more widespread. However, there is also an appeal to capitalists who feel that they don’t need to pay for usage anymore and the creators of things are no longer seeing credit or compensation for their contributions. This is not directly tied to rewilding, but it is in many ways in terms of how the movement grows and continues forward. I’m working on a book, but who knows when I’ll ever get around to finishing it, finding a publisher or publishing it myself. When I was a blogger, I would just post thoughts and essays as they came along. This was great but now I feel I have to hoard my thoughts for fear of them being “stolen.” I feel the only way forward is to write a book in private and then either get it published or publish it myself all at once. Does anyone else feel apprehension to put ideas out there for similar reasons or am I just a paranoid geek? Should I not care? What are your thoughts?
Yes I do feel hesitation in publishing online. Not from paranoia but because I like to invite people to come offline.
I have been doing some writing myself in a form that basically requires you read offline: by writing on paper, photocopying the thing and sending it out. Perhaps one day I’ll make a PDF of one or more and put those online. If so, they reader-in-spe still needs to print each out separately because my creations require paper handling actions that a screen doesn’t allow.
I to am careful how much I post online. I have some stories and ideas I share, but never in entirety so that I can finish them in writing as complete books down the road.
Some of the ones I feel are important, I share the basic idea of but will go into much more later.
i can understand your fears. there’s quite a bit i don’t share at well, but that’s mostly because i don’t often feel i have the sort of ‘circle of friends’ feel that i’d want before sharing certain things. on other topics/depths, i post freely, but i don’t have anywhere near the influence that you do.
i’d be super worried also, if i were you, given the current political climate & how easy it is for less ethical people to cherry pick ideas from wholesome cultural change and use them for their own ends. i know on the feralculture forums they have at least two levels of ‘privacy’ in terms of who can see what - and i think they’re using the same forum tech/program as you. maybe you could consider a protected forum within this one of people you know well enough to trust with these more fragile or exploitable ideas… that way they can propagate among those you’d consider best for holding your dreams for rewilding as sacred.
whatever you choose to do, i sympathize. i wish we were able to claim a few different areas around this country for rewilding & be doing all this work in person, spreading out into our local community, in a way that none of us would need to be doing this work alone.
I get it, I’m a writer too. I think one useful thing would be to ask why you are writing and who is it for? For me, my writing is for others consumption - checking my ego has helped that - and so it doesn’t matter to me if someone “steals” it. In fact, I recently wrote 2 books about my daytime business and I actually give one of them away FREE to women wanting to start a business like mine. The other one is priced so cheaply that I get about $1 every time someone buys it.
There is another side though. I was in a writing workshop for a while and I was working on a poetry chapbook about a particular time in my dysfunctional childhood that revolved around a house I lived in. I published many poems from the book separately but never published the chapbook because it felt a little too boring for most people. BUT about 4 years later, the person who was the workshop leader published a book called “The Yellow House” that was about events from his childhood - you guessed it - revolving around a house he grew up in. The house in my book was yellow also and was mentioned in several of my poems. Did he steal my work? Perhaps, but to get over my anger about what I saw as a convenient coincidence, I tried to shift my thinking to the idea that we ALL get inspiration from one another, and leave it at that.
Keep writing and sharing,
Khadija
I can completely understand your situation…however thoughts and ideas are like seeds. For those thoughts to take root they need to find the proper environment at the right time so that they can grow and flourish. They need to be dispersed out in great quantity to improve the odds of some of them finding that ideal spot. The seeds may even sit dormant for years waiting for the right moment to sprout and grow into a plant. Most of those seeds will never survive…consumed by other organisms or pushed aside by other seeds more suited for that environment but a small percentage do… they beat the odds and the cycle continues.
Those “internet figures” altered the original seeds to fit the environment that “They” wanted them to grow in. They diluted it… watered it down. They changed those seeds so that they would be more accepted in the desired environment…made them more plump…sweeter…less bitter. They are cultivated and controlled for another task not for change but for gain … For the original seeds would never have flourish in that environment …it simply was not the right time. But now that those altered seeds are there growing they are providing the opportunity for the original seeds to sprout and grow.
I would also agree with hailujunky …controlling ego is essential. Ego is used as a tool to control us …to divide us. This society feeds off of it …it helps to keeps its gears in motion.
IF someone consumed my ideas (sparse as they might be at this point and time) spit them up like so much cud and redistributed them as originals I would be kind of miffed, but I would know that whenever the idea came back my way I could say “I thought of that all on my own without any help from anyone. If you want to discuss it I might (might) be a very good choice for engaging in such a discussion on said topic.” and if they never come back my way and all the glory goes to the thief… well… I suppose I will just go on with my life and try to make what I can of my own voice and the products of my thought generating and assembling. I would probably jump on an opportunity to say “foul behavior, that was mine before it was yours!” if I felt compelled to do so – which I doubt I would knowing my ways as I do. As for whether or not I would put my stuff out there… I think I would just listen to my heart on that one. If I wanted advice on what to do, I would ask for advice. And if someone asked me for advice I would say, “get it out in the public and let it have its impact, unless you ABSOLUTELY cannot stand the possibility of it being stolen. if you looking at that with total ambivalence and want to know what I would do, I say you share it. I want information to be dispersed and whatever happens to happen and unwanted consequences to be tackled whenever they arise how we see fit.” I mean… the ideas go out into the jungle, the ideas get hunted, and the carcasses of the ideas as they die the death of being a spoken sliver of the past speech conglomerate will feed the hungry minds. if it was meant to help someone, let it help them, whether it comes from your mouth or another. if they hurt someone because they were twisted by the filter of another… well… I am not one to regret listening to my heart unless my intentions are seemingly wicked. I am babbling? maybe. maybe I like babbling. I have a website with all my mental institution period poems and a lot of mental institution period drawings (linked in my profile on here, plug plug), and I am writing a novel which I am planning on putting on wattpad for the public (message me if you want to read it, I doubt anyone does - plug plug a second time). If I see pieces of the plot of my novel in a Hollywood movie without any credit going to me… well… that would just freak me out and I would probably try to make a stink. but I doubt I will regret my decision to release the wordy beast at no charge to the public. I want my stuff to be ingested by the travelers who stumble upon whatever it may be. I do not want to worry about theft. If theft occurred I would not want to make a big scene. I do not want theft to occur – I want inspiration and strengthening and eye opening to occur. I know it’s possible, and I let it all fly free anyway. My gosh… where is my head these days? I am truly babbling. Hah. And you read this far. 
Social skills I am lacking. Social skills I am building. Am I ACTUALLY an interloper on the expanse of your pixels?