Re:TheAshLad - Sandbooks

monopoly on. realizing its value. We invent the idea but they. control
the means of production. The laws that. used to protect us copyright
and patent have. been subtly changing over the course of the last. few
decades to protect corporate owners of. existing 'intellectual property'
not individual. Manifesto' to dramatize this emergent conflict.. Roy I
like the idea that information's world. doesn't have an equivalent to
physical world's. second law of thermodynamics and that this idea.
represents true freedom. Is there a danger of this. auspicious outlook
failing. Ken The commodity economy runs on scarcity. It's. all about
making the wealth produced by labor the. exclusive private property of
the few. At the. moment its hard to argue for the socialization of.
wealth. Some part of it needs to be social or things. just won't function
at all. Every civilized society. recognizes the need for socialized health
and. pensions.. But when we come to information there's no need. for it
to be privatized. Economists call information a. 'nonrivalrous resource'.
Which is an oxymoron.. Basically it is an admission that information
need. not be subject to the laws of scarcity at all. My. possession of
some information does not deprive. you of it. The cost of making a
copy is being. reduced all the time.. So the one place where we can still
entertain the. idea of a release from scarcity is the world of.
information. It could have a quite different. economy or a noneconomy.
It is by legal artifice. the repressive force of the police and cultural re.
engineering that we are being persuaded of the. necessity of a purely
private economy of. information where Mickey Mouse is somebody's.
fiefdom in perpetuity where nothing ever comes. back to the public
domain. I think we have to fight. that.. But where Lawrence Lessig and
others see this as. a fight to get the law to recognize the common. sense
of a public domain I think it is much more. than that. We are up against
a new and powerful. class interest which profits by the
commodification. of information rather than the manufacture of. things.
We have to resist this new interest with. technical and cultural means as
well as through legal. challenges.. Roy The idea of education as slavery
seems to be. becoming more and more prevalent in intellectual. circles.
What do you think should be done about. the education problem. Ken
Socalled critical theory in the universities. becomes merely hypocritical
theory if it doesn't deal. with the fact that education is now part of the.
problem not part of the solution. Education is. about creating scarcity.
Here in the United States. we have the least democratic most
aristocratic. education system in the (over)developed world. It. is all
about rationing prestige. It has nothing to do. with seeking knowledge..
842