3 ms·

Free access to everything is great, but you can't also complain that you have no jobs left when those companies can't pay people to actually do the research any

Free access to everything is great, but you can't also complain that you have no jobs left when those companies can't pay people to actually do the research anymore. Most of the information that Aaron was 'freeing' cost lots of money in research and development. A true hero would create an organization that spent their own money on research and development and then give out the results for free. This takes real sacrifice. Most of the people that propose that everything needs to be free are talking about the hard work of other people and freeing it against their will. This is not my definition of a hero or even someone we should admire.

marcfawzi 10y ago
I think he might have also meant free access to "money" itself as in basic income. Potentially, in an enlightened society that we will never have, you could apply for additional basic income to cover more than your basic needs, stuff like education, books, free access to paid research papers, etc. That is probably what he meant by free access, not that people wouldn't be rewarded for their hard work. Just less BS.
scarmig 10y ago
I'm not wholly a fan of Aaron's approach here, but this critique seems a bit off-base. JSTOR wasn't the organization doing the research and development. Various universities and academics, all tax-advantaged and often government-funded, were doing that research. And JSTOR charges them, not giving them a platform for free. JSTOR itself does add value--it's a platform to publish, and presumably offers editing etc. But Aaron wasn't freeing any of the code that runs JSTOR, just the content it held. Compare it to the free ArXiv, which plays a similar role to JSTOR.
- j2kun 10y ago
  Sadly, editing is also volunteered by the same academics.
- douche 10y ago
  Does JSTOR add value, though? I used it a lot in college, but it's searching capabilities were terrible, and most of the articles were incredibly poorly scanned, almost unreadable.
  - scarmig 10y ago
    Yes. Just because nowadays you can imagine much better implementations doesn't change how much a step forward it was in the 90s. There's a reason Aaron was able to download huge amounts of human knowledge in a couple hours. It'd have been pretty much impossible for him to do what he did before some organization like JSTOR.
ericd 10y ago
I was under the impression that most of the information Aaron was freeing was publicly funded research. Elsevier et al do not fund research, they charge researchers to publish in their journals, they charge researchers to access those journals, and they generally lock down access to them. The thing they offer in exchange is conferring some of the prestige they've built up for their journals to your research paper. Did he "free" any industry research?
rl3 10y ago
>A true hero would create an organization that spent their own money on research and development and then give out the results for free. This takes real sacrifice. Seeing as the man is dead as a direct result of his allegedly false heroics, I can't help but disagree with the implication in the latter portion of your statment. Death is widely agreed upon as a very real sacrifice.
thisassumes33 10y ago
This assumes the only motivator humans have for doing things is financial. Religion has motivated billions for promises that are, IMO, complete fiction. Very similar to how we peddle the American dream of financial independence, despite this too largely being a figment of most people's imaginations. It requires work. That it also requires money is a by-product of how our society works. We've gone from "doing it for God and country" to "doing it for the almighty dollar." These motivators are not static. > A true hero would create an organization that spent their own money on research and development and then give out the results for free. This takes real sacrifice. You mean like the American people have done for a generation now? Subsidizing the research and development of technologies and medicine... only to give it away for peanuts on the dollar? The benefits of our efforts have been expropriated for generations. No one person is responsible for the access to all the technology and other resources they utilize to achieve in life.

marcfawzi 10y ago

I think he might have also meant free access to "money" itself as in basic income. Potentially, in an enlightened society that we will never have, you could apply for additional basic income to cover more than your basic needs, stuff like education, books, free access to paid research papers, etc. That is probably what he meant by free access, not that people wouldn't be rewarded for their hard work. Just less BS.

scarmig 10y ago

I'm not wholly a fan of Aaron's approach here, but this critique seems a bit off-base. JSTOR wasn't the organization doing the research and development. Various universities and academics, all tax-advantaged and often government-funded, were doing that research. And JSTOR charges them, not giving them a platform for free. JSTOR itself does add value--it's a platform to publish, and presumably offers editing etc. But Aaron wasn't freeing any of the code that runs JSTOR, just the content it held. Compare it to the free ArXiv, which plays a similar role to JSTOR.

j2kun 10y ago
Sadly, editing is also volunteered by the same academics.
douche 10y ago
Does JSTOR add value, though? I used it a lot in college, but it's searching capabilities were terrible, and most of the articles were incredibly poorly scanned, almost unreadable.
- scarmig 10y ago
  Yes. Just because nowadays you can imagine much better implementations doesn't change how much a step forward it was in the 90s. There's a reason Aaron was able to download huge amounts of human knowledge in a couple hours. It'd have been pretty much impossible for him to do what he did before some organization like JSTOR.

ericd 10y ago

I was under the impression that most of the information Aaron was freeing was publicly funded research. Elsevier et al do not fund research, they charge researchers to publish in their journals, they charge researchers to access those journals, and they generally lock down access to them. The thing they offer in exchange is conferring some of the prestige they've built up for their journals to your research paper. Did he "free" any industry research?

rl3 10y ago

>A true hero would create an organization that spent their own money on research and development and then give out the results for free. This takes real sacrifice. Seeing as the man is dead as a direct result of his allegedly false heroics, I can't help but disagree with the implication in the latter portion of your statment. Death is widely agreed upon as a very real sacrifice.

thisassumes33 10y ago

This assumes the only motivator humans have for doing things is financial. Religion has motivated billions for promises that are, IMO, complete fiction. Very similar to how we peddle the American dream of financial independence, despite this too largely being a figment of most people's imaginations. It requires work. That it also requires money is a by-product of how our society works. We've gone from "doing it for God and country" to "doing it for the almighty dollar." These motivators are not static. > A true hero would create an organization that spent their own money on research and development and then give out the results for free. This takes real sacrifice. You mean like the American people have done for a generation now? Subsidizing the research and development of technologies and medicine... only to give it away for peanuts on the dollar? The benefits of our efforts have been expropriated for generations. No one person is responsible for the access to all the technology and other resources they utilize to achieve in life.