7 ms·

We all know how powerful capitalism is, but our culture still doesn't grasp its bounds. I think this is most true with knowledge systems: journalism, library-le

We all know how powerful capitalism is, but our culture still doesn't grasp its bounds. I think this is most true with knowledge systems: journalism, library-lending, education. I'm not sure what the best system structure is for these areas, but I'm confident that in these cases, profit-seeking feedback mechanisms don't align with society's goals. The goals (in my opinion) should be heightened knowledge integrity, increased accessibility, resilient persistence, and ease of applicability. So – with these goals in mind, what is the right system structure for library lending in the digital age? For journalism? For education? I'm sincerely unsure and super curious.

syshum 6y ago
Capitalism is not the issue here. Copyright Regulations are market shifting regulations that means normal market feedbacks do not exist given we as a society through our laws grant a monopoly to the creator in ways not seen in other markets This artificial scarcity is what causes the appearance that "capitalism fails" for knowledge systems when in reality it government regulations that are the source of the failure. The continued extension of copyright over the years has increased this failure and created a huge whole in public domain. Copyright law is now an enemy of knowledge expatiation which is contrary to its stated goal
- Jasper_ 6y ago
  How do you propose to adjust capitalism's core reliance on scarcity and supply and demand (supply of a digital good is infinite!) I have never seen any serious proposals, hence we're trying to uphold capitalistic structures by enforcing artificial scarcity, to build a marketplace where capitalism's assumptions hold. I don't think you can tear down copyright and artificial scarcity without tearing down capitalism.
  - syshum 6y ago
    I dont think you can eliminate the artificial scarcity, but I do support returning to the Orginal Copyright terms of the US 14 Years to the content creator, and 1 extension that has to be applied for by the creator personally (not a business, not an estate) For Corporations the copyright term is 14 years, for an individual creator it would be at most 28 years. none of this 100 years+ copyright monopoly we see today under current law
  - infogulch 6y ago
    You have to match infinities with infinitesimals. This is a pressure on our monetary system to enable efficient payments of ~$0.10. You could say that the ad industry's very existence and success is a statement and proof that our monetary system is too inefficient. Google is filling a huge hole in the modern instantiation of money, which makes their success look inevitable.
  - nybble41 6y ago
    > How do you propose to adjust capitalism's core reliance on scarcity and supply and demand (supply of a digital good is infinite!) There is nothing wrong with capitalism when it comes to scarcity or supply and demand. It just doesn't apply to the supply of digital goods, or any other good which is superabundant (i.e. not inherently scarce). Labor is scarce: the labor of writing new works, and the labor of distributing them. To the extent that there is demand for new works we will find some way to pay for the labor of creating them which doesn't involve undermining capitalism—along with people's natural property rights—in order to impose artificial scarcity. There are various existing, proven models to choose from which have resulted in quality productions in the past, including patronage, crowdfunding, sponsorship, donations, and open source. Each of these has its own strengths and weaknesses and the eventual solution will probably include all of them to some degree along with others we haven't thought of yet.
- xhkkffbf 6y ago
  It only creates a monopoly for other's books. No one is stopping you from creating your own book and giving it away for free. It's kind of like the plagiarism rules from high school. You really should consider the other part of the equation. Authors need to eat. They can only eat if publishers pay them. Publishers will only have money if readers pay for the books. No "monopoly" means no paid authors. Oh maybe some rich people will write as a hobby but not the ones who need a day job.
  - syshum 6y ago
    >>It only creates a monopoly for other's books. That is far from "all it does", YouTube is a prime example of the suppression forces inherent in copy right law, and the amount of abuse that occurs chilling speech and public participation >>You really should consider the other part of the equation. Authors need to eat. No I really should not. That is not the goal nor desire of copyright law. profit is not the reason copyright was added as a constitutional power of the US Government nor should that be the metric for which we judge the effectiveness of copyright law >. They can only eat if publishers pay them. Again this is incorrect, and becomes more incorrect as time goes on. Through Copyright publishers act as gate keepers which prohibits new an innovative ways of funding creative works beyond the traditional copyright model Copyright from its inception has had a questionable [1][2] history even when looked at from the creators point of view > No "monopoly" means no paid authors There is nothing further form the truth than a statement that absence copyright all creative work would cease. OpenSource software, Open Documentation Projects, and the huge amount of Free Culture works fly in the face of that statement. Further it is provable and self evidently false that publishers and traditional publishing models are the only or even best method to fund creative works in the 21st century [1] https://questioncopyright.org/promise https://questioncopyright.org/promise [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhBpI13dxkI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhBpI13dxkI
    - gamblor956 6y ago
      Youtube is in fact a great example of the flexibility of the copyright program. You have millions of hours of professionally-produced work, and millions more hours of people commenting, analyzing, critiquing, or otherwise engaged in the marketplace of ideas with respect to those works...all within the framework of the copyright system. That doesn't include the billions of hours of non-professional content uploaded to the site. That is not the goal nor desire of copyright law. profit is not the reason copyright was added as a constitutional power In fact, providing creators with profits is exactly the reason copyright law was enshrined in the Constitution: to incentivize creators to do their creating in the US. (The copyright and patent system merely formalized and codified an exclusive monopoly system for inventions originally developed in Europe during the Middle Ages.)
dantheman 6y ago
I think one issue is - what are society's goals? Also, in think people need to realize we are in a time of transition. Power is really moving around much like after the printing press. It takes awhile for people to learn new media literacy skills. In the past seeing something published meant it had at least the agreement of a few people and they took the time to do it, now it means nothing. It's not a signal anymore.
eat_veggies 6y ago
It's not that our culture still doesn't grasp its bounds but that capital's bounds are in fact ungraspable -- in its infinite flexibility, any attempt to grasp and contain it will result in a new way for it to exploit and expand. It can wield regulations as weapons, eat revolutions, and yes, break any system for lending in the digital age.
- arthurofbabylon 6y ago
  Yes, perhaps our issue is exactly that: our society refuses to define the bounds. Commerce is a subsystem of a larger system. Like in any system, each constituent part affects the whole - but at some point the feedback loops that serve one subsystem start to harm neighboring subsystems and even the system. Thus, for pragmatists: bounds. When ads erode journalistic quality, when universities become tools of class division, then we can clearly see - if we’re looking - the bounds of capitalism and commerce-reliant feedback loops. The optimal structure is scarcely uniform.

syshum 6y ago

Capitalism is not the issue here. Copyright Regulations are market shifting regulations that means normal market feedbacks do not exist given we as a society through our laws grant a monopoly to the creator in ways not seen in other markets This artificial scarcity is what causes the appearance that "capitalism fails" for knowledge systems when in reality it government regulations that are the source of the failure. The continued extension of copyright over the years has increased this failure and created a huge whole in public domain. Copyright law is now an enemy of knowledge expatiation which is contrary to its stated goal

Jasper_ 6y ago
How do you propose to adjust capitalism's core reliance on scarcity and supply and demand (supply of a digital good is infinite!) I have never seen any serious proposals, hence we're trying to uphold capitalistic structures by enforcing artificial scarcity, to build a marketplace where capitalism's assumptions hold. I don't think you can tear down copyright and artificial scarcity without tearing down capitalism.
- syshum 6y ago
  I dont think you can eliminate the artificial scarcity, but I do support returning to the Orginal Copyright terms of the US 14 Years to the content creator, and 1 extension that has to be applied for by the creator personally (not a business, not an estate) For Corporations the copyright term is 14 years, for an individual creator it would be at most 28 years. none of this 100 years+ copyright monopoly we see today under current law
- infogulch 6y ago
  You have to match infinities with infinitesimals. This is a pressure on our monetary system to enable efficient payments of ~$0.10. You could say that the ad industry's very existence and success is a statement and proof that our monetary system is too inefficient. Google is filling a huge hole in the modern instantiation of money, which makes their success look inevitable.
- nybble41 6y ago
  > How do you propose to adjust capitalism's core reliance on scarcity and supply and demand (supply of a digital good is infinite!) There is nothing wrong with capitalism when it comes to scarcity or supply and demand. It just doesn't apply to the supply of digital goods, or any other good which is superabundant (i.e. not inherently scarce). Labor is scarce: the labor of writing new works, and the labor of distributing them. To the extent that there is demand for new works we will find some way to pay for the labor of creating them which doesn't involve undermining capitalism—along with people's natural property rights—in order to impose artificial scarcity. There are various existing, proven models to choose from which have resulted in quality productions in the past, including patronage, crowdfunding, sponsorship, donations, and open source. Each of these has its own strengths and weaknesses and the eventual solution will probably include all of them to some degree along with others we haven't thought of yet.
xhkkffbf 6y ago
It only creates a monopoly for other's books. No one is stopping you from creating your own book and giving it away for free. It's kind of like the plagiarism rules from high school. You really should consider the other part of the equation. Authors need to eat. They can only eat if publishers pay them. Publishers will only have money if readers pay for the books. No "monopoly" means no paid authors. Oh maybe some rich people will write as a hobby but not the ones who need a day job.
- syshum 6y ago
  >>It only creates a monopoly for other's books. That is far from "all it does", YouTube is a prime example of the suppression forces inherent in copy right law, and the amount of abuse that occurs chilling speech and public participation >>You really should consider the other part of the equation. Authors need to eat. No I really should not. That is not the goal nor desire of copyright law. profit is not the reason copyright was added as a constitutional power of the US Government nor should that be the metric for which we judge the effectiveness of copyright law >. They can only eat if publishers pay them. Again this is incorrect, and becomes more incorrect as time goes on. Through Copyright publishers act as gate keepers which prohibits new an innovative ways of funding creative works beyond the traditional copyright model Copyright from its inception has had a questionable [1][2] history even when looked at from the creators point of view > No "monopoly" means no paid authors There is nothing further form the truth than a statement that absence copyright all creative work would cease. OpenSource software, Open Documentation Projects, and the huge amount of Free Culture works fly in the face of that statement. Further it is provable and self evidently false that publishers and traditional publishing models are the only or even best method to fund creative works in the 21st century [1] https://questioncopyright.org/promise https://questioncopyright.org/promise [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhBpI13dxkI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhBpI13dxkI
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    Youtube is in fact a great example of the flexibility of the copyright program. You have millions of hours of professionally-produced work, and millions more hours of people commenting, analyzing, critiquing, or otherwise engaged in the marketplace of ideas with respect to those works...all within the framework of the copyright system. That doesn't include the billions of hours of non-professional content uploaded to the site. That is not the goal nor desire of copyright law. profit is not the reason copyright was added as a constitutional power In fact, providing creators with profits is exactly the reason copyright law was enshrined in the Constitution: to incentivize creators to do their creating in the US. (The copyright and patent system merely formalized and codified an exclusive monopoly system for inventions originally developed in Europe during the Middle Ages.)

dantheman 6y ago

I think one issue is - what are society's goals? Also, in think people need to realize we are in a time of transition. Power is really moving around much like after the printing press. It takes awhile for people to learn new media literacy skills. In the past seeing something published meant it had at least the agreement of a few people and they took the time to do it, now it means nothing. It's not a signal anymore.

eat_veggies 6y ago

It's not that our culture still doesn't grasp its bounds but that capital's bounds are in fact ungraspable -- in its infinite flexibility, any attempt to grasp and contain it will result in a new way for it to exploit and expand. It can wield regulations as weapons, eat revolutions, and yes, break any system for lending in the digital age.

arthurofbabylon 6y ago
Yes, perhaps our issue is exactly that: our society refuses to define the bounds. Commerce is a subsystem of a larger system. Like in any system, each constituent part affects the whole - but at some point the feedback loops that serve one subsystem start to harm neighboring subsystems and even the system. Thus, for pragmatists: bounds. When ads erode journalistic quality, when universities become tools of class division, then we can clearly see - if we’re looking - the bounds of capitalism and commerce-reliant feedback loops. The optimal structure is scarcely uniform.