10 ms·

Access to knowledge is a human right

70 points by bluish29 3y ago

frollo 3y ago
I'll agree that publishers (especially of academic stuff) deserve even a cent for every book sold the moment they do something useful in the whole publication process. Because at this moment, their contribute is negative. Until then (which probably means forever), I hope Sci-Hub and similar keep thriving.
DiggyJohnson 3y ago
For the sake of kicking off discussion: is the notion of <important or good thing> is a human right an overused or ineffective way of advocating for something?
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  Hallelujah, was going to post the same thing. This is sad to me, because I see this so overused that it's lost nearly all its important original meaning. All the time I see "health care is a human right", "shelter is a human right", "food is a human right" - that always drives me a little bonkers, and it's not because I don't support guaranteed assistance in these areas. It's because these things require real cost, time and effort from somebody else to acquire. Saying they're "human rights" implies that you're willing to force other humans to acquire these goods for you, for free. This is very different from things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, etc. which are the "default" state of things until someone uses violence to try to take them from you. Similarly, it costs time, effort and money to assemble information in ways so that it can be consumed online. Saying "it's a human right" just means you want it for free.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    > It's because these things require real cost, time and effort from somebody else to acquire. What you are writing there is a frequent complaint on discussion threads on news-for-nerds sites, but it misses the point: of course those things require real cost, time and effort from somebody else, and that is why there is a longstanding distinction between positive and negative rights.[0] Yes, the prominence of negative rights is a big feature of American culture due to the 18th-century Lockean context that the USA’s Founding Fathers operated in, but a lot of things have happened in the interim, and other views on rights have arisen. And even the USA gave lip service to the positive rights enshrined in the UN’s founding human-rights charter. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
    - SllX 3y ago
      Positive rights advocates have had some success in achieving the lawful creation of positive rights across the States, the most prominent examples being Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and public school systems. But those are also the most expensive line items in Federal and State budgets, massively expanded the public bureaucracies, and had variable success in achieving their stated goals and are some of the most contentious and controversial political topics, with public education in particularly attracting the full brunt of the culture war in recent years in part due to lockdown policies during the pandemic giving more parents more insight into the education their children are (or are not) receiving, and that’s just one positive right. To put it bluntly, the mere arising of new views around “rights” since 1789 is insufficient if those new views do not represent a qualitative improvement over prior thought, and positive rights advocates have not exactly covered themselves in glory. The mere conjecture of a new positive right in the way activists and advocates proceed is also insufficient; the nature of them is such that you actually do need lawful agreement, and that agreement is only binding in the jurisdiction which created it.
      - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
        Yes, you get it: with your detailed argumentation for one position you show you were already well aware of the distinction, unlike apparently the OP. But I suppose it is best that we refrain from further political battle here.
      - foolrush 3y ago
        > But those are also the most expensive line items in Federal and State budgets, https://media.nationalpriorities.org/uploads/discretionary_spending_pie%2C_2015_enacted.png https://media.nationalpriorities.org/uploads/discretionary_s...
        SllX 3y ago
        Two things missing: 1. Non-discretionary spending. 2. 50 additional links to breakdowns of the public budgets for the 50 States.
      - 3y ago
  - Tijdreiziger 3y ago
    > Saying they're "human rights" implies that you're willing to force other humans to acquire these goods for you, for free. Well, sure. IMHO it's not so much an implication as it is the whole point of designating them human rights. What this looks like in practice is that government funds homeless shelters and other social programs.
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - tomcam 3y ago
    In the USA, we take human rights so seriously that soldiers and police commit to defending the Constitution, not king and country. The Constitution and its amendments enumerate rights the Federal government is not allowed to infringe. We need to be careful about what we call rights. They cost us a great deal in blood and treasure.
  - atoav 3y ago
    > Saying "it's a human right" just means you want it for free. No. Wanting it to be a human right in that context means I want to live in a society where people don't have to worry about that thing. Living in a society that catches people that has some humane quality to it is a value in itself. That being said, there are actual human rights. Rights our political representatives deemed so important, they enshrined them in law, be it in the Magna Carta, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention, in national laws etc. On the question of resources: It can and will happen, that your society will have to expend some resources to prevent humans from having their human rights violated. The collective pooling and use of resources is a hallmark of what it means to live inside a society. And that is not bad — a society as a whole benefits from doing this (the ones who so this most seem the fare quite well in every metric you can think of, e.g. the whole of Scandinavia). Now if you ask me, you certainly have the right to work and get rich. But you don't get to do so on the achievements of a society and then pretend that it never did anything for you, so you won't need to give back all while driving on the roads that got built during times with a 90% tax bracket. I don't know you, so don't take anything I write personal, but if this was about me, I'd rather live freely in a world where no-one around me is devastated and poor by paying my fair share, than having to spend that same money because I have to live in a gated community. The goal of life is not to earn money, it is to lead a happy life. And a major, major part of just how happy that life is depends on your environment. This is why the most liveable cities in the world are typically not capitalist hellscapes in areas of high income disparities, but in working social democracies with good social systems and a good mix of all income brackets throughout the city. When I have the choice between your right to pay a little bit less taxes and another one's right to not starve, my choice is very simple. You probably already have enough, the other one hasn't, I profit from them not starving more than from you having that money.
  - chambers 3y ago
    The missing word from this conversation is "duty": a moral obligation to others. People pretend rights can exists without duties because, like you said, they're trying to get good things for free. They're asking for work from others and not being upfront on the price of the work. I say "I have a right to good service at the DMV", because I can't say the DMV must give me, let alone everyone, good service. In a larger view[1], a language of rights without duties undermines the broader social contract, confuses conversations with indirect terms[2], and provides the selfish with the illusion of care for their fellow man. As it so happens, the original declaration of human rights[2] specifically calls out the necessary union of duties and rights. However, the UN declaration does not do so, likely because no one, bar a few western countries, actually had the power to enforce those rights on a global scale. Hannah Arendt commented on this topic at length, though it's hard for hyper-individualists to digest[4]. [1] https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/samuel-moyn-rights-duties/ https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/samuel-moyn-rights-dut... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights#C... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Declaration_of_the_Rights_and_Duties_of_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Declaration_of_the_Ri... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt#Critique_of_human_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt#Critique_of_huma...
  - cam_l 3y ago
    >implies that you're willing to force other humans to acquire these goods for you, for free. Or, y'know, actually that we require the costs to be shared equally... Like we do with fresh water or firefighters or the police or armed forces. Like, I don't smoke, so why should you get your firefighter for free? What good are any other human rights if you are denied access to the law, or drinking water for that matter?
  - analognoise 3y ago
    Hah! In 2021, the USA provided 28.5 billion dollars in farm subsidies. For fossil fuels, we spend about 20 billion dollars a year in subsidies. People are ALREADY getting this stuff "for free" - it's just not you and me! This is all before we spent ~815 BILLION dollars on our defense budget - and we're at peace! Everyone gets it for free but YOU and ME, and you're carrying their water by defending this system! We give it out for free with one hand, and then pretend everyone has to work for it, and along the way there's no free food, shelter, or medical care!
  - ringo-ring 3y ago
    > Saying they're "human rights" implies that you're willing to force other humans to acquire these goods for you, for free. This is very different from things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, etc. which are the "default" state of things until someone uses violence to try to take them from you. Copying information online is also 'default' state of things, until some government uses violence to stop it, block access, and etc. Sci-Hub does not rely on any 'violence' to operate, unless you consider 'entering library without permission' to be violence. But that concept of violence is too general: we can call 'violence' pretty much anything we do not like. Someone offended us with their opinion? Violence! (and yes, sometimes opinions hurt) > you're willing to force other humans to acquire these goods for you, for free it is wrong. One thing, is to say to other human: do something for me! that is, to force someone. But having a right to use what is already available, is a completely different thing. The two cannot be conflated.
- m00x 3y ago
  [flagged]
- adamnemecek 3y ago
  What would you use instead?
  - Mountain_Skies 3y ago
    Noble goal.
  - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
    Something like “our shared obligation/duty”, “knowledge should be considered a human right” or even “knowledge should be free”. In fact, the latter is exactly what is being argued for, without the philosophical quagmire of the question of what is a “right”? I think one’s perspective on this depends on whether your reaction to this sort of invocation of “human rights” is that it adds strength to the claim or whether it makes the claim more abstract and complex.
- Ensorceled 3y ago
  Imagine utopia; a world where your basic needs are met (excellent food, water, comfortable shelter, wonderful healthcare), you can pursue life, liberty and happiness, democracy flourishes, where bigotry of all forms has been eliminated. But there is still a paywall for academic journals, indeed all academic journals are now behind paywalls. This world, apparently, would be an appalling place, rife with human rights violations.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - atoav 3y ago
    Go write an essay on the role of knowledge in a free and democratic society. You cannot have one without the other.
- deleted 3y ago
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- SllX 3y ago
  Yes. There’s no universally agreed upon set of rights that all persons are entitled to and you cannot create values merely by conjecture without first obtaining agreement. Tall order in a world of 8 billion people of many more cultures than there are countries and will even understand the words “human rights” in differing ways. Countries and their laws don’t even universally do a good job of representing the cultural values of all of its peoples.
  - _8j50 3y ago
    Universal agreement is not required, that's why wars happen to resolve most fundamental disagreements like this. A human right is a right humans enjoy for no other reason than being a human. Despite my first paragraph, certain things like surviving or not getting harmed/punished simply because you exist are near-universally accepted as human rights, but again, like obligations, rights only have meaning if they can be enforced. The human part of human rights is critical because it transcends laws created by people. In essence, they are rights given to a person by their creator. This is why human rights, as ordained by the Creator is used as foundational reasoning behind the US war of independence and civil wars. Both slavery and King George's tyranny were lawful but the law was rejected because a right given to humans beyond the authority of any government to regulate was violated. This is one if the reasons why I passionately hate communism, because they don't enforce mere secular agnosticism but explicit atheism because anything short of that allowd the people to reason and challenge authority imposed on them that is absolute and unquestionable. You can't challenge the CCP and tell them you will hold a religious service without permit at your home because it is your right as a human to believe what you want and share that belief because under that regime there is no authority over humans above the government and as such human rights are defined by the government and is beyond challenge. Ultimately, what the military (or victor military of a conflict) allows to be your human right is what is practiced.
    - SllX 3y ago
      > A human right is a right humans enjoy for no other reason than being a human. Despite my first paragraph, certain things like surviving or not getting harmed/punished simply because you exist are near-universally accepted as human rights, but again, like obligations, rights only have meaning if they can be enforced. The human part of human rights is critical because it transcends laws created by people. In essence, they are rights given to a person by their creator. This is why human rights, as ordained by the Creator is used as foundational reasoning behind the US war of independence and civil wars. What you’re describing are what we frame as natural rights in the US, which can be understood to be “human rights” but this phrasing as I understand it went back to roughly the UN Declaration of Human Rights which is an odd document, and I’m not aware of this phrasing being used much in English at least before then (but feel free to correct me if you know otherwise!). American law is best understood within a framework of natural and common law, but one of the issues this has caused is that natural or “God-given” law is at odds with the separation of church and State, so what it really boils down to is we rely more heavily on the common law tradition which is in turn also informed by natural law as it was conceived of through the customs of England at a point in time. Citing natural law is done, but I’m not convinced that relying on it solely would withstand a serious challenge under American jurisprudence anymore because at the end of the day, it is amorphous and it does violate separation of church and State. Even common law, while informative of how the Federal courts operate, is actually not that useful at the Federal level seeing as how Federal law relies more heavily on the Constitution (again, informed by the common law, and common law tradition is used to understand the language with better clarity but it is never cited as a source for law) and the statutes that Congress passes or the treaties we sign. > Both slavery and King George's tyranny were lawful but the law was rejected because a right given to humans beyond the authority of any government to regulate was violated. Well, it was rhetorically rejected, but perhaps it would be best understood as independence was proclaimed by the Union of States and then recognized by the United Kingdom, with a war in-between to settle the claim. Then for a period of time, the United States government was governed by the Articles of Confederation before we passed the Constitution. As for slavery, we rejected that (and indentured servitude) through a constitutional amendment. Our elimination of it relied on statute, not any common or natural law concepts (although the rhetoric against slavery did cite natural law, rhetoric is rhetoric and law is law). > This is one if the reasons why I passionately hate communism, because they don't enforce mere secular agnosticism but explicit atheism because anything short of that allowd the people to reason and challenge authority imposed on them that is absolute and unquestionable. You can't challenge the CCP and tell them you will hold a religious service without permit at your home because it is your right as a human to believe what you want and share that belief because under that regime there is no authority over humans above the government and as such human rights are defined by the government and is beyond challenge. You see, this cuts to the heart of the matter: the continued existence of the PRC under the CCP’s domination, and other states like North Korea, the KSA and some other Muslim Kingdoms and other illiberal States really kind of cuts against the whole “X is a human right” schtick. Some would even argue that the United States is illiberal which, let me be clear, I strongly disagree with, but because our values don’t line up with theirs and they find some of our values or traditions abhorrent, they’ll argue the point anyway. So at the end of the day, we’ve got a bunch of claims by different peoples and organizations about what is actually a human right and basically no agreement. Given that we share this world, I can’t really agree that such a thing actually exists in any meaningful sense, but I can say I vastly prefer my tradition over others. > Ultimately, what the military (or victor military of a conflict) allows to be your human right is what is practiced. While I appreciate your pragmatism, I don’t think this is fair. Maybe all law is enforced by the gun barrel of the State pointed at us, but within many countries there does exist the means to defend yourself and your claims without resorting to military campaigning, even against the State, and there are one or more elected bodies representing people’s interests, juries, and as much I personally disrespect them, even referendums in a lot of places. Our conception of rights changes all the time, and while I don’t think positive rights are always well thought out, it is a fact that a lot of places have actually incorporated them well after a nation was founded through a process of lawmaking.
- bulatb 3y ago
  Invoking rights like this creates a bridge between the normative (what ought to be) and the descriptive (what will be, whether it ought to or not). Often, yeah, to borrow the obvious "truth" of a normative statement so a false descriptive one looks true. It lets you say "I really, really think that X is good" but act as if you're just reporting "Everyone agrees with me that we should do whatever 'X is good' implies." It muddles the meaning of rights, tarnishes the concept by equating the support for rights in general with a specific, controversial position many people will reject, and all to make an argument that won't stand up to scrutiny and makes your audience feel cheated. It's confusing even trying to describe what's normative and what's descriptive in the headline. Arguing descriptively that something is a right, which isn't widely thought to be a right, because it ought to be a right, because then your claim would be accepted, is too convoluted. It's making a descriptive claim about what normatives I do accept that's actually a normative claim about what normatives I ought to behave as if I accept. What? If you want argue for specific action, just do it. Don't try to tell the audience what they believe. The framing also means that people argue about rights instead of whatever the point was, like we're about to do here.
  - atoav 3y ago
    I didn't read it like that at all. To me when they say knowledge is a human right there is always a mental asterisk of "but it isn't". Otherwise why would they be doing what they do? And now one could argue is or should knowledge be a human right? What is the role of knowledge within a free and democratic society? How does adding friction to the access of information influence said free society? In wich cases is such a friction, or even a regulation of access desireable from the standpoint of a free society? When back in the the Suffragettes argued voting is a human right, they did so in the context of a society where they (women) didn't get that right. Was it therefore a bad argument? I don't think so, as the appeal to universality helped them get men on board.
    - bulatb 3y ago
      I think this illustrates the problem: when it's framed in terms of rights, the conversation needs such careful wording and so many asterisks that it distracts from the point. I'm leaving out a bunch of things I want to say because it takes too long to say them. When someone says that X should be a right, is making it a right the ultimate goal? (What specifically does "should be a right" even mean? What do they think rights are? What do I?) Usually there's something else that making X a right implies, a goal for which the right is just an instrument. If making X a right results in Y, and Y is good, and that's why X should be a right, then why not argue directly for Y? Otherwise you make a purely moral argument that only works on people who already share your values. What if they don't? That happens all the time with moral framings. One side doesn't understand the other doesn't care about their values and repeating or restating them in different ways won't change that. Calling X a right is a position statement, not an argument. If you want to use it as a premise in an argument that "X is a right, therefore Y," you have to make a separate argument that X is actually a right. You can't just assert it. Borrowing the moral weight of humans rights most people recognize, attaching it to an asserted right most people don't, and using that to argue for an outcome based on their support for "human rights" is turning human rights into a stick to hit them with. The more it's used, the more they learn to roll their eyes at arguments invoking "human rights." What happens when they start to roll their eyes at human rights?
keithnz 3y ago
No, it's not a human right. I think the only argument you need here is that tax payer funded research needs to be publicly available. If someone wants to do private research and sell the results to people via journals, then they should be free to do so.
- elashri 3y ago
  Most of published research in the world is mainly funded by taxes (or public funds in general). Most of the private research efforts is R&D work that will not get published. Yes some private funded research will get published (i.e Google research) but this is not the rule. So I would not focus on the edge cases.
- gretch 3y ago
  I think knowledge is a human right. Free people are able to go outside and start dropping rocks from different heights to start deriving physics. Or study wildlife for biology knowledge. That's not what this article is talking about though. This article is attempting to conflate the right to knowledge with a right to access publications that another party produced and put behind a pay wall. Which is also different than the 3rd discussion of "if it is tax funded, shouldn't it be available to the general public?".
  - jrflowers 3y ago
    > Free people are able to go outside and start dropping rocks from different heights to start deriving physics. Or study wildlife for biology knowledge. Thank you for clarifying this. I could see how a reasonable person could easily assume that Elbakyan is in fact talking about the prohibition of dropping rocks without going through an elaborate bit of mental gymnastics for a pedantic language gotcha in order to arrive at such an interpretation.
    - gretch 3y ago
      I don't know if you're trying to be sarcastic or what, but it's as worth enshrining as the "freedom of speech". You could easily say "lol what, yOu'RE NoT aLLoWed to Talk?", but what it actually means is that the government can't persecute you based on what you say. You should note that many authorities and governments in the past have absolutely punished the gathering of scientific knowledge, e.g. in a theology.
nonethewiser 3y ago
“Human rights” has become such a loaded term. You arent entitled to know everything. And if you’re specifically talking about academic publications the term “knowledge” is wrong because it includes a lot more than that.
- amtoo 3y ago
  You're not currently entitled to know everything and the position of the article is that you should be. And I agree. Hoarding knowledge is just slowing everyone down and it makes you greedy.
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    Are you entitled to know your neighbor's bank account balance and transaction history? Are you entitled to know the mineral composition and spectra of every planet around Vega? Are you entitled to know misinformation in its uncensored form? Are you entitled to know the specs of China's nuclear arsenal, including name rank and serial number of every soldier in charge of it?
    - ringo-ring 3y ago
      You are mistaking 'entitled' for 'not prohibited' I am not entitled to know the mineral composition and spectra of every planet around Vega, but nobody should prohibit me to do this, no? in the case of Sci-Hub, acquiring knowledge is prohibited, and for what reason? Because if you read this paper, academic publisher will not be able to become rich and make huge profits! Do you see anything wrong here?
      - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
        Well, if you're moving the goalposts, then I'm out
- xbar 3y ago
  How about "going to prison for sharing books is a human rights violation?" Or do you live in a place where that feels normal?
aviavinash 3y ago
I think this is an interesting topic to discuss, and I appreciate your perspective on it. However, I would like to challenge some of the assumptions you made in your comment. First of all, you said that tax payer funded research needs to be publicly available. I agree with this principle, but I wonder how you define "publicly available". Does it mean that anyone can access it for free, or does it mean that anyone can access it for a reasonable fee? If the former, then who pays for the costs of publishing, peer-reviewing, and maintaining the quality and integrity of the research? If the latter, then how do you determine what is a reasonable fee, and who decides who can afford it? Secondly, you said that if someone wants to do private research and sell the results to people via journals, then they should be free to do so. I agree that there is a place for private research in the academic world, but I also think that there are some ethical and social implications of this practice. For example, how do you ensure that private research is not biased by the interests of the sponsors or the publishers? How do you prevent private research from creating monopolies or inequalities in the dissemination of knowledge? How do you foster collaboration and innovation among researchers who work in different sectors and have different incentives? Thirdly, you said that "human rights" has become such a loaded term, and that you are not entitled to know everything. I agree that human rights is a complex and contested concept, but I also think that it is a valuable and powerful one. Human rights are not just legal or moral claims, but also expressions of human dignity and aspirations. They are not static or fixed, but dynamic and evolving. They are not absolute or universal, but relative and contextual. They are not granted or given, but claimed and defended. One of the human rights that has been recognized by various international instruments and declarations is the right to education. This right includes not only access to formal schooling, but also access to information and knowledge that is relevant, diverse, and inclusive. This right is based on the premise that education is essential for human development, empowerment, and participation in society. Therefore, I would argue that access to knowledge is not just a privilege or a luxury, but a human right that deserves respect and protection. What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with my points? I would love to hear your thoughts on this matter.
nsonha 3y ago
people use the term "human right" like it some sort of rule of nature, but it's obviously completely a man made concept. In fact the reason why people talk about it at all is that what in consideration to be "human right" often go against the laws of nature, so we need to somehow make it happen. I think a better phrasing should be "most of us want this to happen", or better "this will be good for everyone"
- ringo-ring 3y ago
  I agree that 'human rights' are not the laws of nature (at least there is no scientific evidence behind it so far) but IF we rely on theoretical concept of 'human rights' then knowledge should be considered human right. if we do not rely on them, the righteousness of Sci-Hub can be argued differently: for example, on the basis of communism

70 points by bluish29 3y ago

I'll agree that publishers (especially of academic stuff) deserve even a cent for every book sold the moment they do something useful in the whole publication process. Because at this moment, their contribute is negative. Until then (which probably means forever), I hope Sci-Hub and similar keep thriving.

DiggyJohnson 3y ago

For the sake of kicking off discussion: is the notion of <important or good thing> is a human right an overused or ineffective way of advocating for something?

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Hallelujah, was going to post the same thing. This is sad to me, because I see this so overused that it's lost nearly all its important original meaning. All the time I see "health care is a human right", "shelter is a human right", "food is a human right" - that always drives me a little bonkers, and it's not because I don't support guaranteed assistance in these areas. It's because these things require real cost, time and effort from somebody else to acquire. Saying they're "human rights" implies that you're willing to force other humans to acquire these goods for you, for free. This is very different from things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, etc. which are the "default" state of things until someone uses violence to try to take them from you. Similarly, it costs time, effort and money to assemble information in ways so that it can be consumed online. Saying "it's a human right" just means you want it for free.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  > It's because these things require real cost, time and effort from somebody else to acquire. What you are writing there is a frequent complaint on discussion threads on news-for-nerds sites, but it misses the point: of course those things require real cost, time and effort from somebody else, and that is why there is a longstanding distinction between positive and negative rights.[0] Yes, the prominence of negative rights is a big feature of American culture due to the 18th-century Lockean context that the USA’s Founding Fathers operated in, but a lot of things have happened in the interim, and other views on rights have arisen. And even the USA gave lip service to the positive rights enshrined in the UN’s founding human-rights charter. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
  - SllX 3y ago
    Positive rights advocates have had some success in achieving the lawful creation of positive rights across the States, the most prominent examples being Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and public school systems. But those are also the most expensive line items in Federal and State budgets, massively expanded the public bureaucracies, and had variable success in achieving their stated goals and are some of the most contentious and controversial political topics, with public education in particularly attracting the full brunt of the culture war in recent years in part due to lockdown policies during the pandemic giving more parents more insight into the education their children are (or are not) receiving, and that’s just one positive right. To put it bluntly, the mere arising of new views around “rights” since 1789 is insufficient if those new views do not represent a qualitative improvement over prior thought, and positive rights advocates have not exactly covered themselves in glory. The mere conjecture of a new positive right in the way activists and advocates proceed is also insufficient; the nature of them is such that you actually do need lawful agreement, and that agreement is only binding in the jurisdiction which created it.
    - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
      Yes, you get it: with your detailed argumentation for one position you show you were already well aware of the distinction, unlike apparently the OP. But I suppose it is best that we refrain from further political battle here.
    - foolrush 3y ago
      > But those are also the most expensive line items in Federal and State budgets, https://media.nationalpriorities.org/uploads/discretionary_spending_pie%2C_2015_enacted.png https://media.nationalpriorities.org/uploads/discretionary_s...
      - SllX 3y ago
        Two things missing: 1. Non-discretionary spending. 2. 50 additional links to breakdowns of the public budgets for the 50 States.
    - 3y ago
- Tijdreiziger 3y ago
  > Saying they're "human rights" implies that you're willing to force other humans to acquire these goods for you, for free. Well, sure. IMHO it's not so much an implication as it is the whole point of designating them human rights. What this looks like in practice is that government funds homeless shelters and other social programs.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tomcam 3y ago
  In the USA, we take human rights so seriously that soldiers and police commit to defending the Constitution, not king and country. The Constitution and its amendments enumerate rights the Federal government is not allowed to infringe. We need to be careful about what we call rights. They cost us a great deal in blood and treasure.
- atoav 3y ago
  > Saying "it's a human right" just means you want it for free. No. Wanting it to be a human right in that context means I want to live in a society where people don't have to worry about that thing. Living in a society that catches people that has some humane quality to it is a value in itself. That being said, there are actual human rights. Rights our political representatives deemed so important, they enshrined them in law, be it in the Magna Carta, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention, in national laws etc. On the question of resources: It can and will happen, that your society will have to expend some resources to prevent humans from having their human rights violated. The collective pooling and use of resources is a hallmark of what it means to live inside a society. And that is not bad — a society as a whole benefits from doing this (the ones who so this most seem the fare quite well in every metric you can think of, e.g. the whole of Scandinavia). Now if you ask me, you certainly have the right to work and get rich. But you don't get to do so on the achievements of a society and then pretend that it never did anything for you, so you won't need to give back all while driving on the roads that got built during times with a 90% tax bracket. I don't know you, so don't take anything I write personal, but if this was about me, I'd rather live freely in a world where no-one around me is devastated and poor by paying my fair share, than having to spend that same money because I have to live in a gated community. The goal of life is not to earn money, it is to lead a happy life. And a major, major part of just how happy that life is depends on your environment. This is why the most liveable cities in the world are typically not capitalist hellscapes in areas of high income disparities, but in working social democracies with good social systems and a good mix of all income brackets throughout the city. When I have the choice between your right to pay a little bit less taxes and another one's right to not starve, my choice is very simple. You probably already have enough, the other one hasn't, I profit from them not starving more than from you having that money.
- chambers 3y ago
  The missing word from this conversation is "duty": a moral obligation to others. People pretend rights can exists without duties because, like you said, they're trying to get good things for free. They're asking for work from others and not being upfront on the price of the work. I say "I have a right to good service at the DMV", because I can't say the DMV must give me, let alone everyone, good service. In a larger view[1], a language of rights without duties undermines the broader social contract, confuses conversations with indirect terms[2], and provides the selfish with the illusion of care for their fellow man. As it so happens, the original declaration of human rights[2] specifically calls out the necessary union of duties and rights. However, the UN declaration does not do so, likely because no one, bar a few western countries, actually had the power to enforce those rights on a global scale. Hannah Arendt commented on this topic at length, though it's hard for hyper-individualists to digest[4]. [1] https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/samuel-moyn-rights-duties/ https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/samuel-moyn-rights-dut... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights#C... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Declaration_of_the_Rights_and_Duties_of_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Declaration_of_the_Ri... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt#Critique_of_human_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt#Critique_of_huma...
- cam_l 3y ago
  >implies that you're willing to force other humans to acquire these goods for you, for free. Or, y'know, actually that we require the costs to be shared equally... Like we do with fresh water or firefighters or the police or armed forces. Like, I don't smoke, so why should you get your firefighter for free? What good are any other human rights if you are denied access to the law, or drinking water for that matter?
- analognoise 3y ago
  Hah! In 2021, the USA provided 28.5 billion dollars in farm subsidies. For fossil fuels, we spend about 20 billion dollars a year in subsidies. People are ALREADY getting this stuff "for free" - it's just not you and me! This is all before we spent ~815 BILLION dollars on our defense budget - and we're at peace! Everyone gets it for free but YOU and ME, and you're carrying their water by defending this system! We give it out for free with one hand, and then pretend everyone has to work for it, and along the way there's no free food, shelter, or medical care!
- ringo-ring 3y ago
  > Saying they're "human rights" implies that you're willing to force other humans to acquire these goods for you, for free. This is very different from things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, etc. which are the "default" state of things until someone uses violence to try to take them from you. Copying information online is also 'default' state of things, until some government uses violence to stop it, block access, and etc. Sci-Hub does not rely on any 'violence' to operate, unless you consider 'entering library without permission' to be violence. But that concept of violence is too general: we can call 'violence' pretty much anything we do not like. Someone offended us with their opinion? Violence! (and yes, sometimes opinions hurt) > you're willing to force other humans to acquire these goods for you, for free it is wrong. One thing, is to say to other human: do something for me! that is, to force someone. But having a right to use what is already available, is a completely different thing. The two cannot be conflated.
m00x 3y ago
[flagged]
adamnemecek 3y ago
What would you use instead?
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  Noble goal.
- DiggyJohnson 3y ago
  Something like “our shared obligation/duty”, “knowledge should be considered a human right” or even “knowledge should be free”. In fact, the latter is exactly what is being argued for, without the philosophical quagmire of the question of what is a “right”? I think one’s perspective on this depends on whether your reaction to this sort of invocation of “human rights” is that it adds strength to the claim or whether it makes the claim more abstract and complex.
Ensorceled 3y ago
Imagine utopia; a world where your basic needs are met (excellent food, water, comfortable shelter, wonderful healthcare), you can pursue life, liberty and happiness, democracy flourishes, where bigotry of all forms has been eliminated. But there is still a paywall for academic journals, indeed all academic journals are now behind paywalls. This world, apparently, would be an appalling place, rife with human rights violations.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- atoav 3y ago
  Go write an essay on the role of knowledge in a free and democratic society. You cannot have one without the other.
deleted 3y ago
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SllX 3y ago
Yes. There’s no universally agreed upon set of rights that all persons are entitled to and you cannot create values merely by conjecture without first obtaining agreement. Tall order in a world of 8 billion people of many more cultures than there are countries and will even understand the words “human rights” in differing ways. Countries and their laws don’t even universally do a good job of representing the cultural values of all of its peoples.
- _8j50 3y ago
  Universal agreement is not required, that's why wars happen to resolve most fundamental disagreements like this. A human right is a right humans enjoy for no other reason than being a human. Despite my first paragraph, certain things like surviving or not getting harmed/punished simply because you exist are near-universally accepted as human rights, but again, like obligations, rights only have meaning if they can be enforced. The human part of human rights is critical because it transcends laws created by people. In essence, they are rights given to a person by their creator. This is why human rights, as ordained by the Creator is used as foundational reasoning behind the US war of independence and civil wars. Both slavery and King George's tyranny were lawful but the law was rejected because a right given to humans beyond the authority of any government to regulate was violated. This is one if the reasons why I passionately hate communism, because they don't enforce mere secular agnosticism but explicit atheism because anything short of that allowd the people to reason and challenge authority imposed on them that is absolute and unquestionable. You can't challenge the CCP and tell them you will hold a religious service without permit at your home because it is your right as a human to believe what you want and share that belief because under that regime there is no authority over humans above the government and as such human rights are defined by the government and is beyond challenge. Ultimately, what the military (or victor military of a conflict) allows to be your human right is what is practiced.
  - SllX 3y ago
    > A human right is a right humans enjoy for no other reason than being a human. Despite my first paragraph, certain things like surviving or not getting harmed/punished simply because you exist are near-universally accepted as human rights, but again, like obligations, rights only have meaning if they can be enforced. The human part of human rights is critical because it transcends laws created by people. In essence, they are rights given to a person by their creator. This is why human rights, as ordained by the Creator is used as foundational reasoning behind the US war of independence and civil wars. What you’re describing are what we frame as natural rights in the US, which can be understood to be “human rights” but this phrasing as I understand it went back to roughly the UN Declaration of Human Rights which is an odd document, and I’m not aware of this phrasing being used much in English at least before then (but feel free to correct me if you know otherwise!). American law is best understood within a framework of natural and common law, but one of the issues this has caused is that natural or “God-given” law is at odds with the separation of church and State, so what it really boils down to is we rely more heavily on the common law tradition which is in turn also informed by natural law as it was conceived of through the customs of England at a point in time. Citing natural law is done, but I’m not convinced that relying on it solely would withstand a serious challenge under American jurisprudence anymore because at the end of the day, it is amorphous and it does violate separation of church and State. Even common law, while informative of how the Federal courts operate, is actually not that useful at the Federal level seeing as how Federal law relies more heavily on the Constitution (again, informed by the common law, and common law tradition is used to understand the language with better clarity but it is never cited as a source for law) and the statutes that Congress passes or the treaties we sign. > Both slavery and King George's tyranny were lawful but the law was rejected because a right given to humans beyond the authority of any government to regulate was violated. Well, it was rhetorically rejected, but perhaps it would be best understood as independence was proclaimed by the Union of States and then recognized by the United Kingdom, with a war in-between to settle the claim. Then for a period of time, the United States government was governed by the Articles of Confederation before we passed the Constitution. As for slavery, we rejected that (and indentured servitude) through a constitutional amendment. Our elimination of it relied on statute, not any common or natural law concepts (although the rhetoric against slavery did cite natural law, rhetoric is rhetoric and law is law). > This is one if the reasons why I passionately hate communism, because they don't enforce mere secular agnosticism but explicit atheism because anything short of that allowd the people to reason and challenge authority imposed on them that is absolute and unquestionable. You can't challenge the CCP and tell them you will hold a religious service without permit at your home because it is your right as a human to believe what you want and share that belief because under that regime there is no authority over humans above the government and as such human rights are defined by the government and is beyond challenge. You see, this cuts to the heart of the matter: the continued existence of the PRC under the CCP’s domination, and other states like North Korea, the KSA and some other Muslim Kingdoms and other illiberal States really kind of cuts against the whole “X is a human right” schtick. Some would even argue that the United States is illiberal which, let me be clear, I strongly disagree with, but because our values don’t line up with theirs and they find some of our values or traditions abhorrent, they’ll argue the point anyway. So at the end of the day, we’ve got a bunch of claims by different peoples and organizations about what is actually a human right and basically no agreement. Given that we share this world, I can’t really agree that such a thing actually exists in any meaningful sense, but I can say I vastly prefer my tradition over others. > Ultimately, what the military (or victor military of a conflict) allows to be your human right is what is practiced. While I appreciate your pragmatism, I don’t think this is fair. Maybe all law is enforced by the gun barrel of the State pointed at us, but within many countries there does exist the means to defend yourself and your claims without resorting to military campaigning, even against the State, and there are one or more elected bodies representing people’s interests, juries, and as much I personally disrespect them, even referendums in a lot of places. Our conception of rights changes all the time, and while I don’t think positive rights are always well thought out, it is a fact that a lot of places have actually incorporated them well after a nation was founded through a process of lawmaking.
bulatb 3y ago
Invoking rights like this creates a bridge between the normative (what ought to be) and the descriptive (what will be, whether it ought to or not). Often, yeah, to borrow the obvious "truth" of a normative statement so a false descriptive one looks true. It lets you say "I really, really think that X is good" but act as if you're just reporting "Everyone agrees with me that we should do whatever 'X is good' implies." It muddles the meaning of rights, tarnishes the concept by equating the support for rights in general with a specific, controversial position many people will reject, and all to make an argument that won't stand up to scrutiny and makes your audience feel cheated. It's confusing even trying to describe what's normative and what's descriptive in the headline. Arguing descriptively that something is a right, which isn't widely thought to be a right, because it ought to be a right, because then your claim would be accepted, is too convoluted. It's making a descriptive claim about what normatives I do accept that's actually a normative claim about what normatives I ought to behave as if I accept. What? If you want argue for specific action, just do it. Don't try to tell the audience what they believe. The framing also means that people argue about rights instead of whatever the point was, like we're about to do here.
- atoav 3y ago
  I didn't read it like that at all. To me when they say knowledge is a human right there is always a mental asterisk of "but it isn't". Otherwise why would they be doing what they do? And now one could argue is or should knowledge be a human right? What is the role of knowledge within a free and democratic society? How does adding friction to the access of information influence said free society? In wich cases is such a friction, or even a regulation of access desireable from the standpoint of a free society? When back in the the Suffragettes argued voting is a human right, they did so in the context of a society where they (women) didn't get that right. Was it therefore a bad argument? I don't think so, as the appeal to universality helped them get men on board.
  - bulatb 3y ago
    I think this illustrates the problem: when it's framed in terms of rights, the conversation needs such careful wording and so many asterisks that it distracts from the point. I'm leaving out a bunch of things I want to say because it takes too long to say them. When someone says that X should be a right, is making it a right the ultimate goal? (What specifically does "should be a right" even mean? What do they think rights are? What do I?) Usually there's something else that making X a right implies, a goal for which the right is just an instrument. If making X a right results in Y, and Y is good, and that's why X should be a right, then why not argue directly for Y? Otherwise you make a purely moral argument that only works on people who already share your values. What if they don't? That happens all the time with moral framings. One side doesn't understand the other doesn't care about their values and repeating or restating them in different ways won't change that. Calling X a right is a position statement, not an argument. If you want to use it as a premise in an argument that "X is a right, therefore Y," you have to make a separate argument that X is actually a right. You can't just assert it. Borrowing the moral weight of humans rights most people recognize, attaching it to an asserted right most people don't, and using that to argue for an outcome based on their support for "human rights" is turning human rights into a stick to hit them with. The more it's used, the more they learn to roll their eyes at arguments invoking "human rights." What happens when they start to roll their eyes at human rights?

keithnz 3y ago

No, it's not a human right. I think the only argument you need here is that tax payer funded research needs to be publicly available. If someone wants to do private research and sell the results to people via journals, then they should be free to do so.

elashri 3y ago
Most of published research in the world is mainly funded by taxes (or public funds in general). Most of the private research efforts is R&D work that will not get published. Yes some private funded research will get published (i.e Google research) but this is not the rule. So I would not focus on the edge cases.
gretch 3y ago
I think knowledge is a human right. Free people are able to go outside and start dropping rocks from different heights to start deriving physics. Or study wildlife for biology knowledge. That's not what this article is talking about though. This article is attempting to conflate the right to knowledge with a right to access publications that another party produced and put behind a pay wall. Which is also different than the 3rd discussion of "if it is tax funded, shouldn't it be available to the general public?".
- jrflowers 3y ago
  > Free people are able to go outside and start dropping rocks from different heights to start deriving physics. Or study wildlife for biology knowledge. Thank you for clarifying this. I could see how a reasonable person could easily assume that Elbakyan is in fact talking about the prohibition of dropping rocks without going through an elaborate bit of mental gymnastics for a pedantic language gotcha in order to arrive at such an interpretation.
  - gretch 3y ago
    I don't know if you're trying to be sarcastic or what, but it's as worth enshrining as the "freedom of speech". You could easily say "lol what, yOu'RE NoT aLLoWed to Talk?", but what it actually means is that the government can't persecute you based on what you say. You should note that many authorities and governments in the past have absolutely punished the gathering of scientific knowledge, e.g. in a theology.

nonethewiser 3y ago

“Human rights” has become such a loaded term. You arent entitled to know everything. And if you’re specifically talking about academic publications the term “knowledge” is wrong because it includes a lot more than that.

amtoo 3y ago
You're not currently entitled to know everything and the position of the article is that you should be. And I agree. Hoarding knowledge is just slowing everyone down and it makes you greedy.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  Are you entitled to know your neighbor's bank account balance and transaction history? Are you entitled to know the mineral composition and spectra of every planet around Vega? Are you entitled to know misinformation in its uncensored form? Are you entitled to know the specs of China's nuclear arsenal, including name rank and serial number of every soldier in charge of it?
  - ringo-ring 3y ago
    You are mistaking 'entitled' for 'not prohibited' I am not entitled to know the mineral composition and spectra of every planet around Vega, but nobody should prohibit me to do this, no? in the case of Sci-Hub, acquiring knowledge is prohibited, and for what reason? Because if you read this paper, academic publisher will not be able to become rich and make huge profits! Do you see anything wrong here?
    - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
      Well, if you're moving the goalposts, then I'm out
xbar 3y ago
How about "going to prison for sharing books is a human rights violation?" Or do you live in a place where that feels normal?

aviavinash 3y ago

I think this is an interesting topic to discuss, and I appreciate your perspective on it. However, I would like to challenge some of the assumptions you made in your comment. First of all, you said that tax payer funded research needs to be publicly available. I agree with this principle, but I wonder how you define "publicly available". Does it mean that anyone can access it for free, or does it mean that anyone can access it for a reasonable fee? If the former, then who pays for the costs of publishing, peer-reviewing, and maintaining the quality and integrity of the research? If the latter, then how do you determine what is a reasonable fee, and who decides who can afford it? Secondly, you said that if someone wants to do private research and sell the results to people via journals, then they should be free to do so. I agree that there is a place for private research in the academic world, but I also think that there are some ethical and social implications of this practice. For example, how do you ensure that private research is not biased by the interests of the sponsors or the publishers? How do you prevent private research from creating monopolies or inequalities in the dissemination of knowledge? How do you foster collaboration and innovation among researchers who work in different sectors and have different incentives? Thirdly, you said that "human rights" has become such a loaded term, and that you are not entitled to know everything. I agree that human rights is a complex and contested concept, but I also think that it is a valuable and powerful one. Human rights are not just legal or moral claims, but also expressions of human dignity and aspirations. They are not static or fixed, but dynamic and evolving. They are not absolute or universal, but relative and contextual. They are not granted or given, but claimed and defended. One of the human rights that has been recognized by various international instruments and declarations is the right to education. This right includes not only access to formal schooling, but also access to information and knowledge that is relevant, diverse, and inclusive. This right is based on the premise that education is essential for human development, empowerment, and participation in society. Therefore, I would argue that access to knowledge is not just a privilege or a luxury, but a human right that deserves respect and protection. What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with my points? I would love to hear your thoughts on this matter.

nsonha 3y ago

people use the term "human right" like it some sort of rule of nature, but it's obviously completely a man made concept. In fact the reason why people talk about it at all is that what in consideration to be "human right" often go against the laws of nature, so we need to somehow make it happen. I think a better phrasing should be "most of us want this to happen", or better "this will be good for everyone"

ringo-ring 3y ago
I agree that 'human rights' are not the laws of nature (at least there is no scientific evidence behind it so far) but IF we rely on theoretical concept of 'human rights' then knowledge should be considered human right. if we do not rely on them, the righteousness of Sci-Hub can be argued differently: for example, on the basis of communism