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Why should we turn information into a "product", introducing scarcity where none is required? It's just a misguided attempted to force every part of society int

Why should we turn information into a "product", introducing scarcity where none is required? It's just a misguided attempted to force every part of society into a capitalist system, regardless of whether it makes any sense. It will probably fail in the long run anyway, since who wants to pay for something that they can get for free, even it involves circumventing the rules. How many here would pay $30 to take a casual look at a journal article, when they could get it from Sci-Hub? If we are sticking with a mostly capitalist system so that money is so important to get things created, then a government can provide some for this purpose (and they often do already). It's not like they don't borrow or print money in whatever quantity is needed. I suspect that it's the same issue that has led certain neoliberals and libertarians to denying that various forms of pollution are a problem. There's just no way that it can be fixed within capitalism, so better just deny that there's any problem at all.

smokel 2y ago
All information is freely available somewhere in /dev/random. It is worth some value to share the more interesting offsets. Now I'm not saying that capitalism is the best way to distribute this value, but at least some effort is required in curating all knowledge.
- dayjaby 2y ago
  Can you prove your first statement? I assume you cannot as it's nonsense. Lookup how /dev/random is not really random, but relies on interrupts occuring at random timestamps. That's like saying f(x)=x is a random function, if x is random.
  - smokel 2y ago
    It is quite similar to the infinite monkey theorem, and as it does require infinite time, it is indeed slightly nonsensical.
  - joquarky 2y ago
    Substitute the Library of Babel¹ for /dev/random and the point still stands. ¹ https://libraryofbabel.info/ https://libraryofbabel.info/
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>Why should we turn information into a "product", introducing scarcity where none is required Because expert information comes from experts who are paid a lot to do stuff not involving the authoring of their ideas. And we need to incentivize them to get said valuable information. How many people here have some novel expertise in their fields? How many would help produce technical articles pro Bono? Or for pay but end up mass pirated? I 1000% agree the publishers themselves take way too much off the top of these authors, but the concept of "just provide knowledge out of thr good of your heart" doesn't work at scale. >If we are sticking with a mostly capitalist system so that money is so important to get things created, then a government can provide some for this purpos Which runs into all the problems we all know too well. Something something politics, something something taxes, something something lobbying. On top of all that, the government just simply doesn't compensate as well as the private sector. I'm not sure if this will ever change.
- laserlight 2y ago
  > And we need to incentivize them to get said valuable information. Are we sure about this? It seems to me that a lot of those experts become experts despite the incentive structures that they are in. And, there are those to-be experts who had to quit, because they didn't have enough resources to fight the established “incentive” structures. Maybe if we could let people do what they could become an expert in, we would all be better off.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    There will always be nigh-altruistic people, but I'm talking more in tiers than absolute: 1. How many people can and do become experts? 2. How many of those experts interact at all outside of their career? Even just posting about work rants on social media? 3. Of 2), how many take the time to author any sort of content on the side? From an unknown blog to a conference talk to podcasts, contributing to open source,, etc. we can break this down further to those who do it outside of the company sponsoring them to do so. 4. Of 3), how many go on to extensively share knowledge? In things like journals or technical deep dives or books? Things that take months of the writing process to formalize 5. And lastly how many of 4) would happen without any sort of incentive structure? No grants, no compensation, no time off work to do this, etc. I'm mostly talking about group 5 here, and then dividing it into 6) how many of those would then be okay with people (mostly other companies) immediately implementing those ideas, potentially making millions while they may not even get shallow platitudes of thanks? It feels like exploitation of their knowledge, and depending on the product it may indeed be) have some ethical quandary the creator fundamentally disagrees with. But it's for "the advancement of humanity" so the just need to accept that and let people extract their knowledge. >? It seems to me that a lot of those experts become experts despite the incentive structures that they are in It'll vary by industry, yes. I'm sure authors don't write expecting to make the next Dune. But in the context of this audience: I have definitely seen enough discussion here and on other social media that I wouldn't be uncomfortable asserting that a good 70% of tech workers would not be here without high compensation to education ratio (and I apologize for not providing any hard evidence, this is simply a gut feeling from my own statistical samples from years of discourse). Many people are indeed here for the money first and foremost. >Maybe if we could let people do what they could become an expert in, we would all be better off. I don't disagree, I'd love a post scarcity society that doesn't need to perform labor to survive. But that's an even loftier goal than abolishing copyright. I can see other crowds completely disagreeing with the notion of "not all knowledge is equal", however. Definitely a savory group out there that believe that everyone needs to contribute to society somehow and not "leech off our taxes".

smokel 2y ago

All information is freely available somewhere in /dev/random. It is worth some value to share the more interesting offsets. Now I'm not saying that capitalism is the best way to distribute this value, but at least some effort is required in curating all knowledge.

dayjaby 2y ago
Can you prove your first statement? I assume you cannot as it's nonsense. Lookup how /dev/random is not really random, but relies on interrupts occuring at random timestamps. That's like saying f(x)=x is a random function, if x is random.
- smokel 2y ago
  It is quite similar to the infinite monkey theorem, and as it does require infinite time, it is indeed slightly nonsensical.
- joquarky 2y ago
  Substitute the Library of Babel¹ for /dev/random and the point still stands. ¹ https://libraryofbabel.info/ https://libraryofbabel.info/

johnnyanmac 2y ago

>Why should we turn information into a "product", introducing scarcity where none is required Because expert information comes from experts who are paid a lot to do stuff not involving the authoring of their ideas. And we need to incentivize them to get said valuable information. How many people here have some novel expertise in their fields? How many would help produce technical articles pro Bono? Or for pay but end up mass pirated? I 1000% agree the publishers themselves take way too much off the top of these authors, but the concept of "just provide knowledge out of thr good of your heart" doesn't work at scale. >If we are sticking with a mostly capitalist system so that money is so important to get things created, then a government can provide some for this purpos Which runs into all the problems we all know too well. Something something politics, something something taxes, something something lobbying. On top of all that, the government just simply doesn't compensate as well as the private sector. I'm not sure if this will ever change.

laserlight 2y ago
> And we need to incentivize them to get said valuable information. Are we sure about this? It seems to me that a lot of those experts become experts despite the incentive structures that they are in. And, there are those to-be experts who had to quit, because they didn't have enough resources to fight the established “incentive” structures. Maybe if we could let people do what they could become an expert in, we would all be better off.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  There will always be nigh-altruistic people, but I'm talking more in tiers than absolute: 1. How many people can and do become experts? 2. How many of those experts interact at all outside of their career? Even just posting about work rants on social media? 3. Of 2), how many take the time to author any sort of content on the side? From an unknown blog to a conference talk to podcasts, contributing to open source,, etc. we can break this down further to those who do it outside of the company sponsoring them to do so. 4. Of 3), how many go on to extensively share knowledge? In things like journals or technical deep dives or books? Things that take months of the writing process to formalize 5. And lastly how many of 4) would happen without any sort of incentive structure? No grants, no compensation, no time off work to do this, etc. I'm mostly talking about group 5 here, and then dividing it into 6) how many of those would then be okay with people (mostly other companies) immediately implementing those ideas, potentially making millions while they may not even get shallow platitudes of thanks? It feels like exploitation of their knowledge, and depending on the product it may indeed be) have some ethical quandary the creator fundamentally disagrees with. But it's for "the advancement of humanity" so the just need to accept that and let people extract their knowledge. >? It seems to me that a lot of those experts become experts despite the incentive structures that they are in It'll vary by industry, yes. I'm sure authors don't write expecting to make the next Dune. But in the context of this audience: I have definitely seen enough discussion here and on other social media that I wouldn't be uncomfortable asserting that a good 70% of tech workers would not be here without high compensation to education ratio (and I apologize for not providing any hard evidence, this is simply a gut feeling from my own statistical samples from years of discourse). Many people are indeed here for the money first and foremost. >Maybe if we could let people do what they could become an expert in, we would all be better off. I don't disagree, I'd love a post scarcity society that doesn't need to perform labor to survive. But that's an even loftier goal than abolishing copyright. I can see other crowds completely disagreeing with the notion of "not all knowledge is equal", however. Definitely a savory group out there that believe that everyone needs to contribute to society somehow and not "leech off our taxes".