From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Tue Dec 05 2000 - 05:36:36 MST
Jason Joel Thompson wrote:
> Absolute disagreement, for precisely the reasons I have already cited. Your
> direct equation of "power" with "freeness" is simplisitic. Does money
> become more powerful if it's free? Or it is made useful by the
> control/limits we place on it?
>
I did not make a simplistic association. I do not speak a vague
generality. I am speaking of information and only of information, not
of money. Please keep on topic.
> > > Laws of scarcity. Maybe you think it would be nice if every kid on the
> > > planet could have a mint copy of Action Comics #1, but you can't argue
> that
> > > such a distribution wouldn't destroy an interesting market.
> > >
> >
> > Irrelevant to the discussion.
>
> Only if you haven't been paying attention, or are unaware of the
> transformation of creative energy into replicable data prevalent in today's
> media environment. If 'collectibility' is an asset worth protecting in the
> material world, why isn't it in the electronic one?
>
Irrelevant because there is one and only one of those actual physical
items. I am not speaking of actual physical items but of information,
of bits. That is the difference as I pointed out in my previous post.
Dragging an actual physical item in to make your point is a mistake.
> A first edition is a material artifact.
> > It is not information but a given physical embodiment in a particular
> > form produced at a particular time. It cannot be duplicated by
> > definition. But every kid can have a copy of the contents of that first
> > edition.
>
> Yes Samantha, and think very carefully about what that "definition" is.
>
I did. Do you have something to add?
> Here, allow me: we have arbitrarily placed value upon a particular edition
> of a magazine. Although the technology exists to create a nearly exact (for
> all practical intents and purposes) duplicate, we have passed laws against
> any attempt to pass such a forgery off as a first edition. Essentially we
> have decided to outlaw the replication of a particular print run of material
> goods, despite the fact that we could easily put an accurate forgery in the
> hand of every elementary school kid on the planet. We do that to
> (arbitrarily) protect a market-- and as a result, there is one.
>
This does not work. A duplicate is a duplicate and in the world of
collectibles can never be worth what the original is. Again, please get
out of examples that have nothing to do with what I am talking about.
> > Yes there is a place for secrets - in war or the equivalent, one's
> > personal information and affairs.
>
> That's not the position of the post to which I replied: Zero Powers wrote:
>
> "I personally think those who demand the perpetuation of personal "privacy"
> in a future that will live and breath on the unrestricted communication and
> processing of ever increasing amounts of information are unknowing Luddites.
> As I see it our ultimate "purpose," if there is one, is to facillitate the
> efficient storage, transmission and processing of data. Everything at its
> core is information and the more of it we can grasp and utilize, the better
> off we will be."
>
> But in peace and in non-personal
> > information, the maximal power and good of each of us is highly
> > dependent on the free flow of information.
>
> Again, total disagreement. It's not just about free flow of information,
> (isn't that obvious?) it's about access to the right information. Further,
> you specifically use the term 'each of us' referring to individuals: can't
> you think of a few (thousand) ways in which the maximal power and good of an
> individual is highly dependent on the controlled flow of information?
>
We are speaking at cross purposes. I suggest we both take a breather
and reset.
- samantha
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