There’s no such thing as a person who survives alone
November 17, 2024 1:08 AM Subscribe
This belief that ideas literally originate in a single person’s mind, and that they should be paid by the rest of humanity for the rest of time is fucking ridiculous. Ideas do not reside inside self-contained people - they reside in a network of interdependent and interconnected people - but the fact that Bezos, or Musk, or whoever, was an early-mover in articulating a particular idea means they get locked in as somewhat arbitrary figureheads, and the fact that they’re billionaires simply reflects the legal reality of share ownership. They are products of our system, not creators of our system. from The Stone Soup Theory of Billionaires by Brett Scott
Ideas do not reside inside self-contained people - they reside in a network of interdependent and interconnected people
Open source software embodies this idea to the fullest - so many brilliant minds have come together to produce software we use or benefit from daily whether we realise it or not - Apache, MySQL, Linux, VLC, Blender, etc. Just smart people coming together to build something for the community.
And the corollary to this is the radical anti-IP position: that everything digital can and should be duplicated and shared freely, and even more so with AI now, remixed and forked and upgraded and improved, as long as it remains free for everyone. Why should Rowling be a billionaire, would the world be a better place if the authors of commonly used open source software soaked up billions of dollars of royalties from the economy as well? The world would be poorer for it.
The enduring popularity of 4chan speaks to this also - the lack of individualism taken to its extreme. If I start a conversation with you, and you reply, and then I reply again, there's no way to tell if I'm the same person you were talking with earlier, or someone new. I could argue for one point of view, then a minute later argue for the other side. No upvotes, no favourites, no identities, no credit given or taken. Individuals don't hold positions or views: the community does, collectively.
posted by xdvesper at 3:02 AM on November 17
Open source software embodies this idea to the fullest - so many brilliant minds have come together to produce software we use or benefit from daily whether we realise it or not - Apache, MySQL, Linux, VLC, Blender, etc. Just smart people coming together to build something for the community.
And the corollary to this is the radical anti-IP position: that everything digital can and should be duplicated and shared freely, and even more so with AI now, remixed and forked and upgraded and improved, as long as it remains free for everyone. Why should Rowling be a billionaire, would the world be a better place if the authors of commonly used open source software soaked up billions of dollars of royalties from the economy as well? The world would be poorer for it.
The enduring popularity of 4chan speaks to this also - the lack of individualism taken to its extreme. If I start a conversation with you, and you reply, and then I reply again, there's no way to tell if I'm the same person you were talking with earlier, or someone new. I could argue for one point of view, then a minute later argue for the other side. No upvotes, no favourites, no identities, no credit given or taken. Individuals don't hold positions or views: the community does, collectively.
posted by xdvesper at 3:02 AM on November 17
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