Comments

I agree Buri. A single piece of advice from Haslop 'defined' my elbow in fast detache, has never ever failed me, and migrated to better competency in other things.

Your critique of the internet reminded me of Tyco Brahe a little. The serious minded Johannes Kepler took patronage under his influence, knowing that he had volumes of the absolute best information from direct observations of planetary motion.

The end result was that Brahe crumb fed Kepler, purportedly afraid to share his life's work in any other manner. Well, Kepler got his three laws of planetary motion correct finally, but after Brahe's death. (the elipse being the answer to actual planets behavior).

So I suppose one must agree that there are several ways to look at privelege and sharing. The internet is part of an 'information revolution'. Bringing opportunity to the furtherest corners of the world, yes the revolution will have a leveling impact eventually. But the noise involved in the leveling will be distracting for some time to come I think.

I've never seen anybody not willing to share knowledge in modern times. The guilded spirit of the past will be part of that leveling mentioned most likely. Benjamin Franklin's apprenticeship under his brother James, will become a way of 'the past'; and, probably rightly so--James was a tyrant, greedy and... Well, the rest is history.

Change, is the only constant in life. It's what we do with it that matters.

Well put, Buri. There is a lot to be said about expecting free information. One of my old philosophy profs used to say, ideas are cheap but it’s how your ideas get developed really counts. I really believe that. I also believe that ideas get richer and better developed when they are widely shared rather than being kept to oneself. This is why the underlining philosophy of intellectual property (copyright, patent, etc) bothers me a lot, as it tends to discourage free-sharing of ideas and creates a culture that isn't conducive to overall improvement of knowledge or humanity. That’s said, I also applaud when I see those who dare to raise the price of their products at a higher than usual level. The price itself sends a message saying that he/she is just that good. Budding artists particularly need people like that to make them feel that there may be a paying career for them as well...

Of course, once in a while, you'd see someone really good at what they do generously and frequently give out great but free advices to strangers. That makes one’s heart go squishy squishy.