Thoughts on The Value Of Free
The value of free is in access to knowledge.
Knowledge is gained by learning. Learning is something we actively choose to do and is distinct from education. Sometimes we’re lucky enough to have a great teacher or two along the way, and this can be a family member or mentor as often as a teacher in a scholastic setting.
The most important components of the freedom we enjoy in the modern western world are free access to information, the freedom to share it, and the freedom to use it. Freedom of information isn’t a property right. Property right is a right to one’s own tangible or intangible human product or creation, not to information.
Should all information be free to everyone? Of course not. Freedom includes a right to privacy, and we should (imo) value our personal information more highly than we generally do. The collection, and also analysis, of highly specialized information by experts is performed as a paid service for whatever their market will bear, and is a human work product. Artistic and creative works are the same kind of product. Each of us also has the right to give our time and our work product to others, including to the society as a whole, where ownership vests in the public trust. If an artist creates a work for the public trust, then no individual has the right to charge for and thereby deny access to it. Anyone, however, is free to study it, learn from it, take inspiration from it, and, together with all the other information they have collected and used as a basis for their knowledge, create something new which they are then free to either donate to the public trust or to own. We, individuals and businesses alike, usually benefit most by doing both.
On the important issue of net neutrality, which most people have never even heard of, we would do well to promote a better understanding of rights.
Free press advocates and free enterprise advocates often have a way of settling on opposite ends of a political spectrum. In my experience, this is usually a construct based on agendas and motivations which most commonly serve to limit freedom. The agendas are usually about control of information (censorship), and the motivations about power or money (or both). Free is a powerful word.
Even if we could take in all the free information available, we would not necessarily become knowledgeable. The value of free information resides not in the information itself, but in what we do with it.
Value is created in the propositions we develop and make to ourselves and to one another, human to human. Every one of us initiating interaction with others is making propositions all the time, often without even seeing them as such. Every time we respond (or don’t) to one another, we are choosing from a wider spectrum of responses than we usually realize. Rarely do we stop and take time to consider that full spectrum, but if we did, we’d be amazed at how many opportunities to create, innovate, and build things are at our disposal all the time.
Free in computers and on the internet can be viewed in as many ways as there are individual perspectives: as a valuable gift or a shared treasure, as a windfall, as getting lucky or getting away with something, as a marketing tool, as stupidity, as a lure, as a trap.
All this free noise sometimes distracts us from what makes freedom valuable. It isn’t the raw information that has value in itself. It’s what we learn from it and what we do with it, the conclusions we draw, the theories we develop and prove, and the propositions we develop and make, that enable us to create value for ourselves and others.
