Re: <nettime> some more nuanced thoughts on SWARTZ

[t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>]

OK, guys, it's safe -- he's gone. Finally, we can stop pretending to be 
~4000 international leftoids and really let our freak flags fly. Let me
tell you, I'm *totally* excited! After thirteen years of co-moderating 
this list, Felix and I can finally change its stupid name. I mean, WTF
does "nettime" mean anyway?!

>From now on, the list address is:

     hardcorerandite-l@kein.org

Administrative requests should be sent to:

     hardcorerandite@kein.org

The new subject line will include the string "<hardcorerandite>" (without 
the quotes, of course!), in case you need to adjust your mail filters. 

Looking forward to talking about how all intellectual and creative labor
should be free as in beer!

Cheers,
T

dgolumbia@gmail.com (Sun 07/24/11 at 09:38 AM -0400):

> so we are clear: you do not believe my work, profession, or institution
> deserve compensation of any sort. they should be free. i should work for
> free. i don't know how you expect me to live while i do my work, but
> whatever. i am sorry that universities and colleges cannot give away
> everything for free. surely you have taken Econ 101 and know that if all
> labor is forced to be free, there can be no labor and nobody can live.
> because that is the economic model being propagated here. "all publicly
> funded research should be available for free." really? really? do you
> *really* think that? because it's absurd. nobody *could* "work" under
> conditions that their results and labor were, by definition, worth
> *nothing*.
> 
> it's a funny philosophy for people who generally seem to have taken their
> cue from *Atlas Shrugged*. one person (Swartz) shouldn't be punished for
> violating the rules, principles, or laws of the enterprise in which others
> are engaged, because your work is so valuable and probing;  another person
> (me) should, on the other hand, give away your work, labor for free, and
> happily sign petitions for people whose work involves violating the minimal
> principles established for my work.
> 
> none of this has been directed at the question of criminal liability on
> Swartz's part; it's directed at the assumption on nettime-l that Swartz is
> so on the "right side" of this "war" that i should gladly sacrifice my own
> interests in favor of his.
> 
> and by the way: what Swartz is trying to *prove* is already obvious. Science
> is deeply corrupted by big business. that's been shown, demonstrated,
> written about, and proven for decades. as much as i don't mind another study
> showing it, that is hardly the sort of ground-breaking in-your-face
> world-shattering research that justifies breaking the principles of the
> institution and profession to which Swartz apparently signed up. there is a
> long tradition of people doing things "on their own" WHEN the institution of
> which they are a part shows itself incapable. Has Swartz made any effort to
> show either that (a) JSTOR would not allow his research project to move
> forward or (b) more generally, that this SORT of research has been ruled out
> by "the man"? I think the facts are quite to the contrary.
> 
> goodbye, nettime-l. i don't have time to intervene in a discussion of
> hardcore Randites about the finer points of Howard Roark's use of matches.
> and that is the majority of what this list and others like it have become.
> 
> > come as news to you, there's a long tradition of people doing things "on
> > their own," even if it violates not just laws but (gasp!) *policies*. So
> > I think we can discount that bit too.
> >
> > As for the rest, one needn't be be a full-on freetard to ask whether,
> > how, and/or to what extent it's legitimate for a private interest to
> > profit from renting out publicly funded work. Maybe one interesting way
> > to approach that kind of question would be to do some quantitative
> > analysis -- in ways that could lead away from hyperideological absolutist
> > posturing and toward a more specific, empirical understanding of the
> > terrain itself. I wonder how one could go about doing that...


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