Like, the mere concept of a public library would probably be considered radical if it was a new thing just being introduced in 2017. After all, we tend to treat knowledge like any other commodity. It's something to be bought and sold. Many university students think of themselves as consumers paying for a product, rather than learners exploring ideas.
@ink_slinger https://chaos.social/media/R5Lcp1TmcQrO9HJu0r8
Just floated around on my bird timeline
@Bobo_PK I don't really understand what's going on in this picture.
@ink_slinger a former university employee gave a book lecture and collected money for a good cause, in this case donations for sci-hub
@ink_slinger And we can have libraries of many things. We can have tool libraries. Game libraries. Electronics libraries. Pay a subscription fee to replace lost or stolen items. We an make it work more today than ever.
@hugoestr True. There's actually a tool library in my city. A bunch of people donated tools, so it cost almost nothing to start (they also got a small grant to buy some things they didn't get through donations). I think it's only $10 a year for unlimited borrowing privileges. The membership fee allows them to repair or replace tools as needed.
@hugoestr And our official public library has more than just books. They've got music, video games, video game systems, laptops, plus a maker space (free or low-cost access to 3D printers, recording booths, and many other things0. It's actually super impressive. On top of that, they stopped charging for library cards a few years back (used to be $12 a year, but they'd waive it for low income people -- no proof of income required).
@ink_slinger My local library is not as cool :P
@hugoestr Most aren't. I'm very lucky to have such an awesome library system in my city.
@ink_slinger Same way with Radio, or Public TV. "what, you are broadcasting music - for free?!"
@triptych Nah. That's just an ad-supported model. We even have "modern" versions. Look at streaming music services online. You can pay for no ads or get the "free" version that have commercials.
Of course, if "traditional" radio/TV hadn't come first, maybe you're right. That might be seen as a bad financial model.
@ink_slinger Which is strange, because if you think about it, it's literally the only resource you can theoretically reproduce endlessly.
@teosenni I think that's why modern intellectual property law is so fucked up. And why patent laws are so easily abused in the tech space. Code is essentially free to reproduce once it's been created, for example. It's an unfortunate testament to capitalism's seemingly endless ability to mutate that we've managed to commodify the one thing that, as you say, can be endlessly reproduced for free (or close to free).
@ink_slinger Knowledge just takes talking. Tried to set up a Free School once, we almost made it but the other two partners opened it to a community board and everything went to shit immediately.
@ink_slinger >students think of themselves as consumers paying for a product, rather than learners exploring ideas
schools at all levels have been so dramatically changed by capitalism that nowadays students no longer get a proper education. Most get but a "preparation", which allows them to later act as perfectly replaceable cogs in the capitalist machine
@Antanicus Yep. I was involved in a thread yesterday that talked about a very similar phenomenon. There was an article concerned that the most popular university programs in Canada aren't "job creating" programs. Too many liberal arts majors, not enough engineers. But, hey, maybe students realize that uni isn't supposed to just be a factory that creates a workforce. It's becoming that, but it's not supposed to be that.
@ink_slinger the fact that liberal majors are not considered part of the workforce speaks volumes about what capitalism actually is: the first to suffer under any dictatorship are artists and free thinkers, their books (and sometimes themselves as well) burned on stage because "immoral" or "improductive"...
@Antanicus I'll be among the first put against the wall, even if my politics align with the revolutionaries. It's one of the many downsides of being an "intellectual."
@ink_slinger A few years ago I taught a semester of biology at Uni. As part of the class, we'd have weekly discussion on the broader societal impacts and considerations that pertained to the topics we studied. Like examining the GMO debate while learning about genes.
Of all the things I got negative marks from my students for, letting the discussions run too long was one of the most common. Probably the most disappointed I've been in teaching.
@brownmattb That's disappointing. I'd have loved that. Those types of discussions were always my favourite part of any class, even back in high school. But maybe that's why I'm a "useless" liberal arts major.
@ink_slinger If protection from house fires was suddenly needed now, you can guarantee it would be in the style of the original fire services, where you had name of your insurance company on the building and they extinguished it.
No one would suggest tax paid for services for all.
@ink_slinger And even if we students don't think that way, the way our courses are structured and delivered implies, imparts and reinforces that mode of thinking (to some extent).
(And, well, we're told to think of it that way, and sometimes ridiculed for thinking of it any other way.)
It's absolutely insidious, and while there's evidence that in the university system, it's coming from the top down, well...the administrators got those ideas *somewhere*.
@ink_slinger If post offices were invented today, they would look like a fascist part of the surveillance state.
Wait a moment... They were.
@ink_slinger sci-hub.cc in 3,2,1
We can reach so much more by cooperating