

Scavengers of the Physical Universe - kiba
http://mises.org/daily/4127

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hxa7241
> "No reflection on this topic can fail to credit the market economy for what
> has happened to us. Despite every attempt by governments to hobble it, the
> digital universe as we know it was made by the market economy. It is a
> market-built world, which is to say, a world built by human choices,
> entrepreneurship, and service one to another."

The internet and the web were mostly built by government research projects --
as everyone knows. When someone seems to be so carefully and tendentiously
writing that out of history, they start sounding like a nutty ideologue. It
makes a disappointing end to the piece.

~~~
kiba
Google, Amazon, Firefox, and Linux?

Much of what we use today is maintained by private institutions, non-profit or
not. Government may have built the technology, but it is the entrepreneurs
that realize the benefits of the internet.

On the flip side of government inventions, we don't know what will happen if
the government have not funded the creation of the internet. It's the unseen
of history that will forever elude us.

I believe that academia, with their interest in information technology, would
have invented the internet in one form or another.

An example of what could have been:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17mund.html?_r=2&#...</a><p>Addeinum:
<a href="http://mises.org/daily/2211"
rel="nofollow">http://mises.org/daily/2211</a><p>This mises.org article
explain my view far better than I could.

~~~
hxa7241
That other mises article also couldn't help ending with:

> "In other words, government involvement accounts for the internet's
> continuing problems, while the market should get the credit for its
> glories."

It is a, rather juvenile seeming, monomania -- that is quite off-putting.

Government, or some cooperative superstructure, has a place, as does some kind
of market. Although it seems to me that the internet and its goodness
exemplifies cooperation more than market, and I expect many others would
agree.

~~~
kiba
There's far more to a libertarian than just free markets. They're all for
(peaceful) voluntarism of any kind.

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tome
A very interesting article. I have an affinity with the ideas he expounds in
his article, but I don't get the connection between that and the libertarian
apologia at the end. In particular he seems to have missed the fact that the
internet would probably not be here without (a lot of) government funding.

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yafujifide
Great essay. But what about scavengers of the digital universe? I used to
relentlessly keep local copies of digital stuff---a lot like the Russian guy
in the story, but with files instead of junk---but now I've slowly learned to
let a lot of that stuff just live in the cloud. Why do I need a local copy of
every song ever when I can listen to anything I want in a few clicks anyway?

Are we moving away from scavenging digital stuff too, or is that just me?

~~~
fierarul
I think we are just getting adjusted to the specifics of "digital goods" in
light of the internet.

"Digital hoarding" is using same logic we use upon physical items. Except
that, when what you need is also kept in millions of copies on the internet,
you realize you don't actually need to store it locally.

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tome
The story of the russian friend reminds me of this article I read yesterday.
In it the grandmother who starved evading the Nazi's came to America after the
war and stockpiled food even though it was abundant:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/feb/20/jonathan-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/feb/20/jonathan-
safran-foer-eating-animals)

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eugenejen
I like this essay and it has some similar points just like PG's stuff essay.

~~~
jerf
It also contains the genesis of why I am yet optimistic about lifestyle and
environmental issues; with less stuff, you need less storage space, less
housing, and less waste. With less stuff there's less stuff to move around.
With more technology even moving that stuff around might simply be nuclear or
solar instead of coal.

Having exploded out of the 1950s with the ability to make lots of stuff, and
having had the Russian in the article's reaction writ across a society, I
think we've actually seen the peak materialistic consumption for an average
1st worlder now. We've only just begun down the curve but I think it can and
will get a lot better.

It's really, really important that we not stifle innovation; where we are now
is not sustainable, but where we are headed can be. (And it won't even require
massive sacrifices; how the modern-day Puritans will bitch!)

