13 FEB 2012 by ideonexus
Information is the Power to Control
Information is a part of all systems of power. Top bureaucrats try to control information as part of their control over subordinates and clients. Corporations try to control information through trade secrets and patents. Militaries try to control information using the rationale of “national security.” So-called freedom of information— namely, public access to documents produced in bureaucracies—is a threat to top bureaucrats. In a society where not everyone can read and write, litera...Where people can read, publish to media, and speak out against their employers, they have power.
01 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
Bad Men Hoard Knowledge
It would be desirable for the government to authorize people to go into the factories and shops, to see the craftsmen at their work, to question them, to draw the tools, the machines, and even the premises. There are special circumstances when craftsmen are so secretive about their techniques that the shortest way of learning about them would be to apprentice oneself to a master or to have some trustworthy person do this. There would be few secrets that one would fail to bring to light by t...Instead of sharing it to the benefit of the rest of the world, and yet these same men complain of the wisdom of the ancients lost to the present.