Sharing is definitely the new cool.
I've got some old toothbrushes I don't brush with anymore. First come, first serve.
Willingness to sharing does not guarantee value. Nor is it new, although some appear not to have learned it when the rest of us did.
But some have argued that sharing knowledge is the tool that allows humans to be the dominant species on this planet.
Case 1.
My microwave oven quit working.
I saw the display was not on and that it had no power.
I had the knowledge that it was plugged into a GFCI outlet and that might be tripped.
I pressed the reset button on the GFCI, then my microwave had "power"!
Case 2.
A friend called and said his lawnmower would not start - asked for help.
I went to his house with my can of starting fluid.
I sprayed the starting fluid into the air intake and it ran for a bit, then stopped.
I therefore concluded with my knowledge that it was not getting gas and everything else was ok.
I cleaned the fuel lines, reassembled, then with the fuel now able to flow, the lawnmower had "power"!
There are plenty of pleas for help on the internet from those lacking knowledge of GFCI's and lawnmowers. These people's GFCI's and lawnmowers are powerless until someone with the knowledge comes along to help them.
He says "linked data" is what's powerful. My interpretation is that this supports "knowledge does not equal power". The gist of the idea is that the more data that is available, and the more the data relations are available, the more beneficial or useful the data becomes. This might not catch on, but if your one that found his first idea useful, this might be something to watch. It seems "linked-data" is the next step.
What? Isn't that what WWW is all about. Hyperlinks and all. You write something, I write something. If I was inspired by you I link back to your original writing. That is the academic world of citations implemented in the web as we know it.
Anyway, Tim should be shot. He seems to have wasted a lot of my life chasing links around and around and around....:)
Tim has a thing about the "semantic web", so far I think that is asking to much of normal humans to maintain or automated systems to understand.
No, its a bit different. There is another step between what's there now and what he's talking about.
And yes, I think it has something to do with finding somebody smart to show some sense out of the data as well.
Been reading over this thread, and mulling it over. While I'm comparatively new here-- though a longtime lurker-- I just couldn't let this topic pass. So, ready or not, wanted or not, here's my take:
Knowledge used to be power. When Francis Bacon wrote the whole "knowledge is power" thing (back in what, 16th century, or thereabouts), knowledge was powerful, because there was so few that had it and so little was known. Now, knowledge is ubiquitous, indexed, searchable, cross-referenced and worth a lot less-- especially if I can Google it.
What has always been more valuable-- and only mentioned once in passing, and otherwise skirted around in this thread-- is wisdom. Taking that knowledge, along with experience and understanding about how things work. It's what lets us make decisions and give advice, and get to a preferred outcome for a given circumstance. Wisdom is the insight that lets us diagnose a circumstance, even if there's not much information to be had, and then be able to say what is wrong, missing, or needs to be improved. Oh! And generally be right about it!
Or, knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in your fruit salad.
The links show that knowledge is NOT ubiquitous, data remains silo-ed. This is that source of our problems, not a solution.
Wisdom seems to relative and subjective, and not quantifiable.
The Roslin guy has a skill that allows him to look at data from a perspective that might reveal something we did not know. That is the skill that could be useful.
In most of the civilized world we have the notion of patents along with laws to back them up.
So clearly the law says if you know how to do a thing you have the power to profit from it and not anyone else.
I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine if that is a good system or not.
Interesting way of blowing off an important human characteristic.
Wisdom said the Inquisition should burn witches. Makes me question wisdom.
In most of the civilized world we have the notion of patents along with laws to back them up.
So clearly the law says if you know how to do a thing you have the power to profit from it and not anyone else.
We, that's kind of the crux here. Industries with the heaviest protection, in the name of nurturing innovation, are shown to have the less innovation than industries with the least protection and show the most innovation and are are many time more profitable (if I read the graphs correctly). That set of laws you describe are the exception, and are limited to only a few select fields. (And those laws are paid for by individuals that dominate those fields).
Just because there's a law doesn't mean its sensible, or enforceable. Most importantly, the way of thinking that created our problems is probably not the way of thinking that will fix our problems.
Maybe I just watch TED.com too much. I should get a hobby.
Y'all do know the fruit salad thing was a joke, right? Although the fact that you googled the tomato fruit salad to provide a link rather emphasizes my point. Thanks!
The Roslin guy has a skill-- quantifiable or no, that's wisdom in action. The knowledge / experience / understanding / insight thing I mentioned. Sometimes, I just write really good stuff...
Wisdom said the Inquisition should burn witches. Makes me question wisdom.
The inquisition was made up of people trying to keep their power. Really had nothing to do with wisdom.
I don't necessarily disagree with the patent system, although I'd say that it should be limited to things verifiable developed and not to "intellectual property" items. That just gets too convoluted to follow at times.
Comments
Sharing is definitely the new cool.
I've got some old toothbrushes I don't brush with anymore. First come, first serve.
-Phil
Wait a sec. But I thought toast was the new loofha.
Knowledge is power.
Power corrupts.
Just saw this today!
--Rich
BTW, does absolute knowledge corrupt absolutely???
Willingness to sharing does not guarantee value. Nor is it new, although some appear not to have learned it when the rest of us did.
But some have argued that sharing knowledge is the tool that allows humans to be the dominant species on this planet.
I don't know, but I'm not sure I want to share what ever it was that corrupted ElectricAye's toothbrushes!
Case 1.
My microwave oven quit working.
I saw the display was not on and that it had no power.
I had the knowledge that it was plugged into a GFCI outlet and that might be tripped.
I pressed the reset button on the GFCI, then my microwave had "power"!
Case 2.
A friend called and said his lawnmower would not start - asked for help.
I went to his house with my can of starting fluid.
I sprayed the starting fluid into the air intake and it ran for a bit, then stopped.
I therefore concluded with my knowledge that it was not getting gas and everything else was ok.
I cleaned the fuel lines, reassembled, then with the fuel now able to flow, the lawnmower had "power"!
There are plenty of pleas for help on the internet from those lacking knowledge of GFCI's and lawnmowers. These people's GFCI's and lawnmowers are powerless until someone with the knowledge comes along to help them.
http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html
He says "linked data" is what's powerful. My interpretation is that this supports "knowledge does not equal power". The gist of the idea is that the more data that is available, and the more the data relations are available, the more beneficial or useful the data becomes. This might not catch on, but if your one that found his first idea useful, this might be something to watch. It seems "linked-data" is the next step.
What? Isn't that what WWW is all about. Hyperlinks and all. You write something, I write something. If I was inspired by you I link back to your original writing. That is the academic world of citations implemented in the web as we know it.
Anyway, Tim should be shot. He seems to have wasted a lot of my life chasing links around and around and around....:)
Tim has a thing about the "semantic web", so far I think that is asking to much of normal humans to maintain or automated systems to understand.
No, its a bit different. There is another step between what's there now and what he's talking about.
And yes, I think it has something to do with finding somebody smart to show some sense out of the data as well.
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html
Minute 15:00
How does that guy know how to look at all those numbers and figure out a way to make sense of it?
-Phil
Knowledge used to be power. When Francis Bacon wrote the whole "knowledge is power" thing (back in what, 16th century, or thereabouts), knowledge was powerful, because there was so few that had it and so little was known. Now, knowledge is ubiquitous, indexed, searchable, cross-referenced and worth a lot less-- especially if I can Google it.
What has always been more valuable-- and only mentioned once in passing, and otherwise skirted around in this thread-- is wisdom. Taking that knowledge, along with experience and understanding about how things work. It's what lets us make decisions and give advice, and get to a preferred outcome for a given circumstance. Wisdom is the insight that lets us diagnose a circumstance, even if there's not much information to be had, and then be able to say what is wrong, missing, or needs to be improved. Oh! And generally be right about it!
Or, knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in your fruit salad.
Regards,
-Phil
Excellent point, but this is an example of "conventional wisdom", and not really what we want and need.
http://www.not-just-recipes.com/tomato-fruit-salad.html
The links show that knowledge is NOT ubiquitous, data remains silo-ed. This is that source of our problems, not a solution.
Wisdom seems to relative and subjective, and not quantifiable.
The Roslin guy has a skill that allows him to look at data from a perspective that might reveal something we did not know. That is the skill that could be useful.
Interesting way of blowing off an important human characteristic.
So clearly the law says if you know how to do a thing you have the power to profit from it and not anyone else.
I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine if that is a good system or not.
Wisdom said the Inquisition should burn witches. Makes me question wisdom.
We, that's kind of the crux here. Industries with the heaviest protection, in the name of nurturing innovation, are shown to have the less innovation than industries with the least protection and show the most innovation and are are many time more profitable (if I read the graphs correctly). That set of laws you describe are the exception, and are limited to only a few select fields. (And those laws are paid for by individuals that dominate those fields).
Just because there's a law doesn't mean its sensible, or enforceable. Most importantly, the way of thinking that created our problems is probably not the way of thinking that will fix our problems.
Maybe I just watch TED.com too much. I should get a hobby.
The Roslin guy has a skill-- quantifiable or no, that's wisdom in action. The knowledge / experience / understanding / insight thing I mentioned. Sometimes, I just write really good stuff...
The inquisition was made up of people trying to keep their power. Really had nothing to do with wisdom.
I don't necessarily disagree with the patent system, although I'd say that it should be limited to things verifiable developed and not to "intellectual property" items. That just gets too convoluted to follow at times.