[iDC] Architecture and Situated Technologies

[John Hopkins]

>
>as many writers and scholars of the DRM and current "net neutrality" 
>battles have pointed out, access and control to these resources in a 
>digital environment is a current (and ongoing) struggle. In many 
>ways, it seems that developing countries take library/information 
>access for granted, anecdotally - my students now rarely use the 
>library for their research, and their reading habits have changed 
>dramatically. It is these tendencies combined with the library 
>proposals for more precisely controlled (tiers) of access to digital 
>content and the very indifferent attitude many folks (in the US at 
>least) take toward privacy protection, that make for a less 
>optimistic speculative scenario.

I would agree (unhappily!) -- information that is of any current 
strategic / tactical value to a participant in the dominant power 
structure (which includes academic institutions, government, and, of 
course, private sector) will not be free except in the case of 
mistakes or other structural glitches.   This goes especially for 
information that would allow the 'participant' to change their 
relative social position (i.e., gain power, gain economic advantage, 
etc...).  And perhaps the inverse of this?  If you have either money 
or power, you will have access.  Why expect something contrary to 
Machiavelli?

thank god for glitches, though.  Harry Tuttle in the movie "Brazil," 
for example...

cheers
John