Daily Archives: October 3, 2012

Information wants to be fr…, er, shared

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I’ve just bought the Kindle edition of Information Wants to Be Shared by Joshua Gans on the basis of this abstract:

Stewart Brand famously declared, “Information wants to be free.” Except he didn’t (not really). And it doesn’t. Information is much more complicated than that. What information really wants–what makes it more valuable, useful, and immediate, Joshua Gans argues–is to be shared. Using the tools and logic of information economics, Gans shows how sharing enhances most information’s value. He also shows how the business models of traditional media companies, gatekeepers who have relied on scarcity and control, have collapsed in the face of new technologies. Equally important, he argues that sharing can revive moribund, threatened industries even as he examines platforms that have, almost accidentally, thrived in this new environment. Provocative, intriguing, and useful, “Information Wants to Be Shared” will change the way you think about your ideas and the media you use to consume and produce them.

In the battle for military resources, the Taliban are a useful ally

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Terrific Guardian column by Simon Jenkins. Excerpt:

The one straw at which ministers and generals will grasp is that as long as the war lasts, it helps them lobby for money. Ever since Nato lost its reason for existing, its task has been to find a purpose. It has dragged out the insane Afghan conflict for 11 years. Why stop now? In the one battle that matters to a modern army – the battle for resources – the Taliban is not an enemy but an ally.

What do officials say nowadays to the relatives of the 433 British and 2,000 American who have died fighting in Afghanistan. Do they say they have avenged the dead of 9/11, taught the Taliban a lesson, “sent a message” to militant Islam, helped rebuild a poor country? They cannot surely be repeating Gordon Brown’s line, that their deaths are making Britain’s streets safer. London now has to be patrolled by armed policemen, and a billion pounds spent protecting the Olympics.

The truth is that British troops are dying in Afghanistan because no British government has the guts to admit they are there to no purpose. Military lobbyists shelter behind the “bravery of our boys” to sustain defence spending. No party dares question the war or its objective, for fear of demeaning heroism. The war is not mentioned at party conferences. Money is poured into drone bombing, despite its manifest counter-productivity. The coalition claims to be “training” a 350,000-strong local army and police force, but knows them to be unreliable, a new Taliban in the making.