Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v.3.02

Copyright

Lately, I have been reading The Dream of Reason by Anthony Gottlieb. Have really enjoyed the book and found it fascinating to read about the evolution of philosophy. Find it interesting how many contemporary scientific laws had their origins in the musings of Greeks thousands of years before the laws we use today.

The building upon the works of predecessors and tweaking for the improvement of the idea into something more palatable is apparent throughout the processes. This is the foundation of both science and art. Intellectual property provided to the world for dissemination. Of course, a contemporary version of this is blogging. Bloggers steal from other bloggers. Guys use blogs to get chicks. (Riiiggghhhhttt)

In this day and age, we have people trying to cultivate an environment of control over intellectual property. Governments censor research. Media companies want digital rights management over content created in their studios even while the artists signed to work with them release mix tapes in the underground.

If the past has taught us anything, then I would say that control over information (aka Intellectual Property) has caused dark ages. The Dark Ages we refer to was a time when Greek learning was under the thumb of the monasteries and abbeys. They controlled its distribution and interpretation. The Renaissance ended this by tapping into the Arab controlled works and inventing the printing press to make these works more accessible. Hopefully, we will soon have a Second Renaissance?