Essential Sunlight: The critical value of quality information
Article Summary
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| John S Veitch |
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| The Network Ambassador |
People rely on the quality of the information they have in order to earn their living and in order to make critical decisions in their lives.
The world we have built in our heads is the only world we can know.
That world-view is distorted and partial in many ways. Our own personal experience is a necessary limit.
One person's misguided idea is harmless, unless other people give it credibility. It's unlikely to have a serious dysinformation effect.
However, with responsibility and influence take up a misinformed view, the effect is much greater. Dysinformation poisons the information commons.
Much of the success literature in advanced societies and much of the political thinking is based on long outdated ideals based on unchanging "principles".
The Internet has vastly increased the size of the information common. How well that is being used is a question yet to be answered.
If we are to survive, personal freedoms need to be constrained by cultural rules, backed by the rule of law.
Economists argue that the growing wealth of any individual has no limiting effect on the on the ability of other people to become wealthy.
But that view is based on the faulty idea that there are no limits on resources and that economic growth had no limitations either.
Since there are limits, we can expect quotas to restrict resource flows. We can't allow the commons to be plundered for personal gain.
This leads to the critical issue of full cost pricing. Openness and transparency will be an essential feature of a zero growth economic system.
If you need the original article it's here.
