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Comment by beckman466 | Hacker News Reader

> the world economy is changing faster than people can be educated

how can people learn if large parts of humanity's scientific and technological feedback/learning loops are commoditized and made artificially scarce by our economic system? especially now that we have digital technology available that could make the storing and transmitting of informational artifacts super cheap.

so i think neither of the two reasons you stated, but because we are living in a black box society. we are being forcefully disinherited by the propertied class.

knowledge laborers who get 2x median income have just been less victim to capitalist gatekeeping, since a few are needed to generate more intellectual property for the propertied class. [2]

[1] Aaron Swartz, Guerilla Open Access Manifesto: https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamj...

[2] Wendy Liu, Gatekeeping in the tech industry: https://dellsystem.me/posts/fragments-50

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scihub, libgen, you now have the keys to the kingdom.

Hilariously enough in my current gig I have access to pretty much all the journals out there, yet scihub is still easier to use and libgen has more books. The only place I think that has libgen beat is the British Library and that's only because they haven't digitised most of their old books yet.

There is no scarcity at all in access to scientific knowledge, technology, investing in the market, or access to guidance on how to get ahead in life. And the only capitalist gatekeeping is some few formalized online schools ask for a pittance in tuition in order to receive credentials. But no one can say there's a scarcity in access to knowledge when MIT offers most of their catalog online for free.

The problem is how few people take advantage of this wealth of access and knowledge.

> The problem is how few people take advantage of this wealth of access and knowledge.

The problem is how a profit-seeking knowledge-enclosing/commoditizing capitalist economy and education system allows the propertied class to control the supply of technical labor.

The problem is that many in the working class don't have a methodological literacy.

"The researchers note that it’s tough for lay audiences to fully understand complex topics [...] They suggest a more sustainable solution for curbing misinformation is helping the public develop a type of scientific literacy known as methodological literacy. People who understand scientific methods and research designs can better evaluate claims about science and research, they explain."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28658946

imo we won't see many positive changes until we abolish silicon valley and the western-led intellectual property regime. liberate science and technology from capitalism.

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/01/abolish-silicon-valley

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