Monday 4 October 2010

Sidebar information and wisdom: the failure to share : the privatizaton of what was once public


Networkers, I don't know if you ever get as far as scrolling down my sidebar on the right.  While there is a bit of blog-related stuff promoting me, posts, and the blog - there is a lot of stuff which, if you click into it and follow-up with the information provided at the sites, is like an information trip around the world.  You will note that I have a few blogs which have feed subscriptions.  One of these is Sharon Astyk's marvellous simple but intelligent, Casaubon's Book

Just last week she wrote about The Water Fountain.  Now call me psychic if you will, but just last week when all this was going through Sharon's head, I too was thinking of the old fashioned in the park/public place water fountain.  Sharon discussed this but also takes the topic further into a discussion of sharing, and the public becoming privatised.  I might add for a lesson in the sociology of the USA, the comments on Sharon's posts can be quite instructive/destructive.  

Please read Sharon's post and the comments on it for yourselves, Networkers.  But just in case you are tempted not to, here is an excerpt:

It is easier to plan for ourselves. It is easier in many ways to carry our water bottle. It is easier not to talk to other people, it is easier not to need other people, or have to share and accommodate them. It is easier to pick the people you want to share with, to be exclusive rather than inclusive. There are all sorts of reasons not to think in public terms, and only, I think, two major ones to do so.
First of all, if we are to break out of our isolation, we have to, and second, because we have no choice - privatized solutions are too costly, too exclusive, too limited. Anyone who goes into peak oil and climate change imagining you will be one of the rich and lucky who will always be able to afford your bottle of water is, I think, betting on winning the lottery.
Further reading:

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