I like the idea of Freedom of Information, like it is probably one of the back bones of who I am. I think that information should be free to the masses! I think you should be able to read any book about math and science, be able to watch shows, and listen to music other people made. Now I must of course what sort of information I think should be free and what should not, after all there is this thing called privacy. So in this written compendium of my thoughts please indulge in seeing the Freedom of Information the way I see it. First let me clarify some things, because without clarification and precision we have no bases for a dialog. There can be no change of attitudes if there is a discrepancy between writer and reader, so let us give definition to some things in order to preserve the intended ideas being portrayed.

I think that there are primarily 3 types of information; public information, private information, and governmental information. To first clarify we will discuss governmental information. Governmental information is real and does exist, it is information that a government has that they keep protected to themselves as to preserve the integrity of the citizens and country as a whole. I think it is a good thing. Every government has information that it withholds from the general public, this is to ensure safety, integrity, and security within the nation. Most governmental information is classified for a reason; yes, the United States government is hiding stuff from you. Yes, it is a good thing. And yes, some things they shouldn’t hide from the general public. For the most part the information the government withholds from the general population is for good reason, if the greater public knew then everyone would know. Why would you withhold information from your people as a government? Well, first off the people in your country might have a few spy’s in the mix working for other countries. Second off, if every American knew the inner workings of a government facility housing a nuclear warhead, do you think people would leave it alone? Third off, what do you think the public would do if they knew about some of the secret actions their government had taken in order to preserve peace as a whole? Like honestly, think about it for a moment. The amount of people in our population that are “spies” is probably a very small number, and honestly the lack of actual character and integrity in the general population you probably wouldn’t need spies to obtain sensitive data if it was more widely available. Straight up, the rampant greed in this country would probably result in people selling it to the highest bidder. You know, like the movie cliche!

Honestly I could see people in our population selling stuff to other governments in a heart beat with no issue, mostly likely via social media and with Venmo. In the digital age things travel like wildfire across the internet, making government data publicly available would be a nightmare. Someone would take a selfie with a classified document and get a 1000 likes on instagram and suddenly that very important document is out there. Woo! If you don’t think this would happen, you clearly have never seen the posts about people taking selfies with their credit cards. It’s a nightmare with just that, now imagine it being like an internal document saying we intend to attack Brazil. That the other thing, foreign affairs would be ruined. Despite what you might think, our country has meddled in foreign affairs quite a bit in places they weren’t supposed to. Be making aware to the world what your country has done in another country in order to achieve a goal, you then put everyone at odds and ends. Yes, our government has helped collapse countries and reestablish others on countless occasions that we know about due to declassified documents. However, by openly admitting to recent actions our government would then get targeted with everything from tariffs to God knows what. There are already countries out there that hate our guts, in order to preserve the distance between us things must be kept secret. Because as soon as some piece of information is leaked out, those people that hate us will step forward and have the gall to spit it back in our faces.

By keeping government secrets secret, we enable our country to continue its existence. Now the information that should be given to us for free is limited when it comes to governmental information. Our governments lack transparency, they don’t admit when they were wrong they simply sweep it under the rug and make sure things don’t go public. I think the majority of things should be kept from the greater population, until those secrets are no longer relevant and can cause little to no harm to the country. Now you might think this is crazy and weird, but it is what already happens. Things get declassified all the time from years and years ago, it has no bearing society or the world anymore. By taking our governments taking their lumps, they allow for everyone to see that no they are not perfect but they are responsible enough to admit when they did wrong. Also, not all the secrets the government keeps are bad things. Some of them are actually really cool things that helped advance the world or did something that isn’t ever talked about because the means by which were not ok at the time. This has also happened, it does seem rarer however. Whatever the case may be, this concludes my thoughts on what information should be free governmental information wise. They should keep things from us, but release past things in order to preserve our countries in the present.

So as it seems I have decided to work backwards, it is time to discuss private information. I think that your private information should remain private, honestly I think the digital age has removed some privacy from our lives. Your phones is already pretty much a wire tap, it actively listen to you. But more things should be private information. We go around sharing them or we sign up for things and our information is bought and sold online constantly without our knowledge. It is crazy to me that we have the issues we do with private information. Private information is essentially any information you wish to keep away from the general population. We should strive to respect others privacy, I don’t think it should be infringed. I feel like a lot of the privacy we previously had has been lost and is currently being infringed. I do not believe in freedom of private information.

That last paragraph was short and sweet now wasn’t it? Now lets discuss the freedom of information I really whole hearted believe in. I like to think of everyone as a small piece to a grander puzzle, humanity has come so far collectively. We have invented things beyond the wildest dreams of our ancestors. There is so much information in this world, so much to go and do. So much to understand, and that’s what I think should be free. I think information should be free to access to all, yes just like a library. But I understand not everyone has access to a library, or can make it to one near them on a regular basis. I think with the new age, everything should be available online. Things are digital now, you should be able to pull up a pdf version of your favorite novel from 100 years ago and be able to see it. There comes an issue with having all this information free and out there on the internet right? That problem is how is the author supposed to be paid for the produced work? Honestly this is a gray area, a flaw in my argument. I think artists should be paid for their produced works, but I think authors should be paid fairly. Some authors get paid way to much, while others way to little. Personally, I think older works should be digitized and made publicly available. And for the most part they have, some things haven’t made it to the internet. But those things that haven’t made it to the internet haven’t made it for one simple reason: no one is reading it. There is no demand for the physical copy, so why must we save a digital. Certain things should be left in obscurity, never to be read again as it doesn’t influence our society. But those influential works that are so very popular should be made digital and available to everyone. I am not quite sure who said it, but I remember someone saying Albert Einstein had said “There is no use in learning certain information, as I can always just look it up.” Now if that wasn’t Einstein that’s alright, the point is information should be easy to look up and understand. The books that have taught us so many things should be out there and free for everyone.

Our planet collectively advances with shared technologies and information. By making it known how to purify water everyone is able to drink water. By making advanced math available to everyone you enable those who have the ability to comprehend it able to work with it. Textbooks are a sticky subject, as they are produced in order to make the knowledge publicly available but also to produce money for the authors. Most of our textbooks were written by many people, and most likely through a textbook company. I think that textbooks should be publicly available and free online. This allows for anyone to access them. I think we should support the official release of most books and other forms of media. But they aren’t, instead you have to pay crazy high pricing for textbooks that will become outdated within the next few years. Half the time, those textbooks are already outdated. I think everyone should have the ability to learn things, I think college makes us pay way to much for information we could or should be receiving elsewhere for free. I think that knowledge should be publicly available, that everyone should be able to attempt to understand it. If you cannot, that is alright. Your sunk cost is only the sunk time you spent reading or training in that field. Not thousands of dollars on the books on top of the thousands required for the courses. I think there are definitely things you should have to learn in the classrooms of college, but making stuff like math have a pay wall doesn’t make sense to me. How can we advance if all the information to help us advance is hidden behind greed and inaccessibility? I concur that we need to support the official release of things, but a lot of things simply should just be a contribution to society as a whole. A payment that cannot be translated into dollars, but rather a lasting legacy. I guess it would be easier to ask, how long should a work be paid for before it becomes part of the public domain? Currently, our copyright laws are all kinds of messed up. The larger companies have leveraged these things into being cash cows for generations when really it should be something that supports the artist during their lifetime. I personally think supporting the artist is a good thing, however for their lifetime? Maybe not so much, not purely because the work they did didn’t contribute. It just that how can we encourage artists to continue making more? Or how can we encourage the corporations to have the artists in mind? The world right now is filled with these what if questions. Personally I think stuff should be free so that everyone can learn and enjoy. But that doesn’t make money.

The information your government keeps to themselves, defends them from treachery and crumbling. The private information you have about your soul was already signed away by click “I agree to the terms of service”. And the freedom of creative expression has been squashed by the corporate big wigs that insist on riding the wave of the next musical artist, only to throw them away when they stop producing. Information will always be suppressed from the masses, mostly done in order to keep them buying and subdued. The general population is the foil to the greed of those big wigs, as it buys in allowing for the big wigs to continue to exist. A system that has more flaws than perfections but continues nonetheless. The continuation of free information for everyone everywhere might not ever be a real dream that comes true, but the hope that it will still lives on. Those that hope information will become free wake up everyday and continue to hope even though they know that it will probably never happen.

I want information to be free, I want everyone to be able to access these things. But I know ultimately and realistically it will not happen. How can I stand here and defy the machine that will churn ever on? Well by using the scanner on my printer, and a keyboard and mouse of course. The difference made may be insignificant in the long run, but who is too know until we get to the long run?

Thank you for entertaining my thoughts, I disappeared for a few days but I am back on the writing grind once more. Please go read my other writings!

-Ben