Chapter Two: Intellectual Usability of The Fittest

We live in a world of economics, and very few of us are economists. We live in a world of Intellectual Property Law, and very few of us are Intellectual Property Lawyers. And the funny part is that economics and Intellectual Property Law are not mutually exclusive - and as far as I know, there are no specialist Intellectual Property Law Economists yet.

In a world where we judge how rich someone is by comparing them to the poor, it's intuitive that we judge how knowledgeable we are by how ignorant others are. Even the Intelligence Quotient is based upon judging how intelligent someone is by comparing them to how unintelligent other people are. We use sliding scales between extremes, and with some thought one will realize that there's really no way around it. If I have more seashells than you do, then I am comparatively rich in seashells - and you are comparatively poor. Herman Hesse wrote of it in his book, "Beneath The Wheel" - even mentioning Intellectual Property:

"...However, Lucius' system not only extended to the realm of tangible goods and personal ownership; in intellectual matters too he sought to gain an advantage whenever he could. Yet he was clever enough never to forget that intellectual property has only relative value. Therefore, he concentrated his efforts on those subjects whose assiduous cultivation might bear fruit in a future examination while he was satisfied with middling grades in the rest of his subjects. Whatever he learned and accomplished he would evaluate only as it compared with the achievements of his fellow students; if he had the choice, he would have preferred to come in first in class with half as much knowledge than come in second with double the amount. Therefore, you would see him working in the evening undisturbed by the noise his roommates made while they played, and the occasional glance he threw in their direction was without envy, even cheerful, for if all the others were as industrious as he, his efforts would not have proved worthwhile..."

If I have more Intellectual Property than you, then I am richer in Intellectual Property than you are. If I'm smart, I can leverage Intellectual Property Law to stay richer than you. And if I'm really smart and influential I can leverage how Intellectual Property is treated so that you have no way of catching up with the amount of Intellectual Property I have. If I can massage the Laws related to Intellectual Property such that I don't have to work as hard to stay ahead of you, then I retain the economic advantage of Intellectual Property, which is not necessarily related to money but usually is.

Let's forget about the money for now. Let's talk about intellectual usability, and how influence on intellectual property law can hinder intellectual usability. Let's look at our past. Before the concept of 'intellectual property' was a matter of legality.

Culture From A Different Angle

In the very beginning of the movie, "2001: A Space Odyssey", we see Stanley Kubrik's idea of the appearance of our ancestors - a social group, with constant challenges of food, water, shelter, and protection from the elements. Though the costumes may be considered poor by modern standards, the message is clear - and the message becomes clearer the first time one of them sees what a wielded bone can do. This, like other events in the movie when the monolith appears, is an event of note - in this case, a bone-shattering event.

The scene at the water hole shows that the group wielding these bone clubs gained superiority and therefore water. Technology, in the hands of one group, gave a distinct advantage over another group - for the survival of the technology-wielding group. For those of a more Creationist philosophy, the Bible offers David with a sling (technology) against Goliath. Noah and the Ark is another example, and has less violence - though Stephen King could probably write an amazing perspective of someone who didn't have the privilege of the Ark.

Be it the sling or the club, there's no doubt that everyone had fair access to the materials to create either. Some simply learned a use for these things; I'm pretty sure that clubs were also used for leverage (for moving larger objects) and other things. David's sling was used against, as I recall, predators of his father's sheep. So each item has multiple uses. Each item could be used in ways in which people could envision. And people saw other people doing some of these things, and for better or worse decided to do the same, thus spreading the manner of use quickly. Robert Winston writes in, "Human Instinct" (pg 35):

"Just like the development of a child, the process of evolution is intertwined with the growth of culture, and 'culture' began well before evolution finally shaped us as we are today. Professor Geertz reminds us that although the invention of the aeroplane has not produced any biological adaptations in humans, that is not necessarily the case for stone tools invented a couple of million years ago. Stone tools are part of hominid culture, and the simple chopper or flake, invented by Homo habilis, which was made by smashing two rocks together, might have affected the evolution of our opposing thumb, our posture, the size of our teeth and, most importantly, mental capacities like dexterity or spatial reasoning."

By no stretch am I leading you down a path where people will evolve differently because they don't have access to certain things, though even if I were it would take a few million years for me to be proven right or wrong. Instead, I'll ask you a question: How many of these predecessors, Homo habilis, were blind? I imagine that if there were any, they couldn't see other members of their group smashing stones - and therefore were unable to see how the stones were smashed. They couldn't smash the stones themselves, much less find use for any flakes.

What we have is a modern world, a world of ideas and thoughts made less abstract by our evolved papyrus. Our present day papyrus now evolves itself, much like software can now write itself. Imagine that because I have the internet accessible, I have my own website, and I have software that makes it possible - imagine that with all this criteria met, I can write this 'book' online. I can say the things I feel must be said, and perhaps a few things that 'polite society' feels should not be said. I am smashing stones, much like our ancestors may have.

What about those that cannot 'smash the stones' in this modern day? Are we saying that they are incompetent to do so? That's an unfair assessment, because they may very well hear the noises of the stones hitting each other, and they may well hear rumours of these toolmakers - but if we simply sell them the chips, we have taught them nothing.

I made a similar point about a year ago (2003) before the FLOS Caribbean conference, on an email list which deals with what is apparently a dead organization. The email itself is rather longwinded and not completely relevant, but the fire analogy is a powerful one, and I'll revisit it as it pertains to developing areas of the world - the other side of the Digital Divide.

There are people around the world who are busy inventing fire. They heard it's a nice place to huddle around, cook things, and so on, so they thought - 'let's tell our government and businesses about fire!'

Their government and businesses are busy buying lightning from some other companies from other countries right now, and are quite happy with unpredictable results. The would-be-inventors offer them the means to make fire, and the governments and businesses laugh. "Nobody can make fire!". Meanwhile,

they upgraded to buying small fires.

Fire can certainly be made, and the smashing of stones to create tools is not a difficult task. Yet by keeping people away from the processes of making these valuable tools, are we helping them? As Sergio Amadeu mentions as related to Free Software, "Opting for Free Software doesn't just take into account costs. It's about knowledge development". Knowledge Development through Intellectual Usability. If knowledge development is unimportant, then why is it that the manner in which software works - it's source code - is hidden by proprietary companies? The answer is simple. They treat knowledge as a commodity instead of what it really is: Both a Commodity and a Service.

Knowledge As a Commodity

There's no question that if Joe knows something that nobody else knows, Joe is ahead of the game. If, for example, he knows some algorithm that nobody else knows, he can maximize his gain from it - financially or otherwise. So in this way, knowledge is a commodity, and as such can still be intellectually usable to everyone else through Joe. It's fair that Joe profit from his knowledge, but is it fair to deny everyone else this knowledge? To an extent, yes. And to an extent, no.

Consider Martha Stewart. She supposedly knew something that other people didn't, and because of the nature and legal ities involved, but the Securities Fraud aspect of the case was thrown out (she was convicted of other things). But consider - in some cases, it is actually illegal to act based on knowledge that the public doesn't have. Why is this? It's because it's unfair.

Pete Rose suffered a similar problem, with a twist: he was banned from the professional sport of baseball because he was gambling on baseball games. Why? Because there was a possibility that he could affect the games? Because his knowledge of how he bet could affect a game? Perhaps, I haven't read the whole Dowd Report, so I don't know. But it's sensible to consider that the ban was because of the potential for Pete Rose to affect a game so that he came out ahead.

So, knowledge as a commodity has two sides. And a lot of people see knowledge as a commodity.

Knowledge As a Service

Knowledge is useless. That is, knowledge is useless unless it has an application - and all knowledge that we, as a world society have, has been useful in our past, our present, or perhaps even in the future. The phrase 'useless knowledge' is often attributed to facts which have no bearing on a topic. Knowing who created the first electrical motors is hardly useful to a mechanic, yet the principles survive and are used in the starting motor for internal combustion engines. Though personally I consider Nikola Tesla a brilliant man, the knowledge he found for us follows us to this day.

By itself, knowledge is useless. So knowledge has to be used to be useful. And therefore, knowledge - useful knowledge - is a form of service. The manner of service itself varies - from self serving to societal - but useful knowledge remains partly a service. Entire industries have been built around this, from the present Education system to the media - from certificates to newspapers to magazines. And let's not forget the Internet, or the computer in front of you. The two have quickly merged into the same.

Knowledge Development

Sergio Amadeu made the valid point about Knowledge Development - but what is knowledge development? An educator might say that Knowledge Development is Education, and that is absolutely correct. What remains unsaid is that there isn't necessarily a need for a formal setting to learn something (despite, sometimes, what lecturers in formal settings say). So what is knowledge development?

Let's say that knowledge is an ongoing process. Some measure the progress in pieces of paper that adorn walls, some measure it in pieces of paper that adorn wallets, but the measurement of the knowledge is not truly represented by either because the application of the knowledge has much to do with the affects which we measure with. Does a knowledgeable man always become rich? Does a knowledgeable man always have a certificate?

The spirit of seeking knowledge, perhaps, has become diluted over time. Present educational institutions teach more for employment than for questioning; it is not as much a fault as a reality. We live in an economy of paper and plastic. Not long ago a measure of how well one was doing was whether or not one had a piece of plastic; then it became how many pieces of plastic one has. Stuck in the middle of all of this has been knowledge. At times, it's not difficult to envision a mouth of plastic teeth with knowledge stuck in between them, rotting - unused.

There are two main ways to profit from knowledge. The first is to hoard it, tell nobody, and act on the knowledge. The second is to share the knowledge for a price. And in the last century, a third way became very popular: Hoard the knowledge, and sell it. And toward the end of the last century, a fourth showed up: Share the knowledge but take ownership of anything that is created from that knowledge.

The fourth is like teaching a man how to fish, giving him a line and a hook, and taking the fish he catches away from him. The third is selling fish. The second is usually associated with education, and the first is either associated with wisdom or criminality in some form, depending on how the knowledge is used - and to what end.

The Keepers of Knowledge

From mankinds earliest origins, there have been the Keepers of Knowledge. Be it the real or imagined guardians of the flame, or the priests who knew how to read and write - there has always been a group which has had knowledge, and perhaps even tasked with holding this knowledge by society - for the good of society.

In the West, the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church was such a keeper of Knowledge. Galileo Galilei challenged some of this knowledge, and it was seen as an attack on the Church itself by those within the Church. Did he attack the Church? I don't know, I was not there, but the controversy was laid to rest by Pope John Paul II 359 years later:

... Galileo, a sincere believer, showed himself to be more perceptive in this regard [the relation of scientific and Biblical truths] than the theologians who opposed him.

What happened there? One could get into the aspects of religion, or get into the often argued discussion of Science versus Religion. But what really happened there is that someone outside of the societal keepers of knowledge contributed based on observation. The repercussions are apparent. Challenging the status quo is always problematic, but when the keepers of knowledge are not open to new knowledge, or new ways to look at elder knowledge, such things crop up.

We, as a society, often use the word 'intellectual' to describe someone who considers new ideas, and makes observations. Who makes such an intellectual? Is it the books the accused intellectual has read, is it the intelligence with which the intellectual uses to sort through the minefield of information? Some would say yes, this is what makes an intellectual. But the reality is that an intellectual only gains such title if people trust the particular person to be not only a guardian of knowledge, but someone who can apply it for society's benefit.

How does this all come back to the Intellectual Usability of the Fittest?

In The Land Of The Blind, The One Eyed Man Is King

When it comes to matters of the intellect, whoever has something that they do not share is the person with advantage. But at what point is an advantage fair or unfair? When I wrote earlier of the using of some knowledge as unfair - and even illegal - who dictates that rule?

We could say that the Laws related to Intellectual Property dictate who is blind, and who has sight - but who writes the laws? Are laws supposed to be based on ethics or need? Do we argue that killing a person is wrong based on the fact that the murdered person no longer is being taxed by the government, or is it because there is something that society finds wrong with people wandering around and killing each other?

It boils down to ethics, really. And in this day, with so much talk of helping 3rd world countries, of 'Digital Divides', and lack of internet access - what are we really trying to achieve?

Consider this - 'Developed Country' status is not something that stands still. It's dynamic; constantly evolving. Meanwhile the best definition of 'Developing Country' is simply that the country is not considered a 'Developed Country'. Is it in the interest of the Developed Countries to assist the Developing Countries? Economically, it's apparent that it's not in the interest of a Developed Country to assist a Developing country - the One Eyed Man cannot remain King in a land where people are gaining vision.

What tools do the Developed Countries have to assure that they remain 'developed' relative to other countries? There are many tools, and they all deal with economics. And in this age of the Internet, of Genetic Research... there's common ground. There's Intellectual Property. And if everyone else is kept blind, the advantage is kept.

But is it really an advantage, being surrounded by blind people? Well, it could be - unless you charge them for your services, and make them agree to things which keep them blind.