Google and the World Brain
by Jon Rappoport
January 8, 2014
In a BBC documentary, “Google and the World Brain,”
the issue of author copyright is explored. Google has scanned and published out-of-print books that are still covered by copyright.
Interviewed, Kevin Kelly (twitter) (also here and here), the co-founder of Wired, makes a startling remark. In his view the whole issue of copyright is archaic. He explains that all authors draw their ideas from previous authors and therefore don’t own their own ideas.
It’s wonderful to witness such bloviating on the cusp of the New Civilization, in which “you didn’t build that” is taken to unprecedented levels.
Kelly should start a publishing firm; all his authors would work for free. After all, nothing is original, nothing is new, and these writers are merely rearranging other people’s words.
You might be surprised at how many people actually believe this tripe Kelly is passing along.
It’s part of the vastly expanding operation aimed at the individual.
The “modern” position is, we’re all one great big group. Kelly adds an historical touch. We’re just recycling the past.
Rimbaud was just redoing Shelley. Dylan Thomas was adding a few exhibitionist touches to Shakespeare, who was aping Sophocles. Plato was mimicking generations of Egyptian high priests. Socrates was staging dialogues based on arguments between cave men.
If we could climb into a time machine, we could travel back to the age of the Neanderthals and find all subsequent ideas of any value in their conversations. Certainly.
And I’m sure the Neanderthals were stealing thoughts after listening to what ants and gorillas and cabbages were saying.
The individual imagines and creates? Ho-ho-ho. Ridiculous. Kelly has put a lid on that fiction. Perhaps he’ll publish a list of authors from whom he’s borrowed, and then we can read their work and ignore his.
Yes, it’s all spiritual collectivism, and we’re melting down into one cosmic goo-glob, and it’s marvelous. Everything is free.
“It’s all information” is the code phrase, as if all data are like all other data, and therefore diminished—in which case “information is power” means degraded and shrunken power.
When it comes to intelligence—that is, actual intelligence—the capacity to see how a book is unique, rather than “like” another book, is far more important than the perception of sameness.
And Kevin Kelly notwithstanding, the individual creator is real, not a fiction.
A book isn’t just a whole bunch of data, and it isn’t just a whole lot of borrowing and reshuffling from past authors.
The very basis of meaning, without which we would all be swimming in a sea of gibberish, isn’t a phenomenon of the Group. Meaning ultimately comes down to each individual and his perception. We may share a common language, but individuals shape it and individuals understand it. Or don’t.
The move to wipe out the entire concept of the individual and erase it from human consciousness is a propaganda op. It is far easier to wield control over a group.
“We” isn’t an advanced form of “I.”
Here is where things are heading: “I/we is/are together.” Then: “We are together.” Then: “We.” Then: Nothing. Oblivion.
The failure to see this is a direct consequence of the failure of a person to know he is an individual.
That Google would even consider digitizing and publishing books that are still under copyright, that still belong to the author, reveals how casual their concept of the individual is.
“Just another greedy mega-corporation” doesn’t capture what is really going on here.
Jon Rappoport
The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com
the is/be that (in)forms the me/we,both dynamically yin/yanging
in pingpong matches until the idea of self and other is totally burnt out.
Hi Jon,
I’ve been following you for a few years now and generally agree with you, but on this issue I have to take a slightly opposing view, or at least add another perspective. The internet has created an explosion of information, not just by making it easier to access material that has already been recorded or would have been recorded in some form anyway, but also by facilitating the process of turning thoughts and conversations into recorded form. This has undoubtedly been a net benefit for everyone.
I’m not saying that the notion of intellectual property is a dead letter, but I think how we evaluate and approach it has to be changed. The internet and associated technologies (scanning, 3D printing) have made it literally impossible to enforce, just as Gutenberg made it impossible for the Catholic church to be virtually the only custodian and arbiter of the “Word of God”.
I am pretty much a libertarian, and believe strongly in inalienable rights and free will, but I also believe that our concept of possession needs to undergo a transition if we are to survive.
The desire of Google and other mega corps. to distribute material created by others is based on their desire to distribute these materials ‘as their own’, and thereby profit from that distribution. This subordinates the original authors’ ownership and sublimates the rights of the individual to distribute and profit. My question is ‘what would Kelly have to say if someone else began pulling all the twitter and google software and databases and distributing them ‘as their own’ for profit…? I would venture to say his tone would change dramatically. It’s all about greed, profit and money.
It is just an “accident” of history that someone didn’t patent the wheel or copyright the word “uh.”
I’m in the midst of writing my first novel, and am up to 30000 words, so this topic has a lot of importance to me. Multinational corporations such as Google and Amazon are intent, each in its own way, on distributing content to their audiences at the expenses of intellectual ownership and individual gain. In their bottom-line analyses, the individual artist gets screwed on a consistent basis. Self-publishing and careful, ongoing monitoring of the dissemination of one’s works help, but it’s an uphill battle no matter how you slice it.
Jon
Sincerely, in some ways what Kevin Kelly is saying correct. Those who step out of the populist mould tend to be rejected by the machine pretty quickly and, in the cases of scientists (sic), job’s gone.
You are undoubtedly one-of-kind but, even so, regularly regurgitate information for “credibility”. I am original too, but my credibility is arbitrary as my sources are source.
OT
One of the ways to acknowledge the individual, is to witness how no two individuals perceive things in the exact same way.
The group mentality is a mass sellout of that unique perspective that we all have. It is always there in the individual, whether we care to admit it or not.
Every single thing is unique to each one of us. This can be seen even in the slant of each blogger that tries to prove the collectivist notion, they all present it in their unique way.
Without this uniqueness there would be no Dialogue at all, for they’re would be no platform or even concept to operate from.