> without passing judgement

> cannot be reasonably described as moderate

Are you aware that you’re claiming not to pass judgement, and then do so in the very same sentence?

I think it seems immoderate to you because, like many others on this website (including me), we were all on the inside of the knowledge-monopoly walled-garden that Aaron talked about, where most research isn’t accessible to you unless you join the capitalist academia-industrial-complex (that last part is my own description, not Aaron’s), such as attending a university with a huge endowment (Harvard and other Ivy League schools), or living in a tech-cluster that the government has invested in for many years (Stanford&Silicon Valley) - why else does the most ‘exciting’ research happen at private institutions like these?:

“The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.” [1]

What makes it so one person is allowed to privatize knowledge and charge another a rent to access it? Why have governments allowed this enclosure of the scientific commons (amongst others), which is really an inheritance that belongs to all?

Privatization of knowledge is artificial scarcity that does not have to be there. It keeps the majority of society locked out, especially the working class, as well as people who live in the Global South.

This beautiful story from a few days ago is just one of many that shows the incredible power of Sci-hub:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25685819

I think that most intellectual laborers who themselves have conditional access to trade secrets and patents due to their employment with the capitalist/propertied classes (who are the so called 'owners' of this privatized knowledge), underestimate how difficult it is for others to follow in their footsteps, to try to copy what they did (myself included). In other words, we fail to see and acknowledge how much contrived scarcity is created by the US-‘led’ global Intellectual Property system and agreements, which allows capitalist firms to claim ownership of knowledge through trade secrets, patents and copyrights - which are then used to control where scientific research is done and where it is not. It ultimately holds back innovation, and the sharing of all kinds of emancipatory and empowering technologies locked up by capitalists under capitalism.

The most violent and advanced form of this capitalist enclosure of knowledge is the criminal enforcement of ‘trade secrets‘. The use of this mechanism, and the state institution that allows it, is the biggest capitalist perversion of science and technological development humanity has ever seen. [2]

Instead of contributing to firms and institutions that privatize knowledge, I hope we will continue joining in efforts to liberate science and technology from capitalism, creating an unconditionally available shared commons library that is accessible to all around the globe.

As we are currently part of the small group of people who are privileged recipients of this inheritance, I believe we have no excuse to not contribute to this battle for universal access, on all fronts, especially considering the fact that digital technologies have brought with them the possibility for a zero marginal cost of reproduction of knowledge. Sci-hub and similar efforts are a fantastic start to this.

For another strategy that helps reclaim technology from capitalism (and which really blew my hair back), check out the work of Bob Haugen, Lynn Foster and Pospi (Mikorizal) on Valueflo.ws / hREA. [3]

[1] https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamj...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25447697

[3] http://mikorizal.org/Fromprivateownershipaccountingtocommons...