Becky Hargrove
On the Care and Preservation of Knowledge
Initial publication, 27 August 2020, The Intentional Marketplace,
monetaryequivalence.blogspot.com
Chapter 7 Intro
How do we conceptualize the ways in which we apply knowledge? What purposes might our framing hold, for how we think about wealth and our own contributions to wealth creation processes? For one, active use of knowledge for economic purposes includes everything from the practical to the experiential. While practical knowledge use is more likely to command a reliable high income, experiential knowledge can accomplish the same, up to a point. Nevertheless, the more reliable nature of work compensation in practical knowledge, tends to encourage supply side limits in its market capacity.
Since we cannot completely rely on monetary representation for all citizens in a 21st century economy, we need to bring time value to the table as means to capture economic value as well. At stake is our ability to utilize both practical and experiential knowledge more fully, since initial claims on monetary compensation now limit supply side capacity to such an extent that millions now pursue meaningful work with little guarantee of full monetary compensation. There is much to be said for bringing more applied knowledge into our lives, and fortunately it is also feasible to structure our surroundings so as to lower building and maintenance costs. Creating more accessible physical environments is actually a necessary first step, to ensure a full range of productive and useful knowledge can be preserved well into the future.
We also need more expansion of useful knowledge in left behind towns and communities across the globe. By far the best means of knowledge preservation, is knowledge diffusion which promotes the productive engagement of citizens in their own local environments - especially for the basic functions of a knowledge based economy. Once this extensive challenge begins to take shape, societies can also become more confident in adding experiential activities to a services generation core.
In this chapter and elsewhere, I reference knowledge in the broadest of terms. In particular, applied knowledge could be most anything which is readily emphasized in active form via shared activity. If any symbolism applies for how I envision knowledge use, it's probably the edifying image of a well stocked bookstore - such as what could readily be found in 20th century towns and cities here in the U.S.
While digital search engines provide benefit insofar as accessing information, I still miss the visual and tactual effect of entire subjects placed so close with reach, that one's curiosity could be satiated by pulling books off the shelf to examine them in their entirety. I fondly recall bookshelves that provided apt clues how extensive some subjects might be, and one could quickly discern how different takes on a subject might be aligned. Various physical dimensions for applied knowledge was still in full evidence. Visual place specific indexing also functioned as an invitation for further exploration, from the trunk one might presently be exploring, to more of a subject's branches. Toward this end, careful sorting of books by subject, seemed to follow natural inclinations of the human mind.
Getting Past the "What do You Know?" Impulse
When the world was a simpler place, earlier methods of production often came down to speed and stamina, for a job to be considered well done. That said, when work goals mostly required personally owned resources, an owner's physical stamina tended not to be judged as closely as that of industrial workers. Perceptions of what people were capable of doing, were understandably associated with the extent to which one's time was either self managed, or essentially managed by others.
However, as production gradually became associated with mental agility, there have not been as many opportunities to own and manage how one utilizes personal time in an intellectual context. While speed and stamina remain relatively important, they nonetheless take a back seat to the importance of intellect. Fortunately, this is not generally problematic, so long as intellect is also associated with the rewards of exponential output. When output gains lead to extensive profit valuations, those who contribute most to the core of the process, generally have little difficulty proving their economic worth.
Whereas proving one's economic worth has been an altogether different matter, for those whose final (services) product is closely linked with time scarcity. Since time based product does not naturally scale for additional profits, one's own time scarcity is at stake, in that it bears additional responsibility for most major production costs. In recent centuries, as wealth spread more widely in populations, organizational costs rose in tandem, and many knowledge providers unexpectedly found themselves with quite a lot to prove. Not only would they need to establish their economic value to individual recipients, they would need to prove their worth to the public, since in many instances the public would ultimately bear responsibility for their organizational costs.
In all of this, proving one's worth unfortunately included dismissing one's peers as competitors. Due to this reality, some knowledge providers were compelled to prove their superiority in relation to what other groups sought to provide. While much of this organizational fallout (especially in healthcare) took place well before our lifetimes, enough of it survived that questioning of economic worth become a questioning of social worth. Questioning of worth in workplaces, became questioning of worth in homes and then in schoolyards as well. For instance, while visiting a classmate many years ago, the first grader confidently informed my mother that he was at the head of the class, while I was at the rear. In the questioning of intellectual abilities, variations on one particular taunt are familiar to each of us: What do you know?
So long as society had fairly reliable means to reimburse the knowledge of experts, carefully guarded knowledge may not have been such a problem. Today however, budgets are becoming more strained, and long term debts loom larger. Highly skilled time based services are becoming more difficult to compensate, and consequently, that judgmental stance is starting to come full circle. What happens when citizens are no longer willing to trust the experts? Like becomes confusing, when citizens demand of the experts, what do you know?
If experts are being unduly challenged, we all face equally undeniable challenges. Yet presently there is no clear path forward, for societies to collectively overcome the adversities these challenges pose. Nevertheless, we need to stop collectively undermining our own efforts to survive. We can of course recall the places where excess judgement began, and why it happened this way. No matter how logical all those economic and societal judgments may have seemed, or still seem for that matter, if we don't stop, our political circumstance will continue to go off the rails. Somehow we have to respond, because time scarcity has now resulted in human capital of such worth that the value of other citizens is insufficient to preserve economic dynamism in places where it is most needed. If a truce is to be found, the experts will need to begin the process of bridging that gap. The care and preservation of knowledge will allow for nothing less.
Does Price Making Impact the Spread of Knowledge?
It depends on which sectors are involved, and the extent to which a full range of participants choose this option over the greater coordination of price taking in equilibrium. Granted, individual actors find it reasonable to seek as much compensation as possible, especially when others are already doing so. But what happens when price making, - as is often found among knowledge providers - negatively impacts general equilibrium potential?
In tradable sectors, price making is not as likely to lead to disequilibrium, especially since income aggregates in these areas are far more likely to be internally reimbursed (not dependent on external redistribution). When time value is indirectly associated with exponential product, the income demands of these providers will be compensated by the revenue capacity of additional output. However, when high income demand corresponds with final product which is mostly time scarcity, less output in aggregate leads to cost shifts which extend beyond the relevant organization and its recipients. This cost shift then displaces demand for other forms of product in general equilibrium.
These cost shifts are largely responsible for the crowding out effect so often argued regarding public and private enterprise. When aggregate price making takes place in non tradable sectors which specialize in time based product, the natural scarcity of time is responsible for the crowding of production options which are more likely to hold exponential output potential. Importantly, however, this is not a process with linear results which can directly observed. Hence it is exceedingly complex to determine how tradable sector potential may actually be reduced by non tradable sector income expectations. Nevertheless, increased consumption inequality is one important result, insofar as what low income groups remain able to purchase in both non tradable and tradable sector product.
What is equally important about these price making mechanisms (especially for this chapter), is how they tend to negatively impact the diffusion of applied knowledge. Due to the supply side limits encouraged by non tradable sector price making, there are consequent limits in the spread of applied knowledge in society. Fortunately, despite what has already occurred in this regard, it is still feasible to create price taking systems which also offer non pecuniary rewards for groups which are willing to accept limitations in income. By engaging in price taking settings which include basic wage compensation, people could gradually coordinate the spread of applied knowledge across entire populations.
Nevertheless, there is still value in the price making systems for applied knowledge of our time. The problem in this regard, is due to their dependence on external sources of compensation and resource redistribution. When non tradable sector participants choose to price make without a valid general equilibrium reference point, they may eventually overextend the pool of available resource capacity, even without adequate understanding as to how this has occurred.
Once price making takes place in terms of additional demands for time scarcity, societies face the problem of "overfishing" in the "lakes" of public revenues. What's more, these demands occur among both providers and recipients, which in turn impacts both supply and demand at general equilibrium level. While these processes are generally manageable during times of tradable sector dominance, they gradually become unmanageable, once non tradable sector activity dominates the majority of economic activity in GDP. At this point, political systems also start to feel the strain.
While some of these processes have gone by different names in different eras, there are still plenty of similarities which are now being repeated. Can this unfortunate circumstance be reversed to an extent it becomes more manageable? If we can create better balance between price making (partial societal coordination) and price taking (full coordination) in our non tradable sector time based product, we can greatly reduce overfishing in public resources. Best, the coordination of price taking would make room for greater economic participation, a return of political stability, and the preservation of applied knowledge for the foreseeable future.
Turning Basic Knowledge Use into Wealth
A broader framing is needed, to make applied knowledge more viable and attainable for all income levels. Instead of carrying so many services as a societal burden, why not turn more of them into direct sources of wealth? A marketplace for time value, particularly means new market options for applied knowledge in a shared time context. Likewise, mutual negotiation in these settings makes it feasible for applied knowledge to more closely represent one's personal aspirations. By way of example, young students would learn basic rudiments of knowledge, via the same settings they learn negotiation processes for mutually shared time.
Time arbitrage allows participating groups to coordinate their time priorities symmetrically. If each individual instead called for different amounts of matched time in relation to his or her own, the symmetric quality of this group arrangement would be lost. Even though many would still call non symmetric time matching a form of wealth, the problem is its uncertainty, in terms of societal reciprocity.
One way to think about this, is that great variance in time value has contributed to the indefinite debt formation for services. Many of these accumulating debt burdens lack any sense of societal reciprocity. And often, when people stress how future generations will be responsible for services occurring now, it is in large part due to the extent to people presently define their time value on widely differing terms from others.
Were it not for debt structures, many knowledge providers likely could not have taken such an approach, for doing so likely would have seemed too unreasonable to others. Even when debt instruments cover these obligations, there is still a level of unknowing, how reciprocity for today's services will actually occur, that makes the system fragile. Hence fragile expectations regarding mutual obligation can place highly valued human capital in jeopardy, should the most important forms of applied knowledge require extensive monetary resources before they can assume any useful economic form.
Applied Knowledge as an Organizational Prior
What might our future workplaces consist of? And what roles could we play in these transitions as individuals? The more who become willing to assume active roles in these outcomes, the more likely that societies can avoid unfortunate institutional defaults which result in sub par working conditions. Again, recall the extent to which present day work extends beyond physical goods production. While we rightfully celebrate the degree of societal coordination which makes up our physical goods capacity, we're not even close to accomplishing something similar for work of a more social and time based nature. Yet the majority of us hope for work with a social and intellectual focus, which also factors into why so many are willing to take the risks associated with acquiring college degrees.
Importantly, work which involves mind and intellect, also functions as a desirable consumption experience. Indeed, some are quick to express how fortunate they are to have such work, and how they would even be willing to perform it for free. Even though working for free isn't a reasonable option for most of us, what if our environments could be constructed in ways which require far less income for our daily needs?
Non tradable sector innovation in building components and physical infrastructure, could make it more feasible to pursue meaningful work with less pay. Such settings would allow knowledge centered pursuits to function as means for new community beginnings, hence the moniker "knowledge prior". Symmetrical time alignment makes it possible for services generation to be internally reciprocated, and creates new wealth at the point of transaction, negating the need for extensive budgets and debt formation. Nevertheless, the knowledge prior as beginning point for community is unusual, for the resource reciprocity of tradable sector activity has primarily been responsible for such new beginnings in the past.
Knowledge Use as Expanded Production Rights
How did we lose so many production rights for skilled means of mutual assistance? Many losses occurred gradually when the majority of citizens were still actively engaged in physical forms of production. What's more, regulatory restrictions on personal production were often framed as a matter of "necessary" citizen protections - especially when certain levels of skill or specific knowledge were involved. Nevertheless, not many recognized the extent to which new legislative requirements were actually set asides in the form of production rights for special interests. Otherwise, some of the collusion which took place between governments and private interests, may not have been as readily tolerated.
For that matter, earlier losses in production rights which would ultimately affect future employment potential, have for the most part only slowly emerged as a problem. As once reliable sources of tradable sector employment gave way to less predictable employment patterns, people began to question how less reliable forms of work could sustain people for the level of life responsibilities they were generally expected to uphold. Toward this end, I've often emphasized that even though it is often not possible to alter monetary compensation for specific forms of employment, it is quite possible to change the extent of total monetary requirements for the costs of our actual environments.
Also it is important for societies not to leave large groups of people faced with great uncertainty, as to how they will take care of themselves for the foreseeable future. Basic income even in the best of circumstance would be a stop gap solution that would not work long term. However, basic levels of income which support people in their efforts to extend mutual support, is quite another matter. And in a modern day economy, mutual support especially consists of renewed production rights to exercise knowledge and skill that would be useful for others. Rather than providing monetary compensation for people because they are not needed in a modern day economy, we would do best to ensure they are once again needed. Fortunately, we can recreate local settings where knowledge rights are mostly restored, yet they will not exist as direct forms of competition for how knowledge is applied in our more prosperous regions.
Knowledge Preservation Has Often Been a Fragile Process
While knowledge in general may not seem fragile at first glance (given the sea of information we routinely "swim" in), what matters is the extent to which knowledge is actively applied and experienced, in society as a whole. What can we still accomplish for others - or on our own behalf - without having to resorting to intermediaries?
Even though it's not difficult to locate information suited for our personal circumstance, we still lack economic context which could make it simpler to corroborate findings with others. Without this context, we often lack sufficient feedback so as to reduce risk in decision making processes. Vast quantities of knowledge and information are generally available, but the core of the matter may be hidden from view, leaving one in need of experts before taking meaningful action.
In all of this, it's not so much that intermediary experts are necessarily a barrier to getting things done, but that many individuals simply lack sufficient resources to take that course. Sadly, when people take little or no productive action given these circumstance, others tend to assume they are too lazy to do so. But being lazy is not the same thing, as avoiding undue risk out of an abundance of caution.
Granted, many still navigate pressing issues (when able) without calling in the experts. However, doing so may mean relying on a partial picture of existing circumstance, since pertinent details involving the matter may be shielded from public view. If nothing else, we can take comfort in the fact that societies have sought to keep many aspects of valuable knowledge out of view, for as long as anyone can recall.
Despite the millions who still lack full economic participation, vast quantities of wealth are nonetheless based on protected forms of knowledge. Due (at least) in part to protected sources, it took many centuries before cumulative processes in networked knowledge finally emerged. As Katja Grace has noted, plenty of serendipity is involved, for humans have faced considerable difficulties in achieving synchronized gains. Often, many innovations have been lost over the centuries because they could not be applied in a coordinated context. When opportunities for synchronicity aren't there, many innovations don't appear practical or worth the bother. Grace further elaborates that inventing is consequently "harder than it looks"!
The quest for survival can make it difficult to adopt much needed innovation, especially when more successful citizens are reluctant to accept change in basic systems structure. Other inventions simply died along with inventors who preferred that others not use them. Occasionally, social costs are associated with systemic change which may turn inventors into outcasts. Even now, inventions tend to require immediate relevance and context, before societies are willing to assume the risks of implementing them.
The Need to Restore Generational Knowledge Transfer
As fields of knowledge became the arena of specialists and higher education, generational knowledge transfer gradually became a thing of the past. Even though some individuals speak of restoring these earlier social connections, it is far from clear how such a process could take place. In the meantime, life continues to change so quickly that not only is it difficult for older generations to keep up, older folk - especially those without children or other close family members - often lack sufficient contact with younger generations to successfully maneuver technological change.
Is it feasible to restore new versions of generational transmission - particularly in terms of knowledge and skill? Doing so in some instances might take decades to accomplish. However, once local communities establish a recognizable knowledge continuum, older citizens would often be equally as capable of other citizens of taking part.
For that matter, only recall that specialized information in a digital world, is only part of why generational knowledge transfer has been lost. For the U.S. this process especially got underway in the early 20th century as formal schooling became more dominant. Over time, young people naturally gravitated to the advice and information imparted by their teachers, which in turn meant less reliance on seeking assistance from other community members. While in many respects this process was understandable, it nonetheless undermined long established patterns of societal support, which of course had both positive and negative effects.
These are just a few considerations regarding lost community connections. Social considerations are also important. Markets for time value could help reduce the dependencies and isolation which make life difficult for older citizens. For that matter, health matters are closely connected to these issues. By way of example, one study found that loneliness could shorten a person's life by as much as fifteen years.
Going Broad to Preserve Knowledge Bridges
Many specialized fields are becoming more complex, especially in recent decades. Surprisingly, knowledge deepening can also occur in what were once relatively simple hobbies. In these instances the result can be off putting to those who seek to take part, but lack sufficient time to learn what's necessary to get started. Some hobbies likewise assume special languages which - to casual observers - seem to imply "this isn't for or about you".
Greater complexity also makes matters more challenging when groups take on interdisciplinary approaches. Sometimes an insistence on "proper" language and similar attributes, could be intended to prevent specialized areas from easy adaption by others who purportedly could take them in the "wrong" direction. But what determines whether various approaches are wrongheaded? Right or wrong answers may not always be as evident as they appear. What's more, should varying approaches inexplicably become politicized, it can be even more difficult for people to use their own judgement and think for themselves.
Before anything can be accomplished, no one can really contemplate building bridges until political posturing is taken out of the picture. From here, interdisciplinary approaches could make it possible for individuals and groups in need of solutions, to think more clearly. Equally important, is that potential avenues of action can difficult to discern, should they become the focus of expert problem solving.
Part of what is important in this regard, is that lower income levels often need different approaches for achieving success, than what is typically deemed necessary by middle to upper income levels. Indeed, it's the difference in resource utilization that sometimes makes it difficult for lower income groups to find common ground with others. At stake in these considerations is that lower income groups will invariably need to utilize resources more sparingly and frugally. Yet all too often, existing regulations in non discretionary needs such as housing and skilled services, require costs which which are not readily absorbed by lower income groups. Hence they will need sufficient means to bypass some of the more extensive regulatory burdens, both in production rights for applied knowledge, and regulations which stand in the way of simpler forms of housing and infrastructure.
Knowledge Continuity Involves More Than Memorizing Facts
Fortunately, learning processes have the potential to be much more than just memorization of facts. For instance, the tacit knowledge of learning by doing, is one of the best ways to promote diffusion of knowledge in a long term capacity. While broadcast methods work up to a point, knowledge which is committed to long term memory, is more likely to involve learning methods beyond books and a majority of broadcast methods in general.
We acquire tacit knowledge when we watch others in motion. Doing so, gives us a better understanding how to combine the imagery of the mind with how we go about daily life processes. Time arbitrage between individuals could prove especially conducive for this approach. Examples include everything from instrumental music performances or speaking foreign languages, to food preparation in the kitchen. Even family businesses include important facets of tacit knowledge, whereby family members transfer business methods to the next generation.
Formal education hasn't been particularly helpful for transfers of tacit knowledge, since much of it relies on the one sided communication approach of broadcast mechanisms. Even though teachers lecture students in relatively close physical proximity, they still engage in a one to many interaction. Whereas learning by doing is more likely, when knowledge for specific processes is transmitted from individual to individual.
Opportunities for clarification, feedback and one's own personal interpretation can be important for long term memory retention as well. Otherwise, without reflection on study material with other individuals, it can be difficult to get beyond surface level interpretations. Again, time arbitrage could provide ample time frames to become more familiar with subject matter. Tutoring roles become an option for all students, once students are familiar enough with subjects to discuss them in depth with other learners.
Applied Knowledge as Value in Use
Time arbitrage would allow knowledge to be utilized more fully in a value in use framework. However, the value in use designation would be readily distinguishable from applied knowledge which functions as value in exchange in more prosperous regions. A value in use option is important, for it allows non rival forms of knowledge to be preserved and recorded in formal economic context.
Only consider the extent of previously acquired knowledge which - given sufficient encouragement - might be tapped for routine use. Even though many aspects of applied knowledge aren't legally protected insofar as content, these service interaction possibilities lack market viability in a non professional context. To some extent, this dearth of mutual assistance potential could help explain why - other than what is available online - many valuable non fiction bookstores ended up displaced by college bookstore offerings.
A value in use designation for applied knowledge, could once again encourage average folk that meaningful intellectual challenge and practical endeavour need not be reserved for the fortunate and well to do. Non rival knowledge could once again function as a lit torch or candle which is passed from one person to the next.
Overcoming the Separation of Knowledge Use Among Classes
As services came to dominate 20th century workplaces, capital investment began to shift toward the value of specific yet limited forms of human capital. Where once divisions among capitalists and workers were prominent, knowledge providers are now among the primary wealth holders of our era. What few could have predicted, however, was the extent to this process would divide populations into well reimbursed knowledge providers versus everyone else. What's more, the wealth of human capital is no simple taxation or redistribution matter, in contrast with the classical capitalists of earlier times.
Further exacerbating this circumstance, well compensated knowledge providers lack the organizational capacity to work in small communities with limited means of system support. Whereas tradable sector activity is generally represented in communities of all sizes. After all, goods could readily be shipped to smaller communities via highways built in the 20th century, and digital retail takes advantage of these existing logistics now. In contrast, citizens of small communities have often traveled where knowledge providers gain sufficient income for working and living. For many, these long term commutes are less viable than before. We need to organize applied knowledge so that it functions more like our tradable sector activity, in terms of creating economic access wherever people live - not just for lifestyles in prosperous areas. Ultimately, what is really at stake, is ensuring the vast majority of citizens are able to assume meaningful roles in a 21st century knowledge based economy.
Applied Knowledge in a Tangible Context
Organizational capacity for applied knowledge in many workplaces, is not readily understood by outside observers. However, this lack of clarity has other negative effects as well. Indeed, the blurring of applied knowledge functions can lead to poor price signals in skilled services generation. For that matter, the confusion of intangible product has likely contributed to wide variance in income levels. In an essay for The Library of Economics and Liberty, Arnold Kling notes that "The fact that intangible investment leads to very divergent outcomes can help to explain rising inequality".
A major part of knowledge preservation, includes the extent to which we clarify its use in a more tangible context. Granted, hierarchical organizational capacity is not always able to frame human capital on tangible terms, since personal efforts are often given over to categories which are themselves quite separate from final product. However, when knowledge can be more closely applied between individuals and small groups, their matched time becomes final product in local services generation. Hence it become feasible to define not only how individuals make economic use of their time, but also how they apply knowledge and skill in time based settings.
In time arbitrage, knowledge and time combine to create final product, as groups tally the hours of their participants in a wide range of diverse activities. Since time commitments are price signals for mutual arrangements, services activities are clarified in a local supply and demand framework. Sharing these recorded results with the community as a whole, makes it simpler for participants to determine how supply and demand for services can be locally managed and also accounted for in educational decisions.
Time arbitrage can create a tangible approach for managing time value, one which also provides clear context for discerning productivity gains over time. When time value serves as an economic unit, not only does it function as a price point, it also measures cumulative gains in skill and applied knowledge as a recognizable continuum. As these recorded activities become part of GDP activity (representing both time and monetary measure), they create a story line in terms of the services which are recorded and measured.
Integrating Intellectual Challenges with Daily Obligations
While there are many reasons to build new communities via knowledge use systems, personal and intellectual challenges would be important components of such enterprises. Those who participate would not only contribute to a continuum for intellectual endeavour, they would be able to do so via face to face interaction. This is an incredible opportunity, given the fact so much interaction for applied knowledge along these lines has been increasingly limited to business or college campuses. Knowledge use systems in new communities might also contribute to lifetime friendships among those with common interests. Best, these workplace friendships would become a part of life for average citizens in average communities.
Nevertheless, what makes such a time coordination mechanism feasible, is that intellectual challenges in these settings would be shared with tasks more routine in nature. Childcare is a good example, since it has proven to be one of the most difficult forms of time based services coordination of the 21st century. By way of example, families could coordinate routine domestic responsibilities with families that hold larger bonds in shared intellectual interests.
These are ways to envision how the sharing of a full range of high and low skills could be coordinated among participating groups. Shared interests in workplace activity could also generate stronger levels of common trust. Alas, sometimes even more so than neighbors whom one only shares the proximity of real estate ownership or rental as the only common bond. Often, such neighbors are essentially strangers to one another over the course of long periods.
Physical proximity would be a tremendous aid for communities which adapt the time arbitrage patterns of knowledge use systems. The commuting needs of such groups would be minimal, in contrast with those of cities where services coordination is impacted by the spread out nature of automobile defined landscaping. Walkable community core could prove a real time saver, for those who wish to generate a wide range of one on one activities with others during the course of a day, month or year.
Stair Step Processes for Incremental Ownership
Just as the building components of our environments (and related infrastructure) could gain from simpler ownership methods, so too the ways by which we utilize knowledge in our lives. In particular, stair step processes for incremental ownership, would make it feasible to gradually assume ownership for not only the buildings in which we live and work, but also the ways we invest in human capital. Best, there would be little need to assume debt in most cases, for these patterns of incremental gain. For that matter, ownership possibilities which don't require debt to assume, are among the most important economic options for anyone with limited resource capacity.
Presently however, debt remains the standard response to outsized expectations regarding "normal" lifestyles - regardless of income. Alas, the regulatory constraints of lifestyle illusion have made ownership of our environments and workplace interactions far too complicated. It is these complications which make present day methods for applied knowledge, exceedingly fragile. Restrictive rules consequently limit the extent of applied knowledge across entire economies, especially at lower income levels.
Settings for incremental ownership would not only promote greater economic inclusion, they would do so in ways which help stabilize and spread the use of knowledge in society. Stair step processes for learning and education in particular, would make it far simpler for participating groups to share the commitments and responsibilities of improving human capital and skills potential. What's more, these learning methods would serve as a simpler peer to peer transmission for lifetime learning, as well.
Experiential Knowledge as Dialogue for Average Citizens
One possible reason why so much political dialogue feels painful, could have to do with how many of us are educated while still quite young. Formal school settings have become notorious as ideological battlegrounds, where students are exposed to local struggles as to what "should" be taught, and how.
But why should students invariably be expected to buy into the viewpoints of others, before learning to think for themselves? Why not provide more learning opportunities for students which allow them to make up their own minds and explore their own perceptions regarding subject material? If our personal reactions and natural questioning processes were part of learning at the outset, not only would we become better positioned for logic and reasoning, we could also commit far more material to long term memory. Best, we likely would be less inclined to view life according to the opinions of specific tribes.
As things currently stand, having too few opportunities for engaging in spirited dialogue with others while we are young, is a loss for us and for others as well. If formal education was supposed to be about turning us into "good" citizens, one might suggest it has failed!
Why haven't our formal learning experiences been more dynamic? Part of the problem is the fact that education for the masses was always a compromise, in contrast with what was feasible for tutored students. Students in classrooms are less likely to gain from interactive learning experiences, especially those where applied logic further contributes to long term memory.
Incremental ownership processes for applied knowledge, makes it feasible for peers to generate subject dialogue which closely resembles the classic tutoring experience. New learning communities would assist students from a young age in choosing to choose their agendas and utilizing a wider range of original material sources. While adults would help set these learning cycles into motion, the primary responsibility would generally be carried by young students who learn to alternate tutor roles, once they become sufficiently acquainted with the material at hand. By fully engaging students in learning processes, one hopes that knowledge might become more useful not only in a practical sense, but especially at experiential levels which invite students to return time and again.
Some Limits of Knowledge Specialization
Society's more pressing problems seldom present themselves in specialized form, despite the fact so much knowledge is retained in highly specialized siloes. For instance, as Timothy Taylor mused, it's no simple matter to bring together groups of specialists to take on interdisciplinary issues together. Decades earlier, Buckminster Fuller often stressed the need for society to be more supportive of generalists as well.
Nevertheless, sometimes those boundaries are successfully crossed for problem solving. By way of example, when the cost of EpiPens in the U.S. went from $13 to $750, a tech anarchist group named the "Four Thieves Vinegar Collective" decided to post the directions for the chemical formula, so that customers could manufacture their own Daraprim - an EpiPen product - for a mere fraction of what had been the original cost. Of the group members, even though Michael Laufer was never medically trained, he had spent considerable time working out the formulas for pharmaceuticals which were normally priced well out of reach of the average patient.
Part of the problem with knowledge specialization, is that when some market avenues are discouraged, it becomes difficult to discern what supply and demand in these markets actually consists of. This is particularly true for healthcare, as various healthcare options are routinely downplayed or discouraged. While some of this may be warranted, in many instances one hardly knows for certain, the extent to whether products are safe or harmful Especially when safety concerns are put forth in in ways which altogether discourage healthcare markets for low income consumers.
Knowledge protection never should have become so extensive, that it disallows markets from reflecting a full array of of wants and needs. For the most part, we could all be more careful before we label someone or something as a fraud. Plus, when purported "right" sets of information are ultimately proven wrong, judgment cycles only intensify. It is possible to proceed with an open mind regarding services and products which reflect knowledge diversity. Perhaps in the near future, society will move away from the intense judgments which so contribute to polarization and divisiveness. As people of all ages and all walks of life continue in their efforts to assist others, healthcare options can hopefully become a part of these processes as well.
Production Rights Matter
Production rights are important for many reasons. If our life trajectories weren't so dependent on the need for expensive college degrees, more skills could readily be utilized in today's workplaces, and independent learners without college degrees might find more success with their offers to society of assistance and ideas. Reaching out to others on meaningful terms, should not depend on whether or not one happens to be born into the "right" families or have extensive resources at their disposal.
More than ever, production rights involve more complex forms of knowledge and information than was the case even decades earlier. Without practical means to help ourselves via available knowledge and skill, how we expect to help others? It is quite a paradox, to have so much digital information at our fingertips, yet still lack an economic framing for putting it to good use.
Even though I've often focused on regaining rights to assist others with health concerns, there are many other important areas of opportunity for markets in applied knowledge as well. More recently, individuals have inexplicably struggled to retain the right to repair things which they already own and perhaps regularly use in their work. For that matter, the difficulty car owners now face in repairing their own vehicles, has considerable bearing as to why it is more difficult for lower income levels to commute from long distances.
Production rights are most important, because they give us a chance to retain control over our lives. When we can successfully manage what transpires in our own environments, we remain healthier for being able to do so, and others around us remain healthier and happier as a result. Perhaps it is not emphasized enough, the extent to which technology in general needs to make our lives simpler for our health's sake, where it is in fact feasible to do so.
Research Considerations in Knowledge Preservation
Another important aspect of knowledge continuum, is that funding sources have become more precarious for research in general. Even successful research often includes costs which make it difficult for the providers to sharing the results with taxpayers. Despite taxpayer support for research as a national objective, the costs of present day organizational patterns have grown too extensive. In the future, time arbitrage could hopefully be able to alleviate research costs by creating settings which do not fact these same overhead costs.
Meanwhile, however, research costs contribute to extensive costs for human capital investment, which in turn means fragility in this particular knowledge continuum. For instance, according to Raghuveer Parthasarathy:
The median ecologist who started their career in 1970 could expect good odds of still being an ecologist 30 years later; by 1990 that lifetime had collapsed to less than 20 years, and for the 2010 cohort five years. The trends are similar for other fields. The data not only support what we'd guess by anecdote, the precariousness of jobs in science or the lack of post-student positions, is remarkable.Two studies in particular stand out for what they've highlighted in this regard. Even though small research groups are most responsible for innovative results, their financial support is more random and precarious than the financial support of larger groups. Further, despite the numbers being trained in science, it's the ones which contribute the most to small groups, which have been compelled to seek work elsewhere.
Some Musings on Knowledge as Concept
Often, my use of the word "knowledge" is simply as a shorthand term for experiencing the world, and responding to it in kind. Yet knowledge also applies to what societies perceive to be necessary in any given moment in time, to effectively get things done. Since our "how to" manuals and other agendas are constantly changing, information perceived as necessary in one generation, or sometimes even a few years, can already appear as though obsolete.
But how does one know for sure, when so often aspects of knowledge and information just fall out of favor? An interconnected digital world, means that many complex and global knowledge processes have moved beyond the traditional patterns of human capital investment which evolved in the last century. Granted, preserving global digital communication is a major aspect of knowledge continuum in its own right, and much of what has been suggested in this book, proceeds with the hope this in fact will continue as before.
Nevertheless, knowledge as wealth is scarcely yet on the horizon, for the vast majority of those who would like to participate more fully in the dialogue that really matters. If we are to find real success with a knowledge based economy, we will need to get beyond the current fears which are paralyzing nations, regarding how knowledge as prosperity is shared by citizens everywhere.
As to what could be accomplished: Knowledge might finally be freed from protected siloes, to recreate a more prosperous world in the 21st century. Plus, the digital realm needs to reinforce what we can bring to one another, once again in face to face settings, so our relationships might finally regain the normalcy of days when we lived our lives in closer proximity to each other. After all, the knowledge that matters most for humanity, is that which allows us to make the most of our time in connection with others.
Notes
Knowledge Preservation Has Often Been a Fragile Process
Grace, Katja, 'Why everything might have taken so long', Meteuphoric, 31 December 2017.
The Need to Restore Generational Knowledge Transfer
'An epidemic of loneliness', The Week, 6 January 2019.
Applied Knowledge in a Tangible Context (check for correct sub heading position)
Kling, Arnold, 'Economics When Value is Intangible', The Library of Economics and Liberty, 1 January 2018.
Some Limits of Knowledge Specialization
Taylor, Timothy, 'The Need for Generalists',The Conversable Economist, 26 July, 2018.
Fuller, R. Buckminster, Critical Path, (New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1981)
Oberhaus, Daniel, 'Meet the Anarchists Making Their Own Medicine', Motherboard, 26 July, 2018.
Production Rights Matter
Gault, Matthew, 'Massachusetts Senate Passes Resolution to Do In-Depth Study on Right-To-Repair', Motherboard, 26 July, 2018.
Research Considerations in Knowledge Preservation
"Science, Small Groups, and Stochasticity", Raghuveer Parthasarathy of "The Eighteenth Elephant", March 14, 2019.
