Atanu Dey On India's Development

  • nilesh

    Information + Experience = Knowledge

  • Chanakya

    You are perhaps correct if one is a semantic stickler. But the entirety of the message is in no way distorted through the imprecise use, no? Wikipedia is a truly wonderful and precious repository of information that could be access for free- affording one the luxury to acquire knowledge for free.

    A clarification please, if relevant. You mention in the linked-to blog post that information is a public good while knowledge is a private good. But the information does not sit in wikipedia in isolation or for free – it is hosted on a farm of servers and can be accessed (and hence “exists”) only through network infrastructure that is not free. How is this characterization – that of information available on servers that requires (your) resources to access – fundamentally different from the information being lodged in the brain – knowledge, as you put it being a private good?

    Is the distinction that the knowledge in your brain is yours to keep/share as you choose while the wiki information is available for all and sundry? If so, one can question the “all and sundry”. There are limits on practical consumption if there are acute bandwidth constraints. And many parts of the world, poor Africa stands out, could be dark to the internet not even affording much of their citizenry access to the information, thereby making it private for all practical purposes.

    Even if we delink wikipedia and the net as the repository of information, the information needs to be recorded somewhere and that place, best that I can tell, could entail costs and privileges to access.

    Is there an absoluteness to public/private or is it defined relative to the context?

    Now I could have tried to look my answers up on wikipedia, but it is self-censored :) On a serious note, I have habitually clicked on wikipedia links through search etc. three times in the course of a day, in spite of being aware of the black out. A deep bow of respect for this amazing project. Thanks.

  • http://www.prativad.com Noori Khan

    information age……….