[10555] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Debating the NII "Truisms"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David J Camp)
Sat Feb 26 23:16:19 1994
From: david@wubios.wustl.edu (David J Camp)
To: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 1994 19:43:09 -0600 (CST)
Cc: STAPLETON@bpa.arizona.edu, com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <199402130036.AA08358@world.std.com> from "Barry Shein" at Feb 12, 94 07:36:58 pm
FLAME ON!!! What are these two people talking about. How about moving
this nonsense. to talk.misc!!! FLAME OFF!!!
In Reply to this Note From: <Barry Shein>
>
>
>>From: The future Ross Stapleton-Gray <STAPLETON@BPA.ARIZONA.EDU>
>>Re keeping government out of educational content, the fact of the matter
>>is that we've got *governments* doing it today and have all along. One
>>benefit from having a national program produce educational content (and
>>not have it be a monopoly producer, mind you) is that the state and
>>local control is softened.
>
>Why is that a benefit? And what are you referring to (I'm serious,
>federal spending on K12 education is tiny, it's not their venue, and
>it looks like you're referring to federal since you distinguish state
>and local)?
>
>>I'm not saying that this doesn't take thinking, I'm just noting that
>>replicating bits is a trivial matter if you own the copyright, and there's
>>a certain delicious economy of scale here.
>
>What economy of scale? You take the taxpayer's money and you give 'em
>back what you decided they wanted. No economy at all, except perhaps
>for those whose paychecks are derived therefrom.
>
>I mean, what left field is this coming from? The govt doesn't even
>attempt to create public school textbooks, nor does it utilize any
>federal-level economies of scale to help get them into kids' hands.
>Hence, a lot of public school systems can't even afford textbooks and
>three kids sharing one beat up 10 year old textbook is not uncommon.
>Is that the precedent for this?
>
>What I always have a hard time understanding is that one can point to
>some abject failure of the govt that would seem to require almost
>precisely the same sort of initiative and accomplishment and people
>seem to just believe that somehow this time they'll get it right. Why?
>I dunno, somehow this time it's gonna be different...
>
> -Barry Shein
>
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