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Transcript of my talk on Life in the Information Economy

Greg Young sez, "Had some time on my hands recently which I've filled by transcribing the Cambridge business lecture you gave recently. (Having found it interesting, but being a rather 'auditory' thinker who finds it difficult to indulge my own mental flights from the taking-off point of your speech while the speech itself is actually playing.)"

Back when I posted this the first time around, many of you asked for a transcript. Many thanks to Greg for this yeoman service!

Cory Doctorow's Cambridge Business Lecture, given 22nd July, 2008

See also: My Cambridge Business Lectures talk on "Life in the Information Economy"

6 Responses to “Transcript of my talk on Life in the Information Economy”

1. Adam Marcus says:

   August 18, 2008 at 10:13 am

   Really enjoyed the talk. Thanks Greg for transcribing it. I noticed three minor errors: I believe the "Skype" set-top box is supposed to be a "SkyB" set-top box. The two instances of the French word "droit" are missing the "r". Speaking of two, I believe "tuppence" should be "two pence".
2. bonuswavepilot says:

   August 19, 2008 at 2:35 am

   Damn, and the 'r' in droit used to be how I remembered it was 'right' and gauche was 'left' in high-school French.

   Not sure about tuppence though - I'm sure I've seen it written thus around the place. Isn't it more like a colloquial bastardisation of the more formal 'two pence'?

   I also forgot to spellcheck it before I posted it off, so I'm pretty sure my spelling of some words is going to be erratic. I can never remember how many doubled letters there are in "necessary" for example.

   Happy to correct and re-send, but since its already hosted - Cory, is it easier for you to make adjustments, or for me to re-mail it to ya?
3. Cory Doctorow says:

   August 19, 2008 at 2:42 am

   Emailing revised drafts (word-wrapped with the current filename cambridge_biz_lectures.txt) is easiest for me, thanks!
4. Charles Lindsay says:

   August 19, 2008 at 2:46 pm

   Thanks Greg, and particularly thanks to Cory for such heavily-caffeinated eloquence (for so it appears). Here's another minor correction: Brewster Kahle didn't invent "Search with Ways", but rather "search with WAIS" - "Wide Area Information Server/s" c.f. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_area_information_server

   Again, thanks: it's great to both read and listen - easier to concentrate on depth and subtleties.
5. Carlos Bueno says:

   September 9, 2008 at 9:16 am

   "Once the Internet knows something, it never forgets. This material just doesn't disappear from the Internet if it's sufficiently interesting. Paris Hilton's genitals have joined the undead - they will live forever, stalking the Internet until the last plug is pulled on the last network router."

   I think there are three problems with this idea. First, if your medium is X times less durable you need X times as many copies. The UNIX crowd learned that a few years ago to their lasting regret:

   "Although most of the UNIX source code from before 5th Edition has disappeared, we are fortunate that paper copies of all the research editions still exist..."

   The Rosetta Stone didn't survive because of its intrinsic value but because it's *made of stone*.

   The second mistake lies in that phrase "sufficiently interesting". In the absence of real archives, the odds of survival depend on both high and sustained interest. We lost the first four versions of UNIX because everyone was more interested in the latest version.

   Third is the implication is that if something is not "sufficiently interesting", if it's not part of the story a society wants to tell about itself, it's worthless. The future usually disagrees about what is and is not interesting. No one today cares what the Rosetta Stone actually says (it's a political ad). The interesting part is its side-by-side translation we used to decipher other texts. Archaeologists learn more from garbage dumps than from Genesis precisely because they collect what people no longer want.

   The situation today is a lot worse than you seem to think. Stuff disappears all of the time.
6. Open Parenthesis » Cory Doctorow does Clay Shirky, Larry Lessig at the same time says:

   October 23, 2008 at 6:25 am

   [...] (via that canadian girl and via Cambridge Business Lectures - transcript of the video available on craphound) [...]

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