Comments on: Does the clothesline paradox apply to IT?

By: longtooth

longtooth — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 07:52:31 +0000

It seems to me that the assertion that a “key differece” exists is false. I’m referring to:

“There is a key difference between using the sun and using open source software, however. Nobody has to invest in the sun in order to keep the light coming. Not so for some digital dark matter. Fail to invest, and stuff will not arise.”

The assertion rests on the assumption that applied human effort is an investment which will not just “keep coming”. On the contrary, it is in fact the nature of human beings that they will apply effort to satisfy an internal need or desire… if you want to call it a form of altruism, that’s fine, but no matter the reason(s) it is clear that persons apply effort whether or not it serves their own pecuniary interests. Fixing a bug in open source code is often just a matter of self challenge or skills competing for bragging rights … who’s solution is the “best”.

In other words the effort in open source software development and advances will just keep coming… just as women will continue to bare children, do housework, etc. without direct remuneration. Is it “free” though? In the vast majority of cases there’s a quid-pro-quo involved… one member does things for “free” while the other member provides some form of support… a symbiotic relationship is created and “will just continue”.. the history of humans attests to this fact without argument.

By: Kaleberg

Kaleberg — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 02:41:16 +0000

Feminists have been arguing this for years. Just because women don’t get paid for bearing and raising children, cooking food, doing housework and so on, doesn’t mean that their contribution to society is zero as the typical economist would argue.

By: Matt Clements

Matt Clements — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 12:31:58 +0000

I wonder why it’s called the clothesline “paradox.” (And Shane, I realize that the terminology wasn’t your choice.) Wouldn’t that mean that it involves an apparent contradiction? It’s just a problem, really, with concrete foundations and implications. Referring to it as a paradox seems to be an attempt to turn it into a philosophical issue on par with Schrodinger’s Cat. In the latter case, the interesting debate is over how to resolve the logical issues. For the clothesline example, the interesting issue is how to deal with it, not how to understand the problem itself.