To contribute to my spam score, I'll try again to suss out what is meant by owning the means of production. Here it is again:
The collapse of the information ecosystem poses profound risks for humanity https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/19/the-collapse-of-the-information-ecosystem-poses-profound-risks-for-humanity
William Randolph Hearst owned the means of production and was free to publish made up stories to sell papers and stoke the Spanish-American war. Today, everyone is free to be their own propagandist.
Is this a proper use of the concept of "ownership of the means of production"? I know I'm simple-minded. But while it's clear to me what it means to own, say, a screwdriver, it's not at all clear to me what it means to *own* the process/tools by which one produces propaganda. It reminds me of being "owned" (or "pwned") in some trashtalk context like before a boxing match or an argument on 4chan. It's a stretched, poetically licensed, sense of ownership and actually means domination or humiliation, not at all like owning a hammer or printing press. But this concept of pwning does seem closer to the sense I was getting from both Marcus' and Steve's explanations, that seemed to target exploitation, asymmetric power, or some sort of inappropriate hoarding or market monopoly. If so, I would maintain my skepticism that using the words "ownership" and "production" is *conflating* things that could be better analyzed in another way. I just don't know what way that is. But thanks to y'all for changing my mind. The phrase no longer irritates me now that I have a sense that those using it are simply trying to describe something they are ill-equipped to describe. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
