There’s a basic premise in our ethnically european society that money rewards the skilled and talented. The notion is that such people when they are young will find scholarships if they need them to get through college, that they will be sought after and valued by commercial businesses - that those businesses will see the talent in these new hires, that they will give these people the parameters they need in order to do great work, and that they will apprentice them, and generally help them along the way until like fruit trees, these folks mature until they produce basketfulls of good stuff on a continuous basis.

This is a fairy tale, really. This narrative is as foolish as if people would say that anytime you stumble across a body of water, that you have something to drink. In reality more often than not, that water will be too salty, or it will be pondwater, or it will be otherwise undrinkable without purification. The fact is, that 99 out of a 100 companies are managed by folks with very poor judgement when it comes to knowing how to look for talent, and nurse it along, and give folks like that the parameters they need to do excellent work. Invariably, if a person working in an office offers suggestions as to how things could be done better, he will be rebuffed briskly by the manager who doesn’t take kindly to people showing him his own mistakes.

Thus people who have a lot of potential skills, and a yearning to use these skills, have to do the best they can on their own to first teach themselves… and then next to get their work out into the community where others can benefit from it. That person has to finagle himself or herself a way to take care of daily expenses, so that he has time to work on developing these skills, and then also time to use them. He learns that it is often most practical to separate the agendas of (1)pulling in a monetary income, and (2) using his most profoundly important skills to benefit his society.

So, we see that the internet is where all the best music, and film, and literature and software is to be found; most often this is material produced and given away for free to those who are web-savvy enough to know how to mine for this gold out of the mountains of trash which is also out on the net. The personal computer and the internet have given those with the skills and the aptitude all the tools they need to produce their work. Their tools are nearly always also free of charge. And this, I think, explains the hopes and aspirations of the open source software movement, the creative commons movement, and other similar initiatives. There is much to be done in our world to better it… but much of it needs to be done by those who are very poor.