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Sci-Hub as necessary, effective civil disobedience

bjoern.brembs.net

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Re: Sci-Hub as necessary, effective civil disobedience

#11

Post by khedoros »

msvan wrote: post #5

Civil disobedience is an important form of democracy. Maybe in the future, when all of our calls, messages and identities are monitored in full by our benevolent overlords, we won't be able to practice it anymore. Right or wrong, faraway anti-Western countries have served as counterweights against the West for Snowden, Assange and Elbakyan.

> Maybe [...] we won't be able to practice it anymore.

Do you mean by suppressing the action before it occurs? I thought that one of the points of civil disobedience was to get caught, so as to increase visibility of the problem and become a catalyst for change.

Re: Sci-Hub as necessary, effective civil disobedience

#12

Post by bcook »

ska wrote: post #7
bcook wrote: post #6

I am poor, which I use as my primary excuse to pirate software, movies, books, etc. To those who are not financially struggling: Why do you pirate? What is your moral justification?

The issues surrounding scientific publication are much more nuanced than that. Did you read the article?

I did, but with so few comments I thought I would pose a question directly related to piracy, rather than the precise topic in the article.

Re: Sci-Hub as necessary, effective civil disobedience

#13

Post by jacobolus »

bcook wrote: post #6

I am poor, which I use as my primary excuse to pirate software, movies, books, etc. To those who are not financially struggling: Why do you pirate? What is your moral justification?

If you aren’t affiliated with a university, scientific papers cost something like $30/each to read.

If papers can be accessed for free, then the only expense required to follow cutting edge science is time, and everyone with an internet connection can join in. At $30/paper, suddenly only the rich (or those with rich patrons, such as tenured professors at rich universities) can afford to play.

Researching a topic, it’s easy to skim 100 papers in a couple days, trying to figure out which ones are relevant and which ones aren’t. Paying $3000 just to sort through and find the 5 out of 100 papers which bear closer scrutiny is very expensive, even for someone who isn’t “financially struggling”. (No, the abstracts alone aren’t sufficient for this.)

And it’s not clear that the money is going anywhere useful. The scientists who wrote the papers never make a profit: all the money goes to a couple of rich corporations, who will use the money to further impede scientific progress.

Re: Sci-Hub as necessary, effective civil disobedience

#14

Post by msvan »

khedoros wrote: post #11
msvan wrote: post #5

Civil disobedience is an important form of democracy. Maybe in the future, when all of our calls, messages and identities are monitored in full by our benevolent overlords, we won't be able to practice it anymore. Right or wrong, faraway anti-Western countries have served as counterweights against the West for Snowden, Assange and Elbakyan.

> Maybe [...] we won't be able to practice it anymore. Do you mean by suppressing the action before it occurs? I thought that one of the points of civil disobedience was to get caught, so as to increase visibility of the problem and become a catalyst for change.

I do mean suppressing ideas before they take root. I don't think getting caught is a necessary part of it.

The most worrisome example of today is China, which has an iron grip on the spread of ideas within the country. If China deemed Sci-Hub to be an issue, they would shut it down (via DNS poisoning) and incarcerate anybody who spoke in its favor.

Re: Sci-Hub as necessary, effective civil disobedience

#15

Post by j-pb »

bcook wrote: post #12
ska wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issues surrounding scientific publication are much more nuanced than that. Did you read the article?

I did, but with so few comments I thought I would pose a question directly related to piracy, rather than the precise topic in the article.

Torrenting movie is piracy, this is making something accessible to the public that has been paid for by said public to begin with.

Publishers are the ones doing the stealing (yes stealing not piracy, because piracy at least leaves the original accessible).

Re: Sci-Hub as necessary, effective civil disobedience

#16

Post by kinghajj »

bcook wrote: post #6

I am poor, which I use as my primary excuse to pirate software, movies, books, etc. To those who are not financially struggling: Why do you pirate? What is your moral justification?

Fundamentally, I take an economic perspective: the supply of any piece information is now effectively unbounded, so the price trend sharply to zero. That it hasn't is due to artificial market manipulations, which don't concern me.

Re: Sci-Hub as necessary, effective civil disobedience

#17

Post by return0 »

I've said in a previous comment, sci-hub is pure civil disobedience of the noble kind. In fact i thought it would be impossible to ever sue her, because there is no moral argument that can outweigh what she offers. I use sci-hub all the time because my institution doesn't have access to all the sci journals, and i want access to ALL the knowledge for which millions of taxpayers have paid for (but they don't know where that knowledge ends up). Its the perfect complement to open access journals, for the (i believe) transitory period until we do away with impact factors and citation factories for good, like we did away with alchemy and phrenology.

I hope this increased publicity won't lead to shutting down the site or freeze its paypal account.

Re: Sci-Hub as necessary, effective civil disobedience

#18

Post by saidajigumi »

jacobolus wrote: post #13
bcook wrote: post #6

I am poor, which I use as my primary excuse to pirate software, movies, books, etc. To those who are not financially struggling: Why do you pirate? What is your moral justification?

If you aren’t affiliated with a university, scientific papers cost something like $30/each to read. If papers can be accessed for free, then the only expense required to follow cutting edge science is time, and everyone with an internet connection can join in. At $30/paper, suddenly only the rich (or those with rich patrons, such as tenured professors at rich universities) can afford to play. Researching a topic, it’…

Researching a topic, it’s easy to skim 100 papers in a couple days

This, a thousand times. Compounded with the problems of research quality and legitimacy that this essay highlights, it's even worse than looking for mere "relevance". Many published papers are outright dross, serving as filler that further increases the power of a $30-$45/paper paywall.

Re: Sci-Hub as necessary, effective civil disobedience

#20

Post by throwaway2048 »

msvan wrote: post #14
khedoros wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe [...] we won't be able to practice it anymore. Do you mean by suppressing the action before it occurs? I thought that one of the points of civil disobedience was to get caught, so as to increase visibility of the problem and become a catalyst for change.

I do mean suppressing ideas before they take root. I don't think getting caught is a necessary part of it. The most worrisome example of today is China, which has an iron grip on the spread of ideas within the country. If China deemed Sci-Hub to be an issue, they would shut it down (via DNS poisoning) and incarcerate anybody who spoke in its favor.

not to mention silencing any mention of it
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