Mark Gardner
@phoenixtrap.com
18 followers 2 following 249 posts
Pedantry in public is my brand. I write about systems — technical and human. Building high-signal spaces for #philosophy, #infrastructure, and crative rigor […] 🌉 bridged from ⁂ mastodon.phoenixtrap.com/@mjg, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact
![“There is no essential difference between a broadcast and a concert: the former merely transmits sounds over a longer distance and requires more complex technical equipment. No one would venture to claim that a pianist may own his fingers and his piano, but the space inside the concert hall—through which the sound waves he produces travel—is ‘public property’ and, therefore, he has no right to give a concert without a license from the government. Yet this is the absurdity foisted on our broadcasting industry.
“The chief argument in support of the notion that broadcasting frequencies should be ‘public property’ has been stated succinctly by Justice Frankfurter: ‘[Radio] facilities are limited; they are not available to all who may wish to use them; the radio spectrum simply is not large enough to accommodate everybody. There is a fixed natural limitation upon the number of stations that can operate without interfering with one another.’
“The fallacy of this argument is obvious. The number of broadcasting frequencies is limited; so is the number of concert halls; so is the amount of oil or wheat or diamonds; so is the acreage of land on the surface of the globe. There is no material element or value that exists in unlimited quantity. And if a ‘wish’ to use a certain ‘facility’ is the criterion of the right to use it, then the universe is simply not large enough to accommodate all those who harbor wishes for the unearned.”
—Ayn Rand, “The Property Status of Airwaves” (1964)](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:plhcsgxymg2xyzib3rejnckj/bafkreiakj3jye5tijc554c2d47nmrx7mq7hmelwlajlatz44cxccxr2ede)
