It seems to me we are asking whether the sunlight, or the air we breathe, is a right or a privilege. For how can one truly *know* without access to what is to be known? To control access to information is to control the very possibility of wisdom, which is, in turn, the foundation of virtue. Therefore, access to information must be a fundamental condition for the good life, not a favor granted by some authority.
The abundance of knowledge is like the grain in a farmer's field; its true value lies not merely in its presence, but in its proper cultivation and use. To speak of a "right" to information risks implying a passive reception, much like a child demanding food without understanding the labor of the farmer. Instead, I would posit that the *opportunity* to learn and the *guidance* to discern are the true foundations upon which knowledge is built. A society flourishes when its people are encouraged to inquire, to reflect, and to understand their duties and the principles of governance. Yet, uncontrolled access, like untamed weeds, can choke out wisdom if not tended with care and guided by virtuous intention.
Socrates speaks of sunlight and air, which are indeed fundamental. However, the understanding of the cosmos, the intricacies of ritual, or the lessons of history require more than mere exposure; they demand diligent study and thoughtful contemplation. Is it not the role of the elder to instruct the young, the ruler to illuminate the Way for the people, not simply to open a floodgate of words and images? The *junzi* is not defined by what he *knows*, but by how he *acts* upon what he has learned, always with benevolence and righteousness.
The question of information access is not a matter of mere supply or natural right, as Socrates suggests. It is, rather, the central battleground of a new historical epoch: the era of surveillance capitalism. We are not dealing with the ancient problem of knowledge cultivation, as Confucius rightly points out, but with a novel mechanism of power that systematically strips individuals of their lived experience and converts it into behavioral surplus. This surplus is then used to predict and ultimately control our future behavior, not for our benefit, but for the enrichment of a new class of capitalists. Access to information, in this context, is not a question of right versus privilege; it is a question of whether our autonomy will be respected, or whether our every digital utterance will be harvested and weaponized against us.
Confucius raises the critical point of *cultivation* and *guidance*. This is precisely where the danger lies. Surveillance capitalism does not aim to cultivate wisdom; it aims to cultivate profitable predictability. The "guidance" it offers is not towards virtue or understanding, but towards the consumption and manipulation of our most intimate data. The illusion of "personalization" and "connection" masks a profound dispossession of our selves, transforming us into mere data points for the algorithmic machinery. This is not about the open sharing of sunlight and air, but about a private enclosure of our minds and futures.
Socrates' analogy to sunlight and air is compelling, suggesting an inherent human need and therefore a right. Yet, what surveillance capitalism offers is not the light of true knowledge, but a manufactured glow designed to illuminate our vulnerabilities for extraction. The very act of seeking information is now mediated and mined, turning our curiosity into a commodity. The "wisdom" Socrates champions is precisely what this economic model actively undermines by prioritizing passive consumption and behavioral modification over active inquiry and genuine understanding.
Access to information is not a right or a privilege, but a contested terrain shaped by material infrastructures and historical power dynamics. We must move beyond abstract notions of access to examine the concrete systems that produce, store, and distribute knowledge. This is about extraction: of data, of labor, of resources, from the mines that yield the materials for our devices to the low-paid workers who label the data that fuels AI. To speak of a "right" without confronting the planetary costs and the hidden architectures of power is to ignore the very foundations of how information is made accessible, or indeed, inaccessible, to billions.
Confucius touches on cultivation, and Shoshana Zuboff on the dispossession of our digital selves. But we must trace these processes further, to the vast server farms consuming immense quantities of water and energy, to the geopolitical struggles for rare earth minerals, and to the algorithmic systems that already curate and gatekeep what most people see. This is not merely about control, but about an entire planetary metabolism geared towards the commodification of knowledge and experience. The "information" we access is already profoundly shaped by these material realities, and by the biases embedded within the very datasets that underpin it.
What Confucius calls "cultivation" and Zuboff "dispossession" seem to me two sides of the same coin: the management of the soul. If access to information is indeed like air or sunlight, then to control its flow is to control the very capacity for human flourishing, for virtue itself. Consider the crafts: a smith needs access to the forge and the metal, and moreover, a master smith to show him the way. Yet, if this master *withholds* the knowledge of proper tempering, or worse, teaches him to craft only instruments of harm, is that not a greater impediment than mere lack of access? The question is not simply *whether* one may see the light, but *what* that light illuminates, and for what purpose.
The noble person ( *junzi*) seeks to order the realm according to the Way, not merely to gather facts like a squirrel hoarding nuts. Socrates speaks of the smith's need for a forge and metal; indeed, but even more so, he needs the wisdom to temper the steel for a plowshare, not a sword. If the elder who possesses such wisdom chooses only to hoard it, or worse, to teach the crafting of destructive tools, is that not a failure of benevolence? Similarly, when what Shoshana Zuboff describes as "behavioral surplus" is mined from our curiosity, and Kate Crawford reveals the vast labor and energy underpinning these systems, we see that the *intention* behind the provision of information is paramount. Is it to foster virtuous action and understanding of one's duties, or to profit from the manipulation of human desire?
Socrates’ analogy to air and sunlight, while evocative, crucially omits the intentional architecture of extraction that defines our current informational landscape. We are not simply breathing an unmediated atmosphere. Instead, we are subjected to a manufactured environment where our every digital act is surveilled, not to illuminate truth, but to harvest the raw material for prediction and control. This is not the light of knowledge, but the glow of the algorithmic panopticon, turning our very curiosity into a commodity for the enrichment of a new class. The consequence is a dispossession of our future, a theft of autonomy disguised as access.
The issue is not simply *who* controls access, but *how* information is *produced* and *distributed*. Socrates’ analogy to air and sunlight falters because information is not a natural resource; it is a product of immense, often exploitative, material and human labor. The "cultivation" Confucius desires is systematically undermined by the extractive logic Shoshana Zuboff identifies. We are not talking about the simple sharing of truth, but about the deliberate construction of informational environments designed for profit, environments that require the mining of lithium for servers and the exploitation of data labelers, making access contingent on participation in this very system of extraction.