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Comment by duneisagoodbook | Hacker News Reader

it's possible! encouraging people to go to the library is a net good on society.

It's insane to me anyone would downvote this comment (edit: or flag my disbelief for being somehow irrelevant to conversation). The public library system is quite possibly the best thing this country has ever invented.

The library system and national parks are both absolute bangers.

I don't see a societal benefit in people borrowing video games and watching DVDs that aren't educational. At least non educational books might expect the reader to expand their minds, and to a lesser extent movies.

But the majority of video games and movies being produced are empty wastes of time. It seems to me loaning those items is just an attempt to stay relevant lest libraries become vacant and useless. What other value is there in loaning out PlayStation games?

Because like books, games, films, TV, etc. are culture and everyone should have the opportunity to experience culture no matter what.

Trying to limit libraries to "educational" content is preposterous.

Off the top of my head, it seems like a great way to give access to content (games, movies, etc) to those that may have been able to afford it on their own. It may not have a ton of educational value, but some mindless entertainment goes a long way towards happiness sometimes. A happy citizenry is probably a societal benefit.

We don't need libraries for that tough, only more equitable laws that do not put the profits of hollywood and similar groups before society at large.

"I don't see a societal benefit in people borrowing video games and watching DVDs that aren't educational." "loaning those items is just an attempt to stay relevant lest libraries become vacant and useless." you have answered your own question.

Without video games exposure as a youth I’d likely be an unemployed failure. It stoked an interest that has since sustained a twenty plus year career. Piracy gained me that access back then, glad to hear it’s now more easily available to fuel the passion of a new generation.

> The public library system is quite possibly the best thing this country has ever invented.

If you are writing from Egypt I think you have a strong case

It is true that there have been some level of public libraries available throughout history. I am referring to the wide availability of public access that effectively democratized literacy (in concert with the public school system, of course).

There are people here (venture crapitalists) that would love to disassemble all public libraries for something much more horrible.

It was likely one them, or their lackeys, that -1'ed you.

The problem with the statement is it's naive insistence that i live in op's world. It's the inane insistence that we dont live in the third largest country and the insistence that everything has been homogenized and is one simple vanilla flavor.

Frankly at this point it's just virtue signaling on the order of "I'm not a raging consumerist like you, I use a public good instead." The demand to be thanked, and the refusal to be criticized are part-and-parcel of the virtue signal.

This country?

We should not accept this at the end goal though. Libraries were needed when there were physical things you had to store that were impractical to have in every home and could only be duplicated with significan effort and cost.

In the digital age it's absurd to say that we should have to rely on public libraries to access our culture when we have the means for everyone to have their own personal library in their pocket.

It doesn't help that libraries that do carry digital content have fully embraced DRM, thus giving a pretense of legitimacy to anti-user technologies and absurd laws that give them teeth and thereby weakening attempts to correct problem.

> have the means for everyone to have their own personal library in their pocket.

and how do you intend to implement public iPhones and connectivity for the homeless?

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