Vena grins. "What an exquisite sentiment, one I wholeheartedly share. Knowledge is like power, its value directly proportional to its rarity. Of course knowledge should never be lost or destroyed entirely, but I have heard it argued that we should freely distribute knowledge, regardless of its secret or dangerous nature, among the common citizens. An idea that is not only irresponsible, but almost perverse, and would surely lead to anarchy."
"Cider wouldn’t be too bad, I rather enjoy it, the non-Hesperidean variety of course; I have yet to taste the wonder that is the juice distilled from the golden apples. Of course there is another option all together; simple water. There is plenty of fresh, crystal clear water in the Neath untouched by salt or waste. It’s an refreshing experience every now and then."[/quote]
"One day, they will grow tea in the 'Neath, and this entire conversation will be moot. As it stands, the stuff they bring in from the surface is always bitter and stale." The woman sighed, and swayed slightly from side to side.
"To the other note, I’m not sure I agree with an enforced limitation to knowledge - if one doesn’t want a secret to make the rounds, it should not have been committed to paper, and those who kill themselves with dangerous knowledge remove themselves from the equation once they are done. At any rate, there is a better ways to control knowledge than to lock it away like a fairy tale princess (which will surely encourage foolhardy princes to free them), and that is to control the way it is learned - that is the reason the Church was so powerful Above: in dictating the morals of the people, they set the foundation of though, those thoughts begat philosophy, which begat law, which controlled the accumulation and spread of further knowledge (and wealth, bought with those same morals, controlled that which remained). To be sure, they used censorship as a tool, but their greatest success was to lead people into censoring themselves for fear of greater harm or greatest reward. They met the thirsty horse at water’s edge and convinced it to NOT drink, but they did not drain the lake."
"If that was too rambling, consider this - if Knowledge is Power, it does not follow that the power belongs to the person with the knowledge, but rather exists as power OVER them."