To be clear Lizzie, my purpose in this challenge is not to demean Eben's life work, but to understand it as a (relatively) like-minded individual. As a materialist it is obvious to me what reducing the price of energy does for human economies. That effect is tangible, proven, and grounded in laws of the physical environment. When the marginal cost of producing energy is zero, poverty and strife will disappear and there will be no limit on what human societies can achieve.

At some level I still do not see that with the free software movement. I do not see how dropping more informational material on people creates fundamental change on its own. The most well-educated climate change deniers have plenty of access to information, but they simply use that information as a means to solidify their own self-interested belief system. The most well-educated CEO of a commercial bank also has plenty of access to information, but simply uses that information to structure his learning process around the financial goals of his organization - and no amount of education about the structure of a credit default swap will make it any more ethical or socially valuable. So long as there remains a dominant economic order that fails to marry economic activity with use value, more information will merely augment the superstructure of an unjust system.