I can't really see piracy as being a morally defensible act. If you want to disrupt the distribution of content, stop buying it, but don't start pirating it. Instead, write to content creators explaining why you don't want to buy their content despite thinking that they are talented etc. Buy content from people willing to take risks with newer distribution models. Go to shows, readings, etc. No one benefits from you pirating content except for you.

I suppose in many ways this is a bit of an empty article. The author really just seems to be saying that dressing up gets people to respect you more, which seems pretty common-sensical. That said, I did find his exploration as to why academics dressed so 'frumpily' to be an interesting one.

Secondly, I think an argument can be made that an over-abundance of information can actually make knowing certain things more obscure. If there's just one piece of information about something, it's pretty easy to pass that information around. But if there are whole books about it, dissemination can become difficult, and soon only certain people will know all of the bits of information. So I don't think that having more information available necessarily means that it will all be known by more people.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I think the argument that knowledge somehow impedes imagination is deeply flawed. I think it is quite similar to arguments that occur about literary theory 'ruining' one's ability to pursue 'authentic' interpretations of a work. Conversely, I think that having access to others' interpretations can help you shape your own (not to get into the highly problematic notion of an 'authentic' interpretation). Similarly, think that just because you know about how something works does not prevent you from imagining it. In fact, when you learn about how something works, you do imagine it. Think about learning about optics in your high school physics class. As you looked at ray diagrams, weren't you imagining rays of light going through glass and onto dots of paper? Or electrons moving from and to protons in pith ball demonstrations? Now, perhaps the things you are imagining are different from what you would have imagined if someone asked you point-blank, "How do you think pith balls work?", but there imagination is still very much front and centre here. You've just made your imaginings more informed than they otherwise would have been.