From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sat Nov 16 2002 - 04:56:05 MST
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>>(Samantha Atkins <samantha@objectent.com>):
>>
>>But what the heck is "work" when increasingly large groups of people
>>have no skills that are not subsumed by or made irrelevant by
>>accelerating technology? There is no need in advanced countries
>>for everyone to be in full-time work of any conventional kind.
>>
>>
>
>Can you imagine a world in which everything knowable is known, and
>there's no longer anyone striving for more knowledge of any kind?
>I certainly can't. The "skills" that all humans have in abundance
>include curiosity, imagination, judgment. In a high-tech world
>where mundane things like food and shelter and transportation and
>communication are cheap as air, there will still be a need for
>exploration, education, entertainment. The economy will be driven
>by those who produce information, those who look for and select
>information. The amount of "work" required to support a human
>may be as little as offering an opinion now and then; but it is
>not likely to ever be zero, and those who do more of it will have
>more opportunities than those who don't.
>
>
>
But would that information need to be "owned" or turned into property?
Is informaiton property? Can we picture, much less acheive, a radically
different world without what we normally think of as an economy (which
is based on scarcity in its common definition) at all? Minds, talent,
creativity will certainly be in demand and there will certainly be
competition for them. But why should fences be build around ideas and
information when their value is generally increased by being shared and
combined?
- samantha
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