From: Charlie Stross (charlie@antipope.org)
Date: Mon Sep 21 1998 - 03:19:55 MDT
On Fri, Sep 18, 1998 at 02:08:47PM -0400, Mike Linksvayer wrote:
>
> I feel that the property status of information will be the single
> greatest non-engineering factor in shaping societies of the next
> century. If we continue down the path of increasing property
> protections for information we will likely have a society run by
> state/corporate cartels with huge disparities of wealth between
> information owners and non-owners and a very boring culture.
Possibly.
Maybe I'm an optimist, but I don't think it is practical to increase
property protections for information much beyond where they stand today.
(Lobbyists will try, but whatever the win in law will be unenforcable on
the ground.)
You can't maintain a monopoly on information resources without co-opting
the producers of information. If not all the producers of information
will play ball, your monopoly is subject to being undermined -- the free
software movement, if nothing else, demonstrates how this can happen.
Some types of information may require a large project team to assemble
-- the design of a Boeing 747, for example, a large structured artefact
designed from the top down to meet overall specifications -- but many
other types of information are amenable to individual creativity or a
loose team of volunteers. The existence of entire operating systems,
complete with applications and GUIs, suggests that big corporations
aren't essential for such developments and, indeed, may impose a
parasitic load on the developers.
Given that the 21st century is shaping up to be the century in which
the informational revolution burns, and given the concommitant trends
towards globalisation, I'd be astonished if a global society run by
cartels could arise and maintain itself in the long term. The only way
they could stabilise it would be to maintain a "war on creativity".
> However, I feel that anything qualifying as a "singularity" will
> be engineering-driven. Nanotech implies drastic changes irregardless
> of the property regime it occurs in, short of a totalitarian one
> that could completely control access to the technology.
Without engineering there won't be a singularity, granted. But the
shape of the post-nanotechnology economy could be radically different
from anything we expect.
For example, consider the communist singularity. (Or rather, the
resurgent Leninist singularity.) Current developments in Russia don't
look too wonderful; there's a good chance that the vanguard party will
find itself running the joint once again early in the next century. This
time round, Soviet foreign policy may be a bit less hostile to the west
-- the more paranoid fears of invasion or attack by NATO having been
assuaged -- but economically they'll be inheriting a scrap heap. I'm
stabbing in the dark here, but I'd expect them to go for heavy-handed
paternalism and possibly some discreet emulation of the Chinese
modernization model. (Hell, they may even retain the current
near-democratic model and wait their turn in opposition -- the party is
no longer very revolutionary.)
Now inject a mature molecular nanotechnology (developed elsewhere, very
probably) into a regime of this sort that is just getting its feet under
it. What is an authoritarian central-planning regime, with fairly powerful
networking resources, going to make of nanotechnology?
-- Charlie
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