In the year 2000…
Isn’t it funny how life is mirroring Star Trek? As a kid my friends and I used to act out scenarios from the show (with embellishments, of course) all day long. One thing we never talked about was who owned the ship, everything was shared.
There was only rank and skills to differentiate us from each other as Star Trek characters. The only tools we used were technological in nature and even our food was manufactured at the touch of a button.
Content delivery on physical media will become obsolete
Technology is the great equilizer on the show, and in the world at large this is increasingly true. Just look at any industry clinging to an outdated business model: The entertainment industry, newspapers, publishing. All of it is becoming insignificant because of the dearth of content available online, all day every day. Children learn on the internet, are connected to each other by cell phone, live and breathe their favorite video games. Our food, genetically engineered.
What happens to ownership in the future?
I believe ownership will not exist because all our information (including creative information) will be shared and the only thing to differentiate ourselves will be our jobs, which we’ll no longer need to be paid for because we won’t need currency to own things.
Since so much of our human identity is built upon the fragile foundation of ownership, once this is gone I believe war will move to the intellectual plane. He who owns the information and the gadgets that store that data, wins.
