The Information Society

     The Information Society

 

Information is important economically, given cybernetics, robotics, parallel processing, telecommunications, data bases, networks, etc. In the new economy, a nation’s wealth equals the nation’s knowledge.

The new technology makes information both more valuable and more easily copied, transmitted, and transformed. Word will spread quickly and easily through the network.

If laws are enacted against spreading information cheaply then people will disobey the laws. If technical measures make information hard to copy, technical countermeasures will be taken; and in any case, the technological trends is towards easier transmission.

Once text is released into the network, it becomes independent of its creator and can proliferate on its own. The network is a meme pool. All information tends to spread. Information tends to become common property.

Therefore most forms of information will be unownable. Some forms will not; there will remain uses for secrecy; but most data of productive value will be in plaintext, easily copied.

This presents a radical problem. If information can’t be owned, then how to encourage its production? The better the work is, the more people will copy it, and therefore the less the inventor can make money out of it. The best work will be available to all, and not give its inventor one zinc cent.

Information is not very good to keep, but it’s very good to give away, for you can give it away yet still have it. It self-replicates, so you won’t have to work to spread it.

Information is common wealth that works best when it flows freely; as such it undermines both capitalism and communism. The nations that adapt best to the information age will be those which value both free speech and cooperation.

Knowledge is common wealth, which needs freedom to thrive. Therefore freedom is essential to the nation’s wealth. Knowledge is common wealth, and what is held in common requires justice. Therefore justice is essential to the nation’s wealth.

Free speech will be free in both senses of the word. The danger of this is that the creative will not be paid. The opportunity of this is that they will have their say.

Capitalism and communism both depend on the ownership of information. Neither fit the economic realities of the information age. Both must change. Modern prosperity requires political rights, economic rights, the sharing of knowledge, and the sharing of wealth.

There already exists a world community well adapted to the information age; scholars. Scholarship has coped with cheap text ever since Gutenberg; the solution arrived at has been to encourage research and publication with subsidies and incentives. Personal accomplishments are to be acknowledged and accredited.

However, the reality is that science is mostly a collective enterprise; only the rare genius ever gets to make a personal imprint on a field. Genius is rarely rewarded fully, unless you count the joy of creation to be worth the hardships involved.

In science, knowledge is held in common. It is supposed to be held in common; the best thing you can do with it is to give it away. Science and scholarship share the values necessary for the information age.