Keith wrote: kh> The 1,000,000+ multi-national corporations and the millions more kh> of uni-national ones don't want slavery. They want large kh> populations of prosperous consumers.
and REH wrote: > What you miss is that they want to rent not own. Ownership costs > too much for upkeep. Yeah, I know. I agree that the new model is more feudal in character. Nevertheless, I thought author's take in the article [1] on the historical antecedents of the new aristocracy's mind-set was interesting. As for Keith's observation that: kh> They want large populations of prosperous consumers. That's the krill, the biomass. They're supposed to consume what the vendors want to sell, in the form, in the place and at the time they want to sell it. Increasingly, they also want fine control over what you do with what you buy. The auto industry always wanted cars with sealed hoods that could only be serviced or modified at the dealership. People wouldn't stand for it and anyhow, it's easy to hack a physical object. The digital world is a whole new game. You license, not buy, software and the license forbids reverse engineering it. The media giants are screaming about piracy but at the same time, they are (IMHO) moving away from physical media (CDs, DVDs) that can be hacked to streaming media. Of course you can capture the stream but Intel and MS are working on CPUs that have "digital rights" protection in the microcode, inaccessible to user space or even the OS, to prevent that. Early on, Futurework debated avoiding a "Bladerunner future". I'm gradually coming to think that anybody with a smidgen of self respect will have to volunteer for a Bladerunner, a cyberpunk, an underground life. - Mike [1] http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/10126-how-a-brutal-strain-of- american-aristocrats-have-come-to-rule-america -- Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~. /V\ [email protected] /( )\ http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
