The navigation is our property RENE: Tell me what we have. Of value. GAEL: Whatever we've bought in cargo so far. I don't know what you want me— RENE: Anyone can buy goods. What do we really have? What do we sell? GAEL (realizing): The route. RENE: Yes. The navigation is our property. To copy a man's route is to steal it. Shane Carruth, The Modern Ocean Into the system of flight navigationownership
An information service society Society is steadily moving from a material goods society to an information service society. At the time of the American Revolution, say 1780 or so, over 90% of the people were essentially farmers—now farmers are a very small percentage of workers. What will the situation be in 2020? As a guess I would say less than 25% of the people in the civilian workforce will be handling things; the rest will be handling information in some form or other. In making a movie or a tv program you are making not so much a thing, though of course it does have a material form, as you are organizing information. Richard Hamming, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn Auditory Hallucinations from Offworld MegafarmsData Farming farming