So after the Farewell to the Physical post I started thinking about what most physical products really were. Turns out that most are nothing but distribution methods for data, and no longer necessary. It was funny because the first thing that came to mind was Stalone & Snipes in Demolition Man. Remember the Utopia the two were unleashed on? That future could be ours.
What happens when music labels wake up & realize that a small investment (let’s say a Grammy winning artist’s budget) in digital infrastructure & servers etc, would eliminate the concept of the music store & generate more revenue? Or movie studios go for simultaneous release? Or laser-cutting fabrication machines create most products in home after purchase?
While millions of jobs will vanish, I’d rather think about the millions of man hours that will reappear. In Demolition Man people seemed bored. Not that I think we’ll be sitting around waiting for a murder-death-kill, but rather we’ll have to reorientate ourselves with real physical communication, not to mention become smart enough as a society to fill new jobs in an information economy. What if 80% of US citizens worked on virtual jobs, with food, fire & police, health & beauty being the few physical jobs (obviously a few more would exist)? What would we do with all the space currently taken up by strip malls & warehouses?
Media becomes even more valuable in a world like this. The dominant socializer, so to speak. ‘Cuz if there’s less work we’d need really goog info to fuel the arguments we’d sit around and make all day. LOL
(all written on a train ride to Queens that took waaay to long)
