Kevin Kelly: Access Is Better Than Ownership

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/series/nextwork_conference_2011

Kevin Kelly, author and senior maverick at WIRED, notes a cultural shift where ownership of things becomes more burdensome than having access to what is "always there and always on."

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Attention Flows: The Future of the Digital Media Landscape

Kevin Kelly, Author; WIRED

NExTWORK is a one-day, interdisciplinary conference that will feature world-renowned business leaders, technologists, and thinkers exploring the promise and peril of the network's future, as well as the most pressing digital issues and opportunities today.

Kevin Kelly has been a participant in, and reporter on, the information technology revolution for the past 20 years. His books include the best-selling work on the networked economy, New Rules for the New Economy, and the classic volume on decentralized emergent systems, Out of Control. His most recent book, What Technology Wants, lays out a provocative view of technology as an autonomous force in the world. Kelly helped launch WIRED in 1993 and served as executive editor for six years, during which the magazine twice won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence. He currently holds the title of Senior Maverick at WIRED and is the publisher and editor of the Cool Tools website. From 1984 to 1990, Kelly was the publisher and editor of the Whole Earth Review. He also helped launch the WELL, a pioneering online service, in 1985 and co-founded the ongoing Hackers' Conference. His writings have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Time, Harpers, Science, GQ, and Esquire.

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Science & Technology

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• access
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• wired
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• nextwork
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• 2011
• foratv
• fora.tv
• fora
• tv

[metalgearanarchist]

the problem i see, is while society has easy access, the ownership of those things would become consolidated in the hands of a few. my view is that ownership should become as much of a social relation as access to those resources. with this i see two paths, one is a world where ownership is consolidated by a few and another where ownership is collective, however what im seeing is actually the former.

[thisscreensucks]

@BlankBrain

missing the point buddy

[alauc]

I agree with Kevin. Tehnosphere Opens us more love and Freedom, but psychosphere is not ready, either Lack of Heart or Lack of mind!

[endauthority]

@dw053408 lol, so in other words "please go away, I dont like the fact that you use actual definitions so I cant slander and cause fear over the internetzz"

Goto college, loser. Assuming you'd even get in, but I bet you think working your barely above minimum wage part time work is better.

I am under absolutely no obligation to respond to him, and I have every right to comment on you exclusively.

[dw053408]

@endauthority you may want to reread the previous comments made by S0up3rD0up3r in regards to his plan for a computer run utopia, as he himself believes that it would be best if society lacked governance. not sure why you have inserted yourself here in the first place. at any rate though, we were involved in a discussion which required original thought not recitation of a freshman pos textbook, thanks for the clarification though.

[endauthority]

@dw053408 thats not what socialism is. socialism is the collective/worker ownership(or control, depending on whether or not the socialist society even believes in property rights) of the means of production.

Socialism also seeks to remove hierarchy, and "absolute" socialism would imply the removal of the state. Socialism is rooted in anarchism, not statism, unlike capitalism

[dw053408]

@S0up3rD0up3r part 2. you cant possibly believe that people will simply do what is good for them without consequences and the enforcement of those consequences? i believe you are leaving one crucial component out of your theory, human nature. time and time again ego, fear, and greed have taken theoretically sound ideologies like communism, and twisted them to the detriment of the world. until psychological disorders and diseases are conquered, a utopian society will never work.

[dw053408]

@S0up3rD0up3r part 1. i dont see the point you are making with the africa analogy. as far as what a native would be doing 200 years ago, nuclear physics has little to do with human nature and the freedom to choose to take from his neighbors rather than be content with what he already has. although the choices available to the native may differ from those of the modern man, the instincts that drive human beings to make war have not changed in the last million or so years, regardless of education

[S0up3rD0up3r]

@dw053408 part 2: Computers only provide the information of what is available. No physical force or anything. Just displaying the data and gives you the most reasonable way to arrive to a decision (not make them.) With automation and modern technology, you can provide food for the entire population over and over again. It's just a matter of updating our educational system to fit the 21st century, not using 17th century ideologies.

Basically, just give people what they need. Simple as that.

[S0up3rD0up3r]

@dw053408 Part 1:

What if someone wants to declare the entire continent of Africa as their own private property?

There's no such thing as "freedom of choice." You are only as free as to what exposure you are to your environment. A Native American 200 years ago wouldn't want to become a nuclear physicist, for he would have no knowledge of what it is or if it exists.

This is why people need to be educated, so we can prevent such a thing from happening in the first place.

[dw053408]

@S0up3rD0up3r does this involve removing freedom of choice, if not than what if a person chooses to take more than their fare share? what if that person disagrees with what the computer decides is available, and that person takes what he wants by force? does the computer punish the human, and do we in effect become prisoners to a computer warden? as for the educated, even the best among us is still human and fallible, unless you propose to remove that which males them human; freedom of choice.

[S0up3rD0up3r]

@dw053408 You don't need a government at all. Computers could be used to calculate what there is available and what isn't. Not only that, but you also need an educated populace which understands how to utilize this with up-most efficiency. If people take out more than what the resources can provide for, you will have instability. So we need to get rid of these ideologies of 'status' and 'materialism' to survive.

An educated society needs no governance, for they can govern themselves.