From: w2lee@argo.acs.oakland.edu (Walter Lee)
Subject: Re: Singuarity 0.3: Information as Capital
Reply-To: w2lee@argo.acs.oakland.edu
Organization: Oakland University, Rochester, MI
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 21:53:33 GMT

In article <1992Dec19.174657.7401@panix.com>, gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:

>As a result of the discussion of information-as-capital,
>I've started thinking about whether we might not consider
>that what makes capital capital is its information content.
>
>For example, if I survived by gathering and got the idea
>that seeds produced plants which produced more seeds, I
>might separate my seed store into two parts, one for
>consumption and one for planting.  The later could be
>considered my capital (stuff used to make more stuff).  But
>what happened when I divided the seeds into two parts was
>that I _added_information_ to the seed store.

Even if you select them at random?  Compared to the information content of the
seeds prior to the information you add to them, this is trivial.

>I have already described how ore and other raw materials
>become a lathe, or other machine tool typically thought of
>as capital, through the addition of information.  In fact,
>at this point I can't think of a case in which the formation
>of capital is not just the addition of a certain kind of
>information to materials of various kinds, including
>information itself.
>
>Consumables, on the other hand, participate in entropy; they
>eventually lose information, turning into heat, water vapor,
>carbon dioxide, sewage, garbage, and the like, but without
>(usually) producing more information elsewhere.
>
>In any case, I've looked at the objections to the first step
>of my singularity theory, "Information is capital," and I 
>continue to think this a reasonable assertion.  I hope those 
>of you who still disagree with this assertion will 
>nevertheless come along for the ride, suspending your 
>disbelief long enough to criticize some of the subsequent 
>steps.  (And thanks for the mail on this, by the way.)
>
>Now, if my theory of an approaching political singularity due 
>to the proliferation and exfoliation of capital holds any
>water, it's clear that not only must information be an
>important form of capital but it must be to a large extent
>fungible.  If that is not the case, the bourgeoisie could
>maintain their position by abandoning control of
>informational capital and concentrating on some other
>crucially needed items -- land, police power, rare raw
>materials, roads and other transport systems, specially-
>trained personnel.

If you're synthesizing information at the level of sophistication found in
seeds (by design, little DNA capsules), then I suppose your information is
fungible (according to my dictionary, "interchangeable") with material seeds. 
What was your SAT verbal score?

>The way this would work out in practice is: the price 
>(exchange value) of information would fall to nearly zero, 
>whereas the items through which control was to be
>maintained would rise in price until they could be obtained
>only by large corporations and the rich.  In spite of the
>conspiratorial sound of this process, no conspiracy is
>actually necessary; that's the way capitalism works already.
>(If it were not for the disturbing effects of technological
>evolution and political upheaval, the tendency of the rich
>to get and the poor to lose would long since have caused
>capitalism to revert to a state approximating feudalism.)

There are other factors preventing capitalism from reverting to a state
approximating feudalism.  For example, "democracy" is less transparent to
would-be dissidents.

>So what critical needs can we think of, which information  
>could neither meet nor find a substitute for?  And can a
>ruling class get all of it under sufficient control to
>maintain its rule?  Would they be able to do this before
>adverse political reaction frustrated their project?  If 
>such a form of needed capital can be found, then informa-
>tion would _not_ be fungible with respect to that form
>and presumably its controllers could continue to maintain 
>economic and thereby political and social dominance by 
>controlling that form of capital.

Well, some intelligently processed geophysical information will tell you which
plots to bid on in the Inferior Dept's land grabs.  Assuming the processed
information is dirt cheap (maybe because you've been eavesdropping on the
geophysical satellites the gov't provides as a service to its citizens?  you
radio pirate!), do the oil companies still own the process?

Or maybe you have some kind of information that makes the oil obsolete, for you
anyway?


Would I be correct in assuming that the values of fungibles can't move in
opposite directions?

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