My wife and I went on a road trip yesterday to pick up two knitting machines that she had bought on the web. Her idea is to fix them and sell them at a profit. With some success in the fixing-up-knitting-machines business, I figure she's going to do all right.
She likes the down to earth solidity of machines and other things that she can either hold in her hand or walk around. But she's not convinced by things that don't generate any cash flow. She's not a fan of gold. She doesn't see the point. The fact that it has done well over the past five years has done nothing to change her mind. She prefers land, and is enthusiastic about my encounter with Mr Cork. Was it up to her, she'd buy a patch of forest right away. But the decision is not hers to make. It's mine, and I'm confident we'll do better by waiting a few years. However, we agree on the general state of the world, and the precarious situation we're in at the moment. We know our history, and we know that any society that relies heavily on data is a fragile society.
Data can be lost and forgotten. Hence, any asset that is registered primarily as data can be lost. The fact that many people store their wealth purely as data, without a paper receipts, is evidence of fragility. The fact that these same people are largely oblivious to history is similarly worrying. They have no idea how precarious things are, and how quickly things can change.
History is full of examples of societies partially or completely collapsing. Some of these events are well known and understood, and others are complete mysteries. The entire South American continent is one big paradox as far as history is concerned. Something similar to the late bronze age collapse in the East Mediterranean appears to have happened there. But there's not a single record anywhere with any hint as to what may have caused the collapse. All that we have are abandoned towns and villages, and a clear and rapid decay in building technology.
At the other extreme, we have historic records that details things that were supposedly unknown at the time. Portuguese seafarers had maps of South America and the Antarctic, so detailed that they knew exactly where to go. The Portuguese king used these maps in his negotiations with the Spanish king regarding the division of the world into two separate domains. But who drew these maps in the first place? Nobody knows.
There are also better known events, such as the burning of the library of Alexandria, or the collapse of the Roman empire. History is full of such events where data and information is wiped out, lost and forgotten, and my wife and I have an eerie feeling that something similar is about to happen. There's too much reliance on data and technology. All it takes for this to be wiped out is a major solar flare or some similar event, man made or otherwise. Suddenly, nobody knows who owns what. A whole lot of critical information related to production and logistics will similarly be lost.
Anyone with nothing but an electronic ledger entry to prove their ownership of an asset will be in trouble. If there's no paper document anywhere to prove we own a microscopic share of a large company, we'll have a hard time retrieving our savings. Even with a paper document, there might be a need to prove the authenticity of our ownership in court. The chaos would be complete, and most people would end up owning nothing.
History tells us that no complex society lasts for ever, and that a dark age can descend on the world surprisingly fast. There are all sorts of triggers for this to happen, ranging from the sun and the climate to politics and war. We also know that a dark age isn't necessarily all that dark, it's merely less dependent on data and written records. Things are organized privately rather than publically.
Central in such a society is the use of arbitrators to resolve disputes. What counts is not so much a written record of ownership as possession and good witness accounts. What's in our physical possession will not be taken from us unless someone can convince the arbitrators that it was stolen. My wife is therefore unlikely to loose possession of her knitting machines. We're also unlikely to lose possession of our apartment or metals. However, land possession can be disputed, and it's therefore important to have evidence, and preferably a reliable witness or two to prove our possession so that no-one can confiscate it.
Should the world descend into a dark age, politics will change completely. Nation states will cease to exist. Party politics will disappear. Instead, there will be private kings in the form of influential land owners and industrialists who act as ultimate arbitrators in disputes internal to their domain, and as one of several arbitrators in disputes that cross domains.
This means that Mr Cork would no longer be merely a rich land owner. He would be king of his domain and the chief arbitrator in cases related to land disputes. While this is of next to no value at the moment, it may become important if things sour. If we buy land through Mr Cork's brokerage, we won't just get a piece of paper with an official stamp. We'll get a potential king as a witness.
 |
| Rome |
No comments:
Post a Comment