Signs of Ownership Creep

Something is usurping our common sense, or humanity and even the profit motive itself.

This is an essay about ownership. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to reorganize society or reset the tax rates. The argument about how the part ownership plays in our legal and social arrangements isn’t one I plan to solve today.

This is an essay about a mental quirk, a blind spot, because even when we think we’re being purely practical, there are ideas lodged in there like candy in a molar. The problem is that these ideas aren’t what we think they are, and they have a way of infecting more areas than they were meant to help with.

When I think of the irrational obsessions of the moment, I see the idea of ownership as one that has metastasized to areas where it is causing many of the disappointments that characterize our age.

IP

When I see something I don’t like or don’t agree with, mental illness isn’t my first guess. At first I thought all the superhero movies and shameless strings of sequels were just a risk-management scheme of the entertainment business. And it is a business. And at large companies, people who are good at their keeping their jobs tend to replace people who care about what the company makes.

But lately it seems that they don’t want to make anything that doesn’t add to their little “universes.”

They want to own the time, the talent, the energy that goes into it. Let’s digitize Luke Skywalker again. They care less about the movie or show being good. They seem like they’ve started to care less about even making money, at least in the theater. They care about adding to the mental and cultural real estate they already own.

This is an example of the role eating the player. These owners become just that - owners, to the exclusion of almost anything else. They don't want what's good or right or true. They want what they can own. What they’re doing diminishes the culture at its source, the imagination.

NFTs

Here’s a confession: At one point in the pandemic lockdowns, removed from the many fountains of common sense, I became interested in NFTs. Some guy got paid $90 million to pass over digital ownership of his art and I thought given the absurdity of positively everything, why not? I was writing about blockchain for freelance clients, so I sort of understood the idea behind it: NFTs could offer pure incontestable ownership, without the inconvenience of physical possession.

At the time, I tried to put myself in the shoes of the greedy and concluded that absolute possession of digital art or poems was an idea that had real legs. I minted and tried to sell NFTs of a few poems. I didn’t get rich and soon succumbed to disinterest and shame.

Any creative project that only makes sense if it delivers piles of cash is usually a creative project best left alone. The whole affair sounds like a small thing. But it was a momentary loss of faith in my fellow human beings. And it was a time when I succumbed to the cult of ownership.

AI

One begins to get the sense that the wild enthusiasm for generative AI is at least a little foul. Twenty years into the con of the digital economy, we all know that productivity and efficiency means making decent-paying jobs into low-paying jobs or uncompensated hobbies.

The enthusiasm for AI seems sick when you realize it comes from people who want to make more of what had been labor into property. It’s essentially not about making better information so much as it is about completely owning the means of production, even if what’s produced is schlocky, bland and unreliable - even if the sheer volume of this crummy information badly hobbles the usability of the entire internet.

When you hear some people wax rhapsodic about generative AI, it’s hard not to get the sense that the money is still a little pissed they can’t own slaves.

Living too long

The promise of longevity seems to deter decency and real indecency. It discourages being too generous with your money. And it discourages drinking, smoking and unprotected sex. It doesn’t inspire much courage in any arena, except to go get a colonoscopy. Some party!

Immortality

No one wants to die. But no person who works for a wage really wants to live forever. The rich, however, seem to be warming up to the prospect of immortality. Is it because their lives are so great? Maybe. I wouldn’t know.

But I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s because their lives and their stuff are so enviable. The last thing they want to do is give up something someone else wants. Like a kid with a toy another kid wants to play with. And it’s not just their lives. Their money, invested wisely, will last forever. So why shouldn’t they? The rich who identify with their possessions, now treat their own lives with the same unthinking, reflexive greed as any other asset.

Cut to the luxury box

Why, when I watch a football game, do I have to see regular shots of the team’s owner? It seems like these guys get more airtime and credit every year.