The core of NFT is ownership, and there is no consensus on “owning”, so there is no way to talk about it. Therefore, I will leave NFT aside and discuss "owning" through the experience of the little prince.

What is "own"?

Like studying the Bible, we focus on a single chapter of The Little Prince, chapter seventeen ^[1] .

The little prince who left B612, visited the fourth planet and met a businessman. The merchant was very busy, busy counting the stars he owned. When the little prince arrived, he had just counted 501,622,731.

The little prince was very curious and asked him how he could have stars, and the merchant said:

"If you find a diamond that doesn't belong to anyone, it's yours. If you find an island that doesn't belong to anyone, it's yours. If you come up with an idea first, and you patent it , then it's yours. I own the stars because no one thought of having them before me."

In just 100 words, it has already covered four concepts of "possession", covering different stages of human history. The power of "The Little Prince" is evident.

First of all, about diamonds, it can be explained with an old Cantonese saying: "If you hold on to the treasure on the ground, ask the sky and ask the earth if you can't find it". It means that you can't grab what you hold in my hand, which means that I have it.

As for islands, in the past era of great voyages, it was a demonstration of navigation ability; in modern times, we are familiar with it, and every day we hear people screaming that certain islands belong to them, which is the embodiment of national strength and military strength, which means that you can't beat me, so The island is mine.

The ownership of ideas, collectively referred to as intellectual property ^[2] , is a concept that only appeared in modern times. The inventor of the wheel has never registered his design, nor has he received money from those who "reinventing the wheels". Intellectual property rights can be roughly divided into three types, one is trademarks, such as "tick represents Nike"; the other is patents, such as Amazon's "1-click buying", a method of shopping with one click; the third is copyright or copyright, English copyright, applicable to all kinds of creations.

Compared with trademarks and patents, copyright is much more extensive. When you write a paragraph of text, take a photo, whether you want to "own" it, you don't need to register it anywhere. Legally, its copyright default is yours. , other people need to ask you before using it. On the contrary, if you don’t want this, you need to special mark it. For example, this article and the other nearly 1,000 articles on my blog are marked with CC-BY authorization, that is, as long as the original author and source are marked, they can be used without prior approval from me.

Finally, star ownership involves a broader dimension, which we'll get to later.

"Own" is not a physical concept, it is a social norm

To discuss "possession" further, let's first clarify its nature.

When someone claims to "hold a diamond", "discover an island", "write an article", it is an objective statement, we do not necessarily know whether the above is true, but "holding", "discovering", "writing" "The physical meaning is clear, and there is no room for controversy.

However, "ownership" is different. It is a social norm and a legal concept. Whether someone owns a certain object may cause a long debate; whether a country owns a certain piece of land may bring wars and ruins; as for whether human beings should be protected The ownership of something, how to implement it, and even more fundamentally, how to understand what it means to "own" for a certain concept, is a process that has been evolving over time.

Ten thousand years ago, the concept of private property was not yet formed; a thousand years ago, the concept of national borders was still divided. As for intellectual property, it is even more modern. It didn't exist before the seventeenth century. Today's creators often feel that their ideas have been stolen, but Cangjie, who invented writing, has no blessings. I thought about giving a portion to Cangjie.

The concept of intellectual property was not gradually recognized and implemented by countries all over the world until the signing of the "Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization" in 1967. If you look away, you may be surprised. 1967 was only 55 years ago. Compared with human history, it can't even be said at all; many people think "I took this photo, so I own the copyright of it". Taking it for granted that the sun rises from the east, in fact, for most of human history, that was not true, and in the future human history, it is very likely to continue to change.

"Own" and "Use", gradually parted ways

"Owning" and "using" are two concepts that are often confused. The latter is "access" in English. Like "hand-held" and "discovery", they are all objective physical concepts. The former is "own" in English. As mentioned above, it is a legal concept. Whether you have it or not is not up to you.

Indeed, in the traditional context, most of the meaning of possession is that it can be used. As former Hong Kong Financial Secretary Leung Kam-sung said, "The money you make is not yours, the money you spend is yours" ^[3] . What Liang Jinsong said is also reflected in cryptocurrency; which wallet address has how many coins are public information, but only those who hold the private key of the wallet address have the ability to transfer coins to another address, that is, "use" these currencies.

But as technology develops, the line between "own" and "use" is increasingly blurred. Let me give up a little privacy and share a little story. My mother was from a wealthy family when she was young, she was favored by her father-in-law, she was favored by her father in middle age, and now it's my turn. More than once, when I invited her to eat a little farther away, she would say, "Do you have a car?" Even though she was nearly ninety years old, she was still very feminine in Hong Kong. Don't you want to invite me to dinner?".

Fortunately, my mother's son can eat well and can always laugh it off and say to her, "Not only a car, but even a driver, do you still want to drive like a low-class person?" Isn't it? Come, you don't have to drive yourself, let alone find a parking space. Interestingly, living in Hong Kong, even taking an Uber every day in and out, is cheaper than owning a car. I'm not saying that all car owners are stupid, but in the era of the sharing economy, ownership is no longer a prerequisite for use. When you can use it without owning it, "owning" must provide further value to make sense.

Subscription system is another big trend that has emerged with the Internet, and it also impacts the traditional concept of "owning". When you subscribe to Netflix for the price of a movie ticket every month, you can watch unlimitedly in thousands of movies, whether you "own" these movies, and what's the point left? What is the purpose of buying records when you can listen to a lifetime of music for the price of half a CD per month?

I don't have the money to buy too many records, and I have to wait by the radio every night to hear "Eternal Flame" ^[4] . Although it was only 30 years ago, it is already far away from us (however, I will never forget the people of Hong Kong who are still living this life today). In the minds of many Internet aborigines, if there is a way to find it, they will watch and listen. The verb "own" is hardly applicable to content.

As a social norm and a legal concept, the meaning of "possession" is constantly being rewritten with the changes of the times and the development of science and technology.

The meaning of "owning" is in the individual, but also in the whole

Let's go back to The Little Prince and talk about the meaning of "owning".

The little prince asked several times, and the merchant explained several times. The little prince seemed to understand, and responded:

"I own a flower and I water her every day. I own three volcanoes and I clean them every week. I even clean an extinct volcano, who knows when it will erupt! I am very interested in the volcanoes I own You are useful to flowers. But you are completely useless to stars..."

Even though the little prince is so cute, his words are more aggressive than my mother's: he is not like ordinary people who say that the stars are useless to merchants, but conversely, questioning that merchants are useless to stars.

After reading this, many people will think that the cart before the horse is put upside down; I own a thing, of course, considering whether it is useful to me, how can it be reversed, whether I am useful to the thing I have? Don’t forget to mention above that ownership is not an objective concept, but a social norm; it is the consensus of society that an individual can own something, and the premise of consensus is that this ownership is good for society.

Insert the first three examples of what the businessman said. The government recognizes private property, and the benefit is to encourage production; when property is secured, farmers are willing to grow vegetables, fishermen are willing to fish, and businessmen are willing to trade. Through mechanisms such as the United Nations, the world recognizes that a specific government "owns" the sovereignty of a specific land, and the benefit is to avoid war (as to whether the United Nations' guidelines are reasonable, it is beyond the scope of this article). With the development of science and technology, and even the advent of knowledge-based economy, the protection of intellectual property rights by international conventions is to allow people to invent and create freely. It is worth noting that although the logic of copyright is inherited from physical property, due to the difference in nature, clauses that the copyright will automatically expire after a few years are added, and there are also exceptions and usage scenarios, in order to protect the copyright and the public interest. strike a balance.

The general interpretation of the four kinds of "owning" that businessmen say is that the first three are taken for granted, and the last is absolutely ridiculous. It is only used to insinuate the modern people who only care about making money and forget that money itself has no meaning, and are brainwashed by capitalism. I don't know if that was the original intention of Saint-Exupéry, but my thinking is more fundamental. On the one hand, I believe that even the first three kinds of "possesses" have a lot of room for consideration, and I even believe that with the rapid development of digital technology and the Internet, the origin of copyright The concept of having is outdated and needs to be redefined urgently; on the other hand, since the first three kinds of "possession" have been realized successively in human history, the ownership of stars is by no means empty talk; don't forget, only 26 years after the publication of "The Little Prince", astronauts Hangslang and Adeling have planted the American flag on the moon ^[5] , not to mention that information and various technologies have made great progress since then.

Don't look at the little prince's understatement, he told the businessman what most people don't realize: When the concept of "owning" a thing is beneficial to mankind, society will - and will - form a consensus , making it possible to "own" the thing.

Don't ask what "having" it will bring you, try asking what "having" it will bring you to society.

Later, let us continue to follow up on the businessman's theory of owning stars and discuss how to have a rainbow. Maybe, we can still learn how to embrace the summer wind.

Blockchain Sociology Weekly, Money, Media, and Democracy Reimagined, exploring freedom of the press, financial freedom, and democratic freedom; published every Friday, fully open to the public, aiming to spread knowledge. If this week's report is valuable, don't punish opening, encourage closing - please pay to subscribe, and all the money will be put into LikeCoin Appreciation Citizens, turning appreciation into appreciation.

[ Subscription ]

Further reading

1. Chapter 17 of The Little Prince: http://big5.quanwenyuedu.io/n/xiaowangzi/17.html
2. Intellectual Property: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property
3. https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200102/15/0215230.htm
4. The Bangles – Eternal Flame Official Video
5. Helios 11 Moon Mission: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo11
6. A collection of NFT books: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
7. The Preliminary Conception of the Publishing Experiment of Wudatai
8. The development path of decentralized publishing DePub, NFT from immigrants to natives

Photo Credit: Wikipedia . The author of "The Little Prince" Saint-Exupéry died in 1944. The copyright of "The Little Prince" automatically expired 70 years after his death, giving everyone the right to publish this classic, reflecting the balance between copyright and public interest.

Original link: chungkin Express