From classical economics, we are familiar with land, labor, and capital (money) as those things that the benevolent merchant class allocates as a means of producing all things useful to society.
Today, we observe that the new factor of production in an economy is data. Data is the dominant factor being allocated, or constrained, by the merchant class as a means of producing some useful and some not-so-useful things that society may or may not need.
Yet, the collection, processing, normalization, distribution, interpretation, transmission, integration, differentiation, and segmentation of data are the domain of the engineering profession.
Data are the fundamental building blocks of information, knowledge, innovation, and wisdom. These are the new factors of production upon which new Capitalism is based.
It would seem then that there is an opportunity for the engineers and technologists to claim this important factor of production as our own and thus allocate data to those things that safeguard the health and welfare of people and property while constraining data from those things that do not.
Blockchain technology allows society a quantum leap to leave abandon legacy data systems, not unlike cellular telephony allows society to abandon land wires. Engineers are at a critical phase right now. Either we ignore block chain technology, or we do not.
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