The remaining scare resource will be human creativity
I was asked to give a guest lecture the other day and I was combing through some old notes when I came across the quote below from Yochia Benkler. He was arguing that when all information is considered a public good and when the technological costs of producing it drop to almost nothing,
“the primary remaining scare resource is human creativity.” *
The lecture was to a group of freshmen, some of whom were thinking about going into journalism. Of course, they were worried about the state of journalism as well they should be. See this about the University of Colorado — Boulder’s journalism school in jeopardy, followed by this from one of its adjunct professors.
I think it will be tough for those journalism students who take the daily grind route, but there will be a select few who excel in human creativity. They will sail to the top. When you are young, of course, you assume, you will be one of those at the top so even as journalism declines, you probably figure it will hurt the other guy, but not the creative me.
Personally I think that’s an excellent attitude, beside today no job or field is without risk, so do what you want to do, but try your hardest to be on top of the human creativity mountain.
* Yochai Benkler, 2002. “Coase’s Penguin, or, Linux and the Nature of the Firm,” Yale Law Journal, volume 112, number 3 (December), pp. 369-446.
