The digital age levels up that technology by making indistinguishable collections of bits, such as copies of files, distinguishable by attaching cryptographic identifiers that make them unique by importing high physical costs of specific computations from the atoms world.
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The combination of the two layers of technology relating to interchangeability, uniqueness, identifiability, addressability — the identity stack — means every collection of bits and/or atoms can now be exactly what it needs to be, at nearly the cost of just the atoms and energy.
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The identity stack is 3 layers: interchangeable parts manufacturing, distinguishable information sets, and computationally costly cryptography. It serves to separate material function from social, cultural, and political identity functions by separating the time and energy costs.
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This means material function can get as cheap as physics permits, and as fast as technology — increasingly this means energy technology — improves. Non-material functions relating to social notions of status, ownership, rights, and so on, can be priced at will.
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This trend, of separation of material and social functions of technology at the lowest level attainable — time/energy costs at the level of bits and atoms — is something like the separation of church and state for our times. For better or worse, the future will be shaped by it.
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