Spimes with Bruce Sterling - Tracking objects through Space/Time

Rocketboom has an interesting little interview piece with scifi author Bruce Sterling today where they discuss Spimes (the tracking of objects through space and time). Bruce is a proponent of embedding tags into consumer products - in the interview, he uses a shoe as an example - where the tag includes information about the raw materials composing the product. He brings up the great point that long after that show has outlived its usefulness to you, it is still living out its much longer natural life as a shoe, typically in a refuse heap somewhere. Bruce says, we might someday want those raw materials back and Spimes are a way to find and track our usage. Interesting concept and a video worth watching.

The interviewer and Bruce spend a bit talking about the potential abuses of such a technology, Bruce dismisses the argument as fairly moot. It's a rehashed argument brought up be people with an aversion to any change. He counters with "an axe in the hands of a totalitarian government can be used to chop off people's hands..."

In the end, I the most significant hurdle to the Spimes plan is human nature. Most people will claim they are "environmentally conscious" but I seriously doubt that they want their life long history of shoes and waste tracking them to the grave. It's one thing to have a rough idea of how much waste the "average" person produces in their lifetime; it's much more disturbing to hear that "you" have contributed to this problem and be confronted with the data that backs it up. The mere thought that everything I have owned in the past is living out the remainder of its much larger life in a landfill is enough to make me uncomfortable.