The future of data ownership; Could it help solve the ominously increasing wealth divide?

So, a while back I was enthralled by a talk given by Jaron Lanier, once again broadcast on Radio National 576 on their Future Tense program. It was titled Reconstructing the Digital Economy, and actually inspired my most recent sculpture of the same name, a concept mash up of which I have posted below.As one of the original pioneers of free content on the internet, in this 2013 talk he explains how he has had to confront this noble idea and rethink how we construct the digital economy (after all it is still only very young) in order to stop the increasing and destructive wealth divide.  He goes as far as to say that changing the practices of data ownership and usage will save the middle class.I was so inspired by this talk due to the way Jaron Lanier was able to totally shift his thinking.  He was able to look at the circumstances with a completely fresh approach.  He was able to recognise and then admit that he may have been wrong, and then go on to develop a way to fix it. A true innovator and visionary.I was reminded of his visionary approach to solving the wealth divide when reading this article doing the rounds on social media this morning.  The article NASA funded study: Industrial Civilisation Headed For "Irreversible Collapse" lists "unsustainable resource exploitation" and "increasing unequal wealth distribution" as the 2 main predecators for the collapse of a civilisation, cheery stuff!  So what are we doing about it ? Enter my head, Jaron Lanier.Perhaps for this sustainability project I should be designing a way for the average person to be storing and selling their data.... now my brain hurts.  Just what Ken Robinson says in one of his popular Ted Talks on creativity and the need to revolutionise education.  “Innovation is hard because it means doing something that we don’t find easy and challenging things that we take for granted.” He goes on to say it is “very hard to know what you take for granted the reason being that  you take it for granted”.