Slashdot Mirror

These posts of mine lead to endless links about what is wrong with the current schooling system at all levels:
"[p2p-research] College Daze links (was Re: : FlossedBk, "Free/Libre and Open Source Solutions for Education")"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
"[p2p-research] The Higher Educational Bubble Continues to Grow"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
"[p2p-research] Rebutting Communiqué from an Absent Future (was Re: Information on student protests)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

But key ideas can be found at these links:

      "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt
      http://www.disciplined-minds.com/

      "The Big Crunch" by David Goodstein, Vice Provost, Caltech
      http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html

      "What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream" by Noam Chomsky
      http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

      "University Secrets:Your Guide to Surviving a College Education" by
Robert D. Honigman
    http://web.archive.org/web/20060707100524/www.universitysecrets.com/us.htm
    http://web.archive.org/web/20060710145531/www.universitysecrets.com/table.htm

      "The Kept University"
      http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/03/press.htm

      "We're NOT Off to See the Wizard: REVISITING THE IDEA OF COLLEGE"
      http://unconventionalideas.wordpress.com/?s=wizard

      "The Underground History of American Education" by 1991 NYS Teacher of
the Year John Taylor Gatto
      http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm

      "In Defense of Childhood: Protecting Kids' Inner Wildness " by Chris
Mercogliano, who spent thirty-five years teaching at the Albany Free School
      http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm

And there are many more I link to in the posts, but these are starting points.

It would take years to read through all the references I link to in the three posts (and it has. :-)

AERO is one place that catalogs most of the alternatives:
    http://www.educationrevolution.org/

These posts of mine lead to endless links about what is wrong with the current schooling system at all levels:
"[p2p-research] College Daze links (was Re: : FlossedBk, "Free/Libre and Open Source Solutions for Education")"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
"[p2p-research] The Higher Educational Bubble Continues to Grow"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
"[p2p-research] Rebutting Communiqué from an Absent Future (was Re: Information on student protests)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

But key ideas can be found at these links:

      "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt
      http://www.disciplined-minds.com/

      "The Big Crunch" by David Goodstein, Vice Provost, Caltech
      http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html

      "What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream" by Noam Chomsky
      http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

      "University Secrets:Your Guide to Surviving a College Education" by
Robert D. Honigman
    http://web.archive.org/web/20060707100524/www.universitysecrets.com/us.htm
    http://web.archive.org/web/20060710145531/www.universitysecrets.com/table.htm

      "The Kept University"
      http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/03/press.htm

      "We're NOT Off to See the Wizard: REVISITING THE IDEA OF COLLEGE"
      http://unconventionalideas.wordpress.com/?s=wizard

      "The Underground History of American Education" by 1991 NYS Teacher of
the Year John Taylor Gatto
      http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm

      "In Defense of Childhood: Protecting Kids' Inner Wildness " by Chris
Mercogliano, who spent thirty-five years teaching at the Albany Free School
      http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm

And there are many more I link to in the posts, but these are starting points.

It would take years to read through all the references I link to in the three posts (and it has. :-)

AERO is one place that catalogs most of the alternatives:
    http://www.educationrevolution.org/

http://www.thecaseagainsthomework.com/
http://www.holtgws.com/whatisunschoolin.html
http://www.thewaronkids.com/
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm
http://disciplinedminds.com/
http://www.educationrevolution.org/

Related stuff with more links (my me):
"College Daze links"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
"The Higher Educational Bubble Continues to Grow"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
"Rebutting Communique from an Absent Future (was Re: Information on student
protests)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

http://www.thecaseagainsthomework.com/
http://www.holtgws.com/whatisunschoolin.html
http://www.thewaronkids.com/
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm
http://disciplinedminds.com/
http://www.educationrevolution.org/

Related stuff with more links (my me):
"College Daze links"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
"The Higher Educational Bubble Continues to Grow"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
"Rebutting Communique from an Absent Future (was Re: Information on student
protests)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

http://www.thecaseagainsthomework.com/
http://www.holtgws.com/whatisunschoolin.html
http://www.thewaronkids.com/
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm
http://disciplinedminds.com/
http://www.educationrevolution.org/

Related stuff with more links (my me):
"College Daze links"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
"The Higher Educational Bubble Continues to Grow"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
"Rebutting Communique from an Absent Future (was Re: Information on student
protests)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

Please tell all your collegues that vitamin D deficiency may affect test scores by being connected to depression and schizophrenias as well as ADHD and autism:
    http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
    http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/vit-D-theory-autism.shtml
"[p2p-research] ADHD or lack of Vitamin D? Albany Free School connection?"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005083.html

How about correlating 25(OH)D (vitamin D related) blood levels with test scores?

"If you are the sort of knowledge worker who can program robots, your labor is not in competition with the abilities of this robot."

And what about any relatives or friends or neighbors or citizens I might care about? And besides, what if in the next twenty years this research leads to more general AIs, especially as computing costs continue to drop? Also, you are ignoring that even if some human abilities remain of value for a time, technology is an amplifier, so soon one programmer will be able to do the work of two, or three, or hundreds. Besides, how much do such robots need to be programmed? People may develop some general learning algorithms, but the such systems can learn within restricted domains on their own, and with millions of networked robots, the entire network will learn pretty fast. I know of that happening in other areas of technology, like speech recognition and character recognition (I used to contract at IBM Research around the time of some of this changeover from hand coded recognizers to careful training in limited areas to broad statistical inferencing). So, your point misses the big picture of what is happening, IMHO.

On economics, what makes you so sure there is not upper limit on work to do? Really, how many cars does a person need? How big a house? How much fatter should people be? How much more junk do they need in their lives? The most enlightened people on the planet often tend to be the ones who are reducing their needs to a minimum. There already is a backlash against consumerism, for several reasons. And beyond that, 3D printers and robots will be able to produce so much, that there just will not be too much work anyway, even if people consume a lot. A related discussion I participated in on limited demand:
"[p2p-research] Fwd: More on the Supply and Demand Curve"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-July/003545.html

Mainstream economics is built on at least two key assumptions. One is that demand will rise faster than production efficiency (otherwise there would be permanent layoffs if demand rose more slowly than efficiency increases, and if efficiency increases stop, then prices drop towards zero through highly competitive capitalist competition in a free market and the economy freezes up, which is why economist are so obsessed with economic growth, since otherwise their equations blow up with divide-by-zero errors, etc.). The other is that the products of smart machines and/or voluntary social networks will never approach in quantity and quality that of what paid labor can produce. Environmentalism and other movements like Voluntary Simplicity, as well as common sense about human psychology and Maslow's hierarchy of needs, show the first assumption is breaking down (as people become more affluent, they tend to become more interested in self-actualizing by making and doing more things on their own). This video shows the second assumption is breaking down, since robots are getting much better. Essentially, you are repeating the dogma of the theology of mainstream economics. I'd suggest that dogma is rapidly becoming more and more questionable (if it ever was accurate as opposed to a self-fulfilling prophecy of artificial scarcity).

The main problem is that people, saying essentially what you are saying, are IMHO sticking their heads in the sand about what is a huge social transformation. Unfortunately, in the USA, often technologists have propertarian-libertarian economics, and it is hard for US technologists to admit that propertarian-libertarianism does not work very well when most human labor has little value and when a few can monopolize vast resources they charge rent for as the rich-get-richer. And when, say, we have massive unemployment (as we do in the USA), something unpredicted by almost all mainstream economists a couple years ago, people just shrug their shoulders, say economies are my

So true. And it's sad your post got modded down as Troll, since you are 100% right on, and whoever did that is probably caught up in the ideology behind monstrosity that is modern schooling (of course, most private schools are little better). Escalante failed to make large changes and was taken down by the institution because, ultimately, he was doing what should not be done in schools -- get poor people to think and climb out of their assigned class in life. More supportive links:

Gatto:
    "Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling"
    http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Schooling/dp/086571231X
    http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
    http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"""
Before you can reach a point of effectiveness in defending your own children or your principles against the assault of blind social machinery, you have to stop conspiring against yourself by attempting to negotiate with a set of abstract principles and rules which, by its nature, cannot respond. Under all its disguises, that is what institutional schooling is, an abstraction which has escaped its handlers. Nobody can reform it. First you have to realize that human values are the stuff of madness to a system; in systems-logic the schools we have are already the schools the system needs; the only way they could be much improved is to have kids eat, sleep, live, and die there.
"""

Illich:
    http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-illic.htm
    http://reactor-core.org/deschooling.html

John Holt:
    http://www.holtgws.com/

Collections of links by me on this:
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

Why not just give the school money directly to the parents as they see fit to take care of their children? One proposal (by me):
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html

So true. And it's sad your post got modded down as Troll, since you are 100% right on, and whoever did that is probably caught up in the ideology behind monstrosity that is modern schooling (of course, most private schools are little better). Escalante failed to make large changes and was taken down by the institution because, ultimately, he was doing what should not be done in schools -- get poor people to think and climb out of their assigned class in life. More supportive links:

Gatto:
    "Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling"
    http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Schooling/dp/086571231X
    http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
    http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"""
Before you can reach a point of effectiveness in defending your own children or your principles against the assault of blind social machinery, you have to stop conspiring against yourself by attempting to negotiate with a set of abstract principles and rules which, by its nature, cannot respond. Under all its disguises, that is what institutional schooling is, an abstraction which has escaped its handlers. Nobody can reform it. First you have to realize that human values are the stuff of madness to a system; in systems-logic the schools we have are already the schools the system needs; the only way they could be much improved is to have kids eat, sleep, live, and die there.
"""

Illich:
    http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-illic.htm
    http://reactor-core.org/deschooling.html

John Holt:
    http://www.holtgws.com/

Collections of links by me on this:
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

Why not just give the school money directly to the parents as they see fit to take care of their children? One proposal (by me):
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html

So true. And it's sad your post got modded down as Troll, since you are 100% right on, and whoever did that is probably caught up in the ideology behind monstrosity that is modern schooling (of course, most private schools are little better). Escalante failed to make large changes and was taken down by the institution because, ultimately, he was doing what should not be done in schools -- get poor people to think and climb out of their assigned class in life. More supportive links:

Gatto:
    "Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling"
    http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Schooling/dp/086571231X
    http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
    http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"""
Before you can reach a point of effectiveness in defending your own children or your principles against the assault of blind social machinery, you have to stop conspiring against yourself by attempting to negotiate with a set of abstract principles and rules which, by its nature, cannot respond. Under all its disguises, that is what institutional schooling is, an abstraction which has escaped its handlers. Nobody can reform it. First you have to realize that human values are the stuff of madness to a system; in systems-logic the schools we have are already the schools the system needs; the only way they could be much improved is to have kids eat, sleep, live, and die there.
"""

Illich:
    http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-illic.htm
    http://reactor-core.org/deschooling.html

John Holt:
    http://www.holtgws.com/

Collections of links by me on this:
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

Why not just give the school money directly to the parents as they see fit to take care of their children? One proposal (by me):
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html

Human behavior is a product of many things, genetics, parenting, history, nutrition, community, environment, and others...

As I see it, you are asking, what do we do about psychopaths, and their lesser cousins, bullies?
"[p2p-research] The psychopath as peer?"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005499.html

As Jacque Fresco suggests in the following two videos, you can change the physical and social environment, and that will change a lot of human behavior in a healthier way, which is much better than passing laws:
http://www.youtube.com/user/jacquefresco#p/a/u/2/pbtbGcKiLiM
http://www.youtube.com/user/jacquefresco#p/a/u/1/PSbKfdOTRpY

And as you suggest, today's prisons in the USA create criminals. The USA has many times more people in prison than other industrialized countries,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
in large part because the sentences are way longer (part of that is that the prison industry is profitable to many who lobby for harsher laws or prevent removing harsh laws). For example, in New York State:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR2009032702834.html
"Then in November, Democrats captured the state Senate for the first time in years. The State Assembly in the past had proposed repealing the drug laws, but the effort was always blocked by Senate Republicans, many of whom represent largely rural, Upstate districts where most of the state's prisons are located."
And consider what was recently discovered in Pennsylvania:
"Pennsylvania rocked by 'jailing kids for cash' scandal"
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/23/pennsylvania.corrupt.judges/index.html
Where else in the USA does this happen?

A basic income could remove much petty theft and physical crimes of mugging and armed robbery:
http://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.html
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html

Being non-violent does not mean being passive. We can actively work to create a better society that works for most everybody as an active process, especially in a democracy:
"Social Movements and Strategic Nonviolence"
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_nonviolence.html

The same as with terrorists, you may not be able to prevent individuals from planning to do harmful things, but what you can do is take away their social support network that enables them and provides cover for them to plan large scale harm. That goes for whether the terrorists are alienated fundamentalist extremists pursuing some radical cause, or ostensibly mainstream elected government officials invading other countries to remain in power and to create business opportunities for their friends.

Again, Voyage from Yesteryear is one picture of such an alternative society (even if it is not the only possible one).
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary

Because we live in such a schooled society, where most people have been broken and trained

Then, if there is possible resource contention, rather than pass laws about IDs, it would seem that the most essential thing to do is to help everyone to use their imagination as "The Ultimate Resource"
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
to address any potential scarcity problems and create material abundance for all. People have already been doing that for hundreds of years, for example, Benjamin Franklin who made the pot bellied stove and bifocals and refused to patent any of that.

By the way, fossil fuels are not cheap overall, they are just profitable to a few.
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461
"According to a 2000 study for the Department of Energy, there is a significant cost attached to the mere fact of our dependence. Supply disruptions, price hikes, and loss of wealth suffered through the oil market upheavals have cost the U.S. economy around $7 trillion (1998 dollars) over the 30 years from 1970 to 2000. ...
Milton Copulus, the head of the National Defense Council Foundation, has a different view. And as the former principal energy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a 12-year member of the National Petroleum Council, a Reagan White House alum, and an advisor to half a dozen U.S. Energy Secretaries, various Secretaries of Defense, and two directors of the CIA, he knows his stuff. After taking into account the direct and indirect costs of oil, the economic costs of oil supply disruption, and military expenditures, he estimates the true cost of oil at a stunning $480 a barrel."

Coal has huge costs in environmental damage and health costs (from mercury pollution and other things). It actually takes more electricity to make gasoline from crude oil that in would take to make an electrical vehicle go the same distance a regular car goes on one gallon.
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm

It's been known since the 1980s that renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels (or nuclear) when you account for external costs and risks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
"Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security is a 1982 book by Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, prepared originally as a Pentagon study, and re-released in 2001 following the September 11 attacks. The book argues that U.S. domestic energy infrastructure is very vulnerable to disruption, by accident or malice, often even more so than imported oil. According to the authors, a resilient energy system is feasible, costs less, works better, is favoured in the market, but is rejected by U.S. policy.[1] In the preface to the 2001 edition, Lovins explains that these themes are still very current. [2]"

Anyway, please name ten jobs you do not think could *not* be fairly easily automated over the next twenty years as robotics and AI continue to advance (at least to the point where one human can do the work of ten now)?

My take on that:
"60 jobs that will rock the future... (not)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004216.html

So, as I see it, the urgent need is to rethink the basis of our economy before then.

There is room for quadrillions of people in the solar system if we build space habitats, so IMHO talk of birth control based on resource constraints is premature. :-)
"The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps"
http://www.amazon.com/Millennial-Project-Colonizi

See for example Marshall Brain's writings:
    http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm
    http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

A list of current robotics videos I put together, with robots doing everything from milk cows, prune grape vines, throw and catch cell phones, put laundry in washing machines, invent and test new theories in yeast genetics, and do autopsies (the last one isn't a video, thankfully):
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html

So, ID cards and worries about illegal immigrants are all a distraction from rethinking the economy along the lines of having some mix of a basic income, local subsistence production from 3D printing and organic gardening, a gift economy like GNU/Linux, better resource-based planning, making work into play, a spread of local currencies and LETS systems, and lots of other possibilities I helped organize here for moving beyond a jobless recovery:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobless_recovery

If you want to worry, worry about how to build an economy where we get past the irony of using abundant military robots to enforce a scarcity-based economic system designed around getting humans to work like robots. :-)

Thanks. Well, I guess, as you predicted, others don't agree, and the first item has been modded down to (0, Troll).
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1571756&cid=31365414
So has another gone down as offtopic:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1571756&cid=31365538
And another market Troll:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1571756&cid=31366202
How citing a book by acknowledged experts on the interrelation of child development and violent media and toys is off-topic and trolling in the context of discussing banning violent videogames and toys, well, I guess that happens sometimes. :-) Some people don't want to know (granted I say other stuff people may not like, too).

As a stay-at-home Dad (to some extent, and homeschooling) and also technology person, I've spent a lot of time thinking on this stuff, reading about it, and writing on it, (as in, years), so I have all the links etc. ready to go.

More by me on options for social progress (or regression) could be found here:
"Jobless Recovery"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobless_recovery
"[p2p-research] Rebutting Communiqué from an Absent Future (was Re: Information on student protests)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html
"Post-Scarcity Princeton"
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
"Achieving a Star Trek Society"
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/AchievingAStarTrekSociety.html
"A brickfilm movie idea about preventing a Caprican future"
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/cac4e38a9b68d083

As I say elsewhere, I don't think censorship is the answer to this sort of problem. Actually, I also think Chavez has the problem wrong. Violence and addictive-seeming consumption of social media happens in large part due to social stress:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
The key is to reduce the stress, and to direct people to more positive activities.

As Bucky Fuller said:
http://challenge.bfi.org/movie
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

That's really what Chavez is doing wrong with this, and some other things. It's sad. Venezuela could repeal the Berne convention on copyrights, institute a basic income, expand the public library system instead of the public school system, grind up rock for fertilizer, promote cooperative games, and a variety of other more essential and effective things to create prosperity for all there. Banning the violent video games does not address any of these core issues.

Twenty years from now, when renewables replace oil (a major revenue for Venezuela) through exponential growth, and AI and robotics and better design (a better RepRap) can produce really cheap products in any industrialized country (and so they will flood in from abroad), Venezuela will be in bad shape unless it has transitioned beyond capitalist economics entirely

To turn that around, advanced technology, sir, is walking a line dangerously close to communism! :-)

That's because we are seeing the value of most human labor slowly plummeting to zero (one reason why no one can afford health insurance anymore except the doctors and medical equipment manufacturer owners. :-) See:
http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

So, as Marshall Brain suggests, the end point of capitalism is the starvation of all people who do not have a lot of capital (because, when their labor is worthless, they will not be able to pay for food, clothes, rent, medical costs, etc.). Everything from milking cows to doing genetic research is being automated:
"VMS robotic milking"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPqWpOxQmIs
"Robot Scientist Makes Discovery"
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/02/robot-scientist.html

Robots are making the leap from less coordinated than humans to more coordinated than humans:
"High-Speed Robot Hand Demonstrates Dexterity and Skillful Manipulation"
http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/08/03/high-speed-robot-hand-demonstrates-dexterity-and-skillful-manipulation

More links to robot videos here:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html

The thing is, "ownership" is ultimately a political construction:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

Propped up by millionaire wannabees and slightly privileged guards:
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
"The Coming Revolt of the Guards"
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html

Are you a billionaire? Otherwise, by capitalist standards, if your work can eventually be automated, your life will then be worthless in their eyes, and you should then logically starve once everything you can do of value to billionaires has been automated. And don't say you'll just get another job, because as Marshall Brain suggests, that one will be automated too once we pass some critical thresholds in AI and robotics. That's like saying you will hide under a tree to stay dry in a rainstorm and when that tree gets wet through you will go find another.

The only question is, do we put in place social reforms now, or do we wait until even more people are starving? Well, there's an obvious answer to that in a capitalist society, and as American financier Jay Gould said after hiring strikebreakers, it is "I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery

So, ideally, we need to find alternatives to a society build around a conception of work:
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

The real reason why violent (and other) games are evil in a way is just that they are a distraction from dealing with that very serious issue of rethinking our society on some better ba

As I point out in other replies, if you look at how hunter/gatherers lived, you will see that people can function quite well among relative affluence.
http://www.primitivism.com/original-affluent.htm

It's true that material affluence by itself can produce problems, as this study shows the general poor mental health of many wealthy families in the USA:
"The Culture of Affluence: Psychological Costs of Material Wealth"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1950124/

But, I think that leaves out that our society in the USA has gone too far towards an extreme, and that trend has been amplified by competitive compulsory schooling:
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"""
I'll bring this down to earth. Try to see that an intricately subordinated industrial/commercial system has only limited use for hundreds of millions of self-reliant, resourceful readers and critical thinkers. In an egalitarian, entrepreneurially based economy of confederated families like the one the Amish have or the Mondragon folk in the Basque region of Spain, any number of self-reliant people can be accommodated usefully, but not in a concentrated command-type economy like our own. Where on earth would they fit? In a great fanfare of moral fervor some years back, the Ford Motor Company opened the world's most productive auto engine plant in Chihuahua, Mexico. It insisted on hiring employees with 50 percent more school training than the Mexican norm of six years, but as time passed Ford removed its requirements and began to hire school dropouts, training them quite well in four to twelve weeks. The hype that education is essential to robot-like work was quietly abandoned. Our economy has no adequate outlet of expression for its artists, dancers, poets, painters, farmers, filmmakers, wildcat business people, handcraft workers, whiskey makers, intellectuals, or a thousand other useful human enterprises--no outlet except corporate work or fringe slots on the periphery of things. Unless you do "creative" work the company way, you run afoul of a host of laws and regulations put on the books to control the dangerous products of imagination which can never be safely tolerated by a centralized command system.
"""

And that is reflected in the dominant mythology of the USA:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47

And US foreign policy around the world has actively tried to destroy anything that might have emerged as a possible alternative good example. For example, the first September 11, in 1973, in Chile:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-December/006458.html

So, people can live well together in abundance, and we have historical proof of that. Some people, one might even call this mental illness, can not. How to deal with that is an interesting question, but maybe, as a start, we should make sure the lunatics are not running the asylum? :-( And all it takes, in a democratic society, to do that, is to have good candidates and to vote for them, as well as to build positive alternative non-governmental organizations and better businesses.

So, respectfully, if you keep looking for better answers, you may sometimes find them.

As for robots, they

Please see my other comment here on the irony of all this, which concludes:
    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1558202&cid=31228950
"The same reason we can put relatively cheap Predators in the air is the same reason we don't really need them much as a global society: the emergence of global abundance through technology produced collaboratively."

If you want to see the state of the art in robotics, here is a list of videos I put together (everything from driving cars, to pruning grapevines, to making pancakes, to milking cows).
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html

What are we even fighting over?

I decided to post the whole thing as a reply here since it is not easily accessible, even though there are a couple of replies there and additional comments by me.

Embedded software developer Joseph Stack allegedly intentionally flew a small plane into government offices in Austin, TX, in an act that has been labeled as domestic terrorism. He cited, among other things, IRS regulations about independent contractor status as well as other issues related to government corruption.

Could his behavior have been partially due to vitamin D deficiency syndrome from indoor work? Could vitamin D deficiency also have contributed to the violent behavior alleged of Hans Reiser or Amy Bishop? And is part of the problem also that Joe Stack was not talking to anyone about any of this to think through real solutions and find positive things to do that, as Mr. Rogers sang, would not hurt himself or anyone else?

Here are some useful resources for preventing more copycat violence to show how there are plenty of alternatives to violence despite Joe Stack's claim otherwise in his manifesto:

Treating Disease With Vitamin D

Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy

Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals

Albert Einstein on: Religion and Science

A wombat talks about a global mindshift

TED | Peter Eigen on moving beyond corruption

The Optimism of Uncertainty

Social Movements and Strategic Nonviolence

As another software developer who has done embedded work, here are some non-programming things I've worked on related to helping people see positive alternatives to violence:

Possible cures for a jobless recovery

Post-Scarcity Princeton, or, Reading between the lines of PAW for prospective Princeton students, or, the Health Risks of Heart Disease

Rebutting Communiqué from an Absent Future

The amazing thing to me is not that stuff like this happens. What is amazing is that it does not happen more often, which is a tribute to most of humanity's basic social nature. In a way, even Joe Stack chose a relatively limited approach; an embedded software developer such as he was could have done far more damage if trying to create general mayhem (he could have tampered with nuclear power plants or medical devices or airplane software). There is also irony here that a person took a very advanced piece of technology — a private airplane, and all that it represents as a technological marvel — and used it to destroy a past instead of to create a future.

What do people think and feel about all this?

An essay I wrote connected to a free software project on educational technology:
"Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools"
http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html
(The title has a double meaning. :-)

The essential part is extracted here by Bill Kerr:
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/01/why-education-technology-has-failed.html
"""
Ultimately, educational technology's greatest value is in supporting "learning on demand" based on interest or need which is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to "learning just in case" based on someone else's demand.
    Compulsory schools don't usually traffic in "learning on demand", for the most part leaving that kind of activity to libraries or museums or the home or business or the "real world". In order for compulsory schools to make use of the best of educational technology and what is has to offer, schools themselves must change...
    So, there is more to the story of technology than it failing in schools. Modern information and manufacturing technology itself is giving compulsory schools a failing grade. Compulsory schools do not pass in the information age. They are no longer needed. What remains is just to watch this all play out, and hopefully guide the collapse of compulsory schooling so that the fewest people get hurt in the process.
"""

More recent stuff by me on education and socio-technological change:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

The good news is, in two to three years, people will be discarding today's fancy Google Android Smartphones, and they will make amazing educational platforms once they are free as hand-me-downs (instead of or in addition to OLPC-like endeavors):
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006250.html
No doubt most compulsory schools will try to suppress them. At least they will be usable outside of school.

More on this general idea of wearable computers changing the nature of education (and society) from Theodore Sturgeon written as a sci-fi short story "The Skills of Xanadu" in 1956, and which inspired Ted Nelson and other technology pioneers:
    http://books.google.com/books?id=wpuJQrxHZXAC&pg=PA51

An essay I wrote connected to a free software project on educational technology:
"Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools"
http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html
(The title has a double meaning. :-)

The essential part is extracted here by Bill Kerr:
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/01/why-education-technology-has-failed.html
"""
Ultimately, educational technology's greatest value is in supporting "learning on demand" based on interest or need which is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to "learning just in case" based on someone else's demand.
    Compulsory schools don't usually traffic in "learning on demand", for the most part leaving that kind of activity to libraries or museums or the home or business or the "real world". In order for compulsory schools to make use of the best of educational technology and what is has to offer, schools themselves must change...
    So, there is more to the story of technology than it failing in schools. Modern information and manufacturing technology itself is giving compulsory schools a failing grade. Compulsory schools do not pass in the information age. They are no longer needed. What remains is just to watch this all play out, and hopefully guide the collapse of compulsory schooling so that the fewest people get hurt in the process.
"""

More recent stuff by me on education and socio-technological change:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

The good news is, in two to three years, people will be discarding today's fancy Google Android Smartphones, and they will make amazing educational platforms once they are free as hand-me-downs (instead of or in addition to OLPC-like endeavors):
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006250.html
No doubt most compulsory schools will try to suppress them. At least they will be usable outside of school.

More on this general idea of wearable computers changing the nature of education (and society) from Theodore Sturgeon written as a sci-fi short story "The Skills of Xanadu" in 1956, and which inspired Ted Nelson and other technology pioneers:
    http://books.google.com/books?id=wpuJQrxHZXAC&pg=PA51

An essay I wrote connected to a free software project on educational technology:
"Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools"
http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html
(The title has a double meaning. :-)

The essential part is extracted here by Bill Kerr:
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/01/why-education-technology-has-failed.html
"""
Ultimately, educational technology's greatest value is in supporting "learning on demand" based on interest or need which is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to "learning just in case" based on someone else's demand.
    Compulsory schools don't usually traffic in "learning on demand", for the most part leaving that kind of activity to libraries or museums or the home or business or the "real world". In order for compulsory schools to make use of the best of educational technology and what is has to offer, schools themselves must change...
    So, there is more to the story of technology than it failing in schools. Modern information and manufacturing technology itself is giving compulsory schools a failing grade. Compulsory schools do not pass in the information age. They are no longer needed. What remains is just to watch this all play out, and hopefully guide the collapse of compulsory schooling so that the fewest people get hurt in the process.
"""

More recent stuff by me on education and socio-technological change:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

The good news is, in two to three years, people will be discarding today's fancy Google Android Smartphones, and they will make amazing educational platforms once they are free as hand-me-downs (instead of or in addition to OLPC-like endeavors):
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006250.html
No doubt most compulsory schools will try to suppress them. At least they will be usable outside of school.

More on this general idea of wearable computers changing the nature of education (and society) from Theodore Sturgeon written as a sci-fi short story "The Skills of Xanadu" in 1956, and which inspired Ted Nelson and other technology pioneers:
    http://books.google.com/books?id=wpuJQrxHZXAC&pg=PA51

An essay I wrote connected to a free software project on educational technology:
"Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools"
http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html
(The title has a double meaning. :-)

The essential part is extracted here by Bill Kerr:
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/01/why-education-technology-has-failed.html
"""
Ultimately, educational technology's greatest value is in supporting "learning on demand" based on interest or need which is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to "learning just in case" based on someone else's demand.
    Compulsory schools don't usually traffic in "learning on demand", for the most part leaving that kind of activity to libraries or museums or the home or business or the "real world". In order for compulsory schools to make use of the best of educational technology and what is has to offer, schools themselves must change...
    So, there is more to the story of technology than it failing in schools. Modern information and manufacturing technology itself is giving compulsory schools a failing grade. Compulsory schools do not pass in the information age. They are no longer needed. What remains is just to watch this all play out, and hopefully guide the collapse of compulsory schooling so that the fewest people get hurt in the process.
"""

More recent stuff by me on education and socio-technological change:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

The good news is, in two to three years, people will be discarding today's fancy Google Android Smartphones, and they will make amazing educational platforms once they are free as hand-me-downs (instead of or in addition to OLPC-like endeavors):
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006250.html
No doubt most compulsory schools will try to suppress them. At least they will be usable outside of school.

More on this general idea of wearable computers changing the nature of education (and society) from Theodore Sturgeon written as a sci-fi short story "The Skills of Xanadu" in 1956, and which inspired Ted Nelson and other technology pioneers:
    http://books.google.com/books?id=wpuJQrxHZXAC&pg=PA51

School is often boring for many people. Is this study proof that compulsory schooling is bad for most people's health?

See also:

"The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher" also by John Taylor Gatto
    http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt

"The Three Boxes of Life and How to Get Out of Them: An Introduction to Life/Work Planning" by Richard N. Bolles (also writes "What Color is Your Parachute")
      http://www.amazon.com/Three-Boxes-Life-How-Them/dp/0913668583

Other links:
    "College Daze links (was Re: : FlossedBk, "Free/Libre and Open Source Solutions for Education")"
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html

What are people trying to accomplish with attending lectures and taking notes that can not be done in other ways, like watching videos or reading books? Learning by working on problem sets, or better, real world problems, drawing on digital materials you search through and read as you need (on-demand learning) seems more appropriate these days.

An essay by me on this, about the poor use of technology by schools because schools are using an obsolete social paradigm:
"Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools"
http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html

Here are lots more of my writings organizing collections of links and ideas about college issues in general:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

What are people trying to accomplish with attending lectures and taking notes that can not be done in other ways, like watching videos or reading books? Learning by working on problem sets, or better, real world problems, drawing on digital materials you search through and read as you need (on-demand learning) seems more appropriate these days.

An essay by me on this, about the poor use of technology by schools because schools are using an obsolete social paradigm:
"Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools"
http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html

Here are lots more of my writings organizing collections of links and ideas about college issues in general:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

What are people trying to accomplish with attending lectures and taking notes that can not be done in other ways, like watching videos or reading books? Learning by working on problem sets, or better, real world problems, drawing on digital materials you search through and read as you need (on-demand learning) seems more appropriate these days.

An essay by me on this, about the poor use of technology by schools because schools are using an obsolete social paradigm:
"Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools"
http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html

Here are lots more of my writings organizing collections of links and ideas about college issues in general:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

Places with huge problems also tend to have legacies of intervention by foreign governments and foreign corporations. The Earth has no resource limitation problems in the long term:
"Earth's carrying capacity and Catton"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004123.html

But, with robots on the way, it's easy to see why many think life is cheap because masses of human labor are no longer needed for the earlier exploitation:
"Robot videos and P2P implications (was Re: A thirty year future...)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html

That is the deeper problem we need to address as a society, how to move past the irony of having all these tools of abundance but people using them to make artificial scarcity. We need to stop using military robots to enforce a culture of work on humans and instead make robots to do the work. We need to stop building nuclear missiles to fight over oil wells on Earth and instead use the same basic technologies to produce power or make accessible resources in space (I'm a renewable energy fan more than nuclear though). Here are some other ways to move past that irony:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm
http://www.michaeljournal.org/lesson1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy
http://www.freecycle.org/
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/free_matter_economy?page=0%2C1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3d_printing
http://www.mel.nist.gov/programs/slim.htm
http://www.remineralize.org/
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
http://books.google.com/books?id=bCuC2H-6k_8C (Surviving America's Depression Epidemic)
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
http://www.honestfoodguide.org/
http://www.global-mindshift.org/memes/wombat.swf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobless_recovery

There are lots of solutions rather than kill off people or prevent them from being born when there is so much abundance for everyone these days through modern technology. You want to stop suffering? Break the link between a right-to-consume and being able to sell your labor on a market where automation and better design is removing good jobs every day, like people said would be a problem even back in 1964:
http://educationanddemocra

Places with huge problems also tend to have legacies of intervention by foreign governments and foreign corporations. The Earth has no resource limitation problems in the long term:
"Earth's carrying capacity and Catton"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004123.html

But, with robots on the way, it's easy to see why many think life is cheap because masses of human labor are no longer needed for the earlier exploitation:
"Robot videos and P2P implications (was Re: A thirty year future...)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html

That is the deeper problem we need to address as a society, how to move past the irony of having all these tools of abundance but people using them to make artificial scarcity. We need to stop using military robots to enforce a culture of work on humans and instead make robots to do the work. We need to stop building nuclear missiles to fight over oil wells on Earth and instead use the same basic technologies to produce power or make accessible resources in space (I'm a renewable energy fan more than nuclear though). Here are some other ways to move past that irony:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm
http://www.michaeljournal.org/lesson1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy
http://www.freecycle.org/
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/free_matter_economy?page=0%2C1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3d_printing
http://www.mel.nist.gov/programs/slim.htm
http://www.remineralize.org/
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
http://books.google.com/books?id=bCuC2H-6k_8C (Surviving America's Depression Epidemic)
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
http://www.honestfoodguide.org/
http://www.global-mindshift.org/memes/wombat.swf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobless_recovery

There are lots of solutions rather than kill off people or prevent them from being born when there is so much abundance for everyone these days through modern technology. You want to stop suffering? Break the link between a right-to-consume and being able to sell your labor on a market where automation and better design is removing good jobs every day, like people said would be a problem even back in 1964:
http://educationanddemocra

Populations are collapsing in industrialized countries, and there is room for quadrillions of people in space habitats, as I outline here:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004174.html
"""
The less peers that are around, the less peers can help each other and contribute to a free commons. Maybe there are laws of diminishing returns, but are we anywhere near them? What would Wikipedia be like with only 100 contributors instead of 100 thousand? Especially in a digital age, it is easy for a peer to add more to the free commons than they take away. What do you take away from Wikipedia by reading a page? A little electricity power perhaps, but Wikipedia shows us how to get all the power we need from the sun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy
So, even in a physical sense, Wikipedia is helping peers physically power it by giving away such knowledge.
We can support quadrillions of humans in the solar system (see my previous references to Dyson, Bernal, Savage, O'Neill, and there are many others), or about a million times our current population on Earth. We essentially had the specific technological ideas in the 1970s we needed to do that, even given refinements since then. So, a focus on zero or negative population growth for the human race as a whole right now, as opposed to just limiting the population currently on Earth (which might be sensible, even though I think we could easily grow 10X on Earth), has created a "Peak Population" crisis that we didn't need to have for 1000 years when we filled up the solar system (and by then, we would have better technology and better social ideology to deal with changing demographics of moving from a triangle to a square of population by age).
Sure, let's set a population target for some carrying capacity on Earth the same way the health and fire departments limit the maximum number of people in a restaurant. But, you don't limit the human population of a city (or the solar system) the same way you limit the number of people that can safely be in a restaurant (the Earth). That is ultimately the mistake that gloomsters like Catton make -- they confuse the two, mostly IMHO from lack of imagination, but also because some profit from artificial scarcity, as well, as in Catton's case, the hypocrisy of having four children while telling everyone else to have less.
"""

One of the reasons people want to have less children in industrialized countries is that they are family unfriendly. The US is rated the second to worst industrialized country to be a child, and the UK is worst:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080119001830/http://www.adbusters.org/the_magazine/71/Generation_Fcked_How_Britain_is_Eating_Its_Young.html
""The reason our children's lives are the worst among economically advanced countries is because we are a poor version of the USA," he said. "So the USA comes second from bottom and we follow behind. The age of neo-liberalism, even with the human face that New Labour has given it, cannot stem the tide of the social recession capitalism creates.""

Although, as I say elsewhere, people not getting enough sunshine and vitamin D3 from being indoors a lot may have a role to play in that too:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/depression.shtml

And here is a book outlining the social problems of industrialized countries and their mental health services and why much of industrialized populations are mentally ill:

Using a phrase like "our standard of living" covers up the fact that some people get the benefits of automation, but others pay the costs (directly or indirectly). Marshall Brain wrote about that here:
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

On labor saving:
"The Original Affluent Society"
http://www.primitivism.com/original-affluent.htm
"Above all. what about the world today? One-third to one-half of humanity are said to go to bed hungry every night. In the Old Stone Age the fraction must have been much smaller. This is the era of hunger unprecedented. Now, in the time of the greatest technical power, is starvation an institution. Reverse another venerable formula: the amount of hunger increases relatively and absolutely with the evolution of culture. This paradox is my whole point. Hunters and gatherers have by force of circumstances an objectively low standard of living. But taken as their objective, and given their adequate means of production. all the people's material wants usually can be easily satisfied. The world's most primitive people have few possessions. but they are not poor. Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilisation. It has grown with civilisation, at once as an invidious distinction between classes and more importantly as a tributary relation that can render agrarian peasants more susceptible to natural catastrophes than any winter camp of Alaskan Eskimo."

With robotics on the way, what are people going to do when there are no jobs in construction?
"USC's 'print-a-house' construction technology"
http://www.physorg.com/news139161727.html
"Caterpillar, the world's largest manufacturer of construction equipment, is starting to support research on the "Contour Crafting" automated construction system that its creator believes will one day be able to build full-scale houses in hours."

Or no jobs in burger flipping even running the machines?
"Robot Chef"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNSKMGurrPI

Or even, next-to-no jobs in medicine? Or software? Or music? Because even if human do those things, automation lets less people do so much more?
"Robot doctor gets thumbs-up from patients"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4946229/

It's a big like something in Isaac Asimov's story "The Last Question", when it was asked, if you are in a rainstorm, and you take shelter under a tree, what are you going to do when the tree gets wet through and starts dripping on you? Do you say, I'll go under another tree? When robots can automate much of construction, are we going to get jobs again in agriculture or miming or driving trucks or delivering packages?
"[p2p-research] 60 jobs that will rock the future... (not)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004216.html
"[p2p-research] Robot videos and P2P implications (was Re: A thirty year future...)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html

The US is in the midst of vast and increasing unemployment. Many jobs probably are not coming back. Most services are frivolous and related to guarding or make-work.
http://www

Using a phrase like "our standard of living" covers up the fact that some people get the benefits of automation, but others pay the costs (directly or indirectly). Marshall Brain wrote about that here:
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

On labor saving:
"The Original Affluent Society"
http://www.primitivism.com/original-affluent.htm
"Above all. what about the world today? One-third to one-half of humanity are said to go to bed hungry every night. In the Old Stone Age the fraction must have been much smaller. This is the era of hunger unprecedented. Now, in the time of the greatest technical power, is starvation an institution. Reverse another venerable formula: the amount of hunger increases relatively and absolutely with the evolution of culture. This paradox is my whole point. Hunters and gatherers have by force of circumstances an objectively low standard of living. But taken as their objective, and given their adequate means of production. all the people's material wants usually can be easily satisfied. The world's most primitive people have few possessions. but they are not poor. Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilisation. It has grown with civilisation, at once as an invidious distinction between classes and more importantly as a tributary relation that can render agrarian peasants more susceptible to natural catastrophes than any winter camp of Alaskan Eskimo."

With robotics on the way, what are people going to do when there are no jobs in construction?
"USC's 'print-a-house' construction technology"
http://www.physorg.com/news139161727.html
"Caterpillar, the world's largest manufacturer of construction equipment, is starting to support research on the "Contour Crafting" automated construction system that its creator believes will one day be able to build full-scale houses in hours."

Or no jobs in burger flipping even running the machines?
"Robot Chef"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNSKMGurrPI

Or even, next-to-no jobs in medicine? Or software? Or music? Because even if human do those things, automation lets less people do so much more?
"Robot doctor gets thumbs-up from patients"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4946229/

It's a big like something in Isaac Asimov's story "The Last Question", when it was asked, if you are in a rainstorm, and you take shelter under a tree, what are you going to do when the tree gets wet through and starts dripping on you? Do you say, I'll go under another tree? When robots can automate much of construction, are we going to get jobs again in agriculture or miming or driving trucks or delivering packages?
"[p2p-research] 60 jobs that will rock the future... (not)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004216.html
"[p2p-research] Robot videos and P2P implications (was Re: A thirty year future...)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html

The US is in the midst of vast and increasing unemployment. Many jobs probably are not coming back. Most services are frivolous and related to guarding or make-work.
http://www

You missed the revolutions in network connectedness (and global consciousness),
  http://www.global-mindshift.org/memes/wombat.swf
robotics, materials, genetics, and design tools. Examples of the state of the art in robots:
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html

Here is an index into stuff I wrote on why doomsters are wrong about material issues (but may be right about social issues):
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/thread.html#4123

We are not running out of stuff or energy by any means. The human imagination is the ultimate resource (as Julian Simon suggests). Are you suggesting optical fiber uses more energy that copper?

On earth, we can recycle and use renewables (or other energy sources even -- whether nuclear or coal), and there are enough resources in the solar system to support quadrillions of humans at a higher than current US standard of living, building thousands of Earth's worth of area in space habitats. How can we be running out of, say, metals when we just need to mine the landfills to get them back? The US auto industry has also become a *net* producer of metal as people downsize cars. And if we switched to electric cars, we would use less electricity (since it takes more electricity to make a gallon of gas than it takes to make an electric car go the same distance as a gasoline car).
    "Why luxury safer electric cars should be free-to-the-user"
    http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en

Try James P. Hogan or Iain Banks or Ursula K. Le Guin for something different in sci-fi.

You missed the revolutions in network connectedness (and global consciousness),
  http://www.global-mindshift.org/memes/wombat.swf
robotics, materials, genetics, and design tools. Examples of the state of the art in robots:
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html

Here is an index into stuff I wrote on why doomsters are wrong about material issues (but may be right about social issues):
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/thread.html#4123

We are not running out of stuff or energy by any means. The human imagination is the ultimate resource (as Julian Simon suggests). Are you suggesting optical fiber uses more energy that copper?

On earth, we can recycle and use renewables (or other energy sources even -- whether nuclear or coal), and there are enough resources in the solar system to support quadrillions of humans at a higher than current US standard of living, building thousands of Earth's worth of area in space habitats. How can we be running out of, say, metals when we just need to mine the landfills to get them back? The US auto industry has also become a *net* producer of metal as people downsize cars. And if we switched to electric cars, we would use less electricity (since it takes more electricity to make a gallon of gas than it takes to make an electric car go the same distance as a gasoline car).
    "Why luxury safer electric cars should be free-to-the-user"
    http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en

Try James P. Hogan or Iain Banks or Ursula K. Le Guin for something different in sci-fi.

It is possible that some of this vitamin D deficiency disaster could have been prevented with more information sharing. As I wrote here:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005081.html
"""
Ryan pointed out to me the University of Wisconsin has patents related to Vitamin D. So, were people perhaps denied Vitamin D as an example of a public institution being funded by public dollars privatizing research results? Same as I can't easily see that study above on the web. ...
I don't know for sure, but I'd suspect most of this research is funded at least in part by public dollars.
I'm assuming, because the University of Wisconsin says they make a lot of money still from Vitamin D, that lawsuits might start flying if someone else starts using Vitamin D therapies without a license for various illnesses?
Is it possible this is a case of the patent system linked to profit-oriented non-profits damaging the health of billions of people globally? Related:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh-Dole_Act
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/03/press.htm
http://www.pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-grantmakers-and-donors-on-copyright-policy.html
If the global health care costs of treating all the diseases that have been suggested related to Vitamin D deficiency each year in whole or in part were totaled up, from flu through cancer to schizophrenia, it might total in the trillions of dollars per year in costs.
If people were somehow getting less Vitamin D because of the societal consequences of patents (including competitivenesses among researchers, but also making techniques to costly to use or delaying their widespread adoption), it is possible the the consequences of proprietary knowledge from just this one issue might have cost our global society many trillions of dollars and untold personal suffering. Enough money to fund endless researchers making more free knowledge. Meanwhile, the University of Wisconsin got a little bit bigger.
Obviously, I'm all for the Vitamin D researchers at the University Wisconsin as well as other universities getting all the resources they need to do good work. But, there may be a huge problem here with public funding strategies for research. The proprietary approach to research knowledge may literally have been costing trillions of dollars a year (in current dollars) for decades taken across the globe. For the past fifty years, at two trillion a year in excess medical costs, this might add up to US$100 trillion in excess medical costs due to such medical knowledge being proprietary and researchers not cooperating more.
Of course, then the huge public health bills are used to justify *increasing* the proprietary aspects of medical knowledge to create more artificial scarcity -- which is a tremendous and sad irony.
"""

Here is one study of the cost to Western Europe of vitamin D deficiency, and it does not even included costs for excess mental illness:
"Estimated benefit of increased vitamin D status in reducing the economic burden of disease in western Europe."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19268496
"""
Vitamin D has important benefits in reducing the risk of many conditions and diseases. Those diseases for which the benefits are well supported and that have large economic effects include many types of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, several bacterial and viral infections, and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Europeans generally have low serum 25-hydroxyvit

Vitamin D in the human body is produced mostly by the effect of sunlight on the skin, which creates the version called vitamin D3 (which is the best version to supplement with, usually from fish oil in gelcaps).

Essentially, as people in industrialized countries have been spending more time indoors at home, work, or school, often at computer screens; and as people have been following well-meant advice from dermatologists to stay out of the sun; and as we all drive more instead of walk or bicycle; and as children are less allowed to roam freely outdoors through fears of stranger abductions or whatnot, we have ended up vitamin D deficient as a society. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked with a variety of issues, including cancer, depression, diabetes, obesity, schizophrenia, autism, heart disease, tooth decay, asthma, allergies, osteoporosis, and even influenza. Ironically, vitamin D deficiency may be causing even more skin cancers in office workers, because being vitamin D deficient cripples some of the immune response that prevents cancer cells from getting out of control. Modern window glass has also been "improved" to let through less UV-B rays to prevent carpet fading; so now we have faded people instead. :-(

Consider that vitamin D deficiency is related to behavioral issues like depression that can manifest themselves in different ways in children. If kids misbehaves in school, they are often denied going outside at recess into the sunshine. If kids misbehave more, they are denied being outside all summer in the sunshine because they have to go to summer school. If they are really bad eventually, then kids get set to juvenile detention and then prison where they may be mostly indoors for years. Sadly, that is a negative spiral of vitamin D deficiency. Homeschoolers at least have the option of being outdoors more and getting more sunshine.

I wrote some on that connection here:
"ADHD or lack of Vitamin D? Albany Free School connection?"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005083.html
"I have no doubt such a play-based curriculum is a good thing and better than compulsory school for most kids. I love learner-directed education, where public schools would become more like public libraries. But, what if some of the magic with the kids labeled ADHD at the Albany Free School is that, instead of getting Ritalin, that kids who have been labeled are allowed to play outdoors in the sunlight a lot? Especially African American kids in that more northern area of the USA who will struggle more with getting enough Vitamin D at that lattitude? The Free School has an outdoor courtyard at the school kids can use when they want, and they allow kids to go to the nearby parks, plus they have some rural lands they go on field trips too."

The biggest challenge of the 21st century is technologies of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity.

Money is a collective fantasy about rationing; how can we move beyond it? As Iain Banks wrote, money is a sign of poverty. James P. Hogan in "Voyage From Yesteryear" also envisioned a post-scarcity society that had moved beyond it.

The last time an big company recruiter sent me an inquiry, I sent back this link: :-)
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

The problem:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"School Daze links"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
"Rebutting Communiqué from an Absent Future"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

Some more links about moving beyond the need to work for pay:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
http://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.html
http://www.pdfernhout.net/basic-income-from-a-millionaires-perspective.html
http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_economy

From something I helped put together:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobless_recovery
"Dealing with a jobless recovery presents global society with some difficult choices about values and identity. A straightforward way to keep the current scarcity-based economic system going in the face of the "threat" of abundance (and limited demand) resulting in a related jobless recovery is to use things like endless low-level war, perpetual schooling, expanded prisons, increased competition, and excessive bureaucracy to provide any amount of make-work jobs to soak up the abundance from high-technology (as well as to take any amount of people off the streets in various ways). That seems to be the main path that the USA and other countries have been going down so far, perhaps unintentionally. Alternatively, there are a range of other options to chose from, whether moving towards a gift economy, a resource-based economy, a basic income economy, or strong local communitarian economies, and to some extent, the USA and other countries have also been pursuing these options as well, but in a less coherent way. Ultimately, the approaches taken to move beyond a jobless recovery (either by creating jobs or by learning to live happily without them) involves political choices that will reflect national and global values, priorities, identities, and aspirations."

The biggest challenge of the 21st century is technologies of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity.

Money is a collective fantasy about rationing; how can we move beyond it? As Iain Banks wrote, money is a sign of poverty. James P. Hogan in "Voyage From Yesteryear" also envisioned a post-scarcity society that had moved beyond it.

The last time an big company recruiter sent me an inquiry, I sent back this link: :-)
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

The problem:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"School Daze links"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
"Rebutting Communiqué from an Absent Future"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

Some more links about moving beyond the need to work for pay:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
http://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.html
http://www.pdfernhout.net/basic-income-from-a-millionaires-perspective.html
http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_economy

From something I helped put together:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobless_recovery
"Dealing with a jobless recovery presents global society with some difficult choices about values and identity. A straightforward way to keep the current scarcity-based economic system going in the face of the "threat" of abundance (and limited demand) resulting in a related jobless recovery is to use things like endless low-level war, perpetual schooling, expanded prisons, increased competition, and excessive bureaucracy to provide any amount of make-work jobs to soak up the abundance from high-technology (as well as to take any amount of people off the streets in various ways). That seems to be the main path that the USA and other countries have been going down so far, perhaps unintentionally. Alternatively, there are a range of other options to chose from, whether moving towards a gift economy, a resource-based economy, a basic income economy, or strong local communitarian economies, and to some extent, the USA and other countries have also been pursuing these options as well, but in a less coherent way. Ultimately, the approaches taken to move beyond a jobless recovery (either by creating jobs or by learning to live happily without them) involves political choices that will reflect national and global values, priorities, identities, and aspirations."

I'm glad you are asking for evidence. General evidence:
http://roboticnation.blogspot.com/
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html

I mentioned robot garbage trucks as an alternative and cited the DARPA grand challenge as evidence such were possible. Just look at US military plans for self-driving vehicles for more predictions by hard-nosed people of what is likely to be around in ten years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driverless_car#History

Just because flying cars did not happen for everyone (there are some prototypes by the way), doesn't mean logically it makes sense to deny self-driving cars won't happen for most people. Safety concerns alone with an aging population who wants to stay mobile will drive their adoption. You can already buy Hondas in the UK that drive themselves on highways.
"Honda Accord ADAS auto-pilot system takes the reins"
http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/30/honda-accord-adas-auto-pilot-system-takes-the-reins/
"We've heard of radar assisted cruise control, that has certain luxury cars running at set speeds on the highway, but slows them down or speeds them up when they get too close to a car in front or behind. Well now Honda UK is taking it to another level with their Advanced Driver Assist System (ADAS) that not only regulates your speed, but manages the turning, allowing you a full auto-pilot system for your Accord when you're out on the freeway. The Adaptive Cruise Control is your regular radar variety, but the Lane Keep Assist System keeps you headed in the right direction by using a camera on the rear-view mirror to watch the white lines and turn accordingly. Honda was quick to point out that their system isn't exactly set up for you to take a nap, since the ADAS system will beep every 10 seconds to make sure you're paying attention, requiring you to touch the steering wheel to inform the car you're still in charge, but we're sure someone is going manage an accident and an ensuing lawsuit or three out of this "convenience"."

So, your skepticism is way behind the reality of these things.

Note that compared to a century ago when many women and children worked in mines, mining is much more pleasant and already heavily automated (including the use of explosives to do the work of many people). Here is an NPR story on that:
"Could Robots Replace Humans in Mines?"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12637032
"So far, the U.S. mining industry has shown little interest in funding such research. The robots are expensive and mining companies have little incentive to spend money developing and deploying them. Advances in other technology have already reduced the number of miners in the U.S. by more than two-thirds, compared with 40 years ago. Today, only about 100,000 people work in the coal-mining industry. Partly for that reason, and partly because of advances in safety, mining is not nearly as dangerous as it was in the in the past. Since 1990, fatalities have declined by 67 percent, and injuries by 51 percent, according to the National Mining Association."

So, they are not really trying very hard because humans are forced to do the jobs for money. But it could be mostly automated if we wanted to.

As for robotic material handling systems, there are plenty of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWsMdN7HMuA

Well, are you lazy because you are leaching off of 5000 years (and more) of innovations made by our ancestors? Do you reinvent the science and technology from scratch when you want a new computer? At what point after all that hard work by so many will we be able to stop working so much?

Over the last 200 years, the US workforce has gone from about 90% farmers to about 1% farmers, using mostly machinery like tractors and harvesters. Over the last 50 years, the US workforce has gone from about 30% manufacturing workers to about 12% (with some imports, but much has been productivity increases). We now have massive and increasing unemployment. Industrial productivity continues to increase exponentially. Where are all these things that people need to be working at? Services? Robots are doing more and more, as is computer software, and most (not all) service jobs doing things like telemarketing or being a restaurant employee are not very good jobs. A relative handful of people maintaining Debian GNU/Linux are supplying software to billions. Technology is an amplifier. The whole nature of economics is changing.

What we have now is actually vast amounts of effort that go into non-productive activities because of the attitude you outline, where in the end a greater and greater percentage of effort goes into "guarding" rather than production. RIAA or SCO are great examples of this, with endless lawsuits trying to get income for some few and wasting everyone's time and energy. But much the same is true even these days about basic material things like cars. Here is something I wrote on why taxes would go *down* if everyone got a free luxury electric car, because of the savings on health care costs, pollution remediation, and war taxes:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en

The "conventional wisdom" assumptions about work and income are out of date for the 21st century. Let alone they are *cruel* given people are homeless and hungry amidst so much abundance in the USA, and those numbers continue to grow. As is said at the third link below: "The continuance of the income-through-jobs link as the only major mechanism for distributing effective demand -- for granting the right to consume -- now acts as the main brake on the almost unlimited capacity of a cybernated productive system."

Related:
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
http://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.html

Two by me on why robots are changing the nature of employment:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004216.html

Here is something I wrote on why even *millionaires* would be better off with a basic income:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/basic-income-from-a-millionaires-perspective.html

You are voting against your own self-interest because of obsolete 20th century ideology. The age of one-for-one trade is coming to an end (even if there may always be aspects of trade in our society). We're in a new age of emerging abundance from advanced technology, one that makes possible aga

Well, are you lazy because you are leaching off of 5000 years (and more) of innovations made by our ancestors? Do you reinvent the science and technology from scratch when you want a new computer? At what point after all that hard work by so many will we be able to stop working so much?

Over the last 200 years, the US workforce has gone from about 90% farmers to about 1% farmers, using mostly machinery like tractors and harvesters. Over the last 50 years, the US workforce has gone from about 30% manufacturing workers to about 12% (with some imports, but much has been productivity increases). We now have massive and increasing unemployment. Industrial productivity continues to increase exponentially. Where are all these things that people need to be working at? Services? Robots are doing more and more, as is computer software, and most (not all) service jobs doing things like telemarketing or being a restaurant employee are not very good jobs. A relative handful of people maintaining Debian GNU/Linux are supplying software to billions. Technology is an amplifier. The whole nature of economics is changing.

What we have now is actually vast amounts of effort that go into non-productive activities because of the attitude you outline, where in the end a greater and greater percentage of effort goes into "guarding" rather than production. RIAA or SCO are great examples of this, with endless lawsuits trying to get income for some few and wasting everyone's time and energy. But much the same is true even these days about basic material things like cars. Here is something I wrote on why taxes would go *down* if everyone got a free luxury electric car, because of the savings on health care costs, pollution remediation, and war taxes:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en

The "conventional wisdom" assumptions about work and income are out of date for the 21st century. Let alone they are *cruel* given people are homeless and hungry amidst so much abundance in the USA, and those numbers continue to grow. As is said at the third link below: "The continuance of the income-through-jobs link as the only major mechanism for distributing effective demand -- for granting the right to consume -- now acts as the main brake on the almost unlimited capacity of a cybernated productive system."

Related:
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
http://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.html

Two by me on why robots are changing the nature of employment:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005926.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004216.html

Here is something I wrote on why even *millionaires* would be better off with a basic income:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/basic-income-from-a-millionaires-perspective.html

You are voting against your own self-interest because of obsolete 20th century ideology. The age of one-for-one trade is coming to an end (even if there may always be aspects of trade in our society). We're in a new age of emerging abundance from advanced technology, one that makes possible aga

Some ideas here:
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006250.html

In two to three years or so, the current generation of smart phones just coming out like the Google Droid will be discarded for something new, and those might make terrific cheap education platforms.

So, Droid is a more tempting platform to me for educational software than the OLPC and Sugar in that sense of a big market. :-)

Imagine, Google and Verizon could even make a promise now to customers -- buy your Droid through Verizon, and in two years, if you continue your cell phone plan, we will give you the latest Droid version and if you return the old one to a Verizon store, we'll send it to materially poor kids loaded with educational software that teaches them how to read, write, and do math. And with bluetooth, and WiFi, the Droid could even have some software that works along the lines that Sugar aspired to do, with kids collaborating together. What a deal -- and it might greatly boost current sales. :-) Maybe someone should forward this note to someone they know at Google or Verizon? :-) Seriously, what US teacher would not buy a Droid over an iPhone knowing it was going to teach some poor kid to read in two years? (Of course, Apple might eventually have to follow suit. :-) And that gives me and the rest of the free software developer world two years to write all that free software for those kids. :-) Of course, it might be nice if Google or Verizon helped some of those free software developers to write lots of cool stuff (millions of dollars in support for education software could just be considered part of their advertising budget). But it might happen even if they did not directly provide support, because a lot of developers might see the potential, as I did. And it might help Droid sales even now, for parents to hand their Droid to their kid who was learning to read or write or do arithmetic, and it would help the kid. Parents might even buy a Droid for all their kids, and think that in two years, those Droids would also go to materially poor nations. This project might even help boost the economic recovery in the USA. And of course, there are many Android devices beside the Droid, so all of those might benefit as well from educational software. And, the Android platform already runs well under almost any PC OS in emulation. So, any free software made for the Android will also run right now on any desktop or laptop, and likely that integration could be improved even more over time.

http://www.unschooling.com/

Lots of links on how and why schooling has failed:
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html

More:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

An easy fix:
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html
"New York State current spends roughly 20,000 US dollars per schooled child per year to support the public school system. This essay suggests that the same amount of money be given directly to the family of each homeschooled child. Further, it suggests that eventually all parents would get this amount, as more and more families decide to homeschool because it is suddenly easier financially. It suggests why ultimately this will be a win/win situation for everyone involved (including parents, children, teachers, school staff, other people in the community, and even school administrators :-) because ultimately local schools will grow into larger vibrant community learning centers open to anyone in the community and looking more like college campuses. New York State could try this plan incrementally in a few different school districts across the state as pilot programs to see how it works out. This may seem like an unlikely idea to be adopted at first, but at least it is a starting point for building a positive vision of the future for all children in all our communities. Like straightforward ideas such as Medicare-for-all, this is an easy solution to state, likely with broad popular support, but it may be a hard thing to get done politically for all sorts of reasons"
   

http://www.unschooling.com/

Lots of links on how and why schooling has failed:
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html

More:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

An easy fix:
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html
"New York State current spends roughly 20,000 US dollars per schooled child per year to support the public school system. This essay suggests that the same amount of money be given directly to the family of each homeschooled child. Further, it suggests that eventually all parents would get this amount, as more and more families decide to homeschool because it is suddenly easier financially. It suggests why ultimately this will be a win/win situation for everyone involved (including parents, children, teachers, school staff, other people in the community, and even school administrators :-) because ultimately local schools will grow into larger vibrant community learning centers open to anyone in the community and looking more like college campuses. New York State could try this plan incrementally in a few different school districts across the state as pilot programs to see how it works out. This may seem like an unlikely idea to be adopted at first, but at least it is a starting point for building a positive vision of the future for all children in all our communities. Like straightforward ideas such as Medicare-for-all, this is an easy solution to state, likely with broad popular support, but it may be a hard thing to get done politically for all sorts of reasons"
   

http://www.unschooling.com/

Lots of links on how and why schooling has failed:
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html

More:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

An easy fix:
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html
"New York State current spends roughly 20,000 US dollars per schooled child per year to support the public school system. This essay suggests that the same amount of money be given directly to the family of each homeschooled child. Further, it suggests that eventually all parents would get this amount, as more and more families decide to homeschool because it is suddenly easier financially. It suggests why ultimately this will be a win/win situation for everyone involved (including parents, children, teachers, school staff, other people in the community, and even school administrators :-) because ultimately local schools will grow into larger vibrant community learning centers open to anyone in the community and looking more like college campuses. New York State could try this plan incrementally in a few different school districts across the state as pilot programs to see how it works out. This may seem like an unlikely idea to be adopted at first, but at least it is a starting point for building a positive vision of the future for all children in all our communities. Like straightforward ideas such as Medicare-for-all, this is an easy solution to state, likely with broad popular support, but it may be a hard thing to get done politically for all sorts of reasons"
   

What about this?
    http://cabinet.auriol.free.fr/Documents/cache_catharsis.htm
"""
Popular belief in the catharsis theory remains strong despite the theory's dismal record in research findings. According to the catharsis hypothesis, acting aggressively or even viewing aggression is an effective way to reduce anger and aggressive feelings. One likely reason for the continued widespread belief in catharsis is that the mass media continue to endorse the view that expressing anger or aggressive feelings is healthy, constructive, and relaxing, whereas restraining oneself creates internal tension that is unhealthy and bound to lead to an eventual blowup.
    The present research was concerned with a pair of related questions. First, can media support for the catharsis hypothesis cause people to engage in catharsis-seeking activities, such as aggressive action? Second, if media messages do persuade people to believe in the effectiveness of catharsis, will their own indulgence in aggressive action produce that effect?
    The concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy suggests that people's beliefs can shape their choices and the outcomes of their actions, so that expectations tend to come true by virtue of the changed behaviors resulting directly from the expectations (e.g., Darley & Fazio, 1980). Although researchers have mostly failed to find laboratory evidence of catharsis effects, it is plausible that media endorsement produces such self-fulfilling prophecies, which in turn might be sufficient to sustain popular belief in catharsis. In the present research, we provided people with procatharsis messages telling them that acting aggressively or expressing anger is a good way to reduce inner tensions. Consistent with the self-fulfilling prophecy notion, we investigated whether such messages would increase behavioral choices of aggressive activity following an anger provocation (Study 1) and, more important, would help produce the anticipated benefits of expressing anger (Study 2)--specifically, by reducing aggressive behavior toward another person after the participant was supposedly able to reach catharsis by hitting a punching bag.
"""

That said, I agree with you lots of aspects of our current social system, especially the school system, are messed up in various ways. My own thoughts on how to fix them:
    "Post-Scarcity Princeton, or, Reading between the lines of PAW for prospective Princeton students, or, the Health Risks of Heart Disease"
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html

Also related by me more recently on education issues:
    http://www.cnewmark.com/2009/12/making-govt-work-a-huge-step.html#comments
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

What about this?
    http://cabinet.auriol.free.fr/Documents/cache_catharsis.htm
"""
Popular belief in the catharsis theory remains strong despite the theory's dismal record in research findings. According to the catharsis hypothesis, acting aggressively or even viewing aggression is an effective way to reduce anger and aggressive feelings. One likely reason for the continued widespread belief in catharsis is that the mass media continue to endorse the view that expressing anger or aggressive feelings is healthy, constructive, and relaxing, whereas restraining oneself creates internal tension that is unhealthy and bound to lead to an eventual blowup.
    The present research was concerned with a pair of related questions. First, can media support for the catharsis hypothesis cause people to engage in catharsis-seeking activities, such as aggressive action? Second, if media messages do persuade people to believe in the effectiveness of catharsis, will their own indulgence in aggressive action produce that effect?
    The concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy suggests that people's beliefs can shape their choices and the outcomes of their actions, so that expectations tend to come true by virtue of the changed behaviors resulting directly from the expectations (e.g., Darley & Fazio, 1980). Although researchers have mostly failed to find laboratory evidence of catharsis effects, it is plausible that media endorsement produces such self-fulfilling prophecies, which in turn might be sufficient to sustain popular belief in catharsis. In the present research, we provided people with procatharsis messages telling them that acting aggressively or expressing anger is a good way to reduce inner tensions. Consistent with the self-fulfilling prophecy notion, we investigated whether such messages would increase behavioral choices of aggressive activity following an anger provocation (Study 1) and, more important, would help produce the anticipated benefits of expressing anger (Study 2)--specifically, by reducing aggressive behavior toward another person after the participant was supposedly able to reach catharsis by hitting a punching bag.
"""

That said, I agree with you lots of aspects of our current social system, especially the school system, are messed up in various ways. My own thoughts on how to fix them:
    "Post-Scarcity Princeton, or, Reading between the lines of PAW for prospective Princeton students, or, the Health Risks of Heart Disease"
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html

Also related by me more recently on education issues:
    http://www.cnewmark.com/2009/12/making-govt-work-a-huge-step.html#comments
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

What about this?
    http://cabinet.auriol.free.fr/Documents/cache_catharsis.htm
"""
Popular belief in the catharsis theory remains strong despite the theory's dismal record in research findings. According to the catharsis hypothesis, acting aggressively or even viewing aggression is an effective way to reduce anger and aggressive feelings. One likely reason for the continued widespread belief in catharsis is that the mass media continue to endorse the view that expressing anger or aggressive feelings is healthy, constructive, and relaxing, whereas restraining oneself creates internal tension that is unhealthy and bound to lead to an eventual blowup.
    The present research was concerned with a pair of related questions. First, can media support for the catharsis hypothesis cause people to engage in catharsis-seeking activities, such as aggressive action? Second, if media messages do persuade people to believe in the effectiveness of catharsis, will their own indulgence in aggressive action produce that effect?
    The concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy suggests that people's beliefs can shape their choices and the outcomes of their actions, so that expectations tend to come true by virtue of the changed behaviors resulting directly from the expectations (e.g., Darley & Fazio, 1980). Although researchers have mostly failed to find laboratory evidence of catharsis effects, it is plausible that media endorsement produces such self-fulfilling prophecies, which in turn might be sufficient to sustain popular belief in catharsis. In the present research, we provided people with procatharsis messages telling them that acting aggressively or expressing anger is a good way to reduce inner tensions. Consistent with the self-fulfilling prophecy notion, we investigated whether such messages would increase behavioral choices of aggressive activity following an anger provocation (Study 1) and, more important, would help produce the anticipated benefits of expressing anger (Study 2)--specifically, by reducing aggressive behavior toward another person after the participant was supposedly able to reach catharsis by hitting a punching bag.
"""

That said, I agree with you lots of aspects of our current social system, especially the school system, are messed up in various ways. My own thoughts on how to fix them:
    "Post-Scarcity Princeton, or, Reading between the lines of PAW for prospective Princeton students, or, the Health Risks of Heart Disease"
    http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html

Also related by me more recently on education issues:
    http://www.cnewmark.com/2009/12/making-govt-work-a-huge-step.html#comments
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

The article is all baloney because the solar system can support trillions of humans (so, you can have your farm on Ganymede for real) and the galaxy many more -- and when we reach those limits, we may well understand more about the universe or find a universe of Universes. James P. Hogan talks about this in his sci-fi novel "Voyage From Yesteryear". I outline the issues here:
    "[p2p-research] Earth's carrying capacity and Catton"
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004123.html
    "[p2p-research] Peak Population crisis (was Re: Japan's Demographic Crisis)"
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004174.html

The Earth is very big, plus an open system as far as solar energy. We can use energy and materials far more efficiently than we do, and we can move into space. Our problem in the industrialized word is too much doomsterism, a loss of hope, and an economic system based around managing scarcity and not creating abundance (so, we need to transition to a "basic income", a gift economy, or local subsistence with advanced nanotech and 3D printing, or some mix). We have plenty of resources to do all sorts of amazing things -- if we had more of an ideology of creating and sharing abundance. See also Julian Simon's writings called "The Ultimate Resource" about how every person overall can add much more to society by their effort and imagination than they consume.

The article is all baloney because the solar system can support trillions of humans (so, you can have your farm on Ganymede for real) and the galaxy many more -- and when we reach those limits, we may well understand more about the universe or find a universe of Universes. James P. Hogan talks about this in his sci-fi novel "Voyage From Yesteryear". I outline the issues here:
    "[p2p-research] Earth's carrying capacity and Catton"
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004123.html
    "[p2p-research] Peak Population crisis (was Re: Japan's Demographic Crisis)"
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004174.html

The Earth is very big, plus an open system as far as solar energy. We can use energy and materials far more efficiently than we do, and we can move into space. Our problem in the industrialized word is too much doomsterism, a loss of hope, and an economic system based around managing scarcity and not creating abundance (so, we need to transition to a "basic income", a gift economy, or local subsistence with advanced nanotech and 3D printing, or some mix). We have plenty of resources to do all sorts of amazing things -- if we had more of an ideology of creating and sharing abundance. See also Julian Simon's writings called "The Ultimate Resource" about how every person overall can add much more to society by their effort and imagination than they consume.

"[p2p-research] College Daze links..."
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html

"[p2p-research] The Higher Educational Bubble Continues to Grow"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005584.html

A mixed message:
"[p2p-research] Slashdot | Study Says US Needs Fewer Science Students"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005489.html