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Imagine a utopia where nobody needs to work - but then how do you decide how to allocate resources (most likely some resources would still be scarce - such as living space)?Imagine a world with 100% unemployment...

There is a lengthy short story (novella?) by Marshall Brain (the founder of howstuffworks.com) called Manna that addresses this question, and is available free online. It covers two of the possible outcomes: one of them quite good, and the other very bad. It is a worthwhile read; though it is not great from a plot or character-development point of view, the ideas are interesting.

"If an author, say Douglas Adams (rip), spends a couple of years on a book, your equation does not work. That is because it is based on an investment of time, and you need a return for that."

If everything else is free (or incredibly cheap), why does an author need a return on their time (most of the time)?
See: http:///www.reprap.org (GPL'd 3D fabricator) "Money is a sign of poverty." - Iain M. Banks, 1987.

Do parents need a return for the time they spend with their children? Or, in this case their "mind children"?

In 1997, my wife and I gave away a garden simulator under the GPL (more than six person-years of work)
    http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/
and got the whole free internet in return (including Slashdot). Seems like a good deal to me. :-)

The problem for Douglas Adams was that, as Ian Banks' quote might suggest, he was was *poor* (or felt he was poor, or felt at risk of being poor in the future), where poor essentially means you can't expect reasonable needs to be met without major effort. So Douglas Adams must have felt (perhaps quite correctly) that he needed the ration units to survive (or thrive) in a system oriented around rationing. When scarcity (for most things) comes to an end worldwide, as is happening, then there is not much need for rationing and ration units for most of the basics (energy, food, water, shelter, computing, health care, transportation, etc.) See also, from 1964(!):
    http://www.educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
"The fundamental problem posed by the cybernation revolution in the U.S. is that it invalidates the general mechanism so far employed to undergird people's rights as consumers. Up to this time economic resources have been distributed on the basis of contributions to production, with machines and men competing for employment on somewhat equal terms. In the developing cybernated system, potentially unlimited output can be achieved by systems of machines which will require little cooperation from human beings. As machines take over production from men, they absorb an increasing proportion of resources while the men who are displaced become dependent on minimal and unrelated government measures--unemployment insurance, social security, welfare payments. These measures are less and less able to disguise a historic paradox: That a substantial proportion of the population is subsisting on minimal incomes, often below the poverty line, at a time when sufficient productive potential is available to supply the needs of everyone in the U.S."

To see what such a world might look like in fiction (contrasted to our the recent ways), read James P. Hogan's novel, _Voyage from Yesteryear_.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear
Of course, as in James P. Hogan's novel, getting there (post-scarcity ideology dominant) from here (scarcity ideology dominant) is going to be "interesting times". For a more dystopian take on this (if the wealth from cybernation is not shared roughly evenly), see:
    "Manna"
      http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

And in one scenario, they (or a close competitor) have.

Marshall Brain already thought of that. Check out his short story, Manna

"Free" may be the only thing that "works" in the the long term, check out:

    "Why work"
    http://www.whywork.org/

    "The Abolition of Work" by Bob Black
    http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

    "A critique of a neo-futurist's vision of the decline of work" by Bob Black
    http://www.t0.or.at/bobblack/futuwork.htm

    "RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid-prototyper. It is the practical self-copying 3D printer shown on the right - a self-replicating machine."
    http://www.reprap.org/

    "The Triple Revolution" letter to the president sent in 1964
    http://www.educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm

"Free" used to work in the past in America:
    http://www.marcinequenzer.com/creation.htm#The%20Field%20of%20Plenty
"The Field of Plenty is always full of abundance. The gratitude we show as Children of Earth allows the ideas within the Field of Plenty to manifest on the Good Red Road so we may enjoy these fruits in a physical manner. When the cornucopia was brought to the Pilgrims, the Iroquois People sought to assist these Boat People in destroying their fear of scarcity. The Native understanding is that there is always enough for everyone when abundance is shared and when gratitude is given back to the Original Source. The trick was to explain the concept of the Field of Plenty with few mutually understood words or signs. The misunderstanding that sprang from this lack of common language robbed those who came to Turtle Island of a beautiful teaching. Our "land of the free, home of the brave" has fallen into taking much more than is given back in gratitude by its citizens. Turtle Island has provided for the needs of millions who came from lands that were ruled by the greedy. In our present state of abundance, many of our inhabitants have forgotten that Thanksgiving is a daily way of living, not a holiday that comes once a year."

Let's hope "free" works again in the future, or we may get this:
    http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
"In other words, Manna spread through the American corporate landscape like wildfire. And my dad was right. It was when all of these new Manna systems began talking to each other that things started to get uncomfortable."

A sci-fi novel about a clash of old and new ways of thinking:
    _Voyage from Yesteryear" by James P. Hogan
      http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/book.php?titleID=29

None of this means much.

In fifty years, once robots and AI have taken over, and humans are managed like pets, most people in the developed world will have their brains removed and placed in "brain farms", where they will enjoy an effortless(and meaningless) existence of endless virtual life.

I'm not saying I agree with you (I haven't given it a whole lot of thought) but you are not the only one thinking along those lines. The guy that cooked up "How Stuff Works", Marshall Brain has also been down this path. He collected his thoughts into a story he calls "Robotic Nation": http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm

Having read all of this some time ago I came to the conclusion that this scenario requires some of the more fucking stupid self destructive elements of American culture to remain unchanged throughout a societal change at least as profound as the industrial revolution. Given American's general propensity to cling to ass stupid shit which isn't especially in their self interest I'm not saying that's improbable... I'm just saying it's a profound comment on cultures.

In the same way what Mr. Brain describes can only happen like that in the United States... it couldn't, for example, happen in Europe be they don't the same conditions. So what ever happens elsewhere would have to be really different, if only owing to the beginning cultural differences.

The question to ask always, always, is Why isn't this automated?
We're simply in a world moving back to the mainframe. In a mainframe world, redundancy is eliminated.

Read Manna.

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Currently, there are approximately 25 universities across the United States with active nuclear reactors on campus

You know, when you've read as many science fiction books as I have, this shit is a liiiitle creepy.

This isn't a little creepy. Idiocracy is a bit creepy. Manna is a bit creepy. And this Wired story is down right scary and creepy. If we continue down this path, then we are well on our way to being a nation of idiots.

[Your blog would not let me post this to your latest topic, even with cookies and typing in the letters for antispammeasures.]

Check out the sci-fi story by Marshall Brain called "Manna", on just this topic of the replacement of labor:
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

So computers started to give commands to the security forces?

Robotic Nation, by Marshall Brain, if you haven't read it yet.

Inspired by Manuel de Landa's writings,
http://t0.or.at/delanda/meshwork.htm
I think the world needs both meshworks and hierarchies, but the hierarchies have the upper hand right now so we need more meshworks to balance.

Some ideas:
Solar power -- like better PV panels or hot water heaters, literally decentralizing the power infrastructure (after production)
Wireless mesh networking -- like in OLPC, decentralizing the information infrastructure
Home gardening literacy and simulation -- decentralizing the food production infrastructure
3D printing -- like RepRap, decentralizing the production industry
Free and Open Source software -- like Debian, decentralizing the copyright industry

Think along those lines for whatever works with your skills and local conditions.

Then of course there is David Brin's approach (make all surveillance cameras publicly accessible, including ones in police rooms):
    http://www.davidbrin.com/privacyarticles.html
See also this related story:
    http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

You start with:

When I was a little guy, I was taught that technology will be used to free workers from tedious and dangerous tasks by allowing unfeeling robots to take our places.

But you don't want robot soldiers? Isn't that a dangerous task?

(I also think you should have attributed Marshall Brain).

First off, I do not have the lifetime of training "Nanook" had to survive in one of the harshest climates on earth (the Arctic); nor do I have the social relationships with others with similar training needed to have backup and essential sociality. Nor do I have the tools. Nor do I, as a product of the USA, have Nanook's expectations of what a "good life" means -- you can see that in the movie where his wife puts blubber or oil in her hair to look pretty by her standards and the missionary is repulsed by the slimy look. (Even though living a life in western society might make me dissatisfied with a certain older way of life, for someone living that way of life without ever having western notions, they might be still happier overall than someone entranced and used to glitz -- so that does not prove who was happier -- look at the Amish who overall seem pretty happy). And even if I did have all those things, much of that Arctic land has been claimed (the USSR is even claiming more of it as we speak), so what was easily possible 10000 years ago is not easily possible now.

My point isn't to glamorize that life, which did have many difficulties. It is also a life style which is impossible today because of the large populations which require high productivity per acre for agricultural lands, and the militarized bureaucracies which claim every good square inch of ground. But if we don't understand where we have been as a species, how can we really understand where we might want to do in the future? In many ways, if we move to free software, cheap solar panels, and self-replicating 3D printers (and maybe even self-replicating space habitats), than we can achieve the best parts of such a hunter/gather lifestyle while leaving behind many of the bad parts. That's why I stay involved with the computer and technology -- and I think there is little other realistic choice; the way forward is not a simple return to the past -- but the way forward may be illuminated by better understanding the past. If you read a story like Marshall Brain's "Manna"
    http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
you will see there are at least two ways forward -- a future where the benefits of technology go mainly to a few and the rest are imprisoned or exterminated (essentially, the history of much of agricultural bureaucracies wiping hunter/gatherers off much of the land) or a future where the benefits (and types) of technology are adapted for most (or all) people. Looking back on hunter/gather societies and the freedoms and free time they had, one can have hope for a future for most people in the second direction -- essentially we as a species have already spent thousands of years being that way anyway. As the original article suggests, are we very different now via evolution? And even if some of us are, can we not all be happier in a world with more leisure and less work, where we pick fruit out of our Star Trek matter replicators instead of off the trees? And my point -- that StarTrek future is more a return to the way things used to *feel* then something entirely new.

I used to think this. As I said in another comment, the reason there is so much starvation in, say, Africa has to do more with the legacy of European colonization destroying a hunter/gatherer and substance agriculture lifestyles (including by head taxers -- pay the tax or they'll kill or enslave you basically, and the only way to get money to pay the tax is to work all year on some European plantation).

Also, food aid via imported food destroys indigenous agricultural systems economically -- an Ethiopian example:
    "Does International Food Aid Harm the Poor?"
    http://www.nber.org/digest/mar05/w11048.html
"To carry out their study, Levinsohn and McMillan merge data from two nationally representative surveys and create a data set of 8,212 urban and 8,308 rural Ethiopian households. ... Levinsohn and McMillan estimate that, in the absence of food aid, the price of wheat in Ethiopia would be $295 per metric ton, compared to an actual price of $193 per metric ton in 1999. On average, the authors conclude, "the loss in consumer surplus works out to roughly 37 US dollars per household per year for households that consume wheat and the gain in producer surplus works out to roughly 157 US dollars per household per year for households that sell wheat." In a nation such as Ethiopia, where the poverty line is about $132 per year, the impact is therefore substantial."

You're right through that changes in population technology have big effects -- including driving people to change their lifestyles to continue to produce enough food for everyone. I hope that as we continue to invent cheaper solar panels and cheaper and more versatile 3D printers that we'll be able to eliminate a lot of "work"
    http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolitio n.html
and have a lifestyle which uses technology but feels a lot more like the best of hunter/gatherer society. See the ending of this story called "Manna":
    http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
Also, we could support trillions of people in space habitats built out of asteroidal ore and powered by sunlight.
    http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/settle.htm

I, for one, welcome the coming robot economy. However, we need to be aware of the potential benefits as well as the potential economic dislocation.

Marshall Brain, the founder of http://howstuffworks.com/, has written a fictional account of what a future of advanced robots might look like.

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

He also maintains a blog to keep track of developments related to a future robotic society.

http://roboticnation.blogspot.com/

"It could be good and it could be bad, but I don't know for sure" - Husker Du

Check out here, I think it's a great read.

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Be careful what you wish for.

This eerily reminds me of book "Manna" http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm by Marshall Brain. Essentially, most human labor will be automatized, stopping flow of money from businesses to employees. What will happen then greatly depends on what path society decides to take. Two contrasting paths taken by US and Australia are depicted in detail in the book. I guess Manna is arriving sooner than I thought.

It's odd: we're on the edge to a century-old human dream but can't change our work-centric life.

I believe that robots are here to help... to release people to do non-robotic tasks. For those worried about robots replacing humans here is an article that addresses those questions: http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm If you want to contribute to this effort by coding open-source here are some links: http://miarn.sf.net/ and http://playerstage.sf.net./

Machines don't get tired. They don't die. They don't need medical care or costly medical plans.

True. But I've seen very excellent software solutions just die because the people who were supposed to operate them fail. Why? Because people have an inherent dislike/aversion to functioning like machines, and a lot of software forces them to do so.

My examples are from the engineering world, so we're not talking about data entry-level work.

It also doesn't help that software changes ("improves") so frequently in order to maximize the monetization and further confuse the users.

Sometimes I think that computerization's real goal is employment creation and that that death phenomenon thing will eventually take care of those pesky individuals that claim to know how to do things more effectively and efficiently without software.

http://www.marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm

Well, of course we will. But we wont have our bodies.

The first big tech is a brain/silicon bridge. Hawking is very correct on this. If we do create reconstructing nanobots and high-AI, we need good interfaces. In fact, we would at first need a device described in the Story of Manna, in which a glucose fuel cell, a computer hooked up to nerves, and a wireless link are installed on C2-C4 of the vertebrae.

Once we can maintain body computers, we can focus on yet even more miniaturization and also focus on near-Earth travel (Moon and Mars). However, it will come time that our bodies will die, yet our brains will live. That will usher in the time we have "Brains in a Jar".

And yet, our tech will not be yet complete for star travel. We will need to be able to completely pattern a brain for all information and encode it so a certain computer can run it... a human brain image. Only when we can completely digitize our brains can we even cope with any stresses of space travel.

However, when we are pure data, we can travel rather rapidly: we can spread nanobot spores that create factories (mini factories) on different planets and asteroids and can copy to the nanites what is received by maser or any other transmission method. When we can convert our brains to pure information, then we can transmit and travel at C.

Then again, who knows what the real physics laws are... It'd be fun to see how far physics comes in 20000 years.

This reminds me of the futuristic story "Manna" by Marshall Brain (the founder of HowStuffWorks.com).

In the story, computers progressively dehumanise work in the interests of efficiency (imagine Amazon's Mturk applied to McDonalds). When things get really bad, the protagonist is lucky enough to be rescued and taken to Australia where an alternative future project has produced what seems at first glance to be paradise (but is it really?).

Anyway, the human-computer interface in the Australia project is an implant that replaces the top three vertebrae.

The story is not a masterpiece, but it's an enjoyable and thought-provoking read.

http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Depending on how you want to think about it, it was funny or inevitable or symbolic that the robotic takeover did not start at MIT, NASA, Microsoft or Ford. It started at a Burger-G restaurant in Cary, NC on May 17, 2010. It seemed like such a simple thing at the time, but May 17 marked a pivotal moment in human history.

*cough* The Australia Project *cough* One doesn't have to make the same design mistakes as the dystopian version, you know.

Interesting Scifi Short story along these lines: http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

That the scary part.

Read manna ( http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm ) and then see if you'd really want that.

And I think they have invented This, which is even more scary.

It's just Manna. Or at least, the bare bones beginings of an automated management program that could take the retail and manufacturing sectors by storm...soon every teenager will be wearing a headset with a button to hit to acknowledge the order or completion of a task.

Just read Marshall Brain's take on the future if a system like Mechanical Turk became the standard for Management in US corporations.

Welcome to Manna. Come to my journal if you want to invest in The Oregon Project, just in case....

Why not autotakeoff as well, then we can just eliminate the human pilots altogether for nonmilitary aircraft?

Why not autotakeoff as well, then we can just eliminate the human pilots altogether for nonmilitary aircraft?

Actually, no, but I've been reading Manna by Marshall Brain and it occurs to me that both the dystopian and utopian possibilities in that sci-fi novel can be done with current technology. We finally have data stores big enough, networks fast enough, to mine the needs of billions to fullfill those needs. We can do so basically (dystopian) or luxuriously (utopian), but we can at least make sure there is no longer any waste in the system.

I'm having trouble reconciling what you've written so far in this thread and you sig line, "In the 1980s capitalism triumphed over communism, In the 1990s it triumphed over democracy." Communism lost but you want to go back it seems and try all over again. Oh, and as far as capitalism having triumphed over democracy, it wasn't capitalism it was the Corporate Aristocracy.

The capitalists ARE the Corporate Aristocracy- it isn't open to just anybody. The real problem with communism is that it was tried too early- before we had alternate forms of labor other than human, and before we had the ability to categorize each consumer's wants and needs down to the very last atom. We have that ability now. We don't need to be wasting human effort with jobs better done by machines anymore. And if we let capitalism rule the transition to robotic labor, well, we will deserve what we get. Manna is an interesting short story looking at both possibilities.

Doubtful, but it would be fairly simple (from what I can gather) to have the 'printer' work in tandem with another device which can accurately place pre-manufactured plumbing, wiring etc.

True. The building trades are moving towards technologies that can be automated. For instance, plumbing is using a plastic semi-rigid tubing called PEX. It's sold in sticks, but is flexible enough to be delivered on large reels. It's crimped onto brass connectors - nothing that couldn't be done by a robot. A regular plumber would do the finish work of connecting the toilets, sinks, baths, water heaters, etc.

Same thing for electrical work. Most houses are wired with Romex, and 3M introduced a crimp Romex joint that could easily be applied by a robot. The robot could ink-jet print all the information about where the wire stubs coming out of the walls come from or go to. The electrician would then just finish the house by connecting the breaker panel, switches, outlets and lights.

There is virtually nothing running through the walls of a house - telephone, TV, alarm, heating and return air ducts, drains - that couldn't be installed with robotic labor.

The problem is that all these cost saving measures are going to eliminate a huge number of jobs. Read Marshall Brain's "Robotic Nation" essay to get an idea of the social ramifications.

If you haven't already, read Manna by Marshall Brain: http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm perhaps?

Sure, sports would do it. Want to play baseball all day? Go ahead.

Then again, there's always the holodeck, or its Matrix equivalent, for when you really want to go nuts. It's not quite the Star Trek future, but read Manna. Oddly enough, I see us going the way the US did in that story: everyone works to buy things, once that's over, you're a burdon. I'd love to influence the latter Australian outcome somehow, of course.

No, because I realize that useless pork is like a plague unto our nation.

Anything that provides an American with a job is not useless.

Because those reasons are spurious and insufficient.

Insufficent to whom? Spurious to whom? Certainly not to your fellow citizen who got the job. What's the purpose in having money and a federal government at all?

Oh please. I'm fully aware that we're looking at some serious economic nastiness coming down the pipe (all the more reason to not spend $220M on useless bullshit), but to equate it with the Great Depression just makes you look silly.

It'll be worse. The downturn of 2007 is just the begining: When service industries realize that robots can now replace workers, where will those workers who lose their jobs in house building go?. And if you think it's just science fiction- go take a look at a RECENT McDonald's sometime, and ask yourself where the Dingfries guy is doing now that there's a robot to take his place, or just who is taking your order in the Drive through lane. How long will it be before even that is taken over by a voice recognition system? Most people already order meals by number. This country is heading into a perfect storm that will destroy private industry- and it started 5 years ago.

Here's the story in question: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

So... where can I buy stock in the Australia Project?

This instantly reminded me of Manna, where the computer controlling the workers was considered evil: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Here's another famous one. The operating system sits between the brain and the body of every person in this society and regulates all actions.

As for the danger of entrusting too much power to the bureaucrat-god, the Friendly AI people have an answer to that too. They refer to their god as a "Sysop" and claim that it would simply be created without any tendency to abuse power. You can read about it here, search for Sysop. I believe that this is naivety to an absolute extreme. It shows that the geeks who think up this stuff, and eventually will build them, have little to no actual contact with society and the conflict that is a fundamental part of it. The fundamental idea is that conflict is unnecessary and that dealing with it is just an annoyance. Whereas I've come to believe that conflict is the most important part about society. How individuals deal with conflict is a direct reflection of our civialization. To not deal with conflict at all is to not have any civialization.

An otherwise smart and intelligent programmer friend of mine once suggested that if we could experience the minds of others directly we'd never have any arguments. I decided not to argue with him about whether or not this is the case and simply asked him why he thought a society without argument was an ideal to strive for. He tried to explain and it quickly came apparent that he found any form of argument daunting. To him, argument was all about misunderstanding. I eventually explained to him that there is another form of argument which holds as its base goal the search for truth, and that disagreement is the seed that grows into truth. This really blew his mind and as I look back I can see that our conversation that day was a major turning point in his life.

Then, of course, there's all the people I talk to on Slashdot. All too often I run into people who believe the only rights they have are those that are granted by their government. They believe that their have no warrent to defend themselves or their rights - that's the job of the police. It really shocks me and I wonder where the hell these people are being brought up.

Oh, and for the record, I'm an Australian.. but if I was an American I'd certainly consider moving to NH.

Poor us for having an economy/resource allocation system that can't deal with large numbers of jobs being automated. A sane society would welcome technology that reduced the amount of work people had to do.

Interesting. I was just re-reading Manna, the fascinating book wherein pilots and human air traffic controllers are replaced by automated systems after 2008 because of accidents and terorism. Are we to see further diminishment of pilot control over the next few years?

I agree with the other guy.

Here's a deeper, fuller explanation. Basically, our next job is to be able to grow plants in space.

Actually, I think discarding bodies entirely is even better, but nobody will go for that today; We may have to wait 40 years before a society that can defend itself decides that that is not a controversial way to go, and has the technology to do it.

Personally, I think we should go for that as quickly as possible. NASA should study cybernetics, not how to make spaceships with showers and treadmills in them.

Oh, wait- they are..!

Knowledge on demand? Check out the short net novel "Manna" by Marshall Brain. I believe this was a post on Slashdot a while back. It's the best (and happiest) postulation of that scenario I've read. http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

If NASA would discard the bodies of astronauts and send just their brains on space missions, this whole problem would disappear.

See The Day You Discard Your Body for details. Chapter 15 has a whole section on NASA and the research they need to do to make this possible.