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Yes, because the ancient concepts of "money" and "economy" will survive the coming years...

They may be ancient, but they're also state of the art.

We don't use stone knives anymore, why do we still use antiquated concepts like money and scarcity?

Scarcity won't go away, not even in the so-called "post-scarcity" world. And money is a huge algorithmic improvement over anything else that has been proposed as a system of trade.

I think it's telling that critics of such things have no alternatives that are not money or economies in disguise.

For example, someone has recently been pushing some concept which is labeled "technocracy". It claims to do away with notions of money and scarcity, but a cursory reading indicates that they create a new energy-based currency (though they do horribly break the currency so that it functions worse than normal currencies do) and a variety of places where implicit assumptions of scarcity are made (particularly with respect to energy).

In other words, the economic models didn't actually change, they just threw a layer of ideology over everything so that they can't think straight about what they proposed. I have yet to see a serious alternative to modern economics systems proposed which doesn't do that.

Yeah, it's attainable. Check this out.

Yeah, you're right. And what you're basically talking about is called Technocracy.

"No, there is another."

Actually, it can be scientifically predicted, and in fact already has been, and that point has already passed. It was a scientific research group called the Technical Alliance that predicted that the economy would collapse because a point of "abundance" would be achieved. The date they predicted was March 1930. Turns out that they were six months optimistic. The only reason we don't have this luxury now is because abundance requires that we get rid of scarcity economics, and those in power only maintain it because of scarcity economics, so they decided to get rid of the abundance instead.

We have no economic framework in place, but there has been one designed that would work quite well, if only enough people knew about it.

You're right. This was a lesson we learned from the great depression, which was caused (largely) by machines putting people out of work. So one of the things we did to get out of it was to make sure employment was maintained at a high level, regardless of how useful it actually is to society. We could have so many people freed up to do far more meaningful things, even if it was only a small percentage of them, we'd still be far better off.

What's wrong with eliminating the concept of money? For as long as you do it right, it looks pretty good.

You're right, it is the ultimate goal. The whole point of machines is to do work we don't want to do. The problem is that with the current economic system, income is linked directly with doing work, so as work becomes more scarce, so does purchasing power. The solution is to uncouple those two concepts. Then people will be free to do the work they want to do, and we let machines do the rest. It's not that difficult.

Actually we could have had a post-scarcity society decades ago, we have all the requirements already. Maybe not for ordering up your own rocketship to Mars, but enough to live well and get rid of money.

Well put sir. It sounds like you might be familiar with Technocracy? If not, you may find it interesting, since they are saying the same thing you are (and indeed have been for about 80 years).

Well put sir. It sounds like you might be familiar with Technocracy? If not, you may find it interesting, since they are saying the same thing you are (and indeed have been for about 80 years).

"It is about a planned economy and wealth redistribution."

Not like any planned economy you know of. The people decide themselves what gets produced, while science determines how. See this article for more on that.

"And these democratic decisions, how would they be enforced. What if 40% of the people disagree, and start disobeying? What if just 1% disagree, can they be forced to comply? (with bullets)"

You should probably read a little more in depth about the subject, rather than just the quick summaries as it's easy to misinterpret some things. The vast majority of these "democratic" decisions would what I mentioned before, people deciding what is to be produced, and they do this simply by choosing what to consume in the first place, so there is no way to "disobey" in the sense you are thinking about. About the only way someone could "disobey" is if they were working as part of the production-distribution chain and were not doing their job, in which case the reason would be investigated and if it couldn't be fixed right away then they would be replaced, simple as that. The rest of these "democratic" decisions would be things like "what should the flag look like?" so really there is nothing to enforce.

"What if I don't want to control my technology scientifically. Suppose I don't care about science, or maybe I believe in a different scientific method. What would such a system have to offer to me."

First of all, there are no different scientific methods, just the one. Perhaps you are thinking about issues where there might be two competing scientific theories, neither of which have proven themselves above the other? This wouldn't really affect the economy much, because in what needs to be done, there are no such issues. On the forefront of science however, there are plenty, and systems relying on such things simply wouldn't be used unless and until the correct answer could be arrived at with certainty.

Second, there is no private property in Technocracy, so you would "have" no technology with which to control however you choose. You may work in a position that you are qualified for that involves operating said technology, but if you do not do so according to clearly defined scientific measures, then the problem is investigated and dealt with as I mentioned before. But even this short description can be misleading if you don't know more about how this works. Suppose you are thinking that you want to drive around the country in an RV, does that have to be done scientifically too? Where you drive and when, no. How you drive, well yes, for safety reasons. It all comes down to the separation of technical and objective issues from subjective ones, much like how was discussed in the Technocracy Comparative article I linked to above. Technocracy does not interfere with your subjective choices in how to live your life. Objective issues however affect others and need to be done a certain way. You could not, for instance, decide to drive that RV into buildings or through areas where there is pedestrian traffic only, just like today.

So what does it have to offer you? Just the highest standard of living possible on the planet in terms of consuming power, coupled with the highest degree of freedom possible in how to live your life and use that consuming power. Plus all the other goodies.

"It is about a planned economy and wealth redistribution."

Not like any planned economy you know of. The people decide themselves what gets produced, while science determines how. See this article for more on that.

"And these democratic decisions, how would they be enforced. What if 40% of the people disagree, and start disobeying? What if just 1% disagree, can they be forced to comply? (with bullets)"

You should probably read a little more in depth about the subject, rather than just the quick summaries as it's easy to misinterpret some things. The vast majority of these "democratic" decisions would what I mentioned before, people deciding what is to be produced, and they do this simply by choosing what to consume in the first place, so there is no way to "disobey" in the sense you are thinking about. About the only way someone could "disobey" is if they were working as part of the production-distribution chain and were not doing their job, in which case the reason would be investigated and if it couldn't be fixed right away then they would be replaced, simple as that. The rest of these "democratic" decisions would be things like "what should the flag look like?" so really there is nothing to enforce.

"What if I don't want to control my technology scientifically. Suppose I don't care about science, or maybe I believe in a different scientific method. What would such a system have to offer to me."

First of all, there are no different scientific methods, just the one. Perhaps you are thinking about issues where there might be two competing scientific theories, neither of which have proven themselves above the other? This wouldn't really affect the economy much, because in what needs to be done, there are no such issues. On the forefront of science however, there are plenty, and systems relying on such things simply wouldn't be used unless and until the correct answer could be arrived at with certainty.

Second, there is no private property in Technocracy, so you would "have" no technology with which to control however you choose. You may work in a position that you are qualified for that involves operating said technology, but if you do not do so according to clearly defined scientific measures, then the problem is investigated and dealt with as I mentioned before. But even this short description can be misleading if you don't know more about how this works. Suppose you are thinking that you want to drive around the country in an RV, does that have to be done scientifically too? Where you drive and when, no. How you drive, well yes, for safety reasons. It all comes down to the separation of technical and objective issues from subjective ones, much like how was discussed in the Technocracy Comparative article I linked to above. Technocracy does not interfere with your subjective choices in how to live your life. Objective issues however affect others and need to be done a certain way. You could not, for instance, decide to drive that RV into buildings or through areas where there is pedestrian traffic only, just like today.

So what does it have to offer you? Just the highest standard of living possible on the planet in terms of consuming power, coupled with the highest degree of freedom possible in how to live your life and use that consuming power. Plus all the other goodies.

The need for this was already determined scientifically over 80 years ago. You may want to look at this summary of why that is. What we can do about it you can find here.

The need for this was already determined scientifically over 80 years ago. You may want to look at this summary of why that is. What we can do about it you can find here.

Good for you for noticing this! This is precisely what Technocracy has been saying for 80 years now.

I *wish* government was becoming more technocratic, given the original meaning of the term.

It's called Technocracy, where not only would you not have to worry about being paid, but everything would be open source anyway. What programmer wouldn't love that, the ability to code to your heart's content, on whatever project you want, whenever you want?

This is exactly what Technocracy has been saying for over 80 years. They were the first to "treat the economy like a physics problem", the only difference is that they saw it coming and warned us way back when it was far easier to do something about it. Now, whether we can do something about it without too much pain is in question, but if we can then we have to do something about it now while we still can. Like one commenter said here earlier, "The only way out is a radical reform of the fundemental way our economy is _defined_". Technocracy has provided a logical answer to this too that is worth checking out. It needs a bit of updating since the movement is so small right now, but the underlying basis for it all is still quite sound. If you want a good scientific way of looking at our economy, and how it relates to our environment, then this is the place to start. I'm glad to see more modern research being done that confirms this.

Wow, that sounds a lot like how a Technocracy works; specifically the part about "within the confines of the project". In a Technocracy, there is the goal: "To provide citizens with the highest standard of living possible for the longest period possible", and all decisions must conform to that goal. This is oversimplifying obviously, but it's nice to see a real-world example that one can use to describe how this is different from traditional political government. Really it's Technocracy's differences like this that make it so hard to understand for so many people.

Sure you can. It's called Technocracy. The idea is that technological society is too complicated to be run by politics and that scientists should run, objectively, all scientific matters such as this one. It's not a "dictatorship of science" however, since it is the people themselves that decide how to run their lives. It's the responsibility of the technical administration to provide the public with all they want and need. I know, it sounds confusing, and it is, at least until you learn a more about it. Most science and technology can be hard to understand until you know a certain amount about it. I can't explain it all here. The gist is that there would be no more politics, like you describe, but people would still be free.

Sure you can. It's called Technocracy. The idea is that technological society is too complicated to be run by politics and that scientists should run, objectively, all scientific matters such as this one. It's not a "dictatorship of science" however, since it is the people themselves that decide how to run their lives. It's the responsibility of the technical administration to provide the public with all they want and need. I know, it sounds confusing, and it is, at least until you learn a more about it. Most science and technology can be hard to understand until you know a certain amount about it. I can't explain it all here. The gist is that there would be no more politics, like you describe, but people would still be free.

it's an interesting problem - i think of money like mass. The more of it there is one place, the more money it attracts, until you get to a point where its like a black hole and there is no way to stop it sucking up whoever's money it wants.

There is an interesting "economic" theory called technocracy that i dont seem to find anyone talking about any where. http://www.technocracy.ca/simp/begin.htm

It's quite a fascinating idea, it strikes me as the kind of system that Vulcans would have ;) It's worth making sure you read the misconceptions page too as it take a little while for what they mean to sink in.

Geeze, this is what Technocrats have been saying for years! It's time to embrace the only rational system based on facts. I mean really, virtually everyone hates politicians anyway, and suspects politics itself as being problematic. We only accept it because we don't know of anything else to use. Well, now there is: Technocracy!

Why waste your time contacting them?

If the broadcast flag happens, just walk away from using the broken media.

www.technocracy.ca says:

"Vote With Meaning

The only real vote is purchasing power. What we buy we vote for. With an abundance of purchasing power we can vote as often as we like, every day of the year, and always win our vote. "

I think instead that if you had an enducation system that regularly assessed people's strengths and weaknesses, took into consideration their interests, and then showed them ALL of the opportunities in society where they could pursue and excell at what they enjoyed, that you would not need material, external motivators at all, and thus make a moneyless society like Technocracy possible. I thought that this was really well explained in this article which explains the difference between external "incentives", and internal "initiative". Basically what you were talking about, except applied to a whole society!

There are solutions to these problems. They aren't easy or without compromise, but I think it's the only potentially sucessful path we have.
Check out http://www.technocracy.ca/

I would guess just plugging in a adaptor that allows you to use a old PS/2 keyboard via USB would work just great. Probably not too expensive either.

--
Open Source Government - http://www.technocracy.ca

Marshall Brain wrote about this in his online novel Manna. The later chapters concerning the "Australia Project" bear a striking resemblance to the never-implemented 1930s-era theory of Technocracy (The actual main Technocracy site is rather ill-organized).

Society based on the stable joule, not on the unstable dollar.

http://www.technocracy.ca
http://www.technocracyinc.org/MainIndex.htm

We pollute the atmosphere because it's cheaper than to filter out all harmful elements - we do have the technology to cut emissions to almost nothing, but money is in the way. So, I have a feeling that money will continue to be a barrier to the well being of the planet and its inhabitants for decades (if not centuries) to come.

I agree with you completely there. Money stops us from doing so much by maintaining scarcity where there is none naturally. Ever ask why we don't have good health care? Not because our med tech sucks, or there are not enough doctors; it's not enough money. Bad education: Not enough teachers? We don't know how to teach well? Nope, it's not enough money. This is true for basically all problems in North America. And since money is scarce, there can never be enough, no matter how you manage or re-distribute it.

This won't change until either the system collapses for some reason (and there are many), or we switch to a system that doesn't use money, and doesn't replace it with any other kind of artificial scarcity mechanisms. So far, only a Technocracy is able to do that.

Well, you raise a good point there. Nanotech manufacturing will only magnify the scale however. We've been able to elliminate scarcity in North America since the '30s, and indeed that is what caused the Great Depression (as in, automated manufacturing raises production, hence supply, while decreasing employment, hence demand; both lower price until it crashes).

But if those in charge and want to maintain the current system get their way, they will ensure that this technology never gets to do that, by "owning" the patents and "regulating" their use. They have to maintain scarcity artificially in order to stay in power. They've been doing it since the '30s, so they know what they are doing when they are keeping all this abundance from us.

Perhaps you might like to discuss this in the Technocracy Forums.

On second thought, perhaps a corporate-free techno-utopia is our only hope...

Corporate-free techno-utopia... where have I heard of this before?

Seriously though, this is the only system I've seen that completely replaces corporations and their underlying economic framework (scarcity, money, etc.) with a completely scientific method of distribution. Aside from the other "benefits" such as no lawyers or politicians to screw things up, there would be no need for patents or IP in the sense that people need to "make money" from their inventions. If you "invented" something in a Technocracy, whether it be a new device, a peice of artwork, or a computer program, you'd either keep it to yourself, or it gets shared with everyone that wants it. The only laws necessary are the ones ensuring that proper credit goes to the right person, but we do a pretty fair job of that now... when money's not involved anyway. :p

That's one of the reasons I love this idea. It's the perfect society for any free/open software/information advocate. No more *IAA breathing down anyone's neck; no one trying to get rich off of every little thing that happens on or off the 'net; what are we waiting for? It only hasn't happened yet because not enough people know about it. Let's get changing that!

Sorry that it took a while to respond. Busy long weekend! Anyway, I hope this still gets read by someone...

Have you read Utopia, by Thomas More? That Technocracy idea (I only read the 11 quick reasons to believe it) resembles that book in some ways, somewhat like a modern version of it.

No, I haven't read it, but my nephew in university has recently. I'll ask him more about it.

I have some doubts about the system.

Good, that means you're actually thinking about it. And you ask some pretty intelligent questions too, which I will do my best to answer. However, please keep in mind that this is actually a new technology and requires that you understand the full process of how it works rather than just some surface notes like I can give you here. Think of it like trying to learn a new process for cold fusion. I can tell you that we smash borium atoms and yttrium atoms together and get 1.21 GW of power, but that doesn't explain why it works. This is why we actually teach a course in Technocracy. It's 22 lessons long, but you don't need to go quite that far to get the basics. Plus it's not exactly taught in major universities (or even minor ones for that matter). So we have short "basics" book called "Technocracy: Technological Continental Design" available from chq@technocracy.org . I'm working on getting it in pdf format, and it's in beta right now. I'll be posting on the technocracy.ca site when it's done.

Anyway, on to your questions.

About product qualitly. That was an extreme case, granted, but served to illustrate the point. The reason why it's just as easy to make a 3 year blade as a 3 day one has to do with the metallurgy involved. Originally, over a hundred years ago, people made long-lasting blades, seeking the best alloy ratio to keep the sharpest edge. Later, someone figured out that if you adjust the ratio just a bit, the blade dulled faster, and hence they could sell more in a given period of time. Over the course of the years/decades, they've made them progressively worse, subtly so people don't notice very often. Then they start advertising the "convenience" and "cheap price" of disposable razors, and the program becomes complete. This sort of planned obsolesence happens in most products, and hence affects product quality. If you wanted to average out the quality of all products it would easily be below 50%. Hence production by this one techniqu alone could double our productive capability, likely more.

About energy credits: There are several reasons why they are different from money, most of which are listed here. Here is a brief look at the inadequacy of money:

Money Is Inadequate

Suppose, for instance, that we attempt to distribute by means of money the goods and services produced. Suppose that it were decided that 200 billion dollars' worth of goods and services were to be produced in a given year, and suppose further that 200 billion dollars' were distributed to the population during that time with which to purchase these goods and services. Immediately the foregoing properties of money would create trouble. Due to the fact that money is not a physical measure of goods and services, there is no assurance that prices would not change during the year, and that 200 billion dollars' issued for use in a given year would be used in that year. If it were not used this would immediately begin to curtail production and start oscillations. The fact remains that money is negotiable, and that certain human beings, by hook or crook, have a facility for getting it away from other human beings. This would defeat the requirement that distribution must reach all people. A further consequence of the negotiability of money is that it can be used very effectively for purposes of bribery. Hence the most successful accumulators of money would be able to eventually not only disrupt the flow line, but also buy a control

Have you read Utopia, by Thomas More? That Technocracy idea (I only read the 11 quick reasons to believe it) resembles that book in some ways, somewhat like a modern version of it.

I have some doubts about the system. About Product Quality, for instance; even taking for granted that what they say about razor blades is true (which I don't, for my own ignorance about the process), can it be applied to "virtually any industry"? Food, software... It seems hard.

There's something I don't understand about "eliminating money". It seems to me that they just give it a different name, count it as the energy necessary to produce things, and suppose that it is enough for everyone to live well. I don't know if that system is feasible. How do you price an artist's work, or an athlete's work, anything that isn't industry or agriculture/farming? Or maybe the system doesn't even need to account for that? But what if someone decides not to work at all? There is only a limited amount of people who could do that without breaking the system, and I didn't see how it could be prevented.

About social control, I wouldn't say it's necessarily "human nature", the way we currently act, but it's not something you can just dismiss and say it's "cultural". We are animals, and our main objective is to ensure our genes pass on to the next generation. That would probably always involve some degree of competition, unless there was no limit to how many children people could have, and then the planet's resources would be depleted.

About the example with the cars, I'd say we could do it right now; there are public transports, but most people choose to have a car because it's more convenient. Is it feasible to have garages everywhere, with all sorts of cars available, close enough to everyone's homes?

Standardization I just don't like. Utopia takes that to the extreme, making all people wear the same clothes, but even something like the example with standardized cars can have more disadvantages than benefits. A very good balance would have to be reached, because diversity is a key to survival.

A final question in my mind is about the scarcity problem itself. Even taking for granted that scarcity is not real in our world, but rather self-imposed (which I don't take for granted, again, maybe due to ignorance), the question remains that maybe it's that scarcity that provides the drive to be productive, and maybe without competition there would be scarcity because most people wouldn't want to work. If that was the case, it might be feasible in the future, but not right now.

Actually, this requires a bit of discussion, more than I can do here, because you need to understand certain premises before you really understand the answer. You can find quick answers in the Technocracy FAQ here and here.

But for a short (and incomplete) answer, I can say this. First of all, no system is perfectly invulnerable to this kind of thing, but there are two reasons why it would be more unlikely and harder to acheive in a Technate (technocratic society). 1) Taking away the tools. By removing scarcity tools such as politics and money, it becomes a whole lot harder to exert "social control" over anyone. Remember that Technocracy is about controlling technology, not people. People cannot be "bribed," and they don't receive any real "power" over others by attaining higher positions. Since all the desicions of the administration are technical (the non-technical ones being relegated to democratic processes), the results are confirmable, and easily monitored. It's like if a bus driver suddenly decided to take his own route one day instead of the one he was supposed to, or if a power plant technician decided to turn of his girlfriend's city block out of spite. This would get noticed, and he'd be dealt with, probably replaced.

The second reason is that there would simply be little profit in it. You can't hoard energy credits like money, and you already have a significant income anyway. Given the difficulty in trying to acheive such power, the pay-off would be quite small (like consumer utility). And even it you did acheive dictitorial power, there would be no way to maintain that power and functionally operate a Technate, because you'd need to limit too many things. Quality of life would drastically diminish and you'd have one angry population on your hands.

Again, I stress that this is not proof, only a summery of the results. Technocracy requires a little bit of study, but it's not hard. If you want to know why, it's because it is more like a technology than a political system.

Actually, this requires a bit of discussion, more than I can do here, because you need to understand certain premises before you really understand the answer. You can find quick answers in the Technocracy FAQ here and here.

But for a short (and incomplete) answer, I can say this. First of all, no system is perfectly invulnerable to this kind of thing, but there are two reasons why it would be more unlikely and harder to acheive in a Technate (technocratic society). 1) Taking away the tools. By removing scarcity tools such as politics and money, it becomes a whole lot harder to exert "social control" over anyone. Remember that Technocracy is about controlling technology, not people. People cannot be "bribed," and they don't receive any real "power" over others by attaining higher positions. Since all the desicions of the administration are technical (the non-technical ones being relegated to democratic processes), the results are confirmable, and easily monitored. It's like if a bus driver suddenly decided to take his own route one day instead of the one he was supposed to, or if a power plant technician decided to turn of his girlfriend's city block out of spite. This would get noticed, and he'd be dealt with, probably replaced.

The second reason is that there would simply be little profit in it. You can't hoard energy credits like money, and you already have a significant income anyway. Given the difficulty in trying to acheive such power, the pay-off would be quite small (like consumer utility). And even it you did acheive dictitorial power, there would be no way to maintain that power and functionally operate a Technate, because you'd need to limit too many things. Quality of life would drastically diminish and you'd have one angry population on your hands.

Again, I stress that this is not proof, only a summery of the results. Technocracy requires a little bit of study, but it's not hard. If you want to know why, it's because it is more like a technology than a political system.

Actually, this requires a bit of discussion, more than I can do here, because you need to understand certain premises before you really understand the answer. You can find quick answers in the Technocracy FAQ here and here.

But for a short (and incomplete) answer, I can say this. First of all, no system is perfectly invulnerable to this kind of thing, but there are two reasons why it would be more unlikely and harder to acheive in a Technate (technocratic society). 1) Taking away the tools. By removing scarcity tools such as politics and money, it becomes a whole lot harder to exert "social control" over anyone. Remember that Technocracy is about controlling technology, not people. People cannot be "bribed," and they don't receive any real "power" over others by attaining higher positions. Since all the desicions of the administration are technical (the non-technical ones being relegated to democratic processes), the results are confirmable, and easily monitored. It's like if a bus driver suddenly decided to take his own route one day instead of the one he was supposed to, or if a power plant technician decided to turn of his girlfriend's city block out of spite. This would get noticed, and he'd be dealt with, probably replaced.

The second reason is that there would simply be little profit in it. You can't hoard energy credits like money, and you already have a significant income anyway. Given the difficulty in trying to acheive such power, the pay-off would be quite small (like consumer utility). And even it you did acheive dictitorial power, there would be no way to maintain that power and functionally operate a Technate, because you'd need to limit too many things. Quality of life would drastically diminish and you'd have one angry population on your hands.

Again, I stress that this is not proof, only a summery of the results. Technocracy requires a little bit of study, but it's not hard. If you want to know why, it's because it is more like a technology than a political system.

I know that on the surface it is easy to see similarities between the two, but please re-read the fable of the blind men and the elephant. If all you do is look at one part and make your conclusions from there, you're lost, my friend.

As for the important differences, there are many. The first would be that communism still works as an scarcity economy. It cannot distribute an abundance of goods an services produced by high technology to its people, just like every other scarcity system. It still uses money, and that is damning right there. Only a solid measurement like Energy Accounting can distribute such wealth without collapsing.

Second of all, all decisions in a communist state are made politically. Sure, some science might creep in there from time to time, but it is not the rule. In a Technocracy, all technical decisions are made by the Technate, which works no different than the technical portion of any technology company, by engineers and technicians rather than politicians, except that instead of the goals being profit and higher stock prices, they are for the benefit of society. Political decisions, ones that cannot be determined scientifically, will be handled in a easy and accurate democratic way. More on this process is explained in Step 2 of this presentation.

Again, I'll say that there is far more to it than this, and this is but an introduction that will hopefully interest people into looking into this further.

T.i.n.c.?

I know that on the surface it is easy to see similarities between the two, but please re-read the fable of the blind men and the elephant. If all you do is look at one part and make your conclusions from there, you're lost, my friend.

As for the important differences, there are many. The first would be that communism still works as an scarcity economy. It cannot distribute an abundance of goods an services produced by high technology to its people, just like every other scarcity system. It still uses money, and that is damning right there. Only a solid measurement like Energy Accounting can distribute such wealth without collapsing.

Second of all, all decisions in a communist state are made politically. Sure, some science might creep in there from time to time, but it is not the rule. In a Technocracy, all technical decisions are made by the Technate, which works no different than the technical portion of any technology company, by engineers and technicians rather than politicians, except that instead of the goals being profit and higher stock prices, they are for the benefit of society. Political decisions, ones that cannot be determined scientifically, will be handled in a easy and accurate democratic way. More on this process is explained in Step 2 of this presentation.

Again, I'll say that there is far more to it than this, and this is but an introduction that will hopefully interest people into looking into this further.

T.i.n.c.?

I know that on the surface it is easy to see similarities between the two, but please re-read the fable of the blind men and the elephant. If all you do is look at one part and make your conclusions from there, you're lost, my friend.

As for the important differences, there are many. The first would be that communism still works as an scarcity economy. It cannot distribute an abundance of goods an services produced by high technology to its people, just like every other scarcity system. It still uses money, and that is damning right there. Only a solid measurement like Energy Accounting can distribute such wealth without collapsing.

Second of all, all decisions in a communist state are made politically. Sure, some science might creep in there from time to time, but it is not the rule. In a Technocracy, all technical decisions are made by the Technate, which works no different than the technical portion of any technology company, by engineers and technicians rather than politicians, except that instead of the goals being profit and higher stock prices, they are for the benefit of society. Political decisions, ones that cannot be determined scientifically, will be handled in a easy and accurate democratic way. More on this process is explained in Step 2 of this presentation.

Again, I'll say that there is far more to it than this, and this is but an introduction that will hopefully interest people into looking into this further.

T.i.n.c.?

Please try to read a little more about this before making wild conclusions like this. When I say 70K I mean in today's US dollars. Since a Technocracy wouldn't actually use money, conversions will have to be made depending on when the statement is made.

And the wealth that would be available to us if we freed up machines to do useful works rather than wasting it on low load factors, inefficient processes, poor product quality, planned obsolesence, and other profit-maximizing ideas, would just plain be stagerring. One only has to look at the numbers. Here's a good look at what kind of production portential could be freed up, keeping in mind of course that it is not a full explanation of how it can be accomplished. You may also want to look at how Energy Accounting works. It's a well thought out idea.

Please try to read a little more about this before making wild conclusions like this. When I say 70K I mean in today's US dollars. Since a Technocracy wouldn't actually use money, conversions will have to be made depending on when the statement is made.

And the wealth that would be available to us if we freed up machines to do useful works rather than wasting it on low load factors, inefficient processes, poor product quality, planned obsolesence, and other profit-maximizing ideas, would just plain be stagerring. One only has to look at the numbers. Here's a good look at what kind of production portential could be freed up, keeping in mind of course that it is not a full explanation of how it can be accomplished. You may also want to look at how Energy Accounting works. It's a well thought out idea.

But political and business leaders won't let it. Scientists and engineers in the 1920's and '30's determined that not only was this type of society possible, but also but also necessary in order to be able to distribute the vast amount of wealth that machines were capable of producing for us. They even developed a soundly logical and rational model of society that would allow this to work.

The problem of course is that in order to enact this "society of abundance," you need to abolish all the relics of scarcity. Mostly this means money, and by extention, political control of technology. Think of what happened in the Great Depression. Factories were producing so many products (like food) that there was plenty for everyone, but because the money used to distribute it was still scarce, the value dropped below the margin of profitability. No one could make money selling it, thus no one made money. Add to that people losing jobs to these machines and you have a society that has enough for everybody, but no one can afford even the dirt-cheap prices. You can't sell air, it's too abundant. If we pollute it enough, however, we will be able to because it will be scarce.

So the question is not a matter of when will technology be advanced enough so that this can happen, it's how can we tell enough people that this kind of life is already possible, and circumvent political and corporate attempts to stop it from happening because they will lose all their "power" and "control"?

There is a reason that the most popular social movement of the '30's nad '40's is now completely unknown to people today. It's because it just might work.

We are at the dawn of a new world. Scientists have given to men considerable powers. Politicians have seized hold of them. The world must choose between the unspeakable desolation of mechanization for profit or conquest, and the lusty youthfulness of science and technique serving the social needs of a new civilization. - Albert Einstein

But political and business leaders won't let it. Scientists and engineers in the 1920's and '30's determined that not only was this type of society possible, but also but also necessary in order to be able to distribute the vast amount of wealth that machines were capable of producing for us. They even developed a soundly logical and rational model of society that would allow this to work.

The problem of course is that in order to enact this "society of abundance," you need to abolish all the relics of scarcity. Mostly this means money, and by extention, political control of technology. Think of what happened in the Great Depression. Factories were producing so many products (like food) that there was plenty for everyone, but because the money used to distribute it was still scarce, the value dropped below the margin of profitability. No one could make money selling it, thus no one made money. Add to that people losing jobs to these machines and you have a society that has enough for everybody, but no one can afford even the dirt-cheap prices. You can't sell air, it's too abundant. If we pollute it enough, however, we will be able to because it will be scarce.

So the question is not a matter of when will technology be advanced enough so that this can happen, it's how can we tell enough people that this kind of life is already possible, and circumvent political and corporate attempts to stop it from happening because they will lose all their "power" and "control"?

There is a reason that the most popular social movement of the '30's nad '40's is now completely unknown to people today. It's because it just might work.

We are at the dawn of a new world. Scientists have given to men considerable powers. Politicians have seized hold of them. The world must choose between the unspeakable desolation of mechanization for profit or conquest, and the lusty youthfulness of science and technique serving the social needs of a new civilization. - Albert Einstein

The only reason we don't have an economy of abundance right now is because scarcity is enforced. That's right, technology in manufacturing became sufficeint to undermine the purchasing power to validate scarcity pricing during the Great Depression. Look at this this chart; production skyrockets due to everyone using more and better automated equipment, therefor supply increases. This same equipment requires fewer and fewer people to do the same job (man-hours per unit of production), putting people out of work, so they spend less, therfor demand dwindles. Anyone with any basic economics knows that both these factors will reduce price, and in this case a lot! Hence, crash of 1929 and Great Depression. Our distributive mechanism failed to keep up with the times.

Of course, we've appeared to recover since then, but only through massively regulating the economy, as well as, and more importantly, going massively into debt. Scarcity economies require constant growth, especially ones on life support like ours. You have to keep the people working somehow. This is why we have such a huge service industry, as well as workers in monumentally inefficient jobs! We can have machines build a good quality house in a day, and cheaply, but still I see two guys working on one for over 8 months just so they can have paychecks.

It's not neccessary anymore! Even Jeremy Rifkin has pointed out that work as we know it is obsolete, too bad he couldn't see that reforming a dead system won't save it. The trick, once you have an economy of abundance, is to give it away. No lie, it's just freedom of information and peer-to-peer and OSS and all that. Of course, you need a mechanism to do that, and one that will allow people to keep the system operating, and thankfully that's already been done. Technocracy is a purely scientific means of measuring the productive capacity of a nation and optimising the efficiency to a) increase production and therefor income and standard of living, and b) decrease the amount of physical labor involved to produce that abundance. Back in the 1930's it was calculated that we had sufficient productive capacity to provide everyone in North America with a quite high standard of living (some estimates as high as $70,000/year modern equivilent) while only having to work 16 hours a week at a job you like, with benefits such as free education (all levels) and free health care. Imagine what we could do today! They didn't even have computers back then! It was definately an idea ahead of it's time (at least as far as acceptance goes).

It's quite a well thought out and detailed system, despite the brief introduction I can give. But it's worth looking into. It's not really a new political system (in fact it doesn't use politics at all), but more of a technology.

Here are some good short bits about Technocracy, for a good starter. There's also plenty of other info (including FAQ and forums) on that site, as well as lots of archival material here.

All we have to do is make the conscious decision to make this move, and our lives will benefit tremendously. It's the perfect governemnt for all OSS and P2P supporters! All we're doing right now is letting the corps get even more rich and powerful and waiting for the next time the economy collapses. It can't keep growing forever, after all.

The only reason we don't have an economy of abundance right now is because scarcity is enforced. That's right, technology in manufacturing became sufficeint to undermine the purchasing power to validate scarcity pricing during the Great Depression. Look at this this chart; production skyrockets due to everyone using more and better automated equipment, therefor supply increases. This same equipment requires fewer and fewer people to do the same job (man-hours per unit of production), putting people out of work, so they spend less, therfor demand dwindles. Anyone with any basic economics knows that both these factors will reduce price, and in this case a lot! Hence, crash of 1929 and Great Depression. Our distributive mechanism failed to keep up with the times.

Of course, we've appeared to recover since then, but only through massively regulating the economy, as well as, and more importantly, going massively into debt. Scarcity economies require constant growth, especially ones on life support like ours. You have to keep the people working somehow. This is why we have such a huge service industry, as well as workers in monumentally inefficient jobs! We can have machines build a good quality house in a day, and cheaply, but still I see two guys working on one for over 8 months just so they can have paychecks.

It's not neccessary anymore! Even Jeremy Rifkin has pointed out that work as we know it is obsolete, too bad he couldn't see that reforming a dead system won't save it. The trick, once you have an economy of abundance, is to give it away. No lie, it's just freedom of information and peer-to-peer and OSS and all that. Of course, you need a mechanism to do that, and one that will allow people to keep the system operating, and thankfully that's already been done. Technocracy is a purely scientific means of measuring the productive capacity of a nation and optimising the efficiency to a) increase production and therefor income and standard of living, and b) decrease the amount of physical labor involved to produce that abundance. Back in the 1930's it was calculated that we had sufficient productive capacity to provide everyone in North America with a quite high standard of living (some estimates as high as $70,000/year modern equivilent) while only having to work 16 hours a week at a job you like, with benefits such as free education (all levels) and free health care. Imagine what we could do today! They didn't even have computers back then! It was definately an idea ahead of it's time (at least as far as acceptance goes).

It's quite a well thought out and detailed system, despite the brief introduction I can give. But it's worth looking into. It's not really a new political system (in fact it doesn't use politics at all), but more of a technology.

Here are some good short bits about Technocracy, for a good starter. There's also plenty of other info (including FAQ and forums) on that site, as well as lots of archival material here.

All we have to do is make the conscious decision to make this move, and our lives will benefit tremendously. It's the perfect governemnt for all OSS and P2P supporters! All we're doing right now is letting the corps get even more rich and powerful and waiting for the next time the economy collapses. It can't keep growing forever, after all.

The only reason we don't have an economy of abundance right now is because scarcity is enforced. That's right, technology in manufacturing became sufficeint to undermine the purchasing power to validate scarcity pricing during the Great Depression. Look at this this chart; production skyrockets due to everyone using more and better automated equipment, therefor supply increases. This same equipment requires fewer and fewer people to do the same job (man-hours per unit of production), putting people out of work, so they spend less, therfor demand dwindles. Anyone with any basic economics knows that both these factors will reduce price, and in this case a lot! Hence, crash of 1929 and Great Depression. Our distributive mechanism failed to keep up with the times.

Of course, we've appeared to recover since then, but only through massively regulating the economy, as well as, and more importantly, going massively into debt. Scarcity economies require constant growth, especially ones on life support like ours. You have to keep the people working somehow. This is why we have such a huge service industry, as well as workers in monumentally inefficient jobs! We can have machines build a good quality house in a day, and cheaply, but still I see two guys working on one for over 8 months just so they can have paychecks.

It's not neccessary anymore! Even Jeremy Rifkin has pointed out that work as we know it is obsolete, too bad he couldn't see that reforming a dead system won't save it. The trick, once you have an economy of abundance, is to give it away. No lie, it's just freedom of information and peer-to-peer and OSS and all that. Of course, you need a mechanism to do that, and one that will allow people to keep the system operating, and thankfully that's already been done. Technocracy is a purely scientific means of measuring the productive capacity of a nation and optimising the efficiency to a) increase production and therefor income and standard of living, and b) decrease the amount of physical labor involved to produce that abundance. Back in the 1930's it was calculated that we had sufficient productive capacity to provide everyone in North America with a quite high standard of living (some estimates as high as $70,000/year modern equivilent) while only having to work 16 hours a week at a job you like, with benefits such as free education (all levels) and free health care. Imagine what we could do today! They didn't even have computers back then! It was definately an idea ahead of it's time (at least as far as acceptance goes).

It's quite a well thought out and detailed system, despite the brief introduction I can give. But it's worth looking into. It's not really a new political system (in fact it doesn't use politics at all), but more of a technology.

Here are some good short bits about Technocracy, for a good starter. There's also plenty of other info (including FAQ and forums) on that site, as well as lots of archival material here.

All we have to do is make the conscious decision to make this move, and our lives will benefit tremendously. It's the perfect governemnt for all OSS and P2P supporters! All we're doing right now is letting the corps get even more rich and powerful and waiting for the next time the economy collapses. It can't keep growing forever, after all.