Slashdot Mirror

I don't completely agree. I just finished "The Lights in The Tunnel", and previously read "Manna." http://www.thelightsinthetunne... http://marshallbrain.com/manna... The problem is how do we maintain consumption of goods and services in a society where working is optional? I would love to be in the ideal society, where I'm given an "allowance", and allowed to create the things that I want to create that bring additional income. I'm Libertarian at heart, but I don't see how capitalism is going to solve this problem. We are already seeing erosion of unskilled jobs, so wealth concentration will push us towards looking a lot more like a third world country in terms of a poverty analysis. I'm too optimistic in my hope that idle people would do good with their spare time. As I get older, I find myself wanting to branch out into more engineering projects, but I'm sure I'm in a very small minority. Without any structure, I bet a huge portion of our population checks out, going to a perpetual drug induced stupor.

This book has a fascinating idea that just might solve this problem. If you haven't read it yet, I suggest you do (it's free!)

http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/

Plus furniture for such "aliens" to sit on: http://science.slashdot.org/st...

Even without DNA manipulation or 3D printing, AI and robotics are rapidly taking us "where no one has gone before". Although, that perhaps ignores slave holding elites throughout the ages, although slaves still had to be managed and could easily revolt?

In many ways, I consider Amazon to be a lot like a 3D printer -- just a very slow one that takes a couple days to print almost anything. Except I don't have that many replication ration units compared to a post-scarcity society, so I still have to make hard choices, plus I feel bad that many people in society can't access the Amazon replicators, which reduces my enjoyment plus makes society a riskier place to be. And I can't easily unprint stuff when I am done with it or want to store it.

By me from a decade ago on funding to create a Star Trek society: http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/...

Practical aspects: http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/...

Political ones: http://www.pdfernhout.net/reco...

Education ones: http://www.pdfernhout.net/post...

Economic ones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
http://www.pdfernhout.net/medi...

Others: http://www.dougengelbart.org/c...

With enough energy (such as from LENR someday perhaps, or hot fusion, massive solar, or thorium otherwise), almost everything become easy to recycle or clean up, like via huge mass spectrometers used to separate different atoms.
http://www.freeenergytimes.com...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

Others who make related points about abundance as well as its challenges to conventional economics:
http://worldtransformed.com/
http://marshallbrain.com/manna...
http://www.thelightsinthetunne...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
etc.

First, what people get paid often has very little connection with productivity. On top of that, it may even dis-incentivize them -- see Dan Pink on that. So, the assumptions implicit in your post are problematical.
"RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Also, never before have we been automating intelligence to such a degree. The US GDP in the first decade of the 21st century grew by about 33% without adding any net new jobs, even as the population grew. That is the new reality that you and many mainstream economists are ignoring. Paul Krugman is starting to get itt, as discussed here:
"Sympathy for the Luddites"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5882422

Agriculture went from 90% of workers to 2% over 200 years. Manufacturing went from 35% to 15% or so over the past 50 years and continue to drop. Working hours per person have also dropped over that time, especially for children who used to be a big part of the labor force. Why should "services" not go the same way via AI and other automation and better design? Why employ a human if you don't have to?

Based on what you write, wouldn't you automate anything the first chance you get to maximize your profits? If everyone does that, who are your customers? Well, when there is 90% unemployment (possible in 20 years or so as AI really proliferates?), it may be too late to do anything about it, so it will mean little if you say "oops"... See also Martin Ford's book, "The Lights in the Tunnel".
http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/

Anyway, you're assuming that we need most people to work to make the stuff we need. We don't. See Bob Black's "The Abolition of Work" for example.

Yes, family is important. But so is community and related non-profit charities. (Although charity just papers over a deep issue in our society about "human rights" in an age of 21st century technology.) So is good government. So is individual effort.

But in a capitalist consumer-oriented society it all comes to naught if you have no capital for whatever reasons and there are no jobs for you and the charities are exhausted. Your entire extended family can then be out of work and starving. Already the US food banks are overwhelmed. Food stamps you might say. But then why not a basic income instead for all, to be fairer?

Crank up unemployment further and stuff will really start to collapse. Much of the current collapse is in the USA us now so common as to not be newsworthy anymore, where decaying infrastructure or domestic violence or rising abortions or poor child nutrition or deferred medical care and so on. So, those in the USA who don't find a way to survive just die, either right away, or through some downward spiral of self-medication via drugs or via bad nutrition and disease, and that is hardly newsworthy. (Not to say the wealthy in the USA don't eat poorly too often.) And in any case, it does not account for all the needless suffering in a land overflowing with food and material goods... Why worry about trying to get everyone to be materially productive when there is so much? And also when the other sectors of our society like the voluntary gift economy or democratically planned economy or even local subsistence skills are let wither through lack of time to engage in those areas?

A basic income replaces a social safety net for the destitute or disabled with a human right for all to draw a small amount regularly from the productive commons. Then we don't have to have any needs based programs on things like minimum wage or SSI. It could also replace public schooling and so on with a free market for education. Already in the USA, the government (at all levels) spend an average of about US$600 a month per citizen between public schooling, health programs, and social security. Why not increase that a bit

How happy will they be when someone realizes they aren't needed anymore?

Haven't read much of this book yet, but it appears to be relevant. And it is a free download.
http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/

Check out the book "The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future" free PDF, paperback or kindle at http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/ This book offers some good ideas on how our economic system might be reformed to allow less work while still maintaining a market economy that provides an incentive for innovation. Also see the blog http://econfuture.wordpress.com/

Less work requires major changes to the system. In today's economy, most people CANNOT work less and still pay rent and buy food. Workers with part time jobs have to work 2-3 jobs. Check out the book "The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future" free PDF, paperback or kindle at http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/ This book offers some good ideas on how our economic system might be reformed to allow less work while still maintaining a market economy that provides an incentive for innovation. Also see the blog http://econfuture.wordpress.com/

The problem is that today's machines are taking on cognitive tasks...beginning to think at least in limited ways, and also computers are generally applicable. Check out: "Structural Unemployment: The Economists Don't Get it" http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/structural-unemployment-the-economists-just-dont-get-it/ and a free book about this: "The Lights in the Tunnel" http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/

The problem is that then you don't have an income.... We need to make some changes to the system for that to be true. Any one interested in this topic should also read "The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future" Free PDF, paperback or kindle at http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/ This book is written by a technology guy...not an economist and has I think a more radical (but also more realistic view) of the future and where all this is headed. Also the author has a blog at http://econfuture.wordpress.com/

Recently read a book that is exactly on the same topic as the book referenced in the article. It's called "The Lights in the Tunnel," and you can get it from the author's site for a price you can set yourself. I read it and thought it was insightful.

According to his ideas, things won't be free. However, people will get a salary without "working" per se. The author recommends maintaining a market economy. There will be some jobs left, but most people will receive a salary directly from the government. The government sets incentives, such as getting a good education, and behaving in an environmentally sound way. If you go after these incentives, your salary is increased. Education keeps crime rates low, and behaving in an environmentally responsible manner is good for everyone.

It's definitely a decent read, and I think things may well play out the way the author thinks.

A book about this is available as a pay-what-you-want (free) ebook. The Lights in the Tunnel by Martin Ford. http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/ Its definitely worth a read. One of the most eye-opening books I've read in a while.

If it becomes as easy to reproduce a product as it is to copy a song, should the ability to make money selling something people want vanish?

Basically, yes. In this book the author analyses the trends for the future, with a rather pessimistic view. Automation in the next few decades will have a significant effect on economics.

Get a formal education and you get a much broader foundation.

That said, a car mechanic, a plumber, and house maid have better job security than college grad these days.

Give this book some serious thought:

http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/

If I had a chance to talk with myself 20 years ago and tell them how to live their life I would say the following:

Join the military for a few years. You'll have health insurance for life.
Don't take on debt for college.
Buy a house early and pay it off.
Get a job that you cannot be outsourced from.

Yeah college is nice, but in 20 years from the point you have graduated, you might think different if you found yourself laid off from a job once though un-outsource..

Anyways... Not to ramble, but most knowledge jobs will be outsourced or contracted in 20 years and it won't matter if you have that piece of paper or not. Some guy in India or China will have your job because it was cheaper.

"I call her 'Tugette,' " says Muniz, who works in hospital admissions. The voice is about the only feminine part of this robot, which was developed by Aethon as part of a product line called Tug, which automatically transports food, medicine, and lab samples around hospitals.

I should point out a previous slashdot story on pneumatic tubes and one of their uses in hospitals.

Using the Anybots device known as QB, for example, it's possible for a remote operator to roll up to a colleague and ask an impromptu question, replicating in some measure the unplanned conversations that occur in offices.

Ummm, about those TPC reports.

The lights in the tunnel.