Why even go as far as encouraging people to buy more and more things they don't need?
If one only needed 0.1% of the population to support the entire population, then the rest of the population is just one big cost center. Selling things to the people you're supporting is never a winning strategy. How can you profit from a sale you paid for (in wages)?
Let's think about this in a simple model. Lets say we have five actors in a hypothetical economy: Farmer Joe who owns land that can produce food, Max the machinist who owns the tools to produce tools, and three workers named Tim, Larry, and Johnny who own nothing of real value other than themselves. Despite their different professions, Joe and Max are on the same economic level as owners while the other three are on a lower level as workers.
In a large non-robotic economy, these five actors inhabit an open system, so the three workers can all get work. Farmer Joe can use plenty of hands because the more food he grows, the more food he can sell on the open market. Max can also use workers as the more tools he produces, the more tools he can sell. Joe and Max can buy things from outside actors using the extra money they get from selling to outside actors.
However, if these five people constituted the entire economy (that is, they are in a closed economic system) then even without robots the workers might not all be able to find work. Joe and Max would be interested in trading with each other, so they would each want to produce some surplus to trade with the other owner in exchange for some of their differing goods, but why would they want to produce surplus just for the workers? From the owner's perspective, the only thing the workers are good for is producing additional surplus at the cost of siphoning some of that surplus off to support the worker, but with nobody other than the other owner able to buy those goods there's no reason to produce a surplus beyond the two owners' demands. Hiring a worker to produce a surplus that is then sold to that worker would essentially be a wash for the owner (as their profit is exactly constrained by the wages they pay the worker, which is also the labor cost)...in fact, it would be actually be more costly to support a worker in such a way than not, as there would be costs in raw materials and the like. Likely Joe and Max would each pick the best worker for them out of the three, so they could spend more of their time on leisure while the workers did the work and the third worker would be out of luck. Even if Joe and Max could profitably find work for three workers, there would be some point at which the available workers would exceed what Joe and Max could use.
Robots completely ruin things for all three workers. The robots could do the same work at a far lower cost than the workers, so the robots would displace all the workers and only Joe and Max would remain. The owners use the robots to automatically produce enough for themselves and the other owner and then that is all they are interested in producing. There is no economic demand beyond the two owners, as the three workers are willing but not able to purchase the available goods without jobs.
The same basic ideas work at a higher scale too, although of course reality is far more complex. Owners have all the economic power while the workers are essentially powerless. Robots that can replace workers cheaply makes workers useless, and therefore invariably replaces them.
Our current mass economy has some different characteristics because: 1. there are so many more owners in so many more industries than just the two in the example, which is especially apparent when you consider that "owner" is broad enough to include people like farmers (which constitute about 2% of the population in the US) 2. there are enough essential workers that they end up with workers supporting them, which have workers supporting them, etc. This greatly multiplies how many jobs there are compared to owners. 3. other issues cause the need for many worker-type
We'll just include that in your regular body maintenance, using stem cells to rejuvenate your body every two years as well. This will also serve to better heal any surgical wounds.
If we're really serious about cybernetics though, we should make it easy to remove and replace them whenever possible. For instance, a cybernetic eye could be designed so it can be popped out of the eye socket and replaced (though this should probably be done in a clean environment with medical supervision). Location-agnostic equipment like onboard computers could fit into a standard pod with external access (and you might even be able to replace some of that equipment yourself). Cybernetic limbs are already designed to be removed. etc. Anything we can do to avoid surgery or reduce the impact of surgery would be beneficial.
I suppose you're right, it doesn't matter that you're importing it as long as the person selling it to you is generating it from the appropriate sources. Still, you can see why I initially came to a different conclusion. Thanks for the data.
Maybe it is more widely applicable, I dunno for sure. I don't know enough about wind power.
By the way, I wonder how "smart" Portugal's electrical grid is. Making 27.1% of their electricity from wind power is really impressive.
What you're talking about here is why I'm a transhumanist.
Technology can't help us overcome our problems because it is just a tool...but that implies that technology is not the problem, we're the problem. People are the problem. We're the ones misusing the tools.
Why? It's not because of some us versus them BS, we'd be just as bad in their position...and if for some reason we'd be a little better, then our ancestors will screw things up as soon as regression to the norm kicks in. The problem is human nature. Our little brains simply can't cope with such huge societies, so we end up living in little social tribes, and shitting all over everyone else.
You're right that we should be pessimistic. In fact, I'd go even further than that...the situation is hopeless. It hardly matters how we structure things, as we just can't physically deal with it. We're optimized for a hunter-gatherer existence, not a modern day existence. Some social structures are certainly better than others, I'd much rather have a US or Europe than a North Korea...but they all rot from the inside because they are all run by humans. This is our fate.
However, I believe we can cut the Gordian knot using technology. We can dramatically improve ourselves with technology, making us better able to handle such large scales. We can make ourselves smarter, kinder, harder working, happier, etc. One day we will almost certainly be able create intelligent entities that are specifically designed to take on the biggest jobs.
I feel that this is the only real way forward towards a better world. Anything else is unrealistic. You can't change the human condition without changing human nature.
By the way, I'm not saying we should force people to change. Transhumans will naturally gravitate toward where they are needed. We simply need to develop them first...
You'll notice that the methane clathrate gun hypothesis has "hypothesis" in the name, which means that it's on much shakier ground than something like global warming. In particular, it seems that these clathrate gun events are exceptionally rare, with a good candidate occuring 55 million years ago (and this event took around 20,000 years to complete). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene-Eocene_Thermal_Maximum It also seems we've also had much less arctic ice cover without triggering such an event. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum It should also be noted that we've recovered from very extreme past events, so it's very unlikely that it would make Earth uninhabitable. Lastly, we don't even know if a clathrate gun event would cause global warming at all since it simeltaneously causes cooling due to smoke and such.
Sure, it's something to watch out for as it could be very bad if it occured, but it probably won't lead to an apocalyptic event in the next 100 years. It's certainly not something to panic over, and the real threat is most likely the long term effects of the extra greenhouse gasses we're emitting now. I think a technical solution will be forthcoming over the time period most likely available to us (at least as long as we continue striving towards that goal).
Plus, you shouldn't count out terraforming so easily. The climate is a chaotic system, so it is very amenable to control. The tricky bit is making sure we don't shoot ourselves in the foot, especially since we know so little about the climate at the moment.
Just remember, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions...and saying that 5-6 billion people are better off dead can certainly lead to dark places.
By the way, why are you so pessimistic? I'll admit that our current situation is quite worrisome, but what about the effects of new technologies and discoveries? Don't you think technology can help us overcome our problems? In particular, nuclear energy represents many millions of times as much energy as fossil fuels, so why will we have to cut back to far less than what we can sustain on fossil fuels?
Peak oil is a separate issue from AGW. We're not going to run out of energy, as at the very least we will still have plenty of coal when we run out of oil (not that I'm suggesting that we switch to a coal-based economy). As long as we have enough energy, we can produce fertilizers. We don't do so today because it's more expensive than digging oil out of the ground to use in fertilizer, but it's not like chemical fertilizers will go away just because we run out of oil.
That said, the transition could be nasty and lead to a lot of deaths if we don't do something about it now. We should put more emphasis on food security while the going is good as well as move towards an electricity-based transportation ASAP (which will mean that farm equipment can be run on electrical power as well as softening the impact on oil-based fertilizers).
However, unless there is major technical innovation in agriculture and/or energy, there will probably be a fairly serious famine at some point due to peak oil. I hope not, but we may not be able to do anything about it. If that's the case though, then we just can't do anything about it. In all seriousness, what can we do? Oil will run out and increase agricultural prices (due to the need for more expensive synthetic fertilizers or less efficient techniques). Our only hope is a technical solution...more overall energy availability or agricultural advances or both.
I'm fairly confident that there will be a technical solution. For instance, this form of indoor agriculture would solve all of the problems with oil dependence: http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/14/dutch-plantlab-revolutionizes-farming-no-sunlight-no-windows-less-water-better-food/ In-vitro meat could dramatically lessen the cost of meat while simultaneously reducing the consumption needs of livestock. Genetic engineering holds great promise. etc. etc. At the very least, necessity is the mother of invention, and I'm sure that as oil-based fertilizers become more expensive we will see scientists and farmers figuring out how to produce enough food without them.
Also, there's a world of difference between suffering through an inevitable catastrophe and deliberately causing one. Over-reacting to AGW in a silly or extremist way could easily lead to huge numbers of un-needed deaths and lots of other assorted misery. While we should have a plan, we don't need to do anything resembling the dismantling of our current civilization over it.
As for the long run and AGW, I've read the IPCC report and as far as I'm concerned we have about a century before things start potentially getting really bad. Over that timescale, what are the chances that we won't have figured out fusion power and self-contained environments? Perhaps by then we'll be in a better technological and scientific position to engage in terraforming. We should do what we can reasonably now and prepare for the worst of course, but not to the point where it is self-destructive.
Hydro is 52% of the renewables, not the total energy usage (the 57% was total renewables, though going by your numbers it may be a bit higher).
I'm not sure why our figures differ so much for just hydro, but I'm going to guess that they put their many small hydro plants under "Microproduction" in your source.
Unfortunately for wide applicability, 57% of that 52% is hydro power. Hydro is great, but there's a limited amount of energy you can produce with it in any given area. Also, in small areas you can find extreme concentrations of hydro power. The most extreme example is Quebec, which produces 97% of its electrical energy from hydro power. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydro-Qu%C3%A9bec Quebec has been running on clean energy for decades without much effort, but it is unrealistic to assume that this can be done everywhere.
The other 43% is mostly wind, which also suffers from placement issues.
That said, it's a good thing that Portugal is taking advantage of its natural clean energy resources.
I don't know where people get off thinking they can spend 5% of their income on food when throughout history it required practically 100% of their labor. How about spending 25%.
Really now? We can expect this good outcome for the same reason that we can expect not lose half of our children to childhood diseases. We now have the knowhow to produce food at a rate which frees up most of the population for other activities. The world has changed and the old situation is no longer relevant. It should also be noted that our ancestors worked hard to build the future we now inhabit, so their children (us) could live in a better world. Why should we throw away their gift to us so easily?
Additionally, I don't think you understand just how dire the implications are of raising agricultural prices. It won't be the first world middle class that suffers the most from this, but the first world poor and third world population. If it costs 25% of a first world middle class income to buy food for the year, then that implies it would cost around $10,000 to not starve each year (around $27/day). Anyone making less than that basically starves, which is a LOT of people. Furthermore, we can't just use wealth redistribution or similar methods to solve the problem, as the prices would be higher due to lower supply. With such a large change, even if we were distributing the food fairly we wouldn't have nearly enough to keep everyone alive (and a fair distribution is overly idealistic anyway). Basically, what you're talking about will kill billions. When billions of lives are on the line, then perhaps we should put a bit more thought into how to avoid that outcome, hmm?
Lastly, who are you to tell me how much of my income I should have to spend on food? How about spending as little as possible to get what I want? If only we had some system that would set prices to match the current availability and desirability of goods...
Now that's not saying things should stay the same. The current situation is unsustainable due to resource limitations and/or environmental impact. Plus, new energy technologies will eventually yield much higher levels of energy (nuclear energy [which includes solar] is way better than chemical energy). However, we shouldn't dive headfirst into this without a really good plan...a plan which will not likely kill billions of people and not meet heavy resistance from billions more who know that a better life is still possible...and also hopefully a plan that won't lead to an overcontrolling central government that sticks its nose into every little area of our lives.
From what you've said about your experience with the power grid, it sounds about right for today. That said, you might want to consider more carefully why your 1 MW device was triggering blackouts.
I'm not a real expert in this area, but I did some research related the power grid and in particular the 2003 Northeast Blackout. What I found out was that there is essentially no real time control of the present-day power grid. The power calculations that are need to be done to centrally plan the electrical flow for a geographical region take several minutes to complete. To compensate for the slow reaction time to events, the calculations setup flow in such a way that many failures and unexpected changes are acceptable. They also take the historical record into account, so that an expected regular load increase can be met. Large, short, one-time events such as your device are awful under this system. In particular, adding new generation to meet unexpected load is troublesome, as they need to do the planning calculations before the new load can be added safely (otherwise the added electricity can damage equipment and lead to a longer blackout or even a cascade failure). Allowing blackouts or even deliberately dropping load is a comparatively safe response when time is of the essence (unpowered equipment won't be damaged, and working equipment can be restarted quickly after re-planning). That's not to say it's perfectly safe (you can get too much power running through the still-powered sections when there's big drop) but at least the new capacity won't contribute to the damage and there's often plans in place to create "power islands" around the generators in an emergency. With this in mind, it should be pretty easy to see why the power grid had such trouble with your tests. I'm sure you gave the staff at the local utility quite an interesting time whenever you did that.
However, our power grid (as well as those of many other countries) is really stuck in the mid-20th century. This system is built around the limitations of power monitoring and control in the pre-computer era...which is to say it is built around the need for centralized control of dumb field units at human timescales with highly limited information. The digital revolution has dramatically changed the way we can control power distribution, allowing distributed control of smart field units in real time with highly detailed information, but due to the cost of building infrastructure the only substantial impact at present has been the substitution of computers for humans doing the centralized calculations.
Once we finally get around to building a smart grid, we will be able to do many things that are impossible with today's system. Renewable energy will never work on a large scale with the current grid, there's too much fluctuation, but with the smart grid they can take on a much larger portion of our power needs (in order to cover all of our needs though, we need an economical way to store lots of energy for later too). Similarly, if fast EV charging causes irregular huge spikes in demand then our current grid will not be able to handle it, but a smart grid will be able to handle it.
The problem is when they demand good, fast, and cheap. Then your only choice is to tell them "that's not possible".
Also, there are some things that simply aren't possible regardless of the resources thrown at it. Within our field, the task of solving undecidable or large NP-complete problems is a no go. They could also ask for something ridiculous (just after WWII a military man asked Richard Feynmann to develop a tank that ran on dirt, so they could scoop up fuel as they moved along) or something way outside of the realm of current possibility (like interstellar travel). Someone ignorant of technology could always potentially ask for something like this, and if that happens it is your responsibility to stop them from shooting themselves in the foot.
That said, your advice is pretty pragmatic for the most part. Telling your boss that it's not possible will put them on the defensive, especially if it really is possible and you just think it's a bad idea. It's better to phrase it in terms they understand ($$$) and let them realize just how silly it is. It should be an accurate estimate in case they decide to forge ahead, but remember to add in some extra cost if there is any uncertainty or research that needs to be completed.
The juveniles of existing large dinosaur species would have starved when they grew too large due to the lack of foliage for the herbivores. As they were juveniles, they would not have reproduced until they grew to adulthood, and thus they would have starved before reproducing. Ironically, if they were better "designed", then they could have survived in smaller forms until the time was right again. Instead, only the dinosaur species with the smallest adult forms survived.
I don't really know why they failed, but if I had to guess I'd say it was mainly due to the relatively low temperatures and unstable climate in the Cenozoic. Also, competition from mammals, which they would not have had an edge against unless they managed to grow enormous again which was not possible due to the climate. Therefore, the smaller dinosaurs (which we now call birds) were locked into relatively small sizes.
There's three basic problems centered around your metric of food produced per acre.
First, where is your evidence? Was there a study? It seems quite plausible that professional farmers are more efficient at using land than amatuer gardeners. A large farm also has a lack of useless dividing structures, which are needed to divide family plots. A single fence might not seem like much of a waste, but millions of fences add up. Also, small farmers are more likely to put their homes on top of limited arable land, while large farms can focus all of their land into farming.
Let's assume it's true though...the second problem is that we would have to radically restructure everyone's lives to accomodate this idea. Roughly 10% of US land is arable land. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_use_statistics_by_country I couldn't easily find a map of arable land, but this map of livestock concentrations shows that lots of agricultural activity is happening far from current population centers. http://wvrhrc.hsc.wvu.edu/images/2009-06-02_national_livestock_density.png In particular, most people want to live along the coastlines and they would have to give that costal lifestyle up to live further inland where the farmland is. A concrete example (specific to plant agriculture) would be the Central Valley in California, which is inland but produces 8% of US agriculture on 1% of the US's total farmland. Despite its massive size is home to only 1/6th of the state's total population. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_(California) Virtually everyone in San Fransisco and LA and their satellite cities would have to move there to farm because that's where the farmland is. It doesn't matter how efficient you are when you're trying to grow food in a desert.
Lastly, man-hours are the main bottleneck to economic growth, not acres. There's actually a surprising amount of land per person, especially in the US (over 7 acres per person and closer to 20 acres per household). More importantly, despite its importance, land actually has fairly limited usefulness. You need some for a shelter and some farmland to support yourself. Beyond that, it's needed for non-farming structures like offices, factories, hospitals, roads, power plants, schools, mines, etc. As large as most of these facilities may seem individually, they don't actually take up much space because they are split over a large number of people. Further, potentially space-intensive buildings like offices multiply their space many times over by building upward. Anyway, you need to build something on all the otherwise useless non-arable land. What else is land good for? Not much really.
On the other hand, man-hours are needed for EVERYTHING. Designing and building things, maintaining things, education, research, writing articles, reading articles, creating artwork, growing food, programming computers, everyday business activities, accounting, raising children, healing the sick and wounded, defending others, practicing for an emergency, responding to an emergency, thinking, talking with others, performances, finding resources, extracting resources, inventing new things, everyday chores, and many many more useful things. You literally can't even have fun without burning up man-hours. Worse yet, everyones' man-hours are limited by our limited lifespans (and even more limited youth-span). Man-hours are our most precious resource and devaluing them is one of the most short-sighted things you can do in life. I wouldn't go as far as saying that labor directly determines value (really it is rarity that directly determines the value of something), but due to the importance of man-hours as inputs in everything and the relatively low supply (each person can only realistically contribute 8 man-hours per day over the long term and a large percentage o
The most shocking statistic in that report has nothing to do with math. 20% of Britons are not even embarrased by their illiteracy. I wonder what that statistic is like in the US.
"Having colonized space" is very vague. If you mean that the solar system will be completely filled with colonists, then your statement is very obvious because it would be hard to design a semi-realistic scenario where that happens in a century, even with crazy advances in technology. It will take time for people to travel into space, build colonies, be born, communities to form, etc. Colonizing the solar system is much bigger task than colonizing the American continent. The moon by itself has slightly less surface area than the American continent.
If the bar is set lower, then I agree it's unlikely that any interesting colonization will happen in this decade. However, I don't find it hard to imagine a realistic scenario where substantial human colonies exist throughout the solar system by 2112. It's easy to look at our meager progress over the course of one decade and say that nothing dramatic will happen, but exponential technological/economic growth is surprising in the long run. Do you seriously think that someone living in 1910 would forsee that we'd have regular (if expensive) flights to LEO? They definitely couldn't forsee the New Horizons mission to Pluto, as Pluto wasn't discovered until 1930.
More important than direct progress on one goal (space colonization) is our broader technological progress over the course of a century. There's plenty of techology with important Earth-based applications that happens to be useful for space colonization. Fusion power would be a major game changer for space travel, as it would allow us to build relatively safe spacecraft that could lift thousands or even millions of tons of people and equipment to anywhere in the inner planets region in a matter of weeks. Conservatively, ITER should start producing fusion power in 2026...so what are the chances that we won't have practical fusion by 2112? Another major game changer would be molecular nanotechnology, which would allow us to lift only a tiny colonization pod to the target, at which point everything that was needed for human survival could be produced on-site even if needed molecules were missing (for instance, water could be produced from available sources of hydrogen and oxygen...as well as more complex items such as food without needing to bring along biomass). Several smaller developments together could also make a big difference too, such as advances in robotics allowing robotic missions to pave the way for human colonization (building base infrastructure) or advances in solar power giving us tons of excess energy to launch ships with. Even simply re-engineering current launch methods could yield some pretty amazing results, such as Space-X's plan to recover rockets (the construction of which accounts for 99% of present-day launch costs) by using computers to pilot the rocket back to Earth. There might even be unexpected developments based on science that hasn't been done yet. A lot can happen in 100 years...just look at 1800-1900 and 1900-2000.
It's very hard to tell today which of these things will pan out, but it's unlikely that there will be no major technological progress over the course of an entire century...and if this is the case, then we will have bigger problems.
Inflation is actually good for a lot of people, so long as it is mild. Anyone with a mortgage at a fixed rate (and for a fixed value) benefits from inflation. Before I was born, when inflation spiked up into the 13, 14% range a lot of people my parents age got exceptionally lucky and bought houses etc. at 6% interest fixed rate. With 13% inflation the relative value of their debt was dropping by 7% a year. Now, banking on that to happen in general is dangerous, and 14% inflation just in general can be nasty.
This is a terrible example because it has nothing to do with steady moderate interest. Those people benefitted from unexpectedly high inflation. If the people selling those houses anticipated a 14% inflation rate then they would have never offered a 6% fixed rate.
The most important thing isn't whether the inflation rate is low or high in absolute terms, but instead that the inflation rate is stable (and therefore predictable). If we were faced with a constant 14% interest rate, then we'd adapt by having monthly wage and price increases of 14% and setting nominal interest at 14% or more. That's not to say that it would be good to have such a high rate, as some of the side effects would be costly (like constantly changing the prices in stores).
Not everyones wages decrease with inflation, not even necessarily minimum wage. That's why the minimum wage is revisited regularly. Where I lived it was just recently bumped up to around 10 dollars an hour for adults (Ontario Canada), which puts it back in step with inflation for the last however many years. Anywhere I've ever worked that wasn't on minimum wage you always negotiated your salary increases to be more than inflation or at least equal to it.
The problem is that between the minimum wage increases there is an exponential decay in the income of minimum wage earners caused by inflation. They are especially hard hit by inflation and there's not much they can do to stop it...unlike higher wage earners who can ensure they get regular salary increases in their contract and wealthy people who can keep most of their money in investments. Plus, regular salary increases are rarely on a paycheck by paycheck basis so income decays between increases even for higher wage earners. The point is that wages are "sticky" and this sluggish response leads to more negative effects on wage earners.
Precious metals make very bad stores of wealth. That's why we don't do it any more. Pegging your currency to a metal that might be mined somewhere else, or that might suddenly have an increase or decrease in demand screws you.
While it's true that precious metals are not perfect stores of wealth, you can hardly say that they are "very bad" when there are many worse things to store wealth in. They're certainly better than things that quickly decay in value, like food or consumer electronics. In many ways they are better than fait currency, which can be "mined" at will by the governing body that issues them...whereas precious metal deposits have to actually be found before they can be mined. Probably the only things that are better stores of value are real estate, certain high grade collectables, and a few productive properties...all of which have low liquidity (a Yuan Dynasty vase is worth $1.2 million, but good luck finding a buyer).
That said, precious metals are currently in a speculative bubble. It would be foolish to buy them as stores of value right now, much like how it was foolish to buy real estate in the recent past. Additionally, in the case of gold, the US government has a ton of gold that it could release onto the market if it ever felt like it.
By the way, I'm not saying anything about the gold standard. I'm talking about individuals privately storing their wealth in non-monetary sinks. Whether a national currency has any value or not is irrelevant when value is stored this way.
Government debt is odd. Especially because it's in a currency you control. Mild inflation, with economic growth and a close to balanced budget deficit makes even big debts like the US has go away very quickly.
While this would probably be a good recipe for solving the debt problem, it seems like the inflation part would be pretty regressive.
One can think of (deliberate) mild inflation as a tax, with the money coming from the reduced value of the currency in everyone's pockets/bank accounts and going into whatever is causing the inflation (such as money printed by the treasury). At first glance this might seem to be similar to a flat tax, with everyone paying a percentage of their current money equal to the inflation rate. In fact, it initially looks a little progressive since wealthy people have more money laying around to depreciate in value while poorer people spend it all right away. However, peoples' reactions make all the difference.
People who work rely on their wages and wages are sticky. Depending on the job, a person's real income might even decay exponentially (especially if they are being paid minimum wage to do a job worth less than minimum wage). This is the worst case, as the worker is paying an increasingly large "inflation tax" until their wages are finally increased by their employer. Even jobs with regular wage increases to counteract inflation will see decay between the increases, leading to a loss of income approximately equal to the inflation rate over each wage increase period. Only a person who gets a wage increase with each paycheck and spends it all immediately would be immune. This also assumes that there are no wage freezes, which have become very common lately. The only good news is that most of an ordinary middle class person's income is tied up in physical things with real value (house, car, etc.) and these things would appreciate in value along with interest (though of course they also lose value over time due to physical dedagration, but the point is that they are not affected by steady inflation).
As for wealthier individuals, if they hoarded their money then they would be in a similar situation as the person who does not receive wage increases, paying more and more of the same dollar the longer they held onto it (though their situation would be better as they undergo constant increases in income). However, the reality is that no (permenantly) wealthy person would allow that to happen. Instead they put most of their money into physical things with lasting value and investments. Precious metals, property, rare/unique items, and many other expensive and hard to degrade things make good stores of wealth that are unaffected by inflation (though as a disadvantage are not very liquid). Stable or deflating currencies also make good stores of wealth. Productive property like factories, rental properties, and companies make things with value that usually more than pay for any physical dedagration they undergo. Owning an entire productive property is not needed, and in fact most such properties are split up into many smaller shares. The underlying physical stability of productive investments are reflected by the fact that they are valued in such a way to account for steady inflation...if there is a steady 5% inflation rate and real 6% return then the investor will get a nominal 11% return. All this leads to the very wealthy paying relatively little of the "inflation tax", though they likely pay the most in absolute terms simply because they have more money and can't keep it all tied up in these kinds of things all the time.
It would be more equitable to minimize inflation (perhaps keeping it around 1% to encourage private investment) and instead impose a flat tax to pay for the debt. Of course, since this is more visible it would be very unpopular, so we'll likely end up using inflation as a hidden tax anyway...
I don't think technology will solve the problem. Even with molecular nanotechnology replicators, which are probably still many decades away, people will still need property to live on. In the olden days each small-time farmer made some excess that could be taxed, so it was beneficial to owners to have lots of them. However, with a high degree of automation technology it is more efficient for owners to buy (or forcibly take) that property and put the automated equipment they own on it (whether that means a robotic factory/farm, a power plant, or a nanofactory). This isn't a new trend...it's been going on since the first Industrial Revolution. If you are not an owner or useful to the owners, you will be discarded. That's just the way it is.
As for the people whose jobs are displaced, I'm sure they will be angry over losing their jobs. I also don't think any job is beneath anyone when push comes to shove (though a lot of the jobs we're talking about are pretty awful and we *should* be happy that people won't have to do them anymore soon). However, what choice do the soon to be displaced workers have? When robots can do their jobs cheaper and better, the owners will replace them. How can they possibly fight back? Unions just speed up the process of replacement (after all, robots don't have unions). The current political system is so messed up that it seems unlikely that they will be able to vote their way out of it...and even if they do they'll probably just end up imprisoned in a demeaning welfare system that is designed to keep them under control (while their best and brightest are skimmed off the top and exploited by those on top in exchange for good treatment and a shot at joining the club). An attempt at armed revolution would be bloody and ultimately pointless, as even large numbers will ultimately be no match for the destructive capability of a high-tech military...and it will be easy to keep soldiers in line by giving them employment that will keep them and their families out of poverty in exchange for their loyalty. Plus, what are the chances that a successful popular revolution would actually lead to a better government (as opposed to a popular dictatorship or more of the same)? Dampening all of these possibilities further is the fact that the change will be over many years and not obvious to most until late in the transition. Everyone that still has a job will keep thinking "there must be something wrong with all those people who can't find work"...at least until the day comes when they too are cast out, at which point it will be too late.
I think this is going to be the greatest problem we face in the near future. It will tear our society apart and there is no easy solution. We cannot stop it, only slow it down.
One last thing: do whatever you can to become an owner now. Even if you are a creative worker, there is no guarantuee that you will remain useful for the rest of your life. Would you be prepared to deal with the invention of strong AI capable of replacing any human worker...except that unlike humans they are absolutely loyal and incredibly efficient? Only as an owner will you have the economic power to keep yourself and those around you afloat regardless of what the future holds.
Actually, as a side note, I do have some idea on how to solve the problem on a larger scale. What we need is an ownership society. That is, a society where everyone derives the bulk of their income from the ownership of capital. Things don't have to be distributed evenly, and in fact I feel it would be beneficial for many reasons to allow people to choose to make more. However, if everyone's income was derived from capital instead of labor, it would solve so many problems. There would be no job problem. Automation would be a wonderful thing, freeing us from undesirable labor. It would eliminate destructive tensions that we take for granted today, such as the tensions between employers and employees. The main problem is getting from here to there. If things run their natural course, most people will clam
I like your post. I think it's very even-handed overall.
That said, I think you're being a bit too optimistic about what non-white-collar jobs will be left. Restraunts and retail stores will always be around of course, but I think automation will dastically change the lower end of these industries (which happens to be the most common).
Will most people really care if fast food restraunts are automated? They're already little more than glorified food vending machines. Once robots can handle the harder behind the scenes tasks (cooking, cleaning, etc.) cheaply enough, most fast food chains will probably go to a model where you order via a touch screen (and/or electronically via your own device) and get food served up by robots. There will need to be a human manager on hand to deal with problems, but the rest of the staff can be eliminated. Also, telepresence might make it so that one manager can cover many locations. There are already robotic cooks and such, so this is only a matter of time. The only thing that will slow this down is some peoples' resistance to change, but the way fast food is set up will make this easier. Even in nice restraunts you can expect to see some of the behind-the-scenes jobs quietly vanish.
Retail is much harder to automate as-is, but I think Internet retail is going to come to dominate eventually. The big change is going to come with automated cars (which by itself will eliminate another large class of jobs including long haul truckers), which will allow for very cheap 24-7-365 deliveries. Combined with automated warehouses, this will mean that Internet retailers can offer free same-day shipping on common items, even if it happens to be Sunday evening. This will probably destroy most of the old retail model as people become accustomed to getting things delivered quickly to their front door at a lower cost than brick-and-mortar retail can accomodate. Likely only convenience stores (for things you need right now) and high-end stores (which offer nice service at a high cost) will stand a chance of surviving in this new environment.
The only non-white-collar jobs that are likely to remain are trades that have a lot of variability in their work content (plumber, electrician, repairman, etc.) and jobs that need a human touch because they directly involve serving other people (waiter, personal servant, etc.).
What kind of article predicting the future 100 years leaves out widespread robotic automation and augmented reality? These are technologies that are maturing right now.
What happened in Iberia is not the same as what would happen with asteroid mining and such. Gold isn't all that inherently useful, especially at that time, so most of its value came from its rarity...so when the rarity was gone all that was left was nearly worthless hunks of metal.
Better analogies would be iron and aluminum. Large scale mining and refining of these metals destroyed their prices (aluminum was more valuable than gold during the time of Napoleon)...but despite the lower prices, they still made lasting fortunes for those involved because they were in constant demand for their useful properties. Further, the average person benefitted from the lower costs of these metals and the products and projects they made possible. Win-win
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Why even go as far as encouraging people to buy more and more things they don't need?
If one only needed 0.1% of the population to support the entire population, then the rest of the population is just one big cost center. Selling things to the people you're supporting is never a winning strategy. How can you profit from a sale you paid for (in wages)?
Let's think about this in a simple model. Lets say we have five actors in a hypothetical economy: Farmer Joe who owns land that can produce food, Max the machinist who owns the tools to produce tools, and three workers named Tim, Larry, and Johnny who own nothing of real value other than themselves. Despite their different professions, Joe and Max are on the same economic level as owners while the other three are on a lower level as workers.
In a large non-robotic economy, these five actors inhabit an open system, so the three workers can all get work. Farmer Joe can use plenty of hands because the more food he grows, the more food he can sell on the open market. Max can also use workers as the more tools he produces, the more tools he can sell. Joe and Max can buy things from outside actors using the extra money they get from selling to outside actors.
However, if these five people constituted the entire economy (that is, they are in a closed economic system) then even without robots the workers might not all be able to find work. Joe and Max would be interested in trading with each other, so they would each want to produce some surplus to trade with the other owner in exchange for some of their differing goods, but why would they want to produce surplus just for the workers? From the owner's perspective, the only thing the workers are good for is producing additional surplus at the cost of siphoning some of that surplus off to support the worker, but with nobody other than the other owner able to buy those goods there's no reason to produce a surplus beyond the two owners' demands. Hiring a worker to produce a surplus that is then sold to that worker would essentially be a wash for the owner (as their profit is exactly constrained by the wages they pay the worker, which is also the labor cost)...in fact, it would be actually be more costly to support a worker in such a way than not, as there would be costs in raw materials and the like. Likely Joe and Max would each pick the best worker for them out of the three, so they could spend more of their time on leisure while the workers did the work and the third worker would be out of luck. Even if Joe and Max could profitably find work for three workers, there would be some point at which the available workers would exceed what Joe and Max could use.
Robots completely ruin things for all three workers. The robots could do the same work at a far lower cost than the workers, so the robots would displace all the workers and only Joe and Max would remain. The owners use the robots to automatically produce enough for themselves and the other owner and then that is all they are interested in producing. There is no economic demand beyond the two owners, as the three workers are willing but not able to purchase the available goods without jobs.
The same basic ideas work at a higher scale too, although of course reality is far more complex. Owners have all the economic power while the workers are essentially powerless. Robots that can replace workers cheaply makes workers useless, and therefore invariably replaces them.
Our current mass economy has some different characteristics because:
1. there are so many more owners in so many more industries than just the two in the example, which is especially apparent when you consider that "owner" is broad enough to include people like farmers (which constitute about 2% of the population in the US)
2. there are enough essential workers that they end up with workers supporting them, which have workers supporting them, etc. This greatly multiplies how many jobs there are compared to owners.
3. other issues cause the need for many worker-type
We'll just include that in your regular body maintenance, using stem cells to rejuvenate your body every two years as well. This will also serve to better heal any surgical wounds.
If we're really serious about cybernetics though, we should make it easy to remove and replace them whenever possible. For instance, a cybernetic eye could be designed so it can be popped out of the eye socket and replaced (though this should probably be done in a clean environment with medical supervision). Location-agnostic equipment like onboard computers could fit into a standard pod with external access (and you might even be able to replace some of that equipment yourself). Cybernetic limbs are already designed to be removed. etc. Anything we can do to avoid surgery or reduce the impact of surgery would be beneficial.
I suppose you're right, it doesn't matter that you're importing it as long as the person selling it to you is generating it from the appropriate sources. Still, you can see why I initially came to a different conclusion. Thanks for the data.
Maybe it is more widely applicable, I dunno for sure. I don't know enough about wind power.
By the way, I wonder how "smart" Portugal's electrical grid is. Making 27.1% of their electricity from wind power is really impressive.
What you're talking about here is why I'm a transhumanist.
Technology can't help us overcome our problems because it is just a tool...but that implies that technology is not the problem, we're the problem. People are the problem. We're the ones misusing the tools.
Why? It's not because of some us versus them BS, we'd be just as bad in their position...and if for some reason we'd be a little better, then our ancestors will screw things up as soon as regression to the norm kicks in. The problem is human nature. Our little brains simply can't cope with such huge societies, so we end up living in little social tribes, and shitting all over everyone else.
You're right that we should be pessimistic. In fact, I'd go even further than that...the situation is hopeless. It hardly matters how we structure things, as we just can't physically deal with it. We're optimized for a hunter-gatherer existence, not a modern day existence. Some social structures are certainly better than others, I'd much rather have a US or Europe than a North Korea...but they all rot from the inside because they are all run by humans. This is our fate.
However, I believe we can cut the Gordian knot using technology. We can dramatically improve ourselves with technology, making us better able to handle such large scales. We can make ourselves smarter, kinder, harder working, happier, etc. One day we will almost certainly be able create intelligent entities that are specifically designed to take on the biggest jobs.
I feel that this is the only real way forward towards a better world. Anything else is unrealistic. You can't change the human condition without changing human nature.
By the way, I'm not saying we should force people to change. Transhumans will naturally gravitate toward where they are needed. We simply need to develop them first...
Is that the origins of the electricity delivered just to your home or the entire country?
Also, now that I think about it, there is no nuclear power in Portugal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_energy_in_Portugal Is the 2.6% from Spain or France?
Perhaps your figures are for usage (incuding imports) while the figures I was looking at were for production in Portugal.
I forget a lot of the little details now, but I don't think they cover the methane clathrate gun hypothesis (which is behind both of the things you mention). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis
You'll notice that the methane clathrate gun hypothesis has "hypothesis" in the name, which means that it's on much shakier ground than something like global warming. In particular, it seems that these clathrate gun events are exceptionally rare, with a good candidate occuring 55 million years ago (and this event took around 20,000 years to complete). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene-Eocene_Thermal_Maximum It also seems we've also had much less arctic ice cover without triggering such an event. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum It should also be noted that we've recovered from very extreme past events, so it's very unlikely that it would make Earth uninhabitable. Lastly, we don't even know if a clathrate gun event would cause global warming at all since it simeltaneously causes cooling due to smoke and such.
Sure, it's something to watch out for as it could be very bad if it occured, but it probably won't lead to an apocalyptic event in the next 100 years. It's certainly not something to panic over, and the real threat is most likely the long term effects of the extra greenhouse gasses we're emitting now. I think a technical solution will be forthcoming over the time period most likely available to us (at least as long as we continue striving towards that goal).
Plus, you shouldn't count out terraforming so easily. The climate is a chaotic system, so it is very amenable to control. The tricky bit is making sure we don't shoot ourselves in the foot, especially since we know so little about the climate at the moment.
Just remember, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions...and saying that 5-6 billion people are better off dead can certainly lead to dark places.
By the way, why are you so pessimistic? I'll admit that our current situation is quite worrisome, but what about the effects of new technologies and discoveries? Don't you think technology can help us overcome our problems? In particular, nuclear energy represents many millions of times as much energy as fossil fuels, so why will we have to cut back to far less than what we can sustain on fossil fuels?
Peak oil is a separate issue from AGW. We're not going to run out of energy, as at the very least we will still have plenty of coal when we run out of oil (not that I'm suggesting that we switch to a coal-based economy). As long as we have enough energy, we can produce fertilizers. We don't do so today because it's more expensive than digging oil out of the ground to use in fertilizer, but it's not like chemical fertilizers will go away just because we run out of oil.
That said, the transition could be nasty and lead to a lot of deaths if we don't do something about it now. We should put more emphasis on food security while the going is good as well as move towards an electricity-based transportation ASAP (which will mean that farm equipment can be run on electrical power as well as softening the impact on oil-based fertilizers).
However, unless there is major technical innovation in agriculture and/or energy, there will probably be a fairly serious famine at some point due to peak oil. I hope not, but we may not be able to do anything about it. If that's the case though, then we just can't do anything about it. In all seriousness, what can we do? Oil will run out and increase agricultural prices (due to the need for more expensive synthetic fertilizers or less efficient techniques). Our only hope is a technical solution...more overall energy availability or agricultural advances or both.
I'm fairly confident that there will be a technical solution. For instance, this form of indoor agriculture would solve all of the problems with oil dependence: http://singularityhub.com/2011/08/14/dutch-plantlab-revolutionizes-farming-no-sunlight-no-windows-less-water-better-food/ In-vitro meat could dramatically lessen the cost of meat while simultaneously reducing the consumption needs of livestock. Genetic engineering holds great promise. etc. etc. At the very least, necessity is the mother of invention, and I'm sure that as oil-based fertilizers become more expensive we will see scientists and farmers figuring out how to produce enough food without them.
Also, there's a world of difference between suffering through an inevitable catastrophe and deliberately causing one. Over-reacting to AGW in a silly or extremist way could easily lead to huge numbers of un-needed deaths and lots of other assorted misery. While we should have a plan, we don't need to do anything resembling the dismantling of our current civilization over it.
As for the long run and AGW, I've read the IPCC report and as far as I'm concerned we have about a century before things start potentially getting really bad. Over that timescale, what are the chances that we won't have figured out fusion power and self-contained environments? Perhaps by then we'll be in a better technological and scientific position to engage in terraforming. We should do what we can reasonably now and prepare for the worst of course, but not to the point where it is self-destructive.
I was going by this source: http://pelanatureza.pt/ficheiros/estatisticas-da-energias-renovaveis.pdf What was your source?
Hydro is 52% of the renewables, not the total energy usage (the 57% was total renewables, though going by your numbers it may be a bit higher).
I'm not sure why our figures differ so much for just hydro, but I'm going to guess that they put their many small hydro plants under "Microproduction" in your source.
Unfortunately for wide applicability, 57% of that 52% is hydro power. Hydro is great, but there's a limited amount of energy you can produce with it in any given area. Also, in small areas you can find extreme concentrations of hydro power. The most extreme example is Quebec, which produces 97% of its electrical energy from hydro power. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydro-Qu%C3%A9bec Quebec has been running on clean energy for decades without much effort, but it is unrealistic to assume that this can be done everywhere.
The other 43% is mostly wind, which also suffers from placement issues.
That said, it's a good thing that Portugal is taking advantage of its natural clean energy resources.
I don't know where people get off thinking they can spend 5% of their income on food when throughout history it required practically 100% of their labor. How about spending 25%.
Really now? We can expect this good outcome for the same reason that we can expect not lose half of our children to childhood diseases. We now have the knowhow to produce food at a rate which frees up most of the population for other activities. The world has changed and the old situation is no longer relevant. It should also be noted that our ancestors worked hard to build the future we now inhabit, so their children (us) could live in a better world. Why should we throw away their gift to us so easily?
Additionally, I don't think you understand just how dire the implications are of raising agricultural prices. It won't be the first world middle class that suffers the most from this, but the first world poor and third world population. If it costs 25% of a first world middle class income to buy food for the year, then that implies it would cost around $10,000 to not starve each year (around $27/day). Anyone making less than that basically starves, which is a LOT of people. Furthermore, we can't just use wealth redistribution or similar methods to solve the problem, as the prices would be higher due to lower supply. With such a large change, even if we were distributing the food fairly we wouldn't have nearly enough to keep everyone alive (and a fair distribution is overly idealistic anyway). Basically, what you're talking about will kill billions. When billions of lives are on the line, then perhaps we should put a bit more thought into how to avoid that outcome, hmm?
Lastly, who are you to tell me how much of my income I should have to spend on food? How about spending as little as possible to get what I want? If only we had some system that would set prices to match the current availability and desirability of goods...
Now that's not saying things should stay the same. The current situation is unsustainable due to resource limitations and/or environmental impact. Plus, new energy technologies will eventually yield much higher levels of energy (nuclear energy [which includes solar] is way better than chemical energy). However, we shouldn't dive headfirst into this without a really good plan...a plan which will not likely kill billions of people and not meet heavy resistance from billions more who know that a better life is still possible...and also hopefully a plan that won't lead to an overcontrolling central government that sticks its nose into every little area of our lives.
From what you've said about your experience with the power grid, it sounds about right for today. That said, you might want to consider more carefully why your 1 MW device was triggering blackouts.
I'm not a real expert in this area, but I did some research related the power grid and in particular the 2003 Northeast Blackout. What I found out was that there is essentially no real time control of the present-day power grid. The power calculations that are need to be done to centrally plan the electrical flow for a geographical region take several minutes to complete. To compensate for the slow reaction time to events, the calculations setup flow in such a way that many failures and unexpected changes are acceptable. They also take the historical record into account, so that an expected regular load increase can be met. Large, short, one-time events such as your device are awful under this system. In particular, adding new generation to meet unexpected load is troublesome, as they need to do the planning calculations before the new load can be added safely (otherwise the added electricity can damage equipment and lead to a longer blackout or even a cascade failure). Allowing blackouts or even deliberately dropping load is a comparatively safe response when time is of the essence (unpowered equipment won't be damaged, and working equipment can be restarted quickly after re-planning). That's not to say it's perfectly safe (you can get too much power running through the still-powered sections when there's big drop) but at least the new capacity won't contribute to the damage and there's often plans in place to create "power islands" around the generators in an emergency. With this in mind, it should be pretty easy to see why the power grid had such trouble with your tests. I'm sure you gave the staff at the local utility quite an interesting time whenever you did that.
However, our power grid (as well as those of many other countries) is really stuck in the mid-20th century. This system is built around the limitations of power monitoring and control in the pre-computer era...which is to say it is built around the need for centralized control of dumb field units at human timescales with highly limited information. The digital revolution has dramatically changed the way we can control power distribution, allowing distributed control of smart field units in real time with highly detailed information, but due to the cost of building infrastructure the only substantial impact at present has been the substitution of computers for humans doing the centralized calculations.
Once we finally get around to building a smart grid, we will be able to do many things that are impossible with today's system. Renewable energy will never work on a large scale with the current grid, there's too much fluctuation, but with the smart grid they can take on a much larger portion of our power needs (in order to cover all of our needs though, we need an economical way to store lots of energy for later too). Similarly, if fast EV charging causes irregular huge spikes in demand then our current grid will not be able to handle it, but a smart grid will be able to handle it.
The problem is when they demand good, fast, and cheap. Then your only choice is to tell them "that's not possible".
Also, there are some things that simply aren't possible regardless of the resources thrown at it. Within our field, the task of solving undecidable or large NP-complete problems is a no go. They could also ask for something ridiculous (just after WWII a military man asked Richard Feynmann to develop a tank that ran on dirt, so they could scoop up fuel as they moved along) or something way outside of the realm of current possibility (like interstellar travel). Someone ignorant of technology could always potentially ask for something like this, and if that happens it is your responsibility to stop them from shooting themselves in the foot.
That said, your advice is pretty pragmatic for the most part. Telling your boss that it's not possible will put them on the defensive, especially if it really is possible and you just think it's a bad idea. It's better to phrase it in terms they understand ($$$) and let them realize just how silly it is. It should be an accurate estimate in case they decide to forge ahead, but remember to add in some extra cost if there is any uncertainty or research that needs to be completed.
The juveniles of existing large dinosaur species would have starved when they grew too large due to the lack of foliage for the herbivores. As they were juveniles, they would not have reproduced until they grew to adulthood, and thus they would have starved before reproducing. Ironically, if they were better "designed", then they could have survived in smaller forms until the time was right again. Instead, only the dinosaur species with the smallest adult forms survived.
As for smaller dinosaurs/birds, who is to say that they didn't try the same tactics as their dinosaur ancestors?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_bird
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrich
I don't really know why they failed, but if I had to guess I'd say it was mainly due to the relatively low temperatures and unstable climate in the Cenozoic. Also, competition from mammals, which they would not have had an edge against unless they managed to grow enormous again which was not possible due to the climate. Therefore, the smaller dinosaurs (which we now call birds) were locked into relatively small sizes.
There's three basic problems centered around your metric of food produced per acre.
First, where is your evidence? Was there a study? It seems quite plausible that professional farmers are more efficient at using land than amatuer gardeners. A large farm also has a lack of useless dividing structures, which are needed to divide family plots. A single fence might not seem like much of a waste, but millions of fences add up. Also, small farmers are more likely to put their homes on top of limited arable land, while large farms can focus all of their land into farming.
Let's assume it's true though...the second problem is that we would have to radically restructure everyone's lives to accomodate this idea. Roughly 10% of US land is arable land. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_use_statistics_by_country I couldn't easily find a map of arable land, but this map of livestock concentrations shows that lots of agricultural activity is happening far from current population centers. http://wvrhrc.hsc.wvu.edu/images/2009-06-02_national_livestock_density.png In particular, most people want to live along the coastlines and they would have to give that costal lifestyle up to live further inland where the farmland is. A concrete example (specific to plant agriculture) would be the Central Valley in California, which is inland but produces 8% of US agriculture on 1% of the US's total farmland. Despite its massive size is home to only 1/6th of the state's total population. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_(California) Virtually everyone in San Fransisco and LA and their satellite cities would have to move there to farm because that's where the farmland is. It doesn't matter how efficient you are when you're trying to grow food in a desert.
Lastly, man-hours are the main bottleneck to economic growth, not acres. There's actually a surprising amount of land per person, especially in the US (over 7 acres per person and closer to 20 acres per household). More importantly, despite its importance, land actually has fairly limited usefulness. You need some for a shelter and some farmland to support yourself. Beyond that, it's needed for non-farming structures like offices, factories, hospitals, roads, power plants, schools, mines, etc. As large as most of these facilities may seem individually, they don't actually take up much space because they are split over a large number of people. Further, potentially space-intensive buildings like offices multiply their space many times over by building upward. Anyway, you need to build something on all the otherwise useless non-arable land. What else is land good for? Not much really.
On the other hand, man-hours are needed for EVERYTHING. Designing and building things, maintaining things, education, research, writing articles, reading articles, creating artwork, growing food, programming computers, everyday business activities, accounting, raising children, healing the sick and wounded, defending others, practicing for an emergency, responding to an emergency, thinking, talking with others, performances, finding resources, extracting resources, inventing new things, everyday chores, and many many more useful things. You literally can't even have fun without burning up man-hours. Worse yet, everyones' man-hours are limited by our limited lifespans (and even more limited youth-span). Man-hours are our most precious resource and devaluing them is one of the most short-sighted things you can do in life. I wouldn't go as far as saying that labor directly determines value (really it is rarity that directly determines the value of something), but due to the importance of man-hours as inputs in everything and the relatively low supply (each person can only realistically contribute 8 man-hours per day over the long term and a large percentage o
The most shocking statistic in that report has nothing to do with math. 20% of Britons are not even embarrased by their illiteracy. I wonder what that statistic is like in the US.
"Having colonized space" is very vague. If you mean that the solar system will be completely filled with colonists, then your statement is very obvious because it would be hard to design a semi-realistic scenario where that happens in a century, even with crazy advances in technology. It will take time for people to travel into space, build colonies, be born, communities to form, etc. Colonizing the solar system is much bigger task than colonizing the American continent. The moon by itself has slightly less surface area than the American continent.
If the bar is set lower, then I agree it's unlikely that any interesting colonization will happen in this decade. However, I don't find it hard to imagine a realistic scenario where substantial human colonies exist throughout the solar system by 2112. It's easy to look at our meager progress over the course of one decade and say that nothing dramatic will happen, but exponential technological/economic growth is surprising in the long run. Do you seriously think that someone living in 1910 would forsee that we'd have regular (if expensive) flights to LEO? They definitely couldn't forsee the New Horizons mission to Pluto, as Pluto wasn't discovered until 1930.
More important than direct progress on one goal (space colonization) is our broader technological progress over the course of a century. There's plenty of techology with important Earth-based applications that happens to be useful for space colonization. Fusion power would be a major game changer for space travel, as it would allow us to build relatively safe spacecraft that could lift thousands or even millions of tons of people and equipment to anywhere in the inner planets region in a matter of weeks. Conservatively, ITER should start producing fusion power in 2026...so what are the chances that we won't have practical fusion by 2112? Another major game changer would be molecular nanotechnology, which would allow us to lift only a tiny colonization pod to the target, at which point everything that was needed for human survival could be produced on-site even if needed molecules were missing (for instance, water could be produced from available sources of hydrogen and oxygen...as well as more complex items such as food without needing to bring along biomass). Several smaller developments together could also make a big difference too, such as advances in robotics allowing robotic missions to pave the way for human colonization (building base infrastructure) or advances in solar power giving us tons of excess energy to launch ships with. Even simply re-engineering current launch methods could yield some pretty amazing results, such as Space-X's plan to recover rockets (the construction of which accounts for 99% of present-day launch costs) by using computers to pilot the rocket back to Earth. There might even be unexpected developments based on science that hasn't been done yet. A lot can happen in 100 years...just look at 1800-1900 and 1900-2000.
It's very hard to tell today which of these things will pan out, but it's unlikely that there will be no major technological progress over the course of an entire century...and if this is the case, then we will have bigger problems.
Inflation is actually good for a lot of people, so long as it is mild. Anyone with a mortgage at a fixed rate (and for a fixed value) benefits from inflation. Before I was born, when inflation spiked up into the 13, 14% range a lot of people my parents age got exceptionally lucky and bought houses etc. at 6% interest fixed rate. With 13% inflation the relative value of their debt was dropping by 7% a year. Now, banking on that to happen in general is dangerous, and 14% inflation just in general can be nasty.
This is a terrible example because it has nothing to do with steady moderate interest. Those people benefitted from unexpectedly high inflation. If the people selling those houses anticipated a 14% inflation rate then they would have never offered a 6% fixed rate.
The most important thing isn't whether the inflation rate is low or high in absolute terms, but instead that the inflation rate is stable (and therefore predictable). If we were faced with a constant 14% interest rate, then we'd adapt by having monthly wage and price increases of 14% and setting nominal interest at 14% or more. That's not to say that it would be good to have such a high rate, as some of the side effects would be costly (like constantly changing the prices in stores).
Not everyones wages decrease with inflation, not even necessarily minimum wage. That's why the minimum wage is revisited regularly. Where I lived it was just recently bumped up to around 10 dollars an hour for adults (Ontario Canada), which puts it back in step with inflation for the last however many years. Anywhere I've ever worked that wasn't on minimum wage you always negotiated your salary increases to be more than inflation or at least equal to it.
The problem is that between the minimum wage increases there is an exponential decay in the income of minimum wage earners caused by inflation. They are especially hard hit by inflation and there's not much they can do to stop it...unlike higher wage earners who can ensure they get regular salary increases in their contract and wealthy people who can keep most of their money in investments. Plus, regular salary increases are rarely on a paycheck by paycheck basis so income decays between increases even for higher wage earners. The point is that wages are "sticky" and this sluggish response leads to more negative effects on wage earners.
Precious metals make very bad stores of wealth. That's why we don't do it any more. Pegging your currency to a metal that might be mined somewhere else, or that might suddenly have an increase or decrease in demand screws you.
While it's true that precious metals are not perfect stores of wealth, you can hardly say that they are "very bad" when there are many worse things to store wealth in. They're certainly better than things that quickly decay in value, like food or consumer electronics. In many ways they are better than fait currency, which can be "mined" at will by the governing body that issues them...whereas precious metal deposits have to actually be found before they can be mined. Probably the only things that are better stores of value are real estate, certain high grade collectables, and a few productive properties...all of which have low liquidity (a Yuan Dynasty vase is worth $1.2 million, but good luck finding a buyer).
That said, precious metals are currently in a speculative bubble. It would be foolish to buy them as stores of value right now, much like how it was foolish to buy real estate in the recent past. Additionally, in the case of gold, the US government has a ton of gold that it could release onto the market if it ever felt like it.
By the way, I'm not saying anything about the gold standard. I'm talking about individuals privately storing their wealth in non-monetary sinks. Whether a national currency has any value or not is irrelevant when value is stored this way.
A flat tax would outright screw the poor, an
Government debt is odd. Especially because it's in a currency you control. Mild inflation, with economic growth and a close to balanced budget deficit makes even big debts like the US has go away very quickly.
While this would probably be a good recipe for solving the debt problem, it seems like the inflation part would be pretty regressive.
One can think of (deliberate) mild inflation as a tax, with the money coming from the reduced value of the currency in everyone's pockets/bank accounts and going into whatever is causing the inflation (such as money printed by the treasury). At first glance this might seem to be similar to a flat tax, with everyone paying a percentage of their current money equal to the inflation rate. In fact, it initially looks a little progressive since wealthy people have more money laying around to depreciate in value while poorer people spend it all right away. However, peoples' reactions make all the difference.
People who work rely on their wages and wages are sticky. Depending on the job, a person's real income might even decay exponentially (especially if they are being paid minimum wage to do a job worth less than minimum wage). This is the worst case, as the worker is paying an increasingly large "inflation tax" until their wages are finally increased by their employer. Even jobs with regular wage increases to counteract inflation will see decay between the increases, leading to a loss of income approximately equal to the inflation rate over each wage increase period. Only a person who gets a wage increase with each paycheck and spends it all immediately would be immune. This also assumes that there are no wage freezes, which have become very common lately. The only good news is that most of an ordinary middle class person's income is tied up in physical things with real value (house, car, etc.) and these things would appreciate in value along with interest (though of course they also lose value over time due to physical dedagration, but the point is that they are not affected by steady inflation).
As for wealthier individuals, if they hoarded their money then they would be in a similar situation as the person who does not receive wage increases, paying more and more of the same dollar the longer they held onto it (though their situation would be better as they undergo constant increases in income). However, the reality is that no (permenantly) wealthy person would allow that to happen. Instead they put most of their money into physical things with lasting value and investments. Precious metals, property, rare/unique items, and many other expensive and hard to degrade things make good stores of wealth that are unaffected by inflation (though as a disadvantage are not very liquid). Stable or deflating currencies also make good stores of wealth. Productive property like factories, rental properties, and companies make things with value that usually more than pay for any physical dedagration they undergo. Owning an entire productive property is not needed, and in fact most such properties are split up into many smaller shares. The underlying physical stability of productive investments are reflected by the fact that they are valued in such a way to account for steady inflation...if there is a steady 5% inflation rate and real 6% return then the investor will get a nominal 11% return. All this leads to the very wealthy paying relatively little of the "inflation tax", though they likely pay the most in absolute terms simply because they have more money and can't keep it all tied up in these kinds of things all the time.
It would be more equitable to minimize inflation (perhaps keeping it around 1% to encourage private investment) and instead impose a flat tax to pay for the debt. Of course, since this is more visible it would be very unpopular, so we'll likely end up using inflation as a hidden tax anyway...
This isn't the first time that Iraq's once-great universities have been destroyed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258)
Of course, Al Gore was version 1.0.
I don't think technology will solve the problem. Even with molecular nanotechnology replicators, which are probably still many decades away, people will still need property to live on. In the olden days each small-time farmer made some excess that could be taxed, so it was beneficial to owners to have lots of them. However, with a high degree of automation technology it is more efficient for owners to buy (or forcibly take) that property and put the automated equipment they own on it (whether that means a robotic factory/farm, a power plant, or a nanofactory). This isn't a new trend...it's been going on since the first Industrial Revolution. If you are not an owner or useful to the owners, you will be discarded. That's just the way it is.
As for the people whose jobs are displaced, I'm sure they will be angry over losing their jobs. I also don't think any job is beneath anyone when push comes to shove (though a lot of the jobs we're talking about are pretty awful and we *should* be happy that people won't have to do them anymore soon). However, what choice do the soon to be displaced workers have? When robots can do their jobs cheaper and better, the owners will replace them. How can they possibly fight back? Unions just speed up the process of replacement (after all, robots don't have unions). The current political system is so messed up that it seems unlikely that they will be able to vote their way out of it...and even if they do they'll probably just end up imprisoned in a demeaning welfare system that is designed to keep them under control (while their best and brightest are skimmed off the top and exploited by those on top in exchange for good treatment and a shot at joining the club). An attempt at armed revolution would be bloody and ultimately pointless, as even large numbers will ultimately be no match for the destructive capability of a high-tech military...and it will be easy to keep soldiers in line by giving them employment that will keep them and their families out of poverty in exchange for their loyalty. Plus, what are the chances that a successful popular revolution would actually lead to a better government (as opposed to a popular dictatorship or more of the same)? Dampening all of these possibilities further is the fact that the change will be over many years and not obvious to most until late in the transition. Everyone that still has a job will keep thinking "there must be something wrong with all those people who can't find work"...at least until the day comes when they too are cast out, at which point it will be too late.
I think this is going to be the greatest problem we face in the near future. It will tear our society apart and there is no easy solution. We cannot stop it, only slow it down.
One last thing: do whatever you can to become an owner now. Even if you are a creative worker, there is no guarantuee that you will remain useful for the rest of your life. Would you be prepared to deal with the invention of strong AI capable of replacing any human worker...except that unlike humans they are absolutely loyal and incredibly efficient? Only as an owner will you have the economic power to keep yourself and those around you afloat regardless of what the future holds.
Actually, as a side note, I do have some idea on how to solve the problem on a larger scale. What we need is an ownership society. That is, a society where everyone derives the bulk of their income from the ownership of capital. Things don't have to be distributed evenly, and in fact I feel it would be beneficial for many reasons to allow people to choose to make more. However, if everyone's income was derived from capital instead of labor, it would solve so many problems. There would be no job problem. Automation would be a wonderful thing, freeing us from undesirable labor. It would eliminate destructive tensions that we take for granted today, such as the tensions between employers and employees. The main problem is getting from here to there. If things run their natural course, most people will clam
I like your post. I think it's very even-handed overall.
That said, I think you're being a bit too optimistic about what non-white-collar jobs will be left. Restraunts and retail stores will always be around of course, but I think automation will dastically change the lower end of these industries (which happens to be the most common).
Will most people really care if fast food restraunts are automated? They're already little more than glorified food vending machines. Once robots can handle the harder behind the scenes tasks (cooking, cleaning, etc.) cheaply enough, most fast food chains will probably go to a model where you order via a touch screen (and/or electronically via your own device) and get food served up by robots. There will need to be a human manager on hand to deal with problems, but the rest of the staff can be eliminated. Also, telepresence might make it so that one manager can cover many locations. There are already robotic cooks and such, so this is only a matter of time. The only thing that will slow this down is some peoples' resistance to change, but the way fast food is set up will make this easier. Even in nice restraunts you can expect to see some of the behind-the-scenes jobs quietly vanish.
Retail is much harder to automate as-is, but I think Internet retail is going to come to dominate eventually. The big change is going to come with automated cars (which by itself will eliminate another large class of jobs including long haul truckers), which will allow for very cheap 24-7-365 deliveries. Combined with automated warehouses, this will mean that Internet retailers can offer free same-day shipping on common items, even if it happens to be Sunday evening. This will probably destroy most of the old retail model as people become accustomed to getting things delivered quickly to their front door at a lower cost than brick-and-mortar retail can accomodate. Likely only convenience stores (for things you need right now) and high-end stores (which offer nice service at a high cost) will stand a chance of surviving in this new environment.
The only non-white-collar jobs that are likely to remain are trades that have a lot of variability in their work content (plumber, electrician, repairman, etc.) and jobs that need a human touch because they directly involve serving other people (waiter, personal servant, etc.).
What kind of article predicting the future 100 years leaves out widespread robotic automation and augmented reality? These are technologies that are maturing right now.
What happened in Iberia is not the same as what would happen with asteroid mining and such. Gold isn't all that inherently useful, especially at that time, so most of its value came from its rarity...so when the rarity was gone all that was left was nearly worthless hunks of metal.
Better analogies would be iron and aluminum. Large scale mining and refining of these metals destroyed their prices (aluminum was more valuable than gold during the time of Napoleon)...but despite the lower prices, they still made lasting fortunes for those involved because they were in constant demand for their useful properties. Further, the average person benefitted from the lower costs of these metals and the products and projects they made possible. Win-win