variety of foods (you can't grow everything in one climate/soil)
With a suitable greenhouse in a moderate climate you can come very very close. And soil is not as important as you might think. You're not going to be growing fine wines everywhere, of course, but that's not the goal.
I don't think anyone on that team has done any serious math as far as energy requirements of something as simple as smelting aluminum.
The energy requirements are high, true. But the power requirements are only a function of scale. The difference between retail feasibility and industrial profitability is close to an order of magnitude. So you can scale down a lot and have it still make sense. And aluminum is easy enough to source and transport and recycle once you have it so I don't think that's a huge issue.
Do you employ people to hand-disassemble everything into it's tiniest material components?
I don't see why not. There are billions of unemployed people on the planet. Goods that are designed for it can be very easy to recycle.
To be honest, after reading much of the website, I couldn't help but think that simply eschewing all of the technology and "going back to the earth" would be a lot easier.
Perhaps. But there is a lot of technology involved in that as well. On the website you see that there are plans for permaculture and aquaponics. It just takes longer to establish and is fairly labor and resource intensive to maintain so it's not going to happen overnight.
Given resource limits versus the Earth's current population, it may not happen ever. If industrial farming currently supports 2 people per acre, and permaculture requires 2 acres per person, then we must find middle ground.
For example where the heck are you going to get the copper for the windmill and power supplies? There is no mining and refining chain.
Recycling? This is a pretty ludicrous basis for your criticism. Why would you be posting on Slashdot if you can't refine silicon yourself? You should stop.
I guess this civilization isn't going to be long on medical treatment or drugs.
Most aren't. With adequate diet and exercise, it's not a big hindrance.
The windmill looks nice but for that to work you need something to baseload the grid.
Like a resistance heating element? A lightbulb? Some nichrome wire?
And how do you make concrete from that collection of equipment?
Why do 4 billion people on the planet need concrete exactly?
I don't see why not. Eric Holder is a total dimwit, whose illustrious career involves having covered up federal involvement in the OKC bombing. He has rather systematically assaulted Americans' 2nd amendment rights since he first entered office.
Obama could show him the door at any time. He pretends to be some kind of Constitutional expert, so it's not like he's out of his element.
Yet he's still there, lying to Congress about shipping guns to drug cartels. Why?
The irony-meter is off the charts with your post --
Complaining about the crappiness of Windows, due to the fact that the computers you have at home are better than those at work, which is itself a consequence of the targeted design and marketing of Windows towards home users 20 years ago, which led to businesses being gradually forced to adopt it at work because users already knew how to use it and it's ubiquitous, closed file formats made interoperability otherwise impossible.
I have a methodology. It involves wiping the included consumer-grade software and replacing it with open source. Anything less is just asking for a world of pain. (Unfortunately learned through experience)
You don't have my permission to order my dog around.
Now consider that the situation is exactly equivalent. I don't have permission to order your satellite around, either. But I have the ability -- just as I have the ability to order your dog around. You may not like it. You may not even believe it. But that doesn't change the fact. The fact that I have the ability to order your dog around is not the issue. As long as I don't actually use that ability, the same is true of the ability to control your satellite.
The issue only exists in your mind, in the cognitive dissonance between the fact that your dog (or your satellite) will respond to the commands of others, and your magical wishful thinking that that were not the case.
And as an example of why your interpretation is ridiculous on it's face, consider this scenario. You have a dog. You train your dog to respond to voice commands -- sit, roll over, heel, and attack. Would you say that I have "hacked" your dog if I tell it to "sit"? Of course not. Would you consider that "misuse"? Of course you wouldn't.
There is absolutely no distinction between "hackers briefly control satellite" and "milk man briefly controls dog". Control is not the issue. The issue is the intent and consequences of that control.
Even assuming no radiative losses, it would take 3 million exajoules to raise the temperature of the oceans by one degree F. At current energy usage of 500 exajoules per year, that would take 6000 years.
If you want to worry about global warming, concentrate on the areas that involve some leverage because our primary energy usage is miniscule in comparison to the planet.
Either the people with nothing change the nature of our capitalist society, or the people with essentially everything take the LAST logical step and build Terminators to "fix" the welfare problem.
But that isn't the last logical step. If anything, it's the first logical step. The real problem is that, in our current system of capitalism, there is no last logical step.
Marx could see this very clearly. Modern capitalism is built on centralization of production and large-scale capital. It doesn't work otherwise. You can't afford a yacht. But you can buy shares in the Titanic.
And the only way it moves forward is through more centralization and the creation of larger-scale capital. They can't build Terminators, because fixing the welfare problem would eliminate their customers and they would have no justification to continue operating the large scale capital on which their wealth is based. And if they somehow lost their minds and invested in building small-scale capital instead, their relative wealth would evaporate and they would suddenly have no reason to fix the welfare problem.
Self-service grocery check out counters and automated phone answering systems come to mind. NOBODY wants them.
That's not true. I want them. Self-service check-out kiosks are faster and usually more accurate than a human. Automated phone answering systems do a better job of letting me pay my bills than a human. They're both shitty jobs that I have no interest in performing. And frankly it creeps me out to be surrounded by people doing shitty jobs that I wouldn't want to do myself.
Frankly I think, in the future, the "repairing robots" jobs will be similar to the "repairing washing machines" jobs of today -- not worth the time of the people who own them, and only performed by scrap scavengers on a less-than-economical basis.
Note that most of these are banks, which means ultimately they are controlled by their depositors.
That may be how it works in old movies, but not in real life.
Nowadays, banks have shareholders. And bondholders. And creditors. Every dollar of deposits is offset by 50 dollars of liabilities. And when a bank goes tits-up, the depositor is the last one on the list to get reimbursed. Depositors get to file a claim with the FDIC and maybe years later they're reimbursed with freshly-printed, devalued currency.
And banks certainly don't ask their depositors before they loan out the money they've deposited. So they effectively control it.
Slashdot Mirror
You can watch Marcin's TED speech to get an idea of his motivations and experience: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIsHKrP-66s
But the short answer is, yes, he is building and testing some of them at least. And the point is that it doesn't need to be "industrial scale".
variety of foods (you can't grow everything in one climate/soil)
With a suitable greenhouse in a moderate climate you can come very very close. And soil is not as important as you might think. You're not going to be growing fine wines everywhere, of course, but that's not the goal.
I don't think anyone on that team has done any serious math as far as energy requirements of something as simple as smelting aluminum.
The energy requirements are high, true. But the power requirements are only a function of scale. The difference between retail feasibility and industrial profitability is close to an order of magnitude. So you can scale down a lot and have it still make sense. And aluminum is easy enough to source and transport and recycle once you have it so I don't think that's a huge issue.
Do you employ people to hand-disassemble everything into it's tiniest material components?
I don't see why not. There are billions of unemployed people on the planet. Goods that are designed for it can be very easy to recycle.
To be honest, after reading much of the website, I couldn't help but think that simply eschewing all of the technology and "going back to the earth" would be a lot easier.
Perhaps. But there is a lot of technology involved in that as well. On the website you see that there are plans for permaculture and aquaponics. It just takes longer to establish and is fairly labor and resource intensive to maintain so it's not going to happen overnight.
Given resource limits versus the Earth's current population, it may not happen ever. If industrial farming currently supports 2 people per acre, and permaculture requires 2 acres per person, then we must find middle ground.
For example where the heck are you going to get the copper for the windmill and power supplies? There is no mining and refining chain.
Recycling? This is a pretty ludicrous basis for your criticism. Why would you be posting on Slashdot if you can't refine silicon yourself? You should stop.
I guess this civilization isn't going to be long on medical treatment or drugs.
Most aren't. With adequate diet and exercise, it's not a big hindrance.
The windmill looks nice but for that to work you need something to baseload the grid.
Like a resistance heating element? A lightbulb? Some nichrome wire?
And how do you make concrete from that collection of equipment?
Why do 4 billion people on the planet need concrete exactly?
Actually I've never played Fallout, but that reminds me that the Gasifier Experimenter's Kit is also Open Source.
Community defense is more about defending against infiltration and sabotage than actual overt attack.
I don't see why not. Eric Holder is a total dimwit, whose illustrious career involves having covered up federal involvement in the OKC bombing. He has rather systematically assaulted Americans' 2nd amendment rights since he first entered office.
Obama could show him the door at any time. He pretends to be some kind of Constitutional expert, so it's not like he's out of his element.
Yet he's still there, lying to Congress about shipping guns to drug cartels. Why?
It opens up and scientific grant money comes out! Like a big pinata!
"Locking it all down" has always, without fail, provided me with more time, not less.
I'm not sure what you're doing wrong. Maybe you're just horribly under-staffed.
Do you fear coming in under budget?
The irony-meter is off the charts with your post --
Complaining about the crappiness of Windows, due to the fact that the computers you have at home are better than those at work, which is itself a consequence of the targeted design and marketing of Windows towards home users 20 years ago, which led to businesses being gradually forced to adopt it at work because users already knew how to use it and it's ubiquitous, closed file formats made interoperability otherwise impossible.
I have a methodology. It involves wiping the included consumer-grade software and replacing it with open source. Anything less is just asking for a world of pain. (Unfortunately learned through experience)
If the code is toxic or radioactive, then yes. (For instance anything written in .NET)
You don't have my permission to order my dog around.
Now consider that the situation is exactly equivalent. I don't have permission to order your satellite around, either. But I have the ability -- just as I have the ability to order your dog around. You may not like it. You may not even believe it. But that doesn't change the fact. The fact that I have the ability to order your dog around is not the issue. As long as I don't actually use that ability, the same is true of the ability to control your satellite.
The issue only exists in your mind, in the cognitive dissonance between the fact that your dog (or your satellite) will respond to the commands of others, and your magical wishful thinking that that were not the case.
No, we can't.
And as an example of why your interpretation is ridiculous on it's face, consider this scenario. You have a dog. You train your dog to respond to voice commands -- sit, roll over, heel, and attack. Would you say that I have "hacked" your dog if I tell it to "sit"? Of course not. Would you consider that "misuse"? Of course you wouldn't.
There is absolutely no distinction between "hackers briefly control satellite" and "milk man briefly controls dog". Control is not the issue. The issue is the intent and consequences of that control.
Even assuming no radiative losses, it would take 3 million exajoules to raise the temperature of the oceans by one degree F. At current energy usage of 500 exajoules per year, that would take 6000 years.
If you want to worry about global warming, concentrate on the areas that involve some leverage because our primary energy usage is miniscule in comparison to the planet.
Hmm, this sounds suspiciously like a trap.
That's what military Keynesianism is too, for that matter. But it's somewhat beside the point.
From here it looks like attacking third world dirt farms seems to have caused us at least as much harm as it has them. I'd say it's a draw at best.
And when you no longer have a job, how do you plan to pay for the machines that flip your burgers and do your cleaning?
Either the people with nothing change the nature of our capitalist society, or the people with essentially everything take the LAST logical step and build Terminators to "fix" the welfare problem.
But that isn't the last logical step. If anything, it's the first logical step. The real problem is that, in our current system of capitalism, there is no last logical step.
Marx could see this very clearly. Modern capitalism is built on centralization of production and large-scale capital. It doesn't work otherwise. You can't afford a yacht. But you can buy shares in the Titanic.
And the only way it moves forward is through more centralization and the creation of larger-scale capital. They can't build Terminators, because fixing the welfare problem would eliminate their customers and they would have no justification to continue operating the large scale capital on which their wealth is based. And if they somehow lost their minds and invested in building small-scale capital instead, their relative wealth would evaporate and they would suddenly have no reason to fix the welfare problem.
Self-service grocery check out counters and automated phone answering systems come to mind. NOBODY wants them.
That's not true. I want them. Self-service check-out kiosks are faster and usually more accurate than a human. Automated phone answering systems do a better job of letting me pay my bills than a human. They're both shitty jobs that I have no interest in performing. And frankly it creeps me out to be surrounded by people doing shitty jobs that I wouldn't want to do myself.
It's bad because you will have absolutely no way of owning those machines.
Frankly I think, in the future, the "repairing robots" jobs will be similar to the "repairing washing machines" jobs of today -- not worth the time of the people who own them, and only performed by scrap scavengers on a less-than-economical basis.
Note that most of these are banks, which means ultimately they are controlled by their depositors.
That may be how it works in old movies, but not in real life.
Nowadays, banks have shareholders. And bondholders. And creditors. Every dollar of deposits is offset by 50 dollars of liabilities. And when a bank goes tits-up, the depositor is the last one on the list to get reimbursed. Depositors get to file a claim with the FDIC and maybe years later they're reimbursed with freshly-printed, devalued currency.
And banks certainly don't ask their depositors before they loan out the money they've deposited. So they effectively control it.
what does America produce that China needs?
Raw materials, agricultural commodities, geopolitical stability.