The Political Discussion Thread

[Womble]

There are plenty of details at the thevenusproject.com FAQ, but I'll try to do my best to explain briefly here. FIRST, it must be understood, that a RBE wouldn't JUST be about changing the economic paradigm, but also peoples attitudes about why they do things. People wouldn't do things for monetary gain, they would do them to better themselves and the rest of humanity. Sound like Picard from Star Trek: First Contact?

No, sounds like the good old basic fallacy of Communism. Trying to ground an economic theory in wishful thinking.

In a functional Resource Based Economy, there would be very little labor to begin with, beyond what people WANT to do. The reward would be not only helping themselves, but also the rest of society. There would be NO MONEY, and everyone's basic needs would be provided for. This would be accomplished by using technological automation and innovation in every conceivable situation, making the need for human labor less and less.

Nonsense.

No amount of technological automation could ever eliminate the need for labor. Consider the effect of technological progress over the last 2000 years of human history. We have machines to make things, we have machines to make machines, we have all kinds of stuff that people 2000 years ago could not imagine. But the old professions that involve working with one's hands are still around. Carpenters and construction workers got power tools but they have not- and will never be - eliminated as professions. Most basic tasks in agriculture, food production, cooking have not been automated, and in all likelyhood will never be automated. Animal husbandry by definition cannot be automated - and the more interest we gain in humane treatment of animals, the less room there is for automation.

Now consider the commitment factor. A person who does not HAVE to work, will not show up for work. Today they find it fun to work, tomorrow they'd rather go to the beach. Today they'd like to do customer service, but they've had too many nasty customers during the day so don't count on them tomorrow- they've taken up landscape design instead. If the travel agents I work with could choose their own hours, most of them would not show up to the Sunday morning shift (Monday morning for you non-Israelis), because it's the single hardest shift of the week. It's when our customers need us the most, which is why it's when we get the most grief.

Advanced computer systems would also keep track of material resources and the best means to use them in a sustainable way.

And it would always flawlessly coincide with the interests of the people to whom said resources are being distributed. Because people's opinions and desires tend to be identical and non-contradictory. Right?

Things like cars would be kept as communal property accessible at any time, no different than checking a book from the library.

Yep. If you want to drive somewhere, get into the waiting list. Unless the community has more cars than people (sorry pal, can't go visit your sick aunt because three cars are in repairs and you were pushed down the waiting list) and unless all cars are exactly the same (God forbid some cars are nicer than others!), that's a perfect arrangement to breed discontent right there.

Oh, by the way, what if I want to fly? Will my community have a helicopter for each member just like it would have cars?

Cars would be self-driving, so if you needed one, it could drive itself to your home as needed, then you could go to your destination. Things like Mag-Lev bullet trains would be increasingly utilized to move people and goods within cities and between cities, in a relatively short time. Such a train could go from New York to L.A. in about a half hour (when used in conjunction with vacuum tubes), so you could live wherever you wanted and commute (or tele-commute) if needed.

None of those requires any radical redefinition of existing economic relations.

It has been calculated by some that by using all the technological innovation at our disposal, we could lower the necessary human labor to about 2 hours per day per human.

Calculated by whom?

This would allow humans to follow whatever path they chose without the worry of basic necessities. Education would have no costs, so anyone could be and do whatever they wanted. Scientist, Musician, Inventor, Programmer, Bartender, Waiter, Architect, or whatever.

First, one's ability to be a pilot depends on the availability of planes and demand for flights. Having enough planes for anyone who might want to be a pilot would be unrealistic and would not match the actual practical need for air transport.

Second, it would lead to a society with more musicians than audience and no one to clean the sewers. (It's remarkable how few people dream of cleaning sewers). Lots of architects and no one to lay the bricks of the houses they design.

After all, you don't always need a car, boat, or various types of equipment, you only want to have ACCESS to them as needed. That is usually the reason for owning something.

There is. And it's the same reason why people customize the things they own, from T-shirts to cars. It's the desire to have something that is actually yours. A completely irrational cognitive bias fundamental to human nature. We don't want just any house, we want a home- a place to which we are emotionally attacched and where everything is arranged to our liking. Living in a hotel room which you will need to leave in three days does not profide the same level of emotional comfort. I don't want just any bicycle - I want the compact, folding, magnesium alloy, silver-colored beauty that I ride to work twice a day because it's mine. I own it. I need no one's permission to ride it wherever I please, whenever I please.

Sustainability of resources means several things. It doesn't mean everyone has to have exactly the same product at all. It means that things will be built to last, instead of the current junk specifically designed to break or wear out, so one must purchase a new item to replace it. Things like electronics would be built to be modular, so if an upgrade comes along, be it software or hardware, you simply remove the old component, and plug in the one replacing it, and the old component gets recycled back into the collective pool of resources.

The good old PCs work exactly like that- remove the plastic sheet with little electronic pieces soldered to it, put in the next one, plug it in. It's how my dad upgraded his PC from badly obsolete Pentium I to a pretty good machine that rivals my laptop. So it's already being done.

But extending it to all electronics? That would saddle your imaginary economy with a major obstacle to technological progress- the perpetual requirement for building backwards compatibility into EVERYTHING. Do you realize just how massive a resource drain you're inviting? Imagine every single modern-day notebook PCs having to be compatible with the parts produced for machines of previous generations. 2GB VRAM video cards forced to retain the ability to work with 16-bit processors? How would that even function?

There could also be variations of item (such as cell phones), maybe 20 different sorts (based on public wants) and those would be updated as needed, instead of replacing entire phones every few years. If an entirely new advance is made requiring a completely new device, then it could be done as necessary, but generally most upgrades could be modular in nature. The old phones (as example) would just get replaced with said new device, and the old ones would get recycled into the material resource pool. In addition, things like furniture, clothes, etc. could be customized with new technologies that can literally 'print' out things in a custom fashion. There would still be personal choice options about items, but it would be done in a way that maintains sustainability.

This entire paragraph does not make sense.

Objectively speaking, there is no need whatsoever for 20 different cell phone types. There is a need for two distinct types: one for children, elderly and travelers (wearable as a wrist watch, distress call function, built-in GPS to locate the wearer should the need arise), and a Nokia 1100 for everyone else. All other features- camera, internet connection etc. - is resource-wasting fancy. If you want to check your Facebook, go home and do it from your ever-so-modular PC. Don't waste the society's resources.

The monetary reasons that hold back many technologies would not exist, as there would be NO money. There would be no need to fight over funding, because it wouldn't exist.

And neither would there be money-based motivation to advance new technologies. The rewards of enterpreneurship would have been just as non-existent as its risks.

Major works like the space program wouldn't be as much of a hurdle because of 'costs', as the only issue would be if the necessary resources and know-how were available.

Money costs or resource costs - not a lot of difference. None, in fact. Money is just the way we historically measure resources.

[mad_gater]

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But the old professions that involve working with one's hands are still around. Carpenters and construction workers got power tools but they have not- and will never be - eliminated as professions. Most basic tasks in agriculture, food production, cooking have not been automated, and in all likelyhood will never be automated. Animal husbandry by definition cannot be automated - and the more interest we gain in humane treatment of animals, the less room there is for automation.
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massage therapy is a big one too.....sure there's devices that can give a massage that are somewhat effective but those devices can never replace the often innate healing capacity human touch, which is capable of taking massage therapy to levels that no machine can ever match...sure you get some pinheads in the profession whose hands are as far from being instruments of healing as you can get due to their being pinheads but the vast majority of therapists are good, honest people who desire to help people feel better and even help bona fide muscular issues and other soft tissue issues

[KEK]

I think people are massively underestimating the potential of technology if they think any job short of art or design could not be automated at some point. Many of the jobs being talked about are still around because we're running consumer capitalist societies that actively seek to keep them around. Our economic model is utterly dependent on people working for money that they can go out and spend, whether it's a rational use of resources or not. I believe there'll come a time when money makes no sense, but just not in our lifetimes.

[Seastallion]

No, sounds like the good old basic fallacy of Communism. Trying to ground an economic theory in wishful thinking.

There are certainly similarities with the ideology of Communism, but there are also most certainly differences. Communism as an ideal, is a very good idea, it has just never been successfully implemented without turning into Socialism. U.S.S.R. and China being prime examples. You still ended up with elites and the masses, just like everywhere else. So yeah, Communism on paper sounds like paradise, or something near to it. I think they called it the 'worker's paradise' or something like that. Intentions aside, it obviously didn't work out very well.

The following is taken from the Venus Project FAQ, about the difference with Communism:

While communism is a much more humane social system than what we have today, we feel it does differ considerably from the direction we advocate. While Marx offered a bold new direction in his time, it falls far short of what can be accomplished with today's technology applied with human and environmental concern.

The Venus Project offers science and technology in the service of humankind on a global scale and eventually helps to eliminate all the artificial boundaries that separate people. The system uses no money and makes goods and services available without a price tag, debt, barter, or servitude of any kind. If we use our technology intelligently, we can create an abundance of goods and services for the entire planet. We use machines and automation to produce and distribute all manufactured products, which will be available at distribution centers to everyone. The purpose of this high technology is to free people so they can pursue their own interests and fulfillments.


We would surpass the need for human participation in the production of goods and services. There is no taxation or obligation of any kind. We advocate no government by human systems. They have always proved inadequate. Computerized systems and cybernetics would be applied to the social system and must comply with the carrying capacity of our global resources. The machines' main purpose is for the manufacturing and distribution of goods and services while maintaining a clean environment with service to all and profits to none. When people have access to resources, most crimes will disappear. The need for police, military, and prisons will eventually vanish with it. Of course this will coincide with the necessary changes in education. I hope this helps to clarify some points. We realize this is a simplified description of how it differs from communism.

Nonsense.

No amount of technological automation could ever eliminate the need for labor. Consider the effect of technological progress over the last 2000 years of human history. We have machines to make things, we have machines to make machines, we have all kinds of stuff that people 2000 years ago could not imagine. But the old professions that involve working with one's hands are still around. Carpenters and construction workers got power tools but they have not- and will never be - eliminated as professions. Most basic tasks in agriculture, food production, cooking have not been automated, and in all likelyhood will never be automated. Animal husbandry by definition cannot be automated - and the more interest we gain in humane treatment of animals, the less room there is for automation.

Advocates of RBE freely admit, there would be a transitional period. In fact, many feel that we are already in that transition, an era where machine labor has begun to outstrip human labor. Obviously, there is still a need for human labor, but it is getting progressively less and less, all by its self. Such basic jobs as bartending are already at the point they can be mechanized. New technologies are hitting restaurants so that waiters don't even take orders anymore, people just use a computer device at their table to order, and the waiter just delivers them. At some point in the future, the position of the waiter could be removed entirely with a robot. Obviously, that won't happen tomorrow, but some years down the line, it very well could. If a robot could act as a waiter, it could potentially do many other things as well. Currently the biggest obstacle to robots/androids are their power sources.

Even farms are getting more and more mechanized. Robotics are being developed to do many tasks on farms, from planting crops to tending them, to harvesting them. Large farms today are using heavily mechanized machines to do it already, with a person merely driving the machine. With a sufficient additional technology, that position could also be eliminated.

Robot brings the cows in...



The point being, that we are ALREADY headed in a direction where machine production is set to completely replace human labor. The moment it becomes possible to replace human labor with 'cheap' machines to do it instead, an industry or service will do so. It is why there are so many (annoying) automated phone services where they go, "say or press #" for such and such. Machines are virtually tireless, and can work almost 24/7 365, with relatively short breaks for maintenance. Also machines don't need retirement plans, health insurance, etc. This is a FACT of our reality. Regardless of the current needs for human labor, the current trends are removing that factor more and more, with each passing year. My own (former) job is a perfect example of this. Everything that could be automated in my job (for the moment), HAS been, leaving only the more complicated issues to deal with, that machines currently can't resolve. Yet.

Now, WHAT is the ultimate result of all of this? As there becomes less and less need for human labor under a monetary system, the purchasing power of the public becomes less and less. The numbers of jobs being taken by machines, don't equal the number of jobs created to tend to those machines. Since we do in fact have machines building machines, it isn't a stretch to imagine even those jobs getting eliminated eventually. As someone who enjoys reading things like Popular Science and Mechanics, I've seen a huge number of technologies in development that could replace humans in a multitude of occupations. There are probably plenty more I'm not aware of too.

Now consider the commitment factor. A person who does not HAVE to work, will not show up for work. Today they find it fun to work, tomorrow they'd rather go to the beach. Today they'd like to do customer service, but they've had too many nasty customers during the day so don't count on them tomorrow- they've taken up landscape design instead. If the travel agents I work with could choose their own hours, most of them would not show up to the Sunday morning shift (Monday morning for you non-Israelis), because it's the single hardest shift of the week. It's when our customers need us the most, which is why it's when we get the most grief.

Again, we are already reaching a point where labor is being replaced. How many travel agents are there any more? Last time I took a trip, I used my computer and got my hotel, flight tickets, and rental car in about 10 minutes. Never did see a travel agent, even once. I saw useless TSA, and a very nice guy at the car rental, who upgraded my rental car for free. I ended up driving a Dodge Charger all weekend, very nice car to drive. As nice as the car rental guy was, the only thing he really did was handle a very little paperwork, as I had to use a computer to make my selections there too. So yeah, there are currently people needed, but we are moving away from it at a steady pace.

And it would always flawlessly coincide with the interests of the people to whom said resources are being distributed. Because people's opinions and desires tend to be identical and non-contradictory. Right?

Many of the things you needed, you'd just go to a distribution center to get, not unlike we do now. A lot of people go to Wal-Mart and get almost everything they need in a single place. In addition, with the development of fabrication on demand technologies, people would be able to lend their opinions and desires to whatever styles or options they want. The video below is actual replicator technology in existence, TODAY.

^ 3D model of machines in development that can build houses from the ground up.

[Seastallion]

Yep. If you want to drive somewhere, get into the waiting list. Unless the community has more cars than people (sorry pal, can't go visit your sick aunt because three cars are in repairs and you were pushed down the waiting list) and unless all cars are exactly the same (God forbid some cars are nicer than others!), that's a perfect arrangement to breed discontent right there.

Oh, by the way, what if I want to fly? Will my community have a helicopter for each member just like it would have cars? None of those requires any radical redefinition of existing economic relations.

How many people use their cars all day long, everyday? Very few. I know I don't. I drive as little as I can get away with. Do you really think there would be a lack of available cars? I seriously doubt it. I think you're being a bit facetious here. If I didn't have to worry about the maintenance and upkeep of said auto-cars, I would give up my personal car in a heartbeat. It is expensive to upkeep. Gas, Insurance, Maintenance, etc.

As for public transit or cargo, flying craft could still be available, but do you really think you'd want to try flying from New York to L.A. when a bullet train could get you there in about a half hour? The airplane would take several times longer to get there. As far as trucks that take goods into wilderness areas, often over dangerous terrain, they could easily be replaced with Airships (a hybrid between a blimp and airplane), that could carry an entire convoy's worth of cargo containers and simply fly over the terrain (no roads needed), and then using their VTOL capabilities (no runway needed either), land and begin unloading.

Calculated by whom?

I'll admit, I don't have the source, but I'm looking for it. In any case, machines doing labor for us exist precisely to reduce the needs for our own efforts. Washers, Dryers, Microwaves, Robot Vacuums, Robot Lawnmowers, etc. As prevalent as technology is today, it isn't difficult to imagine that it will only increase more and more as time passes.

First, one's ability to be a pilot depends on the availability of planes and demand for flights. Having enough planes for anyone who might want to be a pilot would be unrealistic and would not match the actual practical need for air transport.

Second, it would lead to a society with more musicians than audience and no one to clean the sewers. (It's remarkable how few people dream of cleaning sewers). Lots of architects and no one to lay the bricks of the houses they design.

1st) With bullet trains that can get you where you want to go much faster, who would want to fly, except for mostly recreational purposes? With annoying TSA in place, I know I don't want to.

2nd) I doubt that. Most people aren't that talented, and in any case, just because someone is a musician themselves, doesn't mean they don't enjoy the works of others. Most people in the music industry love listening to other people's music, as well as doing their own.

As to the sewers, there are already lots of machines being used for that as well. It isn't a stretch to take it even further, with the appropriate advances. As to the houses, see the pic above...

There is. And it's the same reason why people customize the things they own, from T-shirts to cars. It's the desire to have something that is actually yours. A completely irrational cognitive bias fundamental to human nature. We don't want just any house, we want a home- a place to which we are emotionally attached and where everything is arranged to our liking. Living in a hotel room which you will need to leave in three days does not profide the same level of emotional comfort. I don't want just any bicycle - I want the compact, folding, magnesium alloy, silver-colored beauty that I ride to work twice a day because it's mine. I own it. I need no one's permission to ride it wherever I please, whenever I please.

You make it sound like no one will have their own things in a RBE. That simply isn't true. Everyone would have their own home, and they wouldn't have to worry about someone moving them out of it, unless they wanted to move on their own. If you want to own your own bicycle, I seriously doubt it would be a problem at all. People would still be able to own things, they just wouldn't need to own everything to still have access to them. How often do people use their boats, and things like that? Most people only use them infrequently. Suppose a person could just go to the Marina and check out a boat without having to own it, or needing to take on the effort of its upkeep, nor having to PAY for it either.

The good old PCs work exactly like that- remove the plastic sheet with little electronic pieces soldered to it, put in the next one, plug it in. It's how my dad upgraded his PC from badly obsolete Pentium I to a pretty good machine that rivals my laptop. So it's already being done.

But extending it to all electronics? That would saddle your imaginary economy with a major obstacle to technological progress- the perpetual requirement for building backwards compatibility into EVERYTHING. Do you realize just how massive a resource drain you're inviting? Imagine every single modern-day notebook PCs having to be compatible with the parts produced for machines of previous generations. 2GB VRAM video cards forced to retain the ability to work with 16-bit processors? How would that even function?

To a point, yes. However, even PC hardware isn't always compatible due to brand or construct issues. USB ports certainly have gone a long way to increase compatibility of devices though. The idea would be to take it a bit further still. Other electronics COULD work that way, if only they were initially designed to do so. On occasion, when a change in technology is so radical a simple upgrade wouldn't do, then the old device could simply be recycled, after the new device was obtained. The whole point is to continuously evolve things, with an eye towards potential improvements. Many old technologies were never designed with such a concept in mind.

This entire paragraph does not make sense.

Objectively speaking, there is no need whatsoever for 20 different cell phone types. There is a need for two distinct types: one for children, elderly and travelers (wearable as a wrist watch, distress call function, built-in GPS to locate the wearer should the need arise), and a Nokia 1100 for everyone else. All other features- camera, internet connection etc. - is resource-wasting fancy. If you want to check your Facebook, go home and do it from your ever-so-modular PC. Don't waste the society's resources.

Okay, I'm just going to assume that you either didn't understand what I was talking about, or you're just being facetious. Or possibly both. (The second part, was most definitely facetious.)

And neither would there be money-based motivation to advance new technologies. The rewards of entrepreneurship would have been just as non-existent as its risks.

Hmm. If someone comes up with a new idea that could help themselves and others, just in practical terms, why wouldn't they do it? Suppose I have all my basic needs met, and don't have to worry about money at all. I can just do whatever I'm interested in. Suppose as kid I had wanted to be an astronaut, but then as I got older I started to realize the technical challenges involved, so I decided I wanted to be an engineer or inventor. Then I came up with an anti-gravity drive, so that we wouldn't need to use rockets. Wouldn't my reward be in being able to go into space more easily, as well as others?

Or suppose said kid wanted to be an archaeologist, and later decided they wanted to work in underwater archaeology, but then realized the technical challenges there. So said kid worked to invent a new sensor device that would give better pictures of undersea structures, than current technology does. That person would be rewarded with new discoveries, and the world would benefit with him/her by gaining new knowledge about the earth and human history.

The reward is in the mind. Who says the rewards have to be cars, mansions, etc.? Why can't the reward be in gaining new knowledge and a sense of personal achievement? Fame, may or may not be a reward, depending on a person's viewpoint. Still, you don't have to be materialistically rich to be famous.

Money costs or resource costs - not a lot of difference. None, in fact. Money is just the way we historically measure resources.

Yeah, right. Money is how we measure SCARCITY. Not resources. There are lots of resources in the world and in the solar system. More than humanity even needs at the moment. The problem is ACCESS. Nothing more, nothing less.

[mad_gater]

I think people are massively underestimating the potential of technology if they think any job short of art or design could not be automated at some point. Many of the jobs being talked about are still around because we're running consumer capitalist societies that actively seek to keep them around. Our economic model is utterly dependent on people working for money that they can go out and spend, whether it's a rational use of resources or not. I believe there'll come a time when money makes no sense, but just not in our lifetimes.

And you don't yet understand that the human touch outstrips a bucket of bolts hands down in most honest business transactions....also fully automating everything has one very serious and very obvious drawback.....one massive EMP and your precious automated society grinds to a screeching halt

[Gatefan1976]

Yeah, right. Money is how we measure SCARCITY. Not resources. There are lots of resources in the world and in the solar system. More than humanity even needs at the moment. The problem is ACCESS. Nothing more, nothing less.

Indeed, check the total amount of diamonds (natural) in the world VS how many are on the market. The entire trade relies on 2 things

1: limited stock available *for sale* (not available)
2: Marketing to make people want it.

This exists not just in that market, but MANY, it is engineered inflation driven by greed and social engineering/perception.

[Coco Pops]

Has anyone seen the documentary "Who killed the electric car?" It's a must watch.

We had them at the start of the 20th Century but the invention of the inefficient but profitable internal combustion engine and oil put an end to that... But the program is very interesting and I feel GM were a pack of scumbags for doing what they did...

[KEK]

And you don't yet understand that the human touch outstrips a bucket of bolts hands down in most honest business transactions....also fully automating everything has one very serious and very obvious drawback.....one massive EMP and your precious automated society grinds to a screeching halt

Again, I think you're just underestimating the potential of technology. There's absolutely no reason why a machine couldn't replicate the touch of a human perfectly, nor any reason why all technology couldn't be shielded from EMP.

[Gatefan1976]

Again, I think you're just underestimating the potential of technology. There's absolutely no reason why a machine couldn't replicate the touch of a human perfectly, nor any reason why all technology couldn't be shielded from EMP.

To take this one step further, it is far more likely for a person to lie than a machine, unless it's programmed to do so.

[mad_gater]

Again, I think you're just underestimating the potential of technology. There's absolutely no reason why a machine couldn't replicate the touch of a human perfectly, nor any reason why all technology couldn't be shielded from EMP.

for one simple reason.....no machine can ever hope to be able to think "outside the box" as we humans are capable of unless you start dabbling in artificial intelligence, and most of the movies and shows involving artificially intelligent machines shows us what would likely happen in that eventuality...chaos

in massage therapy I actually have to "tune in" as it were to the client's body and work with what the client's body will allow me to do.....basically the difference is me being pinheaded and just mashing down on a trigger point in a muscle without any warming up of the tissue whatsoever and me "tuning in" as it were and tarting with relatively gentle strokes and gradually working my way deeper into the soft tissue

It also involves me knowing innately what soft tissue in good condition vs. soft tissue that's tight feels like and interpreting the feel of the tissue and treating it on the fly...I seriously doubt no computerized bucket of bolts could be programmed to do all that......also remember that contained in the human cerebral cortex is a capacity for processing information far more advanced than any supercomputer

[Womble]

How many people use their cars all day long, everyday? Very few. I know I don't. I drive as little as I can get away with. Do you really think there would be a lack of available cars? I seriously doubt it. I think you're being a bit facetious here. If I didn't have to worry about the maintenance and upkeep of said auto-cars, I would give up my personal car in a heartbeat. It is expensive to upkeep. Gas, Insurance, Maintenance, etc.

Ah, but you have eliminated all that. Your shiny new economy supposedly eliminates the cost of maintenance and upkeep. You just need to decide whether the car is going to be yours - customized to your taste, always available with no pesky waiting list, with the picture of your wife and child hanging from the rear view mirror, custom license plates and other things that make you feel good- or a personality-deprived commuting tool that you need to be on a waiting list for.

And yes, every community would have a limited fleet of cars. If the goal is to conserve resources, then the first and most effective means of doing so is limiting fanciful consumption. A centrally planned community oriented towards efficiency of resource use would keep as few cars as possible for non-essential use. Driving to the beach is non-essential.

As for public transit or cargo, flying craft could still be available, but do you really think you'd want to try flying from New York to L.A. when a bullet train could get you there in about a half hour? The airplane would take several times longer to get there. As far as trucks that take goods into wilderness areas, often over dangerous terrain, they could easily be replaced with Airships (a hybrid between a blimp and airplane), that could carry an entire convoy's worth of cargo containers and simply fly over the terrain (no roads needed), and then using their VTOL capabilities (no runway needed either), land and begin unloading.

None of which requires resource-based economy to be implemented.

I'll admit, I don't have the source, but I'm looking for it. In any case, machines doing labor for us exist precisely to reduce the needs for our own efforts. Washers, Dryers, Microwaves, Robot Vacuums, Robot Lawnmowers, etc. As prevalent as technology is today, it isn't difficult to imagine that it will only increase more and more as time passes.

But what is difficult to imagine is machines eliminating the need for labor. Technological advances reduced the need for manual labor while creating a demand for different class of labor- education and skill-intensive - as well as customer service. Technology is already so complex that companies producing, selling and operating it need to maintain call centers for people telling you how to use your latest piece of fancy technology the right way. THAT will only increase, too, because the more advanced technology becomes, the fewer people understand it.

1st) With bullet trains that can get you where you want to go much faster, who would want to fly, except for mostly recreational purposes? With annoying TSA in place, I know I don't want to.

2nd) I doubt that. Most people aren't that talented, and in any case, just because someone is a musician themselves, doesn't mean they don't enjoy the works of others. Most people in the music industry love listening to other people's music, as well as doing their own.

1) Yes, for recreational purposes, and with no TSA in your fancy resource economy. Can your society have enough planes, helicopters, airships and whatevers for anyone who WANTS to fly them, or is it going to impose limits?

2) When being a bad musician incurs no cost, why should musicians care about being talented? In today's economy, people who aren't talented enough can't make a living from their music; if one doesn't need to make a living, there is no mechanism for weeding out the less talented.

As to the sewers, there are already lots of machines being used for that as well. It isn't a stretch to take it even further, with the appropriate advances.

Sure, but when the machines break down, someone puts on their overalls and climbs down into the sewers to fix it all. It can be another machine, but who will fix that one? Even if you somehow create a perfect self-running sewer machinery cycle, the social stigma of sewer operator will still make the rounds. Some people put on fancy uniforms and fly planes, and this guy cleans up poop - who would a girl rather date?

You make it sound like no one will have their own things in a RBE. That simply isn't true. Everyone would have their own home, and they wouldn't have to worry about someone moving them out of it, unless they wanted to move on their own.

But that would require a lot more homes being kept available than are necessary for practical reasons. Massive resource drain, wouldn't you say?

If you want to own your own bicycle, I seriously doubt it would be a problem at all. People would still be able to own things, they just wouldn't need to own everything to still have access to them. How often do people use their boats, and things like that? Most people only use them infrequently. Suppose a person could just go to the Marina and check out a boat without having to own it, or needing to take on the effort of its upkeep, nor having to PAY for it either.

Same here. If you want people to be able to both own things and to rent-free borrow the same things in abundance from public supply, then you need to maintain a far larger supply of everything- therefore expend far more resources- than in current economy.

To a point, yes. However, even PC hardware isn't always compatible due to brand or construct issues. USB ports certainly have gone a long way to increase compatibility of devices though. The idea would be to take it a bit further still. Other electronics COULD work that way, if only they were initially designed to do so. On occasion, when a change in technology is so radical a simple upgrade wouldn't do, then the old device could simply be recycled, after the new device was obtained. The whole point is to continuously evolve things, with an eye towards potential improvements. Many old technologies were never designed with such a concept in mind.

Three words: vendor lock-in. In your case, on a global scale.

You're using a QWERTY keyboard, aren't you? QWERTY is a near-perfect example of the fallacy of your reasoning here. Having been developed for mechanical typewriters, it was specifically designed to spread the most-used letters far from each other, to prevent the typewriter's hammers from jamming when adjucent keys are pushed in rapid succession. This is woefully inefficient in the age of electronic keyboards and touchscreens. There are alternative layouts which have been proven time and again to be much more efficient (63% less finger motion required in DVORAK layout compared to QWERTY, for example). However, these layouts cannot be widely introduced because the entire world was trained to use QWERTY and re-training such vast numbers of people is difficult.

When you create a system designed for incremental-only upgrades, it will inevitably complicate the emergence of new revolutionary inventions. It sets the bar for innovations too high; you can't create a new thing and have it prov itself from the ground level up anymore the way it is done today; you need to invent something AND prove its worth AND show how it's going to fit in with the pre-existing unified infrastructure. Too much potential innovation would be left out.

Okay, I'm just going to assume that you either didn't understand what I was talking about, or you're just being facetious. Or possibly both. (The second part, was most definitely facetious.)

Not at all. If you seek efficient use of resources you need to cut off non-essential use as much as possible. Fanciful internet surfing is resource waste; there is no practical reason why your phone must have Facebook access.

Hmm. If someone comes up with a new idea that could help themselves and others, just in practical terms, why wouldn't they do it? Suppose I have all my basic needs met, and don't have to worry about money at all. I can just do whatever I'm interested in. Suppose as kid I had wanted to be an astronaut, but then as I got older I started to realize the technical challenges involved, so I decided I wanted to be an engineer or inventor. Then I came up with an anti-gravity drive, so that we wouldn't need to use rockets. Wouldn't my reward be in being able to go into space more easily, as well as others?

Wait a minute. Your anti-gravity drive is not compatible with the old rockets! You won't be able to easily persuade the computer-in-charge that it's worth spending the precious resources and energy on overhauling the entire space program for a propulsion system that is yet to prove itself.

My father, as it happens, was an electronics engineer and an inventor in the centrally planned economy of the USSR. He designed a sensor-based control panel for one of the Arktika-class nuclear icebreaker ships. He got a special medal for it and some praise... and it was all he ever got. Let's just say that was the moment when he took an honest look at the Soviet system and wished a pox upon its house.

Or suppose said kid wanted to be an archaeologist, and later decided they wanted to work in underwater archaeology, but then realized the technical challenges there. So said kid worked to invent a new sensor device that would give better pictures of undersea structures, than current technology does. That person would be rewarded with new discoveries, and the world would benefit with him/her by gaining new knowledge about the earth and human history.

Or not.

For every person who invents that world-changing things, there will be millions who will not. Becoming an engineer typically means years and years of study, only to end up in a small tech lab nobody ever hears about, working on small components of a mundane piece of factory equipment to improve the efficiency of little-known technological process by a fraction of a percent. One in a million will invent an anti-gravity engine; 999 999 999 others will spend their lives earning no fame and feeling no adequate reward for the years spent working. Drop the romanticized view of invention; the chances of being The Genius are the same or worse as winning the world's most unfair lottery.

The reward is in the mind. Who says the rewards have to be cars, mansions, etc.? Why can't the reward be in gaining new knowledge and a sense of personal achievement? Fame, may or may not be a reward, depending on a person's viewpoint. Still, you don't have to be materialistically rich to be famous.

But you have to get something, and it has to be substantial. It has to answer the hardwiired psychological needs, not cerebral constructs. What do we desire at the most basic, primal level? Food, sex, security, shelter, comfort, self-esteem. If your job does not give you some of those- to most people working it, not to one in a million- then it's not going to be a popular job to volunteer for. And if the rewards are not immediate, they better be BIG.

Any system of economic or social governance which does not account for real human psychology is not going to work. It can be as scientific as you won't, but it will fail because people won't want it.

Yeah, right. Money is how we measure SCARCITY. Not resources. There are lots of resources in the world and in the solar system. More than humanity even needs at the moment. The problem is ACCESS. Nothing more, nothing less.

Money is how we measure availability and desirability of a resource. Both are things that any economic system, even "resource-based" needs to measure.

[Womble]

Again, we are already reaching a point where labor is being replaced. How many travel agents are there any more? Last time I took a trip, I used my computer and got my hotel, flight tickets, and rental car in about 10 minutes. Never did see a travel agent, even once.

You'd be very, very surprised.

When I was going into the travel agent profession, I was told all that. And here I am, working 12 hour shifts through the summer because our ever-so-technologically-savvy customers make reservations on our website and get themselves into every imaginable kind of trouble. It's all well when your trip goes smoothly, but when you come to Paris and your hotel doesn't know you exist, who you gonna call? The internet? It is then that you discover that every website on which you make reservations is... a travel agency of sorts! It's automated to a degree, but there are actual people behind it all, and those people can do stuff that computers never will.

I'm a travel agent. I was supposed to be made obsolete by online booking, except I'm putting in absurd work hours because the demand for my services is insanely high. My customers come to me because their mother died and they can't travel but their ticket is non-refundable, so they need me to persuade the airline to bend the rules and allow refund. They come to me because they spelled their name wrong on the website reservation, and now United Airlines did not allow them to board the flight. They come to me because riots broke out in Istanbul and they want to change their ticket's destination to Budapest instead. They come to me because they want to know if the locks of the doors at the hotel they'll be staying at are electronic or mechanical, and good luck finding that particular piece of info on the website (observant Orthodox Jews cannot operate electronic locks on Sabbath, so it can be a deal-breaker). They come to me to ask if Mariott is better than Intercontinental in Warsaw, and whether it is better to exchange their shekels for Polish Zloty in Israel or in Poland. They come to me to ask about things that the Internet can tell them, but they would rather a person told them.

Try and replace me with a robot, I dare you

[KEK]

for one simple reason.....no machine can ever hope to be able to think "outside the box" as we humans are capable of unless you start dabbling in artificial intelligence, and most of the movies and shows involving artificially intelligent machines shows us what would likely happen in that eventuality...chaos

in massage therapy I actually have to "tune in" as it were to the client's body and work with what the client's body will allow me to do.....basically the difference is me being pinheaded and just mashing down on a trigger point in a muscle without any warming up of the tissue whatsoever and me "tuning in" as it were and tarting with relatively gentle strokes and gradually working my way deeper into the soft tissue

It also involves me knowing innately what soft tissue in good condition vs. soft tissue that's tight feels like and interpreting the feel of the tissue and treating it on the fly...I seriously doubt no computerized bucket of bolts could be programmed to do all that......also remember that contained in the human cerebral cortex is a capacity for processing information far more advanced than any supercomputer

I see no reason why a machine couldn't do all of that once the technology is sufficiently advanced. Humans aren't special, we're essentially just biochemical machines ourselves. The difference is a machine wouldn't need to be cursed by our very limited sensory perception or unreliable memory.

[SoulReaver]

Some people put on fancy uniforms and fly planes, and this guy cleans up poop - who would a girl rather date?

the former's an airhead, the latter's a sanitation control technician
and she may yet spend a sh**ty time with the former

that being said, I admit I'd rather be a pilot

My father, as it happens, was an electronics engineer and an inventor in the centrally planned economy of the USSR. He designed a sensor-based control panel for one of the Arktika-class nuclear icebreaker ships. He got a special medal for it and some praise... and it was all he ever got. Let's just say that was the moment when he took an honest look at the Soviet system and wished a pox upon its house.

the inventor of aspartame wasn't even given the honour of a medal. not sure about the praise
same story everywhere. what is invented in the house, belongs to the house. corporatism ftw