[p2p-research] Fwd: VW's open and transparent Factory in dresden - Germany

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Michel-

:-)

Still, one fernhoutian is probably more than enough for any list. :-)

We're probably better off if you remain the best bauwensian you can be. :-)

Anyway, thanks to Dante for bringing the link to my attention; I posted it 
yesterday to the OM list as well. That is a beautiful factory, and a well 
made video that shows the potential of automation and better design to 
improve our lives (better design both of products and of production practices).

And I expect those trends to continue, especially as they begin to capture 
direct attention at government levels, like for environmental reasons:
   "Sustainable and Lifecycle Information-based Manufacturing"
   http://www.mel.nist.gov/programs/slim.htm
"The United States needs to prepare for a future where products are 100% 
recyclable, manufacturing itself has a zero net impact on the environment, 
and complete disassembly and disposal of a product at its end of life is 
routine."

We're perhaps seeing a general consciousness raising about manufacturing, 
perhaps coming more from the environmentalism side than the abundance side.

As Ryan posted a month or two ago, this is another robotics related link:
"High-Speed Robot Hand Demonstrates Dexterity and Skillful Manipulation"
http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/08/03/high-speed-robot-hand-demonstrates-dexterity-and-skillful-manipulation

A central issue of technology and society is that "technology is an 
amplifier". So, technology (even robots hands) at the very least allows 
fewer people to do more (even if we can quibble about whether you can ever 
remove the people from the loop entirely). With robot hands like that, you 
would think one person could supervise the robot hands and do ten times as 
much work as if they were doing the work themselves by hand. Or, the work 
might be ten times better in some other qualitative way (durability, or low 
defect rates, or a more functional design).

So, one can ask, for how long will there still be people doing even skilled 
physical labor in that VW factory, given that technology in that Japanese 
lab? I'd say most of the people in the VW factory may soon be there just for 
show too (or security and safety) -- if they are not already. :-)

A US workforce that was 90% agricultural 200 years ago went to 50% 
agricultural 100 years ago and then went to 2% agricultural today. That 
percentage is probably still falling (like from robot milkers), even as it 
maybe has gone too far, since a lot of people like to farm and want to farm 
and can't get the land, and smaller local organic farms are better for a 
variety of reasons (less environmental impact, lower transport costs, more 
security, more fun, more sociality, better jobs, kinder to any animals, etc.).

A US workforce that was about 30% manufacturing fifty years ago has gone to 
12% manufacturing today. Where is that trend going? Offshoring confuses this 
simple trend, but it can't explain it all. In another fifty years at that 
rate (or likely much sooner with 3D printing and similar things), 
manufacturing as well may be at 2%, same as agriculture, and personally, I 
think that would be a high estimate, where we count "design" as 
manufacturing. :-)

Construction jobs may follow this trend too, as building techniques continue 
to get more automated, and as better tools let fewer humans do more with 
less. Marco Giustini posted this link to the OM list recently:
   "3D printing buildings: interview with Enrico Dini of D_Shape "
http://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/217-3D-printing-buildings-interview-with-Enrico-Dini-of-D_Shape.html

What happens if services overall in the USA follow this trend, too, driven 
by better computing and improving AI and robotics, broader internet access, 
improving speech recognition, better materials, better designs, and more of 
a DIY attitude?

Perhaps they already are? As a historic example, film tinting in the 1920s 
through 1920s was an enormous service opportunity, until we got widespread 
use of color film.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_tinting
My parents had a black and white photo of them when they were newly married 
that had been tinted by hand.

Telephone operators were also in big demand for decades for pushing plugs 
around until we got automated switching.

Granted, up till now, there have been many replacement jobs to make up for 
innovation as demand has grow in other areas (and as schooling, prison, and 
war have removed people from the workforce).

Sure, new jobs will come up that need doing, but how many? And how easily 
will they be automated?
"[p2p-research] 60 jobs that will rock the future... (not)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004216.html

The question revolves around if demand is limited, IMHO.

Now, I feel demand is limited even with abundant resources (energy, 
materials) because healthy humans don't need too much stuff or too much 
external services (though they all need some, often less than they have 
right now). Also, for security reasons, if you can generate a lot of your 
needs locally, while still having access to a network for backup and 
diversity and exchange, you are more intrinsically secure.

But, the implication of your alternative suggestion that resources are 
limited also implies demand is limited in the long term, but by "supply 
side" issues. :-) If we did not have enough energy and materials to make 
more stuff, then people would just have to learn to live with less, whatever 
they wanted. Clearly, people can live with less and still have happy lives, 
as our hunter/gatherer past shows.
   http://www.primitivism.com/original-affluent.htm

So, either way, demand will be limited for stuff, directly on the demand 
side (me) or indirectly from the supply side (you), even as our industrial 
productivity continually improves.

Now that I think about it, if you were right about resource limitations (not 
that I agree), then one might expect permanent mass unemployment to 
accelerate even faster? :-)
   http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

If we were content to live with the same quantity and quality for many 
products as we had in the 1950s in the USA (like, from limited demand for 
whatever reason), it is likely that hardly anyone would need to be working 
now at all. The issue is, how far can that trend to increasing quantity and 
quality of goods consumed continue? And, is it really healthy, anyway?

 From something written around the early 1990s, and productivity has maybe 
doubled again since then:
   "The Overworked American"
   http://users.ipfw.edu/ruflethe/american.html
"""
Since 1948, productivity has failed to rise in only five years. The level of 
productivity of the U.S. worker has more than doubled.  In other words, we 
could now produce our 1948 standard of living (measured in terms of marketed 
goods and services) in less than half the time it took in that year. We 
actually could have chosen the four-hour day. Or a working year of six 
months. Or, every worker in the United Stares could now be taking every 
other year off from work-with pay.  Incredible as it may sound, this is just 
the simple arithmetic of productivity growth in operation. But between 1948 
and the present we did not use any of the productivity dividend to reduce 
hours. In the first two decades after 1948, productivity grew rapidly, at 
about 3 percent a year. During that period worktime did not fall 
appreciably. Annual hours per labor force participant fell only slightly. 
And on a per-capita (rather than a labor force) basis, they even rose a bit. 
Since then, productivity growth has been lower, but still positive, 
averaging just over 1 percent a year. Yet hours have risen steadily for two 
decades. In 1990, the average American owns and consumes more than twice as 
much as he or she did in 1948, but also has less free time. ...
   Most economists regard the spending spree that Americans indulged in 
throughout the postwar decades as an unambiguous blessing, on the assumption 
that more is always better. And there is a certain sense in this approach. 
It's hard to imagine how having more of a desired good could make one worse 
off, especially since it is always possible to ignore the additional 
quantity. Relying on this little bit of common sense, economists have 
championed the closely related ideas that more goods yield more 
satisfaction, that desires are infinite, and that people act to satisfy 
those desires as fully as they can. Now anyone with just a little bit of 
psychological sophistication (to go with this little bit of common sense) 
can spot the flaw in the economist's argument. Once our basic human needs 
are taken care of, the effect of consumption on well-being gets tricky. What 
if our desires keep pace with our incomes, so that getting richer doesn't 
make us more satisfied? Or what if satisfaction depends, not on absolute 
levels of consumption, but on one's level relative to others (such as the 
Joneses). Then no matter how much you possess, you won't feel well off if 
Jones next door possesses more.How many of us thought the first car stereo a 
great luxury, and then, when it came time to buy a new car, considered it an 
absolute necessity? Or life before and after the microwave? And the fact 
that many of these commodities are bought on credit makes the cycle of 
income-consumption-more income-more consumption even more ominous. There is 
no doubt that some purchases permanently enhance our lives. But how much of 
what we consume merely keeps us moving on a stationary treadmill? The 
problem with the treadmill is not only that it is stationary, but also that 
we have to work long hours to stay on it. As I shall argue [later], the 
consumerist treadmill and long hour lobs have combined to form an insidious 
cycle of "work-and-spend." Employers ask for long hours. The pay creates a 
high level of consumption. People buy houses and go into debt; luxuries 
become necessities; Smiths keep up with Joneses. Each year, "progress," in 
the form of annual productivity in creases, is doled out by employers as 
extra income rather than as time off. Work-and-spend has become a powerful 
dynamic keeping us from a more relaxed and leisured way of life…
"""

Another aspect of the credit part they reference, helping explaining the 
downturn (essentially that the productivity gains went to the upper class 
and then were loaned to the workers, until it all collapsed):
   "Capitalism Hits the Fan"
   http://www.capitalismhitsthefan.com/
   "Neoliberalism As Water Balloon"
   http://vimeo.com/6803752

Anyway, by the above analogy, we should be able to all work two hour days if 
demand is limited back to 1950s levels. Or, we'll see 75% unemployment in 
the commercial sector. :-) Still, raising a family well, or being a good 
neighbor, or improving Wikipedia and writing free software and making free 
art and free music can no doubt take as much spare time as anyone has to put 
into it.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_amateurs

The only worry is that our dominant social ideology is not p2p-ready. :-)

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/

Michel Bauwens wrote:
> impressive ... almost became a  fernhoutian ...
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson at gmail.com>
> Date: Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 12:22 AM
> Subject: VW Factory - Germany
> To: "Paul D. Fernhout" <pdfernhout at kurtz-fernhout.com>, Nathan Cravens <
> knuggy at gmail.com>, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
> 
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd5WGLWNllA