[p2p-research] [globalvillages] mass production and p2p production, was ecovillage and communities

[Nathan Cravens]

*gasp* I haven't rambled this much in sometime! ;p

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Chris Watkins <
chriswaterguy at appropedia.org> wrote:

> Nathan,
>
> On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 21:52, Global Palestine <
> globalpalestine at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> I view any form of exchange trade tyrannous as I hope any post-scarcity
>> theorist might)
>>
>
> I view any restriction on my right to trade as tyrannous. (Other than
> restrictions or levies to compensate for externalities, or to provide public
> goods, i.e. reasonable taxes).
>
>

Thanks for addressing this Chris. I will use this window to describe in more
detail my views on exchange trade and technological determinism.

Right. Banning trade will not solve the problem. I never said we should.
Removing the need for trade, however, is best. I'm not going to shush about
that no matter what investments you or I may have or how fiercely you might
label me incorrectly as a Marxist. In 2050 when the European elderly
population is greater than those able to care for themselves; even if money
where to exist; there's no amount of it that could motivate enough people to
take care of them. This needs to be understood before the crisis happens
before ignorance leads to the cruelty geriatric genocide by means of
neglect! If we do not care for our elderly or our children either group will
surely want to destroy everyone else in some way; we're better than that;
we're smarter than that!
So put the appropriate political exchange trade economies in practice to
address the existing production methods (from 'mostly': mass production >>
to >> adaptive digitally/robotically assisted distributed production (which
will be fully automated without (much?) workforce) >> to >>
digitally/robotically personal production enabling the freedom to return to
simple hand tool craft production if you so please) and distribution
channels or dependencies until full personal autonomy (craft or personal
production) is achieved.

I enjoy acting like a fool, (to see how foolish or playful you might act in
kind) but it would be much too foolish for me to state any specific time for
when we fashion our technology into enabling anyone to do as they reasonably
please, moreso at least that we can reasonably do as we wish today. We can
know better when we have the right strategy that we know in theory will
produce the outcome and if we have the people to meet those requirements. I
am now working on that document with those I know or know someone else who
knows how to accomplish these tasks.
To better express the link between exchange trade and production
progression, here's a working model to debate and elaborate:

Urban. 50% of the global population. Toward post-scarcity with exchange
trade as needed, but reduced with each phase.

   - we know what mass production picture looks like, factory workers are
   obsolete and we must admit this and information workers are being replaced
   with software. Not enough people are able to afford the goods so capital
   collapses whether demand exists for the  >> product or outcome
   - flexible mass production >> a few techs to ensure designs created by
   the user match the robots used to assemble a variety >> with few jobs in
   high paying positions, but mostly many jobs that do not pay enough,
   populations with this production formula are issued a basic income to pay
   for goods if they cannot be made personally for free >> product or outcome

Post-scarcity is achieved

   - Digitally/robotically personal production enabling the freedom to
   return to simple hand tool craft production if you so please >> product or
   outcome

The assumptions I've stated mean I am a technological advocate, but I do not
agree that technology in itself will fruit the production phases I presented
without guidance or self determination. The outcomes presented require the
tact of social science integrated with the study in applied technology and
will require an interest in how things work and an desire to make the things
that work to secure the paths I have presented. I am doing my best to become
a person of such sorts, but I admit I still have a hangover from the
consumer culture that surfaced me. I may well be considered insane; as my
beliefs do not reflect or address with much interest the present "reality,"
but the 'reality' I would rather live whether practices can meet these
requirements or not. I'm stubborn and more of us need to be in this regard.

I am a technological determinist in the sense that based on the information
presented by Kurzweil in 'The Singularity is Near', it presents various
technology developments, showing that when our tools are accessed by
computers or communications channels, people can see them and then work to
develop them further, and in so doing, the 'deposit' remains and grows
exponentially, and that this can be shown on a variety of charts as
happening before for sometime, and we call the human deposit that is made,
'technology'. If it happened before for hundreds of years along with a
variety of others things we can expect many of these things to continue to
develop exponentially regardless of our individual behaviors. I understand
the pitfalls of extrapolation as I will address.

I rarely, if at all, separate what is human from what is technology, as I
view technology as a human artifact; a series of methods produced to extend
or secure a human function.

For those not familier or unable to access Kurzweil's book, Moravec in 1998
made a similar extrapolation in 'When will computer hardware match the human
brain'. This essay simply demonstrates that as the years go by, it is
becoming more possible than the day before to have the outcomes I have
proposed here and elsewhere.
http://www.jetpress.org/volume1/moravec.htm

We have the ability to do a variety of things people do well with
distributed computer networks, so we have the computational capacity beyond
a single human brain already. Its just a matter of determining the problem
and figuring what artifact, ideally adaptive, that might address it and
problems the many other problems that come after it. So solving problems
just creates more problems as we'll have an exchange trade economy
indefinintely because of this? I'd like to see the evidence for
that argument; regardless I don't buy it; because people are poor when
there's no reason for it for one, but here's another reason to watch your
future market value dissapear:

When IBM demonstrates DeepQA this will mean the end of the researcher in
short order as a profession, given IBM shares the code or an insider hacks
it or someone figures it out.
http://www.research.ibm.com/deepqa/

A new job title is likely to surface once the researcher is no more: to that
of creator or content generator. That's what this guy says anyway. ;p

Tomoaki Kasuga "Bringing a robot to every home"
http://dailymotion.virgilio.it/video/xa0264_tomoaki-kasuga-bringing-a-robot-to_tech?from=rss


Kurzweil curiously (perhaps because he has billions of dollars invested?)
adds the exchange trade economy into his exponential figures, (but these
elegant mathematics dismiss most people having less income to that of an
average income, which fails to observe an economic tipping point we're
seeing, when ownership exceeds earnership or income becomes too disparaged
to function properly after financial gadgetry fails) which holds when the
Industrial Revolution as its called surfaced, suggesting we will have an
ever growing exchange trade economy. I reject that notion, but I have yet
the appropriate theoretical backing to better ground my claims, unless Paul
Fernhout has in his wonderfully expansive source references. Regardless, I
know its possible because of nomadic societies living well without exchange
trade and from reflecting deeply within myself to that which surfaces
emotion and seeing that it is a most reasonable moral pursuit. Many people I
have spoken in admitting they would prefer not to have any compromise for
living, tells me there are enough people here on earth to pursue the ability
to care for themselves without compromising others, call it alternative
currency if you like, it remains a compromise, no matter how ethically or
evenly you frame it. A market is a compromise. No matter how "fair" or
"even" or "equal" the exchange is, judgement is made toward a value of a
thing before it is addressed; and worse; at least two people must decide
that it is of one measurable value. The measurement of value destroys it in
my view, becasue to measure value is to destroy what generated its worth to
begin with, and cannot possibly account for what produced the 'thing' of
value. This is one argument that demonstrates why I am so strongly for basic
income or gift economies or freedom without markets because it lets the
individual decide what to do and what is valuable. However innefficient or
selfish that may be; these rough edges can be soften by technological
implements that ensure free human behavior serves the needs or wants of
others, intended or not. We're seeing this surface with 'recommendation
engines' like Amazon or friend suggestions on Facebook from simple
'friend-of-a-friend' algorithms that simply see who's a friend of your
friend and makes a suggestion for you to befriend them. When this is better
applied in an 'interest-of-interest', then we can see the people that share
particular interests like engineering or 3d modeling or robotics and contact
these people to build that magical technology that will solve many of our
problems.

(Ahh, but there's always a catch, a cost, a price. . . yes. . . its called
profit of the sort that cannot be measured and of which we can hardly
imagine; a profit that will turn our views of children as pests, as many I
see do to my detriment and anger, into the most brilliant of beings, as they
use what we build to do far more amazing things that what you may well have
already damned for yourself, long ago. But of course, we're seeing that
people can quickly adapt, so I have hope for overgrown children as well.
That is not to say we will approve of what they do; I suspect that like any
good parent we will not!)

If I thought the word 'technology' represented a magical thing that will
soon 'solve all of our problems', I would not be so interested in ensuring
that our tools nurture individuals and communities. So my concern is
ensuring the exponential growth of technical developments enable rather than
destroy people. Many people will likely want to 'destroy' themselves from my
view, such as manipulate their DNA or replace bodily biologies with 'better'
artificial replacements to a degree that would make them post-human. Many in
this group find this unattractive as I do.
What I find dissapointing is only a few people are expressing on the lists I
follow try to present full or broader technologically packaged ways toward
going toward an abundant environment. For one they may fear being viewed as
a fool for trying, such as on the open manufacturing list where many there
are tech friendly and savvy. For those on the p2presearch list, I've
experienced a sentiment of the rejection technology as a viable solution to
social problems; which I find rather unusual, since we're using a highly
advanced integrated media to have this very discussion. Perhaps I have
been criticized (thank you for the criticism, Herbert, as this will help us
improve our lives in some way) not because you view technology as a bad
thing, but because I have failed to address how badly technology is used. I
believe addressing the ills are rhetorical as the ills are clearly expressed
in every Industrial mass production based civilization today. Just
acknowledge your feelings reflectively as you behave; and your body will
tell you what is right and what is wrong: for you.

Without technologies like netbooks and the web life would be worse off. If
it were not for computers and the web, I'd probably be miserable in
university class room or miserable teaching in a university classroom for
lack of knowing anything else better to pursue. That's not to say I think
universities are awful places, but they are rather depressing, so will need
to become more flexible for me to have much tolerance for them, as I believe
any student, especially one (usually the parents) that pays
such outrageous fees, to follow the 'path of the [compartmentalized] elders'
insisted today.

It likely required more arms to put food into your mouth than your own. This
means someone is doing something they much would rather not. That must
change. Those three final sentences sum up my overall interest in the P2P
Foundation as a researcher and developer; to help people feed themselves
without making others hungry. If you think such goals are not appropriate
for the P2P Foundation, I'd rather not go anywhere else, because I like you
people too much, because you seem to 'get it' as a whole more than any other
social collective I've encountered.

My critics (that's good; it means I may be saying something of value!) may
say that may well have read well, but its not good enough, and that I must
say more, present more sources, and so on. If this becomes the case, I will
be encouraged to elaborate, but if not, that means what I have said is good
enough to work with. I do not think it is in itself, which is why we're
alive I suppose, but I hope it is at least convincing enough to critique. ;)

I'm pretty confused as to what to call myself as I seem to use a variety of
disciplines. Until I can think of something better than post-scarcity
theorist, that 'fool's game' at present, (so I'll accept the title of fool
as well) as it is greatly dependent on that fuzzy thing we call technology.
(unless you're interested in the sort of post-scarcity that can be measured
scientifically, what Paul Fernhout calls pre-scarcity, then you're a
primitivist, not all that interesting in my opinion, as we know this to
work, but without all the groovy toys I think and what others believe are
worth keeping) There is a reason technology is a separate discipline from
science. . . Technology is difficult today to measure social outcomes, so if
I'm addressing technology for reasons of personal and community autonomony,
this may seem to make things even more difficult as the modeler must address
what devices are needed to solve x and of what quantity and quality. This
provides an interesting challenge to the systems modeler or post-scarcity
theorist, but until that is better explored and placed into a coordination
platform, as to how to model technology in regard to its social effect in a
way that makes people present their works more transparently, if it is to be
a thing of use that exists, I will seem rather foolish for making ungrounded
assumptions based on small scraps of evidence. Paul F. is doing his best to
present that case; bless him.

Whatever I may lack in precision I hope to make up for in coordinating
efforts to produce the appropriate product everyone will have an interest
and no one will want to buy it as they ideally cannot, but they will have
it, unless they do not want a certain aspect of it. I intend very soon to
get my hands dirty now that I have some idea of what it is that is
required.

Daily Me
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Me

This may well be the result if you're really into yourself. ;p We must not
let these types muck it up for the rest of us by creating technology that
can ensure those that decide to isolate in an extreme (and in my view,
unhealthy) way do not destroy the environment around them. These types are
the most likely to 'destroy themselves' from our human perspective. (again,
I'm leaving it to you to find the source material to prove that; my
apologies to the philosophers here)



Nathan
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