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

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Michel-

I agree with most of your points and concerns here. :-)

Some tangentially related points.

Even within subspecialities, it can be hard to keep up on all the 
exponentially emerging technologies out there right now. It is way harder 
for a generalist to know what is possible and ongoing in a field. So, we are 
all working from a disadvantage on what is available now.

And, there are some issues where there may be active disinformation (like 
anti-solar FUD by the fossil fuel and nuclear industries).

And now for some extended comments on this trend for automating research (as 
well as changing the nature how it is dose in other ways):

There is a robot that does its own research, in the sense that is asks the 
questions within a limited domain, as opposed to the easier task of just 
answering questions that Nathan pointed to.  You're right the system that 
Nathan cites (one from IBM answering Jeapordy trivia questions) is not 
putting scientists is much danger. :-)  But, this other system has the 
potential to make at least some post-docs nervous, perhaps, in the sense 
that it amplifies what just one scientist do:
"Video: A Robot That Conducts Its Own Research"
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-04/video-robot-conducts-its-own-research
"I've always said that most of what I did as a biology research technician 
would someday be carried out by a robot or well-trained monkey. Most lab 
work involves tasks just begging for a robotic hand: repetitive, technical, 
and exceptionally boring. Some (very well-funded) labs have robots that can 
perform repetitive physical jobs, like screening gazillions of chemicals for 
ones that will be medically useful. But this new robot can do the fun part 
of science, too -- the thinking. Meet Adam, the first robot that has 
independently brought a little nugget of experimental knowledge to the 
world. Adam thought up a hypothesis, tested in the real world, analyzed the 
data, and then, of course, did it all over again, many, many times."

As with the destruction of the low end manufacturing industry in the USA and 
offshoring more and more stuff to China, when you remove the on ramps or 
first steps at the low end of something (gradually increasing in what you 
replace, like China has gone from cheap toys to all sorts of gadgetry now, 
same as Japan did decades earlier), there is less of a chance for as many 
new people to learn and move into an industry. This robot above does what 
post-docs I knew were doing in the 1990s for most of their day. So, it 
essentially is removing the first rungs of the scientist career ladder in an 
area. Science is supposed to be more than rote stuff, but in practice, the 
way academia is set up as a pecking order, that's the way it is for most 
early career researchers.

Now, I think that is a good thing in general to automate such work, because 
those biochemicals can be nasty, and post-docs are routinely exploited as 
cheap labor in the biology field. But, is it better to be exploited as well 
as get cancer in twenty years, or is it better to be unemployed with huge 
student loans you can not repay? These sorts of robots are potentially a big 
issue that will more and more affect biotech research. They may mean less 
and less first step opportunities or any employment of many people getting 
biology-related PhDs, considering there is already a glut of them relative 
to the opportunities.

Computer software and simulation by itself has the same potential, with 
computers looking at lots of simulated possibilities. In that sense, senior 
engineers are also being amplified while at the same time junior engineers 
are replaced to an extent. Again, that is good in one sense, but bad in 
another in a scarcity oriented society where you are either employed or 
destitute.

Now, one may point to lots of counter examples, but it seems there is the 
beginning of a trend here.  The real issue is, if you have a fixed amount of 
money as a researcher, how much do you want to spend on people and how much 
on machines (robots or fancy computers)? That has always been an issue, but 
as the machines get more capable, the balance may be shifting to more 
technology per researcher. So, a robot like this might not remove the 
"Principal Investigator" anytime soon, but it might obsolete much of the 
supporting PhD staff. That would be a good thing to remove the drudgery if 
there was not essentially a limited supply of funds.

By the way, here is why the academic pyramid scheme has failed already, even 
without the robots which just make all this even worse from the 
point-of-view of the would-be researcher starting out:
   "The Big Crunch"
   http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html

So, there is stuff going on, but again, it is not to the point where 
researchers are all being replaced today. But clearly, they are starting to 
be under pressure. And that is sad, because many people want to do research 
and never get the chance. And researchers often don't cost much money to 
feed (although equipment and lab space can add up in some areas). It is sad 
if our society can not accommodate everyone that wants to make a research 
contribution.

The more general issue is that while everything you say is right about being 
clear on issues of imagination, dream, and reality, one does need to be 
clear on trends, too. :-) And as with that "big crunch" essay above written 
by the Vice Provost of Caltech, sometimes trends are not obvious to look at 
until many years after you are living in the implications of them (in that 
case, it was the end of most academic growth in the 1970s for the USA while 
production of PhDs in vast quantities continued, a fact that thirty years 
later academia still refuses to acknowledge or deal with). Even ten years 
ago, it was known the "half-life" of a science PhD was less than a decade:
  "Careers close to critical mass" 
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=107362&sectioncode=26
"What does a scientist's career have in common with a radioactive element 
like tritium? They both have a half-life that is measured in years, not 
decades. In the case of tritium, it has a half-life of just over 12 years, 
but the "career half-life" of the typical biomedical scientist may be only 
half as long. The half-life of tritium is how long it takes before 50 per 
cent of the atoms have decomposed, but in the case of a group of scientists, 
their career half-life is how long it takes before half of them have left 
the profession, which may be as little as six years. Lawyers and doctors, on 
the other hand, can generally look forward to a career that lasts until 
retirement."

So, add automation to that situation, and we may well be seeing the end of 
entire areas of research in academia done by PhDs and post-docs, at least in 
some areas of biochemistry, given the machines are cheaper and they have not 
yet unionized.

And, I'd point out, the sciences were considered the *good* and *safe* PhDs:
   "Wanted: Really Smart Suckers: Grad school provides exciting new road to 
poverty"
   http://www.villagevoice.com/2004-04-20/news/wanted-really-smart-suckers/
"Here's an exciting career opportunity you won't see in the classified ads. 
For the first six to 10 years, it pays less than $20,000 and demands 
superhuman levels of commitment in a Dickensian environment. Forget about 
marriage, a mortgage, or even Thanksgiving dinners, as the focus of your 
entire life narrows to the production, to exacting specifications, of a 
300-page document less than a dozen people will read. Then it's time for 
advancement: Apply to 50 far-flung, undesirable locations, with a 30 to 40 
percent chance of being offered any position at all. You may end up living 
100 miles from your spouse and commuting to three different work locations a 
week. You may end up $50,000 in debt, with no health insurance, feeding your 
kids with food stamps. If you are the luckiest out of every five entrants, 
you may win the profession's ultimate prize: A comfortable middle-class job, 
for the rest of your life, with summers off. Welcome to the world of the 
humanities Ph.D. student, 2004, where promises mean little and revolt is in 
the air. In the past week, Columbia's graduate teaching assistants went on 
strike and temporary, or adjunct, faculty at New York University narrowly 
avoided one. Columbia's Graduate Student Employees United seeks recognition, 
over the administration's appeals, of a two-year-old vote that would make it 
the second officially recognized union at a private university. NYU's 
adjuncts, who won their union in 2002, reached an eleventh-hour agreement 
for health care and office space, among other amenities. Grad students have 
always resigned themselves to relative poverty in anticipation of a cushy, 
tenured payoff. But in the past decade, the rules of the game have changed. 
Budget pressures have spurred universities' increasing dependence on 
so-called "casual labor," which damages both the working conditions of 
graduate students and their job prospects. Over half of the classroom time 
at major universities is now logged by non-tenure-track teachers, both 
graduate teaching assistants—known as TAs—and adjuncts. At community 
colleges, part-timers make up 60 percent of the faculties."

Again, computers have the potential to automate the humanities PhD student's 
work as well. I say "work" in the sense of what PhDs are generally paid to 
do as research assistants, teaching assistants, and lab assistants, not 
"work" as in what they love to do in their own original research for a PhD 
thesis or whatever. So, computers make it easier for existing professorts to 
grade assignments, search for references, write letters, check for 
plagiarism, and so on, thus eliminating the need for most of the jobs that 
humanities PhDs have been paid to do (not to mention many academic 
secretaries). Obviously, I feel it is wonderful that a humanities PhD 
student talks about things like literature with undergrads, discusses the 
meanings in life and all that, and does original research -- but in an age 
of tightening budgets and a glut of people with PhDs and lots of computers, 
there is pressure to cut what can be cut, and grad students are historically 
the weakest players. Not to mention other pressures on them:
   http://www.disciplined-minds.com/

I predict we see more and more automation in those humanities areas, since 
computers are getting better and better at analyzing rote text. Example of 
just the beginning of replacing humanities PhDs:
   "Professor Develops Essay Grading Software"
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2005/05/09/professor-develops-essay-grading-software
"Ed Brent, University of Missouri professor of sociology invested six years 
into developing Qualrus, using the last two years to test it on his 
students. Brent said the program is sophisticated enough to analyze sentence 
and paragraph structure and is able to judge the flow or arguments and 
ideas. Keywords and concepts are pre-entered by the teacher. Students can 
upload their papers on the Internet and receive instant feedback and scores. 
Numeric scores are based on whether the writer addressed the most important 
elements of the assignment. The idea is to save teachers the tedium of 
reading scores of essays on the same topic. According to Brent, he himself 
has shaved off 200 hours of paper grading."

Note, I'm not saying you can replace a humanities professor with that. But 
you can replace the first career steps to become a humanities professor with 
that, and the net effect may ultimately be the same.

Already faculty are graying. In the same way automation lets old Japanese 
keep from importing young foreigners to help them, graying faculty may turn 
to automation instead of new hires to hang on to their jobs:
"Graying of US academia stirs debate: Some cite brilliance; others see lost 
opportunity in hiring"
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/12/27/graying_of_us_academia_stirs_debate/
"""
This year, 9.2 percent of tenured professors in Harvard's Faculty of Arts 
and Sciences are 70 or older, compared with none in 1992. Other universities 
have seen jumps in the percentage of older professors, although the actual 
number remains small on many campuses. The graying of university faculty has 
stirred vigorous debate. Some in higher education, including Glauber's 
students, say many older professors are brilliant researchers and riveting 
teachers with plenty to offer. But some academic leaders say the abundance 
of older professors is plugging the pipeline, making it harder to hire young 
faculty members and bring fresh ideas into labs and the classroom. At the 
worst, they worry that the perseverance of older professors will crowd the 
young out of scholarly professions altogether. ... The slower pace of 
retirements in the sciences is one of the reasons that young scientists are 
spending more years in low-paid postdoctoral fellowships and the average age 
for a scientist to get his or her first major research grants from the 
National Institutes of Health has risen from 37 to 42 in the last 25 years.
"""

So, in a way, this is even a "transhumanism" issue, as old professors with 
tenure and relative affluence are turning themselves into transhumans with 
computers, Borg-like collaborative social networks, hearing aids, glasses, 
and insulin shots, and with all that augmenting technology they are crowding 
out the young and poor would-be professors who just can't compete. :-)

Add robots that do their own research and paper-grading computer AI software 
programs into this mix, things that will mainly be only available to the old 
and relatively wealthy professors who are already established, and who knows 
what will be happening soon to grad students? :-)

So, all that is one thing driving the Pro-Am revolution:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_amateurs

As well as the "Blue Collar" scholar:
http://unconventionalideas.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/blue-collar-independent-scholar/
"People with scholarly interests should take a long hard look at the 
possibility of a blue collar career. On the surface this may sound 
ludicrous, but I’ve found blue collar work actually enables me to pursue 
intellectual interests far more than any white collar job I ever had. Here’s 
how it all happened:.. "

Or, perhaps, in my case, doing child-care part of the time for my child 
while also writing stuff and programming free software, I guess that makes 
me a "Pink Collar" scholar. :-)
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink-collar_worker
At least for a time.

Note: I think there are plenty of resources on our planet to allow anyone of 
any age to be a researcher or professor, so I don't think the solution is 
mandatory retirement. It's a basic income, rethinking education vs. 
schooling, massively increased R&D spending by government, and things like 
that, IMHO.

So, there are actually several trends that are changing the nature of 
academic research as we know it. :-) And peer-to-peer, in part bypassing the 
academic journal system (like this mailing list), is fueling some of them. 
As is automation. :-)

Anyway, this is all not to disagree with your general point. You are right 
to call for clarity about what categories ideas and information fall into.

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

Michel Bauwens wrote:
> Hi Nathan,
> 
> Let me try to explain the difference in approach in the following way.
> 
> We are both inspired by an ideal, for you it's post-scarcity, for me it's a
> peer to peer world. We both find evidence of trends that are going in that
> direction.
> 
> But we have to be very very careful in not taking our dreams for realities.
> People have dreamed of salvation, enlightenment, and socialism for
> generations, and it gave us the Catholic Church, abusive spiritual guru's,
> and the totalitarian Soviet Union ...
> 
> The other thing is to be very careful about the distinctions between what is
> already happening (lots of p2p trends, some robotic production, etc...),
> what are projects, what are potentialities, etc...
> 
> A good example is your reference to IBM, this is a project, unrealized, yet
> you make the conclusions that researchers will disappear.
> 
> This might be just a sleight of hand for you, and perhaps be unproblematic
> in transhumanist circles, but for most people, this has the effect of
> destroying any credibility.
> 
> When I meet open hardware people, who know how hard it is to make anything
> work, any statements like that would discredit the whole body of work that
> we have been building up, based on as realistic assessments of what has been
> achieved so far, and where it could be going ..
> 
> So ideals are fine, they inspire; science fiction is fine, it makes you
> think; projects are fine, they may be realized ... but confusing the
> different levels of imagination, dream, and actual practice, is politically
> counterproductive ...
> 
> Take Marcin for example, a very ambitious project, but at the same time,
> there is no hint in Marcin's discourse that his ambitious program is
> anywhere near achievement, he is simply building the blocks one step at a
> time, at great personal cost of  himself and his collaborators ... this
> builds credibility. If Marcin would reason as if all he wants is already
> achieved, he could not muster the same sympathy.
> 
> Michel
> 
> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 4:47 PM, Nathan Cravens <knuggy at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> *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