[p2p-research] open-source gadgets have the best chance in markets where the technology has matured to the point that it is commonplace.

Mon Apr 19 08:08:34 CEST 2010

this is pretty  much the scenario of robot socialism highlighted by Hans
Moravec ... still pretty much science fiction right now of course but
certainly possible 'in theory'

On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 9:18 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

> The overwhelming problem is skill.  Computers are getting smarter at some
> pace.  Humans, in general, not as individuals, will not maintain that pace.
>  Therefore, labor values will fall.  Unlike the machine age where
> controlling more capacity of capital as an individual was valuable (e.g
> driving a bigger train), there is no such analogue in the information age as
> machines stop being tools and start becoming processes.  That is, one person
> is more productive with a larger and faster computer if and only if the
> underlying task is driven by human intellect.  Soon, it won't be in more and
> more circumstances.  In many areas it already isn't.  Humans, for instance,
> don't really drive trains.  There is no need for them to drive airplanes,
> etc.  This is even truer on factory floors where auto plants now employ a
> fraction of the workforces they did in 1940.  But the same could be said of
> hedge fund trades which are now often driven by automated systems rather
> than "traders."  In other words, productivity rises to a level where human
> input is really not economically viable without tremendous skills that most
> humans simply won't and don't have.
>
> I think there is about 20-35 more years of "work" at these trends.  After
> that, some new system will have to exist for most humans because individual
> values won't make any sense.  There will always be leaders, designers,
> thinkers, etc., but that isn't what most people do.  Most people do
> relatively menial tasks.  There simply isn't much need for that.  I think
> the jobs crisis of the industrialized world is already showing us the issue.
>  Productivity rises faster than skills.  When that is the case, more and
> more at the low end fall off the economic ship.  At first they will become
> poor, but that is politically impossible to maintain in a largely democratic
> world.  Skills will increase for a time building out a modern infrastructure
> (as in India and China), but after that, there is nothing for most to
> do...and more and more automation taking the roles that people would have
> done.
>
> It's really a question of politics.  If you love your children, teach them
> science and engineering.  Those people will be the last to be at risk.   Or
> a new system will arise.  What could or would that new system be?  Not sure.
>  Unlike most people on this list, I do not believe people will embrace a
> permissive equality where mass low levels of existence will be tolerated.
>  Will the intelligent slaughter the weak?  Probably.
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 6:59 PM, Kevin Carson <
> free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 4/18/10, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Yep.  Been saying that on this list more than a couple of years.
>>  Exactly.
>> > The problem with capitalism right now is that there are no expectations
>> of
>> > long term cash flows.  That dries up credit.  When credit dries up, the
>> > system stops. We are slowing again right now...you can watch it in the
>> > financial pages.  Capitalism is dying.  It won't "die" for decades, but
>> the
>> > changes are not far too obvious to be reversed unless some unforeseen
>> > prospect of huge technology innovation (equivalent to the age of
>> > microcomputers) is around the corner.  It isn't.  Stem cells and
>> nanotech
>> > are huge, but they aren't game changing.
>>
>> In any case, such a new technology could only save capitalism if it
>> were possible to capitalize the increased productivity as a source of
>> rents.  The whole idea of cognitive capitalism was to capitalize
>> "intellect" as a source of rent, but that's hit the wall of the
>> growing unenforceability of "intellectual property."
>>
>> Never mind Linux; Windows' real competitor is web-based and
>> browser-based software.  And although Google has been able to
>> capitalize on that as a source of revenue stream, it will probably be
>> far smaller than the revenue stream it's destroying.  Traditional
>> encyclopedias had their revenues decimated by Encarta, which in turn
>> was destroyed by Wikipedia.  File-sharing is seriously hurting
>> recording industry profit margins, and ditto aggregators the dead tree
>> newspapers.
>>
>> It's plausible that the much smaller pie might still be sufficient to
>> support actual reporters, recording artists, etc., if it were all
>> equitably distributed among the producers and none of it went to the
>> record companies or media conglomerates.  But that's not exactly
>> capitalism, is it?
>>
>> I think the most exciting forms of new physical production, like
>> micromanufacturing, will have a similar effect on revenue streams.
>> Patents are a lot more costly and unprofitable to enforce, the smaller
>> the batch size and market become.
>>
>> --
>> Kevin Carson
>> Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
>> Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
>> http://mutualist.blogspot.com
>> The Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
>> http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
>> Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
>> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Ryan Lanham
> rlanham1963 at gmail.com
> Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
> P.O. Box 633
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> (345) 916-1712
>
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