[Siberian Fox]

I've seen this technology mentioned a few times in another discussion now and I though it was deserving of a topic all of its own to debate the issues around it.

I know Kolzene likes to keep debate in the reality of the now, but I can't help but ponder the possibilities. As things are, the Technocratic movement faces an impossible battle with the establishment in convincing people a 'scarcity free' economy is possible. Do 3D-pinters offer an opportunity to help people see another way is possible? In short, will 3D-printers make technocracy more likely?

It's a tempting thought, that there might be a future not so distant where many household items can be made in the home. People will just buy the raw materials in the form of printer cartridges and download the plans from the internet to create what they want. It could spell the end of shipping "cheap rubbish" around the world in the form of mass-produced goods for retail sale.

It would presumably also vastly simplify technocratic accounting, as only the energy quota of the raw materials to be allocated each household would have to be calculated, and then people can choose to make what they need for their own circumstances.

On the other hand, could this be just the next stage in outrageous and wasteful consumerism? In some Star-Trek-like world, having a machine that can not only make a cup of coffee, but the cup to hold it and place mat to sit it on could herald the beginning of the ultimate throw-away world, where all manner of reusable things get used only once and then thrown away. "We can always print another one..."

[mikema63]

no need to throw it away, they've developed versions that recycle the material back into the spooled form they use as inputs.

[Figlio di Moros]

We'll likely never produce a cup of coffee and the placemat underneath it, Fox. As of now, they use a sort of plastic, to the best of my knowledge, which will only really be usuable for cheap, throw-away items. However, larger printers could be used, say, in a carshare garage; combined with lithium-air batteries and microgeneration, they could produce new parts for a car, or for new cars. You could also have easily printable chips or computer parts, and I could see a seperate system creating different glass. Perhaps manufacture the parts for hospital equipment in house.

Granted, the major focus of Technocracy would be effeciency, so much of the waste (personal cars in cities, for instance) wouldn't exist. There'd still be other expenses, but certainly the combination of extreme effeciency and in-house production would simplify the strain on upper-level accounting.

[mikema63]

12 different plastic polymers, metals, rare earths, silicon, glass, food, and several other materials.

[Smertios]

Yeah, there are technologies to print 3D models in many different materials: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing#Technologies

Even sheets of paper can be produced at home with current 3D printing technology.

If a future printer has a function like modern injet 2D printing, with multiple types of ink, you will be able to build pretty much anything from home. You'll simply select a cell phone model from a website, download (or buy) the model, and print your own phone, for example. The difference will be that, instead of having cartridges with different ink colors, you'd have cartridges with different materials. Steel, a couple kinds of polymers, glass, ceramic, copper etc.

[Kolzene]

I know Kolzene likes to keep debate in the reality of the now, but I can't help but ponder the possibilities.

I don't mind speculation, it can be a lot of fun. That is partly why there is an entire forum dedicated to it at technocracy.ca. However, the other reason is that it is important to make sure that such discussions are clearly marked as such, so as to not interfere with other, more important topics.

As things are, the Technocratic movement faces an impossible battle with the establishment in convincing people a 'scarcity free' economy is possible.

I hope that you mean that "convincing the establishment is impossible," and not that "because of the establishment, convincing people (i.e. anyone) is impossible." I say this because I think that it could be taken either way, and I don't want people thinking that such a discussion is pointless so that they don't bother even looking into it. Technocracy has good reasons for its assertions, and has made that information available to anyone who is willing to take a look.

And more on topic, while it is certain that future technologies in automation will make Technocracy more possible, and these 3-D printers may even be a part of that, I don't think that we have the time to waste waiting for them. Technocracy has certain physical, minimum requirements in terms of resources and installed technology that without them, would be impossible. We are quickly losing those resources, so there will come a time, I think most likely within out lifetimes, that we will lose this capability, and then we will no longer have the choice. We are not on the road towards the possibility of Technocracy, we are instead on the road away from it. Technocracy could be instituted rather quickly, given the informed consent of the public, so it is to that remaining requirement that we must direct our efforts. We can't afford to wait for some future tech that may or may not help make it come more quickly.

[Figlio di Moros]

The problem, Kolzene, is that it seems technocracy has no proposals to go from point A to point B- one moment, we have private industry controlling scarcity, and then people are informed, and then production, distribution, and accounting are in the hands of well-educated and experienced engineers/developers/etc. That would be a different topic, though.

These 3-D printers do seem to be the next wave of automation, though. Since they do already exist, Kolzene, shouldn't they, and other next-generation technologies, be taken into consideration? Proposing the full utilization of Additive manufacturing, lithium-air batteries, MagLev, etc. could certainly help make the convincing argument in technocracy's favor. After all, any sane economy plans five, ten, etc. years ahead.

[Smertios]

Fig, I think that that issue is not really serious, because we are naturally evolving into a post-scarcity economy. Like I discussed in another thread here, we do have an abundance of most physical resources in the solar system. We just don't have access to most of those resources yet.

Once we do have access to most natural resources, and production becomes that easy, proces will simply drop, almost reaching zero. Eventually, the whole price system will collapse.

[Kolzene]

The problem, Kolzene, is that it seems technocracy has no proposals to go from point A to point B- one moment, we have private industry controlling scarcity, and then people are informed, and then production, distribution, and accounting are in the hands of well-educated and experienced engineers/developers/etc. That would be a different topic, though.

There is enough information on this in order to get it done.

These 3-D printers do seem to be the next wave of automation, though. Since they do already exist, Kolzene, shouldn't they, and other next-generation technologies, be taken into consideration? Proposing the full utilization of Additive manufacturing, lithium-air batteries, MagLev, etc. could certainly help make the convincing argument in technocracy's favor. After all, any sane economy plans five, ten, etc. years ahead.

Certainly they should be taken into consideration. I just think that if we want to consider them seriously, beyond just speculation for fun, that that should probably be done by people qualified to do so. So if the discussion is: "How might these printers work in a Technate?" or "Wouldn't it be cool if we had them in a Technate?" or something like that, then fine. The discussion I'm worried about is the one where people seriously decide whether or not this technology makes them think that we need to wait for it to happen before Technocracy can be done, instead of learning about it properly to decide if we really could make it happen right now if we wanted to, just because that would be easier. That's all. That's why I was talking about the importance of separating speculative discussion from other types of discussion.

Fig, I think that that issue is not really serious, because we are naturally evolving into a post-scarcity economy. Like I discussed in another thread here, we do have an abundance of most physical resources in the solar system. We just don't have access to most of those resources yet.

Once we do have access to most natural resources, and production becomes that easy, proces will simply drop, almost reaching zero. Eventually, the whole price system will collapse.

Smeritos, we don't need to wait for the resources of the Solar System, because the Price System collapse you are talking about has already happened: Why Technocracy? This is how we know that we have had the ability to produce an abundance since at least the 1930s, because if we hadn't this failure would never have happened. But the same trends in automation (like these printers) continues on, and it has been becoming ever more difficult to keep the Price System on life support by using means of artificial scarcity.

Post scarcity.

You will always have a desire that cannot be filled, more living space, a better view, hell a planet.

I hate e term post-scarcity, hate it!

You can desire things, sure, but desires don't consume stuff.

It doesn't matter if you want to eat 1,000,000,000 candies in the next hour. It is biologically impossible for you to do so.

Spot on, Smertios. Yes, human desire is unlimited, but the capacity for (real) consumption is not. There is only so much food you can eat. There are only so many hours in the day that you can travel, or learn, or recreate. Once you provide more than the population can consume, you have abundance. Another way to look at it is if you can produce enough to make it impossible for the Price System to work (as shown in the aforementioned Information Brief), then you have abundance.

[mikema63]

You deserve this face.

[Smertios]

You deserve this face.

Why? I mean, this is a pretty basic factor of the price system. Supply and demand define pretty much all prices, when there isn't a monopoly in place. If the supply suddenly becomes several orders of magnitude larger than the demand, prices drop several orders of magnitude.

If we suddenly have access to all resources available in the solar system, consuming such resources will be just as inexpensive as consuming raw water nowadays.

The price of industrialized goods will also drop a lot, as the raw material used to produce them will be incredibly cheaper. As long as the market remains competitive, producers will not need to include the price of raw materials in the final price of the product, as they will be able to profit without that.

Money, in the future, will probably be used for services only. You'll need money to pay for a hair cut, or for your house to be built. Technocracy advocates simply consider that, once we reach high levels of automation, not even that will require money. Instead of paying for someone to cut your hair, you will simply have a machine do it much better and faster. And cheaper, of course.

At that point, money itself will become obsolete technology.

[mikema63]

Post scarcity.

You will always have a desire that cannot be filled, more living space, a better view, hell a planet.

I hate e term post-scarcity, hate it!

[Smertios]

Post scarcity.

You will always have a desire that cannot be filled, more living space, a better view, hell a planet.

I hate e term post-scarcity, hate it!

You can desire things, sure, but desires don't consume stuff.

It doesn't matter if you want to eat 1,000,000,000 candies in the next hour. It is biologically impossible for you to do so.

[mikema63]

Ere will always be another tear of desires above the first.

You can have post food scarcity, post recreation scarcity, etc.

But you will always have increasingly higher order goods whose supply can not exceed demand, even if thoose goods are planets to play croquet with there will always be more demanded than can be supplied.

Thus a non specific post scarcity is impossible and as a term and idea, silly.

[Kolzene]

Ere will always be another tear of desires above the first.

You can have post food scarcity, post recreation scarcity, etc.

But you will always have increasingly higher order goods whose supply can not exceed demand, even if thoose goods are planets to play croquet with there will always be more demanded than can be supplied.

Thus a non specific post scarcity is impossible and as a term and idea, silly.

I've mentioned before that Technocracy does not make the claim that it can eliminate all scarcity, of course that is a silly idea. Things like natural diamonds, antiques, and original works of art, while they can be mass-duplicated, this cannot be done with their "natural" or "original" statuses left intact. What Technocracy does claim is that with sufficient natural resources and technology, what it can do is provide all of its citizens with a much higher standard of living than would be possible in any scarcity system. We can argue about human wants and desires all you like, but there is the hard reality that cannot be ignored that once you begin to produce enough goods and services, it becomes impossible to "sell" them, and any scarcity system then breaks down, just like what happened in 1929 as described in the Information Brief I linked to earlier.

Perhaps in North America, Kolzene. But I think that such level of abundance can't really be reached worldwide yet. Like you said in another thread, scarcity problems require scarcity solutions.

Oh, I agree completely there. Sure we can talk about global Technocracy if you like, but do you think that that would happen easier and more quickly with at least one functioning Technate operating? Yes, in order to raise the global standard of living to Technocracy's levels would require either a great deal more resources than are available on Earth right now, as you said, or a much greater level of technology than is currently available. Since harvesting the resources of space will itself require greater technology than we have, it will most likely be a combination of the two.

I'll go back to the gold example I gave before (and if I'm going too much off-topic, please excuse me). The total amount of gold available in the world is limited. Gold usually only circulates, with a very low amount of gold being produced every year. The solution you gave e was that the North American Technate would use scarcity solutions to buy gold from other markets, in order to maintain the abundance within the technate.

Minor point of clarification: If we obtain anything from other countries that still use a scarcity system, then it will be very unlikely that we will be able to have it in abundance ourselves, since it will be scarce in those other areas. But I suppose it may be possible.

Yes, but, in order to produce in abundance, you need to make sure the raw materials for production exist in abundance. If that criteria is not met, it is impossible to produce in abundance.

Yes, that is the first requirement for Technocracy. The difference in what we were talking about was that I was focusing on North America, while you were speaking about the entire world. That's all. With that cleared up we seem to be in pretty good agreement.

:?:

It's a bit scattered about, but I've compiled and expanded upon it here to make it easier.

Right, I certainly didn't mean to imply idle speculation. What I was refering to, though, was how technocracy could improve the evolution and implementation of technology. We have the tech and resources now for all of those except Lithium-air batteries, and we've had the technology and resources for Thorium (sic?) reactors for quite some time. So, you can make the legitimate argument that, by expanding the infant additive machining technology sector(hell, we haven't even fully implemented last-gen automation yet), and by building molten-salt rock reactors (sic?) in hand with microgeneration, alongside these additive standards, we can increase production by factor X with energy change Y and increase standard of living by factor Z.

We'd also be able to focus more attention on lithium-air battery research, fusion reactors, antimatter generation, etc. For instance, "It costs $100 billion (or whatever) to produce an ounce of antimatter, the energy imput is X which makes it innefecient, proposals exist for an atom-smasher that'd specifically generate antimatter at $1000 an ounce, or energy input Y. The monetary cost is this, but the resources and energy required are this, so we could begin doing this in X time on a resource-based economy."

If I am understanding you right, then yes, a Technocratic society would greatly improve scientific and technological progress, in many ways.

OT: Doesn't "resource-based economy" have a nicer, less utopian ring than "post-scarcity"?

I think that that is a very subjective thing, since I don't find post-scarcity "utopian" at all. It's a simple matter of math really. As technology, in particular automation, advances, production increases, which increases supply, and employment decreases, which reduces purchasing power and hence demand. Both of these factors (increasing supply, diminishing demand) lower price, and sooner or later you can no longer charge for things what it costs to do business. That is the economic definition of abundance, and hence post-scarcity, and it happened 80 years ago. Perhaps the reason why some might find it sounding utopian is because most people don't realize that, so they associate the term with Star Trek-level future technology. To me, it sounds utopian to think that we can continue using our existing Price System indefinitely, or even for very much longer.

[Smertios]

Smeritos, we don't need to wait for the resources of the Solar System, because the Price System collapse you are talking about has already happened: Why Technocracy? This is how we know that we have had the ability to produce an abundance since at least the 1930s, because if we hadn't this failure would never have happened. But the same trends in automation (like these printers) continues on, and it has been becoming ever more difficult to keep the Price System on life support by using means of artificial scarcity.

Perhaps in North America, Kolzene. But I think that such level of abundance can't really be reached worldwide yet. Like you said in another thread, scarcity problems require scarcity solutions. I'll go back to the gold example I gave before (and if I'm going too much off-topic, please excuse me). The total amount of gold available in the world is limited. Gold usually only circulates, with a very low amount of gold being produced every year. The solution you gave e was that the North American Technate would use scarcity solutions to buy gold from other markets, in order to maintain the abundance within the technate.

And certainly this could work within North America, but it is unrealistic to believe that it is achievable in a global scale, since the global supply is limited. But the supply within the solar system is practically unlimited. So, while I understand that establishing a North American Technate is possible nowadays, I prefer to think that the entire world, as a whole, will only reach that phase when an abundance of resources can be established for all of us.

Spot on, Smertios. Yes, human desire is unlimited, but the capacity for (real) consumption is not. There is only so much food you can eat. There are only so many hours in the day that you can travel, or learn, or recreate. Once you provide more than the population can consume, you have abundance. Another way to look at it is if you can produce enough to make it impossible for the Price System to work (as shown in the aforementioned Information Brief), then you have abundance.

Yes, but, in order to produce in abundance, you need to make sure the raw materials for production exist in abundance. If that criteria is not met, it is impossible to produce in abundance.

[Figlio di Moros]

The problem, Kolzene, is that it seems technocracy has no proposals to go from point A to point B- one moment, we have private industry controlling scarcity, and then people are informed, and then production, distribution, and accounting are in the hands of well-educated and experienced engineers/developers/etc. That would be a different topic, though.
There is enough information on this in order to get it done.

Certainly they should be taken into consideration. I just think that if we want to consider them seriously, beyond just speculation for fun, that that should probably be done by people qualified to do so. So if the discussion is: "How might these printers work in a Technate?" or "Wouldn't it be cool if we had them in a Technate?" or something like that, then fine. The discussion I'm worried about is the one where people seriously decide whether or not this technology makes them think that we need to wait for it to happen before Technocracy can be done, instead of learning about it properly to decide if we really could make it happen right now if we wanted to, just because that would be easier. That's all. That's why I was talking about the importance of separating speculative discussion from other types of discussion.

Right, I certainly didn't mean to imply idle speculation. What I was refering to, though, was how technocracy could improve the evolution and implementation of technology. We have the tech and resources now for all of those except Lithium-air batteries, and we've had the technology and resources for Thorium (sic?) reactors for quite some time. So, you can make the legitimate argument that, by expanding the infant additive machining technology sector(hell, we haven't even fully implemented last-gen automation yet), and by building molten-salt rock reactors (sic?) in hand with microgeneration, alongside these additive standards, we can increase production by factor X with energy change Y and increase standard of living by factor Z.

We'd also be able to focus more attention on lithium-air battery research, fusion reactors, antimatter generation, etc. For instance, "It costs $100 billion (or whatever) to produce an ounce of antimatter, the energy imput is X which makes it innefecient, proposals exist for an atom-smasher that'd specifically generate antimatter at $1000 an ounce, or energy input Y. The monetary cost is this, but the resources and energy required are this, so we could begin doing this in X time on a resource-based economy."

OT: Doesn't "resource-based economy" have a nicer, less utopian ring than "post-scarcity"?

[Kolzene]

I don't believe it would, Kolzene. When we went to the moon in 1969, NASA had less processing power than exists in a smartphone today. I believe that the issue is implementing the existing technology, and doing so in a manner that promoted the exploration and mining of space.

Well I suppose that that is another topic that would have to be figured out a little more scientifically to be sure, but personally I think that there is a huge difference between throwing three guys in a tin-can around the moon a few times, and setting up a regular mining and shipping infrastructure on the moon and beyond, particularly to establish the requirements we have set forth already, being to establish a global Technocracy. And the example you use of computing power I think is a poor one, since it would a) be of far less need than other technologies (as you pointed out, we got to the moon before on far less, we wouldn't need much more of it now), namely energy, and b) has developed at a far faster rate than most other technologies (again, namely energy). And unless we find a way to completely automate the mining processes, we still need to lick the whole human habitation in space thing, which we are still working on. Granted, this will come much sooner once one or more continental Technates are operating, but I think that we are not quite there yet with what we have right now. IMHO.

It's an issue of marketing, Kolzene- you might think post-scarcity doesn't sound utopian, but the rest of the population might not. Persuasion is not performed through logos alone, but through credibility and emotional appeal as well.

Yes, I am well aware of marketing requirements. I said it was subjective so naturally it would depend on what the majority view was on the issue, and the best way to determine that is through market research. I can't claim to know which most people might react better to. I'm sorry I didn't spell that out earlier.

[Figlio di Moros]

Oh, I agree completely there. Sure we can talk about global Technocracy if you like, but do you think that that would happen easier and more quickly with at least one functioning Technate operating? Yes, in order to raise the global standard of living to Technocracy's levels would require either a great deal more resources than are available on Earth right now, as you said, or a much greater level of technology than is currently available. Since harvesting the resources of space will itself require greater technology than we have, it will most likely be a combination of the two.

I don't believe it would, Kolzene. When we went to the moon in 1969, NASA had less processing power than exists in a smartphone today. I believe that the issue is implementing the existing technology, and doing so in a manner that promoted the exploration and mining of space.

I think that that is a very subjective thing, since I don't find post-scarcity "utopian" at all. It's a simple matter of math really. As technology, in particular automation, advances, production increases, which increases supply, and employment decreases, which reduces purchasing power and hence demand. Both of these factors (increasing supply, diminishing demand) lower price, and sooner or later you can no longer charge for things what it costs to do business. That is the economic definition of abundance, and hence post-scarcity, and it happened 80 years ago. Perhaps the reason why some might find it sounding utopian is because most people don't realize that, so they associate the term with Star Trek-level future technology. To me, it sounds utopian to think that we can continue using our existing Price System indefinitely, or even for very much longer.

It's an issue of marketing, Kolzene- you might think post-scarcity doesn't sound utopian, but the rest of the population might not. Persuasion is not performed through logos alone, but through credibility and emotional appeal as well.

[Kolzene]

In 1492, three ships saild across the Atlantic, herethen unkown, to find the otherside of the world. If man is so reckless in adventure to discover a new continent, we certainly have the technology to colonize pluto.

What?!? Let me see if I am understanding you here: You are saying that because humans have, in the past, demonstrated a certain level of "recklessness" or adventurousness, that we have, today, the technology to colonize Pluto? Is that right? Because that just doesn't make any kind of sense at all. I could see it if perhaps you were trying to say that because we have done these things in the past, that we will one day also demonstrate the will and desire to colonize Pluto; then I wouldn't disagree with you, but that isn't really relevant to the discussion then. We're talking about available technology, not will and desire. So which is it? Or is it something else I have somehow completely managed to miss? It's possible; I am under a great deal of pain thanks to a bad tooth right now.

We already have the technology to build ships like the Nautilus-X, or space habitats like the Bernal Sphere, the Stanford Torus and the O'Neill Cyllinder.

The only thing preventing those projects from happening is economics. The Nautilus-X project was put on hold, mainly due to the crisis. Heck, they even shut the Space Shuttle program.

Now I'll be the first to agree that the Price System has greatly held back our scientific and technological progress (the very nature of scarcity), but I fail to see how these examples support the idea that we have currently the technology needed to exploit resources in the Solar System, let alone enough to support a global Technate. The articles on the Nautilus-X are fairly sparse with information. From what I can see, this is a proposal only. Have the blueprints/schematics been drawn up? Are there any working models or prototypes? What is its level of Technological Readiness? What method of propulsion would it use? I know, it can use several because it's modular, but how many are ready that would meet its mission needs?

But none of that matters anyway, because even if we had these things flying around right now, what use would they be to a resource extraction and transportation system, except perhaps for exploration purposes (which could also be done by unmanned drones)? Same goes for the other examples you have there, which seem to be even less developed of ideas so far. Where is the extraterrestrial mining facility? Where is the large-scale material transport hauler? Sure we have heavy lifters to get large cargoes off of Earth, but what about getting these resources back down? Do these exist yet? And at what TRL? I'm not saying that we couldn't work on developing such things right now so that we'd have them in the future, even the near future (especially if we had an operating Technate), but that doesn't mean we have it right now, or that existing technology (that is, that which we have made to operate, TRL-9) would be sufficient. If I'm wrong please let me know because I'd love to hear it, I'm totally a space-buff.

This is remarkable. It's not often I get put in the position of the "conservative" in a conversation. Usually it's me that is saying things like "we can do this now!" and other people telling me "No, we don't have the technology yet!" What a change!