The biggest problem we face is post-scarcity technologies of abundance wielded by scarcity-obsessed people, because things like biotech, robotech, infotech, nanotech, nucleartech, and so on make terrible, if ironic, weapons. It is ironic to use military robots to fight over economic issues the robots make obsolete. It is ironic to use nuclear missiles built with advanced materials to fight over oil supplies that nuclear power or solar energy make unimportant. It even takes more electricity to produce a gall
The biggest problem we face is post-scarcity technologies of abundance wielded by scarcity-obsessed people
I disagree. I think a bigger problem are abundance obsessed people who choose to remain ignorant of the obstacles to actually implementing theoretically possible technologies: cost, time, and social/political inertia. Just because we know how to replace unskilled labor with machines and oil with nukes doesn't mean we can retool the infrastructure overnight nor convince investors to fund a rapid cutover.
Even though futurists like you dislike thinking about nitty-gritty details, especially economics and polit
There is no doubt some truth to what you say, but why make this personal? Can you talk about ideas without attacking a person and making lots of assumptions about them (which may well be wrong)? We might see a lot more progress if people could talk about ideas more.
Please plot the current exponential growth of renewable energy for wind and solar and you will see that, just following current exponential trends, in twenty to thirty years, almost all our energy will come from renewables like wind and solar. Pe
You're right, my tone was too strident. Just heard this post-scarcity sillyness too often. I actually agree with you about solar and wind except I insert "I really really hope" before "almost all our energy will come from renewables".
To prove to yourself that technological adaptations don't always come fast enough to bail us out, imagine that for some reason oil jumps to $500/barrel tomorrow (terrorist attacks on refineries, all-out nuclear war in the Middle East, etc). Will there be enough time for everyone to switch over from gasoline fuel and feedstocks? Hell no. There is some irreducible period of time needed to upgrade the electric grid, build wind/solar/nuke installations, and reorganize our entire manufacturing and goods distribution network. During that period we will have riots, blackouts, unemployment, and food shortages. If the crisis lasts long enough, the infrastructure (what's left of it) will eventually be almost entirely independent of oil, partly because we have retooled to renewable energy and partly because we have retooled to the now cheap and abundant human/animal labor, giving up on energy-intensive technologies (automation and mass production in general, including the manufacture of wind turbines and especially solar panels). I don't know how to predict the percentage contribution of these two causes of reduced demand for oil, but I want to know, because that is the difference between a technotopia and a dark age.
Trends are funny things-- they find unexpected ways to develop. Especially if we mechanically follow them without understanding why they appear exponential. If past performance was a guaranteed predictor of future outcomes, nobody would ever lose money on the stock market.
I guess I'm just not content to sit back and let The Market and R&D work their magic. I need to understand what the actual likelihood is that we will win our race against Malthus yet again. Until I do, I must put some of my effort into preparing for and mitigating the effects of the most likely civilizational risks (and thus making a small contribution to that very race).
PS: In the long run, things don't look good for exponential growth of any sort. You might want to read this post by Robin Hanson: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/09/limits-to-growth.html [overcomingbias.com]. He is the last guy you'd expect to take Malthus seriously, but apparently Robin's intellectual integrity and ability to do the math has dragged him kicking and screaming to this repugnant conclusion. Not that I'm saying technotopia is not a worthy goal-- it's the only worthy goal, but we should go into it with our eyes open to the fact that the odds are stacked against us and we don't necesserily have a lot of time.
The USA has centuries worth of coal. Nazi Germany almost took over the world using coal to make liquid synthetic fuels using 1940s technology. The US population is 300 million about. There are tens of millions of people unemployed and underemployed. We could switch entirely to coal in a year or two if we really wanted too. That would be terrible for the environment, and public health (mercury pollution etc.) but we surely could do this.
As for the long term, we could probably even evacuate the entire planet
Fine. Given that I cannot change public opinion or government policy, what can I do as an ordinary individual to avoid civilizational risks and get us out into space.
As one possibility, you can contribute to the growing open manufacturing and maker communities that are creating a free commons of knowledge of how to make things. For example, you could help with RepRap somehow. Or you could improve Blender or other 3D modeling software. Or you could build better communications tools about manufacturing knowledge (maybe based on Google Wave?) Eventually, all that will lead to a new paradigm for manufacturing, allowing us to build better systems, including better spacecraft
Those are worthy projects. I'm probably going to continue in my own line of academic research, but I'll keep that in mind.
But it's also important to be as prepared as possible for the future getting derailed. I've actually heard people say they would rather die than live through a dark age. Their optimism is a fragile and brittle thing, apparently.
As for me, at the same time as I work to bring on the future, I will continue thinking up and implementing ways to come out on top even if the shit does hit the f
Sometimes you just have to make a choice between helping the larger society prosper versus turning inward and perhaps, by inaction, helping bring about the very catastrophe you are worried about.
Well, sometimes some discretion is necessary. Better the seeds of high-tech society survive in a few tightly-organized pockets than spend themselves bailing out the masses who never bothered to make their own preparations. Still, general information should be shared, that's definitely a positive sum game. Specific preparedness measures taken by individuals not so much.
Interesting links, thanks for them.
We're here to give you a computer, not a religion.
- attributed to Bob Pariseau, at the introduction of the Amiga
Misses the post-scarcity point; digital abundance (Score:3, Interesting)
The biggest problem we face is post-scarcity technologies of abundance wielded by scarcity-obsessed people, because things like biotech, robotech, infotech, nanotech, nucleartech, and so on make terrible, if ironic, weapons. It is ironic to use military robots to fight over economic issues the robots make obsolete. It is ironic to use nuclear missiles built with advanced materials to fight over oil supplies that nuclear power or solar energy make unimportant. It even takes more electricity to produce a gall
Re: (Score:2)
The biggest problem we face is post-scarcity technologies of abundance wielded by scarcity-obsessed people
I disagree. I think a bigger problem are abundance obsessed people who choose to remain ignorant of the obstacles to actually implementing theoretically possible technologies: cost, time, and social/political inertia. Just because we know how to replace unskilled labor with machines and oil with nukes doesn't mean we can retool the infrastructure overnight nor convince investors to fund a rapid cutover.
Even though futurists like you dislike thinking about nitty-gritty details, especially economics and polit
Re: (Score:2)
There is no doubt some truth to what you say, but why make this personal? Can you talk about ideas without attacking a person and making lots of assumptions about them (which may well be wrong)? We might see a lot more progress if people could talk about ideas more.
Please plot the current exponential growth of renewable energy for wind and solar and you will see that, just following current exponential trends, in twenty to thirty years, almost all our energy will come from renewables like wind and solar. Pe
Re:Misses the post-scarcity point; digital abundan (Score:2)
You're right, my tone was too strident. Just heard this post-scarcity sillyness too often. I actually agree with you about solar and wind except I insert "I really really hope" before "almost all our energy will come from renewables".
To prove to yourself that technological adaptations don't always come fast enough to bail us out, imagine that for some reason oil jumps to $500/barrel tomorrow (terrorist attacks on refineries, all-out nuclear war in the Middle East, etc). Will there be enough time for everyone to switch over from gasoline fuel and feedstocks? Hell no. There is some irreducible period of time needed to upgrade the electric grid, build wind/solar/nuke installations, and reorganize our entire manufacturing and goods distribution network. During that period we will have riots, blackouts, unemployment, and food shortages. If the crisis lasts long enough, the infrastructure (what's left of it) will eventually be almost entirely independent of oil, partly because we have retooled to renewable energy and partly because we have retooled to the now cheap and abundant human/animal labor, giving up on energy-intensive technologies (automation and mass production in general, including the manufacture of wind turbines and especially solar panels). I don't know how to predict the percentage contribution of these two causes of reduced demand for oil, but I want to know, because that is the difference between a technotopia and a dark age.
Trends are funny things-- they find unexpected ways to develop. Especially if we mechanically follow them without understanding why they appear exponential. If past performance was a guaranteed predictor of future outcomes, nobody would ever lose money on the stock market.
I guess I'm just not content to sit back and let The Market and R&D work their magic. I need to understand what the actual likelihood is that we will win our race against Malthus yet again. Until I do, I must put some of my effort into preparing for and mitigating the effects of the most likely civilizational risks (and thus making a small contribution to that very race).
PS: In the long run, things don't look good for exponential growth of any sort. You might want to read this post by Robin Hanson: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/09/limits-to-growth.html [overcomingbias.com]. He is the last guy you'd expect to take Malthus seriously, but apparently Robin's intellectual integrity and ability to do the math has dragged him kicking and screaming to this repugnant conclusion. Not that I'm saying technotopia is not a worthy goal-- it's the only worthy goal, but we should go into it with our eyes open to the fact that the odds are stacked against us and we don't necesserily have a lot of time.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, and incidentally, it's the free market economists (except Robin Hanson apparently) that believe infinite growth is sustainable.
Re: (Score:2)
The USA has centuries worth of coal. Nazi Germany almost took over the world using coal to make liquid synthetic fuels using 1940s technology. The US population is 300 million about. There are tens of millions of people unemployed and underemployed. We could switch entirely to coal in a year or two if we really wanted too. That would be terrible for the environment, and public health (mercury pollution etc.) but we surely could do this.
As for the long term, we could probably even evacuate the entire planet
Re: (Score:2)
Fine. Given that I cannot change public opinion or government policy, what can I do as an ordinary individual to avoid civilizational risks and get us out into space.
Re: (Score:2)
As one possibility, you can contribute to the growing open manufacturing and maker communities that are creating a free commons of knowledge of how to make things. For example, you could help with RepRap somehow. Or you could improve Blender or other 3D modeling software. Or you could build better communications tools about manufacturing knowledge (maybe based on Google Wave?) Eventually, all that will lead to a new paradigm for manufacturing, allowing us to build better systems, including better spacecraft
Re: (Score:2)
Those are worthy projects. I'm probably going to continue in my own line of academic research, but I'll keep that in mind.
But it's also important to be as prepared as possible for the future getting derailed. I've actually heard people say they would rather die than live through a dark age. Their optimism is a fragile and brittle thing, apparently.
As for me, at the same time as I work to bring on the future, I will continue thinking up and implementing ways to come out on top even if the shit does hit the f
Re: (Score:2)
Sometimes you just have to make a choice between helping the larger society prosper versus turning inward and perhaps, by inaction, helping bring about the very catastrophe you are worried about.
But, from a "preparedness" perspective, working from pessimism, interesting reading:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110706_mcr_evolution.shtml [fromthewilderness.com]
http://www.alpharubicon.com/prepinfo/themainmessage.htm [alpharubicon.com]
Ideally, one can do both -- build strong local communities that are more self-re
Re: (Score:2)
Well, sometimes some discretion is necessary. Better the seeds of high-tech society survive in a few tightly-organized pockets than spend themselves bailing out the masses who never bothered to make their own preparations. Still, general information should be shared, that's definitely a positive sum game. Specific preparedness measures taken by individuals not so much.
Interesting links, thanks for them.