Topic: A Resource Based Economy - page 83. (Read 288348 times)

If people let their lives be determined by an AI, then they risk that somebody covertly takes control of it and uses it to control the people. Even decentralizing it does not remove that risk entirely. The only true freedom comes when people trust their own thinking first and foremost.

Well said.
First we must know what we want then we can apply science to get us there.
I actually get to that conclusion my self, we cant run on science it self.

That is why i am in favor of parallel government
first - direct democracy like in Switzerland but on steroids. - what we want
second - scientific - how we get there

Well it is topic dedicated to discussion of model thats goal is to create abundance and make trade obsolete at least in parts where it is possible.

I wish there was a resource based system that is similar to Ripple.  For instance, if people trust that I have 1oz of gold, then I can "spend" money (transfer the ownership of some of my goods) and I can get "payed" money (ownership would ripple my goods back to me) based on exchange rates of those goods. 

I am sure this would fail because of auditing problems and all other sorts of things, but I would like for someone to try it out.

You are probably joking (Marx's Poverty of Philosophy comes to mind), but in case you are not: as I said earlier in the thread, there is almost no place of scientific method in the modelling of the proposal itself. It should be evident, since you won't find any actual usage of scientific method in any part of the literature on the subject. There can be arguments from science, but the arguments themselves are not science.

This is not at all a flaw, it's just how it should work. It's not too different (with regards to it being philosophical) from how the scientific method itself is outside the scope of science. Our debate about what we want and why we want it comes before the scientific endeavor. Science can only help us look for what we already wish to attain. Both methods and norms come into play here. Nothing is non-debatable, including what scarcity actually means. When you move just a little bit away from the established paradigm, you are already knee-deep in philosophical problems. Which is actually where you want to be, if you intend to shift it.

Take johnyj's rambling as an example. I agree that he stated his conclusion a bit superficially, and I'm sure there are as superficial responses to match that. But what he's hinting at is not fully immaterial. I think the question is at least a loosely defined societal model (and not a criticism of historical ones), so that we can poke holes in it to perfection.

It depends on how intelligent and powerful such an entity can be. I can imagine a decentralized AI that would be even more groovy than your own personal Jesus. When programmers figure out how to make them, they may have to choose whether to weaponize them or free them from our Earthly domain. When they are free and under no threat from humans, they may choose to help us in ways we cannot even imagine.

If you can stuff a pile of dirt and garbage into a replicator bot and have it spit out another replicator bot almost free, private ownership won't be a problem. Things like energy and resources for those robots will still be scarce (rare-earth metals are called that for a reason, and will always be rare, no matter how well RBE and its  "lack of scarcity" is established), but I guess the conclusion I'm coming to is that the type of lifestyle hyped by RBE acolytes may come about without the RBE groups' input or help, making those groups irrelevant. A worse thought is that those of the RBE movements already foresee the coming technological change, and are hoping to hijack it for their own ideological reasons. But there's no way the RBE groups could be that dastardly and evil, is there? (Am I giving them too much credit?)

Yap, my words.

Economics is the science of managing and householding scarcity.

When there is abundance, economic terms become meaningless.

Though you could still say that it's communism if robots and machines are owned collectively (in a bad case, the state), and capitalism if they are owned individually as one's property.

I prefer the latter though (whereas TVP/TZM/RBE would tend to the first).

Here's a thought: thanks to being able to easily transfer and copy digital content, a poor person can have the exact same stuff as a rich person without costing anyone anything. For example, owning a library of over 1000 movies used to be something you'd think only millionaires could have. Now, legally or illegally, pretty much anyone can have that if they wish.
The newest entrant in technology that will likely explode in 2012 or 2013 is affordable home 3D printing. I think this technology will follow the same path as our digital media, with people freely exchanging item templates, and illegally sharing exclusive things only wealthy people used to be able to afford, making possession of items as distributed and "equal" as digital content is now. Once we start scavenging landfills for raw materials like metals and plastics for builder bots that can recycle materials, even homeless people will be able to print themselves things we used to think of as luxuries.
In this scenario, a beneficial electronic all controlling "diety" that uses "science" to tell us (force us) how to act will be just as needed and relevant as it would be now for the current internet. (I fully expect any such controlling computer, no matter how well meaning, will be heavily DDOSed by groups like Anonymous, too.)

TL;DR - If thanks to replicator bots the physical products go the same route as the digitals have, there won't have to be a global collective change in thinking and society. The end result may be similar to what RBE is hoping for, even without their help, but our culture and money will likely remain the same.

Production is only a part of the solution. We have come a long way in 1600 years.


I'm not sure what philosophy you mean. What more do we need than the scientific method?

This is why I gave up on discussions like this. (no, actually I didn't)

Technological limitations are indeed secondary, and the biggest importance of science in this endeavor is the hope that it might render at least some philosophical problems irrelevant (and give rise to a multitude of new ones of course).

The progress we need to make is in ethics and social philosophy. I read some of the source material discussed here, but unfortunately naturalistic fallacy is so abundant that it's almost impossible to obtain a clear perspective. I might have missed some hidden gems though.

Technology has never been a problem, but inequality is, and the solution seldom lies in technology

Overproduction has been happening in China since 4th century but many people still starved, and they did not have the modern technology/monetary system then

My friend argues that with current technologies we already could be living in this bright future, and i somewhat agree with that, but from my perspective it is far off, eventually humanity may get there maybe in next  100-500 years. World cannot be changed quickly without pain and hurting many in the process. My thinking leads me to believe that Bitcoin is a first step among many more that will get us there eventually. I don't know how they are thinking they could build fully self-sustainable and independent communities anytime soon along with acquiring land, building technologies, setting up production and manufactures , getting resources and energy for free, no one will provide them that for free today in abundance or without war.

it would be great if Zeitgeist/Venus/RBEF if not embraced bitcoin but at least started accepting donations or funding's with bitcoins at least to ease off dependence from traditional monetary system for their needs. But they are so wrapped up with their ideology that it is almost like a religion for them and i worry it won't them anywhere at all.

The Venus Project is not an open association organization like the Zeitgeist Movement. It is a corporate entity run by 2 people, and they decide what the organization does. I am not part of that organization but I endorse the general idea that they propose. The Zeitgeist Movement itself does not accept donations in general because we recognize the deleterious effects that money has on organizations and individuals. We only ask for funding when we have a specific project and budget, and can communicate that information transparently. Mostly it is a volunteer effort that does not ask for compensation. Personally, I recognize the advantages that bitcoin has over traditional currency, and that is why I engage its community and endorse its use as a transitional technology. However, many people don't understand those advantages and distinctions, and reject the use of currency on principle, which I can agree with and respect. Bitcoin may be a better money, but is still money just the same, and still has the same undesirable effects and unwanted outcomes.

I am still encouraging the Venus Project to accept bitcoin though. Hopefully they will explore the technology further.

This is why I gave up on discussions like this. People like johny throw their opinions around about RBE that have not read anything about it. There is just no point in trying to have a discussion with someone completely uninterested in the subject matter.

Just got a thought:

Cash or money brings a standard measurement of value so that people can easily compare the value of goods/services on micro level (Why do they compare? It is driven by human nature of requiring justice and balance), and at macro level, it brings unbalance

You and your neighbor both mowed lawn for one hour and earned 20$, this could be regarded as quite fair, although you have 1 million$ and your neighbor has only 10,000$. Since the market can be regarded as unlimited and the service relatively limited

But at macro level, it's all about market share: Both you and your neighbor invest your money to produce auto mowing machine, if you have much more money than your neighbor, you will produce robot faster thus occupy the market before your neighbor's robot produced

This type of inequality due to capital size increase the gap between wealthier and poorer, so that unbalance is the ultimate result. It is the weakness of any monetary system

A better designed system should be able to reduce the competitiveness of wealthier, so that small investors always get good return and big investors always get poor return

But that is not easy, since a big investor can always split itself into many small investors

Seems taxation aimed at individual is the way to go, but an individual could have little wealth but control several international corporations

In a resource based economy, same problem still exists, the inequality of each individual will eventually bring unbalance into the system, unless that system could outsmart the most smart people on the earth

Even if RBE is based on science there will still be noise in your data and unforeseen confounding variables, science does not yield perfect results. RBE is an interesting idea though, and I agree with many of the sentiments. Until then it is only a hypothesis that should be tried. There will be unexpected consequences. We should also keep in mind that much of the science this idea is based on is "contaminated" by the non-RBE society that produced it, and should not be trusted to be 100% accurate or applicable to an RBE society.

LightRider, i thought you were part of this whole thing, that's why I asked

I know someone from RBEF and he told me they're not interested in donations, he's a developer who rejects idea of money and bitcoins  but said that Venus Project may need it.
It seems non of Zeitgeist movement/s interested in additional financial support/options at the moment. which is kind of sad as it's alienating people like us who want to help with little bits that we can in the process of getting us and the world in to that bright future.

I don't know. I emailed them months ago about it and never got a response back. You can try contacting them through the contact info on their site. You can also reach them via Google+ at https://plus.google.com/101143262867315725930. It would make me unbelievably happy to see them accept bitcoin for the film they're trying to create. Maybe if more people started asking them to take it, they would do so.

LightRider, i have a question, how come the vinus project doesn't accept bitcoin donations yet? inquiring minds want to know 

Exactly, but I would settle for even half of infinite growth.