$ jlc (10,317)

This is excellent news. I recall reading about this some years ago - perhaps due to the prior posting - and all I can say is "Faster!".

I would not mind if the parts manufactured were of the same specs as the current ones and provided additional safety standards, as opposed to reducing the gauge of the steel to lighten the resulting product and maintaining the same safety standards. Since I am amongst those who think that there are enough petroleum resources to last for a couple of centuries, I would prefer to enhance vehicular safety than increase mpg.

Unfortunately, this is not what will 'sell cars'. "Green" and "Low MPG" will sell cars.

Jan

If we established colonies on other planets, as soon as they became self-sustaining they would realize that they could become independent. It would not take us centuries.

My point in this thread is that as soon as technology gives us a place that has protected borders (via distance or force fields, as in the Gulch) and is self-sufficient, we have independence. This is why technology can determine culture.

Jan

This is one of the things that beggars my imagination: I cannot understand why people do not see that if you just deal with insight and integrity with the people around you, you will prosper. 'Insight' is necessary or those dishonest people around you will take you to the cleaners if you are not wary, and 'integrity' because then you will not only be the first choice for other people to interact with but you won't have to waste so much effort in maintaining your manipulations, secret deals and outright lies.

Jan

Yes. It is called "integrity".

Jan

I LIKED your mistake. It was a...pithy term.

Jan

I agree. Nature does not give a damn. It is completely, reassuringly, and terrifyingly, impartial.

My teen-age answer was similar: I would rather try to discover things about an objective world than spend my life arguing about an artificial set of rules constructed by man.

That being said, concepts such as 'justice' and 'mercy' are constructs of intelligence. It is a worthy goal to try to bring the mish-mash of Law into alignment with such principles - it is just not 'my thing'. I want to deal with physical reality, not a second or third hand filtrate of same.

Jan

Why New Zealand? I was referring to the history of Britain dumping a bunch of convicts into Australia and then discovering that she had no control over what they did any more!

Jan

Excellent article, which highlights points that are often been overlooked in visualizing the future. I believe that there is one factual error in the otherwise excellent list: What I have read indicates that the poor are getting richer faster than the rich are, so the gap is closing, not widening. This is minor, though, in comparison to your main point that high tech is increasing the capabilities of 'everyone' at a marvelous rate and that it is shifting paradigms faster than bureaucracies can compensate.

There is an aspect of this that I think of as 'virtual Australias'. When you engage in interactions that are beyond the sphere of control, you have the freedom of a 'new land'. When we discuss the union's demands for increased minimum wage leading to robotization of fast food, we are talking about this. (The Maker movement is another example.)

I am very aware that Louis XIV, Kublai Kahn, Alexander the Great...none of them had or could have had HVAC or the Internet. "Is it not passing brave to be a king, and ride in triumph through [a personal virtual Persepolis on the Internet]?"

Jan

You are making this sound almost good: I would get 10K, and a lot of spending that I do not want to have happen anyway gets eliminated. Can you make it de-fund the EPA too?

Jan, half joking

In order to agree or disagree with you, I would have to know 'how much Finland is currently giving out on welfare' plus 'how much the bureaucratic overhead of staffing the welfare department costs'. If they are already spending more money than that for their current welfare program, then this could represent a net savings.

It is philosophically odious, however. And...a bit amusing.

Jan

Oh boy, are you right. We had a couple of big bonus years. These helped get us through the bust that happened when the dotcom bubble burst.

"Fear will keep the local systems in line."

Jan

Whoosh! It was gone.

"Y2K" is a term in IT now, used to tag something that is overblown, ie "Will the new ICD10 changeover be just another Y2K?"

Jan

Thank you, CG.

Jan

The most grounded argument re CERN that I heard was, in essence, "I am tired of hearing doomsday predictions by people whose first statement is 'well, I can't do the math, but...'. If you can't do the math, keep your mouth shut."

As you say, the same thing applies to genetics (but...less math). Hmmm. History too, come to think of it. We cannot all know everything (just too much to know) but we can each try to grasp some basic principles of various disciplines. And you know what? Lots of doomsday predictions disappear when one does that.

Jan

Awww (preening!).

You have put it quite succinctly.

Jan

OK. My warped sense of humor prefers the former path. Monsanto would say, "OK. We have lots of money. We won't sell to anyone who doesn't want us. Oh, did we tell you about our newest developments in [enter half dozen terrific improvements in agri-tech]?

I do not think this will happen, but I think that it would be the best thing in the long run: Refuse to pay the fines and accept that your markets for improved agritech will be legally diminished until the countries dump the restrictions (as Uganda has apparently done per db's GMO article).

Many years ago, insurance companies had the policy of 'caving' and negotiating settlements even when they knew they could win the case - because litigation is expensive. About 15-20 years ago, they woke up to the fact that they had created an ecology of litigation, and they began fighting even the small cases (though a net financial loss to do so, even when they won). (I was a witness at such a case.) The number of suits diminished, because they were no longer 'cows' to be milked by ambulance-chaser lawyers.

This is what Monsanto needs to do.

Jan

I think that the author deliberately accepted postulates he knew to be false in order to present how unworkable 'no growth' would be.

That being said, there are many assertions that need to be set straight:
- No growth is not novel: is actually the default state of humankind (Australian abos are a good example). Think about it – there were very few nexus of development in the world. People from those locations conquered the rest of the world. Everywhere that they did not conquer remained Paleo-Neolithic (Central Africa, S. Am, Siberia, etc). If you leave us alone and do not introduce competition via warfare (the river valleys) or trade (Minoan empire, early Peru) then humans tend to remain at a steady state of no-growth.
- There have been Many declines in human tech. Farming was actually invented about 17K years ago, but then the Younger Dryas (mini-ice age) occurred and humans went back to a Mesolithic technology, because it was better suited to the cold weather. The Minoan age had Flush Toilets! and running hot and cold water. If Thera had not gone boom, we might have been on the Moon 1-2 thousand years ago. There was a proliferation of commerce and technology in the 3k-2K BC range. This fell in the 2M BC collapse. Again, we have the invention of the alphabet and differential gears at around 600 BC, but these are lost again. Then, finally we get recent enough for most people to call it ‘history’ – the Roman period, and subsequent collapse into the Middle Ages. At any of these points if you measure from the height of one civilization to the depth of the next period of collapse, you will find a decrease in per capita income, technology, and often population. So, yes, the Middle Ages were not as good as the Roman period. This is hardly unprecedented in the history of humankind.

So while I think that the author is using a straw horse well, he is also taking aim at the Achilles’ heel of lack of knowledge of the wavy growth pattern of human history.


Jan

So. What if Monsanto just ignores them?

Jan, strongly on the side of Monsanto

There will be VR too. It can be an interesting cell.

Jan, prefers at least some reality

I want a self driving RV-van to take me and my dogs to a series of beautiful spots. It can drive there at night, while I sleep. Then we can stay wherever we want during the day...and be driven on the next night.

We would have no expenses for hotels; I can fix meals in the RV. The only real expense would be gas, which would be the same as if I were driving the van instead of it driving itself.

Jan

Yeah...just geeking out at ya.

Jan

Good article. One of the things that is often overlooked is that if a crop is innately resistant to a pest or weed, then you do not have to spray the crop, thus minimizing the insecticides that get into the soil and water. So GMO = pro-environmental from that perspective as well.

I would like to hold Greenpeace accountable for the millions of deaths it has caused.

There is a glo-plant available now too. You do not need to use UV to see it - it fluoresces.

Jan, wants a night-light plant

Actually, they were poisoned by a virus that a Klingon agent had added to the quadrotriticale to keep it from being used on Sherman's World. The tribbles were affected by the virus and died, thus providing a clue to the fact that it had been infected.

Jan

Yes, I have thought about it. When you read analyses of the evolution of humankind, there was a breakthrough point (genetically as well as socially) when cities got big - hundreds of thousands of people. The concept of the autonomous individual who produced everything he consumed is a fairy tale ideal (akin to 'noble savage') - this person is doomed to live a primitive life because he lacks the leverage of specialization.

This is the world we have lived in for the past 5K years.

Enter 3D printers, and the Internet. Now, for the first time since the Neolithic, we are headed for a society where an individual can be functionally independent of gov or infrastructure and still have all the benefits of collaborative interaction and high technology. Add in self-driving vehicles and robots and we are creating a new social structure.

Jan