The Revolution in Motion

[GostHacked]

And without plastic we would not have the modern world. Every technological and medical advancement developed over the last 50 years is directly or indirectly connected to the availability of plastic. So unless you want to give up all of that progress you should learn to love plastic.

We would also not have the amount of pollution plastics cause. Simply stroll down your street and take a look.

[Michael Hardner]

It's just that the author is stating that "postcapitalism" (this new system as he calls it) will replace capitalism. He's making a claim of certainty, not just a "it might happen" observation. When you make such a bold statement, you have to come prepared with better evidence to back it up. ...

I suppose so, but the bar isn't the same for futurism as it is for analyzing current events IMO.

I'd be embarrassed if i wrote this article because it reads like a naive hipster 2nd-year university student wrote it the night before it was due. It has some great ideas to explore but this isn't fun and games, let's get serious in our analysis if we're to take it seriously.

Sorry, you're wrong. He sweeps through major cultural, economic and technological trends from the renaissance to the future. If you think that a naive 2nd year student could write this, then it may be over your head. I'm not saying that I got it by any means, but there is substance there.

[Bonam]

Just gonna read his article and put comments here:

The coming wave of automation, currently stalled because our social infrastructure cannot bear the consequences, will hugely diminish the amount of work needed – not just to subsist but to provide a decent life for all.

True.

By building business models and share valuations based on the capture and privatisation of all socially produced information, such firms are constructing a fragile corporate edifice at odds with the most basic need of humanity, which is to use ideas freely.

This is a mischaracterization of what tech companies do. These companies create new "information" such as software, connections between people, the ability to find information, methods of communication, etc. They are not at odds with the ability of individuals to use ideas freely, but rather they facilitate that use of ideas. That's why they are succeeding. He is fundamentally wrong about the nature of these businesses.

Almost unnoticed, in the niches and hollows of the market system, whole swaths of economic life are beginning to move to a different rhythm. Parallel currencies, time banks, cooperatives and self-managed spaces have proliferated, barely noticed by the economics profession, and often as a direct result of the shattering of the old structures in the post-2008 crisis.

I dunno about some of these other things he mentioned, but "parallel currencies" (a reference to bitcoin) is very clearly not working out. I've used bitcoin and participated in the bitcoin economy. It's a place of scammers and thieves, with the overwhelming majority of bitcoin business being illegitimate. This is far far from a disruptive system. Meanwhile, all the upsides of the system like the ability to pay quickly, cheaply, between individuals, etc, are all now available by more conventional methods.

The sharing economy he describes is fine for some things and has a place in society certainly, but it doesn't replace the corporate business model. You can share your way to efficient car rentals, and condo rentals. Not so much to developing new aircraft, developing new medicines, manufacturing things on a large scale, etc. This reminds me of the same kind of narrow focus on modern fads that people have when they say "PCs are dead" and "tablets/smartphones are the future"... yeah, they are a market growth segment, but the overwhelming majority of serious work still gets done on PCs, because they are designed for content production while tablets/smartphones are designed for content consumption. Similarly, the sharing economy works fine for allowing more efficient distribution of goods/services that already exist or can readily be made to exist in unspecialized people's free time. But the production of new specialized goods/services, especially ones that are capital intensive, are ill-suited to this model.

The 2008 crash wiped 13% off global production and 20% off global trade. Global growth became negative – on a scale where anything below +3% is counted as a recession. It produced, in the west, a depression phase longer than in 1929-33, and even now, amid a pallid recovery, has left mainstream economists terrified about the prospect of long-term stagnation. The aftershocks in Europe are tearing the continent apart.

The 2008 recession was a blip,already recovered from by most metrics. The European continent is not being "torn apart". Pure exaggeration here.

The solutions have been austerity plus monetary excess. But they are not working. In the worst-hit countries, the pension system has been destroyed, the retirement age is being hiked to 70, and education is being privatised so that graduates now face a lifetime of high debt. Services are being dismantled and infrastructure projects put on hold.

He talks about retirement age being hiked as if it's a bad thing. Reality is, retirement ages were set in a time when people lived to 60. Today, people live to 80, and retirement ages have not kept up. Retirement age should be indexed to be a certain % of life expectancy, so that it is adjusted automatically over time so that a fixed % of the population are retirees over time.

As a result, large parts of the business class have become neo-luddites. Faced with the possibility of creating gene-sequencing labs, they instead start coffee shops, nail bars and contract cleaning firms: the banking system, the planning system and late neoliberal culture reward above all the creator of low-value, long-hours jobs.

Huh? Any evidence for this? Those people that are rewarded "above all" are the self-made billionaires, for the most part founders of tech firms that created high value through the work of just a few people.

Innovation is happening but it has not, so far, triggered the fifth long upswing for capitalism that long-cycle theory would expect. The reasons lie in the specific nature of information technology.

False, we are in the biggest upswing of all time, as the impoverished billions in the developing world are being transformed into a new global middle class. All that's changed is the location where the benefits of the upswing are being most dramatically felt. In the 20th century, that was mostly in the West and a few Asian countries. In the 21st century, it's everywhere else, except a few countries still trapped in conflicts that arrest their development.

If we restate Arrow’s principle in reverse, its revolutionary implications are obvious: if a free market economy plus intellectual property leads to the “underutilisation of information”, then an economy based on the full utilisation of information cannot tolerate the free market or absolute intellectual property rights.

A complete logical blunder here if I ever saw one, not to mention no support for the premise besides one out-of-context quote from a random guy.

Yet information is abundant. Information goods are freely replicable. Once a thing is made, it can be copied/pasted infinitely. A music track or the giant database you use to build an airliner has a production cost; but its cost of reproduction falls towards zero. Therefore, if the normal price mechanism of capitalism prevails over time, its price will fall towards zero, too.

Not really. Any information that is capital-intensive to produce and will be utilized a finite number of times will not fall in price toward zero. Consider the airliner example... designing a new airliner is a project that costs tens of billions of dollars. That cost has to be amortized over the expected number of units of the airliner to be produced. And they don't get produced forever, as within a relatively short time period they will be replaced by a newer better airliner. The argument suffers from the same kind of static thinking that let communists think everything would be peachy if they simply take over the "means of production" (factories). What they didn't realize was the value was not in the buildings, but in the minds of the people who could design and operate the buildings. The same is true here, the true value is not in the static data of how to build a particular airliner, but in the set of people who together have the capability to produce that information. It is a monumental undertaking taking hundreds of thousands of people specialized in different tasks, and can only be accomplished by an organization that creates an environment where these people work together towards that purpose, and has the capital to incentivize them to do so.

Anyway, enough with the point by point. The flaw of the article is that it comes with the fundamental bias of seeing capitalism as hopelessly flawed and wanting to replace it with something, and so looking for that something everywhere, grasping at straws like the sharing economy, or the copyability of information. The reality is the nature of economics will change as abundance becomes the rule rather than scarcity, but this author is looking in all the wrong directions and likely hasn't read the literature that will point him in the right direction. It is an expression of someone deeply steeped in self-admitted leftist bias trying to conceive of the end of capitalism. He talks endlessly about technology but does not consider the actual technological changes that are likely over the next several decades and how they will influence things far more fundamental than our economic system.

For those curious about what happens after technology transforms society into something unrecognizable from the present day, I suggest reading about the singularity.

Edited July 29, 2015 by Bonam

[Michael Hardner]

Great points, Bonam. My comments and thoughts on some of the flaws you found:

This is a mischaracterization of what tech companies do. These companies create new "information" such as software, connections between people, the ability to find information, methods of communication, etc. They are not at odds with the ability of individuals to use ideas freely, but rather they facilitate that use of ideas. That's why they are succeeding. He is fundamentally wrong about the nature of these businesses.

I think you've hit something here: "information" comprises different things, some of which are easy to share freely (ie. pirated software, movies, maps, local information) and some of which are impossible to do so (ie. networks, dynamically updated search libraries)

By grouping it all into "information", I agree that the author has missed something.

I dunno about some of these other things he mentioned, but "parallel currencies" (a reference to bitcoin) is very clearly not working out. I've used bitcoin and participated in the bitcoin economy. It's a place of scammers and thieves, with the overwhelming majority of bitcoin business being illegitimate. This is far far from a disruptive system. Meanwhile, all the upsides of the system like the ability to pay quickly, cheaply, between individuals, etc, are all now available by more conventional methods.

Bitcoin is a new, and therefore necessarily flawed platform. The emergence of bitcoin may be a harbinger for something newer, something with more support with the ability to become pervasive.

The sharing economy he describes is fine for some things and has a place in society certainly, but it doesn't replace the corporate business model. You can share your way to efficient car rentals, and condo rentals. Not so much to developing new aircraft, developing new medicines, manufacturing things on a large scale, etc. This reminds me of the same kind of narrow focus on modern fads that people have when they say "PCs are dead" and "tablets/smartphones are the future"... yeah, they are a market growth segment, but the overwhelming majority of serious work still gets done on PCs, because they are designed for content production while tablets/smartphones are designed for content consumption. Similarly, the sharing economy works fine for allowing more efficient distribution of goods/services that already exist or can readily be made to exist in unspecialized people's free time. But the production of new specialized goods/services, especially ones that are capital intensive, are ill-suited to this model.

I see your point, but as I said above I think, to focus on production misses the point. Production will still happen, but perhaps as with agriculture after the end of the feudal area its importance will be supplanted by the information model of the economy.

The 2008 recession was a blip,already recovered from by most metrics. The European continent is not being "torn apart". Pure exaggeration here.

It seems to me that a high-cost economy like Europe's can't continue to compete in a global market.

He talks about retirement age being hiked as if it's a bad thing. Reality is, retirement ages were set in a time when people lived to 60. Today, people live to 80, and retirement ages have not kept up. Retirement age should be indexed to be a certain % of life expectancy, so that it is adjusted automatically over time so that a fixed % of the population are retirees over time.

I agree that his biases are showing here. In fact, the sharing economy may provide opportunities for older workers.

Huh? Any evidence for this? Those people that are rewarded "above all" are the self-made billionaires, for the most part founders of tech firms that created high value through the work of just a few people.

There are also those who capitalize on displaced and unskilled workers, I think is the point.

False, we are in the biggest upswing of all time, as the impoverished billions in the developing world are being transformed into a new global middle class. All that's changed is the location where the benefits of the upswing are being most dramatically felt. In the 20th century, that was mostly in the West and a few Asian countries. In the 21st century, it's everywhere else, except a few countries still trapped in conflicts that arrest their development.

The global middle class you refer to was created by the globalization of manufacturing, though, wasn't it ? I agree that there is the possibility for an upswing but as robotics and software replace human bodies the fundamental problem is to create a new economy where human labour isn't as valuable.

A complete logical blunder here if I ever saw one, not to mention no support for the premise besides one out-of-context quote from a random guy.

The idea here is that it is difficult to contain information as a resource. Perhaps it's not fully fleshed out.

Not really. Any information that is capital-intensive to produce and will be utilized a finite number of times will not fall in price toward zero. Consider the airliner example... designing a new airliner is a project that costs tens of billions of dollars. That cost has to be amortized over the expected number of units of the airliner to be produced. And they don't get produced forever, as within a relatively short time period they will be replaced by a newer better airliner. The argument suffers from the same kind of static thinking that let communists think everything would be peachy if they simply take over the "means of production" (factories). What they didn't realize was the value was not in the buildings, but in the minds of the people who could design and operate the buildings. The same is true here, the true value is not in the static data of how to build a particular airliner, but in the set of people who together have the capability to produce that information. It is a monumental undertaking taking hundreds of thousands of people specialized in different tasks, and can only be accomplished by an organization that creates an environment where these people work together towards that purpose, and has the capital to incentivize them to do so.

Anyway, enough with the point by point. The flaw of the article is that it comes with the fundamental bias of seeing capitalism as hopelessly flawed and wanting to replace it with something, and so looking for that something everywhere, grasping at straws like the sharing economy, or the copyability of information. The reality is the nature of economics will change as abundance becomes the rule rather than scarcity, but this author is looking in all the wrong directions and likely hasn't read the literature that will point him in the right direction. It is an expression of someone deeply steeped in self-admitted leftist bias trying to conceive of the end of capitalism. He talks endlessly about technology but does not consider the actual technological changes that are likely over the next several decades and how they will influence things far more fundamental than our economic system.

For those curious about what happens after technology transforms society into something unrecognizable from the present day, I suggest reading about the singularity.

The author does reference Marx's thoughts on an information economy, with the value being in planning/thinking rather than labour. I'd love a link to the singularity, perhaps, to continue this discussion.

[Moonlight Graham]

I use the term religion because of the dogma that no connection to any rational thought process. For example, the premise that the earth without human impacts is an ideal "pristine state" that must be preserved is no different from the belief that use of stem cells in science is inherently immoral. Environmentalism should have no more and no less credibility than any traditional religion.

I think you're incorrectly stereotyping all environmentalists into the same group.. Yes some but certainly not all environmentalists believe that "the earth without human impacts is an ideal "pristine state" that must be preserved". An environmentalist can be ie: a rational scientist who sees damage that certain toxic chemicals are needlessly doing to our freshwater ecosystems and advocates safer alternatives. Description of environmentalism from wikipedia:

"...a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements. Environmentalism advocates the lawful preservation, restoration and/or improvement of the natural environment, and may be referred to as a movement to control pollution or protect plant and animal diversity. At its crux, environmentalism is an attempt to balance relations between humans and the various natural systems on which they depend in such a way that all the components are accorded a proper degree of sustainability."

It should be clear that I support regulation and even restrictions on technology. What I am complaining about are the demands for blanket bans on things like GMOs or fracking that are not based on a rational analysis but rather based on knee jerk pandering to environmentalists who want tech they don't like arbitrarily banned.

I pretty much agree and I think we're actually quite similar in our beliefs on this "environment vs tech" discussion, we're just coming at it from different angles.

I think though that your strong dislike, maybe even resentment, for these particular irrational idealist may be causing you to regard the general concept of environmentalism irrationally. It's very easy for anyone to resent the illogical knee-jerk views/actions of certain people when those actions go against one's own interests, but this in turn can make it easy to develop one's own irrational knee-jerk views/actions regarding the very thing one resents. I know I can be guilty of this.

It is this kind of opposition that seriously threatens the future of the country because our existing infrastructure will eventually wear out/reach capacity and if we can't expand or build new infrastructure then we will be in deep trouble.

What if I flip this around?: "It is this kind of opposition that seriously threatens the future of the country because our existing infrastructure environment will eventually wear out/reach capacity and if we can't expand or build new infrastructure preserve it sustainably then we will be in deep trouble."

[Bonam]

I'd love a link to the singularity, perhaps, to continue this discussion.

This 2001 essay which I've linked a number of times on this board is probably still the best introduction:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns

Obviously most of the data presented in there ends around 2000/2001, but a lot of the individual points have been discussed more recently and how the predictions have turned out has been examined in other discussions.

Human society will be reshaped by strong AI, unlimited life expectancy, and the permeation of the human-machine civilization throughout the galaxy. The disputes between 20th century economic ideas of capitalism vs socialism will seem quaint as these far more significant changes are under way.

Edited July 29, 2015 by Bonam

[Michael Hardner]

The disputes between 20th century economic ideas of capitalism vs socialism will seem quaint as these far more significant changes are under way.

Indeed... as I posted to TimG the 'post capitalist' tag seems to deny the point of the article.

[TimG]

What if I flip this around?: "It is this kind of opposition that seriously threatens the future of the country because our existing infrastructure environment will eventually wear out/reach capacity and if we can't expand or build new infrastructure preserve it sustainably then we will be in deep trouble."

Sustainability is a "motherhood and apple pie" term which no one can reasonably disagree with but it is effectively meaningless because people use it criticize anything they want to stop for ideological reasons. i.e. it may be true that fossil fuels are finite and therefore 'not sustainable' but unreliable sources like wind and solar are also not sustainable because they can't provide the energy a modern society needs (EROI>7 see http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-energy-storage/). That is why I focus more on what is necessary to keep the economy running because 'sustainability' is a moot point without a functioning economy that can meet the basic needs of humans. Edited July 30, 2015 by TimG

[Moonlight Graham]

This 2001 essay which I've linked a number of times on this board is probably still the best introduction:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns

Obviously most of the data presented in there ends around 2000/2001, but a lot of the individual points have been discussed more recently and how the predictions have turned out has been examined in other discussions.

I read the first part of it. Oh man, this incredibly fascinating. Recently on my own I had myself conceived of the idea where machine AI would/could reach the point where they could begin evolving and re-designing itself perpetually without any human input, and thus usher in a new revolutionary era of advancement (for better or worse for humans). I thought this was a revolutionary idea of mine LOL but from your link I now see this is a decades old concept called "singularity". Total buzz kill, but now I have lots of fascinating reading to do!

Human society will be reshaped by strong AI, unlimited life expectancy, and the permeation of the human-machine civilization throughout the galaxy. The disputes between 20th century economic ideas of capitalism vs socialism will seem quaint as these far more significant changes are under way.

I agree with the 1st 2 points, but how likely is a "human-machine civilization"? Why not just a machine civilization? What advantages could humans give to such a relationship where machines (which may begin to incorporate all sorts of organic compounds into their design) will become so much more advances than humans. Humans have creativity and other aspects that machines now lack, but what if machines develop this and more?

[TimG]

I agree with the 1st 2 points, but how likely is a "human-machine civilization"? Why not just a machine civilization?

Being human is more than simply processing power. The human body is portable self-sustaining and self-replicating engine. To equal to humans, machines would have to be biological constructs which would be effectively indistinguishable from humans. An AI that can't move or can't exist without a source of electricity would less than human - even if its intellectual capacity exceeded humans. Edited July 30, 2015 by TimG

[WIP]

How is it a reflection on me ? I'm giving you the findings of those far more expert than either of us.

A techno-critic I've referenced many times since reading his book: "TechNofix" - Michael Huesemann, points out early on in his critical examination of a wide range of introductions and applications of new technologies, that tech is one of the few subject areas where the public has almost no access to reading any critical reviews. Everybody in mainstream media is tech fan or cheerleader because the people who ultimately pay them...employers and advertisers, are constantly promoting the promises of some new device or system that they hope to earn money from. So none of those experts can be trusted as far as they can be tossed!

Most people are shocked to discover that in one field - pharmaceutical research, most new drugs are more harmful and less effective than the older drugs they are replacing. The multibillion dollar drug company has a high vested interest in getting new drugs to market, and it doesn't matter if the drug is just a slight chemical tweak of the existing formulas, having a patented new drug provides a new opportunity to charge consumers more money than the existing drug on its way to generic status will bring them.

I'm just saying that humans do not reject technology. It feels like you're shooting the messenger on that point.

In an age where we are becoming aware of the damaging secondary effects of many of our new inventions and new products, what's wrong with demanding that they undergo a review of potential environmental harms prior to being put on the market? This was a goal of environmentalist/consumer activist- Barry Commoner over 40 years ago, and obviously one that wasn't met and buried from public awareness by mainstream media over recent decades....along with the entire consumer advocacy movement.

[WIP]

Perhaps the $80 dollars a month for the phone could be used for food instead?

Right. Now try reasoning with teenagers on that point! Everything that is supposed to be "hot" - clothes, cars, music, personal devices etc. are must haves after the combination of ad brainwashing and peer pressure.

For myself, I had a cell phone back when few people were buying them...mostly because I was doing a 50 mile commute to work every day. So, after a clear need was removed for the phone, I never bothered buying another one, and my own collection of electronic devices includes: desktop computer, e-reader, and Ipod Shuffle. Those are the devices I see a clear need for, and I won't be expanding on them until I have to.

[WIP]

It's just that the author is stating that "postcapitalism" (this new system as he calls it) will replace capitalism. He's making a claim of certainty, not just a "it might happen" observation. When you make such a bold statement, you have to come prepared with better evidence to back it up. Its not that the specifics are vague, it's that almost everything he presents in the article is vague, and it's a long article so he has space to bring in serious economic analysis, instead of things like "people share ideas on the internet for free, so this kind of free sharing can replace capitalist markets" (paraphrased). He could have used this article as a thorough abstract (summary) for his book. IMO he failed. I'd be embarrassed if i wrote this article because it reads like a naive hipster 2nd-year university student wrote it the night before it was due. It has some great ideas to explore but this isn't fun and games, let's get serious in our analysis if we're to take it seriously.

Aside from some form of socialism, the only capitalist economic systems that can work in a finite world are ones described by the DeGrowth movements. Their theories and explanations come across as muddled and confusing, as many critical economists claim, who don't believe they can work. but one of the fues of growth-dependent capitalism is the kind of money expansion system we have had for at least 100 years.

Interesting to note that in rightwing circles, many of the so called 'monetarists' advocate "full reserve banking", which boils down to banks having to actually have the money in reserve to cover all of their outstanding loans. It's the way we used to think banking actually worked...until banks failed...and the solution for the governments and regulators was just to accept and live with "fractional reserve banking" and hope the economy could grow fast enough to absorb the new money created and its corresponding new debt obligations. So, in a no growth world, just moving to a firm full reserve banking system would stop endless economic growth......though the fractional reserve advocates are already screaming bloody murder that the result will be permanent depression. But as it looks today, the existing system will remain bogged down and worse- trying to extract and seize wealth from lower income groups through austerity measures, or just declare wars to destroy and seize wealth elsewhere....a dangerous passtime in the nuclear age.

[Bonam]

I read the first part of it. Oh man, this incredibly fascinating. Recently on my own I had myself conceived of the idea where machine AI would/could reach the point where they could begin evolving and re-designing itself perpetually without any human input, and thus usher in a new revolutionary era of advancement (for better or worse for humans). I thought this was a revolutionary idea of mine LOL but from your link I now see this is a decades old concept called "singularity". Total buzz kill, but now I have lots of fascinating reading to do!

Well, glad to introduce you to it then

I agree with the 1st 2 points, but how likely is a "human-machine civilization"? Why not just a machine civilization? What advantages could humans give to such a relationship where machines (which may begin to incorporate all sorts of organic compounds into their design) will become so much more advances than humans. Humans have creativity and other aspects that machines now lack, but what if machines develop this and more?

But as machines become more powerful, humans will incorporate machines into themselves too. In some sense, this is already beginning with machines that are always in your pocket or worn on your person, and these small machines maintaining constant connections to a vast global network that enhances your knowledge and thinking abilities.

For centuries, we've used machines to enhance our own physical capabilities. As we develop machines that can truly think, will we really just leave them in boxes on our desks thinking about how to take over the world, or will we instead interface them with our own brains to make us smarter?

Edited July 30, 2015 by Bonam

[Moonlight Graham]

You need to abandon this idea that technology can be 'investigated' in a controlled way, as you imagine. Here's why:

1. It doesn't happen effectively. Technology is the genie out of the bottle, and whether you're talking about marine shipping technology (proposed to be banned by the Ming emperors of China), radar detectors banned by state police, satellite dishes, or nuclear weapons (restricted by those who already had them)... it's relatively useless to restrict humans from acquiring the toys they want.

Sorry for the late response, these are complex issues that take time to think/write. Yes, i agree technology can't be uninvented. But, depending on the type of technology and who is using it, bans on the use/sale of technology can be effective to varying degrees and can be a viable option in many, but not all, cases. Ie: it's difficult to stop individuals from pirating movies or music, but it's easier and effective to prevent companies from using chemicals like DDT or from selling banned unsafe medications. It's also easier to enforce bans on use by medium-to-large businesses/organizations or government than it is to stop private individuals or small businesses. I can walk into any BestBuy and know that virtually all of their tech is legal for sale, I can't say that at a flea market.

Your argument of "you can't stop technology so it's mostly useless to have laws against using it and we should just learn how to adapt" (paraphrased) is the same as saying "murders, theft, and rape still occur despite laws so there's no use having laws banning those activities, we should just learn to adapt to them". Banning something may not be 100% effective, but that doesn't mean it doesn't prevent some or many of the occurrences, or create norms in people's minds where they think "this is illegal and therefore wrong so I shouldn't do it" which can prevent the activity to at least some extend.

Now, I also take banning something by government very seriously. A law restricting anything is government telling us "we are restricting your liberty in this way, and if you don't comply to what we want we will go as far as using violence on you and restricting all your liberties", that's a VERY serious thing!

2. It would be impossible to do. The effects of technology can't be known until they play themselves out. Can you imagine a study on the possible effects of the internet in the 1980s ? How likely would it have been that they would have determined that TV sitcoms or movies would suffer ? The laboratory for these things is the entire world.

A better approach to 'investigation' is to understand that "we don't know what we don't know", and look to the early adopters to see what's coming... be prepared to adapt. Areas of activity that adopt and react to technology quickly include the Military, and visual artists too as observed by McLuhan.

You're right, you can't predict the future. Something like Facebook also harmful in itself, only possibly in the way we choose to use it. no sense restricting it. But if a ie: medication or food additive is shown right away to be harmful to humans, then ban it's sale/use or at least restrict it's use. We already do this everyday, and it works. If something seems safe at first but 10 years later is shown to harm humans, then restrict its use, or at least require warning labels. We don't have to ban the technology itself, it can still be used in research (unless possibly if it's almost completely uncontrollable like a deadly synthetic virus with no cure), or in other uses where it's not harmful, just restrict it it's use in certain ways where it's harmful. Also, where technologies that are harmful to individuals but have no harm to others then I say let individuals use them as long as they're informed of the dangers, but restrict use of technology in certain cases where its use can harm greater society/the environment (the commons)/other people other than the user. Ie: cigarettes: let people smoke them privately, but ban smoking in public places, and make them pay taxes on them to pay for the cost they're adding to our health care.

[Michael Hardner]

...bans on the use/sale of technology can be effective to varying degrees and can be a viable option in many, but not all, cases.

Specific applications of technology aren't the same as the technology. You can ban certain chemicals and drugs once you have socialized the phenomenon of new chemical/drug development but you can't ban chemical/drug development. For something that's open and pervasive it's a lot more difficult.

For example, trying to ban marijuana is impossible as there's a low cost to development and it's everywhere.

Your argument of "you can't stop technology so it's mostly useless to have laws against using it and we should just learn how to adapt" (paraphrased) is the same as saying "murders, theft, and rape still occur despite laws so there's no use having laws banning those activities, we should just learn to adapt to them".

No, there's no driving human need to commit crime but humans are intrinsically fascinated and beguiled by new toys. My point is that it's generally difficult to ban pervasive and beguiling technologies, and the internet and attendant digital communication is exactly one of those types of technology.

Of course, though, you have a point so maybe some specific ideas would help us crystalize the discussion a bit better.

[GostHacked]

Sustainability is a "motherhood and apple pie" term which no one can reasonably disagree with but it is effectively meaningless because people use it criticize anything they want to stop for ideological reasons. i.e. it may be true that fossil fuels are finite and therefore 'not sustainable' but unreliable sources like wind and solar are also not sustainable because they can't provide the energy a modern society needs (EROI>7 see http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-energy-storage/). That is why I focus more on what is necessary to keep the economy running because 'sustainability' is a moot point without a functioning economy that can meet the basic needs of humans.

Sustainability means nothing if the resources of the planet are ran dry. This buzz word of sustainability to me means that we need to bring things back to a point where we CAN be sustainable. In many areas those tipping points have already happened.

Edited August 3, 2015 by GostHacked

[GostHacked]

Specific applications of technology aren't the same as the technology. You can ban certain chemicals and drugs once you have socialized the phenomenon of new chemical/drug development but you can't ban chemical/drug development. For something that's open and pervasive it's a lot more difficult.

For example, trying to ban marijuana is impossible as there's a low cost to development and it's everywhere.

No, there's no driving human need to commit crime but humans are intrinsically fascinated and beguiled by new toys. My point is that it's generally difficult to ban pervasive and beguiling technologies, and the internet and attendant digital communication is exactly one of those types of technology.

Of course, though, you have a point so maybe some specific ideas would help us crystalize the discussion a bit better.

We have seen people like Einstein and Oppenheimer warning us on the use of nuclear/atomic weapons. Now they are everywhere. We now have guys like Hawking telling us we need to rethink this AI approach. I don't think we should ignore those warnings.

[WIP]

Sustainability means nothing if the resources of the planet are ran dry. This buzz word of sustainability to me means that we need to bring things back to a point where we CAN be sustainable. In many areas those tipping points have already happened.

Right! Fools who think it's all about the economy should try counting their money with a bag over their heads.

Fiscal conservatives are always lecturing poor people about 'living within their means,' yet think nothing of overconsumption of both renewable and non-renewable resources. Eventually someone has to pay the bill....and they're secretly hoping to check out before the bills come due!

[TimG]

Sustainability means nothing if the resources of the planet are ran dry.

Except who decides what is 'sustainable' and what is not? A society run on wind and solar is simply not sustainable because these sources of energy do not provide enough excess energy keep society going. So we need fossil fuels or nuclear which are not "sustainable" because they depend on finite resources. I guess the alternative is to just give up and start killing off humans until the population is reduced to a level that can sustain itself without access to modern energy sources. Are you willing to volunteer for your cause?

This buzz word of sustainability to me means that we need to bring things back to a point where we CAN be sustainable. In many areas those tipping points have already happened.

Says who? A bunch of professional catastrophics who have been proven wrong again and again?

[GostHacked]

Except who decides what is 'sustainable' and what is not? A society run on wind and solar is simply not sustainable because these sources of energy do not provide enough excess energy keep society going. So we need fossil fuels or nuclear which are not "sustainable" because they depend on finite resources. I guess the alternative is to just give up and start killing off humans until the population is reduced to a level that can sustain itself without access to modern energy sources. Are you willing to volunteer for your cause?

Says who? A bunch of professional catastrophics who have been proven wrong again and again?

There is more to natural resources than just oil. And sustainable means that the way we do things can guarantee that those resources will be there for our children. It really is not a hard concept to grasp. But how about those professional catastrophics talking about climate change?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northwest_cod_fishery

Technological

A major factor that contributed to the depletion of the cod stocks off the shores of Newfoundland included the introduction and proliferation of equipment and technology that increased the volume of landed fish. For centuries local fishermen used technology that limited the volume of their catch, the area they fished, and let them target specific species and ages of fish.[5] From the 1950s onwards, as was common in all industries at the time, new technology was introduced that allowed fishermen to trawl a larger area, fish to a deeper depth and for a longer time. By the 1960s, powerful trawlers equipped with radar, electronic navigation systems and sonar allowed crews to pursue fish with unparalleled success, and Canadian catches peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[6]

The new technologies adversely affected the northern cod population in two important ways: by increasing the area and depth that was fished, the cod were being depleted until the surviving fish could not replenish the stock lost each year;[7] and secondly, the trawlers caught enormous amounts of non-commercial fish, which were economically unimportant but very important ecologically: incidental catch undermines the whole ecosystem, depleting stocks of important predator and prey species. With the northern cod, significant amounts of capelin – an important prey species for the cod – were caught as bycatch, further undermining the survival of the remaining cod stock.

And if you continue to read you will find that the residents of the east coast had lost something that was a key part of their lives for over 500 years. And now gone. The overfishing via technology depleted the stocks way below a sustainable level.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/09/30/3573998/wildlife-drop-52-percent-animal/

Here is a good explanation of sustainability.

But all of these affects fall under the broader rubric of humanity’s “ecological footprint.” That’s the metric for our total impact on the global ecosystem — the fresh water we consume, the land we alter, the natural resources we extract, the carbon we emit, the pollution we dump and the animals we wipe out. Both this report and other institutions make efforts to calculate our ecological footprint, and according to the Living Planet’s latest numbers humanity’s total footprint comes out to 1.5 earths. What this means is we’re consuming all those resources at a faster rate than they can regenerate. If the Earth was a savings account, we’d be pulling money out of it faster than the account can be replenished by interest. And eventually the principal will drop to zero.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfishing

[TimG]

There is more to natural resources than just oil. And sustainable means that the way we do things can guarantee that those resources will be there for our children. It really is not a hard concept to grasp.

Sure there are isolated incidents where specific finite resources are depleted such as fisheries and we need to be careful to avoid this. But the fact that a some resources get depleted does not mean society as a whole is in imminent danger. For example: how many people died from starvation as a result of the end of the cod fishery?

My point was the phrase is meaningless because people use it as a catch all to criticize any human activity they don't like. Humans are very good at adapting to change and it is a mistake to use linear extrapolation and assume a past behavior will continue indefinitely into the future.

That does not mean that we should ignore problems when specific examples of unsustainable behaviors come up like the fisheries. But it does mean that generic doom mongering like the "ecological footprint" should be ignored.

[GostHacked]

"Climate change". I think that is the proper way to respond to this. I mean they tell us all the time that doom is on the horizon.

And no the people did not die of hunger. They instead replaced it with other foods. But then there is a challenge to keep the other resources from running dry.

These incidents are not isolated, they are systemic to our fast growing population without the resources to keep us going. No sustainability there, none for the human race either.

[TimG]

"Climate change". I think that is the proper way to respond to this. I mean they tell us all the time that doom is on the horizon.

BS. Some people claim that doom is on the horizon just like some people claim the rapture is just around the corner. Actual science says that CO2 is a concern and the impacts could range from minor to locally disruptive. No plausible scenario suggests that humans will not be able to adapt to CO2 induced changes.

And no the people did not die of hunger. They instead replaced it with other foods. But then there is a challenge to keep the other resources from running dry.

But that is my point. Humans adapt. Your assertion that our ability to adapt will suddenly disappear has no logical foundation.

[Moonlight Graham]

The human body is portable self-sustaining and self-replicating engine.

Not self-sustaining, we need frequent food, water, and oxygen intake to fuel us.

To equal to humans, machines would have to be biological constructs which would be effectively indistinguishable from humans. An AI that can't move or can't exist without a source of electricity would less than human - even if its intellectual capacity exceeded humans.

If AI reached a point where they could continually evolve and redesign themselves to be smarter and smarter and continually more adaptable, they would very quickly surpass humans in almost every conceivable function. They could also become so intelligent and powerful that they could invent new ways to power themselves. We can't even imagine the incredible technology advances that would occur with machines and the technology they create once "singularity" occurs.

Humans are very fragile, and we evolve very slowly. AI could evolve as fast as it takes them to re-code their own software, or apply hardware upgrades to themselves. Consider how fast computer technology has evolved in the last 30 years....and that's by a human mind that hasn't become any more intelligent.

Edited August 4, 2015 by Moonlight Graham