"I love that you've brought this to attention. An extensive database of uncommon but resistant and hardy plants/foods could be developed and organized by climate. Ease of growth and processing should also be taken in to account. I will try to…"
A crash course in changing the world.
An Irrelevant Problem in a Resource-based Economy
In 2020, I envision myself living in a self-sustained, technologically advanced city in a global resource-based economy (RBE). Politics and the notion of nationalism of the present have been long abolished, eradicating the present-day problems of corruption, crime, poverty and war. In its place, a global RBE, where decisions are arrived at through the integration of the world's knowledge databases, enables Humanity to use its amazing capabilities to solely advance the human and environmental well-being; a far-cry from today, where decisions are usually made to benefit vested interests or based on erroneous opinions, limited by lack of information.
With scarcity forever abolished through the careful management of the world's resources as the common heritage of all the world's peoples, the use of money has been phased out, freeing Mankind from employment. Consequently, professions that deal with finance such as bankers, lawyers etc will be come obsolete. Likewise, following the trends of the last 100 years, automation will almost completely displace human labour from having to provide goods and services to society. As such, Mankind has the unprecedented opportunity to pursue any intellectual, scientific or artistic endeavour. At the same time, the engineered consumer society has faded away since the need to generate perpetual profit via constant consumption has been made obsolete. Henceforth, all products will be made with the best possible materials with the most advanced methods. Any planned or unplanned obsolescence designed in products to fuel cyclical consumption will be remembered as a distorted concept in human history that simply wastes resources.
Energy shortages will be an archaic concept since a RBE utilising the fullest potential of our technological progress. Without the need to withhold efficiency and promote scarcity to generate profits, Humanity will be able to tap the unlimited energy sources available in the biosphere via solar, wind, wave, tidal and geothermal energy systems. With an abundance of energy, automation of food and clean water production would solve all scarcity problems, giving all peoples access to the necessities of life. The crisis that Alchemy envisions would be irrelevant in such a RBE.
In such a society, people would be able to transcend the dominant value systems of childish competition, self-centeredness, inferiority complexes and the various neurosis that promotes a conflict-filled society. Education would not be designed to train subservient and narrow-minded consumers. Instead, the RBE culture would be geared towards the achievement of one's fullest potential in the fullest sense of the word, not paying lip-service to the idea. We would have a culture that promotes unity between all peoples, a genuiniely civic-minded global society.
Following my passions, I see myself as a teacher in the RBE, though not in the conventional sense as we use it today. I would not be teaching for a salary, but because I enjoy teaching and it allows me to actively participate in the elevating of the social consciousness. Children of a RBE would not be taught in the manner public schooling does, but they would be given the necessary tools to pursue whichever fields of knowledge interests them. No more will the present notion of duality or us-against-them be promoted, among others. Education in a RBE will give students a nuanced and open-minded view of the world and provide them with the opportunity to become multi-disciplinarians in order to solve social problems rather than specialised for mundane employment.
While this vision of the future sounds highly idealistic, even utopian, at present, we have all the tools and resources to create such a world. Through far from 'perfect' (for perfection never exists due to constant progress), it offers a better way of solving solving the massive social problems we face. As Jacque Fresco stated, "The only limitations of the future of Mankind are those we impose upon ourselves".
With scarcity forever abolished through the careful management of the world's resources as the common heritage of all the world's peoples, the use of money has been phased out, freeing Mankind from employment. Consequently, professions that deal with finance such as bankers, lawyers etc will be come obsolete. Likewise, following the trends of the last 100 years, automation will almost completely displace human labour from having to provide goods and services to society. As such, Mankind has the unprecedented opportunity to pursue any intellectual, scientific or artistic endeavour. At the same time, the engineered consumer society has faded away since the need to generate perpetual profit via constant consumption has been made obsolete. Henceforth, all products will be made with the best possible materials with the most advanced methods. Any planned or unplanned obsolescence designed in products to fuel cyclical consumption will be remembered as a distorted concept in human history that simply wastes resources.
Energy shortages will be an archaic concept since a RBE utilising the fullest potential of our technological progress. Without the need to withhold efficiency and promote scarcity to generate profits, Humanity will be able to tap the unlimited energy sources available in the biosphere via solar, wind, wave, tidal and geothermal energy systems. With an abundance of energy, automation of food and clean water production would solve all scarcity problems, giving all peoples access to the necessities of life. The crisis that Alchemy envisions would be irrelevant in such a RBE.
In such a society, people would be able to transcend the dominant value systems of childish competition, self-centeredness, inferiority complexes and the various neurosis that promotes a conflict-filled society. Education would not be designed to train subservient and narrow-minded consumers. Instead, the RBE culture would be geared towards the achievement of one's fullest potential in the fullest sense of the word, not paying lip-service to the idea. We would have a culture that promotes unity between all peoples, a genuiniely civic-minded global society.
Following my passions, I see myself as a teacher in the RBE, though not in the conventional sense as we use it today. I would not be teaching for a salary, but because I enjoy teaching and it allows me to actively participate in the elevating of the social consciousness. Children of a RBE would not be taught in the manner public schooling does, but they would be given the necessary tools to pursue whichever fields of knowledge interests them. No more will the present notion of duality or us-against-them be promoted, among others. Education in a RBE will give students a nuanced and open-minded view of the world and provide them with the opportunity to become multi-disciplinarians in order to solve social problems rather than specialised for mundane employment.
While this vision of the future sounds highly idealistic, even utopian, at present, we have all the tools and resources to create such a world. Through far from 'perfect' (for perfection never exists due to constant progress), it offers a better way of solving solving the massive social problems we face. As Jacque Fresco stated, "The only limitations of the future of Mankind are those we impose upon ourselves".
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Comment by Ezra Ho on April 7, 2010 at 7:49am
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@Alberto:
To elaborate on Davide's point, in a TVP society, people would outgrow the present values of competition, egoism, jealousy and other aberrant attributes. As TVP is based on the premise that peoples' behaviour changes when their basic necessities are met, this would also drastically lower the crime rate and increase the level of trust within and between societies.
As for the fear that culture would become h***geneous in a TVP world, isn't this the trend in a profit-dominated world where western corporations have an upper hand? Such a fear is justifiable since most people project current values and trends into the fear. But in order to imagine a different future, we must first disassociate ourselves from those values. In a world where everyone is free to pursuit any interests, there would be much diversity within a society rather than at present where the current system enslaves everyone to a job.
I don't know whether having fewer language or not is necessarily a beneficial development. But as far as I can see, it is irrelevant. I don't see any reason why we cannot have instant translation software and internet engines. Right now, either Google or Youtube (can't remember which) is working to offer subtitle services for all its videos via powerful computing capabilities.
If you're talking about customs/rituals of specific cultures, I would say that people in a TVP world would gradually stop practicing them if they are not beneficial in promoting the human or environmental well-being. Cultural lag is among the main reasons why our society is lagging behind the scientific and technological advances in the last decade. Of course, I acknowledge that in some fields, particularly western medicine, the modern world has lots to learn from so-called primitive cultures. I think its time we move away from the notion that we must protect our separate identities of nationalism, race or culture and recognise that we are one human race.
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The two biggest barriers hindering the RBE to actually be recognised as a worthy alternative are overpopulation and lack of technology. We either need to dramatically reduce the human population in a rapid period of time, which would entail the immoral practice of genocide and war or the implementation of instant information communication much like a flash in the mind to every single human being in the world - which is highly implausible as of today. Once population is sustained at a reasonable level such as 500million the RBE system must be tested in a practical sense to fix the "bugs" possibly prevalent when initially actualised like software distributed on a mass scale. That is what the TVP is for. But for it to actually be tested a supercomputer outclassing the ones present today must be devised to allow for social analysis and efficient allocation of resources and sustainable energy to be calculated. A feat that would drastically change the course of humankind. This can only be created with the help of the best of the best of technicians and engineers and current technology.
The concern about cultural dissemination is one that is noteworthy. However, through a vastly qualitatively-improved education, history will be preserved without bias and misconceptions; and so will cultures, languages, and traditions. But the counterproductive practices and immoral schools of thought will cede for a better human race (morally and intellectually) to make way for an enlightening future.
This will take ages my friends... words of a pessimist but I do believe in this goal becoming a reality.
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I don't really see any technical difficulties preventing us from developing TVP. Our problems are not technical, rather they are rooted in cultural lag.
While I do believe that global population growth may cause some strains on our resources, that is a problem which scientific ingenuity and technological progress can solve. Once we have achieved an elevated level of human consciousness and have learnt to operate within the carrying capacity of the Earth, uncontrolled population growth will be irrelevant.
Yes, I agree. Even if I don't see TVP in my lifetime, it is a worthy cause to devote one's life to. Every great movement has its beginning and my lot is with this one.
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Comment by A.V.Koshy on April 9, 2010 at 12:15pm
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Ezra - I understand about the need for a world government but it cannot be monolithic - the polyphonous nature of individuals, family, clan, tribe, langauge groups, sexual identities, religons and groups inside it, cultures, ethnicities, even divides between subjects and disciplines - will this rich fabric be lost in your vision? I want to know your opinion. This would suggest a world government that also has sub govenrments based on languages, natural boundaries, and other meaningful things. what do you think?
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Under a RBE in TVP world, government and politics will be outdated. Once the monetary system is abolished, the dominant value system of nationalism, class and racial prejudices based on social stratification would be transcended in time. Our world is so influenced by vested interests, financial or otherwise, that it is almost impossible to see through our own conditioning and imagine a world, for instance, without national boundaries or politics.
The so-called government in TVP would be a cybernated system overseeing the various automated factories and farms supplying the Earth, the water table and other biosystems via a global sensor system like the one HP is in the process of building, except that this one will be totally used solely for maintaining harmony between human life and activities and the environment and its sub-systems. Simply put, it will be a fusion of high-tech and a focus on nature to give us a social system that operates by protecting and promoting the human and environmental well-being. For many of our familiar institutions like political governments, the various divides between peoples, they will be transcended because they are obsolete, remnants of a backward past.
The "rich fabric" and "meaningful things" that you might associate with cultural and ethnic diversity is a romantic notion from the past. The cultural traditions of the various countries are only worth holding onto if they promote the human and environmental well-being. Things like rain dances and tribal ceremonies only promote social stagnation and stratification if they are kept in a unified world. In TVP, people will go by the Thomas Paine's creed of "My country is the World, and my religion is to Do Good".
I foresee language barriers will be overcome through technology. Google recently revealed that it will start providing subtitles in several languages through its language.... Understandably, the result might not be impressive. But under a RBE where costs are irrelevant, we will be able to use the best that technology can offer.
Here is one of my comments addressing this issue here. I don't want to come across as being lazy but I'm strapped for time, having to fly off to Taiwan for the next 3 weeks (without internet access) in a few hours time. Moreover, there are so many nuances in your question that there simply isn't enough time to comment on them. Perhaps I can do them justice when I return at the end of the month. Alternatively, I recommend you watching Future By Design (downloadable by torrent) for a look into TVP world.
"The politics of the present would not be present in a RBE. Again, ... CYBERSYN. If for instance, someone wanted to build a bridge, the database would provide all the necessary feedback that is relevant such as the best method of construction, which materials to use, or if it is not practical, it would provide the list of reasons why it is not advisable to build that bridge. It is not machines making the decisions for us, it is machines helping us ARRIVE at decisions in a more efficient and transparent way. After all, machines are more efficient than us in data storage (memory), analysis, and have even been able to come up with new inventions. And this trend does not seem to be slowing down."
To elaborate, most people are afraid of technology, having been influenced by the many technological dystopias of our Hollywood age. But that is just projecting our sick culture, our aggression onto cybernated systems. When was the last time you used a calculator to arrive at a mathematical solution? Or consider your present situation, how are you communicating with so many people at once while confined at a single location? Technology is simply an extension of human functionality.
For all my and TVP's predictions, this is only an estimation of what the future could be if we oriented our capabilities toward the humane application of technology and thus, is constrained by our limited information. The future of TVP will definitely transcend whatever we can imagine because that has been the case throughout history, just like people 500 years ago would not believe the way we are living or interacting.
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One more thing... Resources DO run out... whether you slow down its dwindling process or not... it is inevitable. Do you think space imperialism will be in order after our resources run out?
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Resources are as scarce as we make them to be. Technology can find substitutes or design a way around a scarce resource like when Germany made synthetic rubber rather than using rubber from Malaya.
We say they are scarce because at our current rates of consumption, we are consuming resources faster than nature is regenerating them. The destroying rainforests by timber companies, overfishing by fisheries etc. If we orient our technology to get the most out of the resources we extract and at the same time, ensure that whatever we take out is used for as long as possible, coupled with a TOTAL emphasis on recycling rather than on making a profit, we would be able to live within the carrying capacity of the Earth.
That is why it is called a Resource-based Economy.
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So everything in the end would be synthetic or genetically cloned/
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I'm just speculating based on past trends that have seen technology resolved issues of scarcity in a monetary system. In a RBE, maybe we will not even have to resort to creating synthetic alternatives if we use our resources at a rate which our biosphere can cope with.
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alright, interesting, thank you for your responses
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