A Resource Based Economy

[grondilu]

You still are assuming conditions postulated by big bang cosmology. For instance you assume all galaxies are moving away from us, assume all stars will eventually burn out (without new ones to replace them).

This scenario is perfectly compatible with an infinite universe.

It's a common mistake to think that the big bang theory means that the whole universe was at some point concentrated in a singular point.  It was not necessarly.  All we know from the cosmological observation is that galaxies move away from one another according to Hubble's law.  By extrapolating this law in the past, we can deduce that about thirteen billion years ago the universe was extremeley dense and hot.  But it could very well be still infinite!   It could have been hot, dense, and yet still infinite.  However close you go to the crucial moment, it was getting hotter and denser, but always staying infinite.

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[myrkul]

You reject the notion that one resource cannot be used for two purposes at the same time? I don't think we can continue this conversation if you think that you and I can breathe the same air at the same time.

No, I reject the notion that it matters as much as you think it does, or that it can be interpreted as a loss or a cost.  If we are enclosed in a 100m^3 room I can understand that the air I breathe might be a loss (or cost) for you, but this loss is twice smaller if we are in a 200m^3 room,  ten times smaller in a 1000m^3 room and virtually null outside.

And over time, that loss grows proportionally larger. The only reason it's negligble outside is because it is continually replenished by plants. How long would you be willing to stay with me in those sealed rooms?

Of course it would make sense if you could. It wouldn't be cheap, even with self-replicating robots. You're also neglecting the R&D costs that go into the robots, the Dyson sphere, the energy transfer systems, these things don't design themselves.

Indeed I neglect them.  Marginal cost for extracting sun's energy might be so low that I wonder how you would take account for it.  Say this cost is 1MBTC.  After everything is developped and something similar to a Dyson sphere is functional, you create 1TJ of energy per year.  You can neglect maintenance cost since the system self-repairs.   So the cost of your annual production is 1mBTC/J after one year.  After two years, this cost has halved (because you produced twice the energy for the same cost).  Ater n years, the cost is 1/n mBTC/J.  The more time passes, the less is the importance of the initial investment in the cost.  Because you paid for the construction of the production system, you don't pay for the energy it produces.

So you understand marginal cost, but not opportunity cost? And you cannot neglect maintenance costs, because even self-repairing systems need materials. So the end result is cheap, not free power.

Neither is a plateau at 10 billion, even if humanity stays on Earth.

I never said that a post-scarcity economy was certain in the future.  I just said it was possible.

And based that assertion on flawed economics, and flawed definitions.

[myrkul]

http://goo.gl/lhr5V

Cute. You're supposed to present something that backs up your assertion, though.

First result: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift

Cosmological redshift is seen due to the expansion of the universe, and sufficiently distant light sources (generally more than a few million light years away) show redshift corresponding to the rate of increase of their distance from Earth.

Now, would you like to point me to something that backs you up, or should I continue to assume you're speaking from your rectum?

[grondilu]

And over time, that loss grows proportionally larger. The only reason it's negligble outside is because it is continually replenished by plants. How long would you be willing to stay with me in those sealed rooms?

Not long in a sealed room.  But outside, I don't worry about you breathing oxygen.  There is a LOT of oxygen in the atmosphere, not just because of current plants activity, but because of the Great Oxygenation Event which occured 2.4 billion years ago.  I've never made the calculous, but I bet that if all plants were to disappear right now, all humans will die of hunger much before they die of suffocation.  So no, I don't consider that when you breathe you steal some of my oxygen.  Well, technically you do but I don't care at all because I consider oxygen to be abundant enough not to worry about it.

So you understand marginal cost, but not opportunity cost? And you cannot neglect maintenance costs, because even self-repairing systems need materials. So the end result is cheap, not free power.

Self repairing systems need material indeed, that can be found in environment.  It does not vanish in the ether.   Organic life uses and recycles dead bodies.  It just needs energy to transform it into something that can be used again.  And once again, there is plenty of energy available.   If life can do it, machines could, at least theoretically, do it as well.  They'll do it themselves, which means that you won't have to sustain or help them, which means that there will be no cost.   Q.E.D.

[DoomDumas]

The only way you can enforce a resource based economy is through totalitarianism (at a degree that is probably impossible). Otherwise, people will acquire wealth, and a money will emerge spontaneously.

This is caused by our corrupted value system.  In an RBE, there will be no need for greed because all necessities of life will be provided, at a much higher level than today.  Values are the predominent aspect of it.  If everyone have all they need, including travel and leisure, there will be no more incentive for greed and stealing.  The shift to an RBE should and will be done with a dramatic value shift.

[grondilu]

Now, would you like to point me to something that backs you up, or should I continue to assume you're speaking from your rectum?

I can't help noticing from your signature that you provide a conflict resolution service.  If the above quote is representative of your way to deal with conflict resolution, I find it quite amusing.  

[DoomDumas]

If we declared all of the earth's resources as common heritage for all the world's people, and used the methods of science to construct and provide all of life's necessities for all people, then there would be considerable reduction in hunger, crime, war and poverty, not to mention unnecessary suffering due to lack of access of medical care or inadequate educational opportunities.

Seriously, this approach has been tried multiple times in history. Declaring all earth's resources as common implies in more hunger/crime/war/poverty.

Although Zeitgeist people do see the evil in the monetary system - and for sure there is - they fail greatly in understanding economics and ethics.
The main problem in the monetary system is the monopoly of money and central banking, not the existence of money itself. Money is fundamental.

I disagree on this one, money is'nt needed at all.. it was in the past, for sure, but now that humans have acheive such a high level of technology and science, this is no more true..  The science and tech level seen today is new to humanity and opens the doors for many opportunities !

Can anyone point me of an example when "all ressources declared common for all humanity" has been tried before ?

[DoomDumas]

Quote from: grondilu on Today at 02:21:46 AM
So you understand marginal cost, but not opportunity cost? And you cannot neglect maintenance costs, because even self-repairing systems need materials. So the end result is cheap, not free power.

What about external cost ?

[myrkul]

And over time, that loss grows proportionally larger. The only reason it's negligble outside is because it is continually replenished by plants. How long would you be willing to stay with me in those sealed rooms?

Not long in a sealed room.  But outside, I don't worry about you breathing oxygen.  There is a LOT of oxygen in the atmosphere, not just because of current plants activity, but because of the Great Oxygenation Event which occured 2.4 billion years ago.  I've never made the calculous, but I bet that if all plants were to disappear right now, all humans will die of hunger much before they die of suffocation.  So no, I don't consider that when you breathe you steal some of my oxygen.  Well, technically you do but I don't care at all because I consider oxygen to be abundant enough not to worry about it.

The GOE? yeah, that's plants, too.

Photosynthesis was producing oxygen both before and after the GOE. The difference was that before the GOE, organic matter and dissolved iron chemically captured any free oxygen. The GOE was the point when these minerals became saturated and could not capture any more oxygen.

I'm curious how long life would last with no plants. Maybe I'll ask Randall.

So you understand marginal cost, but not opportunity cost? And you cannot neglect maintenance costs, because even self-repairing systems need materials. So the end result is cheap, not free power.

Self repairing systems need material indeed, that can be found in environment.  It does not vanish in the ether.   Organic life uses and recycles dead bodies.  It just needs energy to transform it into something that can be used again.  And once again, there is plenty of energy available.   If life can do it, machines could, at least theoretically, do it as well.  They'll do it themselves, which means that you won't have to sustain or help them, which means that there will be no cost.   Q.E.D.

"no cost"... Right up until you get out to Ceres and discover that all the water ice has been mined for fuel for your army of robots, and now you're stuck with no gas, nothing to drink, and no air.

Now, would you like to point me to something that backs you up, or should I continue to assume you're speaking from your rectum?

I can't help noticing from your signature that you provide a conflict resolution service.  If the above quote is representative of your way to deal with conflict resolution, I find it quite amusing. 

No, that's how I deal with people being assholes and making unfounded assertions.

[grondilu]

The GOE? yeah, that's plants, too.

You wrote:  «because it is continually replenished by plants».  So you were talking about present plants.  I stressed out that current levels of oxygen are mainly due to prehistorical heritage of the plants activity. If all plants were to disappear, the oxygen levels would probably not drop to zero in a few days (yes, I'm exaggerating here)

"no cost"... Right up until you get out to Ceres and discover that all the water ice has been mined for fuel for your army of robots, and now you're stuck with no gas, nothing to drink, and no air.

Lol.  I'm not on Ceres myself.  I'm not even in space.  I stay on earth and I let my robots do all the work.


I'd like to ask you the question again:  do you seriously worry about other people breathing your oxygen?  Are you really going to insist on saying that air is a scarce commodity?

[myrkul]

The GOE? yeah, that's plants, too.

You wrote:  «because it is continually replenished by plants».  So you were talking about present plants.  I stressed out that current levels of oxygen are mainly due to prehistorical heritage of the plants activity. If all plants were to disappear, the oxygen levels would probably not drop to zero in a few days (yes, I'm exaggerating here)

This is true. But it might go faster than you think. I have, as I suggested earlier, asked Randall. We'll see if he picks it up.

"no cost"... Right up until you get out to Ceres and discover that all the water ice has been mined for fuel for your army of robots, and now you're stuck with no gas, nothing to drink, and no air.

Lol.  I'm not on Ceres myself.  I'm not even in space.  I stay on earth and I let my robots do all the work.

Just because "you" don't pay the cost, doesn't mean it's not a cost.

I'd like to ask you the question again:  do you seriously worry about other people breathing your oxygen?

Not particularly. At least not in any space with decent ventilation. But in a sealed room, you bet your balls I would worry.

[grondilu]

This is true. But it might go faster than you think. I have, as I suggested earlier, asked Randall. We'll see if he picks it up.

It'd be interesting indeed.  Yet all plants suddenly disappearing is quite a extreme hypothesis.  I don't worry about it happening any time soon.  So I don't worry about the levels of oxygen in the atmosphere.  To me, it is abundant and it will likely stay so for a long time.   I can breathe it without stealing anyone.

Just because "you" don't pay the cost, doesn't mean it's not a cost.

If my robot does the work with the energy it gets from the sun, to me there is no cost.  There is the price I paid for the robot (and again the robot might have been built by another robot, we talked about it), but this has been paid already.  The aditional value is free (zero marginal cost).

Not particularly. At least not in any space with decent ventilation. But in a sealed room, you bet your balls I would worry.

You can, locally, turn any normally abundant resource into a scarce resource.  Nothing fancy about this.  It happens in some particular situation.  Water in a desert, oxygen in a spaceship, and so on.  That does not mean you can say that the concerned substance is a scarce substance per se.  It has been made so by a very particular situation.  In a sealed room, I also would worry if you're with me breathing some air.  But that doesn't tell you anything about the scarcity of oxygen on earth.

[myrkul]

Just because "you" don't pay the cost, doesn't mean it's not a cost.

If my robot does the work with the energy it gets from the sun, to me there is no cost.  There is the price I paid for the robot (and again the robot might have been built by another robot, we talked about it), but this has been paid already.  The aditional value is free (zero marginal cost).

Dude. Seriously? I'm going to say it again, slowly this time, maybe you'll listen. Just. Because. You. Don't. Pay. The. Cost. Doesn't. Mean. It's. Not. A. Cost.

Essentially, all you've done is manage to externalize every cost. That's not a good way to run an economy.

You can, locally, turn any normally abundant resource into a scarce resource.  Nothing fancy about this.  It happens in some particular situation.  Water in a desert, oxygen in a spaceship, and so on.  That does not mean you can say that the concerned substance is a scarce substance per se.

Is it finite? Yes? Then it is scarce.

Scarcity, Economic. In economic terminology, "scarcity" refers to the fact that the same resource - regardless of its quantity - cannot be put to more than a single use at a time. Scarcity in an economic sense refers simply to the choice as to what use to put a specific resource, not to the quantity available.

[mobodick]

If we declared all of the earth's resources as common heritage for all the world's people, and used the methods of science to construct and provide all of life's necessities for all people, then there would be considerable reduction in hunger, crime, war and poverty, not to mention unnecessary suffering due to lack of access of medical care or inadequate educational opportunities.

Seriously, this approach has been tried multiple times in history. Declaring all earth's resources as common implies in more hunger/crime/war/poverty.

Although Zeitgeist people do see the evil in the monetary system - and for sure there is - they fail greatly in understanding economics and ethics.
The main problem in the monetary system is the monopoly of money and central banking, not the existence of money itself. Money is fundamental.

I disagree on this one, money is'nt needed at all.. it was in the past, for sure, but now that humans have acheive such a high level of technology and science, this is no more true..  The science and tech level seen today is new to humanity and opens the doors for many opportunities !

Can anyone point me of an example when "all ressources declared common for all humanity" has been tried before ?

You totally fail to understand that this is not a technological dilemma, it is a social one.
How the hell will you get the world to share everything?
As i said earlier, go ask Putin if you can have his gass.
Otherwise stop with the fantasies already.

[mobodick]

The GOE? yeah, that's plants, too.

You wrote:  «because it is continually replenished by plants».  So you were talking about present plants.  I stressed out that current levels of oxygen are mainly due to prehistorical heritage of the plants activity. If all plants were to disappear, the oxygen levels would probably not drop to zero in a few days (yes, I'm exaggerating here)

"no cost"... Right up until you get out to Ceres and discover that all the water ice has been mined for fuel for your army of robots, and now you're stuck with no gas, nothing to drink, and no air.

Lol.  I'm not on Ceres myself.  I'm not even in space.  I stay on earth and I let my robots do all the work.


I'd like to ask you the question again:  do you seriously worry about other people breathing your oxygen?  Are you really going to insist on saying that air is a scarce commodity?

If you don't worry about air then you live in luxury.

[LightRider]

Our sick consumer culture was strategically created with an assortment of psychological attacks upon the populace. We can use education and awareness to expose these manipulations and inform people that there is a better way to live together for the benefit of everyone.

[myrkul]

Our sick consumer culture was strategically created with an assortment of psychological attacks upon the populace. We can use education and awareness to expose these manipulations and inform people that there is a better way to live together for the benefit of everyone.

You know what the truly sad thing about you guys is?

How much you get almost right.

Adding techno- to a political philosophy doesn't make it work better. If anything, the wheels come off faster. Communism is no different.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Communism with robots. Define the word "scarcity" and you'll see whether such a system is viable.

[grondilu]

Is it finite? Yes? Then it is scarce.

Is see water scarce, according to you?
 

Scarcity, Economic. In economic terminology, "scarcity" refers to the fact that the same resource - regardless of its quantity - cannot be put to more than a single use at a time. Scarcity in an economic sense refers simply to the choice as to what use to put a specific resource, not to the quantity available.

I thought this was the definition or rival

But ok, let's say "scarce" means "rival".  I'm not sure this world is used in the economic sense in english but it really is in my language, so that may be a source of our disagreement.  Also, in my language, "post-scarcity economy" is translated into "économie de l'abondance", so to me it was natural to think that scarcity is the opposite of abundance.


There is a problem with this definition, imho.   Scarcity *does* depend of quantity.  You just can't say  "regardless of its quantity".  If a resource is abundant enough, then it can be used by several people at the same time.  Not the same actual atoms or molecules, sure, but still the same ressource.

If I can dig into a stock without significantly consuming the stock, then this stock is still available for other uses.  So it is not scarce, by your definition.   Don't you agree that your definition can be understood this way?

[grondilu]

If you don't worry about air then you live in luxury.

No.  I just don't live in a big chinese city.  The fact that pollution exists does not mean that air is scarce on earth.  Just as the fact that my bedroom is a mess doesn't mean that my town is not cleaned up often enough.

At most, you can say that air is scarce in some areas of China.  We talked about that already.  You can always make something scarce locally, sure.  But it would be a serious abuse of language to conclude that air or see water are scarce commodities.