- 15 Nov 2013 07:53
#14330171
I am not neccessarily going to label myself a "technocrat" however I believe we will eventually evolve slowly toward technocracy. Unfortunately I think "post-scarcity economics" is a label that carries a lot of baggage, and the implication is that it is utopian and that there will literally be an unlimited amount of everything for everybody, regardless of what it is. That being said my understanding is not that resources will be unlimited, but that the resources necessary for everybody to have a reasonably high quality of life will be available for little cost and effort.
I do believe we will evolve naturally into a more technocratic system. The age of plenty that was long predicted is at the doorstep in some sense. 3D printers are only going to get bigger and better, and lower the cost of production radically. If 3D printers can simply print other 3D printers, there is no need for human labor. I do believe that meaningful human labor is essentially over. Most jobs in the future will mainly be non-productive, such as entertainment or art, or otherwise people will have no job. In a sense it is scary and hopeful at the same time, but we must fundamentally shift the economic paradigm from the 40 hour work week.
I believe there will be a natural redistribution of wealth through the cheapening of the means of production to such a level that anybody can reasonably control them. Many people on the left criticize falling wages and people on both sides criticize high unemployment, but perhaps the answer is not to worry about these things and instead to worry about making the necessities of life so radically cheap that people do not need as much money to afford them. If we can have 3D printers eventually print houses, and print the 3D printers that print the houses, there may be no need to worry about high rents ever again.
I believe that this natural evolution is not without its pitfalls. I believe that the powers that be will try to engage in a last ditch attempt to retain their power via the cloak of intellectual property. I view this as the single greatest threat slowing down technological progress, ultimately they will lose, but they will try to use it to stop the movement toward greater replication of resources, since taking the means of production out of their hands lessens their control over the resource of labor.
In the long run, as scarcity subsides, so will political differences regarding economic issues. The primary root of most political ideologies has always been economic interests, most ideological claptrap that goes along with it has fundamentally been a justification for economic interests. In the end politics in the traditional sense will simply fade away. While I am not sure technocracy will look anything like the movement of the 1930s intended it to be, we are truly at a major step in human civilization's political and economic development, one we have not seen since the Enlightenment birthed the concept of political ideology altogether. In the end this new world will have its birth pains, but I believe sooner or later we will arrive, oddly enough, at the world Marx envisioned (in the great long run). What Marx was wrong about was that class conflict would bring it about, instead a natural evolution would occur. Of course Marx could not envision the concept of technology which can replicate itself, and if he had who knows if his conclusions would have been different.
I know 3D printing is new, but I see it as one of several technologies that will change society more radically than the Internet ever did.
I do believe we will evolve naturally into a more technocratic system. The age of plenty that was long predicted is at the doorstep in some sense. 3D printers are only going to get bigger and better, and lower the cost of production radically. If 3D printers can simply print other 3D printers, there is no need for human labor. I do believe that meaningful human labor is essentially over. Most jobs in the future will mainly be non-productive, such as entertainment or art, or otherwise people will have no job. In a sense it is scary and hopeful at the same time, but we must fundamentally shift the economic paradigm from the 40 hour work week.
I believe there will be a natural redistribution of wealth through the cheapening of the means of production to such a level that anybody can reasonably control them. Many people on the left criticize falling wages and people on both sides criticize high unemployment, but perhaps the answer is not to worry about these things and instead to worry about making the necessities of life so radically cheap that people do not need as much money to afford them. If we can have 3D printers eventually print houses, and print the 3D printers that print the houses, there may be no need to worry about high rents ever again.
I believe that this natural evolution is not without its pitfalls. I believe that the powers that be will try to engage in a last ditch attempt to retain their power via the cloak of intellectual property. I view this as the single greatest threat slowing down technological progress, ultimately they will lose, but they will try to use it to stop the movement toward greater replication of resources, since taking the means of production out of their hands lessens their control over the resource of labor.
In the long run, as scarcity subsides, so will political differences regarding economic issues. The primary root of most political ideologies has always been economic interests, most ideological claptrap that goes along with it has fundamentally been a justification for economic interests. In the end politics in the traditional sense will simply fade away. While I am not sure technocracy will look anything like the movement of the 1930s intended it to be, we are truly at a major step in human civilization's political and economic development, one we have not seen since the Enlightenment birthed the concept of political ideology altogether. In the end this new world will have its birth pains, but I believe sooner or later we will arrive, oddly enough, at the world Marx envisioned (in the great long run). What Marx was wrong about was that class conflict would bring it about, instead a natural evolution would occur. Of course Marx could not envision the concept of technology which can replicate itself, and if he had who knows if his conclusions would have been different.
I know 3D printing is new, but I see it as one of several technologies that will change society more radically than the Internet ever did.