[ZenWilsonian]

How would art be distributed? Whilst I envisage P2P and such making free music available, how would an original oil painting be made abundant? Wouldn't people start trading such things for huge reward?
And despite machines making things abundant, what if i wanted something non-mass produced, say a lovely individual handcrafted wooden chair? How would I order and p ay for this?

[futuristic]

So it means there is going to be inequality in the Technate, i.e. some folks would be able to have more scarce stuff than others. And I understand money would be needed to facilitate exchange of scarce stuff because exchange would be problematic otherwise. If the gov’t doesn’t provide currency a private currency like e-gold or webmoney would fill the gap. Would private currency be tolerated? And why would one work for free producing free stuff if they can get it for free anyway and instead make something scarce to exchange for something else scarce? And to what extent such activity would be tolerated? What if a corporation emerges that comes up with a way to make scarce stuff better than the tech admin would? What if the corporation lures best brains from the tech admin? I guess then the history would repeat a yet another time...

Besides, now the following items are also virtually abundant, i.e. easily available to nearly anyone: food, clothing, all sorts of gadgets like for example cell phones or computers, used cars, entertainment, traveling, low end housing, etc. As time goes by this list will keep growing.

[Korimyr the Rat]

I might also point out that there is already a rather large supply of free art on the Internet; people have produced it because they love it, and shared it for the same reason.

This would only improve as peoples' access to better art supplies, proper artistic education, and free time improved. As far as posessing the originals-- which are always scarce-- it's possible that the artists may trade them for other scarce items, but I think it's far likelier that they'll simply either keep the originals or give them to someone else for free, as a token of appreciation.

[futuristic]

Is this a problem? Given that all the important stuff in life (food, shelter, clothing, health care, entertainment, etc.) would all be abundant, what is the use of scarce items except to a few interested collectors?

Ha ha... Why then rivers are being cried about “inequality” while currently only the lazy, alcoholics, drug addicts, those who are not skilled enough to break the minimum wage barrier, and/or those whom the state keeps in the poverty trap to have pool of dependent fools to vote for corrupt politicians can’t get some of those items? If anything is to blame it’s the state and not the “price system”.

There would be so little of this sort of trading going on, that money would be problematic.

And yet economically viable...

And no, I don't think that it would be tolerated, because money is a big source of the problem already.

OK, so it’s going to be a dictatorship...

Short answer: because they enjoy it, and/or think that it is important to do.

And those who don’t think so would be forced to...
Besides, whatever is abundant is not appreciated or sought; only scarce stuff is. Inequality drives the progress. People want to get something that someone already has and they don’t; that is the best motive to apply efforts.

1) Corporations, as in "for-profit" corporations, would not exist, since they are by definition legal entities.

A corporation is merely a group of people and it doesn’t have to be a “legal entity” however “incorporation” would help to formalize its relationship with other organizations and individuals. If the state doesn’t provide a registrar of corporations a private registrar would emerge. Well, I know, the tech admin wouldn’t let it to get that far...

2) It is doubtful that any other kind of private group could "come up with a way to make scarce stuff better than the tech admin would",

That might be so in most but not all cases. You might hear about the success of the SpaceShipOne project. A sub-orbital space ship was built for a small fraction of what Space Shuttle costs. It’s not yet as advanced as Shuttle but the next model might be better than Shuttle and much cheaper. You may say a tech admin would be more efficient than a corrupt welfare state and nevertheless exceptions will be happening.

Besides, why would you do so anyway?

Because some people are individualists and want to change the world their own way.

For more original paintings and hand-made furniture?

It can be anything, not only “art”. Maybe a way of entertainment, for a example a virtual reality attraction that involves a 3-dimentional movie, smells, and moves of the whole thing or an artificial gravity – not something anyone even very powerful can easily do better than anyone else, especially if the “better” is hard to quantify.

Lured them with the promise of what? More inferior but "original" furniture?

More private money and scarce stuff from a “black market”.

It's not like they can make them rich or anything.

That’s exactly what would happen. A possession of more money and scarce stuff is precisely what the “rich” means.

Heck, they already are rich!

That’s not really rich. Anyone who lives in the 1st world is already “obscenely rich” by some-time-ago standards and yet rivers about the “poverty” are kept being cried...

Plus their work is benefiting millions of people

That may not be something some folks would want.

Also, it does ignore the large number of people that don't have these things

Correct, as I mentioned above, some people still don’t have necessities. I used to argue that the state and democracy are to blame.

So great, primitive shelter is "abundant" (by your definition, as in available to most people), whereas in a Technocracy, high-end shelter would be abundant (by Technocracy's definition, which is available to everybody).

The “primitive” and “high end” are relative. Old building are considered “slums” now and new buildings are “high end”. In 50 years those that are now “high end” will be viewed as “slums” and will be populated by the “poor” and will be abundant, well, to a “reasonable extent”.

Plus, while a poor person may be able to get a bicycle, or a cell phone, or similar, they would not be able to get all these thing, since their income is scarce.

In fact they would unless they are among those disadvantaged due to their personal and/or corrupt state’s problems.

Abundance is defined as "more than enough"

The "more than enough" doesn’t help if it’s not possible to consume it. I can’t consume more food that I need. Of course, I can live in a 100-room house with a humanoid-slave in every room but that wouldn’t be of a much higher value to me than a 2-room house.

but instead poverty only reaches an all-time high?

You probably also, like most others, confuse poverty with inequality. Poverty is absolute and capitalism steadily alleviates it unless the state deliberately perpetuates it.

Well, what can I say... I already stated in the past that although I don’t like Technocracy I would actually be interested in one emerging somewhere. These corrupt ever declining welfare states need a strong competitor to shake them up. Problem is that technocracy alienates 9 in 10 people who generate wealth on this planet, which means that attempts to setup a technate on a “continental scale” are doomed to fail due to fierce resistance. At best, if a technocratic party manages to impose its rule via democracy the best people would leave that “continent” leaving a herd of the lazy free riders behind...

So you guys should forget about the establishing of your empire in an “entire continent”. I believe that modern technologies would make it economically viable on a much smaller scale, kind of technocratic city-state, especially if the idea of voluntary working is abandoned. Probably the most realistic way to start it is to form a corporation that would write and publicize a business plan. The plan would be to issue bonds to get investment, buy a piece of land in a remote area, recruit enthusiasts to live and work there, build a city, setup some manufacturing, manufacture and sell some stuff to repay the bonds. Once the bonds are repaid the city may choose to reduce the amount of “foreign trade” but it would still be impossible to eliminate it completely. At that time, if the concept is proven more similar projects may be started and the original city may start growing fast...

[futuristic]

You must start with the basics, read the literature. There are two web pages full of it, so you can start there. Until you do, we're likely going to keep dancing in circles like this.

Actually I’ve read those web sites some time ago and I pretty much understand what technocracy means. And believe me I do like the idea. The only thing I don’t like is the collectivist approach and equality. And I believe it may work for some time but in the long run it’s doomed to collapse like socialist countries did after many enough people learn to exploit the system and not to work and best people leave the country lured by scarce stuff. Advanced technologies may actually be able to extent the agony, maybe forever. But still I would unlikely be willing to live there.

I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you are trying to say here. Are you suggesting that what I said implies some form of "inequality" in the Technate? Such a concept in abundance distribution has no meaning, since everyone's needs are different. A handicapped child will require additional care compared to a healthy person, etc. The point is that when things are abundant, you have "all that you need and more". That's what abundant means, "more than enough." In this case, "more than you can consume."

Here we are talking about scarce things that as you admitted would exist in the technate. Some of them may be very valuable, like for example an artificial body with a brain for a person who is about to die. Eventually these would become abundant but it would be too late for some folks. In profit motive and inequality driven systems at first only the rich would be able to afford to continue living forever. And in the technate, I guess, black market would emerge to satisfy the need as no one would care of the fact that it’s “wrong” as nobody wants to die. And many years before that knowing that the technology is being developed many people would work hard to earn private currency to be able to afford the thing when their time comes. And best people would leave the country if they decide they would have a better chance in a capitalist country. In other words, the history would repeat again. No system will work if it’s against human nature, no matter how “rational” it may look at a glance.

What does that mean?

I mean it would be profitable to issue and maintain private money.

It would make no appreciable difference in your life to have a few original paintings and antiques.

Forget about paintings. There are many more things we desperately need and those are or will be scarce before they become abundant.

There would be little to stop people from devising their own form of "currency",

Great

but it would not be legally supported

This is not a problem as long as the organization that issues the currency is reputable enough. Modern governments are not “legally supported” either and so are free to inflate their currencies or commit atrocities; slaves forgive everything.

and could not be used as part of the main mechanism of distribution.

Sure, the “main mechanism” if for abundant items. This debate is not about them.

in the Technate would be well aware of the dangers of making agreements in the form of debt claims, which is what money is, since the claims themselves can be manipulated.

I understand, a debt claim is when someone claims that someone else owes them money. How is it relevant?

Honestly, I don't really picture enough people wanting to do this to make it either a problem, or in any way beneficial.

It depends on what problem they actually solve at the expense of getting another problem.

You don't "appreciate" air?

No, I don’t, really. The same about food, clothing, electronic gadgets, etc., which I can afford in “reasonable” quantities. As capitalism creates more wealth more items will be joining the list, especially after the market makes the gov’t irrelevant so the gov’t would not be able to keep people in the poverty trap and suppress startup companies any more.

Then I suppose you wouldn't mind if someone forbade you from ever having any again?

Maybe then I would suffer. But until then I would not think about it.

This is a simplistic model of motivation backed only by scarcity-based propaganda.

This is not propaganda but a fact that is true for some people, let’s call them “individualists”. Contrary, “collectivists” may have other motives. Those two will be better off segregated (in different countries, continents, city-states, etc.). Socio-economic systems that try to reconcile preferences of the two don’t actually satisfy either party.

Also, a "corporation", whether "registered" by the Technate or not, would not be able to "own" anything, since the very concept of "ownership" in a Technate is completely different.

You’ve got to elaborate this. You don’t mean results of labor of an individual or a team are going to be confiscated by the tech admin, do you?

And the Technate is not just more efficient (which it is by orders of magnitude), but also has far more resources available to it, in terms of materials, technology, skilled people, and information. Just imagine an entire continent, working in concert, without the constraints of money (budgets) and politics (infighting, corruption), and just try to compare that with NASA, a single branch of a small body within a system stunted by scarcity, in only one country! It'd be like comparing a birdhouse to a skyscraper!

This sounds like propaganda. By this logic no startup company would ever be able to survive competition with established corporations that have people, resources, knowledge, technologies, and a puppet corporatist government at their disposal...

There would be far more opportunities for people (esp. individualists) to accomplish what they would like in a Technate than in any form of Price System.

What about those whose motto is “it’s not enough to succeed, others must fail”?

Well, if that's your choice, there'd be nothing stopping you from moving to the Price System country of your choice.

Right, it’s long due to segregate collectivists and individualists.

And what you described can still be recorded, and thus mass-distributed for free.

True. But the folks who designed the thing may prefer to manufacture it in limited quantities and exchange for private money...

But let me put it to you this way: if people already have a great standard of living, all the high-quality food of any kind they want, anytime, any clothes they want, super-cheap, fast and convenient transportation and communications anywhere they'd like, free health care and education, both top-quality as well, clean, safe, and spacious living areas, which they can customize any number of ways, a plethora of free entertainment, in more varieties than exist today, access to all manner of modern technological conveniences and services, and all the free time they can handle...

Another piece of propaganda...

given all this, do you really think that a relatively small collection of these scarce items (most of which can be reproduced anyway cheaply) are really going to attract that many people's attention?

Depends how valuable those are for particular individuals.

Does that mean that you no longer do? I'm confused.

I still do.

When the Great Depression hit, it was not due to "personal problems" or a "corrupt state", it was because we had produced so much stuff, that its price fell below what was needed in order to make a profit and stay in business, according to supply and demand.

There are actually opinions of people who researched the matter better than I did that state intervention triggered the depression and sustained it for quite a while. Market busts do in fact happen once in a while but they are much less painful if the state doesn’t intervene. And I know that there is consensus among economists that modern globalized market is much more resistant to shocks than it was in the past and state intervention often only worsens things.

You may say, this doesn’t mean the market is perfect. Of course it’s not. But this doesn’t mean practical implementation of technocracy is going to be better. Which is in turn doesn’t mean it should not be tried.

The symbol of Technocracy, the Monad, represents the balance between production and consumption that would exist thanks to the real-time distribution method called Energy Accounting.

This will not solve the problem of excessive consumption. Let’s imagine someone wants to live in a 10-room house because they love large space and someone wants a studio apartment because they find it more intimate and don’t want spending time cleaning larger space. The energy credit still has to be large enough to satisfy everyone. So the later guys may choose to get a 10-room house too even if it may make him less happy, which would cause excessive use of resources. For the same reason I am trying to avoid going to all-you-can-eat buffets as I tend to eat there more than I need, maybe because I am too greedy. At the same time someone who wants to live in a 20-room house would not be able to get what they want if this is considered “excessive” consumption, even if they would be able to afford it in a capitalist economy. The demand would quickly be met by entrepreneurs who would build 20-room houses and exchange them for private currency...

I don't think so. Poverty is largely relative, since many of our "poor" today are doing far better than those in the past.

That is not to be called “poverty” but rather “inequality”. To me “poverty” is the same as “poverty trap”. If some folks can’t buy more junk in addition to the one they have already bought it’s not “poverty”.

The point is that there would be no more poor in a Technate, at all.

Your “poor” == my “unequal”.

And capitalism, being based on scarcity, is no more capable of alleviating poverty than a monarchy, or dictatorship.

I used to argue the opposite. I made numerous posts about that. Check out this one and this one.

In fact its probably less able to

You actually may be right that technocracy would do this better but it’s not without its flaws and is not suitable for everyone.

I would suggest that this is more because you don't understand it yet, which I understand, it takes a while. All I'm saying is to reserve judgement until you do understand it.

I think I understand it to a good extent. In short it’s “politics” free ruling by scientists, maximum use of technology and knowledge everywhere, voluntary working, automatic energy credit, consumption of anything within energy credit, unused energy credit is lost. This approach has problems, though. Besides those that are often mentioned there is another one that undermines all governments – the tech admin is a monopoly, there is no other competing tech admin to compete with the former one and there is no power to force one of them out of business. This can be solved if multiple competing technocratic city-states are created.

You see, the very fact that you say things like "I believe..." regarding Technocracy suggests that you have yet a lot to learn about it.

Read again what I wrote. I wrote that a private city, especially an “optimized” one, can be economically viable. The city doesn’t have to be big. IMO, it’s a quite plausible assumption.

These calculations and measurements have been done and have taken decades to do, performed by some of the most highly qualified people in over a dozen fields.

That’s what I am talking about. Since than the productivity of technologies increased maybe 500 times. Besides, it’s just unreal to establish a technate in a big area like for example Europe because there are too many powerful people that would fight this development and simple vote by the majority would not be enough. So I would suggest you guys start with a “prototype” project on a smaller scale even though it may not be exactly a classical technate.