Beyond_Money

BEYOND FINANCIAL LIMITATIONS

If you've actually read the pages of this website, you know that I propose mega-scale engineering and interstellar travel in just a few centuries. The idea of solar energy collectors thousands of miles on a side orbiting the Sun, slamming asteroids together at relativistic velocities to make miniature neutron stars, propulsion beams the size of planetoids, starships carrying 40,000 people to other solar systems where more propulsion beams exist built by earlier colonization missions, starship terminals the size of Island 3, space elevators and ring worlds around planets and thousands of interplanetary ships of all sorts in every developed solar system must seem absurd. None of these things violate the Laws of Physics and Nature, but how could such things ever be afforded? The answer: The Robot Revolution.

The Robots are Coming, Some are Here Already
Some writers talk of the coming singularity, a time when technological progress accelerates so rapidly that we will barely be capable of comprehending our machines anymore, and we will be changed in unforeseen ways. I don't know if there will really be a singularity any more than there will be population crunch. I do know that robots will eventually do almost all routine work. Robots will work constantly, night and day, and work faster than humans. Robots will mine ore, load it on computer driven railroad trains, ship it to automated refineries and then ship the steel or other metals to automated factories where all sorts of products from cars to stoves will be churned out and packaged. The products will then be transported to warehouses where they will be stored. As orders pour in via computers with excellent speech recognition ability and AI salesman on the showroom floors, robots will fill and ship those orders. Minimal human supervision will be necessary, and the robots will not be as stupid and frustrating as present day automated phone answering systems. They will be gracious and user friendly.

Cheaper farm equipment in addition to robotic devices that plant and reap along with GMOs will make food cheaper. Automated canneries, slaughterhouses, meat packing plants and food processing plants will cut prices. Robotic systems will assist cooks in restaurants. Automated fuel production plants powered by cheap nuclear electricity will extract nitrogen from the air and hydrogen from water to make liquid ammonia vehicle fuel which will be sent by pipelines to cities all over the nation. Mechanized sewage processing plants will convert wastes to fertilizer with hydrothermal treatment. Food and fuel prices will drop.

Automobile prices will decrease thanks to automated mass production and also due to simplified designs and cheaper but better materials. The internal combustion engine and all its complexity will be replaced by fuel cells, electric motors and batteries. Engine maintenance will consist merely of periodic replacement of dust, moisture and CO2 filters as well as fuel cell electrolyte replacement once or twice during the lifetime of the car (20+ years?) and greasing motor bearings. There will be no exhaust system or catalytic converters. Brakes, run flat tires and steering systems will require standard maintenance. Even large cars will be so light that power brakes and steering will usually not be needed. Fuel costs will be low and mileage excellent. Headlamps and other lights will use LEDs that outlast the car. Simpler automatic transmissions for reverse, drive and neutral will be used since electric motors provide constant torque. Cars that use LNH3 will only emit harmless water vapor and nitrogen. Urban traffic noise and air pollution will vanish with a resultant improvement in psychological and physical health for humans. Standard chassis made of tubular titanium perhaps will be fitted with a variety of auto bodies made of never rusting polymers and carbon fiber reinforced composites. More aluminum might be used if its price can be reduced by a large supply of cheap energy and robotic recycling plants that separate all the trash and recover useful metals and burn the paper and wood waste or convert it to chemicals. Petroleum reserves might dry up in the future but there will be plenty of carbon from coal to make polymers and composites as well as cheaper plastics, and discarded plastics will all be recycled.

Private airplanes owned by individuals and businesses will become more common. They will be produced by robots and be made of aluminum/lithium alloys, polymers and graphite composites. Lightweight internal combustion engines will be made with ceramic blocks, turbochargers and high energy ignition systems. These engines will be more efficient and more powerful than ever and will be combined with high efficiency propellers and quieting muffler systems. Cabins will be thoroughly noise insulated for passenger comfort. Small jet engines for small planes will be seen more often. Cleaner burning hydrocarbon fuels than gasoline or kerosene will come from coal and energy crops in the era beyond petroleum. Digital autopilots, instrument flight and satellite navigation systems as well as electronic sensors that monitor engine and control systems health in addition to advanced weather forecasting, air traffic control, satellite communication systems and larger numbers of small airports for emergency landings will make private air travel safer than ever. The luxury of private flight will be available to all who desire it by the end of the 21st century. Small planes will even be equipped with parachutes in case they go out of control and enter a death spiral, however unlikely that will be with digital pilot assistants.

Computers with some speech recognition ability, robot welders, lawnmowers and robotic floor cleaners already exist. This technology will only get better. I don't think that robotic labor has even come close to its maximum potential with presently existing technology. Social factors hamper the Robot Revolution. There aren't too many Luddites around, but there are a lot of people who don't want to lose their jobs, especially when they earn union wages and benefits for their families. Until we find ways to re-employ people, retrain them and provide welfare benefits for workers displaced by the robots, the Robot Revolution will be forestalled. On the bright side, robots will cut costs and make things much cheaper, including farm products and processed foods, presuming their owners don't get greedy and take excessive profits, so loosing a high paying job and going back to work at a lower paying job when prices are plummeting due to the widespread application of robots won't be so bad. The labor unions and the government of the U.S.A. better prepare for this revolution. If they don't, we will be massacred by economic competition from Japan and other countries that are forging ahead with robotics.

Abundant Wealth
The Robot Revolution will occur in this 21st century. It will change life for everybody on Earth. Poverty will be eliminated as robot factories crank out thousands of different products by plastic injection molding, package the products and load them on trucks and trains for shipment. A typical factory will be staffed by a few engineers and some maintenance and repair technicians. Labor costs will be slashed and small armies of administrators to cut all the checks, manage all the time cards and insurance paperwork, pay taxes and other jobs needed to manage large numbers of laborers will no longer be necessary.   Payroll including outlays for fringe benefits will be cut by 99%. Costs and prices will plummet. Engineers, scientists, lawyers, doctors, computer programmers, managers and technicians will still be needed to do jobs that machines cannot. Barring the creation of androids, we will still need construction workers, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, etc. With cheaper steel, autos, building materials and other goods produced by robots, people will have more money to spend on houses and businesses will have more money to spend on buildings. Former factory workers will go into the building trades. Architecture will flourish. Teleoperated robots will rescue people from burning buildings and more buildings will be made of fire resistant materials with sprinkler systems.

We will still need human service workers like teachers, nurses, psychologists, etc. We will have more money to spend on health care and care for the elderly, insane and crippled. With concurrent advances in biotechnology and the eradication of genetic diseases as well as changes in lifestyle by the masses we will have fewer hospital patients so we can do more for the aged and accident victims. Getting humans out of hot, polluted, noisy factories will improve their health. Computerized driving assistants that use radar or electronic eyes to warn of vehicles in blind spots, limit vehicle speeds to within established limits, monitor driver health and warn them if they are getting sleepy or stressed out, and detect potential malfunctions in vehicles will prevent accidents.

There will be more to spend on education if we don't have to spend so much on cars and all the mundane articles of daily life that can be churned out by robotic factories. Smaller classroom sizes, more teachers, more tutors, customized educational curriculums and computerized home education will make learning easier.

Talking computers will allow home education to the highest levels at one's own pace. No more smug teachers and insulting report cards or servile obedience to professors and a rigid K-16 ladder of schooling. No more failure that turns kids off to learning and promotes more failure. The abundance of wealth will allow us to devote more time and energy to education. Slow learners and lazy people who aren't considered to be worth educating today will be elevated to higher levels of knowledge and become better citizens and wiser voters.

Material goods will be in great supply and financial limitations will fall by the wayside. We will have the resources to treat any disease by physicians with robotic assistants. Robots will assist during surgery, fill prescriptions and perform lab tests. They will also take over the mundane housekeeping and food service tasks at hospitals. Small robots will roll across floors and clean them. Microwaveable gourmet dinners of great variety will be mass produced in robotic factories and delivered to hospitals and other institutions. Patients will order meals via speech capable computers in their rooms and robotic arms in kitchens will yank out dinners from freezers, microwave them and send them to patients via dumbwaiter systems. Small implants will make routine blood drawing unnecessary and the implants will transmit continuous wireless data on vital signs, blood sugar and oxygen levels as well as other measurements to computers that can be accessed by doctors and nurses anywhere by way of local hospital wi-fi networks and security coded internet access. This will also allow more freedom of movement for patients. Computers will be intelligent enough to recognize danger signs and alert human caretakers before medical emergencies occur. These technologies will improve care and cut costs.

Crime rates will decline. The elimination of poverty will have a great effect upon crime rates. There will also be robotic policemen, more like teleoperated mechanical dogs than androids patrolling the streets that aren't afraid of bullets. Cheap surveillance cameras will watch the streets night and day. Those new expensive homes that people buy after so many things become dirt cheap will be equipped with burglar alarms and cameras that snap pictures of the intruders or stalkers that haunt so many innocent people. Hundreds of billions of dollars lost to crime every year will be saved and invested in better things.

Monetary Control of Society
It will be necessary to control consumption of material goods. Millions of indolent fools could destroy wealth faster than even the robots could produce it. Laws against sensless destruction of property will be necessary. People who purchase huge quantities of cheap products and then smash them up in primitive ritual fits of anger will be prosecuted. Money will still be necessary to control the allocation of resources. Some will earn more to motivate people to achieve higher purposes and some will earn less to discourage people from taking the easy mindless jobs best fit for machines, but all people will be able to attain a modern middle class level of existence. Political control of society will not end, nor will socialism be instituted. The free market and price competition will still exist. Workers will still be free to organize. Human services workers who are commonly underpaid today might demand their fair share when cheap material goods are so plentiful that people don't value things more than people.

Banking and financial markets will be larger than ever if people can purchase everything they need and want and have enough money left over to save and invest rather than consume gluttonously. Overproduction will be a danger, but unsold goods will be recycled into new products that can be sold for a profit. Nothing will be wasted and mountains of trash will not be heaped up. Excess production, well packaged in sealed air and moisture proof containers, could be stored up in warehouses until market demand exists. The robotic factories could be shut down without laying off thousands of workers, and the small number of managers, engineers and technicians who do work the factories could go on paid vacation until they were needed again. When the warehouses are emptied the factories could be fired up again. To save money, businesses could use prefabricated modules from robotic factories to build their warehouses and arsonists will be dealt with severely. Robotic security guards may be needed at warehouses just in case some idiot terrorists who would rather pinch pennies and herd sheep in the desert or gangsters who want to turn back the clock try to torch them. Items that manufacturers think have value but are not widely appreciated could be given away as sales promotional items like free books with magazine subscriptions or tax deductible donations to charities, schools, libraries, etc.

Overproduction could be prevented by lean manufacturing, the production of goods only after they are ordered and not beforehand based on the sales expectations of executives who have to sell excess goods and services at cut-rate prices often for a loss. This is similar to publication on demand, rather than sticking book stores with items that aren't sold or have to be closed-out. Factories filled with human laborers have to keep going because the unions hate lay-offs. Only when products don't sell nearly as well as predicted and companies sink into the red do factories shut down. Robotic factories will not be dominated by worker demands and lean manufacturing could be applied. Of course, if more people today made a living wage more goods and services would be sold, profits made instead of losses endured, even if the price of a fast food burger went up. The fast food restaurants could be partly automated and those who do work in them could be paid more and prices and sales would be unchanged. The formerly underpaid could go to work in the construction trades, human services or seek higher education and become professionals if opportunity exists.

What if the robot owners churn out cigarettes and liquor rather than cars, toys, clothing and medicines, etc.? That seems to be the case today with mechanized production of vices that are making us all sick and breaking down the self control of young people at drunken orgies. Governments will either restrict such production directly with quotas or resort to old fashioned taxation. Since taxation hasn't make anybody quit smoking, and we see drug addicts paying enormous prices, even selling their bodies, to gangsters, I expect production quotas to be the only way to stop the tsunami of legal poisons sold in the future, even if it puts the tobacco and liquor dealers out of business. The dealers of illegal poisons and smugglers/tax evaders will face severe penalties. Energy crops like genetically modified zero THC hemp could replace tobacco and grain grown for distilleries to keep farmers in business. The vice merchants might be wise to switch over to fuel alcohol production. With increased wealth people might find better things to do than smoke, drink and over eat for pleasure. Cheap tobacco, booze and greasy foods are nothing more than soma for delta class citizens. The slaves get to eat pig intestines while the masters get to eat mutton.

Human psychologists will be needed in the computer vision patrolled prisons and mental institutions of tomorrow. Computers will also assist doctors in the diagnosis and treatment of the addicted and mentally ill. Analysis of an individual's biochemical composition may be so complex that programs must be written that can work out a medication regime for each person. Implants will make it possible to track released mental patients and addicts with a history of threatening behavior and detect low medication levels or the presence of narcotics in the bloodstream or both. We will also be able to afford prolonged incarcerations of dangerous individuals until they are completely cured, if possible. Genetic engineering may someday rid us of the curse of insanity and addiction entirely. Even mental retardation could be eliminated. Lives without poverty and unbearable stress will also reduce rates of behavioral disease.

Greater understanding for the needs of children and adolescents will be of equal importance and this will require changes in social values. The "common cold" of mental illness, depression, which is really just medicalized unhappiness, will fade in a world of greater wealth and opportunity for travel, recreation and relocation as well as more artistic freedom and better jobs in less noisy, polluted, and less stressful environments.

Children will wear tracking devices on their wrists that respond to cries for help in case they are injured or sexually assaulted. Pedophiles will be identified through genetic and psychological testing and encouraged to receive Pavlovian counter conditioning and other therapies before they commit child molestation for which the penalties will be chemical castration and life in prison or death by slow torture, perhaps starvation in solitary confinement. Even with all these electronic gizmos and genetic engineering, common sense like constant adult supervision of children by certified adults.

Fluorishing of the Arts
How will the arts fare in the world of tomorrow? I can only imagine that with freedom from drudge work and an upper middle class level of luxury, artists, writers and musicians will have time to do anything creative they want. It will be possible to afford an apartment, automobile and medical care with just a part time job. The large house will require a full time job. Paintings, books and music CDs will be published on demand. The internet will bring these things home to people much as E-Bay is doing today. Smart publishers and producers who know how to market and advertise works of art, music and literature will distribute creations internationally via the web and other forms of media.

People who don't want kids won't have to have them. People who want to nurture artistic offspring will have the wealth to do so and large enough homes to keep them around well into adulthood without living in a crowded house. Wars and military budgets will fade in the wealthy well informed world of tomorrow. There will be more government money to support the arts and sciences as well as more private money available.

Robot Reproduction
Robots will beget more robots. It will not be necessary to give every robot the capacity for reproduction. That would be an unnecessary burden. The social insect model will rule the robot world. Robots will be specialized for the task they are slated for and reproduction will be handled by the "Queen" which is basically an automated factory filled with smaller robots and assembly lines that is fed materials on one end with finished robots coming out of the other end. The queen will also be capable of producing all the parts she is made of and assembly robots will construct new queens that churn out more robots. This model has been so successful in the insect world that our tiny six-legged natural nanobot friends are the most numerous animals in the world. Subsequently, there will never be a shortage of robots. With recycling and abundant energy from solar and fusion, and even extraterrestrial resources like platinum from asteroids, there will never be a shortage of raw materials.

Higher Living Standards, Lower Birth Rates
A high standard of living worldwide will lead to decreased birth rates as people seek higher and more enjoyable ways of life that supersede the old family social model. People will simply have more to live for than baby-making. As for those who want babies but never could afford them, they to will be free to pursue their desires. Some people might even find more to live for than sex, probably when they have passed middle age. With the satisfactions of automobiles, electronic entertainment, nice homes, air travel and more we can only hope that people find more to live for than overeating and debauchery. Even so, we will have the wealth and eventually android nurses needed to take care of the most nihilistic sociopaths if they chose to do themselves in with gluttony and narcotics rather than go scuba diving, flying, sailing, motor boating, collecting, exploring, traveling first class, playing sports, gaming, hunting, dancing, etc. Humans will truly have freedom of choice without coercion by poverty.

Space Travel
In a few centuries we could be enjoying travel throughout the solar system. Our robot armies will build habitations and weld up spaceship fleets or form graphite hulls in huge solar powered autoclaves in space to be enjoyed by all. I have no doubt that within 500 years a solar system wide civilization consisting of numerous democratic political divisions that cover only a fraction of the territory within the solar system will be able to provide the experience of interstellar travel for all who desire it.

The resources of space are vast and unclaimed. There are 825 quintillion tons of iron in the asteroid belt alone. That's 137,500,000 tons of iron for each of us alive today and even more silicon and oxygen. There are also vast amounts of nickel, cobalt, platinum, copper, manganese, gold, silver, titanium, rare earths, uranium and more, even hydrogen and carbon. There's enough out there to supply materials for great mega-scale engineering projects. Structures in space will not endure rust, corrosion, storms, earthquakes, etc. There are no governments to pay taxes to, local wars, indigenous populations to relocate, endangered wild life, or biospheres to pollute. Thousands of asteroids, dozens of moons, trillions of comets and the vast atmospheres of the Gas Giants can supply almost limitless raw materials to civilization in space. Humans will not fill the solar system like a growth of mold and use up all these materials. It's likely that the human population will actually decline in the future and spread out to many worlds thereby reducing population density and making more room for the animal and plant life of Earth to thrive without man's interference.

Once the Moon is industrialized economic growth in space with replicating robot production will become exponential followed by the tapping of asteroidal and other resources. The first mega-scale engineering projects will be realized in just a century or two.

Mastery Over Biology
We will not expand into the galaxy to breed like rabbits. We will expand into the galaxy to enjoy the experience of standing on other worlds under other suns and bring animal and plant life to lifeless worlds for the sake of enjoyment. We will not swamp the universe with humans. Warlike male dominated societies hell bent on expansion and slavery based female dominated societies hell bent on castration will appeal to nobody in the rich universe of tomorrow. Genetic engineering could allow humans to go free from the curse of almost constant fertility. Instead of consuming oral contraceptives every day, genetically engineered women of the future who are normally sterile, could take pills to make them fertile so that they only get pregnant when they want to and the rest of the time they just don't have to worry about it at all. When women need not fear pregnancy, or endure monthly cycling, periods and PMS, relationships between men and women will improve. When birth control is 100% perfect there will be fewer abortions. The danger of STDs exists and that could only be defeated by antibiotics, vaccines and anti-virals. Caution regarding relationships will continue not just because of rapidly evolving STDs but because of the human desire to protect one's emotions and self esteem.

Biotechnology will do as much to make life utopian as does the Robot Revolution. The common cold, cancer, deformity and even obesity and ugliness will be conquered through advanced medicine and genetic engineering. Humans will be designed for space travel. They will be given higher intelligence, better looks, longer life spans and the ability to hibernate. It will not be necessary to enlarge the brain and create grotesque humanoids. The brains of geniuses are no larger than the brains of average people. Somehow they are different on the biochemical level. Since much of life will center around sexual relationships, especially on long voyages, future humans will be given the gift of physical beauty. They will be modified on the biochemical level so that they can live for centuries, hibernate for months at a time and enjoy many long journeys. We will travel in space for the sheer joy of it. The galaxy will be our "oyster." That means we will be able to enjoy the galaxy, not destroy the galaxy. We will go beyond raping the environment and preserve it. How far will we go? That's hard to say. There will probably be no reason to penetrate very deeply into space. Within a hundred light years there are a few thousand stars, perhaps a hundred times as many planets, thousands of times as many asteroids and moons and trillions of comets and unknown numbers of "plutinos." That should make a satisfactory playground for future humans for quite a long time. Eventually we will transcend the bounds of time and space and evolve far beyond the evolutionary biology determined motivations that control our individual and political behavior today. We will develop android bodies far superior to the biological organ bags we live in today and create consciousness in the molecular circuits of electronic brains. We will live for thousands of years, roaming the galaxy in search of sensation, without possession by hunger, thirst, excretory needs, the experience of pain, fear of disease or injury, the emotions of fear, anger and disgust, or the irritation of filth. We will keep happiness, surprise and laughter. Curiosity will be preserved. Pride and dignity will remain. Envy will be disposed of. Some androids will have sex and some won't. That will be a matter of choice. Lust is a chain some cherish and others despise. Altruism will be extended to all living creatures whether they are electronic or organic. Our mechanical descendants will not be angels, but they will be our superiors. They will not be our masters, but they may become our replacements in the evolutionary scheme of things, especially if there is any way to transfer consciouness to them.

To put it another way, we keep reinvesting some of our profits to expand production. In this way supply keeps up with growing demand and prices remain stable. If population stops growing or even shrinks we go looking for foreign markets, like China. There's a billion customers to sell our products to, if they want our stuff. Since there aren't any aliens up there we must colonize outer space to create new populations and new markets so that we can get even richer...something Russians would never think of but may soon...We must keep supply growing to feed demand which knows no limits...We increase supply in many ways; one way is to conquer foreign enemies and take the spoils of war, plunder the natural resources of another country and enslave its people. This has been the pattern for thousands of years and it hasn't achieved much has it? Except for a few wealthy and powerful members of the elite who enjoy living for their own dominance like 300 pound gorillas who don't want to clean up after themselves but have to have submissive co-dependent wives, cadres of eunochs and abused sons and daughters to wipe their buttocks for them. With technology, artificial "intelligence," robots, etc. we can go beyond slave cultures, wars, raping, robbing and pillaging and create abundant wealth for all mankind. Machines will never enslave us. They can only carry out our programs. They are not alive and cannot think or feel.

Science is setting us free and will make us even more free in the future by creating the abundance of things we all desire. AI, robotics and genetic engineering will produce more than ever. By AI I do not mean Hollywood non-sense. I mean machines that can carry out complex tasks for which they are programmed and free humans to pursue art, poetry, athletics and love/sex. Only moralistic dictators who want to take us back to the slavery that made them rich and everyone esle poor to the delight of their bigoted egos can stop scientific progress. To hell with the old ways of misery, Popes, priests, generals, slave owners and other paranoids who project their aggression everywhere including radical environmentalists who want us to submit to their idol of impoverished country living. They want no alternative to a litter of a dozen kids other than celibacy and I want nuclear fission. A free living hedonic future awaits our descendants and millions of generations of truly free people after thousands of years of "civilization" on Earth built on the blood, sweat and tears of slaves and the mortal wounds of warriors.