Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
what is the problem, he control nothing in fact. senate is controlling what he does, and lobbies control the senators with cash for campaign... it is well known that business run US, and that is the secret of it's economic power. it works. at least for the business. :- 2012/1/15 mix...@bigpond.com They already did that decades ago. ;^) Maybe the solution is what Fidel Castro proposed recently: replace the US president with a robot.
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
On 01/11/2012 11:28 PM, James Bowery wrote: The only way to get capitalism to work is to shift the tax base from economic activity to the liquidation value of assets, and set the tax rate to the interest rate used to calculate liquidation value. But no one with wealth wants that to happen even though just about everyone who has high incomes would want it to happen. So, due to political economic considerations, capitalism cannot be made to work. This is not to say that socialism can be made to work, since in order to do so it would require that the liquidation asset interest collected by the government be dispersed equally to all citizens, no means testing. Socialists want to figure out how to spend your dividends for you because they're so smart and all. In other words: All fall down. Maybe the solution is what Fidel Castro proposed recently: replace the US president with a robot. http://www.elcorreo.eu.org/?El-mejor-Presidente-para-Estadoslang=es http://www.elcorreo.eu.org/?El-mejor-Presidente-para-Estadoslang=es In spanish. Translation here: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http://www.elcorreo.eu.org/%3FEl-mejor-Presidente-para-Estados%26lang%3Dessl=estl=enhl=ie=UTF-8 http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http://www.elcorreo.eu.org/%3FEl-mejor-Presidente-para-Estados%26lang%3Dessl=estl=enhl=ie=UTF-8 I (along with Castro) am being sarcastic here, of course. But nevertheless, the rationale behind Catro's idea is impeccable: given that the western world is so advanced at the technological level, perhaphs it should consider using that wonderful advancement to try to advance also at the social, political and economical levels, where it's clearly lagging behind the curve. In fact, technological advances are usually being used to even recede in those areas. The troubles with political and economical systems do not lie necessarily in the systems per se, but in people. As long as people refuse to look into their inner dark areas, to consider their evil within, so to speak, nothing will change. We have come to a point when we're talking about the benefits of nanotechnology, artifical intelligence, robotics and free energy, and at the same time threathening to use that knowledge to attempt to destroy the world. It's insane, and it's because people usually don't look (and take a part of the responsibility) for the contradiction. My 1992 white paper http://mysite.verizon.net/res10kjcq/ota/others-papers/NetAssetTax_Bowery.txt introduces an early version of the idea. The impetus for it came from my work to privatize government technology development programs in space http://www.oocities.com/jim_bowery/testimny.htm and energy http://www.oocities.com/jim_bowery/BussardsLetter.html. Charles Murray of the CATO Institute later wrote a book on an idea related to the citizen's dividend http://www.aei.org/press/society-and-culture/poverty/in-our-hands-press/. And, yes, this problem has been known well over a century. On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 8:48 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: noone noone thesteornpa...@yahoo.com mailto:thesteornpa...@yahoo.com wrote: I am all for vertical agriculture, but I am totally opposed to a global basic income. I do not support socialism or communism. Socialism, communism and capitalism are all based on ordinary people trading labor for money. In a few decades human labor will be worth nothing. All economic systems will be obsolete. See: http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/ With cold fusion technology, the price of everything will go down. Even a job at McDonalds will be capable of paying for a nice house, nice cars, etc. Even today we have automobiles capable of driving in California traffic. That is a more difficult task than any job at McDonald's. It is just a matter of time before all jobs such as this will be done by robots. A robot the replaces a person (or the entire staff) will cost McDonald's a few thousand dollars a year. you cannot buy a nice house were nice cars with that kind of money. The most difficult job at McDonald's is human language: cashiers have to understand what the customers are ordering. Cashiers can easily be replaced today by having most customers enter the order by touchscreens, and pay with credit cards. This would be like the self checkout lines at grocery stores. In the near future, computers will understand speech well enough to take verbal orders. McDonald's has not installed touchscreen ordering devices for the same reason the US automobile industry did not install robots in the 1960s. The government and labor organizations are putting pressure on McDonald's not to automate. McDonald's is one of the biggest employers in the US. Walmart is another huge employer that could easily replace much of its staff with
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
I think the problem is not with Capitalism (you cannot find anything better or more realistic, it is with Moneytheism- the most popular and destructive religion today. Peter On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 1:59 PM, Mauro Lacy ma...@lacy.com.ar wrote: ** On 01/11/2012 11:28 PM, James Bowery wrote: The only way to get capitalism to work is to shift the tax base from economic activity to the liquidation value of assets, and set the tax rate to the interest rate used to calculate liquidation value. But no one with wealth wants that to happen even though just about everyone who has high incomes would want it to happen. So, due to political economic considerations, capitalism cannot be made to work. This is not to say that socialism can be made to work, since in order to do so it would require that the liquidation asset interest collected by the government be dispersed equally to all citizens, no means testing. Socialists want to figure out how to spend your dividends for you because they're so smart and all. In other words: All fall down. Maybe the solution is what Fidel Castro proposed recently: replace the US president with a robot. http://www.elcorreo.eu.org/?El-mejor-Presidente-para-Estadoslang=es In spanish. Translation here: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http://www.elcorreo.eu.org/%3FEl-mejor-Presidente-para-Estados%26lang%3Dessl=estl=enhl=ie=UTF-8 I (along with Castro) am being sarcastic here, of course. But nevertheless, the rationale behind Catro's idea is impeccable: given that the western world is so advanced at the technological level, perhaphs it should consider using that wonderful advancement to try to advance also at the social, political and economical levels, where it's clearly lagging behind the curve. In fact, technological advances are usually being used to even recede in those areas. The troubles with political and economical systems do not lie necessarily in the systems per se, but in people. As long as people refuse to look into their inner dark areas, to consider their evil within, so to speak, nothing will change. We have come to a point when we're talking about the benefits of nanotechnology, artifical intelligence, robotics and free energy, and at the same time threathening to use that knowledge to attempt to destroy the world. It's insane, and it's because people usually don't look (and take a part of the responsibility) for the contradiction. My 1992 white paperhttp://mysite.verizon.net/res10kjcq/ota/others-papers/NetAssetTax_Bowery.txt introduces an early version of the idea. The impetus for it came from my work to privatize government technology development programs in spacehttp://www.oocities.com/jim_bowery/testimny.htm and energy http://www.oocities.com/jim_bowery/BussardsLetter.html. Charles Murray of the CATO Institute later wrote a book on an idea related to the citizen's dividendhttp://www.aei.org/press/society-and-culture/poverty/in-our-hands-press/ . And, yes, this problem has been known well over a century. On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 8:48 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.comwrote: noone noone thesteornpa...@yahoo.com wrote: I am all for vertical agriculture, but I am totally opposed to a global basic income. I do not support socialism or communism. Socialism, communism and capitalism are all based on ordinary people trading labor for money. In a few decades human labor will be worth nothing. All economic systems will be obsolete. See: http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/ With cold fusion technology, the price of everything will go down. Even a job at McDonalds will be capable of paying for a nice house, nice cars, etc. Even today we have automobiles capable of driving in California traffic. That is a more difficult task than any job at McDonald's. It is just a matter of time before all jobs such as this will be done by robots. A robot the replaces a person (or the entire staff) will cost McDonald's a few thousand dollars a year. you cannot buy a nice house were nice cars with that kind of money. The most difficult job at McDonald's is human language: cashiers have to understand what the customers are ordering. Cashiers can easily be replaced today by having most customers enter the order by touchscreens, and pay with credit cards. This would be like the self checkout lines at grocery stores. In the near future, computers will understand speech well enough to take verbal orders. McDonald's has not installed touchscreen ordering devices for the same reason the US automobile industry did not install robots in the 1960s. The government and labor organizations are putting pressure on McDonald's not to automate. McDonald's is one of the biggest employers in the US. Walmart is another huge employer that could easily replace much of its staff with robots. I'm sure that it will within 20 years. Robots capable of stocking shelves are already available. At
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
On 01/14/2012 09:21 AM, Peter Gluck wrote: I think the problem is not with Capitalism (you cannot find anything better or more realistic, it is with Moneytheism- the most popular and destructive religion today. I think the same. The problem is in the way money is taken as a value in itself, when it should be considered just a convenient form of replacement for other, real values. The way money is valued, that's where the real problem lies. In fact, we're in a really stupid state of affairs, come to look at it and understand how it really works. But unless people are willing to look at these things in the face, so to speak, without any kind of self delusion, caused by dwelling in cloudy and vague ideas(where they personal interests and ambitions also play a role, of course), nothing will really change. People should start to feel ashamed for being part of this state of affairs. That's what must happen first, and only then, real change will be possible. Best regards. I'm going out to the woods now(literally). Have a nice weekend, Mauro
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 5:59 AM, Mauro Lacy ma...@lacy.com.ar wrote: ** On 01/11/2012 11:28 PM, James Bowery wrote: The only way to get capitalism to work is to shift the tax base from economic activity to the liquidation value of assets, and set the tax rate to the interest rate used to calculate liquidation value. But no one with wealth wants that to happen even though just about everyone who has high incomes would want it to happen. So, due to political economic considerations, capitalism cannot be made to work. This is not to say that socialism can be made to work, since in order to do so it would require that the liquidation asset interest collected by the government be dispersed equally to all citizens, no means testing. Socialists want to figure out how to spend your dividends for you because they're so smart and all. In other words: All fall down. given that the western world is so advanced at the technological level, perhaphs it should consider using that wonderful advancement to try to advance also at the social, political and economical levels, where it's clearly lagging behind the curve. You can't have advancement in science hence technology unless you can conduct controlled experiments to untangle correlation from causation. The only way to ethically conduct controlled experiments in the social sciences is to promote assortative migration forming experiments in human ecology under mutual consent. The best way to facilitate that assortative migration, and the associated territorial reallocation, is the citizen's dividend I described. Anything less that claims to do social engineering based on science is bullshit.
RE: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
BRAVO. Well said by all. A bit off-topic, but with keen insight, which is hard to find these days, on-topic. -Original Message- From: Mauro Lacy I think the same. The problem is in the way money is taken as a value in itself, when it should be considered just a convenient form of replacement for other, real values The way money is valued, that's where the real problem lies. Peter Gluck wrote: I think the problem is not with Capitalism - you cannot find anything better or more realistic, it is with Moneytheism- the most popular and destructive religion today. James Bowery wrote: The only way to get capitalism to work is to shift the tax base from economic activity to the liquidation value of assets, and set the tax rate to the interest rate used to calculate liquidation value. But no one with wealth wants that to happen even though just about everyone who has high incomes would want it to happen So, due to political economic considerations, capitalism cannot be made to work. attachment: winmail.dat
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
We need to put down the guns. Every action taken by government, whether it's a new law, or some tax, is enforced by violence and the threat of violence. It's enforced at the point of a gun. We need to stop using guns to solve our social problems. Replace laws with voluntary agreements, and replace taxes with user fees. The difference is choice, and the way the rules are enforced. By allowing people to rule over us without a moral code, is the equivalent of throwing a loaded gun into a monkey cage. Put down the guns.
RE: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
From Mauro, . The problem is in the way money is taken as a value in itself, when it should be considered just a convenient form of replacement for other, real values. The way money is valued, that's where the real problem lies. In fact, we're in a really stupid state of affairs, come to look at it and understand how it really works. But unless people are willing to look at these things in the face, so to speak, without any kind of self delusion, caused by dwelling in cloudy and vague ideas(where they personal interests and ambitions also play a role, of course), nothing will really change. People should start to feel ashamed for being part of this state of affairs. That's what must happen first, and only then, real change will be possible. I couldn't agree more, Mauro. I've made similar arguments. I shall now rant in more detail. (You have been warned!) ;-) Initially money (or currency) was initially represented in the form of precious stones and metals. There was always a limited supply of gold ands ilver, so the intrinsic value was kept relatively stable throughout the ages. Back then, most forms of currency literally represented the intrinsic value of what it was constructed out of. People across the globe always had faith that pieces of gold silver would maintain its value, and they were right. However, in contemporary times, that has not been the case for quite a while, such as when the United States went off of the gold standard, and oh, what a bru ha-ha that caused! In place of the gold standard modern civilizations have attempted to maintain intrinsic value through a series of complicated policy controls. They also try to make the representation of currency extremely difficult to duplicate in order to discourage rampant counterfeiting which, if left unchecked, would dilute, or cause rampant inflation. Alas, the devil is in the details as to who actually controls the intrinsic value of contemporary currency - and there lies the rub. Whoever controls those knobs and dials assumes control of the world. In contemporary times, there seems to be an on-going battle for supremacy played out between federal governments versus big private businesses. Certain aspects of Big Businesses seem to believe that if they can accumulate as much currency as they can in their private piggy banks, by default, they will control the intrinsic value of currency. If enough of them accumulate the stuff they will end up making currency scarce. That means all the currency they have accumulated over the years is perceived as even MORE valuable. However, to maintain the illusion of scarcity, big businesses have to be assured that the federal government will not do something apocalyptic like print up additional currency and then hand out those notes to needy portions of the population via through various government sanctioned programs. That's where various forms of institutionalized bribery come into play with the objective of eliciting appropriate kinds of money policy behavior from governments. Likewise, it would seem that certain aspects of Big Government believe that if they can tax more individuals and private corporations that in turn will siphon off the ills of excess inflation-producing currency. By default that would also cause currency to become scarce, and more valued. I hasten to add however that I've never heard governments explain it in such terms. They would, in fact emphatically deny that THAT is what they are doing. However, by default, the more governments taxes, the less currency would be left in consumer corporate pockets to spend. By default, that means the remaining currency becomes even more valued. In theory, it would seem, taxation can also counter the effects of inflation. What seems to have been lost in the translation is the fact that both Businesses and Governments are essentially BUSINESSES. Both systems have devised varies ways and means of collecting currency from customers. In return they all attempt to provide useful products and services for their paying customers. Customers, in turn, must decide if they are getting their money's worth. When it comes to assessing the value products produced from private businesses, if you don't like what you bought don't buy from them anymore. Buy from a competitor. When it comes to assessing the value of government services, vote the senator (or president) out of office, and attempt to install another more agreeable puppet that will do what you want him to do for you. The only appreciable difference is the fact that the business known as the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT can legally print up more currency (which, of course scares the BiJesus out of private corporations), whereas any other private or state business caught doing the same thing will be strung up by the short hairs. I suspect contemporary society will have to come to better terms with how we perceive the value of currency. IMHO, what has
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
Perhaps this document: Capitalism: Reject or Retool?: http://bigthink.com/ideas/41870: from INFORMAVORES SUNDAY No 490 can help you in this problem. Peter On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 6:50 PM, OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson orionwo...@charter.net wrote: From Mauro, ** ** … The problem is in the way money is taken as a value in itself, when it should be considered just a convenient form of replacement for other, real values. The way money is valued, that's where the real problem lies. In fact,*** * we're in a really stupid state of affairs, come to look at it and understand how it really works. But unless people are willing to look*** * at these things in the face, so to speak, without any kind of self delusion, caused by dwelling in cloudy and vague ideas(where they personal interests and ambitions also play a role, of course), nothing** ** will really change. People should start to feel ashamed for being part** ** of this state of affairs. That's what must happen first, and only then,* *** real change will be possible. ** ** I couldn't agree more, Mauro. ** ** I've made similar arguments. I shall now rant in more detail. (You have been warned!) ;-) ** ** Initially money (or currency) was initially represented in the form of precious stones and metals. There was always a limited supply of gold ands ilver, so the intrinsic value was kept relatively stable throughout the ages. Back then, most forms of currency literally represented the intrinsic value of what it was constructed out of. People across the globe always had faith that pieces of gold silver would maintain its value, and they were right. ** ** However, in contemporary times, that has not been the case for quite a while, such as when the United States went off of the gold standard, and oh, what a bru ha-ha that caused! In place of the gold standard modern civilizations have attempted to maintain intrinsic value through a series of complicated policy controls. They also try to make the representation of currency extremely difficult to duplicate in order to discourage rampant counterfeiting which, if left unchecked, would dilute, or cause rampant inflation. ** ** Alas, the devil is in the details as to who actually controls the intrinsic value of contemporary currency – and there lies the rub. Whoever controls those knobs and dials assumes control of the world. In contemporary times, there seems to be an on-going battle for supremacy played out between federal governments versus big private businesses. ** ** Certain aspects of Big Businesses seem to believe that if they can accumulate as much currency as they can in their private piggy banks, by default, they will control the intrinsic value of currency. If enough of them accumulate the stuff they will end up making currency scarce. That means all the currency they have accumulated over the years is perceived as even MORE valuable. However, to maintain the illusion of scarcity, big businesses have to be assured that the federal government will not do something apocalyptic like print up additional currency and then hand out those notes to needy portions of the population via through various government sanctioned programs. That's where various forms of institutionalized bribery come into play with the objective of eliciting appropriate kinds of money policy behavior from governments. ** ** Likewise, it would seem that certain aspects of Big Government believe that if they can tax more individuals and private corporations that in turn will siphon off the ills of excess inflation-producing currency. By default that would also cause currency to become scarce, and more valued. I hasten to add however that I've never heard governments explain it in such terms. They would, in fact emphatically deny that THAT is what they are doing. However, by default, the more governments taxes, the less currency would be left in consumer corporate pockets to spend. By default, that means the remaining currency becomes even more valued. In theory, it would seem, taxation can also counter the effects of inflation. ** ** What seems to have been lost in the translation is the fact that both Businesses and Governments are essentially BUSINESSES. Both systems have devised varies ways and means of collecting currency from customers. In return they all attempt to provide useful products and services for their paying customers. Customers, in turn, must decide if they are getting their money's worth. When it comes to assessing the value products produced from private businesses, if you don't like what you bought don't buy from them anymore. Buy from a competitor. When it comes to assessing the value of government services, vote the senator (or president) out of office, and attempt to install another more agreeable puppet that will do what you
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
In reply to Mauro Lacy's message of Sat, 14 Jan 2012 08:59:31 -0300: Hi, [snip] Maybe the solution is what Fidel Castro proposed recently: replace the US president with a robot. They already did that decades ago. ;^) Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
The only way to get capitalism to work is to shift the tax base from economic activity to the liquidation value of assets, and set the tax rate to the interest rate used to calculate liquidation value. But no one with wealth wants that to happen even though just about everyone who has high incomes would want it to happen. So, due to political economic considerations, capitalism cannot be made to work. This is not to say that socialism can be made to work, since in order to do so it would require that the liquidation asset interest collected by the government be dispersed equally to all citizens, no means testing. Socialists want to figure out how to spend your dividends for you because they're so smart and all. In other words: All fall down. My 1992 white paperhttp://mysite.verizon.net/res10kjcq/ota/others-papers/NetAssetTax_Bowery.txt introduces an early version of the idea. The impetus for it came from my work to privatize government technology development programs in spacehttp://www.oocities.com/jim_bowery/testimny.htm and energy http://www.oocities.com/jim_bowery/BussardsLetter.html. Charles Murray of the CATO Institute later wrote a book on an idea related to the citizen's dividendhttp://www.aei.org/press/society-and-culture/poverty/in-our-hands-press/ . And, yes, this problem has been known well over a century. On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 8:48 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: noone noone thesteornpa...@yahoo.com wrote: I am all for vertical agriculture, but I am totally opposed to a global basic income. I do not support socialism or communism. Socialism, communism and capitalism are all based on ordinary people trading labor for money. In a few decades human labor will be worth nothing. All economic systems will be obsolete. See: http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/ With cold fusion technology, the price of everything will go down. Even a job at McDonalds will be capable of paying for a nice house, nice cars, etc. Even today we have automobiles capable of driving in California traffic. That is a more difficult task than any job at McDonald's. It is just a matter of time before all jobs such as this will be done by robots. A robot the replaces a person (or the entire staff) will cost McDonald's a few thousand dollars a year. you cannot buy a nice house were nice cars with that kind of money. The most difficult job at McDonald's is human language: cashiers have to understand what the customers are ordering. Cashiers can easily be replaced today by having most customers enter the order by touchscreens, and pay with credit cards. This would be like the self checkout lines at grocery stores. In the near future, computers will understand speech well enough to take verbal orders. McDonald's has not installed touchscreen ordering devices for the same reason the US automobile industry did not install robots in the 1960s. The government and labor organizations are putting pressure on McDonald's not to automate. McDonald's is one of the biggest employers in the US. Walmart is another huge employer that could easily replace much of its staff with robots. I'm sure that it will within 20 years. Robots capable of stocking shelves are already available. At present people are cheaper for an environment such as a Walmart store, but people are not becoming twice as fast and far cheaper every few years. At places like Amazon.com, and the newest university libraries that still handle paper books, robots do the inventory work. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 9:28 PM, James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: In other words: All fall down. I don't know you; but, this is the most aware perception that I have ever seen posted on this or any other list. I have just had a conversation with my wife on world politics and she is not happy with my conclusions. The economy of the US is critically dependent on the war machine. DD Eisenhower warned us about the war machine; but, we did not heed his call. The first world Euro economy is in turmoil due to an attempt to mimic the second world US economy with the burden of the legacy of their history and new immigration. The third world of China is leeching off the first two world economies. The new found Russian economy probably is short lived due to the deep well drilling in Siberia and the fact that crude is actually abiotic. The resource poor third/fourth world suffers as always due to too much sex and little resources. All are dependent on the petrodollar. Energy is the new currency, replacing gold. A new energy source will create a revolution which will eliminate nationalism and create a world economy which can be utopian. Or not. T
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
I am all for vertical agriculture, but I am totally opposed to a global basic income. I do not support socialism or communism. With cold fusion technology, the price of everything will go down. Even a job at McDonalds will be capable of paying for a nice house, nice cars, etc. We can have a world in which there is almost no poverty, without a global basic income. From: Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 2:10 AM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects Cold fusion will solve every major global problems. And they can be defined with two words: For environmental problems: _vertical agriculture_ For political problems: _global basic income_ And ALL known political, economical and environmental problems are solved and we live in the age of Star Trek more than 100 years earlier than in Star Trek time line. We could do this already without cold fusion, but I would say that people are slow, so they need a little push. Cold fusion will render anyway all conventional thinking useless. Therefore with cold fusion new ideas are easier to accept. —Jouni
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
I can't wait until the cost of everything has went down dramatically. I think combining cold fusion with robotics and nanotechnology could allow us to end up in a world where there is no such thing as scarcity. Everything could be dirt cheap, and a simple part-time job would allow someone to live in a nice house, have nice cars, etc. From: Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 8:28 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects The Internet has improved efficiency in a wide range of industries, such as grocery store inventory. Has it had a deflationary effect on these industries? I do not know. It has deflated goods and services directly produced by the Internet itself, such as publishing books. Amazon Kindle books are much cheaper than printed ones. But has it reduced the cost of carrots? Hard to say. Energy has a direct impact on the cost of even more goods and services than the Internet does, so I suppose cold fusion might be deflationary across the board. One way of describing a deflationary effect is to say it improves productivity. I think those are two sides of the same coin. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
Bushnell had the vision to make Mars habitable. Ok, thats an utopy. But can make deserts green and siberia habitable. Its unclear what this does to global climate. It can solve the water problems in far east and israel and can prevent wars for oil. But this all must be seen with care. Each new technology has unwanted effects. The fertility of biological life, vegetables, animals and humans grows exponential in time when the resources are available. Space can only grow cubic in best case, when we increase our radius. This is the basic problem of biological live and it is purely mathematical. Even if space where filled with habitable paradisic planets, infinite growth is impossible. There is no heaven in this side of reality where we live physically. There is always a purely mathematical limit of growth and if this is not seen and handled with care and with ratio, then it will produce new conflicts, this is foreseeable. best regards, Peter - Original Nachricht Von: Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com An: vortex-l@eskimo.com Datum: 13.12.2011 08:10 Betreff: Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects Cold fusion will solve every major global problems. And they can be defined with two words: For environmental problems: _vertical agriculture_ For political problems: _global basic income_ And ALL known political, economical and environmental problems are solved and we live in the age of Star Trek more than 100 years earlier than in Star Trek time line. We could do this already without cold fusion, but I would say that people are slow, so they need a little push. Cold fusion will render anyway all conventional thinking useless. Therefore with cold fusion new ideas are easier to accept. ?Jouni
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
noone noone thesteornpa...@yahoo.com wrote: I am all for vertical agriculture, but I am totally opposed to a global basic income. I do not support socialism or communism. Socialism, communism and capitalism are all based on ordinary people trading labor for money. In a few decades human labor will be worth nothing. All economic systems will be obsolete. See: http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/ With cold fusion technology, the price of everything will go down. Even a job at McDonalds will be capable of paying for a nice house, nice cars, etc. Even today we have automobiles capable of driving in California traffic. That is a more difficult task than any job at McDonald's. It is just a matter of time before all jobs such as this will be done by robots. A robot the replaces a person (or the entire staff) will cost McDonald's a few thousand dollars a year. you cannot buy a nice house were nice cars with that kind of money. The most difficult job at McDonald's is human language: cashiers have to understand what the customers are ordering. Cashiers can easily be replaced today by having most customers enter the order by touchscreens, and pay with credit cards. This would be like the self checkout lines at grocery stores. In the near future, computers will understand speech well enough to take verbal orders. McDonald's has not installed touchscreen ordering devices for the same reason the US automobile industry did not install robots in the 1960s. The government and labor organizations are putting pressure on McDonald's not to automate. McDonald's is one of the biggest employers in the US. Walmart is another huge employer that could easily replace much of its staff with robots. I'm sure that it will within 20 years. Robots capable of stocking shelves are already available. At present people are cheaper for an environment such as a Walmart store, but people are not becoming twice as fast and far cheaper every few years. At places like Amazon.com, and the newest university libraries that still handle paper books, robots do the inventory work. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
Chris Zell wrote: Once the emergence is established, there will be evidence of public grief by various enviromentalists and climate change activists. Only a few will observe what this teaches about their real motives were I'm not having a go at Chris directly here but he repeats a common theme. I'm getting a bit sick and tired of assorted flavours of self interested political ideologies ascribing black motives to environmentalists and attempting to traduce them by hoodwinking the views of the too gullible public. I won't deny that within the broad spectrum of people that would describe themselves as environmentalists are a minority those with peculiar motivations, as there probably is in any defined group, but to take isolated pieces of ambiguous evidence and extrapolate from the exceptions to suggest that those are the rule is just deceitful. There are real and obvious reasons why true environmentalists would be concerned if everyone got access to vast amounts of energy because of what they might do with it. Simplistic views that energy=good, more energy=better, most energy=best are a bit one dimensional in outlook. Nick Palmer On the side of the Planet - and the people - because they're worth it Blogspot - Sustainability and stuff according to Nick Palmer http://nickpalmer.blogspot.com
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
Thanks Jed for explaining this automation argument in detail again. It is surprising how it seems impossible for humans to comprehend that argument, because this has been the reality for decades. And we have all the evidence if we just look around. However automation is not bad thing. We just need to find new economic rules and distribute the wealth produced by robots to the consumers in some other means than wages. And really, we have only two choices. Either we use Keynesian socialism or basic income. And we have already tried almost every variant of socialism and mixed economic systems, so we have only one real choice and that is basic income for all and free market economy. This will buy us several decades of time that humans can do little (part time) jobs in service sectors what are still left for uneducated people to do, and still get formidable level of income and without that income distribution widens too much. (400 richest US-citizens could buy the whole Finland, with credit of course!) After all, the availability of jobs in the first place is only depended on the median purchasing power of consumers. If we maximize the net purchasing power of median people with basic income, then there will be plenty of more jobs available in the first place. Therefore basic income can give simple and complete fix to the problem that Martin Ford proposed in the cited book. And turn it into the huge economic asset. And cold fusion will be integral part of this development, because it renders current economic systems obsolete in overnight. It is like throwing a frog into boiling water. –Jouni
[Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
If Cold Fusion or other forms of nearly free energy emerge, obviously there will be radical change in the world. 'Free' energy will have a profoundly deflationary effect on the world economy. Oil will move towards a price consistent with being a chemical feedstock, eventually, as automobiles are converted. 'Free' energy will stimulate economies temporarily as new products are eagerly bought - however, in the longer term, it will deflate general economic demand in a manner similar to what the internet did for recorded music, movies and pornography (!). Governments will be voted out or overthrown in violence especially in the Middle East (and Iran, which will become anti-clerical). Islamic terrorism will decline. Decentralized goverance will advance and tax revenue will be ever more difficult to collect. It's even possible that separatist movements could emerge, even in the US, as insular groups find practical independence. If you're a member of the Aryan Nation, things might look pretty good in rural Idaho. Once the emergence is established, there will be evidence of public grief by various enviromentalists and climate change activists. Only a few will observe what this teaches about their real motives were. All in all, warts and all, if there is a trigger to be pulled on 'free' energy, Godspeed to those that give it to the human race. It may be the world's best hope to escape the tyranny of a corrupt and sociopathic elite, who would sacrifice anyone in their way to rule over the scarcity that would otherwise exist.
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
Zell, Chris chrisz...@wetmtv.com wrote: 'Free' energy will stimulate economies temporarily as new products are eagerly bought - however, in the longer term, it will deflate general economic demand in a manner similar to what the internet did for recorded music, movies and pornography (!). I agree it will have this deflationary effect on energy. Whether it will affect other things that way I do not know. Once the emergence is established, there will be evidence of public grief by various enviromentalists and climate change activists. Only a few will observe what this teaches about their real motives were. No doubt there will be some environmentalists who oppose cold fusion. In the book, I quoted some who were bemoaning the prospect in 1989. However, there will be many other environmentalists who are thrilled by cold fusion, including me. I predict that environmentalists and climate change activists in favor of cold fusion will greatly outnumber those who are opposed. Granted, I would be more confident of this prediction if some of the major environmentalists had helped cold fusion up until now. Alas they have not. For that matter many of the industrial corporations which are bound to make huge sums of money from cold fusion have done nothing to assist. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
The Internet has improved efficiency in a wide range of industries, such as grocery store inventory. Has it had a deflationary effect on these industries? I do not know. It has deflated goods and services directly produced by the Internet itself, such as publishing books. Amazon Kindle books are much cheaper than printed ones. But has it reduced the cost of carrots? Hard to say. Energy has a direct impact on the cost of even more goods and services than the Internet does, so I suppose cold fusion might be deflationary across the board. One way of describing a deflationary effect is to say it improves productivity. I think those are two sides of the same coin. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Economic Effects
Cold fusion will solve every major global problems. And they can be defined with two words: For environmental problems: _vertical agriculture_ For political problems: _global basic income_ And ALL known political, economical and environmental problems are solved and we live in the age of Star Trek more than 100 years earlier than in Star Trek time line. We could do this already without cold fusion, but I would say that people are slow, so they need a little push. Cold fusion will render anyway all conventional thinking useless. Therefore with cold fusion new ideas are easier to accept. —Jouni
