The book about Saudi Arabia sounds interesting. Perhaps it has some
good lessons for the future when we hope material goods will be cheaper.
Steven V Johnson wrote:
IMO, the difference in perspective between Jed's and mine isn't
significant. One difference might lie in the quantification of
"units of money." How will we perceive the concept of "money" in a
future society when money is no longer viewed as something we must
"earn" in order to survive? In my scenario, I envision we might all
be given a base "allowance" . . .
I have not given any thought to the mechanics of this. I guess I had
in mind the public library model. That is --
Present Day Library:
You can read whatever book you want, but at any given time you can
only bring home 5 or 10 books.
There is a modest late fee (a pro forma punishment if you fail to
return the books on time)
If you want hundreds of books at home, you have to buy them yourself.
Future Grocery Store:
You take whatever you like: filet mignon, cherries, beans,
grapefruit, foie gras . . . The checkout computer only registers your
ID and the total kilograms, not the individual items. Just as no one
cares what books you borrow from the library, the robot at the
grocery store does not care what groceries you take. It only records
the individual RFID tags to keep track of inventory and re-ordering
(the same reason the library records what books you take). Production
costs for all foods are so low the extra cost to society for people
who eat only caviar and foie gras is not worth keeping track of.
Nowadays, suppose I borrow expensive art books from the library, and
you borrow pot boiler paperbacks. The books I borrow cost more to
fabricate but no one cares, or keeps track.
You can only take 20 kg of groceries per week for free. Any more than
that and you have to pay money. The charge is nominal, or pro forma;
say $5 per kg. This is for people who want to hold large parties at
home. Since food is essentially free and there is no market for it,
you cannot shoplift and get rich by carting out hundreds of steaks
and selling them undercover. It would be like trying to sell water by
the river, and the Zen Buddhists say. The only reason to impose the
limit is so that other people do not show up and find the store has
no more strawberries. That is the same reason we impose a limit on
the number of library books you can borrow at one time.
(Actually, people will not go to grocery stores; they will send
domestic robots.)
Variations of this would work for computers, electronic goods and
automobiles. I suppose the latter will be more like today's Zip cars
or taxies in New York city. Naturally, they will be self-driving.
They will come when you call, so most people will not bother to keep
one around the house. Nowadays people hesitate to use a rental car or
Zip car because it takes a long time and a lot of effort to get one,
and the cars tend to be dirty and in bad repair. This will not be a
problem when robots clean every car the moment you step out of it. In
places like New York City, it is such a nuisance owning a car that
even wealthy people often use taxies. I expect that will be the norm
in the future. Naturally, people with special needs or special-use
cars will have their own dedicated machines. They may have to pay
extra, but for the normal trip or commute you will just tell the
computer "bring a car around" and not think twice about it, or pay
for it either. To put it another way, taxies will be "too cheap to
meter," as von Neumann said of electricity.
(In some ways it will be more convenient to own a car than today
because you will never have to fuel it or take it to the garage for
maintenance. The car will keep track of the maintenance schedule
itself, and drive itself to the garage, presumably in the middle of
the night, to be back by morning. Of course you will not need a
driver's license. Anyone over age 6, including blind and
incapacitated people, will be able to use a car whenever they want.
See Cold Fusion and the Future, chapter 17. Accidents will be so
rare I doubt that auto insurance will exist.)
Looking at telecommunications -- broadcast television and radio are
already free, and always have been. It is easy to see how unlimited
telephone and Internet use will be implemented. We are close to this
already. On-line newspapers are free. From time to time one of the
biggies such as the New York Times tries to turn back the clock and
charge for Internet access, but they will never succeed. Bandwidth
will eventually be free. At present our society is debating the
merits of limiting bandwidth. No one is talking about charging more
than a nominal amount for bandwidth, even though potential use of it
is extremely high, for things like high def movies. This is similar
to limiting the number of books you can take out of the library
today, or the total mass of groceries you can take home in the
future. The point is, we treat bandwidth like an unlimited resource,
like seawater. And even though bandwidth consumption is increasing
now, sooner or later people will reach the limits. One person will
not want to watch 10 hi def movies simultaneously, or 100 movies. If
anyone does, we will treat that like pack-rat mental illness
(hoarding), the way we treat a person who steals hundreds of books
from the library, or keeps thousands of empty bottles and newspapers
in their house. It is not a financial problem.
Primary education is already free. Of course you are free to pay more
for private school education. Again, you want more than 20 kg of food
or a standard car, that's extra. Secondary education will be free in
the future, and it will be divvied up strictly by merit, the way it
is with today's "needs blind" Ivy League admissions. With this system
scholarships are guaranteed. If your SAT scores are good and the
admissions board selects you, they guarantee you can go no matter how
poor you are. They pay as much as necessary. National Universities in
Japan are the elite schools and in the post-war period they have been
essentially free and completely merit based, with anonymous
admissions. Even the Emperor's son could not get into a National U.
(With one exception made for foreign students transferring from
overseas elite schools, such as <ahem> yours truly.)
It is rather difficult to imagine how this system could work for real
estate (houses, apartments, vacation houses and so on). Maybe it
would not. Perhaps some sort of voucher would be needed. I suppose
real estate will be among the last things to become free.
Some things, such as rare fine art or Stradivarius violins will not
become totally free until the "replicator" machine describe by Arthur
C. Clarke is perfected. (Profiles of the Future, chapter 13.) QUOTE:
"A society based on the replicator would be so completely different
from ours that the present debate between capitalism and communism
would become quite meaningless. All material possessions would be
literally as cheap as dirt. Soiled handkerchiefs, diamond tiaras,
Mona Lisas totally indistinguishable from the original, once-worn
mink stoles, half-consumed bottles of the most superb champagnes --
all would go back into the hopper when they were no longer required.
Even the furniture in the house of the future might cease to exist
when it was not actually in use. . . ."
I have no doubt whatever that if the human race survives another few
thousand years this replicator will be made. The trend is already as
clear as anything can be in technology. The whole point of technology
is to achieve something like this. From the first stone age tools we
have been progressing toward it.
- Jed
