Why automate? and opinions on Energy Descent?
Josef Davies-Coates
I was just wondering what drives people's interest in automation?
I mean, a handmade cake/ whatever is virtually always better. Won't that always be the case?
And what about the end of cheap oil? How will this effect ones plans?
Be interested to hear people's thoughts :)
Josef.
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Josef Davies-Coates
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Vinay Gupta
Josef Davies-Coates
I mean, I like time saving automation too, but the idea of a machine (even if it is open) that simulates a womb (for example) seems both silly and a bit scary to me (although, saying that, I guess I can think of some potentially useful uses)
Just trying to work out where people are coming from here. There seems to be a little too much of a techno utopian viewpoint from my perspective. :)
Josef.
Vinay Gupta
Bryan Bishop
> I was just wondering what drives people's interest in automation?
All of the universe is already automated, it's how all living beings are
able to operate and whatnot; the difference is that designers and
programmers such as ourselves can attempt to hash out different
formulations of the same automation via different mechanisms that are
perhaps less painful to the human condition. "For our kind, there's
always the burning to be more."
> I mean, a handmade cake/ whatever is virtually always better. Won't
> that always be the case?
No.
- Bryan
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http://heybryan.org/
Engineers: http://heybryan.org/exp.html
irc.freenode.net #hplusroadmap
Bryan Bishop
> with machines? (including things that are already automated by
> nature, e.g. wombs, and Patrick's mention of Cocoa, Cows, Sugar and
> Chololate).
First, biological organisms are machines. So are you proposing we blow
up the biosphere? I don't think that's a very good idea. Oops.
Re: wombs. Some of us want to be reproduced on different schedules than
a normal human life cycle.
> I mean, I like time saving automation too, but the idea of a machine
> (even if it is open) that simulates a womb (for example) seems both
> silly and a bit scary to me (although, saying that, I guess I can
> think of some potentially useful uses)
s/simulates/emulates/
Check out Kuwabara's work on artificial wombs.
> Just trying to work out where people are coming from here. There
> seems to be a little too much of a techno utopian viewpoint from my
> perspective. :)
What utopian aspects do you see? You might be surprised how nonutopian
we are all .. jaded with the bullshit of reality and such, blah blah
blah. Some of these same points were hashed out on the Project Virgle
and OpenVirgle mailing lists before. I'd link to them, but Google
Groups has a porn infestation at the moment because of the spam bots,
so only go looking if you want. "Capitalists, Please Read" is one
thread I recall bringing up some of the issues. What we were proposing
to the Virgle groups was something like reusable space habitat seeds so
that we don't have stupid ideological constraints, kind of like apt-get
but for starting colonies, and other posters thought that made us, the
programmers, liberalist technoutopian pigdogs or somesuch, which was
funny, but incorrect.
Josef Davies-Coates
On Monday 15 September 2008, Josef Davies-Coates wrote:
> OK, well I guess what I meant was, why try to automate everythingFirst, biological organisms are machines. So are you proposing we blow
> with machines? (including things that are already automated by
> nature, e.g. wombs, and Patrick's mention of Cocoa, Cows, Sugar and
> Chololate).
up the biosphere? I don't think that's a very good idea. Oops.
Heh, well, no, I wasn't proposing that.
I define "machine" by its common usage, but I guess technically you're right :)
Re: wombs. Some of us want to be reproduced on different schedules than
a normal human life cycle.
Why? to what end? by what means? :)
> I mean, I like time saving automation too, but the idea of a machine> (even if it is open) that simulates a womb (for example) seems boths/simulates/emulates/
> silly and a bit scary to me (although, saying that, I guess I can
> think of some potentially useful uses)
Check out Kuwabara's work on artificial wombs.
What utopian aspects do you see? You might be surprised how nonutopian
> Just trying to work out where people are coming from here. There
> seems to be a little too much of a techno utopian viewpoint from my
> perspective. :)
we are all .. jaded with the bullshit of reality and such, blah blah
blah.
OK, so maybe I meant dystopian.
What I'm getting at is the mindset that replies "we'll just create a technology that automates it" as the proposed solution to all human ills and the bullshit of reality. I don't think its fair to make that accusation here, but you don't seem far off :P
That is why I also mentioned Energy Descent (although everyone is ignoring that).
Does everyone here really believe that the End of the Age of Cheap Oil is really completely irrelevant to their plans?
Are we all just hoping that OSE will design and optimise a Solar Thermal Turbine Combined Heat and Power generator and we'll just use fablabs to replicate them? What about where there is no Home Depot?
That is also why I mentioned soil. How are we going to make that?
It seems everyone here is very intelligent and I trust people have thought about this stuff, I'm just interested to know what people think. :)
Josef.
Bryan Bishop
> 2008/9/15 Bryan Bishop <kan...@gmail.com>
> On Monday 15 September 2008, Josef Davies-Coates wrote:
> > OK, well I guess what I meant was, why try to automate everything
> >
> > with machines? (including things that are already automated by
> > nature, e.g. wombs, and Patrick's mention of Cocoa, Cows, Sugar
> > and Chololate).
>
> First, biological organisms are machines. So are you proposing we
> blow up the biosphere? I don't think that's a very good idea. Oops.
>
> Heh, well, no, I wasn't proposing that.
That's too bad .. it would be an interesting thought experiment. ;-)
> > Re: wombs. Some of us want to be reproduced on different schedules
> > than a normal human life cycle.
>
> Why? to what end? by what means? :)
So, I kind of screwed up when I said different schedules. That's just a
way of reinterpreting the system. I am sure you are familiar with the
concept of cloning, as well as the problem of the twins, that not even
two twins are 'identical', and indeed many philosophers wonder about
identity persistence from one moment to the next, but I digress. Call
it 'divergence'. The simple way to say it is that it would be
interesting to have a few divergent copies of yourself running around
the continent, planet, or galaxy perhaps, as a fork -- in the same
sense of fork threading in computer programming - to perhaps one day
recombine with to share stories and do more than what I, as one brain,
could ever have done in such-and-such amount of time. This is just one
factor contributing to that realm of ideas that I've been
investigating; there's a few other facets worth mentioning:
http://heybryan.org/egan.html The quote under the <hr>.
http://heybryan.org/transhumanism_def.html The opening paragraphs.
> > > Just trying to work out where people are coming from here. There
> > > seems to be a little too much of a techno utopian viewpoint from
> > > my perspective. :)
>
> > What utopian aspects do you see? You might be surprised how
> > nonutopian we are all .. jaded with the bullshit of reality and
> > such, blah blah blah.
>
> OK, so maybe I meant dystopian.
>
> What I'm getting at is the mindset that replies "we'll just create a
> technology that automates it" as the proposed solution to all human
> ills and the bullshit of reality. I don't think its fair to make that
> accusation here, but you don't seem far off :P
>
> That is why I also mentioned Energy Descent (although everyone is
> ignoring that).
There's a very big reason why I'm ignoring that! I'd be doing all of
this anyway, even without the energy crisis problems and all of the
environmentalists, and on and on and on. I don't care about that
stuff - screw political campaigning for the environment, if I found the
issue pressing enough I'd start to manufacture a damn solution to fix
your failing planet, but alas I don't think it's that big of a problem
yet. ;-)
Btw, as to automation as the fix to the ills of the human condition and
bullshit of reality. Hell yeah, what else? See the transhumanism_def
page that I linked to above.
> Does everyone here really believe that the End of the Age of Cheap
> Oil is really completely irrelevant to their plans?
Yep, because these plans incorporate solutions to those problems.
> Are we all just hoping that OSE will design and optimise a Solar
> Thermal Turbine Combined Heat and Power generator and we'll just use
> fablabs to replicate them?
No, some of us are actually working on these problems. For example, the
biofuel/algae reactor projects that I've been poking my nose into.
> What about where there is no Home Depot?
First, why are you where you have no material resources? Who's bright
idea was it to live there? Sorry folks .. you've been had.
> That is also why I mentioned soil. How are we going to make that?
Surface area for vegetable growth is a big problem. I was hoping to make
orbital algae farms so that the surface area stuff wouldn't be a big
issue, but there's certain strategical problems with manufacturing
glass on the moon that won't be solved until a few other of my projects
start to come together more coherently.
Patrick Anderson
> Surface area for vegetable growth is a big problem.
By "big problem" do you mean "finite", or "too expensive"?
> I was hoping to make
> orbital algae farms so that the surface area stuff wouldn't be a big
> issue,
Would the size of an orbital algae farm be "finite"?
Would it be "too expensive"?
Vinay Gupta
Actually, in space, depending on radiation resistance, I think you
could just use big low pressure balloons and grow the stuff
volumetrically.
Giant blob of water, some internal light pipe structure to redirect
the light from the solar concentrators through the blob (giant space
mirrors!) and stirring gear.
Then, on the back end, you split the water into oxygen and hydrogen,
feed the oxygen to the humans, the hydrogen to the fuel cells, and
you feed the stale air to the fuel cells to make water... closed loop-
ish, pretty simple... 90% sure that's how Bucky would design a space
ship,anyway :-)
Vinay
--
Vinay Gupta
Free Science and Engineering in the Global Public Interest
http://hexayurt.com - free/open next generation human sheltering
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"If it doesn't fit, force it."
Bryan Bishop
> Actually, in space, depending on radiation resistance, I think you
> could just use big low pressure balloons and grow the stuff
> volumetrically.
So, the first problem is the lighting issue, you seem to be on it --
> Giant blob of water, some internal light pipe structure to redirect
> the light from the solar concentrators through the blob (giant space
> mirrors!) and stirring gear.
* Internal fiber optic tubes
* Wireless LEDs (yes, it's possible)
* .. what else?
Vinay Gupta
<grin>
I'm focussed over here: http://hexayurt.com - firmly in the Hippie
mould. Space is going to have to wait for me -)
Vinay
--
Vinay Gupta
Free Science and Engineering in the Global Public Interest
http://hexayurt.com - free/open next generation human sheltering
http://hexayurt.com/plan - the whole systems, big picture vision
Gizmo Project VOIP : (USA) 775-743-1851
Skype/Gizmo/Gtalk : hexayurt
Icelandic Cell : (+354) 869-4605
"If it doesn't fit, force it."
Smári McCarthy
Hash: SHA1
I on the other hand was introduced to Star Trek at age 4 and never quite
managed to shake the concept. When I thought I'd finally managed to grow
out of it, I suddenly get to know a bunch of people who are actually
making it happen. I quote: "Oh, teleportation is easy. It's fabrication
that's going to be the challenge."
- Smári
Vinay Gupta wrote:
>
> <grin>
>
> I'm focussed over here: http://hexayurt.com - firmly in the Hippie
> mould. Space is going to have to wait for me -)
>
> Vinay
>
- --
Smári McCarthy
sm...@yaxic.org http://smari.yaxic.org
(+354) 662 2701 - "Technology is about people"
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Bryan Bishop
> I on the other hand was introduced to Star Trek at age 4 and never
> quite managed to shake the concept. When I thought I'd finally
> managed to grow out of it, I suddenly get to know a bunch of people
> who are actually making it happen. I quote: "Oh, teleportation is
> easy. It's fabrication that's going to be the challenge."
For me, Star Trek was interesting and entertaining, but I was introduced
to the large (and awesome) hack known as the Star Wars; I now
officially declare this flamewar open.
Eric Hunting
maximum potential of all people. We squander too much of too many
people's lives in pointless, dehumanizing, degrading, and dangerous
activity, transforming their life-time into profit and rationalizing
it by all-too-convenient excuses of social class and market forces
just as we once used caste and race. Behind each person's eyes is the
most advanced information system in the universe, and it has better
things to do than waste its time making junk for cash. Automation,
especially when brought to the personal level and expanded to the full
spectrum of what supports a basic standard of living, is one means of
recovering this wasted time, reducing the personal dependence upon
cash for survival and freeing people for more appropriate pursuits. By
recovering and harnessing this wasted productivity we can address the
great challenges of the present and future; the environment, energy,
poverty, social, racial, and cultural conflict, disease, aging, and
death, and the reach outward to the universe.
Automation may never replace the hand-made cake. Cooking is, after
all, an art and not a mere industry. But subsistence doesn't require
art. For a starving person, gourmet cooking is a pointless luxury.
There may always be greater value in the hand-made. Automation cannot
replace human expression, though it can sometimes be used to enable or
amplify it.
Peak Oil helps the trend toward personal industry and automation by
compelling localization of production and greater energy-efficiency in
the transportation of products. This, in turn, compels the
modularization of product design, which results in the replacement of
designs by platforms and the competitive commoditization of their
components. Today, automobiles are produced as whole products made
with large high-capital-cost machinery using materials -and a small
portion of pre-made components- transported long distances to a
central production site from which the end product is shipped with a
very poor transportation efficiency to local sales/distribution
points. In the future automobiles may be assembled on demand in the
car dealership from modular components which ship with far greater
energy efficiency than whole cars and can come from many locations. By
modularizing the design of the car to allow for this, that design is
changed from a product to a platform for which many competitors, using
much smaller less expensive means of production, can potentially
produce parts to accommodate customers desire for personalization and
to extend the capabilities of the automobile beyond what was
originally anticipated. End-users are more easily able to experiment
in customization and improvement and pursue entrepreneurship based on
this innovation at much lower start-up costs. This makes it possible
to implement technologies for the automobile -like alternative energy
technology- earlier auto companies may not have been willing to
implement because of a lack of competition and because their capital
costs for their large expensive production tools and facilities take
so long (20 years, typically) to amortize. THIS is the reason why
computers, based on platforms for modular commodity components, have
evolved so rapidly compared to every other kind of industrial product
and why the single-most advanced device the human race has ever
produced is now something most anyone can afford and which a child can
assemble in minutes from parts sourced around the world. Imagine what
the world would be like if all industrial products could evolve as
freely and rapidly as computers.
Eric Hunting
erich...@gmail.com
Eric Hunting
Eric Hunting
erich...@gmail.com