jkr
11-01-2013, 07:30 AM
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-31/ubs-importance-3d-printing
GREAT post on the hedge re: 3d printing and the attitudes of humans & technology!
a comment from it:
Ranger4564
Ranger4564's picture
"People, please think in a much bigger framework. Many of you chain yourself to a job, believing that if you're free, you're floating in space ready to die. That's absurd.
Look, instead of looking at every human act as a personal choice, just for once look at it as a law of nature. Just for a few minutes, hours, days, try not to think in terms of individual choice but rather species level events. If you set aside the presumed motivators for a bit, you can possibly see the broader trajectory. What I mean is, it doesn't literally matter why someone invented the plow, the wheel, the cotton gin, the steam boat, for this particular mental exercise, it only matters that someone, anyone, bothered to go from a lesser technological position and chose to create a more advanced technological position. And I want you to also set aside what you believe were their motives, especially in terms of economic benefit or self interest. I am not denying it, I'm just saying focusing on that clouds one's vision and prevents awareness of the larger trajectory. So it doesn't matter that the merchant wanted a better way to transport goods, or that the farmer wanted a better way to plow, or that the miller wanted a better way to pick and refine cotton, or that people wanted a better way to transport large numbers of objects / people all for their own economic benefit / personal survival. It's understood and acknowledged.
When you set aside the conditions for a minute, you recognize that humanity has been on a perpetual trajectory of reducing Risk, increasing Productivity, and increasing Prosperity, it's an imperative. Given the technological situation as it was (until recently), there was an injunction imposed by society... work or die. You either participated in the reduction of risk, increase in productivity and prosperity, or you were a burden. And so, we developed the ethics / morality / social obligations - the work ethic and distaste for the less energetic. But these conditions are mutable, not fixed, and these are always in transition. So once the plow was invented, many people were displaced from farming, and ended up specializing in other interests, some of which the people here ridicule needlessly. So once the plow was replaced by the Combine, many more people were displaced from farming, and many ended up being day traders, the kind of people I ridicule needlessly. ;-) Point is, every single technological tool we invented improved the conditions for survival and prosperity and freed more and more people to pursue other tasks. But because we didn't refine our do or die injunction, people found really stupid ways to justify their participation in productivity. And before anyone thinks they are deserving while others should be dead, I will remind all of you that very few here could invent their own lives, and very few here could actually create their own technological prosperity. Sure you might survive, but prosper, maybe not. Not everyone can invent a wheel, or a plow, or a steam engine. So humility is in order.
If we can acknowledge that technological progress has been generally reducing Risk and increasing prosperity, we can move to the idea that perhaps a technology exists or could be created that would fundamentally shift our social obligation to work or die... what happens when computers replace 10's of thousands of people in all sorts of areas of production... think of how much bread, and food in general is producted by technological automation. Think of it as the opportunity to redefine our social contract, instead of a threat to your prosperity. The fact is, we don't have to vegitate if we stop working 40 hours a week. We don't have to stop being intelligent or active simply because we don't act as scoundrels or obstacles to the efficiencies that are technologically and socially possible. We don't have to be accountants, insurance brokers, real estate brokers, bankers, traders, muddling middle men all of them. We don't need to be the squeaky wheel just to be lubed. The current social contract is so dead, it's a fucking tragedy. The current economic situation is the proof. A few people across the globe decided to be the muddling middle men in every transaction you engage in, and they're extracting almost all of the value from the transaction. This because their vision of prosperity is dated and flawed, and so are their ethics. What if we didn't act as obstacles but instead acted as facilitators / enablers, to enhance productivity, so we could increase prosperity? That's the opportunity, not the risk.
We are on the precipice of a humongous change in civilization, if we take control of the situation... or we could continue to bicker about what role we have left in the now dead paradigm. Having free time, free from the obligation to work for livelihood, does not mean people become useless. The entire purpose of the enlightenment was to remind us that we have much more learning to do, much more to explore, much more to express. And with more time, less restrictions, think of what Copernicus / Galileo / Da Vinci / Michelangelo / etc could have achieved. If there wasn't the pressure from the powers that be to produce only acceptable results, then we might be talking about a very different set of ideas. Point is, we could free ourselves from intellectual limitations and social obligations that are dated, if we acknowledged that it's time to redefine our social contract. If we all worked 10 or 15 hours a week to advance our technological world to ensure efficient production, we could enjoy the prosperity we've achieved.
So you're wondering where is all this prosperity I keep speaking of? It's the trillions of dollars the Oligarchs have been confiscating throughout history. If we take the prosperity they extract and use it to support civilization, we'd actually increase prosperity significantly for the majority of humanity. At the same time, it would free you to pursue the intellectual and other personal pursuits you would choose to pursue. Now I will acknowledge that a lot of present day adults have not had a good education, have not evolved, so might not be able to find a way to occupy their time in fruitful activities. That is actually a result of forcing people to live with the work or die model, where we eliminate creativity, reinforce obedience, and require compliance. If we change the way we educate our children, we can improve their conditions to be able to lead more fulfilling lives.
So how does this tie into this technology? This technology will change the way we think of Matter, how we think of fabrication, production, the kinds of things we can fabricate, change maintenance, change everything. Literally, we are on the verge of so much opportunity, but you have to stop living in the past. With advancement in the implementation of this technology, roads can be continously repaired, rail tracks also, bridges could be built, aircraft could be assembled, buildings could be built that provide housing / research laboratories / facilities for exploration, whatever. The limit is your imagination. This technology will create a book instead of having it printed and shipped to you. It will eventually assembl food and new materials, new forms, new devices. It will recycle old objects. It will do everything, including make you a new set of clothes.
That is, if we cooperate and choose to continue to reduce risk, increase productivity, increase prosperity. If instead, we choose to be small minded and destroy this technology, out of fear of being displaced from work, then we're just killing people needlessly. Nothing says you can't make things by hand even now. Nothing will prevent you from doing so in the future. it's just that 7 billion people will not be relying on someone to plow the field. The Combine will gather the food, the milling machines will mill the grain, the baking machines will bake. We will be there to monitor progress, not impede it. Work with me here."
VERY INTERESTING
GREAT post on the hedge re: 3d printing and the attitudes of humans & technology!
a comment from it:
Ranger4564
Ranger4564's picture
"People, please think in a much bigger framework. Many of you chain yourself to a job, believing that if you're free, you're floating in space ready to die. That's absurd.
Look, instead of looking at every human act as a personal choice, just for once look at it as a law of nature. Just for a few minutes, hours, days, try not to think in terms of individual choice but rather species level events. If you set aside the presumed motivators for a bit, you can possibly see the broader trajectory. What I mean is, it doesn't literally matter why someone invented the plow, the wheel, the cotton gin, the steam boat, for this particular mental exercise, it only matters that someone, anyone, bothered to go from a lesser technological position and chose to create a more advanced technological position. And I want you to also set aside what you believe were their motives, especially in terms of economic benefit or self interest. I am not denying it, I'm just saying focusing on that clouds one's vision and prevents awareness of the larger trajectory. So it doesn't matter that the merchant wanted a better way to transport goods, or that the farmer wanted a better way to plow, or that the miller wanted a better way to pick and refine cotton, or that people wanted a better way to transport large numbers of objects / people all for their own economic benefit / personal survival. It's understood and acknowledged.
When you set aside the conditions for a minute, you recognize that humanity has been on a perpetual trajectory of reducing Risk, increasing Productivity, and increasing Prosperity, it's an imperative. Given the technological situation as it was (until recently), there was an injunction imposed by society... work or die. You either participated in the reduction of risk, increase in productivity and prosperity, or you were a burden. And so, we developed the ethics / morality / social obligations - the work ethic and distaste for the less energetic. But these conditions are mutable, not fixed, and these are always in transition. So once the plow was invented, many people were displaced from farming, and ended up specializing in other interests, some of which the people here ridicule needlessly. So once the plow was replaced by the Combine, many more people were displaced from farming, and many ended up being day traders, the kind of people I ridicule needlessly. ;-) Point is, every single technological tool we invented improved the conditions for survival and prosperity and freed more and more people to pursue other tasks. But because we didn't refine our do or die injunction, people found really stupid ways to justify their participation in productivity. And before anyone thinks they are deserving while others should be dead, I will remind all of you that very few here could invent their own lives, and very few here could actually create their own technological prosperity. Sure you might survive, but prosper, maybe not. Not everyone can invent a wheel, or a plow, or a steam engine. So humility is in order.
If we can acknowledge that technological progress has been generally reducing Risk and increasing prosperity, we can move to the idea that perhaps a technology exists or could be created that would fundamentally shift our social obligation to work or die... what happens when computers replace 10's of thousands of people in all sorts of areas of production... think of how much bread, and food in general is producted by technological automation. Think of it as the opportunity to redefine our social contract, instead of a threat to your prosperity. The fact is, we don't have to vegitate if we stop working 40 hours a week. We don't have to stop being intelligent or active simply because we don't act as scoundrels or obstacles to the efficiencies that are technologically and socially possible. We don't have to be accountants, insurance brokers, real estate brokers, bankers, traders, muddling middle men all of them. We don't need to be the squeaky wheel just to be lubed. The current social contract is so dead, it's a fucking tragedy. The current economic situation is the proof. A few people across the globe decided to be the muddling middle men in every transaction you engage in, and they're extracting almost all of the value from the transaction. This because their vision of prosperity is dated and flawed, and so are their ethics. What if we didn't act as obstacles but instead acted as facilitators / enablers, to enhance productivity, so we could increase prosperity? That's the opportunity, not the risk.
We are on the precipice of a humongous change in civilization, if we take control of the situation... or we could continue to bicker about what role we have left in the now dead paradigm. Having free time, free from the obligation to work for livelihood, does not mean people become useless. The entire purpose of the enlightenment was to remind us that we have much more learning to do, much more to explore, much more to express. And with more time, less restrictions, think of what Copernicus / Galileo / Da Vinci / Michelangelo / etc could have achieved. If there wasn't the pressure from the powers that be to produce only acceptable results, then we might be talking about a very different set of ideas. Point is, we could free ourselves from intellectual limitations and social obligations that are dated, if we acknowledged that it's time to redefine our social contract. If we all worked 10 or 15 hours a week to advance our technological world to ensure efficient production, we could enjoy the prosperity we've achieved.
So you're wondering where is all this prosperity I keep speaking of? It's the trillions of dollars the Oligarchs have been confiscating throughout history. If we take the prosperity they extract and use it to support civilization, we'd actually increase prosperity significantly for the majority of humanity. At the same time, it would free you to pursue the intellectual and other personal pursuits you would choose to pursue. Now I will acknowledge that a lot of present day adults have not had a good education, have not evolved, so might not be able to find a way to occupy their time in fruitful activities. That is actually a result of forcing people to live with the work or die model, where we eliminate creativity, reinforce obedience, and require compliance. If we change the way we educate our children, we can improve their conditions to be able to lead more fulfilling lives.
So how does this tie into this technology? This technology will change the way we think of Matter, how we think of fabrication, production, the kinds of things we can fabricate, change maintenance, change everything. Literally, we are on the verge of so much opportunity, but you have to stop living in the past. With advancement in the implementation of this technology, roads can be continously repaired, rail tracks also, bridges could be built, aircraft could be assembled, buildings could be built that provide housing / research laboratories / facilities for exploration, whatever. The limit is your imagination. This technology will create a book instead of having it printed and shipped to you. It will eventually assembl food and new materials, new forms, new devices. It will recycle old objects. It will do everything, including make you a new set of clothes.
That is, if we cooperate and choose to continue to reduce risk, increase productivity, increase prosperity. If instead, we choose to be small minded and destroy this technology, out of fear of being displaced from work, then we're just killing people needlessly. Nothing says you can't make things by hand even now. Nothing will prevent you from doing so in the future. it's just that 7 billion people will not be relying on someone to plow the field. The Combine will gather the food, the milling machines will mill the grain, the baking machines will bake. We will be there to monitor progress, not impede it. Work with me here."
VERY INTERESTING