Monthly Archives: May 2017

Post-scarcity is a hypothetical economy in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor needed, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely.[1][2] Post-scarcity is not generally taken to mean that scarcity has been eliminated for all consumer goods and services; instead, it is often taken to mean that all people can easily have their basic survival needs met along with some significant proportion of their desires for goods and services,[3] with writers on the topic often emphasizing that certain commodities are likely to remain scarce in a post-scarcity society.[4][5][6][7]

In the paper The Post-Scarcity World of 2050-2075[8], authors defend that we are currently living an age of scarcity resulted from neglect behavior with the future from the 19th and 20th centuries. The period between 1975 and 2005 was characterized by relative abundance of resources (oil, water, energy, food, credit, among others) which boosted industrialization and development in the western economies. An increased demand of resources combined with a rising population led to resource exhaustion.[8]

One of the main traces of the scarcity periods is the increase and fluctuation of prices. To deal with that situation, technology advancements come into play, driving an efficient use of resources to a certain extent that costs will be considerably reduced (almost everything will be free). Consequently, authors forecast that the period between 2050 and 2075 will be a post-scarcity age in which scarcity will no longer exist.[8]

Today, futurists who speak of "post-scarcity" suggest economies based on advances in automated manufacturing technologies,[4] often including the idea of self-replicating machines, the adoption of division of labour[9] which in theory could produce nearly all goods in abundance, given adequate raw materials and energy. More speculative forms of nanotechnology (such as molecular assemblers or nanofactories, which do not currently exist) raise the possibility of devices that can automatically manufacture any specified goods given the correct instructions and the necessary raw materials and energy,[10] and so many nanotechnology enthusiasts have suggested it will usher in a post-scarcity world.[11][12] In the more near-term future, the increasing automation of physical labor using robots is often discussed as means of creating a post-scarcity economy.[13][14] Increasingly versatile forms of rapid prototyping machines, and a hypothetical self-replicating version of such a machine known as a RepRap, have also been predicted to help create the abundance of goods needed for a post-scarcity economy.[15] Advocates of self-replicating machines such as Adrian Bowyer, the creator of the RepRap project, argue that once a self-replicating machine is designed, then since anyone who owns one can make more copies to sell (and would also be free to ask for a lower price than other sellers), market competition will naturally drive the cost of such machines down to the bare minimum needed to make a profit,[16][17] in this case just above the cost of the physical materials and energy that must be fed into the machine as input, and the same should go for any other goods that the machine can build.

Even with fully automated production, limitations on the number of goods produced would arise from the availability of raw materials and energy, as well as ecological damage associated with manufacturing technologies.[4] Advocates of technological abundance often argue for more extensive use of renewable energy and greater recycling in order to prevent future drops in availability of energy and raw materials, and reduce ecological damage.[4] Solar energy in particular is often emphasized, as the cost of solar panels continues to drop[4] (and could drop far more with automated production by self-replicating machines), and advocates point out the total solar power striking the Earth's surface annually exceeds our civilization's current annual power usage by a factor of thousands.[18][19] Advocates also sometimes argue that the energy and raw materials available could be greatly expanded if we looked to resources beyond the Earth. For example, asteroid mining is sometimes discussed as a way of greatly reducing scarcity for many useful metals such as nickel.[20] While early asteroid mining might involve manned missions, advocates hope that eventually humanity could have automated mining done by self-replicating machines.[20][21] If this were done, then the only capital expenditure would be a single self-replicating unit (whether robotic or nanotechnological), after which the number of units could replicate at no further cost, limited only by the available raw materials needed to build more.[21]

Richard Stallman, the founder of the GNU project, has cited the eventual creation of a post-scarcity society as one of his motivations:[22]

In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the post-scarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling, robot repair and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be able to make a living from programming.

Karl Marx, in a section of his Grundrisse that came to be known as the "Fragment on Machines",[23][24] argued that the transition to a post-capitalist society combined with advances in automation would allow for significant reductions in labor needed to produce necessary goods, eventually reaching a point where all people would have significant amounts of leisure time to pursue science, the arts, and creative activities; a state some commentators later labeled as "post-scarcity".[25] Marx argued that capitalismthe dynamic of economic growth based on capital accumulationdepends on exploiting the surplus labor of workers, but a post-capitalist society would allow for:

The free development of individualities, and hence not the reduction of necessary labour time so as to posit surplus labour, but rather the general reduction of the necessary labour of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them.[26]

Marx's concept of a post-capitalist communist society involves the free distribution of goods made possible by the abundance provided by automation.[27] The fully developed communist economic system is postulated to develop from a preceding socialist system. Marx held the view that socialisma system based on social ownership of the means of productionwould enable progress toward the development of fully developed communism by further advancing productive technology. Under socialism, with its increasing levels of automation, an increasing proportion of goods would be distributed freely.[28]

Marx did not believe in the elimination of most physical labor through technological advancements alone in a capitalist society, because he believed capitalism contained within it certain tendencies which countered increasing automation and prevented it from developing beyond a limited point, so that manual industrial labor could not be eliminated until the overthrow of capitalism.[29] Some commentators on Marx have argued that at the time he wrote the Grundrisse, he thought that the collapse of capitalism due to advancing automation was inevitable despite these counter-tendencies, but that by the time of his major work Capital: Critique of Political Economy he had abandoned this view, and came to believe that capitalism could continually renew itself unless overthrown.[30][31][32]

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Post-scarcity economy - Wikipedia

The Province

Gordon Clark: Urban-rural divide is all about the economy, stupid The Province While one lags behind in its continued dependence on a dwindling natural-resource-based economy, and in a sense still looks backward for its future, the other continues an exponential growth in diversity and enjoys a transition to an entirely new ... BC Liberals cut to minority with Greens holding balance of powerThe Globe and Mail ELECTION 2017: Could BC get a third official party?Oak Bay News ELECTION 2017: In Surrey-Fleetwood, NDP's Jagrup Brar takes seat from Fassbender (VIDEOS) - Surrey Now-LeaderSurrey Now all 194 news articles »

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Gordon Clark: Urban-rural divide is all about the economy, stupid - The Province

First of a three-part series on the railroad industry in America.

With spending levels set through September, the Senate digging in on health care and the U.S. House of Representatives now turning to tax reform, some may believe infrastructure will take a backseat to these priorities. Yet observers of the legislative process know that policymaking is always occurring, even if it is not always in plain sight.

While any infrastructure package will be complicated, the private freight rail sector unique in the discussion as the industry is not necessarily seeking federal dollars offers straightforward advice: advance public policies that both enhance public spending and spur private infrastructure investment.

We stand on firm ground, as one train can take hundreds of trucks off the road, thereby lessening road and bridge deterioration. The industry has also spent $635 billion since partial deregulation nearly 40 years ago money the industry pays so taxpayers do not.

As lawmakers turn their attention to actual legislation, our industry offers recommendations as a starting point in this sure-to-be lengthy process, simply for the transportation part of infrastructure:

1. Stop applying Band-Aids to the insolvent Highway Trust Fund, the pool of money funded almost solely by the gas tax and which is used to fund federal and state transportation infrastructure projects. Because the gas tax does not cover operating expenses, and because commercial users such as trucks do not pay for their proportional use of roads, taxpayers have subsidized the fund to the tune of $143 billion since 2008. We need measures such as a weight distance fee that accounts more realistically for commercial road use.

2. Do not make things worse by pushing heavier trucks onto transportation networks. Any federal program that boosts truck weight limits at the federal level further subsidizes commercial highway users at the expense of taxpayers, exacerbates deterioration of crumbling infrastructure and tilts the policy scale against a critical freight rail industry. Trucks today do not cover their current impact and heavier trucks will only force taxpayers to further bankroll the underpayment of even heavier trucks, accordingto U.S. Department of Transportation data.

3. Enact tax reform to spur economic growth and generate revenues needed for sustainable funding. We need a simpler and fairer tax code, reducing the business rate to a globally competitive level to broaden the tax base, enhance U.S. economic development and promote growth. Divisive items related to tax reform must not impede the larger goal to enhance competition, which for railroads and American industry in general, will lead to more domestic spending.

4. Streamline government processes that will similarly unshackle the business community and fuel an American renaissance not seen for decades. By generating policies that focus more on desired outcomesthan prescriptive steps, cutting red tape in the permitting process and by actually communicating with the private sector, long-delayed infrastructure projects may finally come to fruition. Not by eradicating regulation, but by instilling good government principles transparency and complete and sound science railroads, trucks and other transportation stakeholders would gain efficiencies that make room for greater innovation and investment.

5. Ensure the vitality of private infrastructure, namely a freight rail network that serves nearly every industrial-, wholesale-, retail- and resource-based sector of the economy.

This means Washington regulators ditching numerous proceedings to re-regulatefreight rail, most notably a proposed measure called forced access, which would allow the government to order one rail company to use its own privately owned facilities on behalf of a competitor. Unneeded government meddling in the operations of this 140,000 mile network that keeps trucks off the road, reduces emissions and supports 1.5 million jobs nationally, is in direct opposition to the larger goal at hand.

Fixing U.S. infrastructure, particularly roads and bridges, is no small task. But by spurring private investments and ensuring the vitality of freight rail, a messy picture is at least a bit neater.

Ian Jefferies is senior vice president of government affairs at the Association of American Railroads. He wrote this forInsideSources.com. Part 2 on Wednesday will deal with short-line railroads.

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Freight rail is a key to the U.S. Economy, infrastructure - Herald and News

Saturday, May 20, 8:00 a.m. 10:00 a.m.

Wheeler, Oregon

Whether you are an experienced birder, or just learning to joys of bird watching, you will enjoy this morning. We will be searching for birds with eyes and ears along the perimeter of Zimmerman Marsh in Wheeler. Well pass through a variety of habitat types such as wetland, forest edge, open grassland/park, riparian, and estuary. A list of local birds will be provided see how many you can spot!

This guided hike is hosted by the Lower Nehalem Community Trust and is part of the Explore Nature series of hikes, walks, paddles and outdoor adventures. Explore Nature partners include volunteer community and non-profit organizations, offering meaningful nature-based experiences highlight the unique beauty of Tillamook County and the work being done to preserve and conserve the areas natural resources and natural resource-based economy.

This event happens rain or shine. No bathrooms available. No pets please!

Bring: rubber boots, binoculars, bird book (National Geographic, Sibley Guide, Peterson Guide, etc.), rain gear if needed, and quiet voices!

Location: Park just off Hwy 101, near (but not at) the Handycreek Bakery. There will be a sign with balloons to guide you.

Registration is appreciated, and can be done through the Explore Nature website.

http://www.explorenaturetillamookcoast.com

Suggested Donations, collected onsite: $5 per person over 18. Kids are Free!

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COASTAL BIRD HABITAT VIEWING: ZIMMERMAN MARSH - North Coast Citizen