Saturday, February 16, 2013

Economics, What's That?

With the rapid advent of 3D-printing people are starting to be open to thinking through the obvious consequences.  Let's try it.

If you hang out with plants and help them then you are a Grower.

If you are making something with your hands that involves protons and neutrons then you are an Artisan.

If you are making something that can be transmitted through photons and electrons then you are a Designer.

If you are helping people to feel better then you are a Healer.

If you are helping people to grow then you are a Teacher.

I think that just leaves Artist and Scientist?  I'm going to say that both of those roles are concomitant of the others to a greater or lesser degree per ones own personal tastes and nature.
  • Grower
  • Artisan
  • Designer
  • Healer
  • Teacher
  • Artist
  • Scientist 
Every other role will be eliminated or fulfilled by machinery.  Go take out the phone book, if you still have one.  Flip though it and see what I mean, nearly everybody in there is about to made obsolete by automation.

As for the structure of the economy I foresee three "levels" or "strata".

The first layer is made up of locally grown and consumed food and other wholesome organic products.  We'll soon come to our senses and stop messing around with GMO's and other insane techno-fetishes (or we'll all die. It's that simple and stark.)  On the primary physical level we'll live quite close to the way our "stone-age" ancestors did (and no, billions will not have to perish to let it happen) only with nice houses.

That original organic economy will form the basis or substratum for the other two layers.

There will be an "information" layer where most economic activity takes place that involves people creating wealth in digital form.  More than enough has been said about that.

The last layer is relatively sparse and consists of whatever physical transactions are needed to support the two other layers but that are not strictly "of them", meaning non-purely-digital and not ecological or organic.  This involves things like extracting particular elements from the Earth for specific experiments and projects.

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