Direction

I want to develop a system for home-scale lights-out manufacturing. [7]  That means the sort of set-up that you leave alone for the night expecting to find a room full of widgets in the morning. This is already available in some forms on an industrial scale. Even if I'm not the first to reach it, I want to be the first to open-source a version of it. Elements of it already freely available: CNC machines, additive and subtractive. The first step is to create a system that can cut the walls of a box out of a board, decide how to arrange them as a box, and glue the box together. [9]  Even that will take me years. Everything else is an extension of this. Welding is like gluing, but dangerous. Screws would be a special problem, I would guess.

People could use such a system to build better systems. [1]   People (regular folks) could form loose associations, fleeting or rotating collectives, to produce products. Products would not have to be approved and vetted by Underwriter Labs or Consumer Reports, but by reputation and the idea that other people can correct flaws that arise. It would be nice if a people sold only products (the convenience of not having made it yourself) instead of licenses (when you seemingly own a thing but also ex/implicitly promise not to look at it too hard). How does a participatory decentralized culture build a tank for self-defense? Would it even have to?

I was thinking about how if libraries disappear, people who care might set up lending networks for physical books, equipment, and spare time.

I was thinking about how if physical labor disappears, people who care might set up universities based on the hackerspace model. You just start trying things and then stop for a lecture when you need that. People can stop and assemble classes. People can be voted into and out of teaching positions. [2] College should do that and have a pay model that supports earning your way in teaching, researching, and/or inventing in such a way that you can stay as long as you like. Your resume is your portfolio, or a thing that you bring in, and say "I did this, and I probably know enough to do the job". [3] [8]

P.S. The game from the last post is indefinitely suspended until such time my brother starts participating again.

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[1] I have mixed feelings about Singularitism. [4] Some of the concepts are neat, but many scenarios boil down to how being affluent and tech-savvy becomes heaven [5], and hackers are deified. I just think it would be cool if the current trend of bringing manufacturing to the individual results in increasing gains for the people-side, and brings about loose, fuzzy alliances between groups of tinkerers that complements and undercuts the traditional corporate model.

[2] I mean if you decide you know something and you get voted on as an instructor (not necessarily a professor), then you start earning some fraction of the payroll that the community decides your class is worth. You have a balance sheet with the resources you consume and produce, with the worth of what you produce decided by the community, like the mod system on Stack Overflow.  If you only get a few "instructor mod points" you are just a tutor and maybe would not even be earning a teacher's salary. You owe tuition if your account has a negative balance.

[3] They would say "Oh yeah, you built that thing that ate downtown last year". To prove it you bring in a piece of it, which then eats their desk and you get the job. Easy-peasy.

[4] I hate futurists. (I'm looking at you, RK!)  Please drop the pretense and write science fiction. [6]

[5] Maybe someone could create a thing and tow it to a developing country where it starts making bricks and sewer pipes, not internets and hive-minds. Some people would just really appreciate a structure a monsoon won't tear down. People would be there, talking to the locals and feeding the machine plans. It would print the most simple amenities possible. The sort of things that spring from simple, repetitive work

[6] No, the irony isn't lost on me.  I like to think that pure speculations and empty hopes aren't scams if you don't make money from them.

[7] I wish I had a dream when I was younger.  I always wanted to "do cool things" while only sporadically finding a "thing".  At least I don't ascribe to the belief that technical/mental achievements are only reached during one's 20's.

[8] I guess we do not necessarily have to wait for labor to disappear, it would be cool at any time.  The thought followed my thoughts about democratized manufacturing and the eventual end of factory and sweat-shop jobs, democratization or none.

[9] Step zero is learning Common Lisp, which I have convinced myself will help with the project.