manufacturing

this tesla manufacturing facility is amazing - especially the dexterity and multiple functions of the many robots. i am surprised that there are even the 3000 human workers. i predict that in 5 years, the number of humans in manufacturing will halve; in 10 years there will be complete automation of manufacturing process - globally...

global inequalities

a stunning explication of global inequalities - 300 people have more than the bottom 3 billion. moreover, the rich world has moved on to colonialism by other means - they continue to extract trillions from the poor. it's clear that scarcity is a structural artefact of the current global system - will technology enabled abundance help "change the rules". we need to better understand the 300 psychopaths that steal from the rest and find a way to address and expose their pathology. there needs to be an active global dialogue about the snowballing properties of capital...

the "tax-free tour" gives a rare glimpse into the psycho-pathology of governing plutocrats. while billions toil for nothing, those with trillions, simply hoard - is there a cure for this sickness:

  

solar @ grid parity

deutsche bank has released a report concluding that the cost of unsubsidized solar power is about the same as the cost of electricity from the grid in india and italy, and that by 2014 even more countries will achieve solar “grid parity.”

during 2013, china is expected to supplant germany as the world’s biggest solar market. china expects to add 10 gigawatts of new solar projects this year, “more than double its previous target and three times last year’s expansion.”

in 2012, us solar installations grew 73% over 2011 levels, driven by third party leasing agreements that eliminate up front costs in rooftop installation. the price of installed pv systems fell 27%.

low-cost desalination

fresh water availability is a key global issue. reuters reports on a graphene (clearly a key material for the future) based filtration technology that is less expensive and more efficient than current reverse osmosis tech:

The process, officials and engineers at Lockheed Martin Corp say, would enable filter manufacturers to produce thin carbon membranes with regular holes about a nanometer in size that are large enough to allow water to pass through but small enough to block the molecules of salt in seawater. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.

Because the sheets of pure carbon known as graphene are so thin - just one atom in thickness - it takes much less energy to push the seawater through the filter with the force required to separate the salt from the water, they said.

The development could spare underdeveloped countries from having to build exotic, expensive pumping stations needed in plants that use a desalination process called reverse osmosis.

"It's 500 times thinner than the best filter on the market today and a thousand times stronger," said John Stetson, the engineer who has been working on the idea. "The energy that's required and the pressure that's required to filter salt is approximately 100 times less."

Access to clean drinking water is increasingly seen as a major global security issue. Competition for water is likely to lead to instability and potential state failure in countries important to the United States, according to a U.S. intelligence community report last year.

"Between now and 2040, fresh water availability will not keep up with demand absent more effective management of water resources," the report said. "Water problems will hinder the ability of key countries to produce food and generate electricity."

About 780 million people around the world do not have access to clean drinking water, the United Nations reported last year.

i doubt - however - that lockheed martin would have any kind of humanitarian agenda. the best hope for widespread application would be if multiple labs in the developing world developed this on their own. i think there is enough expertise and pressure to do so...

tighter

i guess i am constantly trying to resolve the debate between the promise and peril of technology. technology can take us to abundance, but it can also be used to create a system of total control. technology itself is neutral - the key to societal state are it's operators. consider that in light of noam chomsky's conclusion about what the masters of this world seem to want - "all for us, nothing for the rest". thus, inspite of all my optimism about tech, i see real insight in ran prieur's sentiment:

I was a doomer optimist. For my entire life the world has been getting tighter and tighter, and I was hopeful that I would see it crack open into freedom and possibility. I'm too young to remember the 1960's, but I remember as a kid roaming the neighborhood unsupervised, I remember when small airports had no security at all, when surveillance cameras were rare, when there were no seat belt laws, when you could share information without having to overcome DRM, when only young people had to show ID to buy alcohol.

My fear now is that it will never again get looser, that a tech crash is almost impossible, and that technology will make the control systems more airtight while channeling our urge for freedom into artificial worlds. You could even argue that this is part of the "collapse": increasing poverty causes increasing crime causes increasing fear causes increasing popular consent for strong central control.

after the crash of 2008 and the "slow emergency" that followed, it is clear that the masses do not have agency to effect epistemic change. the "arab spring" forced change of regime, but vestiges of the old seem to be taking hold again. the power of capital seems total - in the west and east...

tech concentrates wealth

this is a surprising document indeed - it lays bare the true extent of income inequality in america. i imagine a similar - or more severe - story in the rest of the world. i daresay technology has something to do with this as tech extends span of control and augments human potentiality. technology aids wealth concentration. more and more prosperous companies are employing less and less people. there clearly needs to be a new social contract that redistributes abundance. capital and technology operate with positive network externalities (i.e. they tend to snowball) and are locking-in/locking-out populations. 

a different way of living

federico pistono points out two deficiencies of the current monetary system - a. inefficiency: he gives the example of the food supply. we currently produce enough food to feed 17-18 billion people, however, 2 of the total 7 billion people on the planet are undernourished. that is insane, b. debt slavery is a necessary artefact of the current design of the monetary system.

are there any change incentives for the plutocrats who created this mess - perhaps few given that they are untouchable. pistono suggests the rationale of positive externalities for them in a contended world of abundance. but then again - we do not understand the motivations of the few that control so much - what is logical for us may not hold their interest - it was benjamin disraeli who said "the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes."