not all bad, so far "progressing society" has been quite detrimental to individual liberty.

True, but we're attempting to computerize society in such a way, here, that the individual is not superfluous and thus capable of being removed with no detriment to society.

... I didn't know tone translated well over the internet, and my intent was to agree and add to the conversation.

And, in fact, everyone who has a Social Security Number is actually the CEO of a company that shares the exact same name as themselves, and it is that company that is required to "pay taxes" in the form of a W-2/W-4. Go look at the tax code - it begins with something like "The following is for taxes for the UNITED STATES, which is defined as the District of Columbia." That means that throughout the rest of that tax code, every time it refers to the UNITED STATES, it actually means Washington, D.C. This means that only residents of Washington D.C. have to pay their end of the year taxes. Unfortunately, every time you fill paperwork out that includes your SSN and sign at the bottom "I verify the above information is correct under penalty of purgery," you end up saying that you are held liable for the Corporation that shares your name.

Interestingly, this also means the central government can put (almost) anyone in jail at any time for purgery. You've signed government paperwork stating you live in Washington, D.C., and odds are you don't. That's purgery.

seems it doesn't translate well over the internet. I think I'll be looking up the tax code now, or another night..

Unfortunately I couldn't actually find the tax code on the IRS site (probably because they don't want people to actually read it), but on the other hand I only spent about 2 minutes looking for it. If it isn't obviously on there, I missed it.

on the topic of agricorps, i recall reading about concepts for vertical greenhouses. Basically envision a skyscraper that is floor upon floor of plants. Hell, if one go for pig or chicken, the same can be applied there, as they do not have the same grazing requirements (tho i suspect its not so much a requirements and a ease of labor) as cows or sheep, iirc.

i can see a agricorp "plant" being something on the scale of a refinery, but with multistory buildings housing plants and livestock.

hell, they may even be self-powered, if they can capture the natural gas from the livestock, and use that to drive the heating and lighting of the place.

You're missing the point. Humans are still better and more cost efficient at a variety of jobs, that's why there have been other jobs available when old jobs got automated. That will end in within a few decades. Machines will be better and cheaper at doing any and all jobs (unless it turns out there is something supernatural like souls needed to power our intellects). You need to factor this into your understanding, there will be no work for meat humans.

The vast majority of people will have no income, since their work is worth nothing. Only those with shares or big savings they can live off will have income, short of welfare. It has nothing to do with totalitarian rule, it is simple economics. Leaving won't solve anything, in fact it would probably only make things worse - who would want to take in fugitives that will be dependant on welfare for their entire lives?

If farmers own their own land and this holds value, then maybe they'll be some of the few who remain rich. Maybe their land will be worth very little, because almost everyone else is out of a job and so don't have any income to buy real food. Maybe the new economy values land, for solar collectors perhaps, and that is why it is valuable.

The only real players after cheap, strong AI is developed will be the AIs, and perhaps posthumans - perhaps we'll find a way that allow humans to upgrade into something else that can match the AIs in power, speed and efficiency. But your meat body and brain will soon be totally obsolete.

Unless you are awakened!

AI and the like cannot utilise magic, so therein lies the usefulness of a meat body and mind.

And Aztechnology always has a use for the non-awakened. . .


Edit: And on the subject of taxes and perjury, it is not perjury because you are acknowledging the claim to the SSN number you bear, which as you say is a corporation. A corporation generally pays taxes and is bound by the laws of the state that it is incorporated in, even if it is not physically there.

That's why a change of the way the society (and economy) works might be needed.
Having robots do all the boring jobs is not so different from having slaves do all the boring jobs in Ancient rome, except for the ethical issues.

The problem is, what if you're not a slave owner, ie a shareholder? These wonderful robots and AIs won't be owned by us, they will be owned by corporations - the value of their work will go only to corporations and shareholders, 99% of the population will get nothing, except for welfare - but paying for this means company taxes, and in a globalized world they'll just move to countries with lower taxes. They won't be limited by the need for operating where the customers are or having an educated work force.

I think the need for a change goes way beyond might. We'll need a radical change if we're going to get through the singularity. And the solution needs to be global, because every nation will have a benefit in making it more attractive for companies to operate there, and this competition will drive down taxation, leaving all countries with either a) hardly any companies to tax or b) too low taxes for sufficient welfare to support the populace. Embargoes won't really work unless you have natural resources to restrict access to, so we're pretty much down to a global regulation enforced by military means.

But the liberals aren't really into the whole global police, preemptive strike thing, and the conservatives aren't into socialist welfare state models, so it will be very interesting if the politicians will manage to adapt their ideologies before it is too late.

Going obsolete is the biggest threat humanity as ever faced - normally, it leads to extinction, let us hope we're smarter than that.

Yes it has been, but there is a point at which the US populace can redress those concerns if those choose to (so far we have not). Unlike other places we can throw the bums out, unfotunately that usually results in another set of bums.

There's already aquaponics, which isn't exactly what you're talking about, and I've seen plans for the "dragonfly," which is still conceptual. I thought I remembered New York actually starting one of these that's 5 stories, but I couldn't find it with a quick search of the web.

But...you don't need it like that. All you need are growth lamps! You can squeeze two layers in per floor and can use a standard office building type space.

I'll see about scanning in the pages of Discover that talked about this recently.

by leave I do not mean go to another country. I mean find a frontier or make one. The oceans are quite open as are most sea floors. And as long as we are talking about ficticous AI lets say there is a ficticious fusion reactor that is 5% efficent. That is enough to make space travel about as expensive as flying a jet. With it that cheap hop in one and leave the planet if AI starts taking over. That is how ya leave. And before anyone says oh but thats crazy talk AI will be real in a few years but fusion never will check this out http://www.iter.org/proj/Pages/Default.aspx.

And as far as who owns corporations and such, are you guys children or welfare recipients? I must be the only person with a 401k around here. most retirements are in the stockmarket which makes almost anyone with a retirement plan one of those evil shareholders. somehow I think more than 1% of the population has a retirement.

Smokeskin, the only way there would be no work for humans because machines do everything better is for there to be true cyborgs and such that are smarter, faster, stronger, and more agile than humans. If that starts to happen there are a few solutions 1) make it illegal to build such machines in a similar way its illegal to build new machineguns for the civilian market or 2) conduct a little vandalism 3) by that point something that is about as far fetched is cyberware so just upgrade yerself.

Yes, there will be machines smarter, faster, stringer and more agile than meat humans.

1) doesn't work unless you have global enforcement of the rule
2) a little vandalism? We're talking about the entire production capacity of the world
3) Yes, that's why I said meat humans would be obsolete, upgraded posthumans might not be. It won't be enough with just a bit of cyberware, more like transitioning to an entirely different medium, which is a non-trivial task since a mere copy won't suffice. A gradual replacement of brain matter seem to allow for a continuation of consciousness while ending up with your mind running in a machine medium.

A comment, partly inspired by your mention of farmwork. Thus far, automation has freed people up from repetitive, mindless labor to pursue other lines of work. Looked at another way, machines destroyed jobs and people lost their income.

Also, in the US, farms run by families (most of them, that is) tend to be extremely resistant to the idea of someone else taking something the family has had for generations, and are planning on having in the family for generations to come. I shudder to think of what would happen if someone without that kind of vested interest in the business to produce would do to the ground and animals due to the intentions of a clueless official-- Pol Pot, Cambodia ring any bells?

I'd best stop here before I rant for a page or two...

I'm sorry, but family farms more or less died, in what the 1930s? And you're right. No family would want to give that up, but they were forced off their farms anyway.

There are still some family owned farms, yes. But 90% of our food is not grown that way.

most of our food coming from huge evil agricorps is false unless you only consider a few crops. fruit especially small fruit is prediominantly small buissness. Cattle are predominantly family owned (although some family ranches are freaken huge: 30000+ acres each) vegtables I'm not certain of in general but the pricier type are predominantly small buissnesses (ex- the really tasty dark green lettus as opposed to the cheap stuff). Milk production I'm not certain of the makeup of small buissness to large but I know the industry is hugely automated and treats the cattle like pampered pooches (seems they did research and found out happy cows make more and better milk).

You are correct. Its getting better, but back when The Meatrix was made things were really really bad.

According to the Worldwatch Institute, 74 percent of the world's poultry, 43 percent of beef, and 68 percent of eggs are produced in industrialized manner. So I was a bit hyperbolic with my last post.