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Originally Posted by pai mei
Dragonlich you say people need to work ? Of course they need to work to survive. If by technology we escape that work isn't that a good thing ? Then do whatever you want, party all day.
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And who will develop this technology, manufacture it, implement it, and why? You say technology like it's some independent thing that automatically advances unrelated to anyone doing work to advance it.
You repeat over and over that with the proper technology, agriculture could be efficient enough to sustain the world at a subsistence level existence with a fraction of the population working.
I'm going to copy and paste my answer from your last thread, as it still applies here. I'm not going to put it in quotes, because people tend to read past them, but here goes:
What about the people who manufacture and engineer the farming equipment?
What about the people who drive the trucks and trains and planes to distribute the goods, and the people who build them?
What about the people who process the food, and the people who build the machines that process the food?
What about the power generation and distribution to power all of this utopia, both due to the electric grid and the petroleum needed to fuel the farm and transportation equipment?
What about the computers to coordinate the production and distribution of this food, and the networks to support that coordination?
What about the distribution centers for the food?
What about the space industry needed to support the network of satellites that allows GPS to function, thus enabling super efficient automated farming? Now we need rocket scientists, too!
And that is just for food! We also need to manufacture and distribute clothing and shelter, and all of the things that go along with both of those. I'd assume we still need running water, so you still need that utility company as well, and we'll need roads constructed and maintained to get the food to everyone, so we still need civil engineers and construction workers. Plus, if we're going to have vehicles driving and flying around, we need repair shops, and subassembly manufacturers (I make seatbelts!).
What you are describing is a society benefiting from extreme specialization, but without any of the neccessary industries to support that specialization. If you want to maintain the level of efficiency you seem to desire in agriculture, I think you would need to maintain a startlingly large segment of the manufacturing and engineering base.
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From:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/general...ml#post2562298
We are such a web of related technologies that to suggest abolishing any arm leads to so many cascading shortages all the way up and down the industrial base it's damn near incomprehensible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ASU2003
Solar Heater
This is the cheap and easy passive solar that I was talking about. Sorry about the confusion. You can build even cheaper ones than this, or more elaborate 'professional' looking attached green houses or sun porches.
People use solar water heaters to heat swimming pools and to get hot water too.
Welcome to The Sietch - Projects Build Your Own Solar Thermal Panel
I would expect more people to look into this form of heating in the south and southwest, and you don't need expensive solar panels (the equivalent active solar panel energy needed to run a furnace or hot water heater would be huge).
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This is going to sound like I'm being way more of a dick than I intend to be, but here's the materials list for your cheap and easy passive solar heater:
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Ingredients:
2x8 lumber
2x6 lumber
2x4 lumber
2x2 lumber
glass, plexiglass, or some kind of clear material.
black aluminum window screen
caulking, paint, screws, lag screws, staple gun + other tools
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Do you personally know how to manufacture all of those things? What Pai Mei is talking about is a complete eradication of the industrial base as we know it.
I know that if I personally were dropped in the woods naked, it would take me probably a couple years before I could make a decent 2x4, let alone plexiglass, window screen, caulk, and some lag screws, and you're fooling yourself if you think you could do any better. Tools make tools to make materials to make tools to make parts that make stuff, and once you break that chain it's really hard to go back.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by pai mei
I feel like I'm talking to some wall here.
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I feel like I'm talking to someone who has never worked in any manufacturing or engineering or agricultural industry or spent any more thought on this idea than "Man, working for a living sucks. Couldn't we just have robots grow us food and feed us? Then I could backpack around Europe and putter around in my garden! Yeah that would rule!"