You made me part of your forgotten dream
Solderpunk phlogged[0] recently in part about the larger-scale
sustainability of people opting to remove themselves from the
'grid'. That post immediately sparked some thoughts in my mind that
others have no doubt also pondered but I thought I would share my
current ramblings on the subject.
He questioned in part as to whether it was necessary for
the majority of people to stay tied to that consumptive,
high-infrastructure life for it to be feasible for some to maintain
a life off the grid in simpler housing in a much more minimalist
way.
There has been a variety of discussion for years now on the topic
of automation and its likelihood of putting entire swaths of the
working population out of work. If the prices of everything remain
the same that certainly poses a problem - millions going hungry in
the US where already one in eight experiences food insecurity in a
year sounds like a very serious problem.
But what if you flip that unemployment problem on its head? What if
prices didn't stay the same?
With readily available 3D printing in durable materials with
tight tolerances, ubiquitous and flexible automated assembly and
other processes, automated food production, construction and
transportation - could it become quite possible for people to not
have to work a lot of hours to have what they need? Certainly the
ability of a very few people to provide plenty of durable goods for
the entire population should be within reach. If we could but
bridge the gap to making things in a more recyclable fashion even
material costs might cease to be a burden on manufacturing (that is
probably the real hurdle to overcome).
At that point if - and it's an enormous 'if' - the price of goods
is allowed to decline along with the costs of producing them, then
the labor that a person has to put forth to cover their material
needs should become very, very low. This brings to mind of
course the automobile which Henry Ford made available to the
American common family by finding ways to significantly reduce his
manufacturing costs. The thinking at that time was that quality of
life should improve as it becomes cheaper and easier to make things
and life should get easier. Ford eventually began paying his
workers more in part so they could buy the products they were
making. We have drifted away from that ideal as the drive for
quarterly sales and profits, have driven designed obsolescence and
seasonal buying cycles with marketing pushing us to consume more
and more. We are being driven away from that ideal by the need for
a greater 'return on investment' for the wealthy in the stock
market.
If costs and labor needs plummet there is the very real possibility
of people someday living very easy lives if only we don't allow the
greed of the wealthy to keep prices high and drive ever greater
rates of consumption. That ought to be the outcome of drastically
cheaper manufacturing.
There is of course also the problem of what people would do with
their time given a significant increase in leisure. It might in
fact be a new renaissance of creativity for people, free to devote
themselves to things that they love, or always wanted to pursue but
were too time-consuming because of the need to subsist. There might
be problems of motivation for some but in a generation or two that
would likely resolve itself as culture adapted. In any case finding
uses for our time would certainly be a good problem to have versus
food insecurity, lack of safe drinking water and healthcare costs
bankrupting people on a wide scale.
kvothe wrote[1] some time ago a bit on the topic of our obsession
at being good at anything we do holding us back from doing a lot of
things. Take that inhibition away and you have millions of people
free to enjoy their lives, help one another out, teach each other
new things and study what they always wanted to study.
Furthermore of course, fields which may continue to need more human
workers - such as nursing and healthcare where labor costs and
profit motives lead to shortages of workers and poor care - you
could certainly see more people going into working in those fields
because they have the option and because it's very rewarding work.
Coming back to Solderpunk's point (is there a term for a
second-order tangent?): If a majority of people decided to remove
themselves from the rat race and live minimally, disconnected from
the electrical grid and consumption for its own sake, could such a
society continue to provide the things they can't produce for
themselves individually? It ought to not be difficult at all soon,
the technology to allow for it seems nearly inevitable. A small
fraction of the population ought to be able to manage the
production necessary for those who opt out. Opting out might in
fact become a very popular idea, I think.
[0]gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/0/%7esolderpunk/phlog/can-we-all-walk-away.txt
[1]gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:70/1/%7ekvothe/phlog/2018-10-03-mediocrity/
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