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How libertarians will save the planet

Submitted by Einzige on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 10:14

For many long years the political Right has had difficulty in whipping up a solution to the environment problem. For a while, it seemed as if it would win simply through denying it; Ronald Reagan contemptuously removed the solar panels Carter had installed on the White House rooftop, in a chauvinistic display of everything wrongheaded and unthinking by modern Rightists.

But there is a movement afoot that will one day give rise to an economy as alien from the industrial one we now inhabit as this one was from our agrarian ancestors - and it's using principles the Right has long abandoned. By combining a forward-thinking, libertarian entrepreneurial spirit with a progressive committment to solving the economic issues we face in our rapidly-decaying industrial capitalist economy, a group of rogue scientists will save the world.

Behold, the fabber.

... A funny name for a world-saving device, isn't it? In fact, what is it? According to the fabbists themselves:

 The sharing of music and movie files in peer-to-peer exchanges on the Internet has opened a Pandora’s box of controversy on how to control and profit from creative properties in the digital era. Yet music and movies are only the “tip of the iceberg” in the world of valuable intellectual property. Technologies currently under development and in limited commercial use today present the future possibility of distributing physical products on the Internet by downloading and manufacturing directly in customers’ homes and offices or in local facilities (“3-D Kinko’s”).

     Digital manufacturing is performed by a family of modern technologies that capture, transmit, and manifest 3-D digital descriptions of physical products. The central technology is the digital fabricator or “fabber,” also called a 3-D printer because it does 3-D digital output in solid material. Invented for use by engineers in “rapid prototyping” of all manner of products, from automobiles to zippers, fabbers are now also used by physicians and scientists, Hollywood prop makers, digital sculptors, and even pornographers.

     As fabbers improve in user friendliness and decline in price, their proliferation among professional and recreational computer users will provide a whole new purpose for peer-to-peer exchanges like Napster, Gnutella, and FreeNet. With fabbers instead of MP3 players and *.fab files instead of *.MP3, the inventories distributed by such networks naturally expand from information products to the real and physical: toys, clothing, furniture, sports equipment, consumer electronics, and even, one day, automobiles.

Essentially, fabbing involves the full and mature use of the Internet on a scale previously unknown: by sending a three-dimensional 'copy' of an item through the Internet to a rapid prototyping machine, objects can be built using 'layered' materials to fashion it. This technology has existed since 1986, but only in the past decade has it been feasible to begin to realize the full and awesome implications it will have on our future economy.

How does this help the environment? Simply this: by cutting out most of the middle-men -- the only need for shipping companies now would be to bring the raw material in and supply it; and that could probably be reduced itself by recycling -- we could stave off peak oil until the technology to totally avoid it becomes fully feasible.

Of course, not everybody is going to like it. The old order will cling to power, using its influence in the high offices of the land to attempt to smash this burgeoning industry before it can get off of its feet. Make no mistake of it: this is class-warfare, against both business and governmental interests.

This is why a reconsideration of the principles of libertarianism is so important: as we have seen so recently in cases involving Napster, Limewire and the RIAA, old mass industries are (rightfully) terrified that, once the full power of free individuals utilizing the Internet for progressive ends is unleashed, it will be the end of them. As it well should be.

The old political alliance between Big Business and libertarians has got to go; we can only invest in this technology as long as Network Neutrality - that is to say, the right of free men to use the technology in their possession to whatever egalitarian end they wish - is protected and respected. The government, of course, will not see to this; because the government exists solely to prop up the business interests of a ruling elite. Only through this radical re-adjustment, and re-evalutation of our present values, can we achieve the future - today.

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More stupid 'bash-the-right' to leaven an arrogant article

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 18:03.

 

First mistake: A pointless and wrongheaded bash of Reagan. The media has spun you around to where you feel the need to express your smartness and coolness by dissing the right... the same way deranged New York Times oped writers do it. Not directly mind you, but as pointless asides. to wit.

For a while, it seemed as if it would win simply through denying it; Ronald Reagan contemptuously removed the solar panels Carter had installed on the White House rooftop, in a chauvinistic display of everything wrongheaded and unthinking by modern Rightists.

What exactly did Reagan "deny"? Gee, I dunno. Maybe he denied Carter's claims about oil - you know like:

World oil production can probably keep going up for another six or eight years. But some time in the 1980s it can't go up much more. Demand will overtake production - Immy Carter 1977.

Turns out Carter was COMPLETELY WRONG. Carter predicted oil crisis in 6-8 years - and in 6-8 years ... oil prices CRASHED FROM OVERSUPPLY. Carter completely mispredicted, mis-diagnosed, and mis-stated the REAL issue with energy. Carter thought energy use was wrong, when in fact the issue was price and supply.

Reagan did 100% the right thing by deregulating the price of oil and gas and letting supply and demand meet natural balances. Reagan did the right thing by ending the Synfuels boondoggle and a bunch of other wasteful projects besides. Oil prices were stable, the economy grew by one third and the US economy and financial position was much better in 1988 than 1980.

Bashing Reagan for taking off some solar panels and missing the BIG picture - Reagan was right and Carter was wrong - is both arrogant and ignorant.

 

But there is a movement afoot that will one day give rise to an economy as alien from the industrial one we now inhabit as this one was from our agrarian ancestors - and it's using principles the Right has long abandoned. By combining a forward-thinking, libertarian entrepreneurial spirit with a progressive committment to solving the economic issues we face in our rapidly-decaying industrial capitalist economy, a group of rogue scientists will save the world.

That is utter pseudo-intellectual garbage. The technology you speak of can and will do no such thing. A desktop gizmo will no recreate a BMW car or Intel chips or give you fresh vegetables or new shirt - it will not in short displace 99% of what people buy.

This is a form 'shiny metal object' futurism that, like eco-extremism, often pits the hum-drum reality of today with some idealized form of projected future. Except its not real. The reality is that 3-D model-making exists and has existed, and it would be not much interesting to more than hobbyists because its easier and cheaper to buy manufactured objects ... just as it is cheaper and easier to buy food in the supermarket than to grow your own.

What is shared after all with this fabber? Information. That's all. You still have to make THINGS with RAW MATERIALS. There's no magic changing the rules of manufacturing. YOu need stuff input to make stuff output.

How does this help the environment? Simply this: by cutting out most of the middle-men -- the only need for shipping companies now would be to bring the raw material in and supply it; and that could probably be reduced itself by recycling -- we could stave off peak oil until the technology to totally avoid it becomes fully feasible.

More folly on a number of levels.

#1 folly is the lie that energy use is inherently an environmental problem. Not necessarily. If the energy complex in the US was 70% nuclear, 10% wind, 10% solar 10% hydro ... zero emissions for any electricity user. You could have all the factories you want and the environmental impact would be negligible (dead birds and a small nuclear waste repository, BFD.)

#2 folly is the 'small-is-better' lie. E.FSchumacher and Amory Lovins have pushed this meme, but there is a problem: It's not true. Economics and energy both have advnatages of scale. If you are trying to EFFICIENTLY build watches, making them in a factory and shipping the completed products is MORE EFFICIENT than shipping the raw material to 10,000 places and making them there. The raw material waste alone is a good reason to doubt that 'desk=top manufacturing' will be a winner.

The 'middle-man' is not a problem, but a solution to the reality that people live all around the globe and distribution of materials and products needs to happen.

#3 folly is the blind belief in stuff like 'peak oil'. The oil age will no end for lack of oil, just as the stone age didnt end for lack of stones. The Rocky Mountains has oil shale reserves of 1-3 TRILLION barrels of oil equivalent, and Shell oil has an in-situ process to extract it. Impossible? Nope, $30/barrel. The equivalent natural-gas in shale has been solved, and as a result, we just increased US gas reserves in the past 2 years by almost 50%! Barnett oil shale in Texas and a HUGE find in Louisiana is completely rewriting the story on natural gas production. It puts a big hole in the peak oilers concerns. Oil shale and non-conventional oil will keep oil avaialable for the next 70-100 years, but we will move off oil well before that IMHO.

Of course, not everybody is going to like it. The old order will cling to power, using its influence in the high offices of the land to attempt to smash this burgeoning industry before it can get off of its feet. Make no mistake of it: this is class-warfare, against both business and governmental interests.

That is stupid tinfoil-wearing, conspiracy-mongering BS. Nobody really gives a dang if you want to try to make your own gizmos at home, and no political force will stop you - unless you are stealing someone's IP to do so. So, cut the cr*p. You are massively overhyping a trend or technology that in reality IS NOT A BIG DEAL AND WILL HAVE .1% OF THE REAL IMPACT YOU PREDICT. And I guess when it doesnt really change the world you wont recognize that it didnt have the promise you hyped but you will blame 'powers that be' or other nonsense.

Arrogance is less becoming when allied with ignorance. Replace your gizmo with "Cold Fusion" and you could say the same thing - and be equally fictional.

 

This is why a reconsideration of the principles of libertarianism is so important:

 

Now we get to the massive non-sequitor. There is absolutely nothing in your mistreatment of Reagan or your overhyping of desktop 3-D gizmo-making or small-is-good environmentalism that in any way relates to the principles of libertarianism ...

Bringing in Napster, Limewire and the RIAA, is a WHOLE different matter. That matter is the issue of how INTELLECTUAL property is handled, which is a different matter from "mass industries" ... You say:

are (rightfully) terrified that, once the full power of free individuals utilizing the Internet for progressive ends is unleashed, it will be the end of them. As it well should be.

By 'progressive ends' do you mean violating patent rights and violating copyrights and software license agreements and other forms of IP use violations?!? For that in the end is what RIAA vs Limewire etc. was about.

The REAL answer there has been addressed well by folks like Larry (sp?) Lessig, and the development of "Creative Commons" so that those who WANT to share intellectual activities freely can do so. Those who try to force some kind of commons for all will fail and should fail. On the other hand, "open source" for many things is an optimization of IP that enables new business models and new ways of creating value for people.

Forcing those who do not want to share their IP is absolutely wrong. OTOH, those in 'closed walls' end up having to compete against "open source". But we see that ALREADY in the challenge the US has in competing against cheap knockoff China products for about ... almost everything.

But you can open source software in a far different way than you can a widget, or a car. When I give you a copy of software, I can keep my own copy. When I give you my car, I dont have it anymore. Material object property therefore does NOT play by the economics of 'open source' like software. Different ballgame.

  There is no issue with the basic principles of libertarianism or conservatism or any -ism. What we have today is the ability to take any piece of information and replicate it at effectively zero cost.

That is a fundamental challenge to business models, how politics works, etc. but one not to addressed with bogus marxist talking points like " because the government exists solely to prop up the business interests of a ruling elite"

Only through this radical re-adjustment, and re-evalutation of our present values, can we achieve the future - today.

Gag me. Yea, marxist critique - "only by destroying the 95% of USA and our beliefs that are good can we ever hope to fix the 5% that is not good." Its stupid thinking like that which leads to killing fields and 25% unemployment.

This article is arrogant, wrongheaded, and draws the wrong lessons from an overhyped view of a technology that is really a niche. My head hurts from such a mish-mash of painfully miscontrued notions piled on top of otherwise promising observation. Einzige, someone has seriously mis-educated you.

No, libertarians will not 'save the planet' the planet is FINE, but someone I hope can save you from a severe case of misguidedness.