It is evolving, but community spaces that include housing food and everything that removes a need for money. I believe true creativity needs money to be something that is not a concern, whether you have enough or simply no need for it to survive and if necessary keep your family cared for.
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Couldn’t agree more, the greatest thinkers often times had the simplest lives. That doesn’t have to mean we need the same simple they had necessarily but definitely a distraction and worry free environment and life or at least access to plenty of resources and to a quiet place in nature. Kudos @dirvine for contributing so much to a noble vision.
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Have any of you heard of the Venus Project?
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Yes indeed which @dirvine last post talking about reducing the need for money reminded me of it. Good ideas there. I like the infrastructure design he has for the circular cities. Hope people check it out too
The plot thickens.
The Venus Project is an organisation that promotes architect Jacque Fresco’s vision of the future, which involves an economic structure known as “resource based economy.” It was actively promoted by the Zeitgeist Movement, and is endorsed heavily in Zeitgeist: Addendum, the sequel to the Zeitgeist conspiracy movie.
Basically stock-standard central-planning, except with computers!
The goal of the Venus Project is to create a representation of how society could be designed, if it was built using the economic theory of a “resource-based economy.” This entails doing away with capitalism, socialism, and communism; jobs are made irrelevant in favor of automating tasks using technological solutions.
It also entails ending the use of money, instead distributing resources using scientific principles. Some of these ideas are similar to the earlier Technocracy movement. This would allow society to arrive at decisions about how resources should be distributed, rather than merely making arbitrary decisions.
Some of the claimed benefits of such a society are:
The vast reduction or potential elimination of a dependency on oil and other unsustainable energy sources in favor of alternative and sustainable energy.
The primary incentive for criminal behavior is eliminated with the removal of the money system, thus crime rates are vastly reduced.
They claim to eliminate elitism from human society and simultaneously remove the influence of ideology from human behavior (and still claim with a straight face that they aren’t utopians).
The reality
The Venus Project can be divided into two halves. The first half is a fairly standard claim that central planning is more efficient and fairer than capitalism.
This argument should be fairly familiar to anyone who’s studied Soviet communism, although the Venus Project seems to think they’ve stumbled onto some hugely original insight. Even crazier more interesting is how the the central planning will work.
You see, there will be computers. With sensors. And they will decide everything. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is the point where things get vague. Let’s hear it from the horse’s mouth.
Who makes the decisions in a resource based economy?
No one does. The process of arriving at decisions in this economy would not be based upon the opinions of politicians, corporate, or national interests but rather all decisions would be arrived at based upon the introduction of newer technologies and Earth’s carrying capacity.
Computers could provide this information with electronic sensors throughout the entire industrial, physical complex to arrive at more appropriate decisions.
Unfortunately, as anyone with even a basic knowledge of computers could tell you, someone has to program them. And unless we somehow develop a hard AI, the people who program the computers will have to make decisions.
Given that we have scarce resources, the central planning computer needs to have a way to prioritize between millions of competing desires.
How important are cars relative to fridges?
How big should these fridges be?
How often do they need to be replaced?
Should we make more fridges or more fridge factories so we can make even more in the future?
The Venus Project doesn’t have an answer to any of these questions. But they can tell you what the “architectural design center” will look like!
Also, there will be hovercars!
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This sounds like a job for maidsafe! Can we get an app for that?
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If everyone could just simply do the job they want to do and work on what drives them at that time, I think society would benefit. In MaidSafe we have an agreement when we are revenue positive or at least breaking even we put everyone on the same salary. This is under constant discussion, but essentially it is to ensure no promotion == more cash type situations and if people wish to move into other jobs it is because they want to. So any CEO we have will earn no more than an Engineer and why should they?
I believe this will make us a very strong company and those who stand in the way of progress with teflon suited MBA CEO’s with huge bonuses and no notion of all nighters for years at a time will not be a challenge. More importantly though the workers/owners of MaidSafe will be doing what they love and the work life balance will be pretty good. People like me will always gravitate to the next impossible thing or hard stuff, others will do more mechanical stuff, others will just amaze with incredible implementations and library designs etc. I think it will be excellent.
If nothing it means the power obtained from having more money/bigger car etc. will not exist and that for me can only be good.
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OK Blindsite, enough with the conspiracy theories already. The tin foil hat guy in the video after a couple of minutes starts on about fluoride in toothpaste. Here’s a link about this for anybody actually interested in the science:
Thank you @chrisfostertv for once again producing readable material to something mentioned. 
that’s a valuable characteristic. I think that article is a little off in some ways (although I don’t defend everything the Venus project may stand for) the centralization is true enough to each circular city it seems although this could easily be changed but beyond that there are multiple copies of these cities that perform the same functions based on geography and resources available. Being attached to ALL other cities to have global consensus of what resources are available globally or even just locally but globally known non the less, then it is quite similar to the distributed nature of Bitcoin. Decentralized but not completely. But like I said easy fix. The central hub of the city could merely show what any household that is connected to the global network could show. What would be the point of this? I don’t know. Should technology make decisions for us? IBM is making a synaptic chip that should be able to process abstract data much like the right hemisphere of our brains. Standard computer chips process numbers well like the left hemisphere. Maybe someday it will make sense. A Spock like computer program. Sounds like the twilight zone.
Science? You have the gall to go on about science but obviously haven’t done a shed of research. It says right on the toothpaste that if swallowed to contact poison control. Do you even research anything? Fluoride is an industrial byproduct. It’s poison. It was used by the Nazi’s to induce submission and complacency. It actually harms teeth. Look up the term dental fluorosis.
You talk about science and rational reasoning all the time. These conclusions are based on science and rational reasoning. They’re based on facts: science and history. I can provide you with information but you have to read it.
Fluorosis is basically a cosmetic issue ( flecking/staining of teeth) in the very rare cases that it occurs (almost non-existent in Uk) - the many benefits far outweigh the aesthetic concerns. It goes without saying that the rest of your post is nonsense.
This has nothing to do with the OP and neither did the “smart meter” conspiracy theory you posted on same thread. This is obviously a campaign of mis-information, conspiracy theories and all kinds of quackery. The Cancer mis-information you posted was particularly harmful and actually causes death -( I gave a real life example and you still posted the same thing without researching - this is despicable and irresponsible in my view.
I have stated my position to the community in this regard and will continue in the same vein until such a time as the trolling and harmful dis-information campaign ends - however annoying this is for everybody and whether others think me a Dick or not.
I have a cousin who believes all this stuff too. Shots were some way of making the public sick till he was scratched by a single rusty nail and his overwhelming fear of ‘not knowing’ wether he could get tetanus led him straight to the doctors for a shot. Yes I know what’s inside them I also know what’s in the fish I eat and the second hand smoke I seemingly can’t avoid as well as a slew of other environmental factors that affect ones health. It’s good to stay educated do as much for yourself as possible but also realize that there are things you can’t do easily like make a vaccine or derive fluoride, and THE BENEFITS OUTWEIGH THE RISKS. Now back on subject before we got into what kills everyone. Energy should be just as distributed and intelligent as the Internet which is why I make the correlation with maidsafe. Because it should also be autonomous, secure, and certain info to be public/transparent. Our current infrastructure is vulnerable ei stuxnet. If there are health risks with smart meters just the fact the info is out and nobody would adopt it means there are improvements and though I try to avioid talking about free market or the major benefits of capitalism well the market would produce what the consumers wanted. Maybe not immediately but I see it happen more and more these days. Example 1,000 people on Twitter complain and instantly a company will address an issue and 1,000 people is a FRACTION OF A FRACTION of the population but since it shows demand and has potential for something similar to network effect better take care of it. If you’re worried it would be illegal to even have your own solar well I doubt that gets far but I won’t say it’s impossible. Having solar on citizen houses is more distributed more realizable and would be seen as an advantage to a city or a state the benefits would outweigh whatever risks or regulations others may have adopted and that would be plainly seen and then adopted widespread. May take time but I truly believe eventually. The articles @Blindsite2k posed about people being arrested in Texas and Florida I read them awhile ago one was from a site that would push a certain “they’re coming to get you” kind of angle and in fact a lot of times they are trying to come get us but something is left out. A hippy commune that was infiltrated by a swat team for being off grid? Either there were rich people near by that didn’t like the smell or they were up to something the article didn’t mention. In a distributed system someone could be off grid and it would actually make less of a difference! If your state or local code isn’t inline with your views do you
A: take seat in some sort of position of power to change it/start a campaign to rally in change via a petition
B: move somewhere that matches your values ie rural area or more progressive city
Or
C: tell a stranger on the Internet to make your same conclusions or else they’ll come get them too!
Had to create an account just for joining this conversation. I happen to be well versed in smart meters. I’ve worked with engineers and CTOs to design the “latest” ones nearly a decade ago. I’ve researched every outlandish story online (which are 99.99% overblown). And I’ve even coordinated a group to find the best independent solutions and write it up for submission to a few various groups.
The idea of Maidsafe is not quite as applicable to smart grids as it is to what could be available once we transitioned to smart grids. Before going into that too much, here’s a short writeup of a better style of management than the typical “we now control your major appliances so we’ll pay you $0.08/month!”
With such a system, the only centralized aspects are the publishing of the various local prices and the automated switching of feeders and switchgear at both substations and generation facilities. The rest relies on individuals to choose between aggressive savings or highest convenience. At that point, their appliances, generation equipment, storage systems and potentially even some creature comforts are all managed according to what price they’re willing to pay. This ‘home network’ style of device management is where Maidsafe could be of great benefit. Who wants to set up their home stuff via a monitored and closed internet?
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So have it as the mesh networks base perhaps. The reason why I had brought it up for a smart grid is because so many utilities are attatched to the Internet and susceptible to being hacked/cracked whatever term you prefer. So for security purposes it to me makes sense. But I would enjoy your input if you could elaborate on why it would be less useful than in a home network. Thank you
Edit: oh and Welcome @ResearcherGuy! I’ll read the link you provided asap but I’m occupied at the moment.
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This is the root problem. Utilities don’t need to transfer so much user info. In a truly intelligent setup, they would publish YOUR instantaneous price (which applies to those of your neighbors on the same end leg) and that’s it. This info is now available to anyone online, including your appliances (which are smart enough to predict prices and alter usage), your generators and storage devices, the local substations and transmission operators and even statisticians from anywhere they may be. At the end of the billing period, they kick out a “read” code to your meter and it sends a single totalized bill to them (and possibly to you as well) for bookkeeping.
There’s no need for them to see your instantaneous usage at any given point. What they do need is the aggregate load/demand balance and that’s built in to the price they are always publishing. Just like it makes no difference if you shut off a 1,000 watt hairdryer or kick in 1,000 watts of solar, it also makes no difference if you increase your generation or your next door neighbor decreases theirs. The effect on that segment of the grid is the same. Our estimates show that once an area reaches 30% adoption of these intelligent devices on such a network, all grid imbalances can be matched or balanced via demand destruction so that transmission is only used for industrial import and emergencies.
May I ask what the economic model of a power station utilizing smart grid would be? Not be paid for providing power but for reliably managing it? Or a little of both just dependent on if some are contributing solar but say most are consuming in a legacy manner?
I literally have probably 20 questions for you.
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Their basic business model wouldn’t necessarily have to change. They would still generate power and transmit it to local grids where they maintain a distribution grid. The difference would be that their generation would now compete on price with every other source at every instant. This means that if the grid was short 100,000 watts, the price would rise. The transmission lines, the generation stations and the neighboring grids would all consider increasing supply. In the meantime, 10,000 different appliances would see the price going up and consider lowering their demand. Also, 2,000 home solar battery banks would consider exporting a little bit each. Electric cars that were charging would all consider lowering their demand. So, what actually happens is whomever reacts the fastest is the winner because any reactions that are ‘late’ notice the price had already begun to swing back down. This means the fastest (and most agile) devices follow the most volatile swings. On the other hand, should the aggregate of all these little load changes not make enough difference and the price still steadily rose, the utility would opt to turn on or turn up a bigger generator of say 2,000,000 watts. Now, the grid is oversupplied (or at least potentially) and the price drops back down. This triggers others to use more or generate less. This now, supports the large generator to slowly wind up to an even more economically healthy supply.
The same price discovery action would take place for each transmission line too. The exception is that not only is the transmission a factor in the cost decision, the grid supplying that power is now a variable factor. All else is same.
I think this is simply a recognition of the how dramatically power can be centralized in a network. Yes you can design a network which is still fundamentally centralized. That pretty much describes the existing internet structures. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Its funny how people recognize this when applied to power and food, but not when applied to data or internet access.
I would be opposed to a putting utilities wholly online, with a central controller, human or coded determining where power should flow, but if we can design a network which has nodes that we each of us control, who can engage in a bargaining structure according to rules or goals that we set, thats a whole different animal.
@ResearcherGuy Correct me if I’m wrong, but as I understand this, the network would also take transmission loss into account. That is if I have a solar bank, I don’t have to sell back to the overall network at a fixed price, but can sell to my neighbor, which gives me an advantage because the transmission loss is next to nothing.
Correct?