[extropy-chat] economics of scarcity to economics of plenty

[Brian Atkins]

Samantha Atkins wrote:
> 
> In a capitalist model in today's sense exactly how would you earn any  
> money to save up to own these tools if the relative value of your  
> labor/skills was too low to gain any employment?  How would you pay  for 
> more training or augmentation without any income source?

I think living as a capitalist means you have to try and accumulate / maintain 
various forms of capital: money, equipment/software, social capital, 
training/art abilities, intellectual capital, etc. If you do so, you will find 
at some point you have enough that a business idea almost jumps out at you and 
demands doing.

My advice at the bottom was essentially: get started now on doing that, while it 
/may/ still be easier to bootstrap from virtually nothing.

I'm not really sure it will be harder in the future... that's a complex question 
to ponder. I wouldn't count on it being as relatively easy as it is now though.

> 
> I believe there are around half a million people who make a living on  
> ebay but it is an interesting point in today's economy.  But not far  
> down the line you might be seriously outclassed by those who can  afford 
> the latest auction AI services.   Not so far-fetched when  online poker 
> bots are today making it foolhardy for a mere human to  play poker online.

Certainly. In fact there are a whole ton of companies and people who make their 
money supplying software tools and other services to Ebay sellers. This is a 
typical ecosystem developing. Compete within it, or find another niche.

All this competition sounds offputting I guess to some folks, but the nice thing 
is if you can reach a high enough point (it's actually not that high), you can 
hire employees (or perhaps some form of AIs in the future) to run some or all 
the day to day stuff for you. It doesn't have to be a neverending effort on your 
part personally for eternity if you don't enjoy constant competition (although 
you should try and pick a nice that you enjoy working in - this is another 
advantage of being a capitalist vs. working for someone else). And of course 
most people hope to develop enough assets eventually to increase their 
flexibility to the point where they can retire.

> 
>>
> 
>> The time of complaining "I can't start a business because of..." is  
>> ending. Excuses based on costs of equipment, software, or materials  
>> are going to fall by the wayside.
> 
> 
> How do you figure?  If all those fall by the wayside then why would I  
> need to own a micro-fab to make a living?

It may eventually reach a point where you can purchase an extremely cheap nano 
fab, feed it solar power and other bits from the local landscape, and you can 
live for near-free. That's not the scenario I'm pondering though.

I'm looking at more of an intermediate scenario between here and there, where 
the support functions exist to allow anyone to "easily" launch almost any kind 
of company. "Easily" because it won't require the amounts of human staffing or 
all-encompassing knowledge that it may have required in the past. Increasing 
chunks will be automated in various ways, pre-encoded, pre-thought-out, 
click-pretty-graphics-to-run-your-biz. This is the ongoing GUI-ization of business.

All this won't be free, and you will still need to get the ball rolling, but the 
price tag for all this will continue to decrease IMO.

>> I think corporate size is trending smaller and smaller, the long  tail 
>> is growing. Almost everyone will have to consider being a part  of 
>> this trend eventually. Start thinking now.
>>
> 
> Great advice but I am unsure everyone can actually use it.
> 

Well, if it continues to be easier and easier to run a business, then eventually 
almost everyone should be able to use it. If a function of this forum is 
attempting to get a handle on future developments, and if we think biz 
automation in all its forms will continue to increase, then again: start 
thinking now.
-- 
Brian Atkins
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.singinst.org/