[General Battuta]

No, the article was on Cracked.

The argument being made is that while you may be able to not buy bottled water or transplant ebooks, eventually you will be rendered digitally redundant, and what happens then?

This was one of my gripes with Richard Morgan's otherwise excellent books. They can stack you, they can copy you (otherwise multiple sleeving wouldn't be possible), and yet there's still any kind of demand for individual labor? (His last book sort of tackled it.) Get one ideal worker and sleeve them in a bunch of synths.

That won't happen. That's like saying "WHAT IF WE WERE FORCED TO USE BATTERIES FOR EVERYTHING?" This is why we also have government able to regulate things like tap water. The government, in theory, exists solely for our benefit. Why would it want to get rid of tap water and force us to pay x20000 more for water? It wouldn't, because we'd tell it that we don't want to.

This doesn't make any sense, except as some kind of roundabout argument that the government will regulate what Morgan calls DHF, digitized human freight. Is that what you're going for? If so, I envy your optimism, thinking that things won't happen because people don't want them to even if there's massive incentive to do so on an economic level. (Outsourcing, economic downturns...)

And you can always circumvent ebook DRM by taking a picture of the screen, whether a screen-shot or not. If you don't want it that badly, then you obviously don't care enough to complain, so there's no problem.

This has ****-all to do with anything I posted, but I agree with it, for what it's worth.

Unfortunately this post does not speak well to your ability to grasp and conduct a debate on this topic; you may want to read Morgan and then come back. It's a good time.

[Polpolion]

No, the article was on Cracked.

The argument being made is that while you may be able to not buy bottled water or transplant ebooks, eventually you will be rendered digitally redundant, and what happens then?

This was one of my gripes with Richard Morgan's otherwise excellent books. They can stack you, they can copy you (otherwise multiple sleeving wouldn't be possible), and yet there's still any kind of demand for individual labor? (His last book sort of tackled it.) Get one ideal worker and sleeve them in a bunch of synths.

That won't happen. That's like saying "WHAT IF WE WERE FORCED TO USE BATTERIES FOR EVERYTHING?" This is why we also have government able to regulate things like tap water. The government, in theory, exists solely for our benefit. Why would it want to get rid of tap water and force us to pay x20000 more for water? It wouldn't, because we'd tell it that we don't want to.

This doesn't make any sense, except as some kind of roundabout argument that the government will regulate what Morgan calls DHF, digitized human freight. Is that what you're going for? If so, I envy your optimism, thinking that things won't happen because people don't want them to even if there's massive incentive to do so on an economic level. (Outsourcing, economic downturns...)

Well of course government isn't going to do its job if you don't expect them to and don't hold them accountable when they don't. It's not going to magically cater to our every whim when people actually think voting is the most they can get involved in the democratic process.

And you can always circumvent ebook DRM by taking a picture of the screen, whether a screen-shot or not. If you don't want it that badly, then you obviously don't care enough to complain, so there's no problem.

This has ****-all to do with anything I posted, but I agree with it, for what it's worth.

Unfortunately this post does not speak well to your ability to grasp and conduct a debate on this topic; you may want to read Morgan and then come back. It's a good time.

I'm not reading Morgan just to debate about it on the internet. If what Morgan says is essential to your argument, I'm sorry. E-book, and for that matter any limitations on digital products won't work. By that, I mean that talking about the differences in the versions of Windows 7 and ebook self-deletion does not merit a meaningful argument supporting how FARTS will become unavoidable.

[StarSlayer]

I'd like to know how civilization would survive if you remove the motivation for basically doing anything of merit.

[achtung]

I'd like to know how civilization would survive if you remove the motivation for basically doing anything of merit.

I'm a firm believer money is not the sole motivator in the world. People do all kinds of productive things on their own accord. When you have all the time in the world, you think every single person is just going to turn into a worthless slob?

[Polpolion]

I call shenanigans.  It's a world without motivation.

I'm a firm believer money is not the sole motivator in the world. People do all kinds of things one their own accord.

Hence HLP, unless there is some sort of evil conspiracy going on here.

[General Battuta]

No, the article was on Cracked.

The argument being made is that while you may be able to not buy bottled water or transplant ebooks, eventually you will be rendered digitally redundant, and what happens then?

This was one of my gripes with Richard Morgan's otherwise excellent books. They can stack you, they can copy you (otherwise multiple sleeving wouldn't be possible), and yet there's still any kind of demand for individual labor? (His last book sort of tackled it.) Get one ideal worker and sleeve them in a bunch of synths.

That won't happen. That's like saying "WHAT IF WE WERE FORCED TO USE BATTERIES FOR EVERYTHING?" This is why we also have government able to regulate things like tap water. The government, in theory, exists solely for our benefit. Why would it want to get rid of tap water and force us to pay x20000 more for water? It wouldn't, because we'd tell it that we don't want to.

This doesn't make any sense, except as some kind of roundabout argument that the government will regulate what Morgan calls DHF, digitized human freight. Is that what you're going for? If so, I envy your optimism, thinking that things won't happen because people don't want them to even if there's massive incentive to do so on an economic level. (Outsourcing, economic downturns...)

Well of course government isn't going to do its job if you don't expect them to and don't hold them accountable when they don't. It's not going to magically cater to our every whim when people actually think voting is the most they can get involved in the democratic process.

Again, nothing to do with anything I've said.

And you can always circumvent ebook DRM by taking a picture of the screen, whether a screen-shot or not. If you don't want it that badly, then you obviously don't care enough to complain, so there's no problem.

This has ****-all to do with anything I posted, but I agree with it, for what it's worth.

Unfortunately this post does not speak well to your ability to grasp and conduct a debate on this topic; you may want to read Morgan and then come back. It's a good time.

I'm not reading Morgan just to debate about it on the internet. If what Morgan says is essential to your argument, I'm sorry. E-book, and for that matter any limitations on digital products won't work. By that, I mean that talking about the differences in the versions of Windows 7 and ebook self-deletion does not merit a meaningful argument supporting how FARTS will become unavoidable.

I am not sure why you're talking about ebooks or limitations on digital products, they have nothing to do with anything I've said. You are tilting at windmills here. I don't think anything you've said in response to my posts has been in any way connected to anything I've said.

What I was talking about is the issue of digitized humans: how will the economy survive when downloadable workers become available?

But here, something you can talk about. I am a writer and would like to sell a novel in order to make money. Just an open question, not particularly advocating a given position: how can I do this without FARTs?

[Polpolion]

No, the article was on Cracked.

The argument being made is that while you may be able to not buy bottled water or transplant ebooks, eventually you will be rendered digitally redundant, and what happens then?

This was one of my gripes with Richard Morgan's otherwise excellent books. They can stack you, they can copy you (otherwise multiple sleeving wouldn't be possible), and yet there's still any kind of demand for individual labor? (His last book sort of tackled it.) Get one ideal worker and sleeve them in a bunch of synths.

That won't happen. That's like saying "WHAT IF WE WERE FORCED TO USE BATTERIES FOR EVERYTHING?" This is why we also have government able to regulate things like tap water. The government, in theory, exists solely for our benefit. Why would it want to get rid of tap water and force us to pay x20000 more for water? It wouldn't, because we'd tell it that we don't want to.

This doesn't make any sense, except as some kind of roundabout argument that the government will regulate what Morgan calls DHF, digitized human freight. Is that what you're going for? If so, I envy your optimism, thinking that things won't happen because people don't want them to even if there's massive incentive to do so on an economic level. (Outsourcing, economic downturns...)

Well of course government isn't going to do its job if you don't expect them to and don't hold them accountable when they don't. It's not going to magically cater to our every whim when people actually think voting is the most they can get involved in the democratic process.

Again, nothing to do with anything I've said.

And you can always circumvent ebook DRM by taking a picture of the screen, whether a screen-shot or not. If you don't want it that badly, then you obviously don't care enough to complain, so there's no problem.

This has ****-all to do with anything I posted, but I agree with it, for what it's worth.

Unfortunately this post does not speak well to your ability to grasp and conduct a debate on this topic; you may want to read Morgan and then come back. It's a good time.

I'm not reading Morgan just to debate about it on the internet. If what Morgan says is essential to your argument, I'm sorry. E-book, and for that matter any limitations on digital products won't work. By that, I mean that talking about the differences in the versions of Windows 7 and ebook self-deletion does not merit a meaningful argument supporting how FARTS will become unavoidable.

I am not sure why you're talking about ebooks or limitations on digital products, they have nothing to do with anything I've said. You are tilting at windmills here. I don't think anything you've said in response to my posts has been in any way connected to anything I've said.

What I was talking about is the issue of digitized humans: how will the economy survive when downloadable workers become available?

But here, something you can talk about. I am a writer and would like to sell a novel in order to make money. Just an open question, not particularly advocating a given position: how can I do this without FARTs?

Why did you start arguing about that? I never said anything about that and you replied to me; I'm talking about the article Karajorma posted. Simply put, I don't know. Robotic workers and robotic workers alone would only work if there's still enough people with jobs and money being circulated to let the companies still make a profit. If they introduce the robotic workers too soon or too suddenly, the economy would collapse because people would be out of work and not spending money on even the cheapened products the companies are selling. If I'm wrong, then the least that would happen is an incredible change in economy focus, and we'd see ourselves even farther along the way to a fully post industrial society.

If you don't want to use FARTs in publishing an ebook, then quite simply you don't. I think you're being a bit cynical with peoples willingness to not pay a few bucks to get a DRM free product. You wouldn't be able to live off of it, but I don't think you'd be able to do that WITH FARTs either. The obvious solution would be to write more so people have more things to buy from you.

EDIT: Oh I see what you did, a few posts back you quoted the first line from one of my posts and ignored the rest, introducing your morgan stuff. Silly me had assumed you meant to reply to the substance of my post.

[General Battuta]

You said the article was fearmongering, I explained it wasn't given a long enough timespan, your responses had nothing to do with why I explained it wasn't.

As for the point about novels, we're now basically in agreement - for me to make any kind of living selling novels FARTs must be employed, otherwise every single novel can be distributed for free to anyone who wants one. FARTs is required for novels to exist as medium.

Novels are now, as the article argues, governed by bull****.

[General Battuta]

Note that I'm talking about novels, period, i.e. all novels everywhere in any medium (making the assumption, mind, that people are paying for the content and not the medium; this won't always be true, granted), not ebooks specifically.

Also DHF is not robots.

[Sushi]

I'd like to know how civilization would survive if you remove the motivation for basically doing anything of merit.

I'm a firm believer money is not the sole motivator in the world. People do all kinds of productive things on their own accord. When you have all the time in the world, you think every single person is just going to turn into a worthless slob?

Based on what I've seen of people... they very well might. I don't think money is the issue here: we're talking about a "post-scarcity" society where everything is free and nobody has to work if they don't want to, because there is enough technology doing the working that everybody has everything they want. Could civilization still survive at this point? I'm not sure it could.

I don't think we're going to get a post-scarcity society where robots take care of all our labor and everything is essentially free (FARTS or not). I simply don't have that much faith in technology, and even if the technology did get that far and overcome all common sense and entropy...I don't really think that humans could handle it.

I think we're much more likely to see a big collapse and a loss of all the ultimately unnecessary cruft of modern civilization than to make it to a glorious utopia of post-scarcity.

[Polpolion]

You said the article was fearmongering, I explained it wasn't given a long enough timespan, your responses had nothing to do with why I explained it wasn't.

I explained why FARTs wouldn't happen, you explained a point that the article made that was different altogether. Both points were made in the article, I just wasn't addressing that latter while it was assumed that I was.

As for the point about novels, we're now basically in agreement - for me to make any kind of living selling novels FARTs must be employed, otherwise every single novel can be distributed for free to anyone who wants one. FARTs is required for novels to exist as medium.

Novels are now, as the article argues, governed by bull****.

Well I'd certainly like to think otherwise. I can point out plenty of instances where people have made livings off of non FARTs software, and even donations from people that enjoy their free software. But those aren't indicative of the whole, so meh. Granted I don't know of very many people that have actually tried to make a living off of this stuff like you said in your example. And Like I did say, even with FARTs you're not going to be making a living off of a single book, but I don't know enough about, er, the current ebook market with regards to DRM vs. non DRM.

Note that I'm talking about novels, period, i.e. all novels everywhere in any medium (making the assumption, mind, that people are paying for the content and not the medium; this won't always be true, granted), not ebooks specifically.

Also DHF is not robots.

Unless you have your own printing press or enough money to use one, FARTs is not up to you. You're at the whim of a publishing company.

Robots or not, my point still stands if people are being laid off in favor of automation/digitization.

[General Battuta]

Unless you have your own printing press or enough money to use one, FARTs is not up to you. You're at the whim of a publishing company.

I'm not sure you're grasping what FARTs is, here. It's the introduction of scarcity where there is no need for scarcity.

The moment I produce a novel - let's say it's the best novel of all time and will be read by every person on the planet - it is, today, immediately available to everyone, everywhere, for free. All I have to do is scan it. For that matter, all anyone has to do is scan it (or upload a PDF, or whatever). It's impossible to enforce scarcity because everyone has the means to render the product free for everyone else.

The only reason I can make any money off of the novel is because of bull****. Either people accept forced scarcity (printed copies of the book when they could have free digital copies, DRMed ebooks when they could have free digital copies) or they give me money because they like me (when they could have free digital copies.)

That's the entire publishing industry right now. It's an artifice. It's selling a product that is no longer scarce.

This is problematic because the talent required to produce a good novel is scarce, but there is no way to compensate that scarcity because the product of that talent no longer has any value without the help of bull****.

Robots or not, my point still stands if people are being laid off in favor of automation/digitization.

They're not. People are being laid off in favor of other people. It's just that those people are multiply sleeved DHFed optimal workers.

[Grizzly]

Either people accept forced scarcity (printed copies of the book when they could have free digital copies)

Which, in this case, they will. Paper beats screen anytime anyday anywhere. Especially under an awfull lot of lightning conditions, not having to buy an extremely expensive carrier, not having to supply that carrier with a lot of energy, and that thing that a slightly ruined page isn't all that a big loss compared to a slightly ruined screen (Which can be a major annoyance).

Books are just that much more convenient. People used to say that offices would become paperless, but for some nondescript reason, everybody still loves printers.

[General Battuta]

Either people accept forced scarcity (printed copies of the book when they could have free digital copies)

Which, in this case, they will. Paper beats screen anytime anyday anywhere. Especially under an awfull lot of lightning conditions, not having to buy an extremely expensive carrier, not having to supply that carrier with a lot of energy, and that thing that a slightly ruined page isn't all that a big loss compared to a slightly ruined screen (Which can be a major annoyance).

Books are just that much more convenient. People used to say that offices would become paperless, but for some nondescript reason, everybody still loves printers.

This is a discussion about trends moving into the future. Please see this post for my statement on that:

Note that I'm talking about novels, period, i.e. all novels everywhere in any medium (making the assumption, mind, that people are paying for the content and not the medium; this won't always be true, granted), not ebooks specifically.

Also DHF is not robots.

Paying for the media as opposed to paying for the information is not a firm basis for the continued growth of the publishing industry. It may secure its continued existence, but growth is another matter.

[StarSlayer]

I call shenanigans.  It's a world without motivation.

I'm a firm believer money is not the sole motivator in the world. People do all kinds of things one their own accord.

Hence HLP, unless there is some sort of evil conspiracy going on here.

Would you want every piece of media you want to be developed in HLP time?  You would now be dependent exclusively on people who are self motivated to produce art/media as a hobby limiting the pool and quality of potential producers.  Their would be no overarching quality control, no scheduling to enforce deadlines.  If novelist A decides they'd rather spend a week hooked up to a food tube playing WoW then no literature for you.  

[Bobboau]

what if I want a bigger house that the income redistribution system thinks I deserve? and how is that decision made to begin with?

[edit]actually ignore this unless you think you have a really good response, i just reacted to some general concepts, such as 'no more money' without reading the thread.

[Galemp]

income redistribution system

wat

[General Battuta]

what if I want a bigger house that the income redistribution system thinks I deserve? and how is that decision made to begin with?

[edit]actually ignore this unless you think you have a really good response, i just reacted to some general concepts, such as 'no more money' without reading the thread.

 

[Bobboau]

ok, so there are certain aspects of the the process which have been rendered redundant, most notably the entire publishing industry, how ever as a whole, the process of media production is still scarce, there are only so many people who are good at faking emotion or behaving in a highly charismatic fashion, there are only so many people who have a particularly good knack for making interesting sounds, there are only so many people who can make the purdy pictures. but once there works have been done they can be perfectly replicated indefinitely, and effectively for free. well not quite free, it's a lot less than they want for it now, but the cost of watching a movie is not 100% free, if nothing else there is the cost in bandwidth for downloading it (if it comes off the Internet) the the cost of energy for running the TV, not to mention the cost of the materials and manufacturing of the hardware it all runs on. but without the media all of these costs would never be incurred for their usage. the resources used for the power bandwidth and hardware would not have been used without the 'free' media. and the media can not be created if the artists are not compensated, so it seems to me the best way for this whole situation to be fixed is for the ISPs, hardware manufacturers and power companies to pay artists to make media for there goods and services to be rendered usful enough for other people to pay for them. but before that can happen the old publishing industry must die as it's no longer competitive.

[Bobboau]

...

...

so I made an incoherent post that had nothing to do with the discussion, it's the Internet, it happens.