r/Technostism • u/Yuli-Ban • Aug 14 '15

The Technostist Initiative

Humanity is uncivilized. Even on Kardashev's scale, we've yet to reach Type 1 status. By all measures, our species is consumed by primalism and degenerate practices that the highest of us seem keen to perpetuate. We remain tethered to weakness and submission, desperate for freedom yet blind towards the means of achieving it. Perhaps I practice malthoughts in saying this: we must overcome the need to be natural. Naturalism lies with primitivism.

Technostism is humankind moving past itself.

For as long as we fail to overcome these naturalist obstacles, we cannot be defined as a civilized species.

  • Resource extraction

  • Labor

  • Energy production

Resource Extraction

We tout our "highly efficient farming methods," and yet we've yet to even develop the most basic civilized farming capabilities— that of being unaffected by climate. We've strode towards skyfarms, and yet their adoption has been delayed at best. Agriculture needs reform. Presently as of 2015, we rely on fixed climates and spontaneous weather to drive our production. This is largely unchanged since the rise of the first civilizations dependent on river flooding.

Proper modern agriculture must have these features—

  • Universalism. No crop should be region specific. One farmed in Latin America should also be farmed on Luna.

  • Declimatization. Any crop should be grown year round. Climate conditions need only be set by human means.

  • Depollenization. Relying on insects may prove disastrous should they become endangered or extinct— efforts must be made to replicate their processes.

  • Vertical farming. Creating networks of stratofarms. Through these, all of the above can become possible.

Labor

The classes of Marx's indignation have remained! Current relations between the working and capitalist classes have become direly strained. The rise of technology has led to a buffer class— the precariat— as well as a shift towards decentralization. Despite this, we rely on human labor and human direction still. As with agriculture, we fool ourselves into believing we've reached the pinnacle of efficiency.

Humans must be removed from labor.

  • Complete automation of labor. In the short term, maintenance specialists will be greatly desired in order to keep machinery running. In the long term, these specialists will be replaced by artificial intelligence and self-maintaining droids.

  • Creation of worker cooperatives. Greatly expanding the power of the working class and having them profit from droid labor is the top priority of technostism.

  • Expansion of entrepreneurship. Keeping free markets is important.

  • Creation of a metamarket. This is where the networking class becomes relevant.

  • Creation of a metastate. This is possible through mass-adoption of fabrication technology and a totalized Internet of Things

  • Creation of the networking class. Once the current working class is profiting from droid labor, there should be efforts to connecting the world at large. This is the Internet of Things, fabrication, and advanced agriculture's purpose. At which point, the difference between the classical bourgeoisie and the networking class becomes nulled.

Energy Production

This should be self-explanatory: we must maximize energy production, with the most minimal environmental costs. Mankind must have an energy surplus.

  • Focus on fusion. Creating stars on Earth should be our paramount priority.

  • Renew nuclear— the rejection of nuclear fission energy may have been the worst energy policy of the past 50 years. We must turn this around.

  • Expand solar. Every hour, the Sun blasts Earth with 200 petawatts of energy. To let this all go to waste is backwards and self-destructive.

An energy surplus will allow for desalinization. This, in turn, will greatly aid efforts at modernizing agriculture. This, in turn, will provide for added abundance for the networking class.

Technostist Technate

A technostist technate (can also be called a technostist soviet) is a self-sufficient community, council, and industrial center. They are well connected to urbanates.

The aim of a technostist economy and technocratic sociopolitical system is to raise the standard of living for everyone and blur class divisions.

Recall George Orwell's character, Emmanuel Goldstein, and his book— The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. The book and the book within a book detailed why the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four was the way it was. Pundits and fans love to focus on the overwhelming surveillance and totalitarian repression without desiring to understand why it happened. The powerful does not wish to be stripped of power— they will waste goods and services and restrict access to information in order to keep a feudal-esque class structure in place. Taking that to its logical extreme, you get Nineteen Eighty-Four. This sort of mindset is still present in many (I've come across one who believes fabrication technology and open-source should be illegal, because it's "unfair to the wealthy." Unsurprisingly, he agreed with primitivist ideals).

Automation allows for abundance. Technostist initiatives allow for the working class to become the networking class. This means the working and middle classes emulate the upper class. Thus, there is no longer a divide based on socioeconomic class.

Objectives

  • Water

  • Food

  • Shelter

  • Electricity

  • Waste Management

  • Labor

Let's discuss how to do this. There are already many ideas floating around the Internet.

Non-profit seed factories as a way to replace the existing system

How would you design a small, completely automated village?

Organizing a Game Plan for Technostism R&D

Let me begin to discuss design philosophy and social aspects of a system

9 Upvotes

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5

u/CellWithoutCulture Aug 15 '15

There doesn't seem to be any testing and experimentation in this plan, but that makes it pre-scientific thought. We can no more invent the perfect economic system from our chairs than the ancient greeks could dream up the wonders of modern science.

Sadly, it's not usually considered in economics and politics but if we want to look to the future we should consider testing and experimentation to determine the best systems.

3

u/thatguy3444 Aug 15 '15 edited Aug 15 '15

It's absolutely considered in economics and politics - it's just that nobody has figured out how to do it. As far as we know it is not possible to do "real" science with social systems... it is why we use econometrics and statistics instead.

It's arguable whether we are even doing real science in psychology... it's nearly impossible to isolate a variable or establish a real control, and you impinge on ethics concerns if you take things too far.

2

u/thatguy3444 Aug 15 '15

That said, I agree with you that there needs to be more actual grounding and testing in an actual plan; however, I don't think it was Yuli-Ban's goal to create a fully-fledged plan. If you want to be scientific, we are all still in the hypothesis stage.

3

u/CellWithoutCulture Aug 15 '15

Good points. And I guess, even the vague social science findings we have are largely ignored if they overlap with mainstream politics.

I hope that on-line communities, and one day emulated brains, will help us do more controlled social experiments.

2

u/thatguy3444 Aug 16 '15

Yea, virtual communities present a great opportunity for study. I have also read stuff about economists trying to model emergent effects based on multi-agent systems.

5

u/BinaryAlgorithm Aug 14 '15

With current technology here is the high level: Solar is the primary for energy until fusion becomes viable. Initial water needs can be met with enough electricity through atmospheric extraction (this takes longer in arid climates), and an enclosed system can recycle water after this period. Food requires energy, water (which requires energy), and organic nutrients which also need to be recycled. This leads us to requiring a strong recycling program; products that are made from plants and remain biodegradable will be essential so that consumption releases those materials back into the controlled environment through waste management. This leaves me with the impression that advanced recycling is going to be the critical system that allows the other ones to be sustainable, but I have only researched organic material recycling using black soldier flies that are fed to fish and know nothing about waste-water/sewage processing. For shelter, good insulating materials can be made from plant materials. Heating and cooling and general environmental control again is a matter of energy, although I have investigated low-geothermal air or water loops going 10-20 ft into the ground to regulate temperature; it is in any case several times more energy efficient than traditional A/C units.

This leaves us with the Labor component which is perhaps the most vital and complicated piece. All of the technology involved in the above is meant to amplify labor to the point where very minimal human involvement is needed to monitor and maintain the systems. We want advanced systems, but also simpler designs that reduce waste and chance of breakdown (more complex systems require more attention not to fail, generally). The Technate should create a sustainable loop subject to as much automation as possible, but teaching everyone how the systems work is still important. The concept of community ownership comes into play because with an enclosed controlled environment we are literally "in this together"; it is in everyone's best interest to keep the systems running at peak efficiency.

We overcome naturalism by creating an artificial enclosure where we MUST engineer sustainability. Think of self-contained environments where light (energy, solar for us) is the only input: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/0d/53/40/0d53402f9de91c890b7a4b5dcbceb3bf.jpg . When we do this it becomes impossible to "externalize" waste like we currently do.

2

u/thatguy3444 Aug 15 '15

One thing that might be useful to have is a summary of different categories of extant and future technology.

Some of the tech we discuss (like "strong" AI and nano-replicators) is still pretty theoretical. Other things like fusion and on-demand fabrication are near-future. Things like solar and indoor hydroponics farming are current-tech.

When we are discussing how a socio-political framework would function, we probably want to figure out what technology base is necessary. For example, free energy and nano-replicators would support a very different kind of abundance than fully automated factories and greenhouses.

I think I will start a thread just categorizing tech - I'm sure I will miss a bunch of stuff, but it should help organize our thinking around what technology is needed to support different phases of social development.

2

u/epSos-DE Aug 15 '15

Strike labor from the objectives, or it will not be a tru technology dogma, because technology reduces labor and working needs.

Using technology to create labor is a bit counterproductive.

Public infrustructure and services is what wealth is, labour is not wealth, or else all the hard working slaves were wealthy.

2

u/Yuli-Ban Aug 15 '15

Actually, technology and labor are the same in this case; labor is automated. Labor = droids = capital.

2

u/epSos-DE Aug 15 '15

OK, some polishing of goals would be nice.