The 20th Century changed everything...

[Freejack2]

Another thought about transporters and replicators is when they become reality patterns will become the new software issue. If you want to make a big mac or a robot you'll probably need to purchase a pattern. The hackers, crackers, and pirates of the world will of course find ways around protection for these patterns.
Imagine you purchase a one time use pattern to make a double cheeseburger. So someone would download a crack for the pattern that allows them to use that pattern multiple times. Worse yet imagine someone going to a pirate site and downloading for nothing the pattern for the latest gizmo. Even worse yet will be all the companies complaining that piracy of their patterns has resulted in losses that are more 10 times more than they could ever hope to sell of it.

 

[Grasshopper27]

Originally posted by: Dark4ng3l
You are crazy, making thing essentially free would turn humanity into a crazy bung of children making people who can do nothing but order something else. If 42 inch plasma tv's are readilly avaible for free to everyone, everyone is gonna want bigger tv's. Eventually everyone wants their own private planet/solar system/galaxy. This obviousely cant work.

Your own planet? Sheesh, how much personal space does one person need?

Grasshopper

 

[Grasshopper27]

Originally posted by: FeathersMcGraw
You're presuming that manufacturing labor is the sole factor of cost. Unless you're also presuming that robots have the expertise to engineer the devices they build, there is the labor associated with design costs, prototyping, quality assurance, verification of compliance with standards, and a host of other issues I'm sure I'm forgetting beyond the construction of a device.

But current economic theory is essentially useless given the removal of the basic tenet of scarcity.

Quite true... Your last point about scarcity says it all. The reason toasters are now $5 at Wal-Mart is because someone has figured out how to build them in insanly massive numbers for very little money.

Perhaps robots won't remove every last cost from everything, but they will probably get the costs down to the point where it might not matter...

How about this thought... Will we reach a point where everyone has so many "things" that the continued collection of "things" is no longer the driving force behind humanity? Yea, I know, this is starting to sound Star Trekish, but the question remains... Can we ever have enough "stuff"?

Grasshopper

 

[Grasshopper27]

Originally posted by: Freejack2
Another thought about transporters and replicators is when they become reality patterns will become the new software issue. If you want to make a big mac or a robot you'll probably need to purchase a pattern. The hackers, crackers, and pirates of the world will of course find ways around protection for these patterns.
Imagine you purchase a one time use pattern to make a double cheeseburger. So someone would download a crack for the pattern that allows them to use that pattern multiple times. Worse yet imagine someone going to a pirate site and downloading for nothing the pattern for the latest gizmo. Even worse yet will be all the companies complaining that piracy of their patterns has resulted in losses that are more 10 times more than they could ever hope to sell of it.

What an interesting concept... never thought of that...

Hmm...

That being said, if the energy requirement is the same, why would anyone replicate a Big Mac when they could have a steak or lobster?

Grasshopper

 

[Freejack2]

Variety I imagine. One can get tired of eating lobster and steak all the time. With a replicator in the home, one could order up lobster, or something as simple as mac & cheese. Their choices would be limitless.

 

[Martin]

you guys should read "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson. Sci Fi book where events take place several hundred years from now. Nanotechnology has changed the entire world and one can order anything from a "matter compier".


good book. Stephenson is a great author

 

[Martin]

Btw, I honestly doubt money will go away.

say you have your little robot that can make other robots (we'll presume the first robot was developed by a group of philantrophists and given away). in order to make another robot, it needs energy and materials. Energy *might* be obtained for "free" if solar energy becomes cheap enough, but materials? say you need rubidium, zinc, sulphur and carbon. where are you gonna get those? Well you could get them from the earth, but the earth is not for everyone. There is such a thing as "private property" and there's only so many things you could mine from your own back yard. Its more plausible that you will have someone doing all the mining and then selling the materials so people can make their own things...

 

[Grasshopper27]

Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
Btw, I honestly doubt money will go away.

say you have your little robot that can make other robots (we'll presume the first robot was developed by a group of philantrophists and given away). in order to make another robot, it needs energy and materials. Energy *might* be obtained for "free" if solar energy becomes cheap enough, but materials? say you need rubidium, zinc, sulphur and carbon. where are you gonna get those? Well you could get them from the earth, but the earth is not for everyone. There is such a thing as "private property" and there's only so many things you could mine from your own back yard. Its more plausible that you will have someone doing all the mining and then selling the materials so people can make their own things...

The robots build a spaceship, they fly to an asteroid and mine it for all the materials they need to produce a billion more robots.

The problem is you're trying to solve a future problem with today's knowledge. That is why it doesn't make sense.

If you had told people in 1900 that everyone would have multiple phone lines and high speed information exchange, you'd have been laughed at. 1 out of 14 homes had a phone line, the costs to install the old heavy gauge copper wiring would have made it impossible to provide everyone with a phone line for what we pay for them today. It took the development of fiberoptics to make that happen.

If you told people in 1919 that man would walk on the moon in 50 years, you'd have been laughed at for much the same reasons.

Grasshopper

 

[Grasshopper27]

bump for no good reason other than the original post took me a long time to type and I figure some people missed it the first time around.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: deftron
Why do you post every list, joke, story or editorial that you come across ?



Wow, you can surf the internet..

Cowabunga, dude.

He's an extrovert dude. Nothing wrog with that! Heck it's good to see. Most people are scared of thier own shadows these days. Some of my boys fiends sit at home on front of the boob tube or play PS2 all day and are scared to play outside.

 

[Zebo]

Oh and needless to say I think most of these advances hav'nt really helped us other than live longer and be more independant. Human relations/relationships have suffered.

 

[Grasshopper27]

Originally posted by: Carbonyl
He's an extrovert dude. Nothing wrog with that! Heck it's good to see. Most people are scared of thier own shadows these days. Some of my boys fiends sit at home on front of the boob tube or play PS2 all day and are scared to play outside.

Thanks for the compliment!

Yea, I am... I'm also this way in real life too... I'll chat your ear off if you let me. One of my favorite things to do is sit around with a group of friends for hours and hours and just talk about everything and anything.

Grasshopper

 

[fluxquantum]

Originally posted by: guyver01
can i get the cliff's notes version??

LOL

 

[fluxquantum]

Originally posted by: guyver01
can i get the cliff's notes version??

LOL

 

[Deleted member 4644]

Two things:

We shouldnt totally forget the advancements of the 1300-1500s. Of course, they were NOTHING compared to the later advancements but they were important. The printing press and the scientific method began to emerge then, and it arguably led to the rest of it all.

Also, I totally agree that the 20th century was by far the most amazing in all human development. DNA work, Nuclear power, cars, airplanes and computers are going to be THE big thing for the next few hundred years at least. Maybe by then they will come up with replicators or something that makes the rest of it look easy, but till then, we have a lot to be proud of.

 

[Grasshopper27]

Originally posted by: LordSegan
Two things:

We shouldnt totally forget the advancements of the 1300-1500s. Of course, they were NOTHING compared to the later advancements but they were important. The printing press and the scientific method began to emerge then, and it arguably led to the rest of it all.

I think the next 100 years is going to make the last 100 years pale by comparison...

Also, I totally agree that the 20th century was by far the most amazing in all human development. DNA work, Nuclear power, cars, airplanes and computers are going to be THE big thing for the next few hundred years at least. Maybe by then they will come up with replicators or something that makes the rest of it look easy, but till then, we have a lot to be proud of.

Amazing when you sit back and think about it, isn't it?

Grasshopper

 

[MournSanity]

Every robot will have a built in self destruct button...


Here's a word to liven up the discussion: Clones.