[thangalin]

I'd go one step further: The problem is that we cannot build a fair and equitable socioeconomic capitalistic-driven society. Rather than complain about capitalism, I've written a near-future hard sci-fi novel that proposes and explores creating a society that doesn't rely on monetary capital to operate. My theory, which guides the plot, is that we have to look at the seeds of capitalism, namely food, and figure out how to eliminate the exchange of currency for it.

I posit that until this point in history there has never been a time where technology would allow us to grow and distribute food for free (in terms of both financial cost and labour of time). With the rise and convergence of AI, robotics, low-cost renewable energy, advances in optimal light-biomass conversion, diminishing costs on vertical farms, and self-driving vehicles, we have within our reach a way to produce food at essentially no cost.

Think through what would happen to society and our economy if food was free for anyone, anywhere. Think about the meaning of work.

If these ideas intrigue you, beta are readers wanted, see my profile for contact.

[morgengold]

Do you mind sketching out the basic idea how to eliminate the change of currency for food? Sounds interesting.

[thangalin]

https://autonoma.ca/model.png

By wholly automating food distribution, from seed to delivery, we eliminate the costs of high-quality, nutritious food, relying on volunteers for infrequent system maintenance. (This requires bootstrapping capitalism; I won't dive into the details here, because it would take a book ...)

Aside, that diagram is in the novel and was drawn about ten years ago.

[dwoldrich]

Your system sounds centralized, and because lots of other people/the government are involved, I predict it will produce a cyberpunk, pink slime and soylent green dystopia.

I have lost faith that other people who are not in my situation will do kind, high quality work for my benefit over long periods of time (my lifetime.)

I have a crazy dream of single families or neighborhoods owning land and owning lots of cheap open source robots that tend crops and maintain one another over time. And when I say cheap, I mean not worth the trouble to steal. Big backyards in urban settings will be coveted, community gardens everywhere. The software to run it would be open source and free, it would be designed to not deplete the land.

Maybe in my scheme no insecticides are needed because the robots can spot them as they enter the fields and kill them with pinching armatures or pew pew lasers.

My dream is probably stupid in a million ways and impossible unless I get lots of F-U money to do it myself. I imagine big ag interests would make it impossible to succeed and then I'd need 2x F-U money to out-lobby them. ;(