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An Indian site, YourStory, has an unusually broad ranging interview with Richard Stallman. While much of the background and goals will already be familiar to SN readers, the interview is interesting not only for its scope but also that India is starting to take an interest in these matters.
To know Richard Stallman is to know the true meaning of freedom. He's the man behind the GNU project and the free software movement, and the subject of our Techie Tuesdays this week.
This is not a usual story. After multiple attempts to get in touch for an interaction with Richard Stallman, I got a response which prepared me well for what's coming next. I'm sharing the same with you to prepare you for what's coming next.
I'm willing to do the interview — if you can put yourself into philosophical and political mindset that is totally different from the one that the other articles are rooted in.
The general mindset of your articles is to admire success. Both business success, and engineering success. My values disagree fundamentally with that. In my view, proprietary software is an injustice; it is wrongdoing. People should be _ashamed_ of making proprietary software, _especially_ if it is successful. (If nobody uses the proprietary program, at least it has not really wronged anyone.) Thus, most of the projects you consider good, I consider bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @08:50PM (18 children)
Terrible example even in the TOS era when the Federation had colonized a thousand planets. If you wanted land, you could find it out in space, the final frontier. Even worse of an example in the TNG era when you could live in a holosuite and have as much land as you could imagine while never leaving home.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bob_super on Wednesday August 30 2017, @09:07PM (1 child)
Pratchett took some time imagining what would happen if other near-identical Earths where just one "step" away.
While not my favorite series of his (Discworld FTW), the Long Earth has some interesting thoughts on humanity in a near-unlimited-resource context.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @11:27PM
Thoughts? I couldn't discover any. Sketches at most.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday August 30 2017, @09:20PM (8 children)
In TOS, they didn't show that many colonies, and the ones they did show made them out to be somewhat primitive, with difficult living for the colonists. On top of that, they were constantly fighting with other empires for control of regions of space where these far-flung colonies were located. So no, real estate was not that common even in highly-unrealistic ST.
In reality, there's likely a vanishing small (if any really) number of planets in this galaxy where people could just land their shuttlecraft and venture out without an environmental suit. There's tons of planets out there, but ones where humans can live? You've got to be kidding. You're not going to find probably any that are compatible with human life the way ours is, complete with vegetation etc. One of the TOS episodes even showed something like this, with a bunch of space-hippies taking over the Enterprise and traveling to "Eden" in the Romulan neutral zone, only to find the grass was acidic and the tree fruit fatally poisonous. Now I suppose if you assume that the "Genesis device" will be invented and used wholesale, that would be a game-changer. Even that movie mentioned that there was a shortage of suitable planets for human colonization, which is why they invented the Genesis device in the first place.
So no, I don't buy it. If I want land that looks like prime real estate on Hawaii, I'm not going to find it in space.
As for TNG, they seemed to show the holodecks as being extremely limited in number, and only the highest officers getting to spend much time there. So even there, the resources are limited.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @09:28PM
You better get used to living indoors 24/7. I know am.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @10:05PM (5 children)
Growing food? Manufacturing plants?
Replicators can produce whatever you desire.
...and "waste" becomes input for the next generation of new stuff.
(We're a good portion of the way there already with 3-D printers; the biggest obstacle is archaic "intellectual property" notions.)
Recreation?
A holodeck can produce all the space you could ever want.
...filled with all the cool stuff you can imagine.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday August 30 2017, @11:37PM (3 children)
Say... what?
Look, just happens that I'm in need for 500g of glacial acetic acid - would you be so kind to 3D-print it for me?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @12:12AM (2 children)
8-) I suspect that "need" is a stretch.
Right now, we've got -needs- pretty well covered.
I'll admit that -desires- are still a ways off for some folks.
...now, there is that pesky "intellectual property" thing.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday August 31 2017, @12:20AM (1 child)
Nope, it's a real need. Not a survival level one, I could do it with 30% concentration (instead of glacial), but it is a need.
Granted, I can obtain it by other means than "replication", but since you so kindly offered to 3d print it, I thought I'd oblige...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday August 31 2017, @12:39AM
Chemical/drug "printing" is in the works.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a14528/the-chemistry-3d-printer-can-craft-rare-medicinal-molecules-from-scratch/ [popularmechanics.com]
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6227/1190 [sciencemag.org]
It will be interesting to see how far we can get with this technology and how low the barrier to entry can be made (since whiners at the DEA, FBI, and DHS will be trying to clamp down on it).
Note: Acetic acid [wikipedia.org] is one of the molecules that has been detected in outer space. I couldn't find any resources about starting acetic acid or vinegar production on Mars, but I'm sure it will come up eventually once Musk wants some A-1 sauce for his human steak.
Back to the chemical printer concept. There are multiple approaches that can be used to get the chemicals you need. For example, bioengineered yeast could output certain chemicals (morphine!). A recent article about "cyborg bacteria" [soylentnews.org] had them producing acetic acid. You could automate and miniaturize [theguardian.com] the mixing of chemicals on a small scale that is not done by the chemical industry. For a space ship or Mars or Lunar base, you want a box, hopefully smaller than a car, that can produce as many possible chemicals as you might need, autonomously, with little to no chemistry knowledge required. And this is just to create vials of liquid, not replicate any object you desire.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 31 2017, @02:39PM
Why do I need space? Because I'm human and humans don't usually like being locked up in artificial environments continuously? Why do you think parks exist?
Sure, maybe if one day we build a bunch of enormous Oneill Cylinders, and even a 3D-printer which automatically builds these Oneill Cylinders for us, complete with forests, beaches, etc., space will be basically free too. But that level of technology is really bordering on fantasy at this point. There's going to be a long period of time between when we have automation doing all our crap jobs (food service, manufacturing, etc.) leaving most of our population with nothing to do and in need of a different economic system, and being able to live in robot-made artificial space habitats.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday August 31 2017, @06:47AM
where's the "+1 for nerdiness" mod when you need it?
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 30 2017, @09:23PM (6 children)
I mean, Quark was charging for access to his holosuites at the bar, wasn't he? Yes, they had holodecks on Starfleet starships but it's not like your average citizen had one.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @10:23PM
I doubt money will ever completely go away, individuals still need a means of making transactions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @10:33PM (4 children)
Deep Space Nine wasn't in Federation space, that's why it was called a "deep space" station. Very little about average civilian life was ever portrayed beyond the occasional episode set on Risa or scene set in Sisko's restaurant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @12:17AM (3 children)
if Sisko's dad's restaurant charged customers for the meal/service, or if he ran it totally pro-bono?
Because at least the implication to me, along with Picard's farm, was that some form of currency was stil in use, otherwise why would these individuals still have individual businesses they were running?
I don't imagine just anyone could get a farm or restaurant in a socialist regime, and I don't imagine 'businesses that have been in the family for generations' would've retained their ownership during whatever revolution lead them there.
Of course I could be wrong.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday August 31 2017, @02:14AM (2 children)
They did really gloss over how the "post-money" society worked in the Federation, but if you wanted to speculate you might look at pre-monetary societies on Earth. Contrary to the popular story, created by individuals who had only ever lived under capitalism, and only studied cultures that had at some point in their history used money, there's very little evidence to suggest that barter was actually common within pre-monetary communities, but rather only *between* communities. To the contrary, pre-monetary societies seem to most commonly be gift-economies, where (as I understand it) people essentially "compete" on the quality and suitability of the gifts they give each other.
I would assume that those who are the most skilled at giving also attract better gifts, but apparently that's not really a driving force. I'll admit, the whole concept seems a bit strange to me, but it's heartening to know that are are viable alternatives to the insane rat-race I've been imperfectly indoctrinated into.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @05:13PM (1 child)
Not really, the show stresses personal responsibility as a totally average trait. No one goes and replicates beyond their needs, and people provide services in order to feel useful and contribute to society. As the best starfleet captain said "We no longer value the pursuit of money. The challenge is now to improve yourself."
It is hard to understand the concept when you've been submerged in capitalistic rhetoric your whole life, but have you ever wanted to change careers just to try something out? But you've decided against it because financially it doesn't make sense? For example: I would love to spend a year+ as a park ranger, but they are paid next to nothing. I would also love to travel the world teaching English, learning new languages and cultures, but I would hardly save any money at all and the jobs would not be great for a resume. Same for EMT, firefighter, military, etc. I would probably bounce around from job to job as I got bored with them. If humanity made such job transitions simple, and a moneyless society would make it trivial, then there would be the upside of having a much more adaptable population. Also increased happiness levels as people are no longer stuck in a job in order to pay the bills.
Truly money free society won't happen for a long time, and even Star Trek people used money to trade with other civilizations. It is simply that money was no longer required for daily living, it became useful only for luxury goods and services and I am fine with that.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday August 31 2017, @10:02PM
Yes, they givea lovely 10,000 foot view, butno details. How do they decide who gets to live at and operate the choice beach front property, vineyards, etc? How is it decided who does and doesn't get their own private spaceship or holodeck? There's obviously a lot of people living on Earth, and choice real estate if nothing else is a finite resource.