In article <3fmkh7$5dr@planchet.rutgers.edu> ttf@dsg130.nad.ford.com (Tihamer Toth-Fejel) writes:
>
> >In a world where "full" nanotech is available to everyone,
> >there will be only three things of value:
> (1) Knowledge: eg technology, real-time data (stock prices, events)
> (2) Services: eg educational, medical, technical (human or AI)
> (3) Antiques: not n-copies :)
>
>I'd agree with the first two, but definitely not the third. If the
>n-copy is atomically identical, how could you tell which was the
>original? You would be dependent on your trust of whoever you got it
>
>Tihamer (Tee) Toth-Fejel <ttf@dsg130.nad.ford.com>
On the third point, the notion that antiques might be valuable depends on two things: (1.) that they would be valued because nt doesn't make them any less scarce (and actually, over time makes them more so); and, (2.) scarce material things necessarily command value.
Both of these do not hold generally: internal combustion engines have made steam engines rather scarce; endangered species, which are by some accounts living material things, generally do not command sufficient exchange value compared with other econimic excigencies--in fact most are extincted while completely escaping notice. These are in themselves trivial examples, but there are nearly infinitely many like them which in sum argue that antiques will be no more a fundamental source of value than in the degree to which they are now: as a curiousity, enjoyed by a relatively small portion of the population (which enjoyment has both both "investment" components which really relates to anticipation of increases in their market value, and aesthetic components; the former really depends on peculiarities of the present economy which have yet to be shown to hold in the full-nt world taken as the premise.)
Antiques only hold interest if their's nothing more interesting; and VR (the next opiate of the masses) presents infinitely more interest than objects that just sit there. There are a few people in the western world that farm by 16th century techniques to challenge themselves and enjoy a simpler way of life, and this can be an anthropologically interesting experience; but these farmers are few.
It is not at all clear that material scarcity in the contemporary world is merely a default not yet overcome. There are arguments that scarcity is rather actively produced in two ways: (1.) by the workings of the economy, e.g. externaliztions of real costs for those exercising the relavent economic choices; and, (2.) by increases in expectations (an upward creep in what is considered sufficient material affluence...which is frequently also relative to those in ones social circles or surroundings or awareness.)
It bears mentioning, that various analyses ranging from libertarian to anarchistic to radical socialistic have, by very different lines of attack, found that the real source of the important material scarcity, in most of the western world if not all of the rest as well, the material scarcity known as poverty, from grinding misery to low intensity underclass, relates more to problems in resource allocation and distribution than to problems in actual productive capacity. Note that most industries in the U.S. tend to produce at less than 80% of capacity; the 20% could more than eliminate all poverty as federally defined. There are, however, few institutional motivations to do so, no matter what the rhetoric.
Returning to the thread, I'll point out that the difference between knowledge and services and articles of manufacture depend on the relatively meagre refinement of AI. So at the very least the distinction between categories 1 and 2 depends on the lens of the present historical epoch. I suspect that the erosion of this distinction is precisely one of the essential features, at a sociological level, of the transformation.
Which brings us to a question that many have considered in ways ranging from crude to sophisticated: with a highly evolved and sophisticated cybernetic technology, why have all that many humans around. Depending on one's predelictions, there may be no good answers other than the sneaking suspicion that the contemplator is statisticaly likelier to be among the all that many.
Which really brings us to a core question in social philosophy: to what extent and in what way does the "value" of people relate to value of the things they produce or posess or utilise or display. This is closely related to the question of human commodotization. But the real intellecutal problem really consists in visualizing a radical separation between social value and material value. (Note that "knowldge" and "services" can take different forms that make different instances primarily material or primarily social in value.)
Put differently, this relates to the paradigm of objectifing humans while personifying things; which any mildly perceptive western observer abundantly notices on a daily basis.
I contend that the ultimate source of value, whether we dress it up as market exchange or as cocktail parties, is social relationships. Needless to say, many of these are at present quite disfunctional. I also contend that as material artifacts become less of a limiting factor to these social relationships, value will be correspondingly less attached to anything which may be readily instantiated in such material artifacts--including much knowledge (product, process and article) and many services.
So the question, I think, is not so much what will be valued as what will be the mode of valuation.
And I think that the spectrum runs from hedonistic experience (good-VR trips and sundry other deteriorata) to social relationships with integrity and responsibility and mutual concern and effort and cooperation and the more noble forms of competition, etc.,.
Which, I think, anyone with at least a little good fortune, will have already grasped with respect to our present circumstances.
Ely.
------------------/-----------------------------\------------------- Caffeine / It may well be that \ Visualize + Internet... / those ignorant of history \ Industrial FULLY WIRED / are destined to repeat it, \ Meta- --------------/ but so too are those limiting \ Revolution.ely@ucsd.edu / themselves to historical example. -Me.\