Public Resource Network
Requirements for a Post-Monetary / 'True Gift' Public Resource System
1. Public Resource System. Displays a virtual model of the real world. (i.e. Freecycle meets Facebook meets TinkerCAD)
- Production Engine
- Provides a design platform to create a novel design or uses ready-made designs
- Determines where product and product parts are made
- Distribution Engine
- Alerts automated vehicles to retrieve and deliver materials or products (i.e. the free course: CS373 - PROGRAMMING A ROBOTIC CAR)
2. Common Land. (i.e. La Via Campesina and Rajastan)
3. Materials Commons. Free material for product construction. (i.e. Freecycle) Start with dumps before exploring extraction.
4. Industrial Commons. Places to go to make, learn, or have them made (i.e. Open Source Ecology and Wikispeed)
5. Robotics Network. For transport, manufacturing, and service. The network depends on a Global Localization and Manipulation Engine. Robots are divided into three types:
- Fabots - make things
- Servibots - feed materials to fabots and distribots or people
- Distribots - deliver materials to or from factory and user location
6. Labour Commons. People willing to work for free
7. Transport Commons. Distribots are registered for non-commercial use for free to use on road or rail built to last
See: Free Markets and Free Use Commons
Overview
Wouldn't it be nice to apply SimCity to the real world? Already we have a publicly curated resource of knowledge, like Wikipedia, freely available. If you are looking for a place, you can search the web and find it on a map, with an address at least, but not much more information than that (unless the space has a website). A web that describes more detail about a physical space and the objects within it begins to outline the concept of a Public Resource Network.
Let's look at private land, for example. When details about the space are of public interest, owners can put the space online, by placing cameras to view the area and sensors to track and model the space, so that useful processes happening on the site, such as a combined technique for fish farming and aquaponic agriculture, can be visually modeled, point-by-point how-to instructions well enough to be applied most anywhere in the world. In this way, when looking at a virtualized physical space on the web we can see for instance that people picking tomatoes pick alot for very little in return or that a local car manufacturer produced a sports car you designed, slightly modified, for someone else that fancied your design.
Public resource networks apply social networking technologies presently used by Facebook, visually modeling a physical space, enabling viewers or users to make changes to the virtual model from the web much like TinkerCAD, expecting a change to the material space, like applying the concept of Thingverse, presenting designs focused on at home 3d printing. These techniques can be applied for the home, workshop or small workgroup, or mass production (fully automation, ideally).
We nearly have everything for mainstreaming true gift economy. Its possible today and will only become more practical as technology develops; or better; as technology itself becomes easier and more interesting to develop within the ecology of other related technologies or functions.
Free Distribution
Autonomous vehicles, without needing a driver, enables the streamlining of distribution: shipping a product from the factory to the end user, removing the need to staff or waste space as warehouses or retail shops. The Edison 2 four passenger hybrid vehicle boasts a very impressive 350mpg. Have vehicles chain together during transit and this could prevent vehicles from refueling, having batteries charged from tire rotations (and solar panels if needed) as the vehicle(s) in front pull the train.
For more information view Automated Distribution Systems
Free Production
ABB is preparing 1 million robots to replace 1.2 million Foxconn workers; and those put out of work would find the gift option more attractive than other options. ASIMO's latest demostration shows the best in tactile robotics today, for instance, the ability to twist and remove the top lid of a cup and pour liquid into another cup, almost as quickly as a person can, is rather impressive. Bosch is training a PR2 how to use its power tools. ROS recently launched the ROS-Industrial platform.
Free Space & Materials
Here it is a matter of establishing the space and raw materials within it as a free resource. How to persuade land owners is a very good question to answer. Difficulty may increase if a material is rare or quantity of demand is high. Homesteading provides one answer; reviving local food production; distributing the homesteader's surplus locally by means of perhaps a Segway-based robotic delivery system able to carry multiple containers to homes in the neighborhood. Community supported agriculture (CSA) platforms are another option, where people buy shares that ideally pay for food production, equally distributed come harvest. For a non-commercial scenario, all the farmer's material and labor needs are gifted by the local community in return for great food. When this idea was mentioned to my CSA director friend, he was cynical toward the idea, but if we have improved online interfaces helping people gift stuff in the way Kickstarter and Indiegogo gifts money, then the coordination ability of our hypothetical public resource interface (able to visualize the once 'invisible hand') ensures the farmer gets what the farm needs for free for the benefit of the farmer's community.
Conclusion
Common sense expects a free-commercial hybrid form at first. Like Linux, most of its developers are paid, but the product does well because the code is open and free: it reduces development redundancy; a problem solved for one company is solved for another user with the same challenge; further reducing costs and increasing efficiency and quality. Commercial firms producing hardware with several parts will begin to fund free/open hardware parts to replace elements of commercial products for competitive advantage: a better quality, less expensive product than rivals in the marketplace, until common space and material rights are standardized and robotics software and hardware become more flexible and creative to render any commercial element of products obsolete.
Areas to model
Where are things made and what makes things and how?
- Space
- Skills/Instructions
- Materials
- Tools
- Products/Outcomes