An amazing example of futuristic city design including urban green spaces and roof top landing pad (The Venus Project) An amazing example of futuristic city design including urban green spaces and roof top landing pad (The Venus Project)

How will a Resource Based Economy work? What will it look like?26 min read

Politics Resource Based Economy
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Introduction

So, I had a Facebook conversation this weekend with someone who asked about Resource Based Economy (RBE) and how it would work, specifically asking about creation of products and getting access to resources, so I will spend some time talking about that and more for his and others’ benefit. Now keep in mind there has never been an RBE in the world, so this is all very subjective and just my projection of what it could and should be like. If you have no idea what a Resource Based Economy is then please read my post The Cancer of Capitalism and Its Antidote for an overview and why we NEED to shift to this socio-economic system in order to save our planet… and humanity from extinction.

I. Resource Production and Management in RBE

A. Who and how will the work get done?

First, you may want to read my post titled: Productivity and Motivation in a Resource Based Economy? which may answer some questions you may have about this topic before we start. Below, I will give you an overview of a single important concept from this important writing.

Ultimately, people will NOT stop doing what they love or are interested in because they are not getting paid for it. My first love was computer programming. I do not do it because I am getting paid to do it (and I am not getting paid to do it, really). I do it because I am passionate about it and I enjoy it. I have read about religion, anthropology, evolutionary sciences, revolutionary war, constitutional law, and so much more not because I was being paid to, but because I was interested in it and because there was a problem I wanted to look into understanding and solving.

People will be able to do what they are passionate about and contribute to society doing so. People will still be creating things, be an engineer, or be involved with farming because that is what they want to do and love to do, and NOT because they have to do it in order to pay the bills so their family does not die homeless on the streets, or so they can have access to healthcare.

However, we will need a fraction of the number of people that we have today working in any given industry due to high levels of automation and AI utilization. There will be no real monotonous and demeaning manual labor because computers and robots can work longer, more efficiently, more accurately, and faster than people can. People working in farming will be using robots, drones, sensors, and computers to get things done. We will be breaking code, sensors, drones, and robots and NOT our backs or spirits.

B. Resource Production and Management

The core driver of a Resource Based Economy is global computerized management of resources through:

  • sensors, Internet of Things (IoT)
  • AI, automation, and 3D printing
  • localized production
  • sustainability and recycling
RBE System Diagram
RBE System Diagram

We will be using computer management of global resources using just-in-time production and delivery so there will never large amounts of products sitting around waiting to be used or going to waste. Computers with data from sensors and daily product and service usage will already know or be able to very accurately project how much of a product of service will be needed within a specific period as well as the resources available or required.

As an example, the system will know the amount of food that will be consumed this season in your city, so it will inform the local aquaponic farm to work towards producing these specific foods (which the farm is certified for) and then have it shipped to the needed housing, markets, and food preparation areas.

Computers and AI using trend analysis, demand, and production and delivery schedules will:

  1. … let farming supply manufacturers know that these are the supplies that needed on this schedule in order to support the aquaponic farm based on historical data for that aquaponic farm and the supplies needed for the foods to be produced
  2. … manufacturers will produce the supplies needed using automated production and 3D printing
  3. … have those supplies shipped on a specific schedule using autonomous vehicles to the aquaponic farm
  4. … let the aquaponic farm know that these are the foods that need to be produced and in this quantity in this schedule to support the city and/or to create a surplus to ship elsewhere
  5. … arrange to pickup and delivery of the food to where it needs to go throughout the city using drones and autonomous vehicles

The end of all production cycles is recycling. If something cannot be recycled then it should NOT be made. As a part of the automated manufacturing process, an automated plan or design is created to construct the item. If you can create a plan to automate the creation of something, then you can also create an automated plan to recycle an item completely. Products that cannot be repaired should be completely torn apart and recycled so that the materials can be reclaimed and reused again. No waste will ever be buried to pollute the ground or our water. Organic products should be composted and return to the ground for carbon sequestration which also results in the revitalization of the soil.

Global companies today utilize just-in-time production already, so there is nothing new here. Amazon, Fed, Ex, USPS and are already doing global resource delivery management, so nothing new there either. Many of the first world countries (especially the Nordic countries) are already recycling most things. We already have the technology to do of this. We just need to start using the existing technology, systems, and methods that already currently work globally and then link it all together into one holistic global system.

II. Resource Access in RBE

A. Perishable Resources

I will specifically look at food here. As you see from the example above AI, computers, and automation will automate the growing of food as much is possible and as is needed based historical data, projections, and requests. Food will be delivered to where it is needed and is ready to be consumed.

Here are some examples as to how people may access food in a Resource Based Economy. People may:

  1. … go into town to a market and just take the food they want
  2. … have food delivered to their house based on usage of food they will eat regularly, or as it has been requested and then cook the food they want at home
  3. … may go into the local restaurant where automated robotic cooks will prepare the food and robots will deliver it to their table

With a Resource Based Economy there will be no proprietary or secret knowledge, patents, or information. All recipes and cooking methods will be available world-wide in a huge database not only so humans can access it and cook it for themselves at home, but also be primarily available in a specific format so that robotic cooks can order the needed ingredients and cook it for you. Keep in mind there is an automated kitchen chef already in production! So, that technology is also here too.

Perhaps, there is a rockstar cook in Chile who has a neat new recipe. Once he posts it, it will be available world-wide for all to access and try. You can go into the local restaurant and request to have it prepared for you. You can even add it to your favorite recipes in your personal profile to get easy access to it later no matter where you are – home, a restaurant, or even in another country.

As an example, lets say you want pizza that uses the old Pizza Hut recipe (which is now open for all to use). You will:

  1. … pop into your app which you use to access everything in your RBE life
  2. … go to your list of meals you like and click on a vegetarian supreme pizza using the Pizza Hut recipe
  3. … select when you want it delivered

The system:

  1. … sends the request to the local automated food preparation facility which schedules to have your food prepared which also verifies food resource access
  2. … sends the request to the automated delivery service to have it delivered
  3. … lets you know that it will be delivered to your home in about 45 minutes
  4. … has a delivery bot deliver the pizza to your door 45 minutes later

B. Knowledge Resources

Introduction

As mentioned above there will NOT be patents or proprietary information for that is antithetical to human progress and expansion. All knowledge, data, research, and designs will be available for all to use, work with, and learn from.

If you want to learn quantum theory then you can start your learning through an introductory course through the world-wide university classes or just request a book on it. Perhaps you could even take the class with your friend in Paris through Virtual Reality University (VRU) access. If you have been reading a plethora of books and watching a plethora of videos about this topic or have been already taking courses on it then you can pop onto your university site and ask some questions there; or if your knowledge level is already certified at some level with quantum physics then you may have direct access to talk with other professionals in your industry through the world-wide quantum physics portal.

1. Wanting to Work and Learn at Your Local Aquaponic Farm?

As an example, lets say you wish to work in your local aquaponic farm. You can go into that amazing app, Your RBE Life, which manages your RBE life, or you can go directly to the university website and then:

  1. take the various online classes to learn aquaponic theory, how an aquaponic farm works, etc; or perhaps even take classes live at your local aquaponic farm or university.
  2. take the tests in order to verify and certify your knowledge in the required specific areas and then earn a Level 1 Aquaponic Knowledge Certification. Then your status is added to a centralized world-wide database of those who have that certification to be utilized if needed, possibly to even mentor those who are working towards that same goal.
  3. request a position for mentorship and apprenticeship at your local aquaponic farm
  4. When an apprenticeship position is available, then you gain your mentor and are able to work at the aquaponic farm so you can learn to really apply what you have learned and how to really work on an aquaponic farm.
  5. Once you have finished your apprenticeship and the requisite other learning, then you can earn your Level 1 Aquaponic Worker Certification. Your status is then added to a centralized database of those who have that certification to be utilized if needed to mentor others working towards the same.

2. Want to Work in an Aquaponic Farm in Paris?

  1. In the app you can go to the portal for Paris.
  2. Then you can then request to work in a selected aquaponic farm there as a Level 1 Aquaponic Worker. When a position and living quarters opens up, then you can be transferred there to work at the Paris farm.
  3. While you wait for the notification that a Level 1 Aquaponic Worker position to open in Paris you can start work on your Level 2 Aquaponic Knowledge Certification, or perhaps you can also start to learning about biomimetic techniques for industrial cooling using plant circulatory system models to increase your interdisciplinary knowledge because you have an interest in more organic greenhouse environmental regulation.

C. Housing Resources

Introduction

You have received notification that a position for a Level 2 Aquaponic Worker in Paris has finally opened up for you in a few months, which is convenient because you just completed that certification. You open Your RBE Life app and then:

1. Selecting Your Domicile in Paris

  1. You click on over to Paris, then to their housing portal, and then you look through the 3D virtual tours of various areas of the city near the aquaponic farm.
  2. Once you have narrowed down the area of the city you would like to live in, you then look through various floor plans in various buildings for that area just to get an idea how the locals like their domiciles arranged.
  3. Then you look through all of the domiciles that will be available for you to move in before you need to start and you found an apartment facing the river that you really like. It has a custom floor plan that was requested by the original occupant, but does not quite feel right for you, so you start to adjust the floor plan right there in the app. To finish, you do a virtual before-and-after tour of your soon-to-be new living space.
  4. You then check to see when it will be available which is about a month before you are scheduled to start at the Aquaponic farm, and then you reserve it for your personal use for as long as you like. If the city was looking to add more housing units, and everything lined up, then you could request to have a new housing unit with the features you wanted built, as long as it fell within the set societal limits.

2. Scheduling Your Travel to Paris

You decide you want to leave and take a scenic route to get to Paris, so about 3 months before you need to be in Paris to start your new journey into aquaponics in Paris, you start to schedule your move. To start this process, you open you Your RBE Life app and then:

  1. You open up your new apartment space to do another virtual walkthrough just to make sure, and it still looks good.
  2. You click on Travel To for your apartment which brings up the travel options in order to get you to your new domicile in Paris in 3 stages:
    1. transport to the trans-oceanic port
    2. trans-oceanic travel
    3. transport to your new apartment
  3. You first arrange your trans-oceanic transportation since that will be the most important to decide. You really want to take a nice lazy scenic route so you can find time to wind down, relax, and center yourself before the Paris experience takes hold. You open Your RBE Life app and then select dirigible, for the mode of travel across the ocean. This should be a slow and serene trip. You look for one which has green space and meditation space, which sounds awesome. This will leave about a month before your new position starts, which will have you arrive there a week early so you can settle in get the layout of the city.
  4. Once the trans-oceanic transport is reserved the app updates with suggested transport modes and dates and times. You adjust adjust the times and transportations types you would like to use which ends up with a:
    1. A nice lazy walk through the green spaces of your home city to its city center so you can meet with friends, eat lunch, and say some last goodbyes
    2. Then you will jump on a multi-city HyperTransport from your city center to the next city center where you will get off in the next city center.
    3. From there your decided to stay overnight with a friend there, so you both can go in the morning to the port together.
    4. From your friends’ building you will jump on a flying vehicle on its roof to get you near the port.
    5. Lastly, you with both take a tram to the port itself.
  5. Finally, your schedule your trip through Paris to your new apartment. For this you decide to make it simple since it can to be. There is a tram that goes directly from the port to the area of the city that you will be staying in, so you can spend time wandering around and getting to know Paris before settling into your apartment.

3. Scheduling Your Move to Paris

It is a week before you will begin your trip to Paris so you start to arrange for the transportation of personal stuff and your data.

  1. Physical Stuff – To get your physical stuff there, you first spend time looking at what stuff you actually want to take. What you decide to leave here will be returned to the sharing centers to be refurbished and will save significantly on transportation resources. Then Paris resources will be used to get your knew apartment setup with the same stuff if you so wish it. You decide to leave all of the furniture and kitchen stuff here and basically only take your phone, toiletries, and just enough clothes and such as needed for the trans-oceanic dirigible flight, as well as some sentimental things and leave the rest here.
  2. Data Pods
    • What are data pods? Well, you have pods of data to store and organize your digital content as well as control who has access to it such as:
      • All of your content aggregation dashboards (aquaponics, social media, industrial cooling, pop music, etc)
      • medical data only being available to medical personnel
      • fitness data available to medical personnel and your personal trainer
      • your music lists being publicly available for all
      • all of you social media content being aggregated and then being made available to the appropriate services
      • your computer desktop state (with virtual desktop access)
      • your phone state
      • all of your images and documents, etc
      • databases of data collected for your aquaponics research
    • Transferring Pods – Now, one of the most important issues to deal with is getting your data pods transferred over to Paris, as well as your domicile too. First, you schedule to have your data pods transferred a few days before you leave.
  3. Computer Optimization – As a part of this, you request that the desktop state be optimized as needed for her new position. The Resource Sharing Center system has been bothering you with a request to upgrade your computer’s RAM, since they saw that the work your were doing was nearing your RAM limitations and may end up being a bottleneck soon, so she checked that box, and then also requested a check on what resources were needed to access small scale greenhouse environmental modeling.

D. Research and Development Resources

1. Want to Work with Data?

You could put in a request for certain data sets to have the data assembled or possibly even pull the data directly from a data portal, and then use the freely available software to analyze and visualize the data, and perform calculations with it.

All data from all sensors world-wide will be available for people to look through and analyze. If you want to look at temperature and barometric pressure in a small town in Tunisia, you can do that. If you want to look at the production schedule and amounts and types of food produced from your local aquaponic farm then you can do that. How about: how many 3D printing designs were added to the world-wide database from the metropolitan area of Los Angeles? Yup! That too. All historical data will be available for all to use and learn from.

2. Need Some Server Power?

Doing some research and need some real computer power, something more than your home computing platform can provide? You can apply for access to a:

  • computer clusters to crunch some numbers for you which is also shared and available for all people to use.
  • distributed computing cluster to be able to utilize the idle computing power of computers world-wide like the BOINC project which I have installed on all of my machines so that research projects can use my computers to help solve cancer and other world wide problems.

3. Want to do more extensive research or development?

You will have access to a world-wide database of research and development on any given topic. You could:

  • search through the database of completed projects and see that there were 4 projects that did similar research and experiments, as well as check out the their methodology, results, and published research papers.
  • search through the database of current projects that are going on right now and see that there are 4 research projects that current going on and then read about it and ask questions right there.
  • request to join their research project assuming you meet the project’s requirements for researchers or assistants, or even be asked to create another research project to assist them in their work, expanding it.
  • start your own private or public research project and have others join or advise you as you go.

I would expect that research projects will be categorized, classified, and linked in such a hierarchical way that you could see the flow of research from an idea that branches out from a specific research project in a hierarchical tree so that you you could see that:

  • 6 projects were spawned or associated with it to verify its results in various sample sizes and qualities
  • 2 other research or development projects spawned from this and are working on ideas and questions that were created from that research

E. Non-perishable Resources

OK, non perishable resources such as books, computers, phones, hammers or other tools, etc… are a little different. A person will have access to these in 2 ways.

  1. You will have private property, although this will be not a large part of the property that you will use because…
  2. Access to resource will be more like a public library or a free public bus system. If you want it you access to a resource then you can check it out for your use, and then return it when you are done so that someone else can use it.

1. Private Property:

So, you will have some private property much like you have now, although that will not really be needed so much since much of the world-wide resources will be available to all as shared resources, so no basement or attic hording, or saving something just in case you need it later because you can just request it. Your phone, home computer, clothes, etc will be yours much like they are now, although even that will be more fluid since you will be able to recycle it and upgrade it much more easily.

2. Public Property, Manufacturing, and Other Resources:

However, pretty much everything outside your home will be shared access to reduce waste and inefficiency and to increase quality. Here are some examples for you to digest:

  • Transportation: All transportation will be public through a fleet of automated cars, buses, boats, trains, conveyors, planes, etc. If you want to go somewhere you pop into your app, and much like Uber or Lift, you request to be picked up and where you want to go, then a transport method arrives. Perhaps it will be a comfortable bus of sorts, or it will be a single person autonomous vehicle, or a flying autonomous vehicle. The automated transportation management system will determine, based on current and projected usage, which method your will use to get you there. You can also request a specific method of transport though if available. You can also take a lighter transport such as a car to go to a larger mass transport option such as a city-to-city hyperloop or monorail in the city center or to the airport for a flight somewhere.
  • 3D Printing: Do you want something 3D printed? You can create your design and have it printed and delivered to you.
  • Clothes: Your personal profile will have your personal measurements stored as well as your clothing preferences such as: styles, materials and features. You will have access to a complete library of world-wide designs, materials, and features to look through and consider. If you like something then you can go to a local resource center and check out the material or try on a design. You could go into a VR app and to see what it would look like on you. You could even go to your spiffy personal RBE app and put your request together design, features, materials, measurements, etc… and it will be created for you and delivered to you when it is ready.
  • Housing: If you need a place to live you can access the Housing Authority’s site and look at existing available housing options in your city or anywhere in the world. If you like an existing apartment or house, and it is available, then you can request it and then your move will be scheduled to be be handled by bots to automate the move. If there is enough resources to support creating a new domicile then you can design one to your specifications, within reason – no McMansions here.
  • Home Tools: Tools such as hammers, wrenches, etc.. are rarely used by many households each year. I may pull out my tools a few times each year at most. Why should they sit there in my house, like millions of other houses around the world, to be only used a few times each year, their potential and resources wasted? Such tools can be stored in a local resource access center where you can request the use of those tools, so others can use and share them when they need it too.
  • Entertainment:
    • Boating: If you want to go boating you can go the lake and use one of the boats which are stored there for all to use.
    • Pictures: If you want to take pictures in the public reserve or park then you can use one of their camera’s there and return it when you are done for someone else to use (or just use your powerful phone).
    • Movies: Want to see a movie or a play or ballet? Just reserve your seat at a theater and go to watch it, or just watch it at home like you do now through Netflix, or through a VR set.
    • Golf: Want to play golf? Go to the course and check out a set of clubs.
    • Biking: Want to go for a bike ride? Checkout a bike at the resource center. If you bike a lot then you may even have one on a long-term check out and stored at your home.
  • Specialized Skill Sets and Tools:  Those with advanced knowledge or specialized skill sets will have access to offices, labs, or garages with the needed tools. Perhaps a trained mechanic with the appropriate certification may work in the central garage which will maintain and manage the city-wide transportation infrastructure. Maybe this person will share a local publicly shared garage stall. If their need is strong enough or if they create project and their project is long or big enough, then a public garage space may be reserved for them or they may have a garage added to their home. Perhaps if their skill set is highly advanced then they will work with the university or other research center to further mankind and their knowledge.

Hopefully, this will give you an idea how an RBE might take form and how it may benefit you and the world.

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