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RE: Tea party ? - 11/1/2009 9:08:51 AM

SL4V3M4YB3

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Nothing more funny than American capitalists insisting human beings being given the lowest wage and standard of living in China is ok as long as American's can be given a decent wage and standard of living through protectionists practices such as raising import taxes. If people had started championing the rights of Chinese workers long ago rather than just wanting cheap products perhaps you'd be able to compete on terms with these tiger economies? People should have started voting with their feet against immoral working practices in other parts of the world long ago, they only do so now through self interest which is unconvincing.

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RE: Tea party ? - 11/1/2009 9:16:26 AM

pahunkboy

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Hey Need, great post!

There is an element of truth to it.

What I mean is the horse and buggy advanced because someone came up with something better.

It is something to think about. In the early 1900s could they picture 2009? No. Not in the manner that we advanced.

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RE: Tea party ? - 11/1/2009 10:47:40 AM

Termyn8or

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FR

Someone alluded to the lack of need for manufacturing ? It does not work that way. I have not worked this out completely for proper expression in print but here goes.

How many TVs are in your house ? How many similar houses are there in this country ? Even without the actual figures you know damn well if you had just one dollar for each TV in this country you would be quite well off.

We make dandy bombs and planes, but you only sell a few of those every year. Our paper clips are the best in the world, bar none, but you can't even get a penny a piece hardly. Neither of these otherwise valuable products does what we need it to do, which is to bring some damn actual money in.

So we got two things going. Big stuff that can't be outsourced because of the extreme high cost of the facility needed to build the product. The other a product that won't be outsourced because they simply don't see any big money in it. You know why they don't see any big money in it ? Because they are smart. What's more, which may sound strange to US Citizens, is that they operate in the best interest of their country and their people.

Youi can hem and haw all you like about the exploitation of the Chinese labor class, but what would they be doing for a living if not building TVs ? Eating dirt ? You think Chinese people go to work at gunpoint ? Hell no, they got a job, they are going to go work.

We used to be like that.

T

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RE: Tea party ? - 11/1/2009 11:10:59 AM

Moonhead

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No you didn't used to be like that. I don't believe that Confuscius' notions that a person is a member of society with a role to play first and an individual with an ego and a sense of entitlement second has ever been big in America. These values are probably the main reason communism (or statism, strictly speaking) worked out a lot better in China than it did in Eastern Europe.

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RE: Tea party ? - 11/1/2009 4:14:21 PM

NeedToUseYou

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quote:

ORIGINAL: pahunkboy

Hey Need, great post!

There is an element of truth to it.

What I mean is the horse and buggy advanced because someone came up with something better.

It is something to think about. In the early 1900s could they picture 2009? No. Not in the manner that we advanced.

That is sort of my point, we are looking at manufacturing as a monolithic entity as it exists today.

Manufacturing is going to eventually be destroyed in whole eventually on that level, as in huge factories, with million dollar molds, plastic injection etc.... There is a lot of work going on in making 3d printers, as in those that you simply load a Cad drawing into and it prints it out for you. There is also work being done for home based circuit printers. Now, they are pretty crude at present but they are progressing.

So, if we apply the logic that 3d printers will advance, and fast forward 20 30 50 years? Eventually there will be an affordable printer that can print out 90% of the shit you have in your house, and all of it can be custom if you wanted.

So, that is the real future, maybe further than is useful today, but it is coming, I read up on that kind of stuff all the time.

So, where are the jobs, in a future like that? Well, imagine you can print any smallish thing at home, or if you want something really large you'd go to the commercial printer down the road to do it like for a couch, or new seats for your car, or a new top for your car, or whatever you can imagine, and imagine instead of going to wal-mart, and only being able to select from 4 entertainment centers, you can select from 100000, and instantly print it down to micrometer accuracy.

The jobs are in design, engineering, art, and Information, that is what I see the future being, and there are quite a few companies working towards that end.

Once you can print complex circuits, shapes, and use various materials to do so in one machine, manufacturing becomes the microwave.

Now, that is the end game of this whole manufacturing circle for mundane, day to day items you have in your house.

ETA: less than 30 years, I'd really guess about 20 years.

Advanced 3d printer could print:
Clothes, Furniture, Basic Electronics, Hub Caps, Car Interiors, Art Work, Domestic Appliances, Carpet, etc....... It's just a matter of time.....

Near future, though, the manufacturing cycle will become less and less human dependent, first to go is the line workers, then slowly the techs will disappear, then no one left.

http://uprint.dimensionprinting.com/ There's one of several companies, notice the outrageous price tag, but like everything tech, add twenty years, and that price will be 500, for 100 times the features.

< Message edited by NeedToUseYou -- 11/1/2009 4:24:46 PM >

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RE: Tea party ? - 11/2/2009 12:44:28 AM

Termyn8or

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Need, a home based circuit board etcher is already available. I have seen ads for them. They run off a plotter and a Dremel, X and Y axes are of course handled by the motors that move the head, Z axis determines where the copper is to be removed. Then the same jig drills the holes. Ready made in minutes, if you afford about seven grand for the machine. There is another one I saw advertised a few years ago, this one similarly used a plotter type printer, but the head is a plasma cutter. Patterns can be repeated ad infinitum. The was about five grand but you had to supply and mount the cutting tool.

Your vision of the future is interesting, but in reality today, the only tool that can build it's own replica is the lathe. If you take your theory to the max, a computer could just make another computer. But there are still materials to consider. Would you want a phone made out of ink for example ?

Technology can do alot of things, but it can't quite reproduce itself. When it does, do we then consider it a form of life ? I mean there are people out there who barely qualify for that distinction. Will the EPA eventually call your PC a protected species and stop you from loading software on it to preserve the environment ? Will getting on the net without having virus protection be like getting a ticket for not wearing a seat belt ?

The brave new world.

T

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RE: Tea party ? - 11/2/2009 4:45:25 PM

NeedToUseYou

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I saw some group a while back that was attempting to make a home made (crude), 3d printer that made all the necessary parts to make another one. That was a couple of computers ago for me, and lost the link, but there are efforts to do just that right now.

Intel is also working on making little tiny miniature robots, that stick to each via electromagnets to form shapes and each one contributes to the distributed computer network. As in tiny tiny (eventually), little circle shaped "robots" that can attach to each other, and communicate with each other, and do complex computer tasks. Such as form a cellphone, or simulate other electronic devices. Those would rock.

Overall, I don't know what exact path we are on but it appears that path is not the path we were on looking back, and it appears the new path is one based less on huge manufacturing processes, and more about flexible on demand manufacturing. I could be suprised I suppose and we keep on plastic injecting things forever, I doubt it though. As the economics make sense to manufacture at the point of sale. No Shipping, No Labor, No or very little storage. Essentially the cost is a little in materials and the rest in intellectual property rights.

Additionally if a standards for materials was adopted, you could force all the materials to be readily recyclable. Thus pollution would be dramatically reduced.

That's my "good" vision of the future, my bad vision of the future, is resource depletion, starvation, and a Wealth gap so wide only revolution could stop it. It's more fun and hopeful to look the other way. HEHE.

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RE: Tea party ? - 11/2/2009 6:19:03 PM

shannie

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Irishknight

Just make any American company with outsourced work pay the monetary equivalent to minimum wage. Add to that a law charging a tarriff on any product from a plant that doesn't meet OSHA minimum requirements for safety.
If the tool box company that went to Mexico from the town 14 miles away suddenly had to pay an equivalent wage to the cheapest US worker and their factories had to meet all OSHA safety laws for them to sell their products in this country, they would either vastly improve the flow of money into the poor country whose laborers they are exploiting or they would find it competitive to make products in the US. We don't need protectionism. We just need to make the playing field more level.

That would be a good idea, but then "they" would have to create global enforcement agencies. The bigger the agency, the more corrupt and inefficient it will be. The Department of Labor is barely enforcing the wage/labor laws in the US.

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RE: Tea party ? - 11/2/2009 10:33:02 PM

Termyn8or

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Need, I have no idea how much you know. I will be breif in the beginning.

To print another printer the originating printer would have to print resin and solvent. It would also have to print something that is a good electrical insulator, and of course something that is a good conductor.

What would need to happen is that the polymers of today would have to be broken down even more, to component chemicals that will be flow modulated by the print head. Even if we can maintain the current advancement velocity in technology, which is doubtful, we are still about 30 years away from that technology IMO. And I know of what I speak when it comes to this shit. Of course someone will come along with a news flash, but really that doesn't mean it is implemented. Even being implemented in no way implies that it would be in common use, rather than the few.

Just like the perpetual generator, I know it works, but for what it costs it is not practical for common use. The cost of the thing exceeds most people's lifetime electric bills. So it is reduced to a curiousity. So shall it be with this. Yes, I can print a $200 printer, but it cost me $50,000 for the printer to do that, and it used $1,000 in materials to do the job.

This is how it starts with any new technology. Printing plastic can be done today, but the whole idea is now in it's infancy. But they also make other advances. They now have a transistor that consists of one molecule. And don't forget old tech, my Uncle (tech specialist at IBM) told me that they were working on self powered ICs. He was high tech but old school and as such would certainly be wary of a device you could not turn off. I have no argument against that.

But really, tea party or not, our only hope is high tech, and it doesn't look good. We failed in making CDs, DVDs even VCRs, and TVs which we fucking invented. I am not trying to pound my chest here and proclaim shit, but I want to illustrate the contrast between what we are and what we once were.

How do we regain that ? Or is that impossible. We have to know by now that a totally service based economy can't work these days, so what do we do ?

Logic dictates that these problems will not be solved by someone wearing a suit and tie.

Later.

T

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