A Celebration Society

Author: Jonathan

  • Why I am not a Techno-utopian

    Why I am not a Techno-utopian

    The techno-utopians do a great job of showing the potential of technology to solve huge problems and give us a better world. I generally see this potential the same way they do.

    My fundamental difference with them is a particular kind of skepticism. Just because things could work out well doesn’t mean they must work out well. For instance, the best technology isn’t always the one that gets adopted.  Sometimes this is relatively innocuous, and sometimes it’s dangerous.

    It’s well known that inferior VHS beat superior Betamax. Less well-known is that environmentally sound thorium nuclear power lost out to risky uranium nuclear power due to politics.

    Our capacity to make bad decisions continues. For instance, according to a NASA report, it would cost around $150 million to protect the US power grid from long-term shutdown in the event of an increasingly probable major solar flare, with estimated damage exceeding $1 trillion. Politicians won’t make the investment.

    While such a solar flare may not hit Earth for decades, railroad accidents happen far more frequently. The derailment of Amtrak train 188 in Philadelphia in 2015 killed eight people, and some train disasters have been far worse. They could be devastating. Trains are used to carry highly toxic and flammable substances through the hearts of major metropolitan areas. The US Congress has offered only token funding for Positive Train Control (PTC); a technology capable of preventing such accidents,

    One problem is that the word “best” is meaningful only within a context. It could refer to cost, reliability, service of a particular purpose, or service of a different purpose. My best may not be your best. However, if I’m the one in charge of making the go/no go decision on a major piece of technology, we will all have to live with that decision; probably for a lot longer than most of us imagine.

    I want to build Celebration Societies where Citizens are aligned upon a specific set of mutually agreed values that guide all societal decisions. I want those values to be the result of careful deliberation and open, evidence-based debate. I want it recognized that technology is not some magical genie that grants all wishes, but rather a great yet neutral power that augments human capabilities for good—or for ill.

    Artificial intelligences, and the robots they control, may provide us with universal abundance that works to the liking of everyone, or it may work to the liking of some and the displeasure or even horror of others. It is entirely plausible, as pundits like Stephen Hawking have said, that the abundance these systems generate may be hoarded by their owners.

    If our leaders continue to view the world through a Scarcity Game mindset, the hoarding of capital and means of production will only accelerate. Those less powerful or wealthy will fight for scraps, or live on whatever charity the masters care to dole out. This is one of the crucial blind spots of techno-utopians: if technology is controlled by only a few, its benefits will be allocated according to the wishes of those few.

    The only way I know to assure universal abundance is to have localized distribution and control of automated systems of production in the context of an Abundance Game. Likewise, localized systems allow for multiple experiments to be conducted in parallel, with the results of those experiments informing us all.

    Human progress is sloppy, and includes many mistakes. By placing our societal experiments within local Celebration Societies, we have the chance to keep the consequences of those mistakes local and only duplicate successful experiments elsewhere. In this way, we can embrace the potential of technology to create a wondrous future, while remaining aware of how human nature affects the deployment of that technology.

    In addition, many–not all–techno-utopians seem to brush aside concerns about how advancing automation will disrupt the lives of those not so well endowed with assets or astute as themselves. History suggests that the process will be brutal for many of our fellow human beings.

    Consider, for example, how a generation of aerospace engineers were thrown out of work when the US space program was effectively shut down. Many wound up flipping burgers; some killed themselves in despair. Those engineers were among the most technologically skilled of professionals.

    That was a political decision and such decisions can be reversed. When automation decimates professions, it will not be reversible. How much worse will it be this time for people, especially those lacking technical competencies that can be redirected or retrained?

    Finally, the whole concept of utopia is misguided. There is a section in the book, Never a Utopia. The reason is that utopia is a fantasy of some future perfected state without change. Who would really want that? Also, it’s not realistic.

    A Celebration Society will be a scientific society, prizing the best available evidence. That evidence evolves.  Science is a progressive unfoldment of truth. Ultimate truth is never attained, but only ever more closely approximated. Consequently, assuming we are able to create a Celebration Society, we will see continuous experiments and improvements. And that will keep life interesting!

     

     

     

     

    [1] http://www.wired.com/2009/04/storms2012/

  • Celebration Societies or Charter Cities?

    Celebration Societies or Charter Cities?

    There has been much discussion of Paul Romer’s charter cities, and an experiment of this sort may be taking shape in the Honduras– though not one to Romer’s liking. I expect that people will want to compare celebration society city states to charter cities. I wish to facilitate this comparison, highlighting important differences and showing why these differences matter. First, there are certain important similarities.

    Charter cities work on the basis of capitalism, essentially seeking to transport successful first-world models of investment and development to less developed regions of the world. Romer argues that this is how the British lease of Hong Kong brought prosperity to that city state. Capitalism will also enable the creation of early celebration societies.

    In both cases, an outside party will be given control of a small portion of a nation’s territory in exchange for the promise of significant economic improvement. In both cases, establishing consistent and transparent rule of law is considered paramount. In both cases, the outside party will establish its own system of government.

    Here are the differences that I see:

    1) Long-time residents of the host country do not need to be worried about being “kicked out” by the foreigners. Celebration Society cities will offer displaced residents the choice of either becoming residents of the new society (with the ability to become Citizens just like any other resident) or an above-fair-market-value settlement for their land to help them relocate elsewhere within the host country.

    2) Rather than generating profit only for outside investors, the Celebration Society will continue to contribute a direct share of its revenues to the host country.  (If the first celebration societies not only showcase a superior quality of life but also significantly benefit their host countries, that combination will facilitate the creation of additional societies.)

    3) A Celebration Society will be owned by its residents and governed by its Citizens. Outside investors may be offered long-term concessions on infrastructure projects, but never ownership of the society itself.

    4) The population of a charter city will basically come from the host country. The vast majority of the populace of a Celebration Society would likely be immigrants from other countries; at least in the initial cases. (While it is possible that a single host country could itself populate a new Celebration Society, making that a restriction would increase the challenge of collecting the vast number of escrow funders/residents needed.))

    5) Rather than companies bearing the cost of initial construction and improvement, then reaping the benefits of the city’s productivity, the cost of initial construction and improvement for Celebration Society cities will be borne by a combination of resident investment and tip-it-forward funds from existing Celebration Society cities; potentially supplemented by impact investors who are as concerned about the success of the experiment as their own ROI. As a result, the city’s profits flow back to the residents less what is shared with the host country. (Note: Profits from individual companies owned by residents will still flow to the owners of those companies, less taxes.)

    6) The investors in a charter city would be in a favored position. The nature of the Celebration Society government prevents power blocs and entrenched interests from gaining control. It would still be possible for a company to bribe individual members of Parliament to vote favorable laws. However since those laws would be transparent, and have a waiting period before they become permanent, it becomes significantly more difficult to maintain unfair laws that favor a company over other companies or the general populace.

    7) Further, once bribes were recognized, the company and its executives and owners would probably be expelled for violating the Charter. Therefore, it would be a last-ditch emergency tactic rather than standard operating procedure. Likewise, with a monetary system that is envisioned as being all-electronic, blockchain-based and traceable, bribes would probably have to be paid in money that is never repatriated to the celebration society. This would create considerable problems both for the payor and the recipient(s) of such a bribe.

    8) Some critics have expressed concern that organized crime might flourish in charter cities. Organized crime in general (AKA racketeering) requires minions to be effective. Such minions must perceive that their expected reward from the criminal activity exceeds the risk. As an early Celebration Society gradually shifts from capitalism to celebrationism, the incentives of criminal activity will become less appealing and the perceived risks greater. With their basic needs met by the celebrationist production system, few residents will risk their opportunity to live in one of the most pleasant places on Earth merely for the chance at illicit gains that they do not need.

    Eventually, I expect that celebration societies will be created not only as new city states in largely uninhabited land, but also as “retrofits” to existing societies. At that point, the comparison to charter cities will break down. However, this welcome development is years and probably decades in the future.

    Caveat: I have read only a limited amount about charter cities, and it is possible that some proposed charter city designs will address some of the differences I have highlighted.

  • Review: Thoughtful and Detailed Solution

    Review: Thoughtful and Detailed Solution

    With his book A Celebration Society, Jonathan Kolber has not only produced a far reaching elucidation of many of today’s (and more importantly, tomorrow’s) global problems, but he has also done that rare and difficult thing – provided a thoughtful and detailed solution to them.  Too often, we do things because that’s how we’ve always done them, without necessarily thinking of a better way.

    As a species, our duty should be to concentrate on a method to sustainably maximize happiness and mitigate misery for every person on the planet.  The coming economic disruption that will be caused by automation and robotics in the next few decades will create enormous social upheaval – and whether that effect is negative or positive depends on how many people will seriously embrace the principles in this book.

    If readers perceive the narrative of this book to be too far-fetched, then I suspect we will not be able to avoid the coming negative upheaval.  If, on the other hand, people approach these ideas with an open and clear mind, I have faith for the future.  Thanks are due to Jonathan for focusing this conversation in such a detailed way.

    Not everyone will agree with all of the details of this conversation, but I hope we can agree that we need a book like this to start this conversation.

    ~Alexander R. Bandar, Ph.D., Founder/CEO of the Columbus Idea Foundry, the world’s largest and most active community workshop

  • Review: A Rare Treat

    Review: A Rare Treat

    Here’s a review from Todd William:

    “The world of technology is becoming increasingly more exciting with every new advancement, yet one aspect that many consider troubling is the notion that ever more jobs are being replaced by machines. This is not a new phenomena, as we’ve seen such shifts occur in the past. The agricultural industry once employed over 80% of the western population – that number being reduced to less than 5% today. Thus we are left asking, will technology create more jobs than it destroys, or are we doomed to live in a jobless world?

    In his book, A Celebration Society, Jonathan Kolber tackles this question head on. He deals directly with the ramifications of many professions vanishing, and addresses the question of how a society can operate without individual economic growth as a goal – the answers to which may surprise you. He has taken on the task of developing a workable societal system, where scarcity is not only removed but human quality of life improves in staggering ways. Kolber accomplishes this with an exceptional level of investigation and historical perspective.

    If ever there was a book that came close to sufficiently collecting all the most intelligent ideas and thoughts on potential consequences of future technology, Kolber has achieved it with A Celebration Society. He addresses a wide away of topics ranging from government, education, energy, ethics, access to life’s essentials, lacking only a discussion on issues of private property. It is a rare treat to find a book with an intriguing subject, an engrossing writer, and a well researched topic. In A Celebration Society, we have all three.”

    ~Todd William (www.the-thought-spot.com)

  • Why Is This Book Different?

    Why Is This Book Different?

    This book offers a genuinely new solution to technological unemployment

    More articles and books about the looming crisis are appearing all the time. Many offer clear explanations of the threat and why it is so serious. Where they fall short is in providing a solution that can actually work. Their solutions for first-world nations always seem to be:

    1. Have faith that new types of jobs will rapidly proliferate, preventing mass unemployment
    2. Institute retraining programs for all displaced workers
    3. Provide a guaranteed income for all

    As discussed in A Celebration Society, while potentially helpful, each of these solutions is inadequate to the need of the time.

    New types of jobs will almost certainly proliferate for a while longer. However, there is no certainty of this continuing indefinitely merely because it has been so for centuries. As AI/robot/sensor systems acquire ever more human-equivalent capabilities, employers will continually evaluate the overall cost/benefit ratio of hiring a person vs. a machine. The more that analysis favors the machine, the fewer people will be hired and the more will be fired. Machines are the ultimate form of outsourcing.

    Machines do not require vacations, social security, healthcare or much management. They have little downtime, and do not complain. Already, as discussed in the book, many jobs and professions are being rapidly automated and those who believe that any particular type of work is immune are placing their faith in a “line in the sand” that could suddenly be erased as machine capabilities rapidly rise. This has already happened, and is happening more and more rapidly. Investment management, law, medicine and so-called “new economy” jobs are now being automated.

    Retraining programs require that someone who is making money pay for them. Major corporations have shown great skill at offshoring their taxable activities, and this becomes easier as their assets become more intellectual than physical. In Western nations, small businesses and their employees are already heavily taxed. The greater the percentage of the population that is technologically unemployed, the greater must be the taxes on the employed or their employers to support those unemployed people. At some point, this will break down—and the consequences may be ugly and socially disruptive.

    Also, retraining presumes that people can keep their new jobs for years. Otherwise, they will not invest the resources of time, effort and possibly money that are required—nor should anyone else. However, when an AI/robot/sensor system learns to do something at a human-equivalent competency, other such systems can be quickly programmed with the same competency. The recent development of machine systems that can learn by watching people work, or by simply studying the rules of a system, means that the delay between emergence of a new profession and its automation will continue to shrink.

    Importantly, it is not necessary that automation replace all aspects of a profession, which is unrealistic in the short term. It need only carve out more and more pieces of a profession, each time displacing people who will then seek the remaining jobs in that profession, driving wages down and unemployment up. (This effect will cascade to other professions and jobs as well, as displaced people seek to switch to new types of work.)

    A guaranteed income for all has been proposed by economists across the political spectrum. Like retraining programs, it requires someone to pay the bill. While some have proposed instituting a special tax that captures the savings from automation and using that, this presumes that such savings can be consistently measured and that clever tax specialists won’t be able to find loopholes. It also presumes that the targeted companies won’t simply relocate to tax-friendlier countries, and that companies that do pay the new tax won’t be undercut by foreign competitors who have no such tax to pay.

    If the bill is instead paid by raising existing taxes, it will give major corporations even more incentive to offshore their taxable activities than they already have. So-called “inversions” will accelerate. Keep in mind that every attempt to close loopholes in the byzantine tax systems of first-world nations only results in greater lobbying efforts and new creative solutions from tax specialists. It is a war where the wealthy and the corporations they control have far better resources than the governments seeking to tax them. While some are proposing a worldwide tax treaty to prevent such offshoring, there only need be a handful of non-participating governments to make the treaty ineffective, and the more countries that sign such a treaty, the greater the economic advantage for the remaining nations not to sign it.

    Second and third-world nations typically have no social safety nets. They will not suddenly jump from no safety nets to universal training and a guaranteed minimum wage. In many cases, even if the governments see retraining or a guaranteed minimum wage as good ideas, they will have entrenched cultural resistance, bribery and other barriers preventing rapid adoption. So, even if the above “solutions” are somewhat workable for first-world nations, they offer no help to most of humanity.

    Something truly new is needed. A Celebration Society offers such a system.

  • Issues of Private Property

    Issues of Private Property

    Todd William pointed out that I didn’t clearly address issues of private property in the book. I’ll address them here.

    Private property and ownership are legal concepts. They are structured as part of the legal system. In a Celebration Society, this will be the Charter supported by specific laws regarding property and ownership, enforced by the Judiciary.

    Ownership of land will be the basic connection between a person and a Celebration Society. (There will also be a legal structure, the Family Corporation, which will allocate assets among those who together constitute a “family”.) Owner(s) of land will have the right to build specific kinds of residences and other structures, consistent with a condominium agreement. (That agreement will specify types of structures that are permitted and occupancy requirements.)

    Ownership of means of production will mean that one can produce whatever is desired, consistent with the Charter and laws, on one’s residential land, or in owned or leased facilities that are zoned for production.

    In my view, a Citizen must have their primary residence in the celebration society of which they are a Citizen. The society will provide for all basic needs of Citizens, including the use of a small condominium apartment in the downtown area. So, if a Citizen loses ownership of their land, they will still have the apartment, which cannot be lost since they do not individually own it.

    In general, I see private property as being more respected in a Celebration Society than is commonly the case in advanced Western societies. There should be clear rules regarding rights and the enforcement of those rights. Barring fraud or significant violation of law, I see no ordinary basis for depriving an owner of their property. Should one choose to emigrate from the society, one would be free to take along all portable assets and sell other assets such as land, consistent with the Charter and laws. (For example, one might be permitted to sell land only to qualified person(s) on a waiting list for city-state residency.)

    Eminent domain will likely be a carefully restricted power; to be used only in cases of necessity. (Since a Celebration Society will be a planned development, with little further development of infrastructure once the society is built other than technological improvement, I see this as a lesser issue than in typical sprawling societies that are frequently evolving their infrastructure.)

    In a Celebration Society, private property will remain a reality for so long as people find it useful. The society itself will be created as a voluntary collaboration amongst owners in the acquisition and development of land and infrastructure. I expect this to take a condominium structure. During the early years of transition from capitalism, people will trade and transact in a capitalist manner, using either the national money recognized by the society or other money (such as complementary currencies) favored by those transacting.

    Even in a full Celebrationist system of production, there will be certain unique goods and services and others not economical to produce locally; for example, due to economies of scale. In such cases, people will continue to transact in a capitalist manner. However, over time, I expect scaling issues and the attribute of uniqueness to fade both in actuality and in its perceived value.

    (Once everyone can enjoy an identical copy of a masterpiece or 4K-acuity full wall displays of natural beauty, the demand for original artworks and prime real estate locations will diminish. Further, natural beauty will be encouraged and prevail throughout the society, and it is likely that the most beauteous natural features will be reserved by the owners as parks for common enjoyment.)

    Once full Celebrationist production is in effect, prices of all manner of products and services should plunge towards zero. With automated production of all necessities for the Citizens (and possibly residents) assured by the government, the need for personal means of production will fall away. It will remain an option for those so inclined, but at that point there will be no evident continuing value in private ownership of means of production.

    Means of production is, of course, distinct from products themselves. People want products either for their utility or status, so those need to be considered separately. Likewise, there will soon be widely available VR experiences which will in future substitute for actual experiences and physical products in many cases. (This is discussed in the book.)

    One important distinction is between ownership and governance. Anyone who is prepared to support the Charter may own property in a Celebration Society. They might not even need to live there, though there may be condominium covenants assuring development and not raw land speculation, and likely others encouraging residency rather than absentee ownership. (I would favor this, but through “nudges”, as discussed elsewhere, rather than through law.)

    Unlike ownership, governance will solely be by Citizens. Any resident (not an absentee owner) may pursue qualification to become a Citizen, and this will be encouraged. In my view, the society will function best if the percentage of non-Citizen owners is small, as there is always the possibility of divergent interests.

    There will need to be provisions in the Charter protecting the ownership and other personal rights of non-Citizen owners. Since the Charter can be changed by supermajority vote of the Citizens or by unanimous vote of the Branches of government, non-Citizen owners could theoretically be at risk of expropriation of their land and other fixed assets. This is a matter that the society will need to address in its founding stages; I have no definitive solution. That said, the risk is no greater than, for example, in the United States.

    In my view, the Charter will need to carefully define ownership in terms of both rights and responsibilities. If one owns something, they are also responsible for its upkeep and preventing any negative social effects from its use. (e.g., pollution). There is also the matter of what can be owned. While non-sentient assets are fine, as sentience increases the rights of that which is owned should increase. (Ownership of sentient beings is a separate issue that will be explored in another blog.)

  • Review: Misgivings Addressed and Answered

    Review: Misgivings Addressed and Answered

    The research and writing of this book has obviously been a massive undertaking. Not so obviously, it is incredibly up to date with current technological advances.

    I started to read it as just another attempt at idealizing a Utopian Society. I had all the usual misgivings about his glossing over of inconvenient truths, or leaving gaping holes in his logic or reasoning. However, the further I read, the more my misgivings were addressed and answered convincingly. I sometimes felt that his elaborations were overlong and had a tendency to slightly drift off topic, but he always managed to bring them back in time!

    I did feel that his criticism of the FDA, while thoroughly justified, didn’t really add to his thesis, and the book wouldn’t suffer if it were to be omitted. If I have one real niggle it is, from my personal perspective, that once again the environment is a minor bystander to human cleverness. The two outstanding aspects of the book were the Charter of a Celebration Society, and the revelations of his and Jennifer’s personal anecdotes which provided that human touch.

    I can’t tell you how much I admire you for producing this gem and wish you a profound reception and success in promoting these wonderful ideas.

     

    ~Steve Friedman, retired geology teacher