> Lizon wrote:

> "molecular manufacturer"

I'll be honest here. I don't see this technology being used in your everyday home. There simply is no need for it for the most part. I suspect they will be useful in the large scale manufacturing field and such. The only way I can see this working is that people will order an item online or go to a retail store. Look at samples on the showroom, pick out what they want and it's manufactured right there in front of them on the spot and either pick it up there or have it delivered to their home. I mean how often do you buy new furniture, plates, pots, or pans? And lets be honest, there's something about going "Shopping" and seeing a product first hand that you can't duplicate with online shopping. Sometimes you want to see how that chair looks in front of you and take a seat before deciding to buy it.

1: Okay, fine.  That's still a massive change.  If you agree the technology is possible, then there's no disagreement that the implication is a massive increase in production capability.
2: Most people who talk about the technology argue it would be used with the online shopping model.  After all, the system would somehow need to have access to blueprint codes for up to date models, and a system modeled after the modern Internet would probably work very well.
3: Some people still like handmade furniture.  It doesn't mean the industrially produced furniture industry is a flop. 
I'm granting that there will be some people who would rather have their shopping experience, rather than just producing their stuff in some little machine at home or something.

However, the two can run hand in hand.  Modern society has its handmade furniture and industrially made furniture stores.  Industrially made furniture is cheaper.  Handmade furniture is considered higher class.  It would probably be the same with molecularly manufactured versus conventionally manufactured goods.

"Time for a third example: Space.  Why can't we mine the moon?  Or even build a colony there?  It's not possible now, granted... but it's not outside the bounds of scientific possibility.  And science should have already proven that if something is within the realm of possibility, human innovation will eventually make it a reality."

Actually there's nothing really useful on the moon other than Helium 3 and Silicone. The moon is important in terms of simple logistics for the time being. That is until we develop more efficient reaction drives for inter-solar travel. The moon offers the perfect platform for large scale space manufacturing projects. I think it's easier to build something in micro-gravity instead of no gravity at all. Don't have to worry so much about inertia ruining your day.

The biggest gold mines though are going to be the Jovian satellites and the Asteroid belt. Even Mercury has more to offer than the moon due to it's high metal concentrate.

Though at the rate we're going we won't be seeing any of this for at least 200 years. >.< I don't wanna wait! I want my spaceship now! *pouts*

Key words: "at the rate we're going."  See my rant above about exponents. 
As for the moon thing... at the very least, there's land.  Xeno said we wouldn't have enough land, which is one thing you usually can't build.
Besides... there may not be a damn thing useful on the moon... but that would be the most awesome two-week tourist destination ever!  Bam, we have an economy!

I want to get into the resource scarcity debate:

Look, Malthus made his first predictions about overpopulation and the resource crunch 100 years ago.  When he first proposed the theory, he believed the problem would be food scarcity.

Since that time, however, technological growth proved him wrong.  The primary reasons were threefold:
A: Malthus didn't factor in the multiple stages of production in final goods production, and the fact that even tiny changes in a society multiply in effect.  Some examples:
Trade between nations allows nations with particular climates to grow the most efficient crops for their region, and trade them abroad, rather than attempt to grow inefficient crops, maximizing production.
Pesticides, fertilizers, and mechanization of farming had similar results.

Then you have phase 2: Distribution.  The quicker food can be moved around, the further out it can be shipped.  That helps multiply the effects of international trade, mentioned above.  In addition, it simply means that regions far away from food sources can access food.
Some example advances here: Highway development, refrigeration, and the development and standardization of both supermarkets (central distribution centers for food within urban centers) and the distribution networks.

The point is, though... that a technological advance doesn't necessarily need to be in the field of food production in order to result in a net increase in food.

For example, take the refrigerator as an example.  Before the refrigerator, milk would spoil sooner.  At the distribution level (supermarket), it means stores would have to restock their supplies much more often, while still maintaining enough to satisfy the people.  This creates the possibility for huge amounts of losses due to short term buying habits.
At the individual level, it creates two inefficiencies.  First, and most obvious, food gets spoiled quicker, so people have to dispose of it before it spoils (overconsume).  Second, it means people need to purchase food in smaller quantities (there's a reason why a two liter bottle of soda is cheaper than the equivalent in cans.  Larger quantities means easier and cheaper packaging and distribution of goods).]

B: Malthus thought technology grows at a linear level.  THAT IS WRONG.

Let's go with a few examples first:
Moore's Law.  If technology was linear, Moore's law would be debunked.  But it's proven, time and again, to be the defining principle regarding computer development.
Aircraft.  (Don't count hot air balloons here, because that developed under a different and much simpler technological path).  It took hundreds of years to understand the basic science of flight (in theory, I could extrapolate this for as long as humans envisioned the possibility of flight.. which would bring this timeline back to at least since Greek mythology).  Once flight started becoming an applicable science, many people from across the world started producing prototype aircraft, until we had the Wright brothers in 1900.

Now, here's the trick: Once you overcome the basic hurdles of a technology, traveling further along that technology is no longer an issue of understanding and overcoming basic technical issues.  Now it becomes an issue of seeing how far technology can utilize natural science.  Aircraft construction was no longer about how to actually get off into the air.  It became an issue of how to make bigger, faster, better airplanes.  It took hundreds of years to come up with a basic airplane that traveled for one minute. 

Fifteen years later, the planes were improved to have long enough range and flight range that they were usable during WW1.  They used machine guns to fight each other, and dropped hand grenades or bricks for bombing operations.  Most air operations were on the main front, due to limited range.

Ten years later, a single-person plane crossed the Atlantic.

Fifteen years later: Another war.  The planes had much thicker hulls.  The aircraft range was enough for Germany to bomb the hell out of Britain.  Unlike their predecessors in WW1, these planes (even fighters) carried much heavier payloads, allowing Germany to blitz Eastern Europe.  (Wars have an interesting way of showing humanity how much it has evolved technologically since its last war...).

Now come to today.  We have civilian airliners, able to transport well over 150 people (sometimes much more) across continents, or even worldwide.  Aircraft travel at many times the speed of sound.  Some classes of military aircraft can fly high enough into the atmosphere that the pilots literally need to wear spacesuits due to the lack of oxygen.

When we try to develop a new technology, humans always fall back on the information they already know when developing new ideas.  A person with a Ph.D in physics is more likely to make an advancement in technology than some high school student, because the guy with the Ph.D has more background knowledge.  In the same way, when a society knows more about the world around us, it has more information to fall back upon in creating technologies.  We're no longer inventing.  We're perfecting, which is simply much simpler.

C: Malthus assumed population growth rates were constant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_growth_rate

Look at the map at the top right.  Notice something?  In the US, Japan, and Western Europe... population growth is extremely small.  Less than 1% population growth.  That means, in order to satisfy the resource needs of the population, these countries need to only increase production by 1% per year.  That's really not too much.  In fact, in some European countries, populations are completely leveling off, and some are even slightly declining.

There's a simple explanation: opportunity costs of children.  In agrarian communities, children are economic assets, since they can work in the farms at relatively young ages.  Thus, parents are encouraged to have more children in order to get more workers in the field.  In industrialized societies, however, children go to school until they're 18, then college, freeloading off their parents the whole time.  They're an economic cost to their parents.  In short, from a pure economic perspective, raising a kid is a terrible investment.  Go start a small business or something.

Now I want to take a moment and discuss future technologies.  Lizon started on this, but I want to expand here with some less conventional technologies.

First, Lizon brought up one issue I want to expand upon: nanotechnology.  Lizon mentioned that nanotechnology has huge potential implications in medicine, which is most likely true.  However, he missed one of the most revolutionary theoretical technologies proposed by such scientists as Eric Drexler: the molecular manufacturer.

A brief explanation: Picture the replicator from Star Trek.  The concept was that if we can move atoms, one by one, into particular formations, why can't we utilize it on a larger scale, manipulating billions of atoms, one at a time, to create finished goods from the ground up?

It's not bullshit: Credible scientists have started conducting research in the field, and even some private companies have begun attempting to develop the technology.

I'm not saying this is definitely the future of technology.  However, it's an example of how technology can further expand our resources.

If you take some time to look into the field of nanotechnology, it's quite an interesting and extensive field of study.  Lizon and I have only scraped the surface on the issue of nanotechnology.  But the ability to manipulate atoms, one at a time, holds enormous promise.  It's one area in which we could see a massive revolution in the way our society works.

Here's another one that you, xeno, have mentioned yourself: robotics.  No, I'm not talking about artificial intelligence just yet.  Just simple robotics.  Factories, accounting services, and hundreds of other menial tasks either have been taken over by automation or have been made much simpler due to automation.  As physical labor is taken over by machinery, it leaves a higher percentage of humans to work in fields of innovation, such as the arts and sciences.  That alone is a launching point for an enormous growth in technology due to the increase in the percentage of total resources a civilization is putting into the growth and application of technology into society.

Time for a third example: Space.  Why can't we mine the moon?  Or even build a colony there?  It's not possible now, granted... but it's not outside the bounds of scientific possibility.  And science should have already proven that if something is within the realm of possibility, human innovation will eventually make it a reality.

Wow... reading this thread is 10 minutes of my life I want back.

Fly to my house, and I can slap you if ya like!  Will that work?

> Lizon wrote:

> Will not fly. Farmers will lobby against it and it simply will not pass due to the votes needed, it will prob die in committee and definitely die in the Senate. Furthermore the technology and theories behind what your proposing are no more efficient or productive than what is already in place. So here at least it will never see the light of day.

"It won't pass through Congress" isn't a reason why an idea is good or bad.

> Rivers wrote:

> Oh, no, no no no no. I work in retail when I'm not at uni., Not everything is made in China.

Look at this label for example.

'Made in Taiwan'

But Taiwan IS China! 

> Lizon wrote:

> Yes Avo hit it on the head there. I made that statement to get Xeno to provide evidence to support his claims. He consistently refuses to provide evidence to support his opinions or to provide relevant counter points to evidence given opposing his opinions. I typically view things from a scientific PoV, in science one has to make assumptions and theories about how things work until provided further evidence so that those theories can be changed or modified. EVIDENCE is the key word here.

Zarf if we were to use the court case analogy. If the prosecution provides a lengthy and detailed argument for their case and the only counter argument the defense can make is "he didn't do it, the defense rests" then the defendant is going to jail 99% of the time.

To defend an argument you need to counter the prosecution's evidence, poke holes in it, provide your own evidence to support your PoV of how things went down and make a compelling case that you are right. Refusing to defend one's self might as well be an admission of guilt.

I like the court analogy, so we'll keep with that.

Yes, you're 100% right.  However, at that point, the prosecution isn't making an "assumption."  It's a truth claim.  There is no burden of proof for making an assumption, unlike the burden of proof the prosecution in a court would be held to.

In just the same way, if the prosecution's case were to be "he did it, the prosecution rests," and the defense were to say "nope, defense rests," what's the appropriate ruling?  The appropriate ruling would be in favor of the defense, because the prosecution is the one with the original burden of proving things.

Wow... I'm going to agree with Xeno on that particular sentence.

If two contradicting assumptions are made, with no evidence supporting either one... which do we accept as correct?

Guessing there's a slight communication error there...

It's debates like this that make me want to quit the politics forum here.  Where's xeno with something intelligent to say?  X(

$42.00?  You got owned by the supermarket!

I believe the above are the three most useless posts ever!  Pat yourselves on the backs, guys!  You all get the award!  No go celebrate by giving yourselves vasectomies so future generations can't attempt to duplicate those posts!  X(

Are we done derailing the subject?