Reply To: Wealth of Nations, and Economics of Abundance

[Duke Leto]

Well, lemme take another tack:

“What would I do with the Focus Fusion profits?”

Since we’d be looking at $100 Billion per year for the first few years for a centralized Corporate profit driven system. (Which I think Eric wants to avoid.) Plus maybe an additional $200 Billion in productivity increase injected into the general economy and consequently ~ $120 Billion falling into the Federal Revenues.

The profits will exist, it’s simply a question of who controls them. If Focus Fusion is rolled out as a publicly licensed technology with the local governments and consuming owning the generators and licensing their operation to consortiums of skilled contractors, that is somewhat nice overall, but it effects no political changes. In fact it seems more likely that a network of small profiteers would appear competing to deploy and operate the generators in an oligopolistic fashion. In either case, the US profits will mostly end up in the hands of Republicans and will thus contribute to the political status quo. Perhaps Global Warming will slip onto the GOP party plank since there is no point in placating the now dead coal interest. But that’s all.

De facto institutionalized racism will continue because there will be no need to address it in a booming economy. Evangelicalism will retain its stranglehold on the national political dialogue. Media will continue to have its agenda set by Murdoch. Worst of all, the current Bush Taxation system will not be fixed because it will be perceived as not broken. Some — will even credit as being instrumental in the development of Focus Fusion.

Things will certainly improve, yes. But it might take a few generations to right the US away from Reaganism.

That’s why I think Focus Fusion should adopt a “Stalinist Model”. A single company licensing the operation of the generators and selling the power worldwide at a uniform rate of 2 cents the kwh, drawing down 1 or 2 mils in price every year, aiming for full deployment of the tech in 5 years or less, working in close harmony with a Democratic government. (ie. Obama). Effectively take the place of Big Oil as political force.

That means something on the order of a trillion dollars to play around with in developing industries, jobs, research, etc. So my list is, what would I do with that? Fix the big environmental issues and try and leverage towards the “Open Society”. Some of these will be helped along by a friendly political party in symbiotic dominance of the Federal System.

1.) Shrimp and Fish in tanks on land. Since you can now grow as much Algae as you like on a 24 hr artificial sun cycle, and fish are the ultimate livestock in that they reproduce in huge numbers, I’d start making massive tanks in the inner cities to provide clean and regular seafood to the masses and terminate commercial fishing, which is one of the most serious environmental hazards going on right now. Cheap and healthy meat, relief to a huge portion of the ecosystem, lots of city manufacturing jobs. (A few angry Newfoundlanders, but omlettes and eggs…)

2.) Synthetic wood pulp and/or wood. At least one can graft some heavy cellulose producing DNA onto a fast growing fungus or algae and eliminate the connection between forests and paper supply. Preferably a synthetic process to make construction grade boards, even if contour crafting ends up running the roost in terms of construction. Trees are vital to combat Global Warming, but they also help prevent flooding by locking in ground moisture, and thus contribute to cutting soil erosion in their watersheds and help ensure a more regular supply of fresh water.

3.) Blue Revolution. Put all coastal cities on a desalinized water supply, break up the old aquaducts and reallow their fresh water to the rural areas. This will bring a large area of Southern California back under cultivation, for a start.

4.) Work on getting Carbon Nanotube synthesis from atmospheric CO2 or coal down to a precise science. (Preferably CO2 with carbon tax subsidies.) This should provide a more stable long term system for concrete construction in preference to the corrodable steel reinforcements, as well as hopefully enabling space elevators.

5.) Battery/Supercapacitor research. (Almost a requirement anyway for capacitor bank optimization in FF generators.)

6.) MagLev research and construction if possible.

7.) Research into using the FF generator as a compact electrolytic power source for existing jetliners. (Both to cusion the transition and make sure the Hawaiians don’t get lonely with all the MagLev traffic.)

8.) Acquire and direct a media network, probably CBS/Viacom, to counteract Fox. (Forcing The Hills and The Real World off of syndication is a bonus.) Take the unprecedented step of making intelligent entertainment and analytical news. Wait for them to come after building it.

9.) If necessary, rebuild mountain glaciers syntheticly with pipelined and prefrozen freshwater. (Once the average winter temperature gos back to pre 1900 levels.)

10.) Massive Ecological/Gaiaforming research. Find ways to kill off alien species in the wild that are threatening local biodiversity. Find alien species as closely analagous as possible to the ones that have gone extinct in areas where biodiversity is severely threatened, and deliberately experiment with introducing them. Get very good at maintaining closed biospheres.

11.) Force an end to the Israeli-Arab conflict by witholding FF/Blue Revolution technology from all parties that do not agree to a just and equitable treaty. (Give the House of Saud a few villas in Bali for good measure and tell them to get lost.)

12.) Encourage sodomy, feminism, condoms and abortion to bring down population growth everywhere.

13.) Build the Space Elevator and start making asteroid mines and self contained orbital colonies. Get a few billion folks OFF Earth.