On Thu, 26 Aug 1999, Bryan Moss wrote:
> Michael S. Lorrey wrote:
>
> > I have often thought that if any part of our world should be in any way
> > socialist, it should be in the area of child rearing. Children are to
> > varying degrees not responsible for their ability to afford education,
> > health care, and basic housing/nutrition, and should not be penalized
> > for the stupidity of their parents.
> >
> > The question is: How?
>
> As I recently said, "The solution would be corporate sponsorship."
>
But Bryan, advertising doesn't work if you have the lifestyle
of a plant!
In a nanotech world, many people won't be buying from corporations, they will be building at home. [Presumably with some "consensus" approval that what they are building is safe. I.e. your nanoassemblers have security protocols and failsafes so that only "nanoassmbly review committee" approved designs can be replicated. However, it should be a "fundamental right" to nanoassemble at home (you do it internally every day anyway). Since the designs will mainly be bottom up, the verification as safe process should be possible.]
Corporations will only be selling to the rich people, who want a non-open source design for the prestige factor. [I.e. the people who don't find reading a book as enjoyable as driving a Mercedes.] That market will likely be very small, because as the "purchasing" needs of individuals are met, corporate markets shrink [No GM's, Ford's, Nikes, Dupoints, etc. when you can grow your own!] There may be Disney's, but if technology trends keep going as they have been, they may have a tough road -- As "The Blair Witch Project" and the knockoffs "The Oz Witch Project", "The Princess Witch Project", shows, anyone can make a an entertaining film now-a-days, you don't need a $100 million dollar budget. When you can do the entire thing on the computer the competition for eyes-seeking-entertainment gets pretty fierce. [Anyone for open-sourcing the Industrial Light & Magic code?]
Since you don't have to work you can stay at home and give your children 1 on 1 attention. Though by that time computers with near-human capacity should have fairly amazing learning programs. Montesorri style exploration on the computer (or you go out into the real world with a wearable uplink). If you don't like the design of a piece of software, you right your own better version and release it to the world.
When you can spend $1000 (for those $.001 royalties/copy) and get a complete educational environment for your children, the educational system as we know it implodes! If even a small fraction of the 6 Billion people with nothing to do devote their time to constructing the complete educational environment and open sourcing it, then you probably don't even have to spend the $1000.
Robert