A Robot In Every Home?

[blazespinnaker]

(For those, of course, with short time horizons this advice is useless. I have a long horizon (10-20 years), so I can have this type of optimism. If you're at retirement age, short term wealth preservation is more important.)

I thought I'd share a little perspective.

I've bought another 30% of my portfolio at the temporary trough in the markets here. I think we'll go down another 20-30%, and I'll probably buy some more there as well. I'm in it for the long term, and here are a few reasons why:

A Robot In Every Home?
http://www.physorg.com/news141402690.html

3D Printing on Demand
http://thefutureofthings.com/news/55...on-demand.html

Solar Market Reaches $100 Billion In 2013
http://www.luxresearchinc.com/

Faster, Cheaper DNA Sequencing
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/21421/

Stem Cells without Side Effects
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/21430/

Google offers $10M for ideas that can 'change the world'
http://www.computerworld.com/action/...c=news_ts_head

Professors teach robot to 'play ball'
http://www.physorg.com/news141654717.html

... And on and on and on. I get news like that every day. Add http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/ to your RSS reader to join in the fun.

Sure, the world is in a tizzy right now. I'm sure it'll get worse... but it'll always get better. We'll come up with a better financial system, we will become more productive, and life will improve .. as it always has. We'll have better robotic manufacturing. We'll have cheap, alternative, green energy. Food production will improve. We'll be more productive, the fed will be able to inflate as Alan did as prices go down due to these advances.

That's just how it is.

And you can be pretty sure that the markets and real estate will be saved.

Gold, however, and I repeat this, will not be a priority of governments. Pension plans of a billion voters worldwide are not heavily invested in Gold, I'm afraid. They are in real estate and the stock market. That's just reality.

Just a little perspective.

[ASH]

Re: A Robot In Every Home?

I hope so.

I am personally concerned that the present financial crisis will roll into the demographic entitlement crisis. In the US, we're already $10T in the hole before we have to pay out on our promises to retiring Boomers. The necessity of a string of financial system bailouts now only hastens the day when discretionary spending gets squeezed out of the federal budget. Combine this with what could be a decades-long slump in American standard of living, as our consumption is brought into line with our productivity, and I think R&D funds will be much harder to come by. Neither public nor private research is likely to flourish when consumers are feeling poor, the nation's voters and businesses are living hand-to-mouth, and capital for investment is hard to come by. After all, if the FIRE game is over for now and there is no "Next Bubble" -- and if the Government is all but insolvent, and commited to meeting today's immediate needs rather than investing in technology for tomorrow -- where does the capital come from to develop and exploit new technologies?

Of course, there is the rest of the world. I don't discount the talent of foreign researchers, but many of the "old" centers of technical innovation across the world face demographic problems similar to the US, or worse. For quite some time, Europe has trained excellent scientists without being very effective at employing them, or commercializing the fruits of their labor. I don't know that this is likely to change for the better, as the "Anglo-Saxon" business model is discredited. Japan has done better commercializing new technology, but their economy still seems broken after the "lost decade" and they face worse demographic challenges than the United States. Perhaps the R&D torch will be passed to developing countries whose populations are still on the upswing. Maybe hope lies in thousands of first world researchers emigrating to the developing world, just as European researchers came to America in the past century.

While I recognize that the argument "this time it's different" should be viewed with suspicion, I don't think one can quite make the case that things will get better because they always have before. We face the confluence of a falling ratio of workers to retired, rising energy costs, a major disruption and reorganization of the global financial system, and looming ecological problems. Technical solutions likely exist where energy, productivity, and the environment are concerned, but there is no a priori reason why they will be found soon enough to maintain our prosperity. I am worried that we will become poor before we learn how to stay wealthy, and that once poor, we will stay poor because we lack the excess capital required to research our way out of the hole.

[we_are_toast]

Re: A Robot In Every Home?

I don't go by we_are_toast for nothing, and I would be derelict in my duty if I didn't remind optimistic people to look at the horizon where a super cell thunderstorm is heading right for them so they can get a dose of reality.

The fossil fuel revolution that provided for the greatest advance in standards of living in history is now on the decline. A population that acts as a ravenous swarm of locusts consuming resources as if they were endless, is still growing. The climate is now changing in a way that can only lead to predictions of disruptions of what was once considered normal.

Mass uncontrolled migrations of up to 2 billion people will put horrendous pressures on regional resources and cultures.

Regional wars over limited resources will break out as countries simply try to survive.

Extreme governments elected by desperate people.

Shocks to financial systems as one key resource after another is depleted and desperate searches for substitutes are initiated.

Is this bleak world of the future inevitable? No! But as the process has already begun and you hear people shouting "drill baby drill" and propose bigger tax cuts that will increase the population, it sure looks like this is the future we're heading towards.

Have a nice day!

[Rajiv]

Re: A Robot In Every Home?

What is it about the proposition -- "Exponential Growth is not sustainable, and it will destroy Planet Earth" that you do not understand?

See the Crash Course Sections 3, 4, 5
Section 3
Section 4
Section 5

See also The Most IMPORTANT Video You'll Ever See

[c1ue]

Re: A Robot In Every Home?

Toast,

You're forgetting another big factor:

Poverty leads to larger populations.

Poor people have more kids.

It is possible the Internet will change that, but then again, those who spend time around welfare towns will likely have different opinions.

The upcoming massive job losses and general economic upheaval, combined with government intervention, could very easily lead to a doubling or tripling of the 'economic black holes' which many parts of the US contain such as West Oakland.

[blazespinnaker]

Re: A Robot In Every Home?

Carbon taxes will deal with over consumption and environmental issues.

The nature of wealth has to change, people need to realize that plastic toys and big houses and cars are not a sign of being rich, but rather living long and being educated is.

But we will become more productive and efficient. We will have more leisure time. And that time will be used in wiser pursuits other than destroying the planet and ourselves.

[sn1p3r]

Re: A Robot In Every Home?

Blaze I agree with you mostly but I think this transition you mentioned:

"Sure, the world is in a tizzy right now. I'm sure it'll get worse... but it'll always get better"


Is going to be worse than most of us have experienced so that makes it hard to look past...but we all know that step is necessary to "evolve" our society.

[c1ue]

Re: A Robot In Every Home?

But we will become more productive and efficient. We will have more leisure time. And that time will be used in wiser pursuits other than destroying the planet and ourselves.

From a 10 year time frame, maybe so.

From a 30 year time frame, no way.

1967: Beatnik generation - Save the world, make peace not war, blah blah

1975: Disco - Party 'til you drop. F*** everything else

1987: Gordon Gekko - As above, but replace party with 'business'

2001: Pets.com - As above, but replace 'business' with 'business plan'

2012: Self imposed communism - as 1967, but driving theme is now 'save the planet', make peace not war, blah blah