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Remember how technology was going to make all of our lives better; give us more leisure time and render our jobs redundant?
Well, the technology is there, but we are unwilling to let robots take our jobs, drive our cars etc. because they make us redundant.
The obvious solution, to me anyway, is
to let them take our jobs while we become a massive army of dedicated janitors and cleaners and maids. We clean up the environment we despoil, to enhance our standard of living.
If everyone devoted just one full day per person per week to the task there would be virtually no waste to be found, anywhere. We could focus our ingenuity upon the tasks of recycling and conservation.
No more ugly piles of trash, no more environmental desecration, just vast expanses of clean, green landscape to be enjoyed, while our material needs are catered by robots and automated systems.
Enter the Environovator! A state-of-the-art machine, designed to break our litter down into its component chemicals, to allow them to be recycled and reused. Everyone is provided an Environovator, to use as they wish.
As no-one has a job anymore they need to compete to clean up the environment, and sell the waste they remove from the environment back to the Environovator Corp (a really big company with branches eveywhere, where their robots make the things we once did) to earn the income they need, to buy the things they used once to produce.
Of course, if you don't want to clean up the planet then you had better have resources that allow you to employ people to do it for you... or go and work for Environovator Corp.
Humanity could be the saviour of the planet, rather than the destroyer.
[link]
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[UB], I presume you know why I'm here. |
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Presumably. Are you saying the complete re-invention of society is not an invention? OK, I'll make it an invention, rendering your presence gratuitous, [bris]. |
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Smells like a "let's all" |
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Now you see it; Now you don't. It's an invention, deftly sidestepping the advocacy clause by making it voluntary. |
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With 6 days of non-working time, the ideas on the Halfbakery ought to improve. |
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Sounds like "let's all" to me. |
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//It's an invention, deftly sidestepping the advocacy clause by making it voluntary.// |
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//Of course, if you don't want to clean up the planet then you had better have resources that allow you to employ people to do it for you... or go and work for Environovator Corp.// |
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Doesn't sound voluntary to me. Sounds like it's calling for the entire world to boil down into four jobs: robot, Environator slave, entrepeneur, custodian (janitor, if you want to be a dick about it). |
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Of course, not wanting to clean up the place makes you either white trash, or an irresponsible prick, I suppose. |
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In which case you will be taken care of by the Controversial Trash Man. |
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Exactly. You catch on quick. |
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[UnaBubba], come quickly, somebody's stolen your account! |
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'a state of the art machine, designed to break our litter down into its component chemicals' |
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This is satire of some kind, right? |
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\\Humanity could be the saviour of the planet, rather than the destroyer.\\ Yes we could and we will be, my friend. I firmly believe it. The earth will be a garden someday! |
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Since nobody has invented a robot that could do my job, I'll have to give this a [-]. |
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Pericles the Poet/Architect/Artist? Many jobs could be. I am trying my best to make mine so I can cash in while I can. |
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By 2020, 40% of the workforce in OECD countries will rely on technology not yet invented, to do they work they do. |
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This sort of idea will come, simply because it has to be developed, if we are to survive the havoc we are wreaking on the planet. |
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Of course, you'd get the problem of environator thefts, where a bunch of enterprising young people (neds, goths,druggies, whatever you want to call them) go and pinch them, melt them down, and sell em off. |
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What you're suggesting implies a sort of
centralisation of command, whereas I
suspect that this direction will be
assumed but on a distributed basis. I
suspect that sustainability will become
increasingly a legally-backed
requirement in manufacturing. |
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Currently, it's far cheaper to
manufacture and sell very high-quality
products than it ever was. In the past,
say, between WWI and WWII, or even up
to about the fifties, a washing machine,
a television or a Pioneer DVR-107D
DVD burner would cost a significant
portion of a household's income but
would be expected to last a reasonable
amount of time. Nowadays, as we well
know, there are cheap washing
machines as well as expensive washing
machines, but in recent years, the
quality of the product has come to
equalise. The difference tends to be in
longevity, not functionality or usage. |
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The washing machine that lasts ten
years is still available, but costs a lot
more than the washing machine that
frankly lasts a couple of years. There's a
market out there for people who only
want to spend the minimum on a
washing machine now, and damn the
future - if it breaks next year, well, we'll
burn that bridge when we cross it. In a
year and two weeks time, when the
damn thing suddenly refuses to
recognise any DVD recordable media
whatsoever - either to read from or
write to - not even spinning the disk up
in fact, then what happens? It becomes
junk. (Nice timing, Pioneer - two weeks
outside a year, during the weekend, and
the DVR-107D I've got sitting here is
now reduced to an expensive pile of
cogs and plastic - way to go) |
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If you're anything like the socially
irresponsible temporary mentality of the
herberts that live around here, you'd
just pick a quiet night and dump it
somewhere embarassingly visible and
open and surrounded by what would
otherwise be natural beauty, and sort
out the credit to buy another cheap-end
washing machine. |
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This is a real and significant market, the
cheap disposable one. The problem is
in returning the broken item to its
maker. It's far too expensive to fix these
cheap-end items. The labour alone
dwarfs the entire purchase price, unlike
the between-the-wars situation, where
if something breaks, you get it fixed,
until there's nothing left for the
repairman to fix. Now, as soon as
someone opens the box, it's already
cost about halfway to buying a new one. |
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Legislation of returnability processing
should be able to allow people to send
expired goods back to the
manufacturer, cheaply and effectively. It
has to be cheap - the inclination for
someone to simply dump an expired
product over the back of their garden
fence is too easy, compared to
spending money in packing up and
sending back a product that frankly is
not of any further use to the consumer
and therefore has no motivation in
assuring it maintains our environmental
richness. |
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It's not just laziness (well yes it is, but
people are lazy, inconsiderate,
uneducated and fairly selfish, so rather
than pretend they're not, this must be
built into the equation). It's a question
of placing the active portion of the
process 'post-ownership' firmly within
the remit of the manufacturers.
Somehow. |
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Gosh that took a long time to read. And where is this pre-sixties DVD burner, [IT]? |
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Seriously though, I think the cost of disposing of an item should be borne by the owner of the item, not the manufacturer. Sure, this does not immediately encourage manufacturers to employ environmentally-sustainable materials or processes, but makes you responsible for what *you* buy. |
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Lifecycle costs will be taken into account when purchasing a new product and, inevitably, those products with a more efficient design (manufacture, materials, longevity, disposal cost, etc) will be more desirable. |
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Nice idea, but that model has not worked, up to this point. The forced recovery model seems to be working quite well in Germany. Anyone from there, that we can get a comment on it? |
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