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Welcome to the Advanced Civilization Wiki
This website is a collaborative space for developing ideas and practical solutions to help bring forward the anticipated technological post-scarcity age with all the benefits to mankind and the environment this could bring. Ideas that could take us to the next level of civilization - concepts that change the game, potentially allowing whole classes of contemporary problems to be solved at once, and enabling us to achieve things that are currently unfeasible, but very much necessary for our future peace and survival.
Having written this intro and read it back, it sounds suspiciously like crazy-talk. But what can I say? Radical sounding ideas often do sound a bit crazy to begin with. Please allow me to explain...
Contents
Many problems and restrictions exist today that needn't
Our modern civilization obviously has great technological capabilities, but there is plenty that modern society hasn't got sorted yet due to the way it has evolved - a lot of it due to economics - which as a by-product leads to significant suffering for many people worldwide and unecessarily restricts what is possible to implement in order to make life better for all.
Major problems are still with us far beyond the point in time where we gained the ability to solve them. Some ills affect Western society as much as the rest of the world, but others mainly affect those living in developing countries, which after all contain the majority of the world's population. It's possible that emerging technologies and methods discussed here have the potential to allow anyone to live the lifestyle they choose - from living a simple life as part of a rural community more integrated with the natural world like our ancestors, to living as hi-tech a life as anyone might desire - but with access to the same advanced facilities (e.g. medical, educational, communication and transport) for anyone who wants or needs it.
Worldwide collaboration of individuals progressing civilization to the next level
Hopefully our current problems and restrictions will not remain for long as we realise what we are all capable of, using modern technologies and collaborative methods to create the necessary solutions. The speed at which our culture and technology are now evolving mean that we witness the results of our efforts in ever shorter periods of time.
Self-interest and short-term thinking are a major part of our current problems, and alarmingly governments and corporations seem to be great at both of them. Ultimately it is up to the collaboration of individuals on a global scale to make the future work best for us all.
Central ideas
Below are two emerging concepts that together have the potential to help bring forwards the coming post-scarcity age:
Open design
- which involves applying the highly successful open source software methodologies to the design of artifacts and systems in the physical world. The designs are freely available for anyone to use and help evolve. From the simplest things that can be made by individuals and groups, all the way up to large-scale systems of national infrastructure.
- Design problems get ironed out due to the involvement of enough interested people who are able to see an obvious solution and as it is a non-propritary system are willing help improve it for everyone's benefit. This way of working also minimizes the massive duplication of effort that occurs worldwide today in commercial design and engineering - due to the ways companies are forced to behave operating within the current financial framework.
- See the open design page for more information.
Advanced closed-loop automation
- which is the development of highly advanced automated industrial systems capable of self-repair, maintenance and even self-assembly that need almost no human interaction to operate, apart from top level guidance. These systems will magnify our capability for production creating an abundance of anything we require, using the minimum of natural resources. This will give us the ability to easily provide for everyone's basic needs and beyond, while allowing modern society to integrate far better with the environment.
- See the advanced automation page for more information.
