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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 that could enable. Ideas to take us to the next level of civilization - concepts that change the game, allowing whole classes of contemporary problems to be solved at once, and allowing us to achieve things that are unfeasible in today's world, but are very necessary for our future peace and survival.
Contents
Many problems and restrictions exist today that shouldn't
Our modern civilization obviously has great technological cababilities, but there is plenty that society hasn't got sorted, having evolved along a non-optimal path, which leads to significant suffering to many people worldwide and unecessarily restricts what should be possible to make life better for the majority of people.
Major problems are still here 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 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 (medical, educational, communication and transport) for anyone who wants or needs it.
Worldwide collaboration of individuals progressing society 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. It is up to the collaboration of individuals on a global scale to make the future work best for all of humanity.
Central ideas
Below are two emerging concepts that together have the potential to help brign forwards the 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 our current economic systems.
- See the open design page for more information.
Advanced closed-loop automation
- is the development of highly advanced automated 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 required, 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.
These two ideas working together are potentially a very powerful force for the progress of modern society in the near future. Open design will be important, among other things, in helping to implement useful examples of advanced automation.
