I'm just a laymen. I might not have it right but thats how i understand it

saved time is payed for with infrastructure until the infrastructure loops back on itself (machines automatically assembling and maintaining machines), then the amount of infrastructure needed can be shrunk and instead be payed for with energy plus ideas/information.

Kudos to Daniel. Too many people seem to think that the GVCS will exist completely independently from the world at large. Maybe eventually, but right now we can piggyback off of existing capital to help bootstrap the process. Who cares if we can't make hydraulic valves and tubing, that doesn't matter. If you have a lot of productive value in terms of energy, food, etc you can buy specific items off the shelf, that isn't cheating. OSE is about shortening the supply chain dramatically, reorganizing the use of capital and the increasing the efficient distribution of production.

I'm gonna write an essay about the implications of OSE eventually haha.

OSE and the GVCS project could not exist without the foundation of our globally-connected tehnologically driven civilization. To think of it as a separate entity is to ignore the fact that it is part and product of that civilization.
Yes, we can buy hoses and valves and motors. Or we can scavenge what we need from the corpse of that civilization. Either way, those items exist and we can use them. We don't have to smelt iron from ore for our design for a tractor or the CEB press to be valid.
But _KNOWING THAT WE COULD_ smelt ore (or whatever), should we _need_ to, makes me happy, at the same time I hope I never have to smelt ore in order to build the tools I need NOW.
To me, GVCS is aimed at those people who "get" the idea and those who need the help it will offer. Those who wouldn't live in a CEB house won't buy one... they'll consume "normal" items, and more power to them.
But when we show what's possible at what price, when you take out the profit motive and factor in sweat-equity and the force-multiplier of open-source technology, I think we're all going to see that the divide between the haves and have-nots gets smaller.
And that's why I want to work on this project... to bring the have-nots closer to the haves, not by tearing down the haves, but by giving the have-nots the tools they need to better their own situation by their own efforts.
~Rick

Daniel makes good points if the perspective is pre-CNC.

Evolution Is Blind... And Dumb



If you read too much futurist Apocrypha, it can be tempting to assume
that technology is "accelerating". Don't be fooled. The entire theme of
acceleration is evolution, muddled. The first mistake is a misnomer: we
say that "the fit survive", but that doesn't mean there are fit
organisms, to survive. Evolution expands in every allowed direction
(ontological restrictions are another important point), and if any
of them survive... duh, they're the fit ones. We happen to be so lucky,
3.6 billion years have passed without a simultaneous crash. But, we've
come appallingly close: the P-T and K-T extinctions are good examples of
how you can be 'moving forward' off a cliff. And, consider what a
'singularity' means ecologically: if we introduce functional diversity
equivalent to hundreds of millions of years of species variation, we're
taking all those minute probabilities of self-induced collapse, and
crashing them into a moment. I doubt anything like that will happen, but
if it does, the probability of collapse should rise to 1. Even with a
moderate rate of mutation, our microbial ancestors' harvest was 100
million years of Snowball Earth. In contrast, nukes aren't so bad.
Global warming would make us dino-friendly. Neither is likely to
extinguish ALL life, let alone humanity. There's no guarantee that
things are getting better, though. 'Fit' organisms are the set of all
survivors. This includes a lot of stragglers who made it on dumb luck.
If times get easy, mildly deleterious mutations accumulate - until the
population's mean fitness has dropped, so that selection exceeds mutation rate. Evolution doesn't 'keep making things fitter, better, faster, stronger' - it piles mutations on until a species can barely
survive. That is actually the best chance for survival, because
mutation is the first step in searching the functional landscape. That's
were the next mistake comes in: natural 'selection'. Before Darwin gets
to pick his favorites, there's an ontological constraint: any new
mutation has to be viable, conception onward. And, most 'selection'
occurs during these early stages. Mutations in these fundamental
components aren't tolerated, and the result is a biochemically and
physiologically constrained space. (You can't have an Ordon Goat - their
horns don't have a viable growth cycle!) So, there are only a few forms
at each scale that an organism can take, ignoring the bells and
whistles. Generally, an ecology will express as much of this ontological
tree as it can, regardless of relative fitness of form. (A fitter form
will have greater local abundance and biomass, but parasitism, disease,
and other factors keep it from squashing the marginal forms that share
its niche.) The greater the energy density (think Montreal vs. Manaus)
and the greater the total range (Galapagos vs. Gambia), the greater the
diversity of expressed forms. (What does that say, for a
moderate-but-not-overwhelming adoption of OSE?) If energy density or
range increases, more marginal forms appear (each with lower return,
lower resilience to shock). Economies and technology are following the
same path: a given level of energy abundance can support a given trophic
depth and 'telosy' (sp?) diversity. To get back to the ergodic concept:
once the 'gas' of industrialization has fully expanded, we will wander
across the technology and economy surface aimlessly, swapping between
forms without increasing diversity, just like Nature has done since
flowers evolved. We might pop up to another level, as when sexual
reproduction captured diversity after the Earth melted, but these leaps
are primarily a result of increasing energy density and range,
not a source of them. (The Jevons Paradox, and his Icelandic SUVs, are a
fun tangent.) I'd love to go in-depth on this, but I'll leave it as a
summary of concept, and get into the details in another post.







"I'll Give You My Wool, If You Find Me a Horse"



Localization creates islands of interaction, lowering transport
distance, which lowers demand for transport infrastructure. If all I
need comes from my town, why would I need the internet? It uses 10% of
US power, for Tesla's sake! Some things require huge resources, and
localization would raise transport and coordination costs beyond the
market. Generally, I'll call the costs of resource availability, labor,
capital, and material inputs as 'production costs', and the costs of
transport to warehousing and retail, advertising, management, finance,
as well as consumer engagment in the market, I'll call 'allocation
costs'. A rough study of mine back in 2001 showed over 65% of the
American workforce engaged in services for 'allocation costs' - that is,
two thirds of us don't make anything; we help decide how much of what
gets made, who gets it, and how much it costs. That seems like a huge
waste, to me, but it's not clear that localization would be an
improvement. Without demand for excessive transport, the marginal cost
of transport rises, and many-chain networks tend to collapse as
transaction costs overwhelm them. Without the importation architectures,
even regional trade would be more piecemeal, slower, generating a lower
return, leading to lower future investment, and withering as people
prefer to find 'local solutions'. Much has been written on the value of
large, accessible collaborations, and the polynomial increase in
connectivity possible (though our psychology limits our stored
connectivity, we can hop along chains, retaining 20, 50, or even 100 of
our Dunbar allowances as distant nodes). Consider localization as the
logistical opposite. Not to say that globalization is great; we need to
improve the relative allocation of local and global goods. Shoes
don't need to be made in another country, but I understand if there are
only a couple places with the newest computer chip fab. The critical
concept is built on the preceding arguments about network behavior: if
transaction costs rise, it is equivalent to a lower 'energy density',
and this will be followed by a decline in supported diversity. The drop
in diversity will, paradoxically, probably lead to a momentary gross
increase in economy; local standards of living will be higher. But this
is because there is a greater return on local, over global investments.
Once the local investments are saturated, the global infrastructure has
little demand to resurrect it. Without connectivity of associations and
transportation, a cul de sac is reached. China went through exactly this
process in the 15th century. The first great experiment with printed
money became the discovery of hyperinflation, and China's resultant
credit upheaval made risk and uncertainty paramount. The result was a
decline in the willingness to invest in large projects. Coupled with new
crops, and a reactive bureaucracy - the city laborers saw new
opportunity in moving 'out west' to the feet of the Tian Shan, to live
happily as farmers. Unfortunately, cottage industry substituted for city
industry demand, so factories were abandoned. And disperse populations
required less food and material transport, so roads and canals fell into
disrepair. Finally, a distant and diffuse population is harder to tax,
so the anemic Qing were no match for a few British guns. (Imagine if
Mongke had faced them in that state!) Even if production costs drop,
they may encourage a system of allocation which is too dispersive,
unraveling the benefits of city agglomeration. Remember: the individual
may be happy to 'move forward' into this cul de sac. Evolution doesn't
say there have to be winners.

Eck. Sorry for the poor formatting. N00B

I mourn the loss of your attention span, ARGH.  In sum:

1.  Evolution will always win
2.  We may not fall into the category of most fit
3.  Mutation is important to evolution
4.  There are constraints on evolution - ontology shapes the selection space
5.  Localization is good for some things, bad for others

- Mark

I think you miss the point.  We are not trying to go back to 1900.  Computers and electronics play a big role in what we are doing and what we are going to do.  We might be able to craft printed circuitboards but we will never be able to craft components and chips.  It will be ok because these things are small and lightweight it makes less sense to localize them.

We can probably make ICs and such if we really want to.  I know I do, but that's not currently part of the OSE movement here.

I see OSE as part of a trend I decided to add to myself.  Over time, technology has developed a critical mass, industrializing the world and bringing economies of scale to processes and products.  Computers helped enable the other side of the curve.

Blacksmithing led to the author's machinist work.  Over time, CNC technology automated that work and changed the number and type of people used in it.  Later, that tech led to other disruptive technologies, like 3D printing.  That technology is helping to enable the next part of the trend, replicating the machines themselves.  Information technology, mostly enabled by computers, is doing more, allowing knowledge such as how to build your own tractor from basic parts to be spread far and wide.

The machinist will be replaced by an artisan again, with a machine in his garage that takes scrap in, and spits out product.  The doctor will have a greenhouse, with at least some genetically modified plants to produce various medicines--the herbalist of old.  The chemist, author, etc. will join in too.  I'm not sure what the major occupation will be rather than an agrarian society like in old times, but the decentralization of production will be complete.  Blacksmith to million dollar CNC machine to fabber machine.

I see this as a cycle of civilization.  Ingenuity builds an industrial revolution, which then creates the tools for free men to reverse the trend.  Given another breakthrough in technology and science, we might see it again.

@Anthonyrepetto, I acknowledge that I am probably coming across as silly.  Allow me to re-rephrase.  It appears that I am not intelligent, educated or experienced enough to understand your points in the fashion that you made them.  However, I would enjoy having the opportunity to understand your points and maybe discuss them.  Ergotism brought up an article on poisoning and ergodic theory brought up an article that made no sense to me.

1) Globalize/Localize is a false dichotomy; both extremes are maladaptive, and the problem is allocation between them. 

2) Evolution doesn't care if it leads to extinction, and will devolve species to the minimum necessary. 

3) 'Advanced' technologies are the result of energy abundance, not the cause. 

4) Individuals will happily march toward system-wide cul de sacs. 

5) Parasitism fragments any dominant forms, either through collapse, or by encouraging other limits to growth.

The gunky old version: "small networks do not have the critical demand needed for
marginal gains." Now, extended rephrasing:









Picture the links between everyone on earth. Some folks are meeting and
sharing with many others; some are ascetic hermits. When a group of
people, however small, has many connections between them, their
network is 'well-connected', or 'dense'. Like the Oracle of Bacon, a
dense network can find a path between any two members in just a few
steps. When many people are connected to each other on a network, that
network is 'large'. The network may be very 'sparse',
though - it takes many steps to connect you to a random member. Humans
have limited time and attention, so we choose between being
well-connected to a few people, versus loosely connected to many; and we
choose between a large network, and a small one. These choices
don't automatically conflict: if I'm on a large network, I can hop from
chain to chain along it, and form close, well-connected relationships
with folks from very different places. (Yay, internet!) Big network,
well-connected.









In ecology, we can look at well- and poorly-connected, large
and small, in all their variety. Let's start with big vs. small: Gambia
(central West Africa) is pretty small, but it's a lot bigger than the
Galapagos islands. And, it's surrounded by places similar to it. While
the Galapagos have unique species, they don't have a huge diversity.
Gambia is part of a larger network, a 'mainland', so it can
support species that wouldn't have enough territory to live in the
Galapagos. Elephants, for example, travel through these areas for food.
If Gambia was a chain of islands, the elephants would have to work too
hard to get food, and that extra cost would steal the energy needed to
support a large population. Without at least a few elephants, the
population would inbreed & fluctuate, and the first drought or
tsunami would be
their extinction. So, to survive for any reasonable amount of time,
there must be a minimum population. For a bug, that minimal population
can be tiny; a few pounds of flies have more genetic diversity than you
need, to support a fly niche. So, even tiny islands can feed a
population of flies. For elephants, the minimal population has a huge
biomass: you'll need hundreds of tonnes of elephant, to keep a stable
population. A tiny island doesn't have enough food for a herd.









So what, for OSE? Vaguely, the more folks involved in
OSE, the larger the 'mainland' becomes. If only ten
people were into OSE, I probably wouldn't find an RPG & Lego
aficionado among them. But, with hundreds of folks involved, there are
probably enough D&D nerds for regular adventures. With 10,000 members, we'd have an OSE Role Playing Club. This
is a small niche, but if the network is large enough, it can feed a
stable population. That's the primary value of cities: in New York,
you're more likely to find someone who'll buy your odd little specialty
items, compared to North Dakota. New York is a 'mainland' supporting marginal species. ('Marginal' isn't the same as 'niche'; a
niche is when you need a specific resource, while a marginal species is one that consumes a tiny fraction
of the energy in the ecology. It can only appear when the mainland is
large enough for those tiny fractions, together, to feed a stable
population. Eagles eat a variety of animals - they're not a niche
species. But they patrol a huge range, to gather enough
food, and would die out if confined. That's 'marginal'.) Back to OSE:
marginal tech has lower yields and fewer
applications. Not many folks need it. If OSE gets big, it can make kits
for marginal needs. If OSE stays small, we'd meet primary demands, and
ignore the
'side projects'. And, if OSE was big, then shrank, the 'marginal' tools
would be first to go. Keep growing, and diversity to follow.









Before addressing dense vs. sparse networks, I'll indulge a tangent. We
talk about 'the value of the network' - the value of connecting to
diversity, through fewer steps, and accesing a larger pool of resources.
Networks are hyped for creating new combinations between previously
disconnected folks. With just two people in a group, there's one
connection open between them. Add a third person, and they allow
two new bonds, one to each of the pair. Every new person adds the
POTENTIAL
for as many new connections as the size of the whole network. (the 200th
person adds 199
connections...)  This is a polynomial: for n people, there are at
most n(n-1)/2 connections. If each new connection was guaranteed, and
had value equal to the old connections, then new members
would add polynomially to 'the value of the network'.
Sadly, the 300 millionth person to join the internet doesn't bother
connecting to all 300 million users, so the portion of links made drops
as the network grows. And the folks who joined first saw greatest value
in the network; noobs use the network once it's 'barely worth their
time'. That
means, gain in value for new members drops as the network grows.
(The old timers keep accruing some value
from the influx of noobs, but a horde of youtubers isn't worth a few
more Wiki moderators.)  So, at BEST, a network's value
grows as n^2 (kinda good), but as the network gets really big,
connectivity and value lurch. This is a diminishing return on
growth. Eventually, return on growth drops below the costs of
risk and inconvenience. The network stops growing. If members have a
limited number of links (say, the 150
folks that, according to Dunbar, you can have a personal attachment to,
before you forget them, or they become 'two-dimensional' to you), then
network value grows rapidly as you approach a power
of this number. (The exact exponent depends on the diversity of
value-streams in the network... I'll bother going into that if folks are
curious. 150^4 is about half a billion.) Once this size is reached, the
value of new members, and the pull for growth, drops off quickly. The
shape of the relationship between 'Number of Existing Members' and
'Value of New Membership' follows what's called an S-curve. Flat at
first, it seems to rise 'exponentially', then flattens again once the
limit is reached.









This is why species diversity doesn't spiral up to infinity. Eventually,
the marginal value of a new species is too small to feed . And,
similarly, we can't expect technological
diversity to spiral up to infinity. Diversity on earth shot up when we
absorbed mitochondria, when sexual reproduction took over, and when
flowers co-evolved with pollinator species. Those rare events created
new network dynamics (there were new 'value-streams'), so diversity
quickly spiked to its new limit. Once biodiversity hit those limits,
however, it hovered there for hundreds of millions of years. New species
came and went, but the total diversity stopped increasing. Humans were
the first migratory social omnivores, and we use tools, so we're kinda
like a new flower. We quickly spread over the earth, and turned things
into diverse species of tool and patterns of behavior. But our tool and
norm diversity has a limit, too. And, when we reach it, we'll continue
swapping new species of tool in for the old, but the total diversity
will stagnate. (This is the critical point for my later statement, that
"complexity is ergodic, not 'a singularity'.")









Next: Wrapping up "small networks &
marginal gains", I'll explain the difference between dense vs. sparse webs, and relate that to demand for infrastructure! :)

That explanation makes complete sense to me.  

For example, the refinement of the combustion engine resulted in trains and cars and trucks and so on.

The combustion engine keeps getting minor improvements, but it is somewhat stuck where it is, even to a degree blocking other types of motors from being fully explored.  Also, while they have seen large improvements, at their core, cars are not too different than in the beginning.

The last 30 people get a free ride on the planet you saved. They
value this at $18.75. (Dinner for two?), and they don't bother to
connect (you-tubers and trolls...). Add a measly 30($18.75), to get a
network value of $6,228.125. Here's where Dunbar returns: that's the
'net-worth' per 100 people, assuming full capture of all potential
value. But, how many people did you have to meet, before you've captured
that network? This is the cost of spreading into lower-margin markets.
For a 1 in 100 chance of another life-time OSEer, that's $1,000 of
value. ('$10 per click' in web-ad lingo)  And, if you got a couple of
them together, their connectivity adds even more value! Finding those
ten tractor owners took another 100 'hits' -> $7.50 per click. But,
the tractor owners can only add $6.25 to their connections. There are
ten times as many of them as there are acolytes, so their 20%
connectivity means tractor guys fill up twice as many connections as
lifers. As you add more marginal players to the network, the
individual's attention to connectivity and quality of connection can't
keep up. (Dunbar said 150 friends is the limit.) The probability of
valuable connections being found drops. One lifer knows two tractor
guys, and gets $12.50 out of it, INSTEAD of knowing two other lifers,
and adding $200 to the network. The value of connection is diluted.
Wikipedia survives on this awareness: I type a song into youtube, and
get three pages of people playing covers, but can't find the original!
Wikipedia's sourcing criteria, and heavy moderating, make it a 'haven
for expertise' that ensures a high-value connection between knowledge
and need. It doesn't want the other 80% of people writing blurbs and
opinions on its pages. At some point, it's not worth it to you, to
capture that last bit of the network. If casual newbies just lower the
likelihood of valuable connections, without adding resources, why
bother? We should stick to our passions, and not try to rope-in
unwilling or disinterested folks.


Next, let's remove that clumsy assumption from earlier: that one
acolyte, and two Dedicated Project goers, added enough to the network
for it to be worth someone joining as a CAD guy. If that's not enough
membership, you'll have to keep looking for more project folks, before
you accumulate enough value to lure CADies. What's their barrier to
entry? The cost per click of reaching them, and the opportunity cost of
'diluting' your network, (not a problem for CAD folks - we need more of
them! this refers to the casual troll) both discourage you from
bothering. On their end, it's the opportunity cost of involvement. They
have other, valuable ways to use their time. (once you learn CAD, your
life is full of fun stuff, right?) If you've let your network dilute,
and THEN go looking for motivated assistance, they might say, "These
boards are clogged, and I have trouble finding folks who actually need
my skills." Pizza and netflix sound better to me, too. Experts &
fanatics form club-organizations to have a greater chance of meeting
like-minded people. Their critical question is: what level of membership
will connect people at the greatest rate of value? And, on the other
side, potential members ask: which memberships should I focus on, for
greatest rate of value? I'm not sure all 20 of those 'willing to move,
because of $37.50 in value' families would choose to move, once the
costs of disruption, transaction, and the potential opportunities of NOT
moving were included. And, if the 10 tractor-wannabees are scattered
around the globe, transaction costs and risk would weigh heavy against
trying a new technique. So, as the value of the network drops, you're
more likely to loose portions of that potential user group to
opportunity costs, transaction costs, and risk. Other options are worth
more, to them.


Removing the remaining assumption, replacement sampling, gives us a
better view of the whole world system: as more devotees join, there will
be fewer folks of that stripe left to attract. (Er, that's assuming we
don't inspire more life-long members, which is totally unrealistic. But
change in population parameters makes it a time series, and a non-linear
one at that. I don't wanna bother.) So, when we're quickly absorbing
the pool of project-builders and CAD men, (it sounds so suave, that
way...) we'll hit a wall - either switch to the lower-yield, diluting
groups, and potentially deter future lifers, or slow expansion. This
will probably be a real concern in a year and a half; we might as well
plan for it. I can picture a few extremes: "Yeah, we built a lot of
tractors, because tons of orders came in. But we didn't have time to
train anyone, and why bother, when we weren't getting enough folks
developing new projects? Now, a lot of people see us as a brand." "We
had a few focused people working full-time, and a small crew finished
prototypes that we could demonstrate at conferences around the world.
That got the engineers talking, and there are dozens of OS hardware
sites using our tools and concepts. We're still waiting to see
wide-spread use." "There was a media blitz, funding flooded in, and they
expected results fast. We were a small crew, so we had to spend around
to get rolling faster. It just attracted leeches, and led to costly
errors." I don't think we're headed in any of those directions. We'll be
balancing somewhere in the middle - the planning involves finding were
exactly to balance.

The Melancholy Tangent

Caribou huddle together in a cold, dim place - food is thin on the
ground, and they have to travel far to have enough. But, to travel far,
you need an efficient way of getting around; stubby, warm little mole
arms won't do. And traveling so far takes a lot of energy, too - you
have to travel further, to get the extra fuel for all that traveling,
AND you have to carry all this extra food in your gut, while traveling.
Better invest in a gut-upgrade. That's costly, though; to be efficient,
you have to specialize. More travel, because you're avoiding
non-specialist foods. Pretty soon, it's a migration. From the standpoint
of diversity, a migration is good: when a species lets a region 'rest',
then floods in periodically, (and predictably, or else it's
disastrous!) predators can't gorge themselves fast enough, and there are
still plenty of migrants left over. One kind of cicada rests for 13
years underground, before hatching to breed, lay, and die. By avoiding
12 years of metabolic requirements, that cicada can squeeze its food
needs onto a ecology that would otherwise be too small for such a large
population. (Remember the problem with elephants, compared to flies: a
pound of flies is enough to sustain the species, but elephants need tons
of tonnes. Cicadas, by slowing their metabolic impact, need less than
they 'should', so they can get away with a total biomass that other bugs
can't match.) But caribou don't 'rest' like cicadas and grizzlies. The
benefit of their migration is to spread their area of collection, and
connect widely separated patches of food that would be too small or
unreliable on their own to support a whole species. Patchy desolation
can't feed a local grazer, but it could help feed passing migrations.
The caribou increase their dispersion radius, to eek out a marginal fit. (Dandelions are considered weeds, because they disperse into every
little crack. If there's a disaster, the herbs along the river might all
die, but at least a few dandelions were somewhere safe, and by next
spring, they're everywhere.) But, there's a cost to the caribou
migration: when they eat the grass, they stunt it, and food is scarce,
so any grass they find, they eat. And the wolves following the herd are
hungry, too - if they find a calf, they eat it. The valuable investments
of the grass (leaves) and caribou (young) are destroyed, just to
transmit energy and nutrients through the system.

Compare the sloth's life: he doesn't have to travel far, so thick and fuzzy works well & stays comfortable. He can specialize his gut without weight constraint: his belly usually holds half his mass. And, because he's not killing his tree, the trees end up growing bigger and more abundantly than they would if surrounded by a herd of migrant grazers. (Elephants!) On top of that, his protected home is nurtured by the life cycles of other animals, and he benefits without paying the moths or ants. Sloths are so still and quiet, they don't worry much about predators, either. What's the risk? Over-abundance. In some areas of the rainforest, sloths make up half the total biomass. (take that, cicada.) They're not likely to die out from catastrophe, but a parasite mite be bad. To avoid the risk of dense, diseased populations, sloths expose themselves to unnecessary risks: if the only things that eat you run along the ground, and you live in trees, it's dangerous waddling the forest floor at two yards a minute just to pee. Being really slow saves energy, allowing more sloths to squeeze onto the same energy 'footprint', cicada-style, but also makes it hard for them to adapt to local changes, and they become the backup meal for others, if there is a disaster. The sloths choose these local risks, so that their numbers aren't managed by catastrophic waves of disease, instead. Better to have one die here or there, than periodically lose the whole population. (Their solitary habits are also essential for limiting disease transmission; if sloths moved in herds, parasites would find a way to eat them. Their poop piles help mates locate one another, but even then, they can go multiple years without contact.) Limiting dispersal, and localizing risk & variation, keeps the sloth from harm. These are illustrations of the parasite dynamics I touched on, in the original post: parasites limit growth, either through collapse, or by pressuring species to develop an alternative. Which do you prefer?

So, caribou and sloths have found different ways to make a living - why no sloths in Canada, or caribou in Columbia? Energy density. Energy is scarce up north, requiring a migration. Energy is dense in the tropics, so you can feed a sedentary species. The tropics don't trade energy density for dispersal; monarch butterflies travel far, and have an awful lay-over. But, the sedentary species are more abundant than the dispersers. Does that mean sedentary is 'more fit'? Not exactly - it's more efficient, so a greater biomass of sedentary species can be supported on the SAME amount of energy. It's not certain whether more system energy is flowing to sedentary or dispersive species. (At what point does one become the other? A mile? Ten?) But, in general, it is true that dispersal is greater the further you get from the equator, or the more local climates fluctuate. Dispersal is 'fit for catastrophe and recovery cycles', sedentism is 'fit for packing tightly and cheaply without disease'. Whether OSE plans to operate in a future of energy scarcity (become a nomadic herder) or dense biomass, (invest in Chinese real estate) this framework informs us in the choice, and the conditions that effect it.

Can we increase the energy density? Not thermodynamically; we can't make something from nothing. But, if we find 'waste' that we can recycle, that energy is ours, to feed our species footprint. Suppose we herd those caribou, guide them to good pasture, protect their young, and tame the wolf? We could even make cheese from their milk, for our winter supply, and our wolf-pets would share. No more over-grazing a spot, until erosion destroys it. No young lost to wolves, or stampedes during grazing time. And, if our hunt-harvesting and control is the 'risk' sloths need to avoid catching colds, they'll be happy to feed us. I recommend the short film "The Man Who Planted Trees" - you can find it on YouTube. The more we devote our attention and insight to our world, the more we find those little losses, leaks, and worn down spots, and fix them. As tool-making migratory social omnivores, we're in a great position to choose our own limits to growth, and extract new 'value streams' from ecology that simpler species missed. Oops, that was kinda the 'islanding' behavior I meant to save for later. Anyhoo.

I found that to be interesting and digestible.  On a related and unrelated note, sloths are my favorite animals.

I am reminded to some degree of Douglas Adams' idea that in an infinite universe everything eventually happens, no matter how remote the possibilities.

Apologies, for straying wide off topic, btw! I hope Daniel T. can find some solace, knowing we're happy to discuss his concerns.  :)

. To sum up in a few sentences, we are on the verge of the next industrial tech revolution. We went from agrarian, short supply chain , to industrial long supply chain, and coming back to ultra short supply chain with manufacture on demand, open source products.

Blacksmithing is a skill that can be learned by yourself or from books, but it's better to take courses locally, if they are offered.  Building a shop requires a bit of capital, largely for an anvil.  The blacksmith is unique among craftsmen in that he can make most of his own tools.  I have a basic blacksmith shop that includes anvil, forge, leg vice and a a complement of tools  You don't really need all that much.

To me, the interesting thing is to explore how the GVCS tool set can enhance or expand the capabilities of a modern smith.  A power hammer run from a power cube is something of great interest to me.  The iron worker tool is another, though I don't need one on the scale currently envisioned.  The welding tools are also of interest to me.

My shop has been in storage for many years, but I'm thinking of setting it up again and augmenting it with new tools.  I have the space for it (though perhaps not as much time as I'd like).  It would be fun to work with hot metal again.

- Mark