Nanofabricators, DRM and Forced Scarcity

[Tyneras]

If you want justification for draconian DRM and nanofac control, have a "bad example" where there wasn't and everything that could go wrong went wrong.

Society broke down to the smallest unit able to sustain a nanofac (family/clan?), violently competing with each other for materials to feed their machines. It's a toxic hell that was once a green, verdant world. Small, inbred communities surviving in sealed bunkers on a lifeless world, its surface corrosive, toxic and radioactive with a detritus of thousands of tiny wars without restraint.

Any time anyone brings up the idea of open source, the authorities need only point to that world(s) to have the general public cheering them on as they take the insane deviant away in chains.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

An outlay of $150k will cost you as a capital expenditure, on top of the interest you have to pay on that money.

I'd be very surprised if you could keep it to just $600 a month, but even so it'd take you 66 months, not 50, at which point you'd have the bioroid/robot paid off and could begin paying for the capital expenditure.

You seem to be assuming a poor person borrowing money for this. I'm envisioning a corp choosing whether to invest into something expecting 10-20% annual return on investment, or replacing some of its workers for a 24% annual return on investment (expressed as salary savings).

Also, why would a bioroid upkeep be more expensive than a human upkeep? The whole reason behind building bioroids and not using AIs+cybershells is that they're logistically cheap by comparison.

Also, the $3,600/mo number is for an average job, for which you can probably use a more human-like model (cost equal or slightly above $50k, e.g. a Helot, or an Alpha-equivalent); you can probably use a $150k-ish model for replacing more high-salary professionals, such as Nurse (BIO207, Comfortable), Hazmat Specialist (TS138, Comfortable), or even a Nanotechnologist (TS138, Wealthy).

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

If you want justification for draconian DRM and nanofac control, have a "bad example" where there wasn't and everything that could go wrong went wrong.

Society broke down to the smallest unit able to sustain a nanofac (family/clan?), violently competing with each other for materials to feed their machines. It's a toxic hell that was once a green, verdant world. Small, inbred communities surviving in sealed bunkers on a lifeless world, its surface corrosive, toxic and radioactive with a detritus of thousands of tiny wars without restraint.

Any time anyone brings up the idea of open source, the authorities need only point to that world(s) to have the general public cheering them on as they take the insane deviant away in chains.

This works about as well as the government's ability to control the entire world, for whatever values of 'world' are relevant to the culture. If it can't swing that, you have renegades outside their control practicing illegality without catastrophic result.

(For a very controlling government, one strategy is to narrow their people's world to exclude uncontrolled regions.)

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

You seem to be assuming a poor person borrowing money for this. I'm envisioning a corp choosing whether to invest into something expecting 10-20% annual return on investment, or replacing some of its workers for a 24% annual return on investment (expressed as salary savings).

Opportunity cost. Whether you're using money in hand for this rather than something else, or borrowing money makes no difference ideally and not very much practically.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

You seem to be assuming a poor person borrowing money for this. I'm envisioning a corp choosing whether to invest into something expecting 10-20% annual return on investment, or replacing some of its workers for a 24% annual return on investment (expressed as salary savings).

The numbers I gave were for a 10% annual return, but looking at it I didn't fully account for worker salary, breakpoint is actually ~22 years, with a robot/bioroid surplus of ~$250k at 25 years, still a bad investment.

At a 20% annual return buying the robot/bioroid would run the corp $10-$14 million in capital losses, a horrible investment.

You need to replace a minimum of $15k worth of monthly salary for a $150k robot/bioroid to actually be worth it.

If you're paying more for a robot than the yearly salary of the labor you're replacing the numbers will only work if you're expecting minimal return on capital investment.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Opportunity cost. Whether you're using money in hand for this rather than something else, or borrowing money makes no difference ideally and not very much practically.

If there is no practical difference, then why is it that expected returns on investment normally seem to be 2-4% for bonds or 7%ish for business? 24% seems huge compared to that (more than 24% if replacing a better job and/or buying a model cheaper than 150k).

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

If there is no practical difference, then why is it that expected returns on investment normally seem to be 2-4% for bonds or 7%ish for business? 24% seems huge compared to that (more than 24% if replacing a better job and/or buying a model cheaper than 150k).

Risk. Bonds are very low risk, business equity rather higher.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

If there is no practical difference, then why is it that expected returns on investment normally seem to be 2-4% for bonds or 7%ish for business?

That's advice for people who don't know what they're doing and want to take as little risk as possible.

As an example, buying bonds from riskier countries will give you much higher returns, and in general high yield debt is easy to find at ~20%.

Current US 10 year bonds are at ~2.8%, and US 2 year bonds are at 0.34%, they're a way for people to park money, not to make money.
Contrast that with say the current Ukraine 2 year bonds which are at 14.35%, since Ukraine can't sell 10 year bonds because no one would buy anything that risky, that gives you a 14% spread in bond yields/returns.

As another example, if you bought Tesla(TSLA) stock this time last year you'd have paid ~$30, if you'd sold it last Monday you'd have gotten $170 per, making a return on investment of 566%, about 1.55% per day. Better yet, if you'd bought it 6 months ago you'd have paid ~$35, making a return of 486%, about 2.7% per day.*

That's $4k a day you'd lose by paying $150k for a robot/bioroid instead of buying Tesla stock.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

24% seems huge compared to that (more than 24% if replacing a better job and/or buying a model cheaper than 150k).

Where are you getting 24% from?
The numbers I ran showed a loss to purchase a robot/bioroid for $150k to replace a $3600 a month salary if capital returns are over 11%

*And yes, considering the forum we're on and how many of us are total technofiles, we should all be kicking ourselves for not putting in at least $10k-$20k in TSLA six months ago.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

The numbers I ran showed a loss to purchase a robot/bioroid for $150k to replace a $3600 a month salary if capital returns are over 11%

A $150k loan amortized over 15 years at 11% is $1,705/month. $3,600/month is the equivalent of 28.37%. I think you're forgetting time value of money -- the bioroid doesn't produce a lump of money at the end of its lifespan, it produces a constant income stream over its lifespan.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Anthony

A $150k loan amortized over 15 years at 11% is $1,705/month. $3,600/month is the equivalent of 28.37%. I think you're forgetting time value of money -- the bioroid doesn't produce a lump of money at the end of its lifespan, it produces a constant income stream over its lifespan.

You have a point, though again you need to add maintenance and CoL for the robot, which even at $600 a month would push that up to 17%.

The constant income stream is the same as the human worker, so that's a wash, and the human can always be laid off if there's no work.

The numbers on the robot will also depend on whether you're paying interest on the $150k loan or need to have the cash on hand, which will depend on whether someone would risk a 15 year loan for a robot.

If a robot loan is too risky then you need to have cash on hand, that's when the capital expenditure I was talking about comes in.

If robot financing is readily available, then getting the robot will net you 11% a year, which is the same as the person loaning you the $150k is netting a year.

Again, a wash, though you benefit by being in the business you want to be in without having to be in finance.