Free Bazaar Blog

Update: The stuff below seems like science fiction, but see the references at the end to research which shows that this already starting to become real.
I have been reading a couple of books that got me thinking about a very interesting idea. One of them is the sovereign individual by James Dale Davidson and Lord Williams and the other is out-of-control by Kevin Kelly. Both of the books talk about how information revolution is reshaping our future Both of them seem to imply that as the cyberspace and the Internet gain more traction, the individuals will have more control over their lives. To understand what they mean by that imagine the following world in future:

3-D printers have become cheap enough and powerful enough to almost manufacturer anything that you wish. Printable electronic circuitry and home silicon integrated circuit fabrication have made it possible to print your own computer at home with the designs downloaded from the Internet. It is now possible to even print your own car or TV refrigerator for that matter. Nanotechnology has also advanced far enough that you can now create your own food out of basic ingredients carbon hydrogen and oxygen available in in the atmosphere, soil etc. Power generation has become distributed and homes generate their own power from solar, geothermal or other means.

You wake up in the morning and suddenly you feel like driving a new BMW. But, you do not have the car parked in your garage. So, what do you do? You download that design for the BMW from the Internet. You set up your printer to print all the parts needed to manufacture a BMW car. The parts are manufactured out of different forms of plastic. The plastic is made out of the basic organic ingredients. These could come from your own backyard or even your own basement which has a Nano-organic factory continually churning raw material out of soil, sunlight and air or by recycling your old stuff that you no longer want to use. Once the parts are all manufactured, your household Robots work together to build the car.

Since you made all of this in your home, using the ingredients that you already own, using the designs that you downloaded from the Internet, how can any entity like the government try to get a cut of the transaction? In other words how would you charge income tax or sales tax on transactions that are only bits? It is an impossible task. People will always find a way to transact bits without the government knowing anything about it. The whole field of cryptography will aid the individual to do so.

To look at it another way, the Internet and cryptography is going to level the playing field in asymmetric relationship between the government and the individual today. I think this is unstoppable. And as James says in his book, this is similar to how feudalism evolved into today's nation-state when the industrial revolution happened. In a similar manner the information revolution will create a new form of governments and organization. Since the government will lose its ability to tax, it will slowly lose all its power, though not without a fight. Expect Draconian tax laws and severe punishments for not paying you "Data Transaction Taxes" in future.

I know it sounds very far-fetched today. But I am talking about 20-25 or maybe even 50 years from now and the way the technology is advancing all this is definitely possible.
Update:
References to research that shows why this future may be here soon.
Wikipedia on 3D printing
Buy 3d printers here
Nanotechnology manufacturing
Nanotechnology for unlimited and free food manufacturing
Self replicating machines for manufacturing