I see a lot of you on this website are young 20 somethings with no future or a shit load of college debt.
I have a business proposition for you.
I'm not much of a salesman so I'm relying on the obvious nature of the benefits of my idea to convince you of participating.
Simply, the smart know that it's easier to get something done with people than by yourself. What do we want but our own land, and ability to support ourselves?
Globalism seems to be taking this ability to support ourselves away from us at a rapid pace, enslaving us all to megalithic and mystic corporations.
These corporations are soon going to be turning to automation which will completely eliminate us from the job market and take from us the last bit of power we have in the from of our paycheck.
Maybe you've heard of the maker movement, the cross between diy and hacker culture which has people making products as a hobby and coming together in groups to support each others endeavors.
The idea is simple.
We beat the corporations to the punch. We all make our own corporations, live together like a medieval guild and buy up land and work that land with robots we build. Using the profits to buy more land.
Essentially we become like the masons and other guilds before us, but for robots, and use their power of free labor from our bots to build wealth and carve out a place for ourselves.
Imagine a syndicate of robotist guilds owning land and securing their own futures!
Join me and we can become more than we are separately.
We could be The Automatons
this is op
tell me what you think of the idea of syndicated robotics guilds
>>1319587
Sounds fantastic, you'll be supplying the funding? Do I get dental?
>>1319590
I'd have to start a holding company and sell equity and bonds to raise the necessary finances to start.
We'd be recruiting hackers and roboticists and learning how to build robots ourselves.
We could have multiple different products and services to offer.
of course you take a risk with a start up idea but I think syndicated robotics guilds could revolutionize america and the world.
it would essentially put free slave labor in everyones hands.
>>1319597
We should paint them black and market them to trump supporters for a really high price, we could make billions
>>1319590
I'm thinking the materials cost would be low it would be the knowledge that would supply most of the value along with the essentially free labor robots offer once we put them to work.
>>1319601
funny
you want to be riding the robot wave not wiping out on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
Until a bunch of people you displaced with your land purchases break into your mansions and hang you. You would have to have a pretty inclusive journeyman system to avoid this and eventually it would take over the world. Pretty interesting. I wonder what such a new economic system would be called.
>>1319613
We'd be inclusive but we'd also have security forces just like they exist today.
We'd make robots like drones with guns that monitor our grounds as well as actual humans with guns.
>>1319613
I'd call it autonomic
>maintenance
>power delivery
>processing
>programming
Robots aren't magic, you fag.
Nowadays robots already do all the farming for us.
We drive bigass tractors that handle bigass fields that all do one job each.
The more delicate harvesting that people don't want to develop robots for, it turns out that hiring Mexican labor is cheaper than R&D.
All that's left for the farmers to do on a farm is the scientific part of maximizing growth.
>>1319634
Yes but we do that on a large scale that only strengthens corporations and weakens individuals
it is essentially a pyramid.
syndicated robotics guilds would put the power back in the hands of the people.
we'd be able to own property and benefit from the labor of our robots whether than have corporations being the only benefactors of the robotic revolution.
And nothing you green texted presents a problem.
Does any one have any constructive feed back on the idea?
>>1319607
>Baxter is really slow but costs pennies on electricity making him cost effective
>Baxter, the $22,000 prototype, folds 8 shirts in the years then breaks
>>1319597
Why do you
Type every new
Thought in a
Paragraph
FAGGOT
>>1319654
there is still tons of profitable automation that can be done.
baxter is a consumer/vendor type robot and we wouldn't need those, we oculd specialize for every contract or task.
we could also invest in baxter
also
22,000 is pocket change.
>>1319587
All fun and games until the corporations use your technology and scale it up to make even more money and introduce regulations to block your endeavors.
The premise of a conglomerate of retards somehow creating a functioning robot-based economy is absurd, but sure, I'll take the bait.
Only a small fraction of people are competent at working with their hands and tools, much less designing, prototyping, and building robots of any sort (and that's not even getting near ones advanced enough to actually do what you're suggesting). There's a reason that corporations pay engineers the big bucks (relatively speaking) to design the machines that assemble products in factories. What you're suggesting wouldn't be putting power back in the hands of the people - it would just be shifting power to a new group of oligarchs.
In other words, it would be capitalism. You may not be aware of this, but that's actually our current economic system. Crazy how that works, innit?
>We all make our own corporations
...You are aware that this is literally how every giant corporation starts, right? This ain't rocket science. You want to make money, you find a niche to fill, build an empire off of it, and boom: new corporation with a new Mr. Shekelberg at the top of the ladder.
>Imagine a syndicate of robitist guilds owning land and securing their own futures!
If someone was running a successful corporation, why would they saddle themselves with a pack of potential imbeciles?
>>1319603
You clearly have not worked on robotic projects before. Parts can be expensive as fuck.
>>1319663
>22,000 is pocket change.
If you actually had enough money for $22,000 to be negligible, you wouldn't be writing this drivel on /biz/.
t. industrial automation major
>>1319663
Hi. It's me again. How do you plan on coaxing the experts you would need to build the group's infrastructure? They would probably already be pretty high ranking in their field. Also what would someone have to do to become a full guild member anyway?
>>1319678
>and introduce regulations
It's the fact that the corporations have the militaries of the world in their pocket that makes them so dangerous.
We could start our own political party of technocrats that would represent the syndicate of robotics guilds
>>1319587
I'm game in a few years once I build up my capital. Get a throwaway email going and post it here so that we can all keep in contact with each other.
>>1319681
>Parts can be expensive as fuck.
that's because you aren't manufacturing them.
the mark up on technology is absurd simply because everyone thinks you are too awestruck to do it yourself.
>>1319697
what do you bring to the table?
I honestly don't trust anyone on 4chan.
I just want people to think about this idea I have
>>1319682
>Also what would someone have to do to become a full guild member anyway?
I'm looking for a core group of visionaries that would decide these things.
>>1319701
A little under $400,000 in capital, along with experience in sales and management, but it's late and I'm browsing /biz/ for the heck of it, so I'll have to re-read your thread tomorrow to give you any worthwhile feedback.
>>1319702
By the way, I'd make this a long-term hobby if I were you. Plan things out on paper and run over those plans for a couple good years before you put anything into action. Also consider keeping your "'visionaries" as small a collective as possible so as to limit the possibility of others having the bright idea of stealing your work so that they can make an easy profit.
>>1319706
I'm afraid I don't post email to 4chan, even throw away emails, I'm ultra paranoid, sorry.
The fact that you have so much capital and are still interested also makes me suspicious as you definitely don't fall into the "poor wageslave looking for finical freedom" camp
what interest do you have in all this?
maybe if you made an email and posted it here I'd reply to it, sorry for the inconvenience.
>>1319708
good advice.
but is years worth a planning really necessary?
>>1319698
I'm going to go out on a limb and postulate that you've never actually worked with robotics before. As fun as it would be to try building things from scratch, there's a reason that nobody fucking does that. The savings aren't worth the massive drop in quality and the massive increase in time necessary. Engineering doesn't work the way video games told you.
>>1319711
Yes.
>>1319716
I just figure once you have a manufacturing plant up and running for your parts it would pay for itself in the savings on parts.
>>1319719
Maintenance costs?
>>1319724
that's covered by the labor of your finished robot product since they are literally free labor minus the pennies worth of electricity they consume.
>>1319682
>How do you plan on coaxing the experts you would need to build the group's infrastructure?
I suspect we'd get our experts by offering them land holdings and equity in the company.
The major focus of the company is land holdings and and robots.
I'm gonna be McRobo
>>1319726
It almost sounds like you are producing things exclusively to use them for yourself instead of to sell them. Would all production also be owned collectively by the group's membership?
>>1319733
yes, we'd structure it as a guild. There would be seniority of course but everyone who contributes earns equity in the ownership of the guild and eventually can take land options.
I'm of the old school feudal mind set that promises of land are better than promises of just cash.
Our profits would be used to buy more land, to make more factories, to make more robots, who we lease out to the economy at large to siphon off it's capital to our guild structure.
>>1319738
The intent is to eventually give everyone robots that can work for them rather than robots working against the general public economically in the hands of a few corporations.
Cause we all know that once these corporations get there hands on free mindless efficient labor like robots they are going to drive the price of them up artificially and dramatically making them too expensive for the average citizen.
>>1319745
>drive the price of them up artificially a
meaning that they will figure in the benefit of free labor into the price rather than just the cost of producing the robot in the first place.
doing so means that a robot that costs 5000$ to build would sell for 50,000$
>>1319750
which I guess isn't artificially driving the price up but it still means that people could afford to have their own if they were given the means to build one themselves.
A syndicate of robotics guilds that you could apprentice with could do that.
>>1319719
A manufacturing plant producing... what exactly? Each part would require a unique assembly line, and each variation on each part would require variations in the basic assembly line. A factory that produces motors can't necessarily produce sensors, or actuators, or microprocessors, or any of the countless components that the modern world runs on. Hell, electric motors alone have a ton of variations that may need to be accounted for, depending on what's required.
Don't get me wrong, it's a cool idea. Unfortunately, it's also incredibly impractical.
>>1319762
>Each part would require a unique assembly line
,
Why not have assembly lines that can multiple different parts?
Why not build a whole new set of parts that are assembly line interchangeable?
>>1319762
>>1319767
You've heard of the concept of a universal constructor right?
Why not just buy a industrial metal 3D printer?
I've considered the feasibility of something similar to this. As I see it, you'd essentially first need to establish one primary source of operating income. Agriculture is the most apparent, but really it could be almost anything. Just something to establish enough income to expand and pay all necessary expenses. Once a passive income is established, you can worry about expanding into more types of crops or another industry, and it may also be helpful to optimize maintenance to be done as much as possible by robots themselves.
Considering it now, I am not even sure if it must be done with everyone in one place. It could be done remotely with ownership shares to apportion the profits regardless of geographic location.
>>1319774
But the place of manufacturing would be a physical geo-location, and we'd all need to be close to it to work on the bots and whatever we were using the bots for.
>>1319710
I think it'd be a neat hobby, though I'm not convinced it'd be the best use of time or capital. Mostly, I want to watch and keep up to date with your project to see if it works out.
(And I'm hardly a Wall Street millionaire.)
>>1319767
Care to tell me how you would design an assembly line that can assemble a three-phase AC motor, then turn around and weld together the chassis of your farmbot or whatever? They're completely dissimilar processes. At that point you're building two separate assembly lines, mashing them together, and proclaiming them to be a single unit.
Manufacturing processes don't work like Lego bricks and different variations on the same part are almost never interchangeable. You can destroy a $10,000 machine by accidentally putting the wrong $3 fuse into a slot.
>>1319769
Now tell me how quickly that can actually print components. Better yet, tell me whether or not it can print multiple metals in the same project, insulate and print wires around other components, print both plastic and metal, print circuit boards, and place and solder components while printing.
>>1319711
Yeah, if you're going to do it, do it right.
Also, I used a burner email site to come up with this: [email protected]
>pipe dream, the thread
>>1319799
cool, I'll email you sometime soon to establish contact and I will let you know when I'm coordinated and have a plan established and am looking for investors.
wtf am i even reading here
fuck you op
>>1319797
>Now tell me how quickly that can actually print components. Better yet, tell me whether or not it can print multiple metals in the same project, insulate and print wires around other components, print both plastic and metal, print circuit boards, and place and solder components while printing.
I honestly don't see why it couldn't
it'd be the greatest innovation in manufacturing since the assembly line.
>>1319779
>>1319780
Manufacturing, design, and investment don't have to be linked, at least not in the long-term. Perhaps it would be needed for the engineering to come together to ensure everything works, but ideally only a few members would need to be on-site to oversee the operation.
I'm just not sure there's a need to be there year-round. Especially if the plan is to go into something like agriculture. It just seems like there's a decent amount of downtime while waiting for the results of the harvest.
>>1319809
this made me laugh.
>these ideas confuse me
>arrrgghhh!!!
>>1319811
I see what you're saying.
Honestly the whole guild concept and living together is a romanticized concept.
In reality It would turn out to be an all purpose robotics company with an apprenticeship program.
and of course all the down time would be used to develop other products.
>>1319797
One size fits all machines are not necessary at all. PCB manufacture and pick-and-place machines are both solved problems.
Manufacturing electrical components in-house doesn't make sense, but the rest can be done.
>>1319587
AINT NOBODY READIN ALL THAT SHIT NIGGA
>>1319817
>millineal detected
>>1319810
It would be, if it actually existed.
>>1319815
There are a lot of things you could manufacture in-house, yes, but it would be a ridiculously massive investment in uncertain products. Consider how many unique parts would be required for a single machine designed to pick crops or whatever OP was thinking of. Now consider how many types of machines would be necessary for the second industrial revolution we're talking about.
>>1319825
They wouldn't be manufactured in house at first but when the money was there the investment should be made.
>>1319805
>>1319807
Sure, sounds good, but don't feel the need to consistently report about what you're doing. If anything, my advice to you is to spend time first making sure you have a practical way to implement your idea. Once that's done, try to run it by experts or others that you trust to critique it. >>1319797 had some very good points, and these are all things you'll need to consider before even starting your company up.
>>1319813
>down time would be used to develop other products
That's true enough... Once the planting and harvesting machines are done you can work on processing or something to automatically negotiate the sales or order new supplies. Plus if living as a "guild" would add eligibility for discounts from bulk, it could be more economical to live on-site.
I guess it would come down to a philosophical decision: is it simply a business, or an experiment in post-scarcity economy? The latter certainly is a far more interesting thought, but would be a less efficient society.
>>1319838
it starts as a business with the goal of experimenting in post scarcity.
definitely an experiment in post-scarcity though.
>>1319825
I don't advocate that all parts should be manufactured in-house; things like bearings, gears, general hardware and such should probably be outsourced (though potentially selling that hardware could be part of the business model, alternatively) but the fabrication of larger parts from steel or aluminum should be done on-site. Design should reduce the difficulty of that manufacture as well as possible.
>>1319844
and if it doesn't pan out robotics are going to be a huge business in the coming decades.
>>1319847
robotics and the internet of things is gong to be huge.
call me a sci fi geek or whatever you want but were entering the animatrixs 2nd renaissance in 5 decades or less imo
to put into perspective the hurdles you are up against.. the company i used to work for purchased a robotic pallet-stacker and it cost $300,000 for a single unit.
Unless you have insanely retarded venture capital, its not gonna happen
>>1319845
Solid metal parts could be welded by hand initially, but moving parts (like servos and actuators) and good sensors would require either individual assembly lines or purchase from an external supplier, which would not be cheap either way.
Honestly, my biggest objection stems from the fact that OP has no idea what hurdles are actually in his idea's path because he hasn't actually done any research.
>>1319852
that just tells me there are companies out there willing to buy my 100,000 dollar robotic pallet stacker for 300,000 dollars
>>1319854
You're right, I have done literally zero research, I'm putting this out there because it's such an exciting prospect socio-economically
That doesn't mean i'm not going to put in the work to know what I'm talking about though.
I really just want to find people excited about the idea.
The reaction has been mostly positive in this thread.
>>1319862
how can you make your robotic units, with zero venture capital? You think nobody hasnt tried it yet? Are you Elon Musk? Mind you, he started out with a shit-ton of his own paypal capital
>>1319870
>You think nobody hasnt tried it yet?
Nobody I've ever heard of. Less competition.
I'll find investors. I can raise money, it's not a problem.
>>1319854
I'm not advocating for that either. You'd have to be batshit crazy to try to do all that in-house. Those specialized parts would be ordered in. As long as they're purchased with funds produced by the organization, I don't see it as a cheat.
My personal vision of this isn't complete autonomy, but financial autonomy. The machines should generate enough money to be effectively post-scarcity, but relying on that interface with the outside world to give access to the full range of resources.
>>1319875
well thats good if you can raise venture capital.. mind you.. ever heard of MonDragon? It has a similar system of company ownership you proposed and its been around for 50+ years.
>>1319587
If you need a good cook onsite who has 2 years of highschool engineering, I'd love to have garden-grown ingredients to work with
This sounds like a lot of fun
>>1319893
>MonDragon?
no, never heard of them, what do they do?
>>1319898
they produce various goods, but theyre not robotic oriented like you, but similar business model
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
>>1319900
well they seem quiet successful.
I think a robotics company with this model would be quiet successful as well.
>>1319907
with enough capital and good management, i dont see why not
>>1319880
Your idea of how the enterprise would function is much more realistic than OP's, given that OP suggested manufacturing everything from scratch rather than spend money on expensive parts.
>>1319862
Your enthusiasm is laudable, but the fact that you haven't even the slightest clue about what you're talking about detracts from your presentation. Take classes on industrial automation, read up on how factories work, look into the financial side of things, THEN pitch a hair-brained scheme that might actually succeed.
>>1319875
Okay, see, this is what I'm talking about. Money is a problem, and the fact that you're thinking as if money is no object tells me that you don't know shit about finances either. Do some research, then talk about ideas.
Trust me, take a step back and gather information. The sooner you approach things logically, the sooner your ideas start actually gaining some traction.
>>1319818
I'm 30. And you spelled millennial wrong.
Here's a fun tip: People who actually wanna learn stuff go pick up books and read them. People come here mostly as an escape.
So perhaps you could consider that next time you're thinking of typing a whole fuckload of shit.
>>1319587
jesus christ try formatting your posts better all of that could be put into 1-2 blocks of text
>These corporations are soon going to be turning to automation which will completely eliminate us from the job market
They aren't. Using machines more often that not means leasing them and most companies do not want to be totally beholden to another company's contracts. There's a reason why free trade happened instead: third worlders can't fight companies, but equipment suppliers can. Deere and CAT are both effectively rentiers on top of the agribiz industry who are totally reliant on them.
Automation simply isn't possible in environments where there is a surplus of labor. That's why all large companies abuse H-1 visas and lobby for looser immigration laws. They want jobs to be competitive, not the other way around.
>>1319587
>>1319589
also,
>Imagine a syndicate of robotist guilds owning land and securing their own futures!
I can pic related
It sounds like Google where they want to replace everything in your house
Even then, there's no way we'd beat a country like China with their ability to produce and manufacture robots even if crappy
>>1319587
You have no idea what you're even proposing.
You want a bunch of
>young 20 somethings with no future or a shit load of college debt
to
>make our own corporations, live together like a medieval guild and buy up land and work that land with robots we build
like as if we can just build robots.
>>1319974
China has no reason to produce robots when it would only make more people jobless (assuming the whole automation meme is right in the first place) and bring about their demographic crisis sooner.
Even then, the only reason why produce anything is because the US is willing to trade with them. This is not a thing which will be a thing 5 years from now (either due to the TPP or Trump).
>>1319807
Can I Mr. join this group?
Stop reading so much YA fantasy guy.
Are you twelve? a fucking guild?
>>1320297
guilds are legit tho. thats what they called cooperatives hundreds of years ago.
>>1319984
>like as if we can just build robots.
i could but i think the fags here including op severely underestimate the costs of design prototyping manufacture and maintenance
>>1320304
guilds were an early attempt to stop the free market and turn it into an oligarchy.
nothing more but control of supply and prices so that members have less competition.
>>1320318
I think thats what OP wanted, to beat the mega-corporations with his robo-guilds
kekking internally, but a discourse about it never harmed anyone
>>1320325
yeah but gilds had clout by regulation but we operate in a free market environment where law supports the big corps if not outright written by them.
so these "gilds" would have to behave and operate exactly like other corporations which would defeat the entire purpose of saving us from a corporate controlled future.
>>1320328
yeah i agree, but OP said he wanted to bring a bunch of people together and pool resources, to manufacture things. which does sound guildy but yeah they would have to be regulated like any regular company. Unless he creates his own micronation and is beholden to no sovereign entity. Like City 01 from animatrix.
Knowing OP, he prolly has it all figured out
>>1320337
gilds don't exactly cooperate in production.
they coordinate supply but the members are competitors and usually highly specialized ones. he probably doesn't understand this simple fact. it's like a kartell for the common benefit enemies sit at the table and agree on a price noone goes under they also agree on who produces what and how much all to control the prices because competition would cut into all of their profits.
you can't fucking do this today as a small fish. you need to be a megacorp for other megacorps to sit at the table with you and talk about controlling supply.
>>1320345
yeah they dont fully cooperate, but they have mutual interests. like a shoemakers guild would look out for fellow shoemakers in that guild, so there is still some cooperation at some level.
In his case, its a robo-guild. Im fully aware of his, economic, logistical and regulatory hurdles,. Its just the crazyest /biz/ idea i've seen in yonks, that peeked my interest.
>>1320345
i think today the closes thing to a gild would be labor unions. all laborers in a field are competing with each other on the market but they form unions to have collective political clout negotiating power.
it's totally unapplicable to production i think especially with anti-kartell and anti-monopoly laws. it's in the free markets and the peoples best interest that such entities don't form and we are as close to free market as possible while still having an effective economy.
>>1320357
yeah this thread is refreshing from past months crpyto-shilling frenzy.
>>1320360
i hold crypto too, but yeah, it gets tiring.. kinda wanna get into cornering the robotics market now! kek
>>1320315
Building the robots would be fairly simple but yes brutally expensive. Creating the AI necessary for them to succeed doing tasks which require adaptability would be the issue.
I also fail to see why the 1% who have the capability to actually do this shit would carry the 99% who lack any understanding of it.
>>1320367
i work in industrial automation we either deliver complex solutions from the hardware to control execution and planning also including security features and monitoring, or we go and try fix someone elses mess.
here is the thing with robots and pretty much everything more complex than a hammer: they never perform exactly as advertised. the more complex some equipment the more fine tuning or customization it requires to work. it's sometimes like we are the new clergy dedicated to maintain our machine gods.
we either try to fix something by replacing a component to a new one if it was faulty or replacing the equipment with one that works better this is often impossible so then we try to fine tune the entire system so the lack of performance in one component does not put the entire factory to a grinding halt then when this doesn't work we try to make workarounds involving humans of course. which results in that with automation you still need a workforce albeit more educated and more highly skilled you also gonna need humans to maintain the network and the computer systems in general, to do the administration that can't be automated.and a lot of shit can't be as of yet.
forget ai-s! we can barely make a half decent self driving fully automated forklift that gets it's instructions from a wms/mes system.
>>1320400
can confirm this.. worked with robot.. we had technicians around the damn thing for a month, before it we got it working with any semblance of uniformity
I want to be a techno-baron and raid your land Mount & Blade style.
>>1320468
Good idea for a mod.
I like the idea of a guild but why limit it to automowhateverthefuck. Why not form a guild of entrepreneurs all loosely held together by their membership to form a super conglomerate.
Kinda like Bilderberg but cooler. We can have meetings and have a group yacht.
>>1321825
Also you need to already be successful and put into the system to join. In return you have the power of the group to call onto.
>>1321825
not a bad idea.. we will form a /biz/ conglomerate.. we will offer our shilling services to the highest bidder.
We'll be making so much $$$ and tendies, our heads will spin
