Author Topic: [DAC Proposal] Future Tech Farm  (Read 12427 times)

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Offline fuzzy

Is this project dead?

Demand is rising for something like free food. Government food stamps need to be phased out to be replaced by the technology like this. Free media attention for a project like this is available due to the current political atmosphere and it could help with crowd funding.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/us/politics/states-tighten-conditions-for-receiving-food-stamps-as-the-economy-improves.html
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/11/entertainment/gwyneth-paltrow-food-stamps/
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/commentary/sfl-food-stamp-recipients-should-have-limits-on-their-food-choices-20150410-story.html

My opinion is food stamps only exist because of centralization. Decentralize food production and DACs can offer vouchers to members of cooperatives who help build the DAC. So we could give anyone free food eventually and end government food stamps.

Note: it is important to call it a "decentralized autonomous COOPERATIVE" in the media and not a "decentralized autonomous CORPORATION". This is for framing purposes but also because it more accurately reflects what a project like this could be.

It is not dead.  There are some issues that need to be figured out to keep people from gaming the system.  It is a really difficult problem to solve.

Can it be solved with a legal structure? A DCO where every verified person gains membership? You could then use a decentralized identity service combined with DCO legal infrastructure and have the blockchain as the secret sauce underneath which only the experts concern themselves with.

So in a way the DCO would be like the skin on top of the blockchain, and the blockchain (DPoS) could be stealth. Then you could do something like Peertracks where you have a website front end.

Hope you can do another Interview with them so they can discuss their progress, their roadblocks, their roadmap.

I'll see what I can do...but can't make any promises :P
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Offline luckybit

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Is this project dead?

Demand is rising for something like free food. Government food stamps need to be phased out to be replaced by the technology like this. Free media attention for a project like this is available due to the current political atmosphere and it could help with crowd funding.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/us/politics/states-tighten-conditions-for-receiving-food-stamps-as-the-economy-improves.html
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/11/entertainment/gwyneth-paltrow-food-stamps/
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/commentary/sfl-food-stamp-recipients-should-have-limits-on-their-food-choices-20150410-story.html

My opinion is food stamps only exist because of centralization. Decentralize food production and DACs can offer vouchers to members of cooperatives who help build the DAC. So we could give anyone free food eventually and end government food stamps.

Note: it is important to call it a "decentralized autonomous COOPERATIVE" in the media and not a "decentralized autonomous CORPORATION". This is for framing purposes but also because it more accurately reflects what a project like this could be.

It is not dead.  There are some issues that need to be figured out to keep people from gaming the system.  It is a really difficult problem to solve.

Can it be solved with a legal structure? A DCO where every verified person gains membership? You could then use a decentralized identity service combined with DCO legal infrastructure and have the blockchain as the secret sauce underneath which only the experts concern themselves with.

So in a way the DCO would be like the skin on top of the blockchain, and the blockchain (DPoS) could be stealth. Then you could do something like Peertracks where you have a website front end.

Hope you can do another Interview with them so they can discuss their progress, their roadblocks, their roadmap.
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Offline fuzzy

Is this project dead?

Demand is rising for something like free food. Government food stamps need to be phased out to be replaced by the technology like this. Free media attention for a project like this is available due to the current political atmosphere and it could help with crowd funding.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/us/politics/states-tighten-conditions-for-receiving-food-stamps-as-the-economy-improves.html
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/11/entertainment/gwyneth-paltrow-food-stamps/
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/commentary/sfl-food-stamp-recipients-should-have-limits-on-their-food-choices-20150410-story.html

My opinion is food stamps only exist because of centralization. Decentralize food production and DACs can offer vouchers to members of cooperatives who help build the DAC. So we could give anyone free food eventually and end government food stamps.

Note: it is important to call it a "decentralized autonomous COOPERATIVE" in the media and not a "decentralized autonomous CORPORATION". This is for framing purposes but also because it more accurately reflects what a project like this could be.

It is not dead.  There are some issues that need to be figured out to keep people from gaming the system.  It is a really difficult problem to solve.
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Offline luckybit

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Is this project dead?

Demand is rising for something like free food. Government food stamps need to be phased out to be replaced by the technology like this. Free media attention for a project like this is available due to the current political atmosphere and it could help with crowd funding.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/us/politics/states-tighten-conditions-for-receiving-food-stamps-as-the-economy-improves.html
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/11/entertainment/gwyneth-paltrow-food-stamps/
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/commentary/sfl-food-stamp-recipients-should-have-limits-on-their-food-choices-20150410-story.html

My opinion is food stamps only exist because of centralization. Decentralize food production and DACs can offer vouchers to members of cooperatives who help build the DAC. So we could give anyone free food eventually and end government food stamps.

Note: it is important to call it a "decentralized autonomous COOPERATIVE" in the media and not a "decentralized autonomous CORPORATION". This is for framing purposes but also because it more accurately reflects what a project like this could be.

« Last Edit: April 12, 2015, 01:51:39 am by luckybit »
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Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

Latest blog post: Future of Farming Makes Sense, Green Sense

Had the chance to catch up with an awesome indoor farm in Indiana last week.  I can definitely see this type of technology evolving to home grow systems that learn from each other.

 +5%

had to take the post down  :-X  NDA with Green Sense Farms...

Still moving forward :-D

Offline fuzzy

Latest blog post: Future of Farming Makes Sense, Green Sense

Had the chance to catch up with an awesome indoor farm in Indiana last week.  I can definitely see this type of technology evolving to home grow systems that learn from each other.

 +5%
WhaleShares==DKP; BitShares is our Community! 
ShareBits and WhaleShares = Love :D

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

Latest blog post: Future of Farming Makes Sense, Green Sense

Had the chance to catch up with an awesome indoor farm in Indiana last week.  I can definitely see this type of technology evolving to home grow systems that learn from each other.

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

You've been able to articulate this better than anyone I've spoken with yet!  Great work.  I love digging deep into this and really appreciate your time and feedback.  We're always looking for people to tear this apart and convince us this isn't worth pursuing.  Hasn't happened yet ;) 

For anyone else in the crowd: we could use your help with all the negative feedback you can muster!!

This sounds interesting; I'm-a take a crack at wrapping my brain around it.  Let me know how I'm doing.

There's three-ish types of participant in this market:  consumers, producers and delegates (some/all of whom might also be consumers/producers themselves).

Three-ish sounds about right - I'm not exactly sure how many separate categories there would be in the functioning system and yes, there will be overlap.  I'll attempt to break down even further the attributes of each participant to help explain to myself and everyone else.

Consumers = Global population (everyone eats, everyone always will). 
I believe the consumer will be motivated by at least two things (please, let me know if you can spot any additional motivations):
A) costs less than what they pay now. 
B) higher quality than what they're consuming now. (In my mind this includes products grown without pesticides, has an exponential decrease in food miles + associated positive benefits for the environment,

Producers = People with space (for a grow system) AND/OR knowledge (essentially a transposition of growing more efficiently into an information technology - an asset that can be 'injected' into the system)
Producers would operate a node, or nodes, of the platform.  I've been envisioning that these nodes would communicate with each other and utilize machine learning to always improve upon their efficiency.  Ideally, these would evolve to be autonomous systems that would pay dividends.

Delegates = Transaction confirmation specialists
Confirming your comment below - yes, these will operate just as delegates do today on the BTS to confirm transactions.  HOWEVER, What I haven't been able to wrap my mind around is how to separately (or collectively) confirm transactions of the food itself.  Perhaps the accounting of the food could operate as a bitAsset???

I also believe there will be: Quality Specialist/Inspectors (much like you mention below)  These people will be hired human labor that would validate food quality from a decentralized and virtual perspective. 

Producers build/print/purchase/lease the equipment to grow food, which they then sell on the open market.  In some ways, this is similar to how BitAssets are created / asks are posted in the BTS ecosystem now.

Exactly.   

Perhaps producers are even required to "back" their real produce with digital assets as well, as a means of promising quality to the consumers (similarly to how shorts are required to post collateral to prove their eligibility for a loan?), and of course the transaction fees would be payable in FarmShares as well.

Great idea!

[sidebar:  I bet producers would also compete on having the highest quality grade given by inspectors (for which there would be a secondary market).  There might also be opportunities for insurance DACs for dealing with cases where food is of worse-than-advertised quality, inedible upon delivery, etc.]

I hadn't thought of that.  This brings a whole new concept to the mix I'd really like to explore further.  If people are selecting/ordering their food through some sort of portal (could be VR, iPhone/Android app, web portal, etc.) There must certainly be an insurance for the consumer to trust the producer, and the logistics DAC for the utmost quality.

Consumers, meanwhile, place orders (bids) on the market, specifying the maximum price and minimum quality* that they are willing to accept.  Logistics would be tricky, especially depending on how anonymous the consumer wants to remain, but I bet there are creative ways to solve that problem**

Yeah definitely - we'll be focusing on robots for this, there most definitely exists the option for drones; but I also think ground-dwelling robotics provide a plethora of creative design opportunities and have a hunch these will be sorted out before the FAA regulations on the drone industry.  (... I' thinking something like sphere / ollie with a verifiable sealed container that rolls down the sidewalk)

* "quality" would be slightly complex to calculate, as the inspector's reputation would also have to be considered and could affect the maximum price/quantity that would be accepted for sale, similarly to how a claims adjuster's reputation affects the amount of claims that he can authorize to be paid out in an insurance DAC.

We believe quality may be vision system based.  There will undoubtedly be certain decisions to be made via human cognition, but those decision-making 'assets of knowledge' - will have the ability to tap into the system and explore the plant matter for inspection / validation.  I REALLY see VR being a massive opportunity for this. 
i.e. The vision system would detect "X" defect and notify an inspector, hired by the DAC.  The [trained/certified/reputable] inspector would then strap on their VR hardware and check the plants themselves to confirm / modify the status of the plants and broadcast to the network.

** opportunity to develop a logistics DAC with autonomous drones that deliver food to stealth [mailing] addresses?  Perhaps the delivery is handed off to several drones along the way — like an IRL TOR..

Yes - I believe startups will form in this space to specifically target the logistics challenge.  This is something I find super intriguing.  I really like your notion of a physical TOR system, that is awesome!

And then delegates would secure the network in much the same way that BTS delegates do today.

Yes - again, I'm not sure yet if a separate transaction blockchain is needed for the value exchange of the BTS (or similar) vs. the transaction of the food itself.



There's still two things I'm not entirely certain about.

The first one is, "Why not just grow your own food and sell it for e.g., BitUSD?"  Although, I could see some value in having a dedicated currency, especially if it is more efficient to use that over BitAssets to cover the operating costs of the market and equipment.  And for sure, buying food would require a very different wallet (or at least, a very different GUI) than what you would use to buy BitGLD and such, so some kind of custom software would be beneficial.

The other thing I'm still not 100% sure I understand is how the producers' equipment is wired into the network — or indeed if that is even necessary.  If I want to run my own offline aquaponics farm and sell my produce on the FoodChain (jej), I've got the FarmShares to burn, and I've got a credible inspector to vouch for the quality of my goods, why shouldn't I be able to participate in the DAC?

Or, perhaps put another way, why do I need ASICs to mine Bitcoin when I've got a perfectly good server farm at my disposal?

Not that the hardware aspect of it isn't awesome to contemplate; I just see that as something that would be separate from the DAC.

Spot on!  I do think there will be separation at the choice of the producer.  In fact, setting up a network right now for selling food via bitUSD would be an awesome MVP for Future Tech Farm - what do you guys think?

I'm not at all certain a dedicated currency would even be needed.  The more thinking I do and the more the BitShares ecosystem develops, the more it makes sense to just use bitUSD (or equivalent).

The concept behind having the producers connected to the network is to take advantage of the collective breakthroughs in efficiencies of production.  Let's say you and I are both running the exact same hardware system let's assume we're able to control every variable input for the growth process (temps, C02 concentration, light cycles, etc, etc.).  You then discover a particular nutrient recipe that increases your yields by 10% and, if implemented by the rest of the network for that specific crop - would increase the worldwide efficiency by 2%.  This "injection of knowledge" into the network would be rewarded proportionately by dividends, or perhaps your producer payrate would increase.  Otherwise, one would be more than welcome to have a stand alone system that isn't connected to the network, they would just lose on opportunities to increase their own operating efficiencies or profited off of improving the efficiency of the network.

Thoughts?

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

Any update on this?

islandking, yes!

Update:
Over the past month, our team has grown exponentially ..from 2 to 4 :P (1 of whom frequents these forums - I'll let him chime in if he'd like to be known)

We're currently digging in deep to vet our "teamness" through a project to completely re-design our website and better express our vision.  At FTF - we've been known for several month interviews, through projects, to ensure the proper fit for the team. 

Right now - all conduits of our public facing (website, social media, etc.) are disconnected from each other, about 2 years behind our ideation & development, and has yet to properly express where we believe the future of food production is going.  The goal of this project is to fix that by the new year.

We're also working on setting up a delegate to continue to fund R&D for this project.  I'll post an announcement here when that campaign goes live.

Offline 70231f697a2b3c2b

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This sounds interesting; I'm-a take a crack at wrapping my brain around it.  Please let me know if I've got it right.

There's three-ish types of participant in this market:  consumers, producers and delegates (some/all of whom might also be consumers/producers themselves).

Producers build/print/purchase/lease the equipment to grow food, which they then sell on the open market.  In some ways, this is similar to how BitAssets are created / asks are posted in the BTS ecosystem now.  Perhaps producers are even required to "back" their real produce with digital assets as well, as a means of promising quality to the consumers (similarly to how shorts are required to post collateral to prove their eligibility for a loan?), and of course the transaction fees would be payable in FarmShares as well.

[sidebar:  I bet producers would also compete on having the highest quality grade given by inspectors (for which there would be a secondary market).  There might also be opportunities for insurance DACs for dealing with cases where food is of worse-than-advertised quality, inedible upon delivery, etc.]

Consumers, meanwhile, place orders (bids) on the market, specifying the maximum price and minimum quality* that they are willing to accept.  Logistics would be tricky, especially depending on how anonymous the consumer wants to remain, but I bet there are creative ways to solve that problem**

* "quality" would be slightly complex to calculate, as the inspector's reputation would also have to be considered and could affect the maximum price/quantity that would be accepted for sale, similarly to how a claims adjuster's reputation affects the amount of claims that he can authorize to be paid out in an insurance DAC.

** opportunity to develop a logistics DAC with autonomous drones that deliver food to stealth [mailing] addresses?  Perhaps the delivery is handed off to several drones along the way — like an IRL Tor..

And then delegates would secure the network in much the same way that BTS delegates do today.

Is my understanding of the project correct?



There's still two things I'm not entirely certain about.

The first one is, "Why not just grow your own food and sell it for e.g., BitUSD?"  Although, I could see some value in having a dedicated currency, especially if it is more efficient to use that over BitAssets to cover the operating costs of the market and equipment.  And for sure, buying food would require a very different wallet (or at least, a very different GUI) than what you would use to buy BitGLD and such, so some kind of custom software would be beneficial.

[EDIT:  Especially when I start thinking about futures contracts, this makes more and more sense..]

The other thing I'm still not 100% sure I understand is how the producers' equipment is wired into the network — or indeed if that is even necessary.  If I want to run my own offline aquaponics farm and sell my produce on the FoodChain (jej), I've got the FarmShares to burn, and I've got a credible inspector to vouch for the quality of my goods, why shouldn't I be able to participate in the DAC?

Or, to use a (possibly obsolete) metaphor, why do I need ASICs to mine Bitcoin when I've got a perfectly good server farm at my disposal?

Not that the hardware aspect of it isn't awesome to contemplate; I just see that as something that would be separate from the DAC.
« Last Edit: November 12, 2014, 11:51:01 am by todofixthis »

Offline islandking

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I've been working on a new electronic cash system that's fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party. - Satoshi

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

Excellent project, I think the future will be bright indeed, and I want to make your hardware!

Take a look at CubeSpawn dot com when you get a chance, I think your DAC and mine will have many similarities, since you are, ultimately, manufacturing food...

If you follow the "Detailed Project Links" link - it leads to many system pictures and renders (Your Renders are awesome)

Cheers
James

Awesome James!  I will check it out.

Offline CubeSpawn

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Excellent project, I think the future will be bright indeed, and I want to make your hardware!

Take a look at CubeSpawn dot com when you get a chance, I think your DAC and mine will have many similarities, since you are, ultimately, manufacturing food...

If you follow the "Detailed Project Links" link - it leads to many system pictures and renders (Your Renders are awesome)

Cheers
James

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

This is slightly off topic. A few years ago I bough a AeroGarde system I think it was this one http://www.aerogarden.com/aerogardens/aerogarden-spacesaver-6/aerogarden-spacesaver-6-black-1.html , and one of the problem I had with this system was the light. This think it on like  16 hours a day or so. It is alright if you have a  house and you grow it in the basement, and never see it. But if you leave in apartment the light it just too much, it did bother me a lot not only at night. even during the day. It is non the most pleasant of lights either. I mange to grow some stuff on it but after a few month I gave up because of that and I know I'm not the only one that stop using the system because of that. So it will be good if  your grow systems will have some kind of blinds(maybe optional) or something to block the light. Just my 2 larimer !!

Great insight oco, we appreciate your larimers.

Offline oco101

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This is slightly off topic. A few years ago I bough a AeroGarde system I think it was this one http://www.aerogarden.com/aerogardens/aerogarden-spacesaver-6/aerogarden-spacesaver-6-black-1.html , and one of the problem I had with this system was the light. This think it on like  16 hours a day or so. It is alright if you have a  house and you grow it in the basement, and never see it. But if you leave in apartment the light it just too much, it did bother me a lot not only at night. even during the day. It is non the most pleasant of lights either. I mange to grow some stuff on it but after a few month I gave up because of that and I know I'm not the only one that stop using the system because of that. So it will be good if  your grow systems will have some kind of blinds(maybe optional) or something to block the light. Just my 2 larimer !!

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

Just a quick update to all those who are following this venture's adventure:
  • We are working on bringing on two additional team members for an equity stake: 1 designer, 1 software engineer (who frequents this forum...;))
  • We will be submitting our application for Y Combinator today (San Francisco-based accelerator program)

Offline pgbit

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Amazing project. Any timelines set as yet? By the way, you might be interested in the links below. The idea is that desalination takes place in the greenhouse, its used to control humidity and for pest control - enables food production in very dry areas e.g. Somalia
http://www.seawaterg reenhouse.com/news.html
http://www.slideee.com/slide/c-paton-seawater-greenhouse-somalia-uk

Still working on timelines.

Thanks for the links!  These are super interesting - pgbit, do you have any affiliation with the project?

No I have no connection. I heard it about it on the radio, and looked it up! There was some mention of using a wind turbine to help control humidity / desalination process.

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

Amazing project. Any timelines set as yet? By the way, you might be interested in the links below. The idea is that desalination takes place in the greenhouse, its used to control humidity and for pest control - enables food production in very dry areas e.g. Somalia
http://www.seawaterg reenhouse.com/news.html
http://www.slideee.com/slide/c-paton-seawater-greenhouse-somalia-uk

Still working on timelines.

Thanks for the links!  These are super interesting - pgbit, do you have any affiliation with the project?

Offline pgbit

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Amazing project. Any timelines set as yet? By the way, you might be interested in the links below. The idea is that desalination takes place in the greenhouse, its used to control humidity and for pest control - enables food production in very dry areas e.g. Somalia
http://www.seawaterg reenhouse.com/news.html
http://www.slideee.com/slide/c-paton-seawater-greenhouse-somalia-uk

Offline Akado

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I find this AMAZING! Already signed in to receive any news and updates! One question just out of curiosity, will you be selling the hardware you show on your page so you can fund your DAC?

At some point - yes.  Right now our main focus is to get our team together by late February, initiate fundraising by mid spring, and begin development of the network and hardware by the summer of next year.

Okay. Im really excited about this! Wish you luck
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Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

I find this AMAZING! Already signed in to receive any news and updates! One question just out of curiosity, will you be selling the hardware you show on your page so you can fund your DAC?

At some point - yes.  Right now our main focus is to get our team together by late February, initiate fundraising by mid spring, and begin development of the network and hardware by the summer of next year.

Offline Akado

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I find this AMAZING! Already signed in to receive any news and updates! One question just out of curiosity, will you be selling the hardware you show on your page so you can fund your DAC?
https://metaexchange.info | Bitcoin<->Altcoin exchange | Instant | Safe | Low spreads

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

A fascinating article that applies to the operation of FTF (much thanks to Robrigo for pointing this one out to me):

When Your Sensor Earns Money: Exchanging Data for Cash with Bitcoin

This whitepaper is interesting to me in that it proposes "sensing-as-a-service".  This is in effect exactly what we're working on with FTF: sensing that increases the efficiency of food production and distribution in order to lower the cost [of food] to the consumer, decrease losses in food waste, decrease resource utilization, increase water utilization efficiency, decrease runoff/harmful environmental effects of traditional farming and much more.

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

Our website is updated as well, would love some feedback, especially the negative kind.

What can we do better?

http://futuretechfarm.com

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

Designing Company Culture

One of the things I've been adamant about since day 1 of founding this project, is designing a company culture - from the ground up - that empowers the team members to learn and achieve excellence in everything they do, inside and outside of work.

Below is a living document of ideas I've been scribbling down over the past few years for the culture we're striving to develop.  As we now begin our recruitment stage, I think it's important in publishing for feedback from potential team members (...could be you!)

[In no particular order, guiding principles and benefits]
  • The mission of Future Tech Farm: Re-associating the public consciousness of what farming SHOULD be.
  • Personal projects will be encouraged
  • Standard working hours do not apply - work when you want for however long you need.
  • Financials will be crypto-based for public audit-ability
  • Salaries will be paid in crypto
  • Interviews will occur at bars or on walks (or a combination of those options and more)
  • Opportunities will be abundant for learning & personal development (i.e. conference, seminars, etc... also applicable to personal projects)
  • Capitalistic and free market inter-office solutions will be encouraged (i.e. I'm designing a hammock rental "vending machine" in which I will design and install with a team of my own development; in doing do - I will have the ability to charge (for my personal profit) and control pricing unless consensus of the office determines otherwise)
  • Decisions will be made according to consensus whenever possible.
  • A leader-leader empowerment structure will be implemented (vs. a manager-follower power structure)
  • We're not Silicon Valley
  • "Peter's Laws" will be the creed of default decision-making unless an improved creed is developed by consensus
  • Fitness & Mental Health programs will be
  • Free Swag for instantaneous rewards and recognition.
  • Vacation when you need it - no approval necessary
  • Health Insurance
  • Investment Matching Program (NOT be confused with a "retirement plan" or 401k; this program will match investments on a 100% vesting implementation (matching percentage to be determined) to initiate after 1 year of service to the venture; can be paid in crypto, stocks, cash - whatever the team member would like for utilization in investing - even each other's personal projects!)
  • Open [front] door policy - family members always allowed.
  • Open and unrestricted work space
  • Preferred parking locations with complementary charging stations for EVs
  • Stock pantry with snacks / potential for chef
  • No drug testing - you will be evaluated by consensus on your work excellence and attitude alone
  • Anyone who enters the premises who is not employed by FTF will be greeted by an FTF team member with a large smile and a "Welcome to Future Tech Farm!"
  • Each team member will be responsible for sourcing their own business cards - to be reimbursed by FTF
  • FTF will provide a stipend for your workstation to cover the expenses of your computer of choice, monitor setup of choice and chair of choice.

**What are some of the best benefits or culture components you've ever had in a job that you don't see on this list?**


(*Note* Inspiration for this post comes directly from an integration of ideas from the following list of books:  Delivering Happiness, Start with Why, Leaders Eat Last, Turn the Ship Around!, & Zero To One)

-Brian

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n



Right there you solved the fraud problem. Let's say a farmer is faking the results he's tinkering with the sensors(there no way you can prevent that)so it will show that he's farming system is the most efficient. Now every farmer in the network will use that fake information but evidently it will not work. So how about, instead of paying dividends right a way the others farmers should confirm that information is genuine or not. Only if the information was working for say 30% of the farmer then you pay dividends. So in that way  there will be no incentives  to fake the results.

OK, so I register 1000 fake farmers and publish 1000 fake sensor results. Some of these will be successful and collect dividends. Rinse, repeat - my cost is near zero.

I think oco101 is on to something with the VOTE-like consensus. 

In any case - there would undoubtedly be a system in which what you are proposing wouldn't be feasible.  One that comes to mind for me is visual validation through optical sensors.


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Offline pc

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Right there you solved the fraud problem. Let's say a farmer is faking the results he's tinkering with the sensors(there no way you can prevent that)so it will show that he's farming system is the most efficient. Now every farmer in the network will use that fake information but evidently it will not work. So how about, instead of paying dividends right a way the others farmers should confirm that information is genuine or not. Only if the information was working for say 30% of the farmer then you pay dividends. So in that way  there will be no incentives  to fake the results.

OK, so I register 1000 fake farmers and publish 1000 fake sensor results. Some of these will be successful and collect dividends. Rinse, repeat - my cost is near zero.
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Offline oco101

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  I believe those who produce most efficiently should be paid dividends at a proportional rate of efficiency with respect to the rest of the network.  Therefore, the farmers who inject more resources into the network (share more information) - will see a greater return proportional to how much of the rest of the network uses that information.  As a whole - the entire autonomous food production platform will always strive in real time to grow as efficiently as physics allow.  Does that make sense?

Right there you solved the fraud problem. Let's say a farmer is faking the results he's tinkering with the sensors(there no way you can prevent that)so it will show that he's farming system is the most efficient. Now every farmer in the network will use that fake information but evidently it will not work. So how about, instead of paying dividends right a way the others farmers should confirm that information is genuine or not. Only if the information was working for say 30% of the farmer then you pay dividends. So in that way  there will be no incentives  to fake the results.
The way to do it in a blockchain probably will be akin to "Follow my vote" the farmers will vote if he sees that the information was useful for his system. I still don't see the need of a two tier approach or POG , what the farmers care is if the information help their systems to be more efficient.
« Last Edit: September 20, 2014, 04:49:52 pm by oco101 »

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

What kind of fraud are you thinking about?

In my mind - with regards to fraud - who's going to mess with their own food supply?  If the data the nodes is providing is useful, it will help the rest of the network.  If not - the information will not be utilized by very many nodes, or any at all.  The goal is to create an objective platform.

... I believe those who produce most efficiently should be paid dividends at a proportional rate of efficiency with respect to the rest of the network.  ...

There's your potential for fraud. If I can make your system *think* that I'm producing more efficiently (while I'm actually not producing anything at all, or maybe producing food tainted with non-organic and possibly toxic chemicals), I'll be rewarded with higher dividends.

That's a valid point - but what if the network consensus says certain sensors must be in place to validate utilization of nutrient solution makeup? (i.e. chemical detection system)  Perhaps a consensus mechanism can be implemented for auditing efficiency improvement claims.

I guess what we're searching for here is: What would be the mechanism to build in trustless-ness? 

Offline pc

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What kind of fraud are you thinking about?

In my mind - with regards to fraud - who's going to mess with their own food supply?  If the data the nodes is providing is useful, it will help the rest of the network.  If not - the information will not be utilized by very many nodes, or any at all.  The goal is to create an objective platform.

... I believe those who produce most efficiently should be paid dividends at a proportional rate of efficiency with respect to the rest of the network.  ...

There's your potential for fraud. If I can make your system *think* that I'm producing more efficiently (while I'm actually not producing anything at all, or maybe producing food tainted with non-organic and possibly toxic chemicals), I'll be rewarded with higher dividends.
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Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

I know nothing about farming so please bear with me. I see what you trying to achieve that will be great !! I still don't understand the mechanics of the system and the use of blockchain.
 

  • Farmers will need hardware systems to autonomously grow food (FTF is working on engineering these initial systems and they most definitely will be "application specific" ;) )

Can you expand on that. Can you give a example what that system will look like ?

Here is a concept we developed based on the Omega Volksgarden:
 

In reality - the way I believe it will really look like will be something like a rectangular room that is ~10'x10'x10' with a 3 axis gantry robot (or several) that will plant and harvest the food in a completely controlled environment, akin to a clean room. 


  • The first tier integration of a blockchain - I'm hypothesizing - would be to track and secure (through a public ledger) the production of every plant grown in the network (what an upgrade from farming today right?).  By "secure" I would define as the anonymous (or not) validation that: "this particular plant has been grown to standards as agreed upon by the consensus of the platform" (i.e. no detection of harmful chemicals founds (pesticides, fungicides, etc.); no disease witnessed during production cycle; etc.) 

How you gonna track all that ? I mean  how you gonna validate and how you gonna input it  on the blockchain ?  How could we prevent fraud ?

The tracking would occur through integrated sensory systems using pH sensors, C02 sensors, optical sensors, etc. - Let me be clear, this is going to be the toughest part of the project and I don't claim to know how it will work yet.  There is a lot of research that needs to occur.

I have no idea how this information would be input on a blockchain (OR if it's even necessary) - not my core competency and looking to the community for thoughts and ideas on this one...

What kind of fraud are you thinking about?

In my mind - with regards to fraud - who's going to mess with their own food supply?  If the data the nodes is providing is useful, it will help the rest of the network.  If not - the information will not be utilized by very many nodes, or any at all.  The goal is to create an objective platform.


  • The second tier integration of a blockchain would be with regards to monetization and incentive structure for the farmer's themselves.  As this would operate in the form factor of a decentralized neural network - there will inevitably nodes in the platform that are more efficient due to the input effort and knowledge of the corresponding farmer (THIS is where I believe the potential of a DAC TRULY exists.  It's a network that can operate incorruptibly, but enables the input of human resources that can be capitalized.)  I believe the network should objectively reward the most efficient farming systems as these are what the rest of the network nodes will strive to replicate and pull information from.

    How do we incentivize a structure that rewards farmers for sharing information to make food production orders of magnitude more efficient, orders of magnitude less expensive, orders of magnitude safer for consumption & the environment, and completely incorruptible? 

Don't understand the second tier at all. I don't see where is  the incentive  for a farmer to share any information.

I don't see the link between the two tier [/list]

Very good & difficult questions to answer - part of the reason behind starting this thread is to collect and organize my thoughts and get community feedback to help shape this project to the point of putting the idea into action.  Keep the questions coming! ;)

I'll start with regards to the multi-tier blockchain thoery:
It may not be the right approach - but I envision the process of growing to be on a separate blockchain because of the "Proof Of Growth" (POG) concept, similar to POW.  It would comparable to the mining process for bitcoin in which all mining rigs were useful in a way that all the energy pumped into the network were actually producing something useful; My thought process here is what if the POG algorithm were used for manufacturing (growing fresh food); and the DPOS algorithm were used for the payment system.  The variable I'm unsure about right now is which would be used to track & log the growth of each plant?

With regards to incentivizing farmers to share information:
oco101 - I'm going to assume you and I probably don't live very close to each other.  If we're both growing food - wouldn't it make sense for both of us to do that as efficiently as possible?  Utilizing a similar personal home grow system - if you're growing with a 50% reduction in growth cycle times (let's say you can grow in 30 days and I'm growing in 45 days) AND you have a higher yield compared to how my system is growing - I'm undoubtedly going to want my grow system to learn about whatever information your system is collecting to improve the production of food for myself and my family to save resources (namely time and money).  My hypothesis is the most efficient nodes are going to be those who's human input resources (via knowledge, testing, research, etc.) are greater than those of the less efficient nodes.  I believe those who produce most efficiently should be paid dividends at a proportional rate of efficiency with respect to the rest of the network.  Therefore, the farmers who inject more resources into the network (share more information) - will see a greater return proportional to how much of the rest of the network uses that information.  As a whole - the entire autonomous food production platform will always strive in real time to grow as efficiently as physics allow.  Does that make sense?

I *think* the constraining factor that must be met for this to occur is: the price of food for the least efficient nodes will still have to be less than what they would currently pay at the store today.

Offline oco101

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I know nothing about farming so please bear with me. I see what you trying to achieve that will be great !! I still don't understand the mechanics of the system and the use of blockchain.
 

  • Farmers will need hardware systems to autonomously grow food (FTF is working on engineering these initial systems and they most definitely will be "application specific" ;) )

Can you expand on that. Can you give a example what that system will look like ? 


  • The first tier integration of a blockchain - I'm hypothesizing - would be to track and secure (through a public ledger) the production of every plant grown in the network (what an upgrade from farming today right?).  By "secure" I would define as the anonymous (or not) validation that: "this particular plant has been grown to standards as agreed upon by the consensus of the platform" (i.e. no detection of harmful chemicals founds (pesticides, fungicides, etc.); no disease witnessed during production cycle; etc.) 

How you gonna track all that ? I mean  how you gonna validate and how you gonna input it  on the blockchain ?  How could we prevent fraud ?


  • The second tier integration of a blockchain would be with regards to monetization and incentive structure for the farmer's themselves.  As this would operate in the form factor of a decentralized neural network - there will inevitably nodes in the platform that are more efficient due to the input effort and knowledge of the corresponding farmer (THIS is where I believe the potential of a DAC TRULY exists.  It's a network that can operate incorruptibly, but enables the input of human resources that can be capitalized.)  I believe the network should objectively reward the most efficient farming systems as these are what the rest of the network nodes will strive to replicate and pull information from.

    How do we incentivize a structure that rewards farmers for sharing information to make food production orders of magnitude more efficient, orders of magnitude less expensive, orders of magnitude safer for consumption & the environment, and completely incorruptible? 

Don't understand the second tier at all. I don't see where is  the incentive  for a farmer to share any information.

I don't see the link between the two tier [/list]

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

So delulo asked me a question in a PM - I'm posting it here for others to think about (with his permission) and my response below.  I would love to generate conversation around the need, or not, for the production of physical items (specifically food) to have integrated blockchains.

Hey, can it be said (in short) why a DAC (decentralized ledger) is required for the robot food production idea you have?


Hey Delulo!

I *think* a DAC would be best suited for the monetization of a distributed food production platform and for securing the integrity (health safety) of the food produced. 

Looking for people who can help me prove whether its necessary or not.  I believe it is and I'm willing to put in the research to find out ;)


I may have missed the part where  you explain how exactly you intend to use the blockchain, is sound interesting but is  is still vague. Can you please explains the details a bit more ?

Definitely!

I think an easier way of describing what I'm thinking is to attempt to draw similarities between food production and bitcoin (specifically thinking about the mining process and the problem of centralization) in which Growing food = "mining". There are only a few companies that basically control the global food production (Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, BASF, Bayer, DOW, etc..) 

(Green = seed companies, White = chemical companies)

I envision the platform as a whole may operate in something like a 2 tier multi-chain blockchain implementation; whereas in similar fashion as currently applies to bitcoin through POW, I would call "Proof of Growth" POG (shout out to robrigo for coining the term during one of our chats on G+) for food production.  This first tier (POG) would be responsible for the tracking of the production and the physical output of food.  The second tier would be utilized for the monetization of the network in a profitable way utilizing BitShares as the backbone a la DPOS.

Breaking it down in further detail:
  • Farmers will need hardware systems to autonomously grow food (FTF is working on engineering these initial systems and they most definitely will be "application specific" ;) )
  • The first tier integration of a blockchain - I'm hypothesizing - would be to track and secure (through a public ledger) the production of every plant grown in the network (what an upgrade from farming today right?).  By "secure" I would define as the anonymous (or not) validation that: "this particular plant has been grown to standards as agreed upon by the consensus of the platform" (i.e. no detection of harmful chemicals founds (pesticides, fungicides, etc.); no disease witnessed during production cycle; etc.) 
  • The second tier integration of a blockchain would be with regards to monetization and incentive structure for the farmer's themselves.  As this would operate in the form factor of a decentralized neural network - there will inevitably nodes in the platform that are more efficient due to the input effort and knowledge of the corresponding farmer (THIS is where I believe the potential of a DAC TRULY exists.  It's a network that can operate incorruptibly, but enables the input of human resources that can be capitalized.)  I believe the network should objectively reward the most efficient farming systems as these are what the rest of the network nodes will strive to replicate and pull information from.
The problem I'm striving to solve is: 
Food production is controlled by only a handful of companies (called an Agropoly - Here is GREAT resource I just found: http://www.econexus.info/sites/econexus/files/Agropoly_Econexus_BerneDeclaration_wide-format.pdf). 

How do we incentivize a structure that rewards farmers for sharing information to make food production orders of magnitude more efficient, orders of magnitude less expensive, orders of magnitude safer for consumption & the environment, and completely incorruptible? 

I believe, the answer is in blockchains.  Thoughts?

Offline oco101

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So delulo asked me a question in a PM - I'm posting it here for others to think about (with his permission) and my response below.  I would love to generate conversation around the need, or not, for the production of physical items (specifically food) to have integrated blockchains.

Hey, can it be said (in short) why a DAC (decentralized ledger) is required for the robot food production idea you have?


Hey Delulo!

I *think* a DAC would be best suited for the monetization of a distributed food production platform and for securing the integrity (health safety) of the food produced. 

Looking for people who can help me prove whether its necessary or not.  I believe it is and I'm willing to put in the research to find out ;)


I may have missed the part where  you explain how exactly you intend to use the blockchain, is sound interesting but is  is still vague. Can you please explains the details a bit more ? 

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

So delulo asked me a question in a PM - I'm posting it here for others to think about (with his permission) and my response below.  I would love to generate conversation around the need, or not, for the production of physical items (specifically food) to have integrated blockchains.

Hey, can it be said (in short) why a DAC (decentralized ledger) is required for the robot food production idea you have?


Hey Delulo!

I *think* a DAC would be best suited for the monetization of a distributed food production platform and for securing the integrity (health safety) of the food produced. 

Looking for people who can help me prove whether its necessary or not.  I believe it is and I'm willing to put in the research to find out ;)


Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

Brian- I cannot wait to see this vision come to life. You guys have been working hard on Future Tech Farm for years now and it is great to see the tools needed to develop the "technical backbone" for such an autonomous food production system starting to come into existence with the rapid and continuing innovations happening in the blockchain space. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the Adept platform looks like and how it simplifies distributed IoT systems.

And man, talk about "big fish"! I will definitely support your crowd funding for the mastermind group, not only because introducing a bunch of forward thinking entrepreneurs to the DAC metaphor is never a bad thing; but also because I think both of these systems is a HUGE step towards equalization of standards of living across the globe. Let's change the world!

Thanks robrigo! 
I can't wait to introduce the DAC metaphor and get people even more excited about BitShares

Just met with a videographer/designer yesterday - we're aiming to put together a video by the end of Oct (hopefully sooner) to launch via Kickstarter or Indiegogo. 

Do you guys think we should focus on raising funds for the sponsorship to the summit alone or just a general pitch for FTF (with the potential to raise additional funds)?  What kind of incentives would you be interested in if you were to support?


Offline GaltReport

What about a more "efficient" robot wife and/or mistress?  How about more obedient manufactured children? 

Do you want to re-engineer just food or people as well?  Oh, I forgot, soylent green is made from PEOPLE!! LOL

You joke, but there will almost certainly be sex robots and robotic pets in the future (and lots of demand for them). But those tools aren't going to replace the love of a real family, just like efficient nutrient delivery won't replace the desire for humans to at least have some of their meals be natural foods (caveat: that is not necessarily true but let's just pretend that is the case to avoid getting too sci-fi). These technologies only create more options for people not less.

I think I will stop continuing the discussion along this path at the risk of derailing this topic as well. I don't even want to get into topics of transhumanism and artificial intelligence. If you are this bothered by Soylent, I can only imagine your reaction to those topics.

I'm not against all such things as it might sound.  I'm a sucker for tech...(that's how they'll lure me into the camps I'm sure...promises of high-speed internet, big screen tv, personal robot...lol).  I just know it can be  a slippery slope and can be used to serve malevolent agendas....so I'm cautious. :) 

In a way you could say I already take a version of "soylent".  I'm a big supplement taker and belong to the Life Extension Foundation.  I'm half way there!!  ;D

For a maybe contrary view on transhumanism this is an interesting article someone wrote on my site sometime ago.  He was very concerned about the roots of and potential misuses of this technology:

http://www.galtreport.com/index.php/politics/commentary/item/653-you-will-be-assimilated

Okay, I'm out for now. 
« Last Edit: September 17, 2014, 01:35:29 am by GaltReport »

Offline arhag

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What about a more "efficient" robot wife and/or mistress?  How about more obedient manufactured children? 

Do you want to re-engineer just food or people as well?  Oh, I forgot, soylent green is made from PEOPLE!! LOL

You joke, but there will almost certainly be sex robots and robotic pets in the future (and lots of demand for them). But those tools aren't going to replace the love of a real family, just like efficient nutrient delivery won't replace the desire for humans to at least have some of their meals be natural foods (caveat: that is not necessarily true but let's just pretend that is the case to avoid getting too sci-fi). These technologies only create more options for people not less.

I think I will stop continuing the discussion along this path at the risk of derailing this topic as well. I don't even want to get into topics of transhumanism and artificial intelligence. If you are this bothered by Soylent, I can only imagine your reaction to those topics.

Offline GaltReport

This is a joke right?  You will have to pry my grass fed steak from my cold dead hands!!

Well, this is all voluntary. No one is going to grab it from your cold dead hands. You can keep eating the grass fed steak as long as you can afford it. In fact, I would imagine more people would afford to switch from the cheaper steaks they eat today to grass fed steaks since the cost of the rest of their meals could drop significantly.

Oh, that's good.  It's always voluntary...in the begining...:) 

Offline GaltReport

What about a more "efficient" robot wife and/or mistress?  How about more obedient manufactured children? 

Do you want to re-engineer just food or people as well?  Oh, I forgot, soylent green is made from PEOPLE!! LOL


Offline arhag

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This is a joke right?  You will have to pry my grass fed steak from my cold dead hands!!

Well, this is all voluntary. No one is going to grab it from your cold dead hands. You can keep eating the grass fed steak as long as you can afford it. In fact, I would imagine more people would afford to switch from the cheaper steaks they eat today to grass fed steaks since the cost of the rest of their meals could drop significantly.

Offline arhag

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I really like the concept and execution of Soylent!  My first hypothesis would be perhaps it could work supplementary to fresh food.  I can envision that at some point in the future, we'll be wearing sensors that can notify us of missing nutrients and can relay to a robotic mixer that will prepare a final meal for the day that "fills in all the nutritional gaps" from your otherwise normal diet.  I think we all have days where we don't eat an ideal concentration or amount of nutrients and are, or are not, aware of the physiological performance deficits.   

I believe there's a certain psychological connection people have developed with the form factor and tastes of particular foods.  I believe Soylent has the potential to replace meals for those who want, or aren't bother by, the user experience drinking all their nutrients.  Personally, I just love the first bite of a freshly picked spinach leaf - something I don't believe will be replicable in a way that would make sense to replace the real thing.

I agree. Mostly because I don't think people could stand going on it 100% (perhaps that would be acceptable for some military operations though). Food is very pleasurable. But I can envision a future where people have less of their meals as the typical foods they currently eat and instead bifurcate to fresh gourmet high-quality meals for some of the meals of the week and fill in the rest of their nutritional gaps with something like Soylent (perhaps like you said custom tuned to your particular needs for that day based on internal bio-sensors that communicate your needs to the robotic mixer).

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

I am not claiming we know everything about nutrition. My only claim is that we cannot learn more without scientific experimentation. To the extent people are voluntarily willing to try these sorts of diets that have very precise measurements of the nutrients contained within, we can learn a lot about what we still do not know about the human body's needs. That is after all how we learned about so many vitamins (people suffered from malnutrition because their diet wasn't giving them the essential vitamins they needed, and it was only after investigating the reason behind their suffering that we were able to learn that fact and improve our understanding of the biology).

I agree with this perspective.

Offline GaltReport

... still big farms have a WAY higher *efficiency* .. just consider the big machines they can use .. and efficiency is an important issue when it comes to energy supply and the second law of thermodynamics (i.e. global warming)

Good point Xeroc - I agree energy supply is an important factor, but I don't believe its isolated on just the farms.  In the U.S. food is shipped, on average, about 1900 miles from the source of production. 

Going off on a tangent here, but there are also a lot of REALLY big issues I have with the sheer volume of pesticides, insecticides, and fungicides being dumped over the plants that are inevitably accelerating climate change and damaging ecosystems.  I don't have issues with GMO's (again, technologically objective perspective); what I do have an issue with is why GMO's are developed, enabling monopolies to force the ever increasing usage of harmful chemicals.

I also believe this goes beyond efficiencies.  I was catching drinks with my boss last night and he brought up a really good point; do we really know what we're putting into our bodies?  Like really??  I would love to know 100% exactly what inorganic materials and what ratios of those materials make up the plant matter I'm ingesting.  I would also like to have the assurance that I'm not ingesting chemicals "known to the state of California" to cause cancer.  And I'd like fresh strawberries when there's a foot of snow outside.  Or heirloom tomatoes.  Or arugula where the flavor profile is dialed in just right.

This is just the tip of the ice berg with what's possible and I say we bring back the flavor first and foremost. :-D

My intention is not at all to diminish what you are doing. It sounds really cool. But I am interested to see what your thoughts are on something like Soylent? I mean in some sense it is a very depressing way forward for humanity. People enjoy eating fresh natural food. But there is a lot of efficiency to be gained by taking advantage of economies of scale to farm nutrients and then convert the nutrition into a form that can travel really well over long distances without spoiling. And I don't even think it would need to travel that far. Someday in the future, it could be possible to grow the nutrients in well-controlled, large bio-factories powered by nuclear power located not too far away from major population centers.

And I am confident there will always be ample demand for fresh, natural foods for the purpose of luxury and pleasure. But if that becomes something more like a twice a week thing, people could afford to pay higher prices for the better-quality (compared to what most people eat today that is) natural foods. And it is still not clear to me why the economies of scale provided by centralization wouldn't make the high quality foods cheaper than the decentralized alternative. Or is the case that the decentralization is worth the cost for the security it provides families, since food is essential to living? But then you also need to decentralize the other dependencies necessary to grow the food and keep people alive and satisfied: power, water, waste management, mesh networks. Otherwise, not being dependent on centralized institutions for food is kind of meaningless when you are still dependent on them for your electricity/gas and water supply.

Arhag, that's a very good question - I really like the concept and execution of Soylent!  My first hypothesis would be perhaps it could work supplementary to fresh food.  I believe there's a certain psychological connection people have developed with the form factor and tastes of particular foods.  I believe Soylent has the potential to replace meals for those who want, or aren't bother by, the user experience drinking all their nutrients.  Personally, I just love the first bite of a freshly picked spinach leaf - something I don't believe will be replicable in a way that would make sense to replace the real thing.

If somebody would like to fund it - I will publicly try Soylent for 30 days and comment on my own experience.

This is a joke right?  You will have to pry my grass fed steak from my cold dead hands!!

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

... still big farms have a WAY higher *efficiency* .. just consider the big machines they can use .. and efficiency is an important issue when it comes to energy supply and the second law of thermodynamics (i.e. global warming)

Good point Xeroc - I agree energy supply is an important factor, but I don't believe its isolated on just the farms.  In the U.S. food is shipped, on average, about 1900 miles from the source of production. 

Going off on a tangent here, but there are also a lot of REALLY big issues I have with the sheer volume of pesticides, insecticides, and fungicides being dumped over the plants that are inevitably accelerating climate change and damaging ecosystems.  I don't have issues with GMO's (again, technologically objective perspective); what I do have an issue with is why GMO's are developed, enabling monopolies to force the ever increasing usage of harmful chemicals.

I also believe this goes beyond efficiencies.  I was catching drinks with my boss last night and he brought up a really good point; do we really know what we're putting into our bodies?  Like really??  I would love to know 100% exactly what inorganic materials and what ratios of those materials make up the plant matter I'm ingesting.  I would also like to have the assurance that I'm not ingesting chemicals "known to the state of California" to cause cancer.  And I'd like fresh strawberries when there's a foot of snow outside.  Or heirloom tomatoes.  Or arugula where the flavor profile is dialed in just right.

This is just the tip of the ice berg with what's possible and I say we bring back the flavor first and foremost. :-D

My intention is not at all to diminish what you are doing. It sounds really cool. But I am interested to see what your thoughts are on something like Soylent? I mean in some sense it is a very depressing way forward for humanity. People enjoy eating fresh natural food. But there is a lot of efficiency to be gained by taking advantage of economies of scale to farm nutrients and then convert the nutrition into a form that can travel really well over long distances without spoiling. And I don't even think it would need to travel that far. Someday in the future, it could be possible to grow the nutrients in well-controlled, large bio-factories powered by nuclear power located not too far away from major population centers.

And I am confident there will always be ample demand for fresh, natural foods for the purpose of luxury and pleasure. But if that becomes something more like a twice a week thing, people could afford to pay higher prices for the better-quality (compared to what most people eat today that is) natural foods. And it is still not clear to me why the economies of scale provided by centralization wouldn't make the high quality foods cheaper than the decentralized alternative. Or is the case that the decentralization is worth the cost for the security it provides families, since food is essential to living? But then you also need to decentralize the other dependencies necessary to grow the food and keep people alive and satisfied: power, water, waste management, mesh networks. Otherwise, not being dependent on centralized institutions for food is kind of meaningless when you are still dependent on them for your electricity/gas and water supply.

Arhag, that's a very good question - I really like the concept and execution of Soylent!  My first hypothesis would be perhaps it could work supplementary to fresh food.  I can envision that at some point in the future, we'll be wearing sensors that can notify us of missing nutrients and can relay to a robotic mixer that will prepare a final meal for the day that "fills in all the nutritional gaps" from your otherwise normal diet.  I think we all have days where we don't eat an ideal concentration or amount of nutrients and are, or are not, aware of the physiological performance deficits.   

I believe there's a certain psychological connection people have developed with the form factor and tastes of particular foods.  I believe Soylent has the potential to replace meals for those who want, or aren't bother by, the user experience drinking all their nutrients.  Personally, I just love the first bite of a freshly picked spinach leaf - something I don't believe will be replicable in a way that would make sense to replace the real thing.

If somebody would like to fund it - I will publicly try Soylent for 30 days and comment on my own experience.



« Last Edit: September 17, 2014, 12:29:10 am by G1ng3rBr34dM4n »

Offline G1ng3rBr34dM4n

Original discussion initiated here: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=8933.msg115977#msg115977

Future Tech Farm is a decentralized autonomous food production platform.  This will be one of the first DACs implemented for the production of physical goods, focusing on fresh produce.

Co-founded by Brian Falther & Austin Lawrence
http://futuretechfarm.com

Currently in team build out phase to initiate research & development.

Original Post content:
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2020: A Call For DApps & DAO's

http://koinify.com/blog/2020-a-call-for-dapps-and-daos/

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Hey guys,

We're writing to share with you our vision of how we see the future, and where we see this decentralized application industry taking us. With the 2020: A Call For DApps & DAO's - we lay out where we see these companies going, and what we believe will foster development, growth, and adoption of this technology as a whole.

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Hey Tom!  Welcome to the BitShares community  :)

I'll take this opportunity to share my vision of a DAC I've been working on.

My name is Brian Falther and I believe from now through the next couple of decades, we're going to see the emergence of DACs for the production of physical items.  I think one way to think about it could be "the internet of things 2.0" or what I've been referring to in conversations with close friends as "the blockchain of things" movement (...there's already evidence that others are thinking about this too - IBM's proposed Adept platform).  I'm super excited to see the 'physical infrastructure' section on your blog post!

The DAC we're working on is a decentralized autonomous food production platform called Future Tech Farm.  This analogy is still fresh, so let me know if it makes sense: it's like Uber, but for farming.  We want to build a platform where anyone can be a farmer without any geographic, or knowledge-based prerequisites.  Our goal is to enable anyone to grow food for themselves, their family, and properly incentivize them to grow for others too.  Imagine hyper-local produce delivered via drones to your doorstep for less than what you'd pay at Walmart with higher quality than what you'd find at Whole Foods.  We believe this is the point in history where farming will follow what the computer industry did in the 50's & 60's; from large mainframes with umbilical-corded terminals to PCs... same analogy for farming.  This is the first time in history its becoming technologically and economically feasible.

The concept is based upon this fact I believe to be true:  If food production existed solely on technology (which is developing at an exponential rate and eliminates all uncontrolled variables, like weather); the cost of growing food will be that of electricity.  If anyone else is a Singularitist like myself, you'd agree with the hypothesis of the law of accelerating returns which will enable the cost of electricity to continually approach zero until it's too cheap to meter. 

Here's the end game: What would the world be like if food were essentially free and required no human labor inputs?  My hypothesis is there will be a massive amount of cognitive surplus to work on developing creativity-based solutions (something computer don't quite do well yet...).  People would have the opportunity to work on what they want to do, not work a job they don't like because they HAVE to, in order to put food on the table...     

Not everyone will agree with me but I believe farming to be one of the most broken industries in existence today.  The vast majority of food isn't being grown for taste or nutrition anymore - it's being grown to travel (at the unnecessary expense of precious resources).   

I'd be happy to go into further detail about the platform may potentially operate, but the basics are as follows:
  • People will autonomously grow their own fresh produce in a home grow system (size will range from 'desktop' to scalable, modular & expandable systems the size of large rooms or a basement)
  • Each personal home grow system will be outfitted with a sensory system collecting data from every variable needed to grow
  • Every node will be connected to each other and each node on the network will be constantly striving to be as efficient as the most efficient node in the network (a machine learning neural network with a positive feedback loop)
  • Monetization, incentives, & tracking/security of the food produced will be logged with blockchains

The UX would be something like an Amazon Fresh front end and food would be delivered to (or harvested directly at) your living space, exactly when you need it.

After searching for over 2 years on how this system may be able to monitor and track the network at scale, AND has the ability to monetize & incentivize the bootstrapping of the network; I landed on bitcoin and blockchain technology. ...As a technologically objective engineer - I quickly found my way to the BitShares community and the rest - is history [in the making]  ;D.  Much like BitShares, we're looking to create an industry that solves problems for billions of people.  Over the next 3-5 years, we'll be engineering the initial hardware development for the grow systems and bootstrap the development of the network to bring it online.  I imagine many many opportunities for embedded systems startups to work in the space. 

My background is Mechanical Engineering, my co-founder is also a mechanical engineer currently working on his Master's in Robotics at Northwestern.  We're in the active mode of putting together a world-class team to begin operating in stealth.  There isn't a doubt in my mind that BitShares (both the technology and the community) will play a very large role in realizing this vision.  If you'd like to learn more about myself, my co-founder and our progress over the past few years, check out: http://www.futuretechfarm.com/about/#founders.  There are a couple of videos of public pitches we've made, along with some of the details from our early investors & pre-seed funding.  We're working on building out the roadmap for our seed round of funding now.  I would love to initiate conversation about working with the BitShares community, and core dev team, to do so through the BitShares ecosystem within the next year.  Any questions - feel free to send me a PM, e-mail (contact info on website), or shoot a tweet to @brianfalther or @futuretechfarm. I'd also be more than happy to chat on Google Hangout, Skype, or the BitShares mumble server.

To give you an idea with where we're at now, the most recent development for FTF is with regards to continuing the next phase build out of our team.  I'm a big fan of Peter Diamandis and the work he has done.  Peter has developed a mastermind group of entrepreneurs and exponential thinkers from all over the world who meet each year in January to discuss emerging technologies and philosophies that will change the world as we know it.  The name of this group is called Abundance 360 (here's the website: http://abundance360summit.com/ - Apply! I'm sure many of you would also be a great fit).  I sent in my application a few weeks back, went through an interview last week, and was accepted.  I don't personally have the money to pay for the membership and make the trip, but will be crowdfunding my way there (keep an eye out in the near future... I'll be looking for sponsors!)  I know if I can get in front of Peter and his network of insane connections; we'll be able to put together the dream team needed to make this a reality.  There's also the added benefit of this year's summit having a module & discussion based entirely on bitcoin and blockchain tech - I'm SURE I can get in front of a crowd and speak about BitShares.

Peter was kind enough to make a personalized response to me too!
https://vimeo.com/106199286


If this resonates with anyone and you're interested in working with us - let me know!  My co-founder and I would love to have a conversation with you (we meet online weekly on Tuesdays at 8pm eastern - we'd be happy for you to jump into our hangout and chat about ideas and progress; BYOB)

Tom - if you'd be willing to cover what we're working on through Koinify, give me a shout! 

-Brian

TLDR; Robots, autonomously growing food for the whole world, based on blockchain tech.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2014, 04:39:29 pm by G1ng3rBr34dM4n »