Cloudscape

As machines become more advanced, more and more humans lose their jobs as machines replace them, until only creative jobs will be left, but there will likely also be a time when machines may also become creative. However, as and when our computers become creative, they will become part of ourselves and so of our own species, for either we will already have found a way of uniting them with our own brain, or we would set these computers to the one task of finding a way to do so until they would, since this would be the most important thing we would need at this point.
There might be a chance that by this time, many people who remained unemployed would have become so decadent that they would no longer care to set these computers to any other task than to find better ways of stimulating the pleasure centers of their brain, but, fortunately, they would be in the hands of the scientists that invented them, and they would certainly choose otherwise.
Thus, even if humans and computers will not yet have united by the time that computers become creative, humans will still be needed for creativity until then, and, because creativity gives meaning to life and our need for meaning is so great, then as soon as they are more creative than we are ourselves, they would be fully focussed on the task of enabling us to have their creativity by unifying them with our brain.
As long as computers are not conscious, our own lives as humans could still have meaning, and as soon as they would become conscious, we would become one with them. In a time when the only work that is left is creative, everyone could likely achieve an equal level of creativity through cognotechnology, as the creativity of someone altered through that time's cognotechnology would be vastly greater than that of anyone who has ever lived anyway. This does not mean that everyone would become identical, however, as there are infinitely many ways of being creative; these need not be scientific or artistic, as they can also be social.
By the time when man and machine will become one, both will be quite different from what they are now. Machines will no longer be the contraptions we see today, as their machinery, just as our own, will entirely have advanced to molecular levels, whereas men will no longer be the animals that we are now, as our abilities will have advanced to cosmic levels. Machines will become more like organisms in structure as they achieve nanotechnological levels, as they will then make more use of analogous media like chemistry, rather than relying only on black-and-white digital media as they do now. Meanwhile, men will also become more like machines in power, as they, as well, integrate aspects of their mechanical counterparts into their bodies. Our computers will become subtler and more complex, whereas we will become stronger and more skillful.
It would seem that a unification of man and machine would make society shift further towards the material and away from the spiritual, but the opposite is true. Our spiritual as well as our material world will grow, but they will also grow toward one another. It's just that spiritual evolution comes more subtle than material evolution.
Moreover, when man and machine will become one, we will still have use for our biological aspects as well as of our electronic aspects, as both have their own unique qualities. Both man and machine will keep evolving, and either evolution will help the other, but both evolutions will themselves unify.
The unification of man and machine is only one aspect of a greater unification, that of mind and matter. Our power to change reality becomes so great that reality becomes like a dream, while virtual reality become so immersive as to become like reality.

When communism rose in the previous century, as is now clear, it was much too early for the world to be ready for it, and thus it remains to this day. The failure of communism has shown that people are too self-centered for it to work, and unless people change, it can never work. People work out of necessity or out of greed, but not out of love, at least for now.

Communism is bound either to fall or turn into despotism as long as it is not the choice of the people themselves, and because of this, the communism we have seen so far has little to do with its actual ideals. Nonetheless, it is probable that communism will be the next step in the evolution of society, though in another form than is seen today. However, today, it is still too soon for us to take that step.

Every kind of government has its place in the evolution of society, and when it is time for one to succeed the other, this happens almost spontaneously, not through revolution. There was a time that democracy could not have succeeded, or even republicanism. When a nation tries to get ahead of itself in this evolution, it is bound to turn either into despotism or into anarchy, and so evolution is usually the best way of change.

In the beginning of this evolution, despotism is the only viable government: at this time, republicanism cannot or barely succeed, as there is too little cooperation between people for it to work. At this point, cooperation must be imposed by a despot. It is crude, but the only thing that works at this point. Without a single ruling power, everyone would become a despot. There is, fortunately, the mercy that the worst despots are often the quickest to be overthrown by the people.

Every society begins in anarchy, and, if it lives long enough, it eventually ends in anarchy, in much the same form, but on a larger scale. Anarchy is viable in the beginning of the formation of a society, when people still live in small clans, which are much alike to a large family. Sometimes, these clans are communistic. Superficially, it seems that these clans are more cooperative than most societies, but this is only so because they are so small; so small, in fact, that every or almost every member of the clan usually knows every other. As these groups grow, this level of cooperation is no longer possible, because although they may be cooperative towards people they know, they are quite uncooperative towards strangers. The people of a clan are so little used to strangers that they will often kill them on sight. Wars between neighboring clans are frequent. If the people of ten clans were put into one tribe overnight, most would be dead before long.

There is a lot of cooperation in early societies, but little cooperativeness. The cooperativeness in societies grows as they evolve, until they eventually achieve the level of democracy and eventually (though this has never happened so far) anarcho-communism. So far, however, anarcho-communism is not feasible, as people have yet to achieve the level of unity for it to work.

However, we live in a world were everything is being automatized through robotics and informatics. This is already posing problems in many developed capitalistic countries as more and more people become (or remain) unemployed as they are being replaced by computers. Because of this, many countries already find themselves to be forced into a compromise between capitalism and communism, in which unemployed people receive benefits during the time they are unemployed.

As work in the primary and secondary sector continues to be automatized, and not everyone can or wants to work in the tertiary sector, more and more people will become unemployed. Eventually, the rate of unemployment will become so high that it can no longer be resolved in any sensible way, forcing the government into offering people benefits in order to help them survive.

With the trend of robotization, it is only a matter of time before we achieve a state where our necessities are provided for automatically or largely so, and so become almost free. Eventually, it will be possible to produce anything through software, and since software can be duplicated freely, this will mean that all necessities will be available in sufficient amounts without any work being done. In such a society, it would be nonsensical to still pay for software, as everyone could as well have all software there is if no one asked money for it. In a society where everyone has enough to survive and where software offers so many possibilities, many people will see software (which by then would encompass all art, science, and culture of civilization) as being more important than money. It only takes a certain percentage of the population to believe this before the system collapses, all the more because many of these people would themselves be artists and programmers. The more people would believe spiritual values to be more important than material ones, the more the capitalistic system would be subverted, and software would be hacked and shared illegally. Moreover, artists and programmers who would be of this view would release their works for for free, so that, eventually, those who would still charge for their works would be likely to be ignored, all the more because their work would be motivated purely out of greed, rather than out of love, and therefore be seen as being of lower quality. It is therefore inevitable that, at this stage, software would become free or practically free.

The need for socialism will increase with unemployment, and eventually, artists, scientists and social workers will be the only people left to be employed. Most scientists, many social workers and some artists (in some countries) are already being paid by the state, but in future, all will depend on the state for payment. For now, scientists, artists and social workers are still required to work in order to be paid, but this is only because much of their work is not fully creative and involves routine. However, as the routine component of their work will eventually be done by computers (robot scientists already exist for genetic research, for instance, as do computer programs for educations), only the creative and social components will be left, and neither can be done on demand. Ideas come best when they are not forced, which is the only thing scientists (and, of course, artists) will still be needed for, and the same counts for compassion, which is what social workers will still be needed for. When I say creativity, I'm not talking about the ability to remember the right idea at the right time, but the ability to think of new, unique ideas that have never been used before, as anything less can be done by computers. With compassion, I'm not talking about commitment, patience or politesse, but genuine and heartfelt sympathy, as, again, anything less can be done by computers. Attempting to enforce creativity will lead to loss of inspiration. Attempting to enforce compassion will lead to detachment (as is seen in many psychologists and psychiatrists today). Either how, the best ideas will come from people who seek them because of their passion for the idea, not from people who seek them because they must. The same counts for compassion. The true scientists, social workers and artists of the future will not need money as an incentive to work. Those that would, would be incompetent anyway.

Obviously, the unemployment would also put many people before the problem of finding meaning in their lives, or rather, it would confront them with that problem which was already there, now they could no longer seek distraction in vacuous mind-numbing routine. By and by, people would learn to find meaning either in love or some form of creativity.

Uncreative people who would want to become more creative could be made more creative through cognotechnology (technology applied on cognition). Because of the significance cognotechnology will have on humanity, it is extremely important that everyone be given equal chances, and here, we are once more faced with a need for socialism: the means of cognotechnology should be equally allocated among those who desire it, for if this does not happen, a disastrous technological divide will result which is so great that, over time, humanity itself would actually split up into two separate groups, one being vastly more intelligent than the other. The intelligent group would become more successful, so acquire increased access to cognotechnology, and so forth. Of course, the more intelligent group would eventually realize the necessity to give the other group equal chances.

In the past, communism has failed because the interests of the individual are capitalistic. In future, capitalism will fail because the interests of the individual will be communistic.

The reason why illegal downloading is so common, aside from the fact that it is very easy to do, is that there is little or no moral inhibition against it. This is not only because the chance of being caught is smaller, but also, and mostly, because the thief does not take anything away from the owner, but merely refuses to give them anything for their work: the owner remains unaffected by the thief. This is worsened by the fact that most software products are sold by large firms, so that if the individual does buy the product, it makes no difference to the firm, as the payment is spread over a large number of people, so that each receives only a very small sum, and only the payment of an equally large number of people will make a difference to them; whereas, if it is paid to another individual, it does make a difference to him or her. Also, because the payment usually happens via Internet, it is made not through a person, but rather to an impersonal website. The firm is a mere concept to the thief, and does not concern him or her at all.
Meanwhile, because they can be duplicated freely, more and more people program freeware applications, which replace the vast majority of non-freeware applications programmed by individuals, so that only the applications programmed by large firms remain unavailable as freeware. Because people become used to getting software for free, they will be all the more reluctant to pay for other software.
Also, the laws of software ownership are also becomes more and more ambiguous, causing people to regard them as irrelevant. For instance, one can legally watch most popular movies and listen to most popular music on a large number of websites, including Youtube and Megavideo, and one can even legally record music from the Internet using legal applications, such as Audio Hijack or SoundFlower, or record videos using applications which are also legal, such Windows Media Recorder.
. Meanwhile, one can also legally upload or download books or articles.
Illegal downloading is becoming so prevalent that it becomes very hard to take measures against it, and even would we succeed in bringing all illegal downloaders to justice, this would mean that we'd have to imprison one third of the population and ruin another third with fines.
Perhaps this means that it is time we find another system, which pays designers and artists fixed regular sums based on the quality of their work. On the other hand, one might also argue that this is unnecessary, as only popular software is readily available for illegal downloading, and the producers of that software have already earned a lot of money with that software anyway, and so all artists and designers still have a chance of earning enough money.
If, however, illegal downloading continues to become more popular, it will soon become unmanageable. Unfortunately, it is very hard to control illegal downloading, as anyone who possesses software can also duplicate it. The only way anything can be done about this is by protecting the software, though this is only feasible for applications. Most "killer applications" have effective protections, but for most of these applications, and almost all of the popular ones, this can relatively easily be surmounted through "cracks," especially for the Windows operating system.
However, for music and movies, it is probably already too late, since YouTube is far too popular to be closed down, and closing it down would result in general outrage among the population. Eventually, it will likely become possible to upload entire movies in full resolution, so that, aside from philanthropism, the only reason people might still prefer to buy the movies would be because it might feel more quaint. The money earned through cinematography would be reduced mostly to the revenues of movie theatres, and the money earned through music would be reduced mostly to the revenues of life performances. Obviously, if we allow this to happen, then artists will need to depend on subsidies. Only applications might still have a chance of escaping the same fate.

"The first step was covering the subject: first of all, [the nanorobots] layered themselves thickly on the surface, in the case of a person leaving only the eyes uncovered; then, they extended their outer walls; then, they connected them, so that they blocked out all light. The second step was scanning: first, they scanned the ambient light; then, they calculated where the light would go if it were unhindered; then, they transmitted the information of the ambient light to right nanorobots. The final step was invisibility: first, the outermost layers of nanorobots filled the interior of their outer walls with a special chemical; then, they caused it to luminesce with a certain hue and brightness. This hue and brightness was the same as that of the background, so that the surface could become almost invisible.

This was much like the chameleon effect, but the camouflage was perfect. The main problem with this was that this was observer-dependent: from different angles the camouflage had to look different as the background also looked different. This required a technique known as integral imaging. This allowed different images were sent in different angles, sometimes up to dozens, so that from whatever direction one looked, the subject would be invisible. Because the nanorobots were so small, this was not a problem if one had enough of them."

From Tempest II: The Novans

This is, of course, science-fiction, and therefore rather extreme: still, I believe that in reality, integral imaging might still possibly be used as a means of achieving invisibility, although perhaps not on a cloak made entirely of nanorobots.

"The exterior of the nanorobots could consist partly or entirely of compartments which could be flipped, so that either side could face either the inside or the outside of the machine. In this way, the exterior of the nanorobot could rapidly be changed to another material present in the storage of the nanorobot (if such were present): the plates of the material were deposited on one side of these compartments, which then flipped, upon which nanomagnets guided it to their appointed position. If the material was already magnetic, only one was needed, on the inside of the wall. Otherwise, the material was itself equipped with a second nanomagnet.
This process was then repeated at such extreme rapidity as is typical of such small scales, so that the nanorobots could change their exterior surprisingly quickly in this way. Other nanorobots had their exterior made entirely of these "doors," so that the process could be instantaneous."

From Tempest II: The Novans

Perhaps police in pursuit of vehicles could employ small parachutes to break the momentum of the criminals being pursued, storing the parachute in a projectile attached to a kind of harpoon, which would be fired at the vehicle and open the parachute as soon as its barbs are attached into the vehicle.

Alternatively, the harpoon could be attached to a crank on the top of the pursuing vehicle, which could then brake or drive in the opposite direction to stop the vehicle, so that it would act somewhat like a winch. In analogy with the system of a retractable leash, the winch could then still be retracted, but not lengthened, so that, should the pursued vehicle brake or slow down, the pursuer would not lose control over the vehicle while driving in the opposite direction. Obviously, someone else should be present to arrest the criminals. Should they exit the car, the cable could be detached through a remotely electronic cable joint, so that the pursuing car could continue to pursue them.

Envision microscopic permanent supermagnets dissolved in water, coated with a material which adheres to water and having a microarchitecture which furthers its absorption of water: perhaps it could then be possible to quickly repel the water itself with a larger magnet. This could be used to dry something or, perhaps, to remove the water from an area around the magnet so as to do something beneath where the water surface had been.

Self-replicating spacecraft could replicate until there were many enough to build even greater self-replicating spacecraft, which could then in turn replicate to build even greater spacecraft, so that through self-replicating spacecraft one could eventually create megastructures which could manipulate the solar system in any way theoretically possible. In this, these self-replicating spacecraft would be similar to self-replicating nanomachines, which could build even smaller self-replicating nanomachines and so on, so that nanomachines could eventually manipulate molecules in any theoretically possible way.

In future, when perhaps all experiences can be shared through direct neural interface, the mere fact of experiencing would become art and the only art. Anything could be created by merely imagining it; by imagining an image, it could become a painting; by imagining a melody, it could become a composition; by imagining a scene, it could become a movie; but even emotions, thoughts or any other experiences could become a form of art, and be shared as they were experienced by the individual. There would be artists who would try to achieve the most beautiful possible experiences to share them with others, be those experiences in reality or in their minds.

In future, nanorobots could be used to form larger things, like cells form organs, assembling to form a greater whole. Also, however, they could be used to actually create a larger thing outside of themselves, like some cells create the inorganic matrix in bone, or like human builders creating a building. In this way, they could be used to create anything from almost any material.