Production Technologies Self Expansion

Reverse Engineering:

This approach works backwards from the completed location to the production elements needed to build and sustain the location. In turn, those production elements are examined to identify what is needed to build them, recursively identifying precursor elements and outside supply to reach a reasonable starting point. We will use this as our primary approach, since we know our desired end point is to support a given number of humans with identified performance goals.

Common Materials as Outputs - An alternate approach is to work back from known common materials that are used in civilization, such as wood, basic metals, ceramics, concrete, bulk rock, glass, and plastics, plus electrical and thermal energy.

Forward Engineering:

Another approach is to work forwards from an assumed starting point, see if it can grow adequately to our completed location, and then refine the starting point in the light of any missing or surplus items discovered on the growth path. For the forward approach, the question then becomes what starting point do you assume? Possible starting points include the farm and the machine shop. Both are known for making more of their own kind - plants and animals can make more of themselves, and so can machine tools. Other starting points are to maximize output rate, or minimize starting size, as these relate to evaluation criteria. Yet another is to start with pure investments and buy equipment over time, which minimizes starter complexity. All these various approaches can result in one or more design concepts, which then get optimized and compared.

We will use this as a secondary approach because any given starting point may not lead to the desired end goals, and thus can represent wasted effort. However, once certain production elements, like for food or energy, are identified by the reverse approach, we can then consider what else they can be used for in the forward direction. Since we already have determined they meet at least of the end goals, working forward from them is less likely to be wasted effort. Despite the uncertainties of the forward method, we list a number of possible starting points, and recognize you can use a mixture of them in a given design:

Farm as Starting Point - This approach is biological, since living things are able to copy themselves (i.e. additional equipment) and able to provide finished output (i.e. lumber from trees) We will generalize the idea of farm to include not just row crops, but all biological products, including animals, timber, and modern biotech products using microorganisms. One question is whether the biological production can leverage the non-biological technology. Even the simplest farm requires tools, and modern farms use quite sophisticated equipment, which puts you closer to the machine shop than the garden. A biological option worth considering is timber. A sawmill can itself be mostly made from timber, though a power source and some metal parts are required to process the logs.

Machine Shop as Starting Point - Since a machine shop can make more machines, this approach starts with the inventory of a well-equipped machine shop and scrubs that down to a starter set of machines for each function. Large shops often have multiple machines for similar tasks, for reasons of part scale, specialization, or total output. As a starting point you can assume you only need one type for each function. With computer control of the axes of motion, automatic tool changers, and pallets, a given machine can do quite complex jobs. This includes making shapes they are not optimally designed for. Accessories added to a basic machine can also widen the range of jobs it can do.

History as Starting Point - In the development of civilization, technologies appeared in a certain order. This approach starts with early technologies and adds more modern ones in sequence.

Output Rate as Starting Point - Another approach is to consider what starter kit items can produce the largest amount of output relative to their size. This approach attempts to maximize the early growth rate, and reserve diversity of output for later stages.

Minimum Size as Starting Point - This approach attempts to minimize the initial cost by starting with smaller equipment, and assumes you can make copies or larger units to grow to needed capacity.

Money as Starting Point - Although investments may not seem to fit the idea of a seed factory, income from such can support human needs, and the income ultimately comes from some sort of productive activity in the general economy. It may be thought of as a proxy for generic existing factory ownership. In other words, rather than build a new factory, buy an existing one or an equivalent through investing. We will use it primarily as a comparison point. If we cannot design a hardware oriented seed factory that scores better than investing, then the optimal path is to invest first, and use the fruits of that to grow by buying expansion equipment. Starting with money has the virtue of simplicity.

Our initial comparison point for the money approach is a brokerage account at Trading Direct with an investment of $75,000 placed into a margin account with 25% leverage ($100,000 total invested) and buying shares of Helios High Income Fund. This yields 8% return as of mid-2012, or $8,000 per year on the amount invested. Margin interest is 3.75% on a $25,000 margin balance, or $937.50 per year. This leaves a net income of $7,062.50, for a total return of 9.42% on the initial investment. Later we can vary that initial point across a range of options to compare it to our other design approaches.

Synthesis of Approaches:

In the synthetic approach, we consider each of the above methods as offering candidates for a starter kit and then expansion kits, then we compare the candidates and select the best ones.

Date: 2023-04-10     hits: 565    Return