Frequently Asked Questions
IÕm skeptical of this whole thing
Q: IÕm intrigued by the book title. So tell me, in a nutshell, why do you think we havenÕt been able to get along? What can we do about it?
A: Many readers are so curious about our answer to the title question, they canÕt wait to plow through the book to hear it. So hereÕs the short answer: Basically, itÕs because many people misunderstand the tradeoff between cooperation and competition.
People often think they should compete in a given situation, when in fact, it often makes more sense to cooperate. And itÕs the excesses of an extremely competitive attitude fomented by our divisive culture, that make people aggressive. This causes war, poverty, and a host of other ills. Technological changes are rapidly decreasing the advantages of competition and rapidly increasing the advantages of cooperation.
While Rodney KingÕs original may have been a rhetorical question, the real question is precisely Òhow can we get along?Ó, given the societal pressures that derail cooperation. This book details why it is hard, and proposes some new solutions. Read the book for the whole story.
Q: This math stuff is clever, but it doesnÕt describe all the complexities of the real world.
A: ItÕs true that the math we present is an idealized abstraction, and people criticize us for leaving out many cultural and historical factors. These factors also contribute to the problems we describe, or block our proposed solutions. 
But science always makes progress by thinking about simplified models, then if necessary, adding the complexities back in later. If you consider all the complexities at once, you get paralyzed. And paralyzed we are, when it comes to politics and economics. 
Understand our argument about math, evolution, psychology, and technology, first. DonÕt reject it out of hand because we didnÕt consider everything. As physicists say, ÒPhysics is the science of frictionless elephantsÓ. 
Q: You want to change so much of todayÕs society. How we gonna get from here to there?
A: ThatÕs the part weÕre least sure about. What weÕre trying to do in the book is to give you our vision of a more cooperative society. For the moment, put aside your concerns about the difficulties of getting there, and just see if you agree with our vision and our analysis. We do present some strategies and intermediate steps to demonstrate that it is possible to drastically improve our condition, or at the very least, to show that there are some plausible, untried ways of achieving it. Once you understand where weÕre going, we invite you to join us in strategizing about how to get there.
Q. By criticizing the status quo, arenÕt you biting the hand that feeds you?
A: Guilty as charged. WeÕre a couple of healthy, white, male baby boomers born in the USAÕs most prosperous urban areas (NYC and LA) into caring, intelligent families. WeÕve had relatively excellent educations and traveled extensively in and out of the USA. We live in one of the worldÕs most intellectual cities (Boston) and have worked in and around the one of the most advanced technical universities (MIT). We had early access to the Internet and the best of computing resources, which we helped develop. 
But the vast majority havenÕt been so lucky. If we are to maintain our high standard of living and include the rest of humanity in it, let alone advance it, the architecture of this pyramid has to change. This book aims to foster the good will in most of us, and innovation in the most creative of us, to accomplish that. 
Q: What if there are unintended consequences?
A: The foreseen consequences of the status quo are pretty bad. So we had better do something new. We wrote this book largely to foresee the consequences of enacting our proposed solutions, as compared to continuing on our present path. We spend a lot of the book trying to improve decision-making processes, which should help us foresee, and also deal with, unintended consequences. New tools can help us augment our species already formidable creative powers. See the chapters on Reasonocracy and Deploying Innovation.
Q: If your ideas are so great, how come they havenÕt already been implemented?
A: We hope that weÕre bringing a new perspective, with our arguments from mathematics, evolution, psychology, artificial intelligence, and 3D Printing. Let us know if we succeeded. 
Some of our proposed solutions arenÕt considered, or adopted, because there are vested interests fighting to maintain the status quo. See our answer below to the question, ÒWonÕt the status quo fight this?Ó. See our analysis in Deploying Innovation, and our final encouraging words in the Afterword. 
From our research careers, weÕre familiar with objections of the form, ÒThere must be something wrong with the idea, otherwise it would have already been done.Ó Think that way, and youÕll reject any possible innovation, out of hand. 
YouÕre way too optimistic about human nature
Q: Conßict and competition are inevitable. YouÕll never get everybody to cooperate on everythingÉ
A: Well, weÕre not always going to get everybody to cooperate, no matter what, nor should they in every case. But thereÕs a lot of needless conßict and competition going on in the world. ThatÕs what causes war, poverty, and a host of other societal ills. What do we do about it? 
We have to figure out when competition actually necessary, and when is it just due to peopleÕs fears. In Jailbreaking the PrisonersÕ Dilemma and Survival of the most cooperative, we present some tools for thinking about how to figure out in what cases it makes sense to compete vs. cooperate. 
We particularly dislike the stance that conßict or other societal problems are ÒinevitableÓ. If you think somethingÕs inevitable, youÕll give up on trying to fix it. Besides, few things are literally inevitable.
Q: How do we resolve disagreement?
A: With Makerism, agreement is much less necessary because trade is much less necessary because you make what you need. Structural reforms of government can get better motivated people utilizing more reasonable processes to make better decisions (See Introduction to Reasonocracy.) 
Q: War is inevitable. WeÕve got 10,000 years of history to prove it.
AÊ: That was then, this is now. Humanity has managed to (almost) put an end to human sacrifice, cannibalism, slavery, and a host of other barbaric practices that had gone on for thousands of years prior to their end. Why not end war? See the chapters War, War crimes. 
Q: Will we need a militaryÊ?
No. Since wars and the militaries that make them possible are unreasonable, our proposals for a more rational government will mean the end of militaries as we know them. Wars now occur because they benefit numerous powerful actors, including: Presidents, an elected Congress, misguided voters, corporate executives, poor people needing a job, bored patriots, and psychopaths in power. Our proposals show how to eliminate the above roles. We hope that the primary role of much smaller armed services will change from enforcing political power, to disaster relief and humanitarian efforts.
Q: We donÕt need new tech, we just need to be kinder to each other.
A: We sure do. But right now, the pressure of our competitive society gives people lots of reasons not to be kind to each other, like poverty, competition for status, and fear of various threats. Technology can save most of the labor now spent creating wealth.
Without having to have a conventional ÒjobÓ, we can afford to be kinder.
We agree that there are many steps that can be taken towards a more cooperative and empathetic society that donÕt involve technology. Social and ethical education (See Constructionism: Education for Makerism), psychotherapy and counseling, meditation and (some) religious practice, reducing the sexist macho culture that encourages aggression, etc. can also help. 
Q: What about evil people?
Eliminating scarcity will reduce the motivation for many ill-intentioned people, who rationalize their selfish behavior by their perceived need for resources. Society now selects for aggressive people with psychopathic tendencies, and elevates them to ÒleadershipÓ roles (See the No Leaders chapter). Without conventional ÒjobsÓ, people wonÕt be at the mercy of psychopathic bosses and bosses wonÕt have assistants to help them.
Changing our legal system into a justice system (see the Justice chapter) should drive fewer people crazy. Teaching cooperation should help to make a more empathetic, less confrontational society. Advances in psychology will provide more insight into why people with various mental disorders commit crimes, and how to deal with them. 
Ending evil is probably an unobtainable goal. Reducing it to a fraction of its current presence is feasible.
IÕm not really a technical person, so this doesnÕt 
look so great to me
Q: Techno-utopias have been promised for decades. None have worked on a significant scale. What makes you think this time it is any different?
A: First we agree that a myriad of schemes have failed. But letÕs point out some successes of technology. Cars are far faster than horses. The age-old dream of ßying is now not only common place, but can be two orders of magnitude faster than birds. The Dick Tracy two way radio worn on a wrist proposed in the 1950Õs has been surpassed by cell phones and smart watches. The web not only achieves fast, smart communications all over the planet but is deployed to billions of people at low cost. These technological developments have led to social progress in improvements of standard of living, and fewer wars, as Steven Pinker points out [Pinker 2011]. 
But thereÕs been three key pieces missing É. until now. The first is an understanding of the mathematics of cooperation due to theoretical work on the PrisonerÕs Dilemma. The second is the technology of AI and personal manufacturing, which holds the promise of solving scarcity. The third is to develop social processes for making consensus-based decisions that will replace our current power-based governance. We present such a proposal in Reasonocracy. 
Q: What if I donÕt want all this new-fangled techology?
A: We believe that, given choice, the majority of people will choose technological progress over static, tribal societies. They have for centuries. And even if you donÕt want to personally use high-tech, it will still benefit you. 
For the minority that prefer less technology-intensive lifestyles, they should form intentional communities that implement these lifestyles. Note that we are in favor of intentional communities in general as vehicles for lifestyle experimentation. Care must be taken to make sure that these communities arenÕt steamrolled by outside competitive forces, as they often are now. A positive example: the Amish. A negative one: Native American ÒIndian ReservationsÓ.
Q: You scientists think everythingÕs a technical problem. ItÕs really a people problemÉ
A: We need both technical and social solutions. One side without the other isnÕt going to cut it. One of the reasons the big problems are so hard is that it hasnÕt been easy for technical and political people to work together. Technology increases understanding, raises standards of living, and relieves pressure that distorts social relations. Anything we can do on the social side to improve social relations, and help people feel better about themselves and others, and act positively, is great. 
We confess that, as technologists, we have more to contribute on the technical side, so itÕs emphasized in this book. But our message to people in politics, business, psychology and the social sciences is that thinking about the scientific issues we present can help them achieve their goals of a more cooperative and humane society. Political ÒactivismÓ alone, or self-help psychology alone, wonÕt bring about enough change, if itÕs still embedded in a society mired in scarcity and competition. 
Q: Is there a danger that robots will go berserk and kill people like in the science fiction movies?
A: Unlikely. The problem with all the Frankenstein-like scenarios is that they posit technological progress sufficient to create an intelligent robot, but they donÕt foresee any progress in social and emotional intelligence, which has admittedly been slow. What AI research is now discovering, is that social and emotional understanding is an essential part of what it means to be intelligent. 
WeÕre hopeful that by the time we get around to having human-level AI, weÕll have figured out how to have programmed in ethical behavior. AIÕs wonÕt act like a James Bond villain; theyÕll be smarter than that. See the chapter AI: Not the son of Frankenstein. 
Q: WonÕt a society highly dependent upon robots and machines be dehumanizing? 
A. Do you find your car (a transportation robot) dehumanizing? How about your refrigerator? A lawn mower? An electric drill? 
Most of the downsides that Luddites or technophobic leftists associate with adoption of technology: over-commercialized culture; externalities like pollution; ÒdehumanizationÓ; privacy violation, suppression of alternative cultures; imperialism, etc. are actually pathologies of the scarcity/competitive/Capitalist culture. They are not inherent to technology. 
Because Maker tech (see the Makerism chapter) is so cheap and under the control of individuals, it wonÕt share the dehumanizing nature of large-scale industrial technology. Because Capitalism depends on economies of scale, large numbers of employees and large numbers of consumers all have to behave identically for it to work. ThatÕs what causes the rigid, dehumanizing forces. 
Q: Maybe OK for the third world, but here in the first world weÕve already got it pretty good. You want risk disrupting all of that?
A. We certainly do have it pretty good in the first world compared to other places. But the first world is disrupting itself. Problems like climate change, growing inequality, and unsustainable consumption, left unchecked, may threaten our quality of life in the future. And third-world problems cannot be walled off from affecting the first world. Disease, immigration forced by economic necessity, terrorism, and other problems are now spreading from the third world to the first. We need to think broadly about problems faced by everybody, not just our own situation. 
Q: Maybe OK for the first world, but what about the chaotic third world and all its diverse cultures?
A: Some technological advances and social innovations may be harder to accomplish in the third world, for those reasons. But the third world actually has some advantages as a venue for change.
The need is greater, so people may be more motivated to try out-of-the-box solutions. Smart people in the third world may realize that they donÕt have to repeat all the mistakes made historically by first-world countries. Third world countries are now moving from agricultural societies directly to the Information Age without going through the mechanical, industrial era that caused so much heartache. Furthermore, cultural diversity can be an asset, leading people to imagine innovative or culturally appropriate solutions that couldnÕt have been thought of in an already-built-out society. 
I donÕt believe this 3D printer stuff is as great as you say it is
Q: Where do the raw materials come from for the printers?
A: Plastic can be recycled from water bottles and unused plastic objects into filament for printing. The core material of some ÒbioplasticsÓ is corn starch. Algae can be grown in microfarms, from which oil can be extracted, forming the basis of plastic that can be printed. Cellulose and hemp are other fast-growing plant material useful for raw materials. Sand can be melted by focusing the sun to form glass. Combining sand and impurities can make many ceramics. Aluminum and iron can be separated from dirt. Carbon is plentiful and can be formed into nanotubes or sheets of graphene to make strong and highly conductive material. Alternative designs can take advantage of local materials for making functional equivalents.
Q: Without electrical grids, how do you supply energy?
A: An advanced 3D printer (not yet invented) will be able to print solar cells and batteries. Wind and water can also create decentralized electricity.
Q: 3D printers sound too complex to be reliable.
A: As complexity goes up, reliability does go down, but modern integrated circuits have billions of parts (transistors) in them, have clock cycles of billions per second, and are quite reliable. (You couldnÕt read this if they werenÕt.) Redundancy and other fail-safe mechanisms can help with reliability. Designing for repairability and on-line resources like Repair Clinic (http://www.repairclinic.com) will help.
Q: This home 3D printer sounds too complicated to learn how to use.
A: People can drive cars, operate computers and smart phones, all pretty complex machinery. In the early days of automobiles, drivers needed to be competent mechanics, but thatÕs no longer true. We will be able to make even better user interfaces than we have now using natural language processing and augmented reality. We expect people to spend more time making, but that will be more than compensated for by not having to shop, manage money, find and work at jobs you donÕt like.
Q: Sure, you can make some kind of food artificially, but wonÕt it be like Velveeta replacing my organic goat cheese?
A: Matching food perfectly to the smell, taste and texture of something youÕre use to may be difficult. Making it nutritious and taste good is more doable. We expect many makers to tune and share recipes. With the multitude of options available, numerous will be rated by the adventurous, and the timid can choose amongst them.
Q: Sure, the 3D printer can print some kind of lamp, but wonÕt it be cheap plastic junk rather than my hand-carved rosewood lamp? 
A: 3D printer filaments containing wood already exist. [Matterhackers 2017] lists 53 filament types including wood, metal, ceramic, silk. These materials wonÕt be identical to their natural counterparts in all respects, but the list of printable materials is expanding rapidly. From the description of the Cherry Wood filament at this website we quote: ÒRough or smooth surface possible during one print. Paintable, grindable, carvable and stainable. Printable tree-ringsÓ[Brewster 2014].

Q: Can a printer make very strong metal objects?
A: [Simon 2015a] and http://auroralabs3d.com describe a printer that makes stainless steel and titanium objects. This printer has a resolution of about 100 microns. It uses metal powder sintering technology. The initial version is $33K. https://markforged.com can print carbon fiber parts that can be as strong as aluminum. Graphene is a material that is a hundred times stronger than steel per volume, and conducts electricity with half the resistance of copper, and even less than silver. It also has superior thermal conductivity. It is being used in advanced 3D printers [Benchoff 2015].
Q: Which century will this scarcity reducing technology be invented, and which century will it be widely deployed?
A: We admit to being poor at estimating the arrival of advanced 3D printers that are able to make all of their own parts. 3D printers are already capable at making many useful things and progress is rapid. In Sept 2015, a version of Reprap (Snappy) printed 73% of its parts [Benchoff 2015]. 2016 had 185 Maker Faires in 32 countries. The September 2015 NYC one had more than 90K attendees with more than 900 exhibits by makers. See A Day in the Post-Scarcity Life if youÕre still skeptical.
Q: We already have an unsustainable ecology with our current standard of living but if we raise the overall standard of living our planet will be even less sustainable.
A: Our use of resources is inefficient to put it mildly. There is no physical reason why we canÕt increase standards of living world-wide and, at the same time, decrease our ecological impact. Appropriate technologies can be better in all important aspects than what they replace. It will take technological innovation, advances in government, legal and educational systems. This book describes the path.
Q: Printers will be used to print dangerous things like guns and drugs, creating big problems. 
Without advanced printers, guns and drugs are already widespread. Plus any ßexible tech can be used for ill, as 9/11 showed with airplanes. By solving scarcity, we get rid of the need to protect property with a gun and the need to make money pushing drugs. We can print houses for the homeless and you wonÕt have to waste money on insurance. WeÕll also have more resources for tackling other problems.
Q: WonÕt getting everyone an advanced printer be too expensive? 
A: Part of our definition of advanced printer is something that can make all of its own parts. It will make the solar cells and batteries it needs for energy as well as machines for gathering raw materials. If a friend doesnÕt have a printer and you do, youÕll print one out for him (or at worst, the easy-to-assemble pieces), as heÕll do for his other friends. Printers will be free like most other material things youÕll need.
You think you can replace Capitalism? Dream on, kid.
Q: If we remove competition in the economy, people will just invent new things to compete about, like social status.
A: Could happen. But it doesnÕt have to be like that. Once people can make what they want, we suspect that social status wonÕt be as tied to material wealth as it is now. And you have to wonder about people whose desire for wealth or status is motivated by the need to feel superior to other people. Why are they so invested in feeling superior to others? Where does that come from? It canÕt be psychologically healthy to be that way. 
Like a lot of other issues in the book, it depends on whether youÕre fundamentally optimistic or pessimistic about human nature. As we confessed at the outset, weÕre optimists. If you think people are so inherently aggressive that theyÕll make any excuse to fight with others even in the absence of real need for conßict, youÕre ignoring evidence to the contrary. See the section Keeping up with the post-scarcity Joneses in the Interpersonal relations chapter. 
Q: There will always be scarcity, because no matter how much people have, theyÕll always want more. (This is called JevonÕs Paradox.)
A: Again, maybe, but we think it wonÕt turn out that way. People donÕt Òalways want moreÓ, though Capitalism certainly encourages this attitude. In reality, diminishing returns always set in. After a certain point (and that point is surprisingly low), studies show that additional wealth doesnÕt make people any happier. 
People whose greed is insatiable have a mental illness akin to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). They repeat behaviors that may have once made sense, but continually feel compelled to do so beyond any actual need. Our competitive society now actually selects for people who are OCD in this sense. They wind up in positions of power. See the chapter The productivity of dead people and No Leaders.
We present our vision for what everyday life will look like post-scarcity, in the form of a fictional account A Day in the Post-Scarcity Life. 
Q: Why do you say scarcity encourages competition? If food is scarce, isnÕt it even more important that members of a tribe cooperate on hunting? 
A: When properly executed, cooperation will produce more wealth per effort than competition because competition can only be as good as the best side minus the effort to fight, whereas cooperation can be better than the sum of the sides. In times of scarcity, additional wealth is all the more important. In the chapter, Survival of the most cooperative, we discuss the tribal hunting example in detail. Yes, scarcity can increase the importance of the benefits of cooperating in the hunt. But scarcity may also increase the probability that others might, out of desperation, refuse to fairly share the spoils of the hunt. 
Plus, there can be feedback loops. Competition encourages scarcity since it uses up resources, then thereÕs more competition over the dregs, etc. Abundance encourages cooperation, producing more abundance,? in a positive feedback loop. 
Q: Without monetary incentives, things wonÕt get done. 
A: If things need doing, and nobody wants to do them, then weÕll invent robots to do them. Increasing automation is what weÕve always done to improve productivity, and that trend is accelerating.
More generally, though, we donÕt like the idea of ÒincentiveÓ as a motivation. See the chapter Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, particularly the section The Bankruptcy of Incentive. An incentive is some sort of bribe to get you to do something you donÕt otherwise want to do. As such, it is exploitive. 
Instead, weÕd like people to ask themselves the question, ÒIs it worth doing?Ó and ÒDo I want to do it?Ó. If so, theyÕll do it. If not, and itÕs still worth doing, automate it. 
Q: Will robots take all our jobs? AI and robots can never replace people in a lot of jobs. 
A: Yes, robots will take our jobs and this is a good thing.
We donÕt want to get into an argument about whether every job can be automated, but the trend, likely to continue, is that a greater and greater percentage of jobs can be. So we better get ready for a future where a significant portion of the population will not have jobs. Agriculture once ÒemployedÓ almost all working-age people, but now only 2% of US workers are in that industry [World Bank 2017]. 
The whole idea of a ÒjobÓ is a creation of the Industrial Age; Capitalism and Communism were the economic technologies of that era. TheyÕll both die as we move further into the Information Age and the Maker Age comes online. We can set up society so that people who are automated out of jobs need not suffer. And as Makerism takes hold, people will be able to make or do for themselves much of what their jobsÕ salary would buy. See The productivity of dead people and Makerism. 
Q: What will people do all day if they donÕt have jobs?
A: TheyÕll do an incredible variety of things, once they donÕt have the pressure and structure of a single, standard ÒjobÓ. Some people who enjoy the job they have now, will continue to do much the same activity, only without the formal structure. People will make or consume music or art, talk to friends, invent, share, make what they need, raise barns with neighbors, teach, learn, wander around virtual realities, and things we havenÕt thought of yet.
ThereÕs of course the danger that some will just do drugs, watch TV, or settle into some other kind of dysfunctional, passive life, as some do now. The fact that thereÕs economic pressure to have a job doesnÕt prevent this from happening. But we think most people want some sort of active and meaningful life, jobs or no jobs, as long as they can meet their material needs. 
Another way to think of it is itÕs like what we now call ÒretirementÓ. After age 65, youÕve Òpaid your debt to societyÓ and many can retire on some sort of public or private stipend. Right now, a challenge for retirees is the social stigma of ÒobsolescenceÓ associated with it in our culture, but that can change. Present-day economists think we need to raise the retirement age to keep Social Security solvent, but with Makerism, we can reduce the retirement age to 0. See The productivity of dead people. 
Q: There are a lot of details about the economy that you guys havenÕt figured out. 
A: There are a lot of details we didnÕt cover, for brevity. HereÕs a few to give you the ßavor.
Q: How will healthcare work? 	
A: Most healthcare will be done by people for themselves, as print-at-home tools and medicines will make personalized health care much cheaper and easier for laypeople. The smartphone, with cheap attachments, is leading the way in diagnostics. Big data collection will help individualize health care, making treatments more appropriate for exactly your conditions. Those motivated to help people by becoming doctors will continue to do so, and will be respected by people for doing it.
Q: Money and finance?
A: There might still be money, but its role will be steadily reduced as you can make more and more of your necessities. Why borrow for a house when you can just make its components and put it together? If you can make it again when it burns down, you donÕt need to insure it.
Q: Will we still have retail stores?
A: Stores become unnecessary. Many still like some aspects of the experience of shopping, as it affords social contact with other shoppers and merchandise experts, and physical encounters with products. Maybe weÕll have Òtheme parksÓ that reproduce the positive aspects of this experience, without the enormous resource consumption of todayÕs retail infrastructure. Some people might enjoy playing the role of salesperson, and give away their expertise to whoever will listen. Being heard is a strong motivator.
Q: You donÕt think the Capitalist elite will just stand by and let all this happen, do you? Once it starts to really eat into their power, theyÕll fight back. 
A: Once it gets rolling, thereÕs probably not much they can do to stop it. Like the Internet, the transformation weÕre predicting will be initiated by makers and other innovators for themselves and their communities, then it will spread. No company or government designed or wanted the Internet before it became popular (though initial research was government funded). WeÕre hoping that this book will inspire you to be one of the innovators. 
The powers that be will probably ignore most of it while itÕs developing, since it wonÕt be operating in the circles of power and big money that they consider significant. We wish we could convince government and large companies to embrace new technologies for cooperation and manufacturing, as they could both profit from them in the short term, and help us get on the road to Makerism. Long term, well, the rich will still be rich, though theyÕll have more company. TheyÕll be more likely to enjoy their Ferrari if thereÕs less chance theyÕll be mugged in the parking lot. 
How dare you trash democracy and voting?! ThatÕs what makes America great! 
Q; ArenÕt the only choices democracy, or some sort of dictatorship?
A: Nope. We try to innovate about all sorts of things in our society, but for some reason people donÕt think of governments as something to be designed. Our education systems reinforce the idea that the only choices are the governments of the past.
We present one new alternative, which we call Reasonocracy. Of course we donÕt like dictatorships. But the actual mechanisms of todayÕs US democracy are based on power relationships (voting and campaign finance), just as dictatorships are. Political discourse is competitive and contentious, causing gridlock. Cooperative reasoning can foster creative problem solving without the endless fights for power.
Q: Without leaders and hierarchies, things wonÕt get done. 
A: We think leaders and hierarchies actually stand in the way of getting things done. TodayÕs corporate and government leadership hierarchies are basically a holdover from feudalism (The beginning of history and No Leaders). We now call them CEOs and Senators instead of Dukes and Earls, but same idea. We explore what really motivates people in (Intrinisic and Extrinsic Motivation). Some communities already operate without hierarchies. ÒFlattening the organizationÓ is now an in-vogue business buzz-term.
Q: How can we possibly make decisions without voting?
A: Voting can be useful as a last resort when people have intractable differences. But why should we start out assuming every issue is intractable?
We look at consensus process (Can Some of Us Get Along? and Some days in the life of a Reasonocrat). Reasonocarcy is a structured problem solving approach that can usually reach far more optimal decisions than the all-too-common voting for the lesser of two evils.
WeÕre inspired by the scientific community (The process of Science), which regularly provides constructive solutions to problems of great magnitude. The actual operation of science is mostly independent of leadership hierarchies, and thereÕs very little voting. ThereÕs no President or CEO of Science, no political parties, no scientific courts, etc. 
Q: Randomly select people to be representatives?! Some people will just turn out to be idiots. 
A: As opposed to the congressmen selected by elections we have in the US? Congress has very low approval ratings, so a new way of selecting representatives has a low bar to jump over. Sure, the IQ of an average member of Congress is above average, but the motivations of those elected arenÕt aligned with the citizens so this extra IQ is used against citizens, not for them. 
We model the representative selection process on jury duty, which recruits random people to make life-or-death decisions. But unlike juries, we propose minimum competence requirements. We propose educating representatives to be more open to ideas, better at cooperation and more skillful at reasoning. Furthermore, we donÕt throw them into the battlefield of power politics, but rather a structured process devoted to reasoning for optimal decision making.
Q, from the Right: Since you donÕt like Capitalism and you promote cooperation, arenÕt you Communists or Socialists?
A: No. Communist and Socialist societies have centralized planning. In Makerism, everyone owns the means of production. There is no central planing for creating wealth. You make what you need. You donÕt make what you donÕt need unless you want to give it to a friend. The need for infrastructure and its central planning is greatly decreased. 
The Right should love the increased freedom of choice, individualism, and smaller government of Makerism and Reasonocracy.
Q, from the Left: Technology is always a tool of the Capitalist Military-Industrial Complex. ArenÕt you just acting as their pawns? 
A: No, but itÕs true that for centuries, many new technologies were originally developed and deployed for military applications. We believe that understanding cooperation and reducing scarcity will greatly reduce war. Since Makerism reduces or eliminates for-profit companies, the motivation of the Military-Industrial Complex evaporates. (See the War  chapter.)
The Left should love the promotion of peace, community building, and the reduction of poverty, inequality and discrimination, of Makerism and Reasonocracy.
About the illustrations