[dktekno]

Technocracy sounds like a very nice idea. It has the cool facts on the table and based on these facts, calculate how the society will eventually develop.

What it does not take into account is human unpredictability and human emotions and human drive.

Carried to extremes, Technocracy basically says that people would work for no salary if they were just instead ensured that they can always get the best food and wine in the world, 1000+ TV-channels, HD-TV in all rooms and 78 bathrooms for a family of 5 (taken into extrems). Even the dirty jobs will be filled because the people, like nurses, will be accepted more, socially, than other people.

While I do agree with you that humans are instictively social animals primarily striving towards social acknowledgement and acceptance and high social status, we cannot ignore the fact that humans are, basically speaking, animals. We have a complex brain, but we still have our primitive instincts, one of them is the instinct that causes us to be selfish.

While we can all agree while sitting here and talking polito-philosophical technical details in comfortable chairs, on the fact that humans also have empathy/sympathy and reasoning and can abstract from its primitive instincts, humans are not robots. We do not always act rational, especially not during extreme situations.

Some of these examples have been shown throughout history, where epidemic contagious diseases were infecting lots of people. The infected people knew they were contagious, but the fear of dying in loneliness without anyone to comfort them made them seek towards other people, thus spreading their illness. If it has not been for the cynical authorities who imposed the death penalty for citizens of infected cities for leaving the city, more the illnesses would spread faster.

History tells us that we need to limit the freedom in order to maintain order and the survival of our specy.

In fact it is not only in very extreme situations that humans act selfishly and we need to control human behavior. This is one of the many good things about money.

As an example we have deposit on bottles in many western countries. If it were not for these deposits, people wouldn't bring back the empy bottles to the stores.

Of course most of us can agree on protecting the environment.
But when we are in the real life situation, things become different for many of us who agreed on protecting the environment in the first place. That is why we need government control. Money is a very effient tool of control of human behavior!

This brings us back to what I mentioned earlier in this post about the family living a comfortable luxury life without the need to work to maintain their luxurious life. Would they still work? Sure they may do a litle work now and then just to have some fun out of it. But I've asked a lot of people working in the health care if they would still do their work if they got no money, but can still life a luxurious life.

The answer from all of them is: "I like my work. But if I got the same things for not working, I'd spend some more time with my family."

We can all agree that there are only 24 hours in a day. More time with the family means less time for work.
Again we need to control human behavior even if the humans can see the rational purpose of doing something they dislike, in the end we will need government control.

In a money-less society we would therefore need to have government imposed compulsory work-duty for at least lets say 37 hours a day.

The money will need to be replaced by law. Money is dynamic, individualized control of human behavior, whereas law is more general and "concrete-like" control of human behavior that cannot be formed and fit into the individual.

The conclusion of this post is therefore:

Keep the money!

[Photonmaton]

Carried to extremes, Technocracy basically says that people would work for no salary if they were just instead ensured that they can always get the best food and wine in the world, 1000+ TV-channels, HD-TV in all rooms and 78 bathrooms for a family of 5 (taken into extrems). Even the dirty jobs will be filled because the people, like nurses, will be accepted more, socially, than other people.

It can also be contrued as 'saying' that given the choice of working a mere 14 hours a week(which I think is the recent estimate) for the ability to have at one's disposal a physically unconsumable amount of wealth or not working and being denied this right to a share of the technate's energy credits people will choose to show up to work three days a week for a couple of modest shifts.

While we can all agree while sitting here and talking polito-philosophical technical details in comfortable chairs, on the fact that humans also have empathy/sympathy and reasoning and can abstract from its primitive instincts, humans are not robots. We do not always act rational, especially not during extreme situations.

Of course they aren't, that's why 'we' aim to create a society based and attune to our behavioral quirks. Instead of debasing vast amounts of human potential to menial and ultimately absurd jobs (in respect to physical reality: advertising, finance, retail) we would give them the ability to tap their desires without being limited by mere economic ability.

Technocracy also seeks to 'test' its theory out and actually see if it works. The entire point of technocracy is functional governance -- without concrete and empirical results it is contradicted.

[Flatland]

Have a simulation that can be sped up to predict the future to an extremely high degree of accuracy.

[dktekno]

It can also be contrued as 'saying' that given the choice of working a mere 14 hours a week(which I think is the recent estimate) for the ability to have at one's disposal a physically unconsumable amount of wealth or not working and being denied this right to a share of the technate's energy credits people will choose to show up to work three days a week for a couple of modest shifts.

But then again, people will, according to reality, only work 14 hours a week.

It is simply not enough to run the society.

While I do agree with the Technocratic argument that says people will do extra work because they like their job or want social acknowledgement and high social status, reality shows us that this accounts for less than what we need.

Money may not be the actual reason people make extra efforts and do more work, but it can help starting them.

Money is used to control human behavior. Without money, we will have no fines. What should replace fines?

[Photonmaton]

But then again, people will, according to reality, only work 14 hours a week.

It is simply not enough to run the society.

Technocracy can't be analyzed like this without taking into account the entire picture; society will be restructured from the bottom-up to maximize efficiency and utility. Many jobs in the price-system are totally irrelevant to a economy based on physical reality, like advertising, finance, retail to name a few. The price system functions with only about 65% of the working-age population participating in the economy and with the 'adjusted' unemployment rate (when taking into account the aforementioned price-system bureaucracy jobs) it is much higher than that yet our society, while incredibly inefficient and wasteful, runs fine. 14 hours a week is the amount of time calculated for one to work in order to uphold the economic abundance indicative of a technate -- and that's with a retirement age of 40 years old. And this will only shrink with time, especially after the advent of advanced nanotechnology.

Money is used to control human behavior. Without money, we will have no fines. What should replace fines?

Most crime will be eliminated by the sheer economics and social development inherent to a technate's functioning (stealing etc. would be absurd) and the crimes left, like murder for instance, aren't deterred by monetary fines so I fail to see how money is so pivotal to upholding law and order.

While I do agree with the Technocratic argument that says people will do extra work because they like their job or want social acknowledgement and high social status, reality shows us that this accounts for less than what we need.

What I said in the first paragraph already addresses a lot of this but I'd like to add the idea of the Google business model and compare it to a technate's functioning. Isn't it just a little ridiculous that after 4000 years of amazing technological development our species still struggles day to day to feed itself?

From Wikipedia:

As an interesting motivation technique (usually called Innovation Time Off), all Google engineers are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time (one day per week) on projects that interest them. Some of Google's newer services, such as Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense originated from these independent endeavors.[74] In a talk at Stanford University, Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, stated that her analysis showed that half of the new product launches originated from the 20% time.[75]