After retiring on June 30th, 2021, my first trip was back East to travel from Florida to Georgia to Virginia to Massachusetts to Maine, meeting family and friends along the way. While there are already many lessons learned, one is coming into focus. Each of us with a lifetime of experiences has the ability to help others envision possibilities, especially possible futures. We have seen the twists and turns of life, intentional and accidental.
On my retirement journey I have already met family, friends, and new acquaintances and begun imagining three possible startups each (for them) that I could help them challenge themselves to create. Planting seeds in their imaginations. Wondering if the seeds will take hold and grow.
Sometimes I felt sad driving through the Maine countryside; farms of family and friends that were productive and proud had fallen into disrepair. Nevertheless, I am hopeful the family farm can be reborn in the era of artificial intelligence and robotics. The key will be a master mechanic robot that can be understood and fixed by farm families when it breaks down.
From the book about Maine life titled “Only Fifty Years Ago” by Maine author Gladys Hasty Carroll (1962, First Edition) given to my by my aunt who knows books, recounting a Thanksgiving supper conversation:
“…only good people can make and keep a good country.”
“Good and wise” said Vinnie. “And brave.”
“Way I look at it,” said George, “people are going to be hard put to keep ahead of these machines, and if they don’t machines are going to be running the people and the country too. Now I’ve got a mowing machine and I can run it; I can fix it if it gets loose; it saves me a lot of time. But I can still swing a scythe too, to clip out around a tree, along walls, and under fences. Time ever comes that a man don’t know how to mow by hand, or don’t have the strength to, he’s going to have a pretty ragged looking field. And if he gets mowing machines that only a master mechanic understands and it breaks down, cattle will starve to death. Get as many machines as you say, can’t be a master mechanic for every one of ’em, onless everybody’s a master mechanic. If they are, a lot of other work is bound to be slighted, even if everybody puts in a full day six days a week. And I will say, George, that people willing to set around all but eight hours of five days a week ain’t going to be the same kind that’ve made this country what ’tis today.”
“Marcy had not heard her grandfather say so many words without stopping.”
In my retirement, I will always be looking for books by Maine author’s about Maine life (both natural and human-made service systems; as service scientists know them). From a service science perspective, we know that most responsible entities (people, businesses, universities, cities, nations) are striving to become better future versions of themselves. Most through hard work and taking calculated risks. Moving out of our comfort zone is never easy. However, that is where challenge and opportunity abound. Its about what we invest in and how we invest in it. Our life’s meaning is tied to where and how we invest our energy; and what ultimately comes from those investments, intentionally or accidentally.
Beginning my research on small scale family farms (multi-generational) it is worth taking ten minutes to study the low-end and the high-end of what is becoming possible. Farm.bot is an example of a relatively simple (fix-able). Boston Dynamics is an example of high end (less fix-able). Boston Dynamics has staged dancing robots as a way to show off capabilities, but they are still far from expert human dancing capabilities. Open Source Ecology provides the basics for a wide range of farm machinery that is easily build-able and fix-able. Ultimately, energy, water, food are the foundations of the family farm. In the past, energy has been burning wood, animal labor, and human labor (water and food). In the future, geothermal energy will likely be best energy source globally once the cost of drilling drops, especially where hot springs are near the surface – a turbine can spin and generate electricity. All states in the USA, including Maine have hot springs.
For most of human history people have lived in multi-generational family units, living either off the land small scale (family farm) or large scale (intra-city and inter-city trade). Family farms require energy, water, and food to be self-sufficient. Farm families typically were large (many children) to provide the labor, and their success required generational upskilling (better and better tools and infrastructure). The family farm ROI (Return on Investment) should be constantly re-calculated in the era of data-driven science and technology (e.g., artificial intelligence, robotics, geo-thermal energy systems, recycling, etc.). Open source provides a strategy for rapidly scaling the adoption of technology usage. Monetization requires focus on one aspect of the business opportunity, and that is likely to be the “master mechanic” robot. A robot that can build and maintain all the other robots, is called the “master mechanic” robot.
The pandemic has enhanced interest in both the return to multi-generational homes and the return to local mega-trend.
References
| Boston Dynamics is high end and less fixable on a farm – https://www.bostondynamics.com/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Dynamics |
| Farm.bot is low-end and fixable – https://farm.bot and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FarmBot |
| Only Fifty Years Ago – https://www.amazon.com/Only-Fifty-Years-Gladys-Carroll/dp/B00005WIKC |
| Dancing robots – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn3KWM1kuAw |
| Expert human dancing – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvmpc83nv4A |
| Open Source Ecology – https://www.opensourceecology.org/ |
| Hot springs in Maine – https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g28940-Activities-c57-t61-Maine.html |