General Observations about CubeSpawn

and the Homebrew Industrial Revolution

CubeSpawn is a simple idea, but its not an idea that seems to easy to grasp

everyone who has had the idea explained to them in person seems to see its merit

text descriptions generally seem to fail, so here is another attempt:

Imagine an empty, well lit space, white background, no discernable walls, hills, light source, etc.

Now visualize a 3 dimensional grid filling the space. The grids dimensions are 30cm by 30cm by 30cm

(for my fellow Americans, slightly less than a foot)

Now visualize the cubes occupying different sized spaces in the grid, always filling a group of grids.

So, some are 1 grid on a side, others are 2 or 3 grids on a side

each cube encloses a space of definite volume, each one is a box.

If you put a machine inside each box - thats CubeSpawn!

The machine could be any type: something industrial, or anything else, a breadmaker, a shoe-sole stitcher, an electric forge or kiln...

Anything, anyone might care to imagine that can be an automatic machine...

Q: So why a cube? Aren't a lot of other shapes more efficient for certain kinds of machines?

A: Yes, but almost any other (practical) shape can be approximated by a collection of cubes, a rectangle, for example, several cubes attached in a line...

If the cubes can pass what they are working on between them and each cube can do one of more steps in making something, then a large collection of cubes with the basic 20 or so industrial capabilities, could make almost anything -- that is, anything of a size that would pass through them, of course.

If you accept that an industrial process is an idea (or a collection of them) then CubeSpawn is a box to put an idea inside of and use it.

This then leads us back to another Idea: if this collection of cubes can make almost anything, then the cubes can make their own parts. which means they can make more cubes, or make specialized cubes. this is a factory that can grow itself, or make another factory.

"Thats all very interesting, I suppose, but whats it good for?"

If local groups can make their own goods, they are protected from economic turbulence. Decentralizing is the Next Big Thing and local food, local manufacturing, local honest governance are all parts of that - a (very long, very detailed) paper is here: The Homebrew industrial Revolution