Not so fast!

Humm, it seem to me that many on TOD complain about the loss of manufacturing in the USA. Manufacturing jobs can not be telecommuted. Nor can retail sales, medical treatment, energy production/distribution, government services, etc....

I guess if someone needs to be physically transported into a hospital for surgery, or raw materials need to be delivered to a manufacturing plant than telecommuting won't work for that. Or installing infrastructure for a power distribution grid for that matter.

We do operate rovers on Mars don't we?

So I guess at least some manufacturing can be done remotely, CADCAM anyone? As for retail sales,we already have online e-commerce sites with live chat and warm customer service reps. Medical treatment? I can conceive of some aspects of it being quite similar to e-commerce, maybe with the right monitors and instruments built into future telecommunications devices some of that might be done by telepresence as well. As for energy production/distribution, government services, etc.... I think the same will apply.

I strongly suspect that we could do a lot more things with networked technology and communications than we do now. Anyone ever hear of Smartdust? I could imagine logging onto a hydroponics network and being able to tend to my plants by reading strategically placed micro sensors and deploying very precise doses of pesticides or nutrients.

As a real life example during the course of my normal workday today I did work on computer systems in the UK, Australia, South Africa, Shanghai and then I had to get into my car and drive 80 miles round trip in heavy rain to visit a local customer. Fortunately I find myself having to do less less of that. The travel time in my opinion was time very poorly spent. I could have been Kayaking for two hours instead.