== Currency Based on CPU and Man Hours (for Digital Goods) ==
marc fawzi
Digitally produced goods and services exist in a world of their own
that can be thought of as separate from our physical world in that
it's almost infinitely more efficient.
For example, building a house in Second Life takes dramatically less
in work energy than building a house in the physical world and the gap
makes the difference between abundance now and abundance in 200 years.
A house built in the physical world using a high degree of automation,
e.g. with robots and open architectural plans can be sold at the cost
of work energy it takes to build it (assuming it's made from renewable
materials and its production process meets the conditions for
sustainable abundance) but when will we have such high physical
production efficiency?
There is a lot that needs to happen in terms of dramatically
increasing production efficiencies for physical goods _before_ we need
an economy to sustain and enhance the abundance.
When it comes to digitally produced goods and services, we can start
with an example of why a new kind of economy and currency is needed.
If I can get 10 "cpu hours" a day from my PC, i.e. 10 X (1 gigaflops
processor running for 1 hour, as assessed by the Linpack benchmark
Rmax), and if it costs me less than 0.2 "man hour" a day on average to
maintain my PC (general PC maintenance) then I have 10 cpu hours and
e.g. 7.8 man hours a day (based on an 8 hour work day) to produce some
digital goods (e.g. open source music, open CAD designs, open Second
Life models, or open software etc) and if I invest in faster and/or
more efficient PC I will have more CPU hours and/or more man hours to
make more digital goods.
So given that I'm limited in my resources it's not sustainable for me
to give away the digital goods I produce or exchange them in
expectation of a potential return (in other digital goods) that may or
may not happen or that may happen only partially with a net loss to
myself. If I don't get any return (in cpu hours or man hours or both)
I can not produce more digital goods, so my production will be limited
and that cannot lead to abundance.
I can sell both surplus cpu hours and surplus man hours I have in
return for cpu-hour tokens and man-hour tokens and I can also lend and
borrow both cpu-hour tokens and man-hour tokens. I can also invest
more man-hour tokens, i.e. hire someone with the tokens, or invest my
own man hours, and cpu-hour tokens, i.e. use someone else' machine (or
my own PC's cpu hours) to create more efficient production processes
for my digitally produced goods and services so that I get back more
than I put in when exchanging those digitally produced goods and
services for cpu hour tokens and man hour tokens. That's the only
profit that can be made and it drives the whole economy toward higher
and higher efficiency, i.e. otherwise, i get back roughly the same as
I put in in cpu hours and man hours.
~~
This model synopsis below is far less ambitious but far more effective
than the P2P Energy Economy that I've been working on. While it taught
me a lot as far as the principles of a sustainable economy, the P2P
Energy Economy, in attempting to apply itself to the physical world
outside of the computer, was aiming at a future when we have physical
abundance in essential resources.
For now, it seems that the only abundance we have is in computational
power and our own creative energy.
A lot of the ideas from the P2P Energy Economy are directly applicable
and will be reused but the model will become far less complex as it
changes trajectories from aiming to reinvent the world decades or
centuries ahead of the world naturally getting there (see prior
comment on the current "efficiency gap" between the digital world and
the physical world) to aiming at fixing the inequitable exchange model
for digitally produced goods and services.
One key difference between this model and the P2P Energy Economy
(besides the absence of smartgrid) is the existence of two currencies:
the cpu-hour token and the man-hour token. Like machine money and
human money.
Neither type of currency is meant to enable ownership. Both are meant
to enable production, not ownership.
So, I'll take the P2P Energy Model apart and compress it/remold it
into this new model that can be applied today to give us a sustainable
abundance economy in digitally produced goods and services.
Marc
Bryan Bishop
> Digitally produced goods and services exist in a world of their own
> that can be thought of as separate from our physical world in that
> it's almost infinitely more efficient.
Not entirely. See the Center for Bits and Atoms.
> For example, building a house in Second Life takes dramatically less
> in work energy than building a house in the physical world and the gap
> makes the difference between abundance now and abundance in 200 years.
That's only because you're confusing ontologies (the naming of things)
and the virtual with the real. A virtual house is hardly a real house,
it's also ungrounded, until you get the CAM conversion rolling.
> A house built in the physical world using a high degree of automation,
> e.g. with robots and open architectural plans can be sold at the cost
It can also be done automatically without you economicists screwing me
up. But that doesn't happen, huh?
> of work energy it takes to build it (assuming it's made from renewable
> materials and its production process meets the conditions for
> sustainable abundance) but when will we have such high physical
> production efficiency?
.. or "but when will the economicists stop bugging us?"
> There is a lot that needs to happen in terms of dramatically
> increasing production efficiencies for physical goods _before_ we need
> an economy to sustain and enhance the abundance.
There's a lot of work before you even start assuming economies.. sigh.
> When it comes to digitally produced goods and services, we can start
> with an example of why a new kind of economy and currency is needed.
Why is any economy/currency needed? This is what we originally talked
with you about many many months ago, and yet here you are, still not
discussing with us- if you want a public forum where you don't have to
respond, go spam Michel's list or something.
> So given that I'm limited in my resources it's not sustainable for me
> to give away the digital goods I produce or exchange them in
> expectation of a potential return (in other digital goods) that may or
> may not happen or that may happen only partially with a net loss to
Yeah, that's why we we were originally talking about philanthropical
bootstrapping.
> So, I'll take the P2P Energy Model apart and compress it/remold it
> into this new model that can be applied today to give us a sustainable
> abundance economy in digitally produced goods and services.
How about we agree that we'll all move to the postscarcity list or
somewhere else where you can discuss this? Let's stop abusing the open
manufacturing list, Marc.
marc fawzi
On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 8:13 PM, Bryan Bishop <kan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 7:44 PM, marc fawzi <marc....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Digitally produced goods and services exist in a world of their own
>> that can be thought of as separate from our physical world in that
>> it's almost infinitely more efficient.
>
> Not entirely. See the Center for Bits and Atoms.
>>
<<
>> For example, building a house in Second Life takes dramatically less
>> in work energy than building a house in the physical world and the gap
>> makes the difference between abundance now and abundance in 200 years.
>
> That's only because you're confusing ontologies (the naming of things)
> and the virtual with the real. A virtual house is hardly a real house,
> it's also ungrounded, until you get the CAM conversion rolling.
>>
<<
>> A house built in the physical world using a high degree of automation,
>> e.g. with robots and open architectural plans can be sold at the cost
>
> It can also be done automatically without you economicists screwing me
> up. But that doesn't happen, huh?
>
>
<<
>> of work energy it takes to build it (assuming it's made from renewable
>> materials and its production process meets the conditions for
>> sustainable abundance) but when will we have such high physical
>> production efficiency?
>
> .. or "but when will the economicists stop bugging us?"
>
>>
>> There is a lot that needs to happen in terms of dramatically
>> increasing production efficiencies for physical goods _before_ we need
>> an economy to sustain and enhance the abundance.
>
> There's a lot of work before you even start assuming economies.. sigh.
>
abundance are there, we just need a more equitable model for exchange,
where money is an enabler of production not an enabler of ownership.
>> When it comes to digitally produced goods and services, we can start
>> with an example of why a new kind of economy and currency is needed.
>
> Why is any economy/currency needed? This is what we originally talked
> with you about many many months ago, and yet here you are, still not
> discussing with us- if you want a public forum where you don't have to
> respond, go spam Michel's list or something.
was pointing to the next paragraph that explains why.
>> So given that I'm limited in my resources it's not sustainable for me
>> to give away the digital goods I produce or exchange them in
>> expectation of a potential return (in other digital goods) that may or
>> may not happen or that may happen only partially with a net loss to
>
> Yeah, that's why we we were originally talking about philanthropical
> bootstrapping.
>
need a currency...
This is very much like ADHD on crack.
Bryan Bishop
> On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 8:13 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote:
>>> When it comes to digitally produced goods and services, we can start
>>> with an example of why a new kind of economy and currency is needed.
>>
>> Why is any economy/currency needed? This is what we originally talked
>> with you about many many months ago, and yet here you are, still not
>> discussing with us- if you want a public forum where you don't have to
>> respond, go spam Michel's list or something.
>
> Right there in the description it says why it's needed. the sentence
> was pointing to the next paragraph that explains why.
>
>>> So given that I'm limited in my resources it's not sustainable for me
>>> to give away the digital goods I produce or exchange them in
>>> expectation of a potential return (in other digital goods) that may or
>>> may not happen or that may happen only partially with a net loss to
>>
>> Yeah, that's why we we were originally talking about philanthropical
>> bootstrapping.
>>
> So you skipped the paragraph before it that explains exactly why you
> need a currency...
In particular, the paragraph was this:
> If I can get 10 "cpu hours" a day from my PC, i.e. 10 X (1 gigaflops
> processor running for 1 hour, as assessed by the Linpack benchmark
> Rmax), and if it costs me less than 0.2 "man hour" a day on average to
> maintain my PC (general PC maintenance) then I have 10 cpu hours and
> e .g. 7.8 man hours a day (based on an 8 hour work day) to produce some
> digital goods (e.g. open source music, open CAD designs, open Second
> Life models, or open software etc) and if I invest in faster and/or
> more efficient PC I will have more CPU hours and/or more man hours to
> make more digital goods.
That does not explain anything about needing a currency, all I see is
the use of 'cost analysis', but 'cost' would be a component of an
economy/currency model, which is why I had reminded you of the now old
question, "why is any economy/currency needed?". Also, "any" is
different from "a".
marc fawzi
So in order to recoup, some one needs to give you something back and
that something should allow you to produce more, so if it's "man
hours" that you need to recoup you get "man hour" tokens back (So you
ca trade them for man hours from another producer who has a surplus of
man hours) and if it's "cpu hours" you need to recoup then you get
back "cpu hour" tokens and you can pay them to someone with "cpu hour"
surplus to use their machine as part of your production (over P2P)
Money paid for digital goods and services does not lead to ownership.
It simply enables further production.
The way the tokens are created and managed is the same way as in the
P2P Energy Economy, i.e. based on increase in the flow of "cpu hour"
and "man hour" from peers with surplus to peers with deficit. No
change in the algorithm or how money is created but now you have two
types of tokens, one for paying back humans so they can recoup and
produce more (by hiring other humans with surplus man hours) and one
for paying back machines so they can produce more (by utilizing other
machines with surplus cpu hours)
My intent is to build P2P trading software to enable sustainable
abundance in digitally produced goods and services (open software,
open music, open CAD models, open SL models, open Spice models, open
Matlab models)
Again, you need to recoup the cost of production in man hours and cpu
hours so you can produce more. Trading with "Cpu hours" and "man
hours" as currency let's you do that for digitally produced goods and
services such that producers don't need a Donate button and Big
Corporate sponsors.
Nick Taylor
>
What's the opposite of ADHD?
No need to describe the opposite of crack - I know crack - a fast and nasty cocaine derivative (which like cocaine) gives you the ability to talk until the end of time with scant regard for whether anyone's actually listening or not. Which is fine if everyone's on it; if they're not, not so much. If they're not and they're trying to talk about something else, then not so much again.
Personally I think Bryan's fairly... well... measured, in his responses etc.
Nothing personal like, but we have touched on this subject before.
Nick
marc fawzi
Nathan Cravens
This is very much like ADHD on crack.
Bryan Bishop
Nobody's wanting to violate the laws of physics and conservation of
mass, energy and such, don't worry, but this is getting ridiculous. I
specifically said that cost is a component of economy/currency, which
you've been trying to push on us and rape this community with for a
long time now, comparatively to its lifetime. And then you go on to
talk about needing 'cost', but you don't actually address it. Yes,
it's true that you have your inputs and your outputs, I'm not denying
that. But to not deny it doesn't mean you have to go on and on about
"economics/currencies/costs".
On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 12:33 AM, marc fawzi <marc....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Need to attend to my other project, but will check back here as often as I can.
Please don't.
On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 12:35 AM, marc fawzi <marc....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Nice going dude. Add that to your list of useless comments.
This is getting out of hand.
On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 12:36 AM, Nathan Cravens wrote:
>> This is very much like ADHD on crack.
>
Nathan, I think Paul and I have failed as moderators.
Samantha Atkins
On Feb 16, 2009, at 10:01 PM, marc fawzi wrote:
>
> You need to recoup the cost of production in order to produce more.
>
> So in order to recoup, some one needs to give you something back and
> that something should allow you to produce more, so if it's "man
> hours" that you need to recoup you get "man hour" tokens back (So you
> ca trade them for man hours from another producer who has a surplus of
> man hours) and if it's "cpu hours" you need to recoup then you get
> back "cpu hour" tokens and you can pay them to someone with "cpu hour"
> surplus to use their machine as part of your production (over P2P)
How the hell do you know what you need to recoup until you need it
which may be long after the value was create for which you received
some value in return.
>
>
> Money paid for digital goods and services does not lead to ownership.
> It simply enables further production.
>
If I own nothing I can produce nothing.
> The way the tokens are created and managed is the same way as in the
> P2P Energy Economy, i.e. based on increase in the flow of "cpu hour"
> and "man hour" from peers with surplus to peers with deficit. No
> change in the algorithm or how money is created but now you have two
> types of tokens, one for paying back humans so they can recoup and
> produce more (by hiring other humans with surplus man hours) and one
> for paying back machines so they can produce more (by utilizing other
> machines with surplus cpu hours)
>
> My intent is to build P2P trading software to enable sustainable
> abundance in digitally produced goods and services (open software,
> open music, open CAD models, open SL models, open Spice models, open
> Matlab models)
>
> Again, you need to recoup the cost of production in man hours and cpu
> hours so you can produce more. Trading with "Cpu hours" and "man
> hours" as currency let's you do that for digitally produced goods and
> services such that producers don't need a Donate button and Big
> Corporate sponsors.
>
Please learn some basic economics.
- samantha
Paul D. Fernhout
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 12:36 AM, Nathan Cravens wrote:
>>> This is very much like ADHD on crack.
>> Marc, this is a personal insult. Do not use this language to attack someone
>> personally. Its okay to take the topics personally. It is not okay to
>> negatively attack someone personally, even in attempting to make the
>> personal attack impersonal by describing the thought involved as "ADHD on
>> crack."
>>
>> The comment reflects poorly not only on yourself, but on this group. We're
>> after higher aims here.
>>
>> I will nag at you, Marc, no more.
>
> Nathan, I think Paul and I have failed as moderators.
I get ten or more spams a day about wristwatches these days. If Marc was
posting spam on watches, I'd be the first to kick him off and have already
kicked off two or so spammers that signed up to open manufacturing.
Personally, I have no problem with Marc posting on his currency ideas on the
open manufacturing list (although I do think the cross-posting to more than
one list is problematical). I don't agree with parts of them, but there are
at least three good reasons for him to post on them.
The first is some people (including me :-) learn by talking or writing, in
that we put an idea forward, and then think about it some more (including
with feedback), so what I see going on is a process where Marc is evolving
this currency idea, maybe even someday to the point of transcending it. :-)
The second is that any system has its current limits, so in that sense
rationing goes on somehow, even if practically any reasonable request by a
human is easily satisfiable easily. How to manage true resource limits in a
post-scarcity society is an interesting one (although I think it might look
more like processor scheduling than currency, but the two may be related, so
again, I don't want to prejudge where Marc's work will end up). I think one
exchange in this thread (showing how wanting to earn currency from a product
in order to use that currency to make new things assumes a currency system
in the first place, and so reflects an assumption) was interesting.
The third is that it is worthwhile to talk about transitioning from today's
currency-based economy to something else. Maybe there could be a better
intermediate currency. It is not what I myself want to focus on right now,
but I don't want to say such exploration of no value -- in general the theme
of moving from where we are to something better is quite interesting
(although maybe it will just be done as a hobby, but even then, what are the
implications?).
So, I find his posts somewhat topical, even if they skirt the edge of what
most people here care about in the form they are in, and even if I myself
don't want to go over that ground (or go over it again).
With that said, there are three obvious things going wrong here:
The first is that some people say newcomers are confused by coming to the
open manufacturing list and seeing lots of posts about currency than about
something else etc. Well, I'm not entirely sure how to fix that, but
certainly more posts about other things would balance that. Also, if people
don't want to talk about currency, just don't reply on such posts, or post a
standard reply to a FAQ somewhere.
Second, Marc is cross-posting to two or more lists now as with the start of
this thread. I find that questionable.
Third, and most importing, is the "insulting" and name calling. But, it is
obvious (at least to me) that is not just on Marc's side (regardless of who
started what). Other people use words like "crap" etc. to describe things,
so that's insulting too.
So, I agree any name calling and insulting should stop -- but by everyone.
--Paul Fernhout
Vinay Gupta
Guys, kindly shut the hell up until you
1> get some perspective
2> remember that you're on the same side
this is worse than watching factions of the left bitch about whether
or not it's acceptable to term one group or another "real marxists."
If this is the level of organization and debate, the *technology*
will simply never reach a fraction of its full potential. If you're
going to have list war, cut to the bone and through it, and into the
new conceptual territory on the other side. If you're going to have
peace, put in the effort to give important concepts a URL (OSE or try
Appropedia, they're not deletionist at all) and reference them.
En garde!
Vinay
--
Vinay Gupta
Free Science and Engineering in the Global Public Interest
http://guptaoption.com/map - social project connection map
http://hexayurt.com - free/open next generation human sheltering
http://hexayurt.com/plan - the whole systems, big picture vision
Gizmo Project VOIP : (USA) 775-743-1851
Skype/Gizmo/Gtalk/AIM: hexayurt
Twitter: @hexayurt http://twitter.com/hexayurt
UK Cell : +44 (0) 0795 425 5355 / USA VOIP (+1) 775-743-1851
"If it doesn't fit, force it."
marc fawzi
>
>
> On Feb 16, 2009, at 10:01 PM, marc fawzi wrote:
>
>>
>> You need to recoup the cost of production in order to produce more.
>>
>> So in order to recoup, some one needs to give you something back and
>> that something should allow you to produce more, so if it's "man
>> hours" that you need to recoup you get "man hour" tokens back (So you
>> ca trade them for man hours from another producer who has a surplus of
>> man hours) and if it's "cpu hours" you need to recoup then you get
>> back "cpu hour" tokens and you can pay them to someone with "cpu hour"
>> surplus to use their machine as part of your production (over P2P)
>
> How the hell do you know what you need to recoup until you need it
> which may be long after the value was create for which you received
> some value in return.
>
>
have 0 dollars. You need to recoup 6 dollars.
So I think the rest of your response is on the same level ... sadly.
Samantha Atkins
On Feb 17, 2009, at 10:36 AM, marc fawzi wrote:
>
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 12:45 AM, Samantha Atkins
> <sjat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Feb 16, 2009, at 10:01 PM, marc fawzi wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> You need to recoup the cost of production in order to produce more.
>>>
>>> So in order to recoup, some one needs to give you something back and
>>> that something should allow you to produce more, so if it's "man
>>> hours" that you need to recoup you get "man hour" tokens back (So
>>> you
>>> ca trade them for man hours from another producer who has a
>>> surplus of
>>> man hours) and if it's "cpu hours" you need to recoup then you get
>>> back "cpu hour" tokens and you can pay them to someone with "cpu
>>> hour"
>>> surplus to use their machine as part of your production (over P2P)
>>
>> How the hell do you know what you need to recoup until you need it
>> which may be long after the value was create for which you received
>> some value in return.
>>
>>
>
> Can you add numbers? If you have 6 dollars and you give them away, you
> have 0 dollars. You need to recoup 6 dollars.
>
If I have $6 then I can exchange it for anything I may end up needing
at the time I need it that those monetary units will be accepted for.
That is my point. No "I spent CPU os I should be compensated in
CPU". Flexible, universally acceptable currency (trading units) are
essential.
> So I think the rest of your response is on the same level ... sadly.
I think you are a bore who hears no one but yourself.
- samantha
marc fawzi
capacity to work with the agile process, and I am still not sure.
I find that a few people here act like bullying IRC admins (throwing
out words like "spam" and "bullshit") and lack the ability to reason,
and like Wikipedia admins if they don't like what they hear regardless
of the rationality behind it they resort to cursing which invites
cursing. I admit I have a tit for tat angle when it comes to
interacting with people who resort to lowest common denominator
behavior, so if someone comes and says that this is spam (referring to
the agile process of release often, release early and high bandwidth
communication that starts out raw in quality and gets better over
time) then I think they have no business running a mailing list about
anything "open" and especially not something as elevated in vision as
"open production"
The fact is that almost 99.999% of people I met on these lists in the
last 3 months or so have no true understanding of the agile process.
Agile communication, as you explain below, is not spam, and I differ
in opinion on copying multiple lists.
The things we learn growing up in a hierarchical society is not to
upset the hierarchy but the only way for society to reach its full
potential is to continuously break that hierarchy, so in copying
multiple lists I am broadcasting to all those who may be interested in
many hierarchies (each list is a hierarchy of moderators, long time
users, and new comers) so as not to create dependence on any one of
those hierarchies, because as I see it no hierarchy is a good
hierarchy, so any one hierarchy can go bad and try to control its
environment to stay in place. By broadcasting to all lists, I simply
spread the risk, so if OM decides that they want to be close minded
and label agile as spam because they can't understand the thought
process then let it be. I have no time to start digging out old
threads from OM and resending them to other lists after the fact. The
approach of sending to all lists concerned creates more resiliency on
my end, so again if one list decides to label agile as spam I will
have lost nothing and my message continues to flow so I can continue
to receive thoughtful feedback and thoughtful arguments and continue
the process.
Back to work now...
marc fawzi
Abundance sustaining universal currency like the joule tokens can
exist (see P2P Energy Economy) but the Joule Token as a currency,
which is a universal currency for goods and services that meet the
conditions for sustainable abundance (i.e. universal in context of
abundance sustaining currencies) exist only as long as common everyday
goods and services meet the conditions of sustainable abundance, which
they don't at this time.
Today, the only "common everyday resources" that a meaningful economy
can be based on and that meet the conditions of sustainable abundance
is human energy (and more exactly creative energy is what we see an
abundance of) and machine-computational energy (which I believe
continue to double at the single node level every 18 months)
So then if nothing else meets the conditions of abundance why the
overhead of designing a universal abundance-sustaining currency? Why
not start from the special case and then generalize. If you want to
debate this last point, I suggest we debate mathematical induction.
So while mathematical induction as defined commonly (the weak case)
may be an over simplified analogy it is basically the same exactly
logical process.
Joule tokens, which is a case of trying to derive the
generalized/universal solution through direct axiomatic deduction was
leading down a path of increasing complexity. I figured the whole
approach to arriving at a universal abundance-sustaining currency
should be rethought and so I'm starting out now from the special case.
What "cpu hour" tokens and "man hour" tokens enable is the equitable
trading in human and machine work energy such that we can have a
sustainable abundance in digitally produced goods and services (like
open software, open CAD models, open Spice models, open Matlab models,
open music, etc, anything that is both open [since openness is part of
the conditions for sustaining abundance] and is produced by people on
a computer)
Today, most if not all popular open software is highly and critically
dependent on major corporate donors, which is not sustainable. Think
Firefox, Linux, KDE, Gnome, etc. All are funded by major corporations
directly or indirectly (e.g. by employing lead developers, funding
startup ventures involving those lead developers, or directly funding
them as Google has done with Firefox) This is not "sustainable" since
if the economy melts down (as it has but to worse degree) and those
corporations cease to exist then who will fund those projects that
each have hundreds of millions of users? The users of course, but only
a tiny portion of users fund those projects today. So then we need an
abundance sustaining p2p economy that allows the equitable exchange of
man hours and cpu hours between equally empowered peer producers to
enable true sustainable abundance.
marc fawzi
debate about the various ideas, philosophical and technical.
I believe the issue is lack of wisdom on all sides, except for a
couple guys here whom I personally see as having enough wisdom for me
to stick around this list and exchange and generate insight, through
civil debate. I wish I can pick and choose who would reply to my
messages, but that would not be an open process. I might as well
resort to private email exchange if I wanted to have a nice and clean
debate, but why would I be avoiding dealing with pent up frustrations
of others and myself? I know it devolves the debate but it also lets
us see how we behave under such pressure, and trains us to be better
at handling other people's frustrations and our own, but I admit we
sometimes poke around for trouble, which is also a way of exhibiting
frustration. Even women here use language like "how the hell do you
..."
There is a relevant video that some of you must have already watched.
it's about the need to resort to wisdom rather than rules or
incentives (or in Bryan's case, labeling the message as spam and
bullshit and then punishing/banning the messenger, which, IMO, is
consistent with running an IRC channel)
So this guy here talks about resorting to wisdom rather than rules,
incentives or counter incentives:
It's banal but also has the right timing for what's going on in the world:
http://ted.org/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html
Marc
marc fawzi
I think the question of "why do we need to back money with anything"
is very important question (although it's not applicable to the kind
of money creation I have developed) The question keeps popping up so I
need to address the response to all those on the relevant lists, so I
don't have to re-answer it on all lists.
I'm looking at the economy as a programmer working with a model made
up of several algorithms, running at various times, concurrently, for
each participant, and in this view of the economy complexity at the
level of the whole economy arises from a starting set of basic rules.
If I said "let there be money" and waved a magic wound and let the
resulting system run then I would have lost the ability to model the
system's behavior, deductively and would have the kind of system that
can only be modeled numerically, which isn't bad for the whole
economy, if the constraints on money creation assure long term
stability, but I couldn't then guarantee each given participant that
if they follow the rules of the game that they would do well. I have a
problem with that.
In other words, unless I link money creation to higher productivity, I
would not be able to predict deductively what an increase in money
supply would do, i.e. what is the money being linked to? In the case
of the joule tokens and the "cpu hour" and "man hour" tokens, money
(tokens) is created based on the increase (delta) in the flow of man
hours and cpu hours (two different tokens) from peers with surplus to
peers with deficit (which represents a definite future increase in
productivity as those surplus man and cpu hours are spent rather than
being idle), so this linkage allows me to deductively predict the
outcome of new money. I would not be able to deduce what new money
would do to productivity if it's not linked directly to it.
The money is not "backed" by energy (or in this new model human and
computer energy).. It's "linked" to productivity.
So the right word is "linked to" not "backed by."
Marc
On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 11:32 AM, Kevin Carson
<free.market.a...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Reply re: "Flexible universal currency" vs "specialized currency"
>
>> can be based on and that meet the conditions of sustainable abundance
>> is human energy (and more exactly creative energy is what we see an
>> abundance of) and machine-computational energy (which I believe
>> continue to double at the single node level every 18 months)
>
> currency system. The accounting/warehouse receipt functions don't
> require any backing: just a secure network and an accounting unit
> that can't be counterfeited. I expect the producers in local
> economies will be creative in working out barter arrangements through
> LETS systems and the like, on an ad hoc "let a thousand flowers bloom"
> basis, when the FRN suffers a catastrophic loss of value and the
> official banking system collapses. And the free market mechanism will
> result in inter-exchangability between such local systems for
> long-distance trade, or for working out units of exchange for
> networked production. As for pricing particular goods and services,
> why not just let the producers set their own price in whatever
> arbitrary unit is being used, and adjust it depending on how many
> takers there are at a given price--IOW a market price system, but
> absent the artificial scarcities currently built in for privileged
> classes?
>
> --
> Kevin Carson
> Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com
> Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
> http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
> Anarchist Organization Theory Project
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html
>
> >
>
Bryan Bishop
> On Sun, 8 Feb 2009, Bryan Bishop wrote:
> > On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 9:15 PM, marc fawzi wrote:
> >> The two biggest dogmas present in current social theories are:
>
> >Marc, could you please move this on to another mailing list now, maybe
> > the postscarcity mailing list, or even better, Michel's p2presearch
> > list? Since we've discussed these topics, and your P2P model, forever
> > now-- without progress-- I suggest that those other forums would be a
> > better medium.
>
> I am also tired of reading these deliberately misleading arguments and
> self promotion. I have neglected to respond to them in the hope that he
> would lose interest and go away. Unfortunately he hasn't, and it has
> affected outsiders' perception of this list and the general spread of
> topics that we discuss. I for one am not interested in economic theories
> or any of marc fawzi's "analysis" which is actually just him creating ammo
> for later arguments in support of his economic agenda. Are we powerless to
> do anything about this?
On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 1:57 PM, marc fawzi wrote:
> Being on the same side does not mean that we can't have vigorous
> debate about the various ideas, philosophical and technical.
Yep, theoretically a noble ideal, but remember we've pointed out to
you on multiple occasions that you're not actually participating in
that sort of vigorous debate- ignoring many messages, points, etc.,
twisting arguments and so on and so forth. Lest we forget:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/140c05fe5947a976
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/c8ad0cd1f7bf12a7
.. among many others.
> incentives (or in Bryan's case, labeling the message as spam and
> bullshit and then punishing/banning the messenger, which, IMO, is
> consistent with running an IRC channel)
If you were banned, you wouldn't be posting. Please don't lie about
whether or not that has occured yet. By the way, I've not been taking
issue with the message, but rather calling *you* bullshit. You're the
one spewing the bullshit, the topic was thoroughly discussed
previously, and denying that is just destructive to the continuing
growth of this *manufacturing* community.
On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 12:36 PM, marc fawzi wrote:
> Can you add numbers? If you have 6 dollars and you give them away, you
> have 0 dollars. You need to recoup 6 dollars.
See:
On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
> again, I don't want to prejudge where Marc's work will end up). I think one
> exchange in this thread (showing how wanting to earn currency from a product
> in order to use that currency to make new things assumes a currency system
> in the first place, and so reflects an assumption) was interesting.
So "you need to recoup 6 dollars" is not necessarily correct (why
bother with currency in the first place) etc.
On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 12:52 PM, marc fawzi wrote:
> I was not sure if anyone here besides Eric and yourself has the
> capacity to work with the agile process, and I am still not sure.
Just because it's the agile process doesn't mean you're automagically
pure signal.
> I find that a few people here act like bullying IRC admins (throwing
> out words like "spam" and "bullshit") and lack the ability to reason,
> and like Wikipedia admins if they don't like what they hear regardless
> of the rationality behind it they resort to cursing which invites
What rationality behind it? I've clearly demonstrated by pointing to
historical examples in our discussions how you continue to ignore
fundamental points that have served as the basis for much of the
shared thinking behind list subscribers, etc. So, twisting and turning
arguments and discussions, that's not a lot of rationality, sorry.
> cursing. I admit I have a tit for tat angle when it comes to
> interacting with people who resort to lowest common denominator
> behavior, so if someone comes and says that this is spam (referring to
> the agile process of release often, release early and high bandwidth
> communication that starts out raw in quality and gets better over
> time) then I think they have no business running a mailing list about
> anything "open" and especially not something as elevated in vision as
> "open production"
Again, it doesn't matter whether it's agile or not, just because you
use that label to describe sending out messages, has no bearing on
whether or not you're actually following through on responding to the
ideas that you are presented with.
> The fact is that almost 99.999% of people I met on these lists in the
> last 3 months or so have no true understanding of the agile process.
Hahahah. So if you truly believe that, why are you still here?
> Agile communication, as you explain below, is not spam, and I differ
"Agile communication"- or rapidly sending messages out without
integrating responses or revising the snowball effect- is effectively
spam.
> have lost nothing and my message continues to flow so I can continue
> to receive thoughtful feedback and thoughtful arguments and continue
> the process.
You might say that, but you haven't demonstrated that at all, and in
the process have dug yourself into a rather deep hole on this list.
On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 2:21 PM, marc fawzi wrote:
> I'm looking at the economy as a programmer working with a model made
> up of several algorithms, running at various times, concurrently, for
> each participant, and in this view of the economy complexity at the
> level of the whole economy arises from a starting set of basic rules.
But again you're starting from assumptions about an 'economy'-thingy,
this 'currency' thingy and 'money' things and such, the problems of
bringing it up as a topic- from you in particular- being that we've
gone over this so many times with you, but no progress has been made
on your front (even though you might claim it progress to send another
email that continues to ignore the points). Anyway, see above and
such.
"tired of marc fawzi's crap"
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/b2906ba50b94b7eb
On Feb 9, 3:19 pm, ben lipkowitz wrote:
> On Sun, 8 Feb 2009, Bryan Bishop wrote:
> > On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 9:15 PM,marcfawziwrote:
> >> The two biggest dogmas present in current social theories are:
>
> >Marc, could you please move this on to another mailing list now, maybe
> > the postscarcity mailing list, or even better, Michel's p2presearch
> > list? Since we've discussed these topics, and your P2P model, forever
> > now-- without progress-- I suggest that those other forums would be a
> > better medium.
>
> I am alsotiredof reading these deliberately misleading arguments and
> self promotion. I have neglected to respond to them in the hope that he
> would lose interest and go away. Unfortunately he hasn't, and it has
> affected outsiders' perception of this list and the general spread of
> topics that we discuss. I for one am not interested in economic theories
> or any ofmarcfawzi's"analysis" which is actually just him creating ammo
> for later arguments in support of his economic agenda. Are we powerless to
> do anything about this?
I guess one of us needs to step up.
On Feb 10, 7:56 am, Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
> I realize we all have limited time, but here's one example of a point from a
> recent post ofMarc'sthat is provocative but still perhaps a step to
> enlightenment: "Getting and giving things for free unconditionally (as in a
> gift economy) is unsustainable because of the following reasons: 1. If a
> given good or service can be obtained for free then some people may want an
> infinite supply of it."
>
> Ursula K. Le Guin touched on that in the novel "The Dispossessed" with a
> society that saw hording as mental illness. One could probably have a long
> discussion on that point (even in complete or limited disagreement). But,
> what's most important isMarchas brought up a point and stated it boldly.
> But most people here (including myself at this point) are too busy with
> other things based on other assumptions to want to spend much time
> discussing that right now. But, in general, it's an important issue to work
> through, human motivation when presented with abundance (including, if
> people do hoard, how long do they hoard? -- James P. Hogan's book "Voyage
> From Yesteryear" has some funny scenes about that :-).
>
> But a big question, is, are we having this discussion because we don't want
> to work through that point, or are we having this discussion because we feel
> we have worked through that point and the conclusions are being ignored and
> we want to focus on other things? :-) The two situations have different
> possible resolutions and would say different things about this group.
We've gone through the point already many times, Paul.
More recently, we've seen-
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/c9739841266f292a
As Nathan puts it, there needs to be a "heart to heart", and in light
of ben's post asking if we are powerless to do anything, some action
is going to have to be taken. But by who?
marc fawzi
You've perfected the art of farting.