Open Money and Open Manufacturing
marc fawzi
It seems that there is not one but many efforts to redefine money and the economy, including ones already running inside virtual online worlds.
The key IMO is not which model to choose because none are tested in practice and the more models we experiment with and the more different they are the more we learn and more we benefit as people trying to undo the system and build a new one out of our ideas and ideals, which, again, do not need to be the same. Diversity is good during the experimentation phase, just like the number of companies making home computers in the early 80s. Eventually, we ended up with IBM PC clone makers and Apple and that's it. Down to 2 models from 7 or more models.
As to the interaction between those models and the real world, that's too early to think about, but it's a big task to build a layer of abstraction (or a hypervisor) that allows different model simulations to run on top of one "Open Money" platform, which is why it's nice to start thinking about that now. Eventually, the various new models have to interoperate with each other as they come out of simulation and become part of the real world.
As to simulation vs actual implementation in the real world, I'm personally sticking to simulation (as a game) for the next 10 years and have no plans in the immediate term to implement in the real world. There are so many ideas and developments that will happen over the next 10-30 years that it's useless for me personally to try and solve everything now.
I'm interested in the future intersection between Open Money (the Open Money interoperability standard for new money models with respect to each other as well as the development of a "Open Money" platform that can run different models of new money) and Open Manufacturing.
It may be 10-30 years into the future but getting started early is always FUN.
What do you guys think, am I in the wrong place or is this a viable discussion for this group?
Related info:
v.09-b of the new money model I'm working on can be found at:
http://evolvingtrends.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/p2p-social-currency-money-20/
While I've started thinking about Open Money (interoperability standard and simulation platform) my initial simulation will likely be standalone/ad-hoc, not a general platform for all possible models.
Thanks,
Marc
http://evolvingtrends.wordpress.com/
Bryan Bishop
> What do you guys think, am I in the wrong place or is this a viable
> discussion for this group?
You're in the right place; personally I try to act like I don't
understand money, but there are others reading that will love to see
your message. And some of us are more interested in getting rid of
money all together -- why get yourself into a situation where you must
make uncertain future trades to get what you need to live and build
your things? :-( I am not talking about socialism, there's been
discussions on the list in the past explaining this.
marc fawzi
Speaking of money, Google is now $250 down from $700 earlier this year.
The world is reacting to a major catastrophe, and the more it reacts the deeper the sense of crisis will be, and the further away we want to get away from the current state.
I personally have the tendency to say f*k this and get together with a bunch of people, buy some farm land and start a self-sustaining community. I had that tendency even before this current free fall of the economy.
But beyond reactive/radical thoughts, the world will likely settle (after the turmoil) into a new state, and part of that new state will be what you guys are talking about here as well as a new model of economy.
I'm listening very carefully to what is being said on this group, and I'm thinking of one aspect (money definition) of the new "common order" the world is likely to settle in after it's done reacting.
So it's good to know, I'm in the right place :)
marc fawzi
Nathan Cravens
Joseph Jackson
currencies during the past decades. Edward Cahn and Thomas Greco both
have excellent books. I would start at the P2P foundation page on
this topic because there are a great many essays to work through; it
is a lot of content. http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Category:Money
I spent the past 2 weeks going through all this and only have a basic
understanding so far. You have to realize this is a very old debate,
going back to biblical warnings against usury (one of the few times
religion has been a source of wisdom). In particular, remember that
we didn't always have a central banking/fractional reserve banking
system--at the founding of the US there was a long debate between the
Federalists and Anti-Federalists on this topic as well as the general
structure of the economy (Jefferson's self sufficient agrarian/farmer-
gentleman vs Hamilton's Federalist vision).
I have recently started thinking of money in the same way as Free
Software. Free as in Freedom will lead to nearly "free" price. This
argument was put forth by anarchist proponents of mutual banking,
pointing out that if everyone were free to create money, it would
drive prices down to cost. A great book, now in the public domain, is
William Greene's, Mutual Banking.
http://books.google.com/books?id=C4pYAAAAMAAJ&dq=mutual+banking&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=J8oF03mEL-&sig=u1YlhKyTn0Rd-WamqEZhlunazmI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result
Just read the preface and you will see that in 1870, someone was
saying everything that should be said today--yet we hear nothing in
the media coverage of the collapse about the true causes--a
dysfunctional "code" at the heart of our economic operating system.
In the next 10 years, I expect the "Open Money" movement to coalesce
into an effective force. Once it attracts widespread attention, we
should expect State and Financial Industry intervention to preserve
their monopoly on legal tender. We need to be planning today to
better coordinate actions among all the various local currency
experiments and 2) prepare for a push back. An interesting publicity
stunt would be to challenge the constitutionality of legal tender.
Greco has a chapter on this, quoting Article 1 No State shall... make
any thing but gold and silver a tender in payment of debts. The point
being that the Federal Government was never given power to REQUIRE
anything but gold/silver backed currency. States and communities were
free to issue any sort of other currency, but could not be forced to
accept payment in the fiat money we accept today.
Now, I am just throwing this out as an idea--within 10 years if the
"Open Currency" movement is thriving and we could find a wealthy
sponsor, it would be fun to try to take a case to the Supreme Court to
raise awareness on this. Ultimately, the Court seems to just certify
public opinion on issues anyway (Brown V Board education just stamped
a battle that had almost already been won by years of protests/sit ins
etc).
Bernard Leitar also has an important book on this subject but it is
not readily available--UK amazon for 200$ I think!!
Paul D. Fernhout
This is actually a "trick" question (see Iain Banks's writings :-), but can
you please define this thing called "money" and why an advanced civilization
would want to use it?
--Paul Fernhout
Patrick Anderson
<pdfer...@kurtz-fernhout.com> wrote:
> This is actually a "trick" question (see Iain Banks's writings :-), but can
> you please define this thing called "money" and why an advanced civilization
> would want to use it?
Paul, are you suggesting we must be reduced to barter?
Or maybe you are saying there will be no need for trade of any kind in
the future?
Would you say specialization is over-rated? Can you be your own brain
surgeon? Or even plumber or mechanic?
Do you consider trading labor useless or maybe even evil?
Isn't money originally and finally supposed to be an accounting of
that trading of labor - so we can specialize more easily?
Certainly Federal Reserve Notes and Partial Reserve Banking are evil
for many reasons, but couldn't we create a new (GNU) accounting system
to help us build a better society, or would you say there is just no
point?
Patrick
Bryan Bishop
I think that's untrue. When you're in the middle of nowhere, with no
resources except lots of heat and lots of sand, all of the "currency"
you create in the world will not change the fundamental fact that you
screwed up and didn't consider what you had there, nor brought the
tools with you to deal with the context.
Also, Nathan, we want you back in the IRC channel please :-).
marc fawzi
Answering your question on why an advanced civilization would/would not need money.
For now, we're limited by this:
To get something (A), you have to give something (B)
The "something (B)" right now actually boils down to energy, human energy, which is exchangeable for some official paper we call money which is exchangeable for "something (A)"
For now we are limited to this model where in order to get something (A) you have to give something (B) .. In barter B is just another thing, and could be energy, but not official paper
So if we can get something without giving something then we won't need money
How do you get something without giving something?
This is not a trick question.
One argument says that I can get something that can be freely replicated without giving something.
Let's take digital music or software as an example.
If I use BitTorrent to download some mp3 file then I'm costing all the peers in bandwidth that they pay for. The cost is something they can't refuse to pay because if they did then they wouldn't be able to download mp3 files themselves. This is collective barter. I let everyone use my bandwidth as long as everyone lets me use theirs. So I'm bartering my bandwidth for their collective bandwidth and every user is doing that, so it's a collective barter. If I refuse to give any of my bandwidth and I just use everyone else' then the more of me the slower the system gets until it stops working. So you see, I have to give something back. In this case what I give is so small vs what I get, but I still have to give something for what I'm getting.
Now, assume that I can teleport a replica of an mp3 file from some guy's machine to mine without costing the guy anything (i.e. assumes teleportation uses an inifinite or semi-infinite bandwidth) and if that guy (or anyone) can teleport a replica of an mp3 file from my machine without costing me anything then everyone can theoretically get something (mp3 files) without giving something back. However, as you know, even when it's costing people absolutely nothing to give they still want something back sometimes or they perceive unfairness. It's like on BitTorrent, most people are unaware or do not care they are giving bandwidth in return for the ability to get mp3 files. However, even with the perception of being able to give something for nothing, some (not all) users and sharing communities insist that you maintain a certain share ratio before they'd give you anything for free. In other words, reciprocity.
Can an advanced civilization abandon reciprocity?
Yes, but the consequences will be great.
Imagine that every time someone opens the door for me, I say nothing.
Imagine that every time I give someone something, they say nothing, or they send me an automatic thank you note. Either way, they're not reciprocating sufficiently or not at all.
I could go on about more drastic consequence of what would happen if you take away reciprocity. In essence, money is a universal medium for reciprocity or that's what it should be. You replicate an apple 10 times using solar energy power matter replicator and know you have 10 apples that cost you nothing (besides the sunk cost of the replicator) So now you can give away 10 apples to 10 teachers. If your teachers don't say THANK YOU or give you kudos some other way you may continue to give them apples but then you will stop when you realize that you're getting no benefit back.
In an advanced civilization, money will be a more direct medium for this emotional/psychological reciprocity. So I can give 1 Emo Dollar (check) for every apple I get. And the seller can go cash that Emo Dollar check at the Love Bank or something, where you have people paid with emotional reward giving emotional reward. So you go from the flow of money to the flow of emotions, lending of emotions, investing of emotions, etc
makes sense? :-)
Patrick Anderson
> You replicate an apple 10 times using solar energy power matter replicator
Isn't an apple tree a solar powered apple replicator?
marc fawzi
Paul's was a trick question after all! :-)
yes, indeed, an apple tree is a solar powered matter replicatOr
Bryan Bishop
> On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 10:05 AM, Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
> > This is actually a "trick" question (see Iain Banks's writings :-), but
> > can you please define this thing called "money" and why an advanced
> > civilization would want to use it?
>
> Paul, are you suggesting we must be reduced to barter?
First, barter isn't terrible. Using computers we can automate
bartering so that it's seamless with the rest of the different types
of trades that you'd be doing. It's not like it becomes terribly hard
to figure out how to solve a problem with 200 different traders each
with different volumes and amounts of substances just to get what you
want through the chains.
But secondly, I don't see why an advanced civilization must trade with itself.
> Or maybe you are saying there will be no need for trade of any kind in
> the future?
I don't see why an advanced civilization would choose to put itself
into a situation where it's not able to support itself. Isn't that a
definition of stupidity and poor judgement?
> Would you say specialization is over-rated?
Every agent must be a specialist to some extent. But nobody's saying
what that "some" must be.
> Can you be your own brain surgeon?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanation
> Or even plumber or mechanic?
Yes.
> Do you consider trading labor useless or maybe even evil?
Huh? Just download the program.
> Isn't money originally and finally supposed to be an accounting of
> that trading of labor - so we can specialize more easily?
I think Joseph might be able to take on this one better than I can.
Patrick Anderson
> First, barter isn't terrible. Using computers we can automate
> bartering so that it's seamless with the rest of the different types
> of trades that you'd be doing. It's not like it becomes terribly hard
> to figure out how to solve a problem with 200 different traders each
> with different volumes and amounts of substances just to get what you
> want through the chains.
I've thought of similar ideas and wonder if such a system is really
any different from a pure digital currency.
> But secondly, I don't see why an advanced civilization must trade with itself.
For specialization of course.
>> Or maybe you are saying there will be no need for trade of any kind in
>> the future?
>
> I don't see why an advanced civilization would choose to put itself
> into a situation where it's not able to support itself. Isn't that a
> definition of stupidity and poor judgement?
I'm not suggesting a civilization (group of people) would want to be
dependent upon outsiders.
I'm trying to say a group of people (a civilization) would want to be
interdependent upon each other in a sort of 'optional' manner.
In other words, each person should have the option to work on his own
car/plumbing/brain, but REQUIRING each person to do all of his own
work for each product or service by disallowing trade seems to be a
move in the wrong direction.
>
>> Would you say specialization is over-rated?
>
> Every agent must be a specialist to some extent. But nobody's saying
> what that "some" must be.
But how can we specialize *AT ALL* without trade?
>
>> Can you be your own brain surgeon?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanation
I don't understand. The picture shows a specialist drilling into the
head of another person.
The person receiving the surgery is not also the surgeon! They are
trading labor or maybe even, ewww, money.
>
>> Or even plumber or mechanic?
>
> Yes.
Oh brother.
Are you really saying a better society would require EVERY person be
skilled in EVERY profession?
Why do you hate trading so much? Do you think trade is the cause of
our economic woes? What about profit?
Patrick
Bryan Bishop
> > But secondly, I don't see why an advanced civilization must trade with
> > itself.
>
> For specialization of course.
No. See below.
> > > Or maybe you are saying there will be no need for trade of any kind in
> > > the future?
> >
> > I don't see why an advanced civilization would choose to put itself
> > into a situation where it's not able to support itself. Isn't that a
> > definition of stupidity and poor judgement?
>
> I'm not suggesting a civilization (group of people) would want to be
> dependent upon outsiders.
>
> I'm trying to say a group of people (a civilization) would want to be
> interdependent upon each other in a sort of 'optional' manner.
That's not really how it works. Take a look at open source software.
That's not a trade really. "Here, have you some code, some software.
You don't have to specialize in this, but you also don't have to trade
for this." It's a compartmentalization approach. You can open up the
box if you need to and follow previous footsteps to figure out some
new solutions if you must, which is also an important aspect.
> In other words, each person should have the option to work on his own
> car/plumbing/brain, but REQUIRING each person to do all of his own
> work for each product or service by disallowing trade seems to be a
> move in the wrong direction.
We're talking about an advanced civilization here (see what started
this), it's not like we're going to revert and lose the ability to
package information and technologies together in some
compartmentalized manner. Nobody said anything about "requiring
no-trade".
> > > Would you say specialization is over-rated?
>>
> > Every agent must be a specialist to some extent. But nobody's saying
> > what that "some" must be.
>
> But how can we specialize *AT ALL* without trade?
Compartmentalization. You don't have to trade to get the stuff, but
you still get the stuff.
> > > Can you be your own brain surgeon?
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanation
>
> I don't understand. The picture shows a specialist drilling into the
> head of another person.
There's a few links to people who did it themselves (poorly, and
died). There's also some articles out there about teleoperated and
automatically operated robots for surgical operations that are being
developed or some that are already released.
> > > Or even plumber or mechanic?
> >
> > Yes.
>
> Oh brother.
You don't have friends who do their own car work?
> Why do you hate trading so much? Do you think trade is the cause of
> our economic woes? What about profit?
I don't hate trading, I'm trying to talk about advanced civilizations,
about ways to make sure that you know what you are doing so that you
don't go beyond the materials that you're tapping.
Patrick, we've had this discussion before.
Joseph Jackson
Interesting exchange guys. I point you to Tim Wilkins work on
GIFTegrity for a discussion that gets at some of your concerns. Have
not studied this very much but it seems relevant.
http://futurepositive.synearth.net/stories/storyReader$261
“My concept and understanding of the GIFTegrity is one of a radical
move away from trade-oriented or materialistic sort of exchange.
“In the GIFTegrity there is no accounting, there are no prices, there
is no barter (no tit for tat), and there is no medium of exchange! For
me, it is the road to a post-monetary, post-barter economy.
“Barter and monetary economies both tie together giving and receiving.
One cannot be done in the absence of the other. It is this "tying
together" that is the ultimate source of "dead resources" and
unemployment
Paul D. Fernhout
> On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 10:05 AM, Paul D. Fernhout
> <pdfer...@kurtz-fernhout.com> wrote:
>> This is actually a "trick" question (see Iain Banks's writings :-), but can
>> you please define this thing called "money" and why an advanced civilization
>> would want to use it?
>
> Paul, are you suggesting we must be reduced to barter?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy
"A gift economy is a social theory in which goods and services are given
without any explicit agreement for immediate or future quid pro quo.
Typically, a gift economy occurs in a culture or subculture that emphasizes
social or intangible rewards for solidarity and generosity: karma, honor,
loyalty or other forms of gratitude. In some cases, simultaneous or
recurring giving serves to circulate and redistribute valuables within a
community. This can be considered a form of reciprocal altruism. Sometimes
there is an implicit expectation of the return of comparable goods or
services, political support, or the gift being later passed on to a third
party. However, in what is considered to be in the true spirit of gift
economics, many times giving is done without any expectation of reciprocity.
The concept of a gift economy stands in contrast to a planned economy or a
market or barter economy. In a planned economy, goods and services are
distributed by explicit command and control rather than informal custom; in
barter or market economies, an explicit quid pro quo — an exchange of money
or some other commodity — is established before the transaction takes place.
In practice, most human societies blend elements of all of these, in varying
degrees."
> Or maybe you are saying there will be no need for trade of any kind in
> the future?
Well, there probably will be less need for trade eventually. How many times
to you go to a copy shop these days to get your typewritten output typeset?
Nope, you probably just print it on the inkjet printer that came free with
your computer. If you print stuff anymore at all, instead of email it. :-)
Anyway, can you list what goods people will still be trading in 100 years if
we have even a shadow of the replicators people are envisioning and have
even now (though at the price of an early 1980s black and white laser
printer -- $50K)?
http://www.zcorp.com/Products/3D-Printers/ZPrinter-450/spage.aspx
"Now you can print 3D color models so quickly and affordably, you'll do it
every day. Presenting the ZPrinter 450. The ZPrinter 450 makes color 3D
printing accessible to everyone. The lowest priced color 3D printer
available, it outputs brilliant color models with time-saving automation and
an easy printing process."
> Would you say specialization is over-rated?
Well, yes: :-)
http://www.elise.com/quotes/a/heinlein_-_specialization_is_for_insects.php
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher
a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts,
build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders,
cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure,
program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects."
But that doesn't have anything to do with economics; that has to do with
being a happy and alive human being. :-)
Also, from:
"The Underground History of American Education"
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/1d.htm
"""
Now come back to the present while I demonstrate that the identical trust
placed in ordinary people two hundred years ago still survives where it
suits managers of our economy to allow it. Consider the art of driving,
which I learned at the age of eleven. Without everybody behind the wheel,
our sort of economy would be impossible, so everybody is there, IQ
notwithstanding. With less than thirty hours of combined training and
experience, a hundred million people are allowed access to vehicular weapons
more lethal than pistols or rifles. Turned loose without a teacher, so to
speak. Why does our government make such presumptions of competence, placing
nearly unqualified trust in drivers, while it maintains such a tight grip on
near-monopoly state schooling?
An analogy will illustrate just how radical this trust really is. What if I
proposed that we hand three sticks of dynamite and a detonator to anyone who
asked for them. All an applicant would need is money to pay for the
explosives. You’d have to be an idiot to agree with my plan—at least based
on the assumptions you picked up in school about human nature and human
competence.
And yet gasoline, a spectacularly mischievous explosive, dangerously
unstable ... is available to anyone with a container. Five gallons of
gasoline have the destructive power of a stick of dynamite. The average tank
holds fifteen gallons, yet no background check is necessary for dispenser or
dispensee. As long as gasoline is freely available, gun control is beside
the point. Push on. Why do we allow access to a portable substance capable
of incinerating houses, torching crowded theaters, or even turning
skyscrapers into infernos? We haven’t even considered the battering ram
aspect of cars—why are novice operators allowed to command a ton of metal
capable of hurtling through school crossings at up to two miles a minute?
Why do we give the power of life and death this way to everyone?
It should strike you at once that our unstated official assumptions about
human nature are dead wrong. Nearly all people are competent and
responsible; universal motoring proves that. The efficiency of motor
vehicles as terrorist instruments would have written a tragic record long
ago if people were inclined to terrorism. But almost all auto mishaps are
accidents, and while there are seemingly a lot of those, the actual fraction
of mishaps, when held up against the stupendous number of possibilities for
mishap, is quite small. I know it’s difficult to accept this because the
spectre of global terrorism is a favorite cover story of governments, but
the truth is substantially different from the tale the public is sold.
According to the U.S. State Department, 1995 was a near-record year for
terrorist murders; it saw three hundred worldwide (two hundred at the hand
of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka) compared to four hundred thousand
smoking-related deaths in the United States alone. When we consider our
assumptions about human nature that keep children in a condition of
confinement and limited options, we need to reflect on driving and things
like almost nonexistent global terrorism.
Notice how quickly people learn to drive well. Early failure is efficiently
corrected, usually self-corrected, because the terrific motivation of
staying alive and in one piece steers driving improvement. If the grand
theories of Comenius and Herbart about learning by incremental revelation,
or those lifelong nanny rules of Owen, Maclure, Pestalozzi, and Beatrice
Webb, or those calls for precision in human ranking of Thorndike and Hall,
or those nuanced interventions of Yale, Stanford, and Columbia Teachers
College were actually as essential as their proponents claimed, this
libertarian miracle of motoring would be unfathomable.
Now consider the intellectual component of driving. It isn’t all just
hand-eye-foot coordination. First-time drivers make dozens, no, hundreds, of
continuous hypotheses, plans, computations, and fine-tuned judgments every
day they drive. They do this skillfully, without being graded, because if
they don’t, organic provision exists in the motoring universe to punish
them. There isn’t any court of appeal from your own stupidity on the road.
I could go on: think of licensing, maintenance, storage, adapting machine
and driver to seasons and daily conditions. Carefully analyzed, driving is
as impressive a miracle as walking, talking, or reading, but this only shows
the inherent weakness of analysis since we know almost everyone learns to
drive well in a few hours. The way we used to be as Americans, learning
everything, breaking down social class barriers, is the way we might be
again without forced schooling. Driving proves that to me.
"""
> Can you be your own brain surgeon? Or even plumber or mechanic?
I do some of my own plumbing, and some of my own car repairs. For the rest,
I get someone who has the right tools and training. There is a significant
difference in results for most activities between someone who has 100 hours
of experience and someone who has 10000 hours of experience.
http://groups.google.com/group/virgle/msg/153991e3281845c0
And recent cars require a lot of specialized equipment. But what does that
prove?
Sure, people help each other all the time, especially with some personal
care tasks around the head. My wife cuts my hair, and I sometimes cut hers.
She worked as a programmer for a chain of hair salons for a short time and
learned quite a bit about hair styling incidentally.
Some people do get good at things, and there is something to be said for
certification organizations (like for medical licensing) to ensure a certain
level of quality. Obviously, I could not pass a beautician's licensing exam
because I lack that general knowledge, even if my wife has trained me to do
a not-that-bad simple straight cut (which can be harder to do than you might
think. :-)
The issue is, does all that helping each other have to be done using "ration
units" or one-to-one "barter"? And if it does require rationing, how do the
ration units get distributed?
So, to me, your question is more like, do I have to demand ration units for
developing software for the surgical robots the brain surgeon uses, in order
to maybe pay someone else to fix my plumbing? Or can we just take it as
given there is enough to go around and that someone who knows how to do
brain surgery does it just because they care about health and want to help
people whenever they can? And likewise, someone who loves to see plumbing
done well is almost always willing to lend a hand fixing pipes?
"Brazil - Have you got a 27B-6?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eosrujtjJHA
(I know, Brazil ends on a sad note depending on which cut you watch.)
Well, maybe I *do* have to demand ration units for services now and then.
But does that make the whole system a good thing? And, as in the movie
"Brazil", where is it taking us?
A deeper issue is, how much of the economy has to be related to services
anyway, if we can take for granted that in the future open manufactured
goods are either really cheap or too cheap to bother charging for, like most
web pages are now.
But I'll agree that for the most highly skilled jobs there is more concern,
to make sure there are enough people who know them who can help.
In the sci-fi short story by Theodore Sturgeon called "The Skills of
Xanadu", people on the planet Xanadu are able to share their skills with
each other through a sort of wearable computer. And it changes the nature of
their society. We see some of that already with the internet. We'll see
more. And maybe it won't be enough to let a car mechanic do brain surgery or
vice versa, but it might be enough for a general surgeon to more easily
learn about moving into brain surgery, or for a car mechanic to be able to
more easily learn to work on any type of vehicle. And that is a big step
towards increasing availability of rarer skills.
It's hard to explain this in our society, because a natural objection is
that "work" is unpleasant and to be avoided. But does it have to be that way?
"Buddhist Economics" by E.F. Schumacher
http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/buddhist_economics/english.html
"The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least
threefold: to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to
enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a
common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming
existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To
organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring,
stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of
criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people,
an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the
most primitive side of this worldly existence. Equally, to strive for
leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete
misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that
work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and
cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of
leisure."
Or:
"The Abolition of Work"
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
"The ludic life is totally incompatible with existing reality. So much the
worse for "reality," the gravity hole that sucks the vitality from the
little in life that still distinguishes it from mere survival. Curiously --
or maybe not -- all the old ideologies are conservative because they believe
in work. Some of them, like Marxism and most brands of anarchism, believe in
work all the more fiercely because they believe in so little else."
> Do you consider trading labor useless or maybe even evil?
Well, what is questionable to me in the future is the formal "trading" part,
as opposed to just people helping people. I do think humans naturally tend
to trade with people around them, so I expect that would go on in a
neighborly "you fix my kid's brain, I fix your kid's car's brakes", kind of
way. :-) But the question is, how much needs to be these highly structured
trades?
"Trading" also sounds so innocent, until you think of the baggage that
starts going with it in our specific economy. For example, in the USA, the
various medical associations purposefully keep the number of doctors being
produced from medical schools low in order to create an artificial scarcity
of them to keep doctor's wages up. But that is not the case with auto
mechanics or plumbers. In our society there is the conventional attitude
that brain surgeons do important high skilled work, but plumbers and
mechanics do unimportant low skilled work. But, how many people will die
quickly if sewage systems leak sewage into the clean water? And how many
people rely on their car brakes to work right every day or they will die in
a collision? So, these are all important jobs with potentially life
threatening consequences if done badly. *But*, the mechanic may have to work
for 100 hours to earn as many ration units as the brain surgeon earns in one
hour. Is that a fair trade? Sure the brain surgeon went to an expensive
medical school, but why was it expensive? To pay other brain surgeons who
are teachers and went to expensive schools? And should we discount the years
a would-be plumber spent playing with tools as a kid just because there was
no tuition paid?
And, what if more and more brain surgery gets done by robots?
"Surgical Robot Removes Calgary Woman's Brain Tumor "
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/18/044259
"Calgary doctors have made surgical history, using a robot to remove a brain
tumor from a 21-year-old woman. Doctors used remote controls and an imaging
screen, similar to a video game, to guide the two-armed robot through Paige
Nickason's brain during the nine-hour surgery Monday. Surgical instruments
acting as the hands of the robot — called NeuroArm — provided surgeons with
the tools needed to successfully remove the egg-shaped tumor.""
Should not then the programmers get most of the ration units? :-) But we
know they won't. These people will:
http://www.intuitivesurgical.com/corporate/leadership/index.aspx
So, even if you believe in a "free market" and trading and fair exchange and
all that, there are lots of forces operating based on wealth that distort
that system in problematical ways -- like having too few brain surgeons or
too few surgical robots.
Wealth works to protect its monopolies whenever possible.
> Isn't money originally and finally supposed to be an accounting of
> that trading of labor - so we can specialize more easily?
Who says? Money these days (fiat dollars) is a type of generalized rationing.
You only need to ration the basics (reasonable amounts of medical care,
shelter, food, clothing, communications, education, energy, entertainment)
if you don't have enough to go around, which implies the society is poor.
So, to me, what you are really saying is, you think our society is so poor
we need to ration everything. And maybe you are right. But then, how can we
make our society so rich that most things do not need to be rationed?
I feel open manufacturing could help with this. However, open manufacturing
can also help with an economy that is still based around money. So we don't
have to agree on the future or a desired economics to both find value in
furthering open manufacturing.
> Certainly Federal Reserve Notes and Partial Reserve Banking are evil
> for many reasons, but couldn't we create a new (GNU) accounting system
> to help us build a better society, or would you say there is just no
> point?
I think the issue is "How to we peacefully transition to a post-scarcity
society?" If a GNU accounting system is needed for a time to help with that,
then great. Maybe that might even be the next few decades?
Long term, at best, this is a possibility for some form of equitable
rationing if we do need to ration even with advanced automation:
http://marshallbrain.com/manna5.htm
"""
"That's what I wanted to ask about. If everything is free, then what's to
stop me from demanding a 100,000 foot house on a thousand acres of land and
a driveway paved in gold bricks? It makes no sense, because obviously
everyone cannot demand that. And how can anything be free? That is hard to
believe in the first place." I said.
"Everything is free AND everyone is equal." Linda said. "That's exactly how
you phrased it, and you were right. You, Jacob, get equal access to the free
resources, and so does everyone else. That's done through a system of
credits. You get a thousand credits every week and you can spend them in any
way you like. So does everyone else. This catalog is designed to give you a
taste of what you can buy with your credits. This is a small subset of the
full catalog you will use once you arrive. You simply ask for something, the
robots deliver it, and your account gets debited."
"Let me show you." said Cynthia. She opened her catalog to a page, and
pointed to one of the pictures. It was clothing. "This is what I am
wearing." she said. "See - it is 6 credits. In a typical week I only spend
about 70 or so credits on clothes. That's why I like to wear something new
every day."
"The robots did manufacture Cynthia's outfit for free. They took recycled
resources, added energy and robotic labor and created what she is wearing.
It cost nothing to make it. She paid credits simply to keep track of how
many resources she is using."
...
"The credits simply make sure that everyone gets equal access to the
resources. There is a finite amount of power that can be generated on any
given day, for example. Things like that. The credits make sure everyone
gets an equal share of the total pool of resources."
"""
If you look at the implications of this chart,
http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/book98/fig.ch3/p060.html
they show the likelihood of human level computers for $1000 by around
2020. Maybe it will be 2040 or later because of software issues. :-) But in
any case, it is within our lifetimes. The effects on our society of such
systems will be profound. Around the time children conceived now are
entering college, superior intellects might be purchasable for a fraction of
a year's college tuition (and further, those machine intellects may even be
controlling robots with superior physical manipulation skills). This means a
fundamental discontinuity in our economic system. And that means a huge risk
of disruption and chaos as today's dreams collide with tomorrow's realities.
Do you really want to have to "pay" or "trade" for the basics when all of
what you could do to earn money is easily automated? Seriously, what do you
have to trade if there are great brain surgeon AIs and great car mechanic
AIs and great plumbing AIs and great movie star AIs and great farmer AIs and
great artist AIs? Even if there are no AIs, clearly individual humans can be
augmented by computers, so do you want to even just compete with them -- the
brain surgeon who can oversee 100 semi-automated brain surgeries at once?
The plumber who using his augmented mind designs pipe fittings so easy to
use there is no more need for plumbers? The car mechanic who can repair 1000
cars in a day one after the other using high speed manipulators while in a
dreamlike sense of flow?
Yet, even then, if you have nothing to trade, I would suggest:
http://marilee.us/desiderata.html
"You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here."
Again, from the Triple Revolution from 1964:
http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
"The continuance of the income-through-jobs link as the only major mechanism
for distributing effective demand — for granting the right to consume — now
acts as the main brake on the almost unlimited capacity of a cybernated
productive system."
From the dystopian side of Manna:
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna4.htm
"By spacing the buildings 100 feet apart, they could house 200,000,000
people in a space of less than 20 square miles if they had wanted to. At
that density, they could put everyone in the country without a job into a
space less than five miles square in size, put a fence around it and forget
about us. If they accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb or two on us, we would
all be gone and they wouldn't have to worry about us anymore."
In some ways, I don't see we have much of a choice if we continue to develop
computer technology. Once we have fairly intelligent machines, or enhanced
humans, either the abundance gets shared widely (maybe with some minor
rationing and some minor inequality) or essentially all the abundance is
going to go to a very few, and the social dynamics of that are ugly to
contemplate -- today's USA with people whose insurance runs out dumped out
of hospitals onto the street seems bad enough, as illustrated in "Sicko":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/sep/24/health.politics
"You get the point of the film pretty quickly: the US system is terrible
unless you've got lots of money. I don't think I could be a doctor in a
system like that of the US. ... You could never imagine anyone in a British
accident and emergency department saying to a patient, 'You'll have to
choose between us reattaching your ring finger and your middle finger
according to how much you can afford. And I really had no idea that patients
can just get kicked out of hospital, put in a taxi and dumped on the street.
It was really tragic.""
One can argue about how to fix the US health care system, but my point here
is mainly that this is an example of how you can have a place of supposed
abundance with people left out, while that would never happen in places with
a different social outlook. As automation continues to spread, how will that
affect everyone if the benefits continue to be concentrated? So, I don't see
how, for most things, the "income through jobs" link can be sustained. But
maintaining that link is fundamental to a society based around ration units
or barter. Something has got to give. (Pun intended. :-)
--Paul Fernhout
marc fawzi
The key idea at the heart of this "abundant, cheap energy-->higher productivity-->economic growth" chain of reasoning is that, unlike gold, as energy becomes more abundant and cheaper its value increases, not decreases, so energy is the primary source of value creation in this new economy.
http://evolvingtrends.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/p2p-social-currency-money-20/
This latest draft is much clearer in terms of its logic. But it's still a pretty rough draft that needs a lot of vetting
I'm an engineer by education, not an economist.
It's about time engineers took over from business people in shaping the economy. The economy we have today has been driven mostly by people with business degrees or economists with no appreciation of KISS
Having said that, the model I've drafted is not KISS-driven as much as I'd like it to be. It's actually teetering on being complicated, but I'm working on it, and I think an actual simulation will allow me to simplify its theory to be based on a few basic and clear assumptions/axioms,
It's also an evolutionary model, not a revolutionary one. And it does not solve all problems that exist today.
The only way for me personally to decide if I like it or not is to simulate it
Feel free to comment, steer my thinking and even stunt it. :-)
Paul D. Fernhout
of its own power generation facilities, but also there are commercial ones.
Interesting.
So, a dollar might say "this entitles you to 10 killowat-hours of
electricity'? Or possibly, the redemption value of a dollars worth of
electricity might vary, as set by Congress? Interesting. And, similarly,
could you pay your taxes in electricity? :-)
Once power was really cheap, the currency might not make much sense anymore,
but by then we probably would not need a currency much or at all. So, the
system works even when it doesn't work anymore. :-)
I like your idea!
--Paul Fernhout
marc fawzi
A Peer Dollar is definitely redeemable for energy.
This model is intended as one of many models for community currency, and the community here is one where everyone has the ability to generate electricity for free from wind, solar, bio fuel etc and then pump the excess (what they don't need) into Peer Grid (a smart distributed utility company operated by the people, for the people) in exchange for peer dollars...
<<
So, the system works even when it doesn't work anymore. :-)
>>
There is also the affinity matrix (an idea that stands on its own) which gives the new money or today's money more explicit value dimensions than just the numerical value ... per each transaction... But I'm more interested in simulating the energy money thing and see how that works...
The scheme is actually pretty elaborate at this point (but it doesn't have to be) ... the more you read it the more details you'll find and think about and I want to make its description really simple .. maybe next step is to split the article into two articles, one for the energy money thing and the other for the multidimensional/programmable transactions (the affinity matrix stuff)
I think that would make it simpler
(thinking)
Paul D. Fernhout
> Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
>> This is actually a "trick" question (see Iain Banks's writings :-), but can
>> you please define this thing called "money" and why an advanced
>> civilization
>> would want to use it?
>
> money.
>
> For now, we're limited by this:
>
> To get something (A), you have to give something (B)
Why are we limited to this?
Can you think of anythings you get without giving something first?
Do you give something for the air you breath?
For the sunshine that lights your days and warms the air?
For the rain that clears the dust from the air and fills the reservoir or
well you get your water from?
For the human DNA that defines some of who you are?
Did you give anything for the benefits of, say, 100000 years of
wolf-breeding that gives us the modern dog?
Or 10000 years of cat breeding that gives us the modern pet cat?
Or for the benefits of heirloom seeds?
http://www.seedsavers.org/
Or for the alphabet?
Or the English language?
Or for the ground under your feet?
Or for the fact that oil and coal exists under the ground?
Or for the oceans that moderate the climate and provide food?
Or for the forests that clean the air and produce wood for us?
Or for the planets, moons, comets, stars, and galaxies that light up the
night sky?
Did you give anything to get all the other humans who make the world such an
interesting place for other people?
Or, for that matter, did you give anything for the benefits of the free
sendmail program that moves most email around?
So, obviously, all the really *important* things in your life you got for
free. :-) Without all or most of these things, you could not exist or be happy.
There is pretty much no way you could pay for any of them anyway.
Of course, being thankful for them is probably good for your psychology and
happiness:
"Being thankful for the Field of Plenty"
http://www.marcinequenzer.com/creation.htm#The%20Field%20of%20Plenty
"An Iroquois Prayer for Thanksgiving"
http://awrungsponge.blogspot.com/2006/11/iroquois-prayer-for-thanksgiving.html
"Thanksgiving Information"
http://www.2020tech.com/thanks/temp.html
From the Marcine Quenzer link:
"The Field of Plenty is always full of abundance. The gratitude we show as
Children of Earth allows the ideas within the Field of Plenty to manifest on
the Good Red Road so we may enjoy these fruits in a physical manner. When
the cornucopia was brought to the Pilgrims, the Iroquois People sought to
assist these Boat People in destroying their fear of scarcity. The Native
understanding is that there is always enough for everyone when abundance is
shared and when gratitude is given back to the Original Source. The trick
was to explain the concept of the Field of Plenty with few mutually
understood words or signs. The misunderstanding that sprang from this lack
of common language robbed those who came to Turtle Island of a beautiful
teaching. Our "land of the free, home of the brave" has fallen into taking
much more than is given back in gratitude by its citizens. Turtle Island has
provided for the needs of millions who came from lands that were ruled by
the greedy. In our present state of abundance, many of our inhabitants have
forgotten that Thanksgiving is a daily way of living, not a holiday that
comes once a year."
Helping protect those things as needed for future generations is perhaps a
way to pay that gift forward, when people feel inclined. But no one can
demand it.
As I said, this is a trick question (on at least a couple of levels).
Anyway, you are, of course, right that in our scarcity-oriented society, you
often have to give something to get something.
What are examples of *those* things, and *why* do you have to give something
first, if everything important is free?
An important part of that answer is "rent". What is rent? Why do we pay it?
Joseph Jackson provided this related link in a related post:
http://futurepositive.synearth.net/stories/storyReader$261
Google search:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=gift+economy
However, despite everything I write here, if you can envision a transaction
economy without much "rent", that might also be a huge improvement oven what
we have now. One such example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism
"Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that aim to
create a society without political, economic, or social hierarchies, i.e. a
society in which all violent or coercive institutions would be dissolved,
and in their place every person would have free, equal access to tools of
information and production, or a society in which such coercive institutions
and hierarchies were drastically reduced in scope."
But I think that is at best a half-way house to a post-scarcity future where
a lot of issues about making things cease to matter.
Still, again, I think a balance of meshwork *and* hierarchy is needed, as in
the Manuel De Landa article:
http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/meshwork.htm
"Indeed, one must resist the temptation to make hierarchies into villains
and meshworks into heroes, not only because, as I said, they are constantly
turning into one another, but because in real life we find only mixtures and
hybrids, and the properties of these cannot be established through theory
alone but demand concrete experimentation."
So, if some sort of currency or rationing is needed to deal with an
important hierarchical part of a society, I'm not necessarily against that.
But, I'm still trying to get a clear understanding of when that might be.
The Manna article provides such an example, cited later.
> The "something (B)" right now actually boils down to energy, human energy,
> which is exchangeable for some official paper we call money which is
> exchangeable for "something (A)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation
"In economics, hyperinflation is inflation that is "out of control", a
condition in which prices increase rapidly as a currency loses its value."
> For now we are limited to this model where in order to get something (A) you
> have to give something (B) .. In barter B is just another thing, and could
> be energy, but not official paper
>
> So if we can get something without giving something then we won't need money
>
> How do you get something without giving something?
>
> This is not a trick question.
Well, you can pick fruit from the bushes, grab fish from a lake, pick up a
pretty seashell at the beach, watch a beautiful sunset, listen to someone
tell a story about their own life...
Your dog can have puppies. :-)
http://www.hsus.org/pets/pet_care/why_you_should_spay_or_neuter_your_pet.html
Dogs and cats are the one piece of self-replicating technology most US
Americans own. And, that example goes to show how soon the problem goes from
not having something to having too much of it. :-(
> One argument says that I can get something that can be freely replicated
> without giving something.
I think what is going on here is not distinguishing between the physical
aspects of getting things and the social aspects of getting things.
Except that, ignoring a little bit of extra power consumption, all those
costs are "sunk costs" that have already been paid, whether information is
shared or not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost
At most, we are talking about whether people's computers go a little slower
(a cost of delay) -- but most home computers are doing practically nothing
most of the time (at least unless they are running SETI at home).
But I think this scenario more likely for a time in the future before
abundance expands so far there is no need to ration at all:
http://marshallbrain.com/manna5.htm
"""
"It works like this. Let's say that you own a large piece of land. Say
something the size of your state of California. This land contains natural
resources. There is the sand on the beaches, from which you can make glass
and silicon chips. There are iron, gold and aluminum ores in the soil, which
you can mine, refine and form into any shape. There are oil and coal
deposits under the ground. There is carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen in
the air and in the water. If you were to own California, all of these
resources are 'free.' That is, since you own them, you don't have to pay
anyone for them and they are there for the taking."
"If you have a source of energy and if you also own smart robots, the robots
can turn these resources into anything you want for free. Robots can grow
free food for you in the soil. Robots can manufacture things like steel,
glass, fiberglass insulation and so on to create free buildings. Robots can
weave fabric from cotton or synthetics and make free clothing. In the case
of this catalog you are holding, nanoscale robots chain together glucose
molecules to form laminar carbohydrates. As long as you have smart robots,
along with energy and free resources, everything is free."
Linda chimed in, "This was Eric's core idea -- everything can be free in a
robotic world. Then he took it one step further. He said that everything
should be free. Furthermore, he believed that every human being should get
an equal share of all of these free products that the robots are producing.
He took the American phrase 'all men are created equal' quite literally."
I said, "That sounds great. In fact, that sounds perfect. But Eric does not
own California. Rich people own all of the land and all of the resources in
the United States, and they are going to give none of it to anyone. They
expect to be paid for what is 'theirs'."
"Yes, that is true. That ownership model is, ultimately, why you are here in
the terrafoam system. If a small group of people own all of the resources
and have complete control of them, then everyone else is at their mercy."
Linda said. "The key to Eric's brilliance is the fact that he found a way
around this problem."
"Eric realized that ownership, in the Western sense, is the problem. His
solution was to turn ownership upside down. Eric used the corporate
ownership model to create a civilization that accomplishes his goals."
"Eric formed a corporation called 4GC, Inc. He sold shares in this
corporation for $1,000 each to one billion people. You will learn about all
of this during your orientation. He put lots of rules around the shares to
avoid abuse - for example, one person can access only one share of stock.
The upshot is that, by selling one billion shares of stock in 4GC, Inc.,
Eric accumulated one trillion dollars in the corporation."
"With that money, he started to build his new civilization. The first thing
he needed was land -- resources. He approached several governments, and
eventually formed a partnership with the government of Australia. He was
able to buy 1.5 million square miles of the Australian outback for $250
billion. Eric then began buying other resources he needed -- factories,
mines, companies around the world. He also began building new factories in
Australia, all of them completely automated, to build robots. With his $1
trillion, he needed to buy all of the resources necessary for one billion
people to be completely self-sufficient. He was able to accomplish that goal
in Australia for about $600 billion."
"The amazing part," Cynthia pointed out, "is that, once he had done all that
and started the major work in Australia, the citizens of Australia decided
to merge with the project. The entire continent of Australia -- all 2
billion or so acres of it -- became the Australia Project."
...
"That's what I wanted to ask about. If everything is free, then what's to
stop me from demanding a 100,000 foot house on a thousand acres of land and
a driveway paved in gold bricks? It makes no sense, because obviously
everyone cannot demand that. And how can anything be free? That is hard to
believe in the first place." I said.
"Everything is free AND everyone is equal." Linda said. "That's exactly how
you phrased it, and you were right. You, Jacob, get equal access to the free
resources, and so does everyone else. That's done through a system of
credits. You get a thousand credits every week and you can spend them in any
way you like. So does everyone else. This catalog is designed to give you a
taste of what you can buy with your credits. This is a small subset of the
full catalog you will use once you arrive. You simply ask for something, the
robots deliver it, and your account gets debited."
...
"Where did the energy come from?" I asked.
"The sun. The Australia Project is powered mostly by the sun and the wind,
and the wind comes from the sun if you think about it."
"Where did the robots come from?"
"The same place Cynthia's outfit came from. It's the same thing. Robots take
recycled resources, add energy and robotic labor and make new robots. The
robots are free, the energy is free, the resources are all completely
recycled and we own them, so they are free. Everything is free."
"The credits simply make sure that everyone gets equal access to the
resources. There is a finite amount of power that can be generated on any
given day, for example. Things like that. The credits make sure everyone
gets an equal share of the total pool of resources."
...
"I'm not getting this." I said. "I'm not sure I could spend a thousand
credits if this catalog is right."
"Many people don't spend a thousand credits." she said. "If you are working
on a project you might, but that's about it."
"So how do I earn the credits?" I asked.
"Earn?" Linda asked back.
"No no no..." said Cynthia.
"Do you give me a job? The reason I am here is because I have no job," I said.
"No. You see, it's all free. By being a shareholder, you already own your
share of the resources. The robots make products from the free resources you
and everyone else already owns. There is no forced labor like there is in
America. You do what you want, and you get 1,000 credits per week. We are
all on an endless vacation."
"""
> Can an advanced civilization abandon reciprocity?
>
> Yes, but the consequences will be great.
True.
> Imagine that every time someone opens the door for me, I say nothing.
That's politeness and a social thing. Maybe it is a reciprocity, but it is
nothing like our economy. Nobody suggests abandoning politeness.
> Imagine that every time I give someone something, they say nothing, or they
> send me an automatic thank you note. Either way, they're not reciprocating
> sufficiently or not at all.
Well, by whose terms? Most people who download FireFox don't send thank you
notes. But I'm sure the developers are happy to feel their work is useful to
people.
Lots of people adopt children without an expectation of a "thank you". They
just want to be parents.
And lots of people give anonymous charitable donations. Although maybe some
do that for practical reasons:
"Charitable givers can kiss a lot of junk mail goodbye if they're careful"
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/block/2006-10-16-charitable_x.htm
I'm not arguing against reciprocal transactions; they can be very humanly
satisfying. I'm just suggesting they aren't needed for a post-scarcity economy.
> I could go on about more drastic consequence of what would happen if you
> take away reciprocity. In essence, money is a universal medium for
> reciprocity or that's what it should be. You replicate an apple 10 times
> using solar energy power matter replicator and know you have 10 apples that
> cost you nothing (besides the sunk cost of the replicator) So now you can
> give away 10 apples to 10 teachers. If your teachers don't say THANK YOU or
> give you kudos some other way you may continue to give them apples but then
> you will stop when you realize that you're getting no benefit back.
Does a parent stop giving even if their (possibly adopted) young child does
not say thank you? Sometimes the people who won't say "thank you" are the
most in need of help.
There is a line in James P. Hogan's "Voyage from Yesteryear" novel where,
people from a scarcity Earth society ask people in a post-scarcity society
if they would just let people who don't contribute to the society to take
anything they wanted from the free stores. And the reply was something to
the effect of: "You would feel sorry for people like that (who are poor in
social status), so why begrudge them material things?" In that society there
was still a currency -- but it was one of reputation, which you earned by
actually contributing something to society. So, it could not be easily
counterfitted; the suggestion was that people in that society could rapidly
spot a phony poser the way we might spot a funny-looking twenty dollar bill.
Anyway, why should somebody with something to give cheat themselves of
feeling good about giving it? See:
"Do Good, Feel Good: New research shows that helping others may be the
key to happiness."
http://health.msn.com/health-topics/depression/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100167285
"These results may seem surprising, especially since our culture tends to
associate happiness with getting something. Why should we humans be
programmed to respond so positively to giving? ...
“When you’re experiencing compassion, benevolence, and kindness, they push
aside the negative emotions,” says Post. “One of the best ways to overcome
stress is to do something to help someone else.”"
One can of course perhaps assume that people who are not thankful for a gift
didn't want it, and then decide not to bother them in the future.
> In an advanced civilization, money will be a more direct medium for this
> emotional/psychological reciprocity. So I can give 1 Emo Dollar (check) for
> every apple I get. And the seller can go cash that Emo Dollar check at the
> Love Bank or something, where you have people paid with emotional reward
> giving emotional reward. So you go from the flow of money to the flow of
> emotions, lending of emotions, investing of emotions, etc
>
> makes sense? :-)
Well, I understand your point. But I don't think such a thing would be
formally needed in a post-scarcity society.
Still, I'm all for politeness and useful feedback.
--Paul Fernhout
marc fawzi
99% of the examples you mention are for things we get from the universe (or this planet to be specific, the animals, bacteria, seeds, cosmic DNA, etc)
Give me examples of people giving things away for free in a sustainable way (e.g. a history of 30 years) and not getting as much as a genuine "thank you"
How does that? I know we all reply to questions here for free and we never do it to get a "thank you" back but we do it because we are benefiting back from other people's answers or when others answer our questions....
Give me a good example of sustainable "giving of goods or services without getting any return" that is done by a regular individual (not some charitable organization who are funded for that purpose)
Paul D. Fernhout
> 99% of the examples you mention are for things we get from the universe (or
> this planet to be specific, the animals, bacteria, seeds, cosmic DNA, etc)
That's exactly the point. Why should the other things we need to pay for so
dominate so many of our waking hours? They did not for hunters and
gatherers. They did not even dominate as much for US Americans when they had
less goods but more free time:
"The Overworked American"
http://users.ipfw.edu/ruflethe/american.html
"Since 1948, productivity has failed to rise in only five years. The level
of productivity of the U.S. worker has more than doubled. In other words,
we could now produce our 1948 standard of living (measured in terms of
marketed goods and services) in less than half the time it took in that
year. We actually could have chosen the four-hour day. Or a working year of
six months. Or, every worker in the United Stares could now be taking every
other year off from work-with pay. Incredible as it may sound, this is just
the simple arithmetic of productivity growth in operation. ... Yet hours
have risen steadily for two decades. In 1990, the average American owns and
consumes more than twice as much as he or she did in 1948, but also has less
free time."
That was written around 1990. Since then industrial productivity has more or
less doubled again. So, every family in the USA could have about a 1948
standard of living with one person in a family working about 10 hours a week
(remember, back then there was usually only one working person per middle
class family). Part of the issue is that much of the gains have gone to
owners of capital, and some has gone to increasing rents (again, to the
owners of capital). But nonetheless, a good chunk has gone to the workers.
But are all the extra trinkets bought with the extra money really so
important? It's true life expectancy has gone up from about 65 years to
about 75 years, but how much of that is really from advanced medical care
(as opposed to knowledge, like to quit smoking)?
I'd suggest, like Bob Black says, less work (up to a point) means longer
lives too:
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
"Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost any evil
you'd care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for
work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working. ... Work is
hazardous to your health, to borrow a book title. In fact, work is mass
murder or genocide. Directly or indirectly, work will kill most of the
people who read these words. Between 14,000 and 25,000 workers are killed
annually in this country on the job. Over two million are disabled. Twenty
to 25 million are injured every year. And these figures are based on a very
conservative estimation of what constitutes a work-related injury. Thus they
don't count the half-million cases of occupational disease every year. I
looked at one medical textbook on occupational diseases which was 1,200
pages long. Even this barely scratches the surface. The available statistics
count the obvious cases like the 100,000 miners who have black lung disease,
of whom 4,000 die every year. What the statistics don't show is that tens of
millions of people have their lifespans shortened by work -- which is all
that homicide means, after all. Consider the doctors who work themselves to
death in their late 50's. Consider all the other workaholics. Even if you
aren't killed or crippled while actually working, you very well might be
while going to work, coming from work, looking for work, or trying to forget
about work. The vast majority of victims of the automobile are either doing
one of these work-obligatory activities or else fall afoul of those who do
them. To this augmented body-count must be added the victims of
auto-industrial pollution and work-induced alcoholism and drug addiction.
Both cancer and heart disease are modern afflictions normally traceable,
directly or indirectly, to work. Work, then, institutionalizes homicide as a
way of life. People think the Cambodians were crazy for exterminating
themselves, but are we any different? The Pol Pot regime at least had a
vision, however blurred, of an egalitarian society. We kill people in the
six-figure range (at least) in order to sell Big Macs and Cadillacs to the
survivors. Our forty or fifty thousand annual highway fatalities are
victims, not martyrs. They died for nothing -- or rather, they died for
work. But work is nothing to die for. "
Anyway, I'm trying to look deeply at assumptions here. :-)
Was a 1948 standard of living really that bad for people in the USA
(ignoring backward social aspects)? Most food was "organically grown", for
example. :-) And if people had vast amounts of free time, what parts of
society would be vastly better? Might children be happier?
In relation to this recent UN report:
"Netherlands tops UN child well-being table for rich countries; US, UK at
bottom"
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=21566&Cr=unicef&Cr1
there is this quote:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080119001830/http://www.adbusters.org/the_magazine/71/Generation_Fcked_How_Britain_is_Eating_Its_Young.html
"Neil Lawson of the Labour think-tank Compass bleakly admitted: “Society is
hollowing out, but not just in the rotting boroughs of south London. The
middle classes are anxious too. Many are richer but few seem happier. Mental
illness abounds. White-collar jobs are outsourced to India. Everyone looks
for meaning in their lives – but all they find is shopping.” “The reason our
children’s lives [in the UK] are the worst among economically advanced
countries is because we are a poor version of the USA,” he said. “So the USA
comes second from bottom and we follow behind. The age of neo-liberalism,
even with the human face that New Labour has given it, cannot stem the tide
of the social recession capitalism creates.“"
> Give me examples of people giving things away for free in a sustainable way
> (e.g. a history of 30 years) and not getting as much as a genuine "thank
> you"
Your point about a "thank you" does not have much to do with economics, but
more politeness, so I feel it is an unfair qualifier. Granted, saying "thank
you" is a form of social exchange, but I think it so stretches the point of
"money" to be not too useful. Maybe it is philosophically accurate, but
practically, what we are talking about is "rationing" by a society managed
by access to "ration unit coupons", like in war time. Of course, we have
generalized the ration unit to just one type of coupon called a "dollar",
but it is still rationing. So, I think it is more accurate to ask, what
activities do people engage in where they know they are unlikely to receive
ration units in return (or are expecting other compensation that entails
saving on ration unit use, apart from savings from normal psychologically
healthy exchanges like hearing "thank you" or feeling good about helping
someone)?
Still, I doubt most of the people downloading code or content from these
long running projects ever said thank you:
GNU/Linux is coming close to that.
http://www.fsf.org/
Project Gutenberg.
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
There is a huge voluntary sector in the USA and the world. And much more
inside families. I wrote elsewhere:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
"And, in many ways, from child raising to elder care, the economy is mostly
voluntary (even given some daycare and some nursing homes). A related idea
is that most homes are currently heated with solar energy even when we say
they are heated with oil, which would be pretty obvious if the Sun suddenly
went out. So, while it seems like the "economy" is all about money, if you
look at actual hours spent in activities, from voluntarily watching endless
TV sitcoms (and commercials) as a "consumer" to voluntarily cleaning up
vomit (and blood) as an "EMT", the economy is already, and always has been,
mostly volunteer."
The issue is more that our attention has been so captured by consumption of
industrialized goods that it is hard to see past that. Again from:
"The Overworked American"
http://users.ipfw.edu/ruflethe/american.html
"While academics have missed the decline of leisure time, ordinary Americans
have not. And the media provide mounting evidence of "time poverty,"
overwork and a squeeze on time. Nationwide, people report their leisure time
has declined by as much as one third since the early 1970s. Predictably,
they are spending less time on the basics, like sleeping and eating.
Parents are devoting less attention to their children. Stress is on the
rise, partly owing to the “balancing act” of reconciling the demands of work
and family life. ... According to a recent review of existing findings,
Americans are literally working themselves to death — as jobs contribute to
heart disease, hypertension, gastric problems, depression, exhaustion, and a
variety of other ailments. Surprisingly, the high-powered jobs are not the
most dangerous. The most stressful workplaces are the “electronic
sweatshops” and assembly lines where a demanding pace is coupled with
virtually no individual discretion. "
For me, breaking that link between work and death is part of my interest in
"open manufacturing". Again, from E. F. Schumacher:
http://smallisbeautiful.org/buddhist_economics/english.html
"The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least
threefold: to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to
enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a
common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming
existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To
organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring,
stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of
criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people,
an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the
most primitive side of this worldly existence. Equally, to strive for
leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete
misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that
work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and
cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of
leisure."
Well, that quote on UK children above shows that E.F. Schumacher's words
have yet to be acted on very much.
> How does that? I know we all reply to questions here for free and we never
> do it to get a "thank you" back but we do it because we are benefiting back
> from other people's answers or when others answer our questions....
Yes, but again this gets philosophical. The point is there is no obvious
ration units being exchanged, and yet we are collaborating and producing
useful stuff (at least presumably to some of us). Yet even this can be
problematical because things like reputation or social networking may effect
future income. So, there are more shades of gray than black and white
differences.
This philosophical aspect devolves into discussions of whether altuism
exists because we benefit ourselves from feeling good, etc. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism
There is a section there: "Digital altruism is one of the major user
motivations for contributing to virtual communities such as social media,
social learning and other web sites which feature user-generated content. It
is related to the basic human need to contribute to a greater good, outside
of the market-space and free of self-interest. The digital nature of this
motivation is important because, thanks to the combination of new
technologies that facilitate de-localized communication and new web sites
which make contributing easy, fun and rewarding, altruistic needs can be
more easily balanced with self-interested responsibilities (work, family,
leisure)."
For me, one important issue along the grey area in "rent". Are people making
a deal where they expect ration units as "rent" in return for granting
access to some resource they control? (That resource can even be their own
time as a services.)
> Give me a good example of sustainable "giving of goods or services without
> getting any return" that is done by a regular individual (not some
> charitable organization who are funded for that purpose)
"Buffett to Give Bulk of His Fortune to Gates Charity"
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/26/business/26buffett.html
"Warren E. Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and one of the
world's wealthiest men, plans to donate the bulk of his $44 billion fortune
to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four other philanthropies
starting in July."
"Charitable Donations by Americans Reach Record High: Individual giving
accounts for 83 percent of $295 billion total in 2006"
http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2007/June/200706261522251CJsamohT0.8012354.html
"In 2006, Americans donated 2.2 percent of their average disposable, or
after-tax, income, a figure above the 40-year average of 1.8 percent. Brooks
told USINFO that he sees over the past 50 years “a trend toward greater
charitable giving” in the United States."
Granted, about a third of that donated money goes mainly to local churches,
which are in a sense social clubs those people belong to (although these
churchgoers don't have to donate, and the churches do offer services to
anyone who walks in, but the pressure is high to donate, and not many
strangers show up). Still, more than half of that that money goes to causes
with no obvious direct benefits to the giver.
So, there you have a figure -- 2% of income to charity. So, if we could run
the entire economy on 2% of the effort it takes now, then it could run
entirely on charity. :-) So, how do we make the economy 50 times more
productive than it is now? Well, "open manufacturing". :-) OK, so 50X
anytime soon is a tall order (we'll have that someday with self-replicating
machinery I hope), but if the economy was even just a few times more
productive, maybe that would be enough to help transition to a gift economy?
Debian is an example of that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian
About a thousand developers supply free software for millions of people.
http://www.debian.org/devel/join/newmaint
So, that is a huge productivity multiplier. So huge, that you can always
find a few people who will do it for "free" on a voluntary basis for
whatever personal reasons. (Granted, a few people do contribute as part of a
paying job, so again it is shades of gray.) I'd suggest that if, except for
computers :-), we all lived at a 1948 standard of living with only one
person working 10 hours a week per family, then Debian and many, many more
projects would have more than enough maintainers. My wife was involved with
a survey of volunteers across a lot of different organizations, and a top
complaint of volunteers is simply that they do not have enough free time to
volunteer as much as they would like to.
Obviously, we are not going to go back to 1948. But, going forward, if we
stay at our current standard of living, but productivity continues to
improve through open manufacturing or other trends, then in perhaps ten or
twenty years, perhaps people will only need to work one half-time or less. A
big issues is who gets most of the productivity gains -- the average person
or a small elite.
"Will the U.S. Productivity Resurgence Continue?"
http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/current_issues/ci10-13/ci10-13.html
"Productivity and Costs"
http://www.bls.gov/lpc/
--Paul Fernhout
marc fawzi
Needs more reflection... Will think about it and reply in a little while. Thanks
marc fawzi
As far as the examples, FSF is a charitable organization. They seem to have an operating budget (I met the Executive Director, ex BBC guy, in Boston once) So they are funded to produce free software.... I have no idea who funds them, maybe MIT and maybe IBM and others ... but they are funded and they get six figure salaries too. Gutenberg is also a funded organization.
What I meant by "thank you" is reciprocation in its most basic form. If someone gives you something and you don't acknowledge it's possible that the giver will take offense and stop being generous. In other words, reciprocity is psychological need not a logical one.
The question I have for you is can people give SUSTAINABLY without being funded and without receiving anything in return, not even a psychological reward in the form of gratitude or friendship, etc? and I'm talking about sustainable giving, even if the thing they're giving comes free to them.
There are prolific writers and artists and creatives of all types that do what they do because it enriches their lives not because they need to be rewarded for it by others. There may be 100 million such people on the Web giving their knowledge, experience, educated analysis etc without getting any kind of reward for it. So maybe you're on to something, but as it is today the majority of people expect something back in order to continue giving (even when what they're giving comes free to them, e.g. creativity), unless they're not in need financially so then they can sit there and offer free help to anyone that passes by...
I get it... I just don't know if everyone has the psychological/spiritual capacity to give and not expect anything in return
marc fawzi
Enjoying the focus on the 'deep'
marc fawzi
So here is where I'm stuck:
I tend to think that for some people reciprocity (between two people) is a psychological need not a logical one.
When the logic of abundance says that I can give and not get anything back from the person I give to (i.e. to get my reward from spiritually or from within) I'm OK with it and so are hundreds of millions of people.
But for billions of people out there (people that I have come in contact with) when they give you something, even if it's abundant and free for them to give away, they will still want YOU to give them something back. In other words, there are people who cannot access the generosity within and they're also probably the same kind of people who would want to achieve significant economic advantage over others, even when the basic material needs of everyone is met by some free-energy powered matter replicating machine. That's because they're missing something inside, have an emotional need that is unmet and which causes them to seek shelter inside the ego.
I guess what I'm hinting at is that material abundance is only one part of the solution. Emotional abundance is another part and I don't see it being addressed in the same context.
Paul D. Fernhout
You're absolutely right here. That's why I think the shift will mostly about
cultural change, or a change of heart, or a change of mythology. What I feel
we are doing here with "open manufacturing" is mostly making that change
of heart easier to imagine. :-)
Here's another part of the puzzle:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/nc.htm
"Contrary to the myths with which we have been raised, Kohn shows that
competition is not an inevitable part of "human nature." It does not
motivate us to do our best (in fact, the reason our workplaces and schools
are in trouble is that they value competitiveness instead of excellence.)
Rather than building character, competition sabotages self-esteem and ruins
relationships. It even warps recreation by turning the playing field into a
battlefield. No Contest makes a powerful case that "healthy competition" is
a contradiction in terms. Because any win/lose arrangement is undesirable,
we will have to restructure our institutions for the benefit of ourselves,
our children, and our society. For this [1992] revised edition, Kohn adds a
comprehensive account of how students can learn more effectively by working
cooperatively in the classroom instead of struggling to be Number One. He
also offers a pointed and personal afterword, assessing shifts in American
thinking on competition and describing reactions to his provocative message."
Or from:
http://www.amazon.com/No-Contest-Case-Against-Competition/dp/0395631254
"Contending that competition in all areas -- school, family, sports and
business -- is destructive, and that success so achieved is at the expense
of another's failure, Kohn, a correspondent for USA Today, advocates a
restructuring of our institutions to replace competition with cooperation.
He persuasively demonstrates how the ingrained American myth that
competition is the only normal and desirable way of life -- from Little
Leagues to the presidency -- is counterproductive, personally and for the
national economy, and how psychologically it poisons relationships, fosters
anxiety and takes the fun out of work and play. He charges that competition
is a learned phenomenon and denies that it builds character and self-esteem.
Kohn's measures to encourage cooperation in lieu of competition include
promoting noncompetitive games, eliminating scholastic grades and
substitution of mutual security for national security."
So, the people you are discussing are caught up in a wildly inaccurate myth,
like I have been at one time or other in my own life. Who profits by this
myth? Well, who profits by keeping people divided?
But in any case, if we are talking about having systems so productive that a
very small percent of the population need to be concerned about them (like
for example, two hundred years ago it used to take about 90% of the US
workforce to be farmers to feed everyone, now it takes 3% (plus somewhat
more in an industrial base that supports the farmers). So, if we can do for
industry worldwide what mechanization did for farming, then we will have
reached the point where between farming and industry it might only take
about 5% of the workforce to feed and clothe and shelter everyone -- or it
would take only about two hours a week for the average worker. Once food and
shelter and power and so on are assured, do people really need to charge
*more* than a "thank you" for any services rendered (like doctoring or
lawyering or hair styling or teaching)?
Well, people producing services if material goods are cheap or free only
need to charge if they believe in the social value of enforcing an unequal
distribution of wealth somehow linked to occupation class and effort. But
then you have to ask why is that inequality needed? And then one con explore
some notion of rewards keeping people motivated. Except, the science shows
something different (at least for creative work):
"Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator: Creativity and intrinsic
interest diminish if task is done for gain"
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html
I'm not saying there is no value in these external accounting issues today
(or even in the future). People's willingness to pay is one partial
indicator of demand for a service (at least demand by people with money). We
do need some sort of feedback system to understand demand as a society, and
to encourage individuals to help meet unmet needs. That is indeed a virtue
of a currency based "free market". But whether that needs to be a formal
currency or informal discussions is a different issue. GNU/Linux is an
example of a large complex software production system being managed without
much feedback by currency, but rather mostly having feedback by "discussion"
of what is needed (new features, bug fixes, and so on).
By the way, I guess you could say download numbers are a form of
appreciation for an open source project. As are discussions about something
in online forums (it shows people are using something). Computers let us
evaluate demand in so many different ways now other than sales.
It is ironic that central planning has been so dismissed now in favor of the
"free market" when we finally have the computers and flexible manufacturing
to make daily or even hourly plans and see what people like and don't like
(instead of five year plans) based on what they actually choose to take out
of stores. Again, Project Cybersyn showed something like this was possible
even in the 1970s (although it had bottom up aspects too):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn
"There were 500 unused telex machines bought by the previous government,
each was put into one factory. In the control centre in Santiago, each day
data coming from each factory (several numbers, such as raw material input,
production output and number of absentees) were put into a computer, which
made short-term predictions and necessary adjustments. There were four
levels of control (firm, branch, sector, total), with algedonic feedback (if
lower level of control didn't remedy a problem in a certain interval, the
higher level was notified). The results were discussed in the operations
room and the top-level plan was made."
I'm not arguing much for central planning though. I'm just saying in an
extreme case it shows how much more capable we are as a society of effective
social cooperation because of computing and the internet. I think our
society is so capable now that we can afford to be wasteful in a sense with
distributed manufacturing where the tools are idle most of the time, like
our home computers and printers are idle most of the time these days,
whereas thirty years ago centralized computers and printers were generally
used about to capacity through timesharing. But there is something that idle
computers give you, and that is reserve capacity to deal with sudden
demands. For example, one of the problems with the US system of medicine is
that there are so few doctors and their time is scheduled at near 100% to
maximize profits. If we had three times as many doctors in the USA (and the
number is kept down by the medical associations to protect their incomes),
and they were then only busy 33% of the time each, then you probably would
not even need to make an appointment ever (or could do it just a day in
advance). Doctors would also have more time for continuing education as well
as to spend more time on interesting (to them) cases. So doctors might make
less money, but enjoy their jobs more. As it is now, people may need to make
appointments weeks or months in advance to see a good doctor. So, as the
quantity of something increases (computers, printers, doctors) the quality
of that experience of using them can improve in dramatic ways. I'm using an
eight core computer now, and while the cores are almost always idle almost
all of the time (at least for now), the overall experience is smoother
because when I do need the capacity it is there. Actually, from a civil
defense point of view, the limited number of doctors is a huge security risk
because there is no reserve capacity to deal with any sort of major epidemic
or widespread trauma like from WMD use.
So, whether it is centralized oil pipelines putting the US at risk (the book
"Brittle Power"), or too few doctors putting the US at greater risk, the
demands of short term profit are creating a security risk as an "external
cost". And that is one of the things of a money based system -- if you can
get someone else to absorb a cost, the dynamics of the marketplace insist
that you do that because your competitors will. (The only limit to this is
aspects of brand image of being "socially responsible" and some firms do
succeed that way.) So, pollution, lack of disaster planning, depletion of
resources, and so on are all creating external costs for other people to
pay. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
"A voluntary exchange may actually reduce societal welfare if external costs
exist. The person who is affected by the negative externality in the case of
air pollution will see it as lowered utility: either subjective displeasure
or potentially explicit costs, such as higher medical expenses."
Where is the "reciprocity" in, say, sticking someone you never met with the
bill for your party? If you did that with another person's credit card, it
would be called "theft". For example, we can't eat much of the abundant fish
around here because some Midwestern factories are getting cheap power from
coal that causes mercury pollution way over here in the North East, but we
get next-to-no benefits from that cheap power (maybe a teeny bit, but not
worth not being able to fish, plus we had no say in the exchange). Yet
maximizing external costs for others to pay is a fundamental part of how any
currency system works. Or, at least, maximizing external costs for others is
a major part of any currency system *without* a huge amount of legal
"regulations", which impose their own costs and inconveniences on the
system, while at the same time creating a great incentive to either get
around the regulations or buy off politicians to minimize the critical
regulations.
I'm not saying the USSR with central planning did things any better by the
way -- there were lots of environmental disasters there caused for political
and scarcity economic reasons. We need a better way than either extreme of
the "unregulated free market" or "central planning". One way is through
regulation -- and in parts of Europe it seems to work somewhat well. But I
feel another way is to move beyond currency exchange for most manufacturing,
in the same way I no longer need to pay when I (rarely now) print anything
at the time of printing. I still pay for the printer and ink cartridge in
our economy obviously, but that cost happens rarely and is, per document,
way cheaper than it used to cost to go to a printing company to offset print
a one-off document. Printing *anything* used to be a big thing forty years
ago -- now we can do it all the time at home (and with better LCD screens we
may not even need to).
Actually, an analogy to using LCD screens (or e-ink, or whatever) instead of
printing is for people to get more and more of their enjoyment in virtual
worlds, but that is another topic. Suffice to say, I can have a yacht or a
huge home pretty cheaply in a virtual world. :-) Which means it may be
easier for many people to live with a rowboat or a small home (as a form of
voluntary simplicity).
I haven't talked about it much here, but I feel the crossover between using
the same data both to make real things and to make realistic simulated ones
could be a very interesting aspect of "open manufacturing". That is both to
test the designs and also to just be able to use complex artifacts like 747s
in simulation that we are not going to be able anytime soon to make in our
backyards but might still want to play with or realistically learn how to
maintain or operate. And using things in virtual worlds is getting cheaper
and cheaper (one hopeful reason for those eight cores in my desktop, and in
another ten years, probably thousands of cores. :-) Anyway, once we have
design repositories of a certain critical size, we may find all sorts of
people from the 3D graphics community may develop a strong interest in "open
manufacturing' and then the free and open source software community ideals
and culture might even come to predominate in open manufacturing. But we
need good free physics simulators for that. :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_engine
A 2D physics example that runs in flash in the browser where you make 2D
contraptions:
http://fantasticcontraption.com/
Already that site is a sort of "open manufacturing" site, where users can
submit their 2D contraptions that solve puzzles and you can then look at the
designs and try them out. And many, many people do submit their designs "for
free" -- for whatever reasons.
--Paul Fernhout
marc fawzi
made some important Changes to P2P Social Currency model ....
- added sections: Model's Axioms, Model's Scope, Model Propositions and Model's Limitations
- revamped section on Affinity Matrix for P2P Trading
URL: http://evolvingtrends.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/p2p-social-currency-money-20/
My hope is that at this juncture the model should be understandable to the average highschool student.