There are a number of trade routes built into the rewards system though,
for example a simple formula might be:
Cities favor growth of tax base and expansion, attraction of prospective
citizens and businesses might favor a financial institution over a
private home builder, the contractor may get tax breaks through tricks
between the bank and taxing authorities to greatly increase profits for
everyone except the buyer. The financial institution rewards contractors
and gains from relationships with all three and everyone has their hands
in the others' pocket making gains from the buyer. The whole system is
in the rewards game and it is designed to favor those who can leverage
scale and the promise of a shared economic gain.
My thinking is very in line with Andrew's on establishing a higher
baseline, I think it would be a worthwhile investment in humanity. But
it doesn't sound probable as long as we are addicted to perpetual growth
schemes that rely on massive excess capacity and waste to prop up an
increasingly top heavy infrastructure.
Someone once said that an empty stomach doesn't make the best advisor
for the future (or similarly rather). I think that cuts right to Neil's
second brain (the enteric nervous system) that drives an an organism
with primal survival motives, and that is the manipulation in play, I
cannot imagine the promise of democracy seeing the light of day while
higher cognitive functions such as navigating complex multidimensional
environments (societies/states) to solve complex sociological challenges
(lest we believe this is just about money, or at all?!) toward mutually
beneficial outcomes. Unless I was blinded by the pie in the sky I had
something along the lines of a just, healthy and productive society in
mind when first learning about democracy.
What I see is a large part of people's lives driven by fear, that primal
second brain. I think it should piss us off that we could be far more
productive if someone cared to put the infrastructure in place for our
outputs to be recycled back into society to a larger and more integral
extent, from lack of imagination and dominance of a culture of usury and
isolation. We can invent money but not cure poverty? Who is driving the
boat? (oh democracy, hmm)..
Distribution of prestige and privilege in our society is as powerful
today as it has been for a long time, how we pursue that I think will
determine whether we fulfill the promise of democracy. The society we
engineer will determine whether the activities of citizens resemble
intelligent, caring, inspired beings or a mound of parasites and
resource aggregating automata. Pardon the crude reductionism to an
absurd dichotomy.
The possibility of a better world, is it armament enough? Takes more
than imagination, but really, what is it that separates us from the
other animals?!
On 1/14/2013 9:43 AM, archytas wrote:
In HE in the UK state school students marginally outperform those from
private education - until they enter the job market. Social mobility
between income groups has fallen substantially across the west. We
have lost a grip on the economic dynamic. Many economists believed
the rentier part of capitalism would wither away - much as Marx
thought the State would. What interests me is that we end up with the
'socialist state' either through 'revolution' or via a financial
system stacked in favour of sending money to the very rich who form a
politburo of their own. My guess is we are trapped because we can't
change financialism and attitudes to work - through an underlying fear
of freedom and lack of recognition this has to be structured in such a
way there is no need to think much about it once we have something
decent in place.
On Jan 13, 2:01 pm, rigs<[email protected]> wrote:
Regard the lilies of the field...
In fairness, the US has its share/history of ex-pats.
Debt has a greater earning potential than savings for financial
instiutions. Living beyond one's means is promoted in various ways.
America is the land of re-invention (social and geographic mobility).
Am partial to savory myself but my grand-daughters requested pies so
pies they had. I do like something sweet maybe once a day.//My habits
were influenced by my early years at boarding school- Sacred Heart
Convent. Home was rather dramatic and chaotic while school and camp
developed other rhythms. Am quite different from my mother or daughter
in many ways but like many people I have tried out various "poses". Am
only human, afterall.
On Jan 12, 7:54 am, archytas<[email protected]> wrote:
When I think about a technology solution I'm not much concerned with
the hardware and software. Most people who drive have very little
clue how vehicles work and even less about how they are made. What
I've been pondering for a long time is whether we can do something
similar for argument and fashion something we can 'drive'. The
spreadsheet is a bit of an example, along with databases. People get
fixated on numbers and techie stuff - and probably with the cruelty of
potential and real uses. There is an emancipatory potential. In
essence this is as simple as, say, me wanting to make a blueberry pie,
not knowing and being able to whistle-up help from rigs or the
'cloud' (actually I don't like fruit pies).
Ancient Greeks (the Pyrrhonists) knew very different and almost
equally compelling argument could be made about almost anything.
Their 'solution' was a special state of mind involving suspended
judgement - but this relies on 'being clever' enough to achieve the
state of mind. In fact, argument is not of one form but several -
nine are usually considered and have rather different rules.Most
philosophic consideration assumes we argue fairly and politics makes
this a farce before we start. If we are serious about democracy we
have to consider ignorance and means round this other than our failed
educational systems. When I first taught finance a lot of the work
was in calculation and one mistake meant going through everything in
that bit of the system again. Such work is now done by the technology
and indeed the technology has enabled new work to be done - mostly
through its vast iterative speed. The big snags remain garbage in
garbage out, cheating and focus on deriving competitive advantage only
in the financial bottom line. What we need is technology that will
deliver access to embodied knowledge for us all - enabling very clever
solutions for generally not very clever people. This would involve a
transparency we have not previously achieved since we lived in small
groups and probably beyond this. At the moment we have financial
accounting no one can see through - try reading Wells Fargo's 2011
annual report. I couldn't make sense of most bank reports without a
team of dozens and carte blanche investigation authority.
I like the idea of 'sending brains' back to countries of origin rigs -
but can we really assume our establishment is really interested in
fixing the problems in any of them - much argument points to the
opposite including such as McJihad in which the US Empire uses Islam
to divide and rule - the literature here is vast. I agree the old
muscle man is mostly long gone (though around the world women do much
of the hard slog anyway - the insect worker gender is generally female
too) - indeed farming once made living conditions worse for the people
who had to do the work.
We lack answers to incredibly simple questions such as how much work
it is reasonable to expect of an individual, what we can reasonably
allow in safeguarding the planet, how we might reasonably police the
world and so on. Pretty much every economist (Adam Smith, Richardo,
Marx, Ely, Veblen, Keynes) has questioned why we allow a rentier class
and suggested an extirpation of such. Why do we still have a very old
work ethic with all the helping technology around? How have massive
productivity gains 'led' to lower ages, more debt and so on?
My guess is argument is a roadblock to changes we desperately need,
including the establishment of world peace - here who would develop
another country with a power elite of male zombies who need to black-
bag women and who would come looking to extend their libidinal empire
once our steel was beaten into plough-shares? What would motivation
to work be in a world without want?
I have a feeling we'd have to develop knowledge technology through
practical projects - converting communities green, more sociable, self-
sustaining - and this would require changes in attitudes to what
investment is.
On Jan 12, 12:28 pm, rigs<[email protected]> wrote:
Why don't some of the brains that the USA has drained move back to
their home countries and fix them? I am thinking of those who withdrew
all their money and live like fat cats while their country collapses.
On Jan 11, 3:27 pm, archytas<[email protected]> wrote:
I may have to move back to Scotland to stay in the EU. Sad stuff,
showing only we haven't moved on here. I see the French now have
boots on the ground in Mali.
On Jan 11, 8:26 pm, gabbydott<[email protected]> wrote:
You see, you shouldn't have changed your proxy settings from Scottish to
English!
Ah well, the American Empire is helping us out again, here it is in the
French language version:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqSgIhU28B8.
Foreign affairs are being discussed after 46 minutes.
2013/1/11 archytas<[email protected]>
They won't let me watch your video in England Gabby.
On Jan 10, 2:04 am, rigs<[email protected]> wrote:
Life has already been a game of Monopoly! That's a major part of the
problem(s).
I would implant the chip in another spot.
You will have to address religious and cultural systems that promote
sexism, racism and ageism.
On Jan 9, 2:36 pm, andrew vecsey<[email protected]> wrote:
In my science fiction novel "A Short History of a Long Future - A
Guide for
New-man", I wrote a scenario that applies to this discussion. Before
Allan
starts to let off his gas, the "I" is not "me" and it IS a science
fiction. Below is the relevant excerpt from my novel.
"One unexpected day the centralized data banks were infected with
computer
viruses that erased their entire data banks. The multiple backups of
the
last 10 years were also suddenly discovered to have been compromised.
Overnight electronic data of all money was irretrievably wiped out.
Money
in all of its form and all its trace disappeared. The banks and their
services shut down immediately and all flow of money seized.
I developed a device that measured mental and physical exertion done
for
doing a series of tasks. I developed a financial system that did not
include banks. It was a decentralized system where everyone was his own
bank. It was based on my device. This measurement device allowed money
to
be based not on gold, oil, or promises, but on human exertion. The
amount
of this new money was to be based on the number of users. There was to
be
no central governing point and the only regulation were in the
algorithms
governing the issuance of money and in the initial registration. It
was a
just-in-time system that issued just enough money at just the right
time
and place to just the right person to ensure educational and health
well
being. The system was to be open and algorithms were to be proposed
and
written by users themselves.
I also developed a workable replacement for the once existing
centralized
banks. It was a peer to peer networked system that allowed everyone to
be
his own bank. It was free to join with only one requirement. - you had
to
have a chip inserted into the forehead under the skin. The chip came
with
an account containing 1 million dollars to last you a lifetime and pay
for
your basic living needs.
All countries adopted the implantation of the chip as a basic human
right. My system provided all the requirements that make money
workable.
It could not be counterfeited and could not be stolen or lost. It was
based
on a unique code signed with each person's unique biometric signature.
It
could be saved and it was always redeemable anywhere anytime
automatically.
Everyone who wanted to work and get paid had to use his system which
was
implanted into the forehead. Everyone who wanted to buy anything had to
have this implant as well. It acted as a electronic money bank
account. To
fill it you had to work as usual. You could invest your capital by
buying
company stocks.
...
read more ยป
--
