[p2p-research] [Open Manufacturing] Re: Fwd: Dual Licensing of Research in Renewable Energy

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Austin wrote:
> When working out potential frameworks, I disqualified traditional market 
> solutions (since they haven't worked so far), and traditional open solutions 
> (since some aspects of this project might need generous funding from the 
> beginning and in regular installments thereafter). 

While there are all kinds of assumptions woven throughout your reply related 
to scarcity economics (vs. post-scarcity economics), I'd just focus on this 
one use of "generous" as in "generous funding".

Generous has multiple senses of meaning, according to WordNet:
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=generous&sub=Search+WordNet&o2=&o0=1&o7=&o5=&o1=1&o6=&o4=&o3=&h=
"""
# S: (adj) generous (willing to give and share unstintingly)
   "a generous donation"
# S: (adj) generous (not petty in character and mind)
   "unusually generous in his judgment of people"
# S: (adj) generous (more than adequate)
   "a generous portion"
"""

You are using it in the third sense, meaning a lot of funding.

But you may wish to think about it in the first sense, the most common 
usage, where generous means a philanthropic willingness to give and share.

I'm always amazed by how many economic terms cloak their meaning in their 
opposite. For example, a "free" market where nothing is free. "Supply and 
demand" where demand is not true global demand, only the demand of those 
with money. And so on... From:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir%E2%80%93Whorf_hypothesis
"Currently a balanced view of linguistic relativity is espoused by most 
linguists holding that language influences certain kinds of cognitive 
processes in non trivial ways but that other processes are better seen as 
subject to universal factors."

Actually, the way you outline "generous", you really could use "stingy" or 
"miserly" or "greedy" as in someone unwilling to share unless they get a lot 
back directly.

So, what you are really saying above then, is, possibly rewritten as, "some 
aspects of this project might need large amounts of *greedy* funding from 
the beginning and in regular installments thereafter".

We should just be clear what we are talking about here, a vision of a 
society founded on greed. And then, you can ask yourself, if you are looking 
for greedy people, where do they hang out and what do they invest in? They 
may well be looking for fast and easy and immense returns, thus they will be 
doing things like funding arms races and any form of centralized technology 
with monopoly potential (oil refineries, nuclear) as well as any form of 
non-work financial bubble schemes like real-estate speculation.

Of course, to be "generous" in the second sense of not being petty, :-) 
maybe you are looking for people who are a little bit greedy and a little 
bit philanthropic? :-)
   http://www.socialinvest.org/

Just something to think about as you explore this space of ideas.

--Paul Fernhout