[p2p-research] Cybernetics the missing piece for partnership state and steady state economy?

[Ryan Lanham]

Actually somewhat surprised we don't have more "deep environmentalists" here
who believe more strongly in animal rights, etc.  That is, animals can't be
yours or mine.  Is the ideal property state such that personal relationships
to animals, people and children should dissolve?

Ryan

On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 8:36 AM, Nathan Cravens <knuggy at gmail.com> wrote:

> '...you also pay for your dog's damages to others' .. I don't recall that
> in Beer's work. hehehe! ;p I'd tell my dog to fuss up pay for it! Its enough
> like throwing a Frisbee and having it retrieved!
> I agree with you Michel, well said, we just need to better apply
> that lovely sounding theory of yours. ;)
>
> (It looks as if I'm repeating a complaint:) The VSM model is a useful
> approach, but I see it applied in outdated ways, such as by use of 'experts
> at the top' 'congresses' and the underlying assumption of heavily
> centralised mass production methods inappropriate when affairs are better
> managed more adequately by individuals or small groups in or at the problem
> area. Beer made hints of bashing the status quo in an attempt to have it
> applied differently than the failing centralized or massified model today.
> (I really enjoy his sense of humor; he reminds me of Alan Watts in many
> ways, another Brit I'm fond of.) Its important to use a variety of
> approaches other than the VSM model, even if it is adequate as a universal
> approach; I suggest this for creativity's sake to better explore problem
> areas possibly overlooked with the same universal model.
>
> As Smári hints, we have the ability to create systems that meet the need
> directly managed by the user. It seems appropriate to begin with making
> computers and communications devices in this way, with prices on components
> of this sort already so cheap, its now a matter of hacking the ways these
> components are made, understanding and making the machines that make them,
> distributing the knowledge representations (words, stick figures, stop
> motion video, Braille, ect) and 'free/gratis materials use' (nurtured by
> cultures that experience the benefits of positive reciprocity as open source
> software/hardware depicts to establish a free stuff repository for each
> outcome mentioned on the web) details on the web, making it reasonable by
> affordability; and easy to make with good instructional documentation.
>
> So work the low hanging fruit and make it publicly accessible starting with
> computer and communications components, then spread those tools to everyone
> globally so we can better manage those problems, while working out the kinks
> stigmergically the way wikis signal, as we apply this to that life needs
> pendulum Vinay has outlined in 6 ways to live ;p
>
> http://www.appropedia.org/Six_ways_to_die
>
> Once we get that life business appropriately handled in the ways p2p garb
> suggests, congresses and the systems they represent will be of less
> importance until they are not.
>
>
> <http://www.appropedia.org/Six_ways_to_die>Nathan
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 12:14 PM, Paul D. Fernhout <
> pdfernhout at kurtz-fernhout.com> wrote:
>
>> Michel Bauwens wrote:
>>
>>> Here's my intuition:
>>>
>>> - central planning is mostly dead
>>>
>>
>> That's certainly true in the extreme in general (with the demise of the
>> USSR which epitomized that).
>>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_economy
>>
>> But with that said, as Manuel de Landa points out, any real system is a
>> mix of hierarchy and meshwork. So, for example, China has more that a
>> billion people organized in some mix of central planning and market
>> economies right now:
>>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_economies
>>
>> So, trying to stretch the point, there are (guessing) only 500 or so
>> really big companies (IBM, GE, Disney, ConAgra, etc.)
>>  "Global 500: Our annual ranking of the world's largest corporations"
>>  http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2009/
>> that have major impacts on the kind of energy we use, the kind of
>> computers we use, the kind of food we eat, the kind of media we watch, what
>> medicines we have, the cars we drive, and so on. Not 100% of everything
>> (there are small companies too, and university and independent and
>> government research), of course. But these big firms shape a big chunk of
>> day-to-day life for most people (in the USA at least) by being gatekeepers
>> to what gets mass produced. In effect, they constitute a central planning
>> framework, with a few thought leaders in every area, even if it is more an
>> oligarchy and plutocracy and cartels than something like a monarchy.
>>
>> But, in some ways, how is this different than, say, fifty departments in
>> the USSR central planning office each with ten bureaucrats sitting around a
>> table?
>>
>> Sure, there is price feedback and so on, but that is in some ways more
>> about *feedback* than *planning*. If we are going to talk about feedback,
>> then we are left with the example of Cybersin in Chile of a system good at
>> mixing central planning with feedback, but there is no reason a caring
>> central planning organization in the USSR could not have done the same.
>>
>> A big irony of the USSR's fall to me is that it came apart just as
>> computers were getting fast enough to make central planning work in a
>> Cybersin way with daily feedback instead of annual plans.
>>  http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cybersyn
>>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn
>> "Project Cybersyn was a Chilean attempt at real-time computer-controlled
>> planned economy in the years 1970–1973 (during the government of president
>> Salvador Allende). It was essentially a network of telex machines that
>> linked factories with a single computer centre in Santiago, which controlled
>> them using principles of cybernetics. The principal architect of the system
>> was British operations research scientist Stafford Beer."
>>
>> Of course, the USSR had other problems too. But it is funny that people
>> act like the fall has forever discredited central planning, given central
>> planning is what most corporations do every day everywhere around the globe.
>> It's just called "budgeting" to make it sound less "communist". :-)
>>
>> >From Wikipedia:
>>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget
>> """
>> Budget (from French bougette, purse) generally refers to a list of all
>> planned expenses and revenues. It is a plan for saving and spending.[1] A
>> budget is an important concept in microeconomics, which uses a budget line
>> to illustrate the trade-offs between two or more goods. In other terms, a
>> budget is an organizational plan stated in monetary terms. In summary, the
>> purpose of budgeting is to:
>>   1. Provide a forecast of revenues and expenditures i.e. construct a
>> model of how our business might perform financially speaking if certain
>> strategies, events and plans are carried out.
>>   2. Enable the actual financial operation of the business to be measured
>> against the forecast. ...
>>  The budget of a company is often compiled annually, but may not be. A
>> finished budget, usually requiring considerable effort, is a plan for the
>> short-term future, typically one year (see Budget Year). While traditionally
>> the Finance department compiles the company's budget, modern software allows
>> hundreds or even thousands of people in various departments (operations,
>> human resources, IT etc) to list their expected revenues and expenses in the
>> final budget.
>>  If the actual figures delivered through the budget period come close to
>> the budget, this suggests that the managers understand their business and
>> have been successfully driving it in the intended direction. On the other
>> hand, if the actuals diverge wildly from the budget, this sends an 'out of
>> control' signal, and the share price could suffer as a result.
>> """
>>
>>  - but monetized markets are not good for everything
>>>
>>
>> Sure. Markets fail for all sorts of reason, including, in the short term,
>> inelastic demand for stuff like oil and health care:
>>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_demand
>> (Everything is elastic somewhat in the long term probably, which is Julian
>> Simon's point.)
>>
>> Or, there are other factors that may come up. External costs (negative
>> like pollution or positive like good health). Systemic risks. War being
>> profitable. Centralization of wealth. Weakening labor value in the face of
>> automation. A few players get to set standards to their own short-term
>> benefit. And so on. Although these can also cause problems in central
>> planning too.
>>
>>  - what we can develop though is coordination, i.e. following the model of
>>> large scale coordination of small groups, pioneered by linux and
>>> wikipedia
>>> through stigmergy and holoptism, but applying it to production, assuming
>>> that productive entities can see each other's production, compare that to
>>> the demand (also available via retail) and so adjust production to real
>>> need
>>>
>>
>> One issue with markets is to separate out the issues of signaling demand
>> using tokens (fiat currencies, kanban tokens, emails) versus rationing who
>> can make demands under what circumstances (they have ration units, they are
>> well liked by the producer, they have political power, they have a "job",
>> they are old enough to qualify for Medicare, etc.).
>>
>> The thing about the digital world, is that copying and distribution is so
>> cheap (so little incremental cost) that rationing is not a big issue for
>> things once they are made. In the digital realm, all the arguments are about
>> funding new works. (Services distributed digitally may be a different story
>> than content, if they require human effort per unit delivered.) And the
>> digital world is so glutted with good content (who could read it all? Or
>> view it all? Just what is there?) that there is little demand for new stuff
>> already. (Not to say we don't need new stuff in certain directions, but
>> there are many lifetimes of entertainment out there already as a baseline,
>> and a very workable set of computer software for basic communications and so
>> on, not to say it can't be improved of course.)
>>
>> So, it's not clear to me that the two realms of digital production and
>> physical production are that similar right now, even if I do think they are
>> converging.
>>
>> One way they are converging is "the center for bits and atoms" way, where
>> you use bits to print atoms in 3D printers, and you use atoms to scan in
>> bits with 3D scanners. But a personal 3D printer that is really good
>> essentially jumps over this issue you raise of managing demand and so on.
>> How many families need much to manage the demand of their home 2D printer
>> these days? The average home 2D printer has vast amounts of spare capacity,
>> especially assuming people are doing most of their viewing of content on
>> display screens now.
>>
>> But, sooner than 3D printers we may see more neighborhood scale FabLabs.
>> In a way, this is following the scaling of computers -- bureaucracies to
>> mainframes to minis to micros to embedded. So, now the average car can
>> second by second do the same amount of calculation that used to be required
>> by a vast bureaucracy to keep the Ancient Egyptian economy running back in
>> 2000 B.C.
>>
>> A Star Trek "replicator" is one endpoint on physical manufacturing (food
>> might be different, and maybe utility fog might be an alternative even for
>> manufacturing if is safe).
>>
>> Nobody really knows how best to navigate from here to there over the next
>> thirty years, or exactly what mix of scales of systems we'll end up with for
>> manufacturing. As Alan Kay says, "The best way to predict the future is to
>> invent it."
>>
>>  in short: central planning is replaced by regional, national, global
>>> coordination when and where needed,
>>>
>>
>> Yes, as above. And outside of manufacturing, there are a lot of cultural,
>> environmental (watershed or bioregion), political, and other issues that
>> will drive a lot of that. But somehow, I think they will have less and less
>> to do with manufacturing than now. I've talked about Peak Population as a
>> crisis, and here it seems we may already have passed "Peak Shipping" (not
>> that I am that worried about that one):
>> "Revealed: The ghost fleet of the recession anchored just east of
>> Singapore"
>>
>> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Revealed-The-ghost-fleet-recession-anchored-just-east-Singapore.html
>> "The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history
>> lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger
>> than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no
>> destination  -  and is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side
>> this year "
>>
>> That fleet may yet recover, but I don't think it is going out on a limb to
>> say we will see even bigger "ghost fleets" in a decade or so from now, as
>> people are able to produce more and more goods and energy locally. I'd
>> suggest repurposing those ships as like traveling cruise ships, something
>> that I think will increase in demand with more seasteading. :-)
>>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading
>>
>> One thing I think might change some of that is local recycling programs.
>> Manufacturing of real stuff rapidly hits the wall of materials being
>> expensive and hard to come by sometimes (especially if you rely on mines far
>> away). If you can recycle stuff like aluminum and plastic locally, then you
>> can be more independent. Note that this series of books is about building
>> your own tools from "scrap" not from "scratch":
>>  "Build a Complete Metalworking Shop from Scrap!: The Legendary Series of
>> Machine Tool Construction Manuals"
>>  http://www.lindsaybks.com/dgjp/djgbk/series/index.html
>>
>> Though eventually we'll get better at getting materials out of the air,
>> seawater, and sand, and doing that all as elegantly as bacteria can, not
>> this crude and dangerous way (yet still possible):
>>  "LMF Chemical Processing Sector"
>>  http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/AASM5E.html
>>
>> --Paul Fernhout
>> http://www.pdfernhout.net/
>>
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-- 
Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
P.O. Box 633
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