[p2p-research] Ralph Nader, exponential growth, trimtabs, S-curves

[Paul D. Fernhout]

I know I posted on this book before, but this article is very interesting in 
talking about Ralph Nader's changing feelings about grassroots change and 
organizational forms:
   "Ralph Nader Throws His Hope in with Enlightened Billionaires"
   http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/28-9
"""
The problem, he says, is one of resources. "You cannot fight trillions of 
dollars in big business money with a few millions and expect to win."
   The citizen movement, he said, is "totally amateurish" compared with how 
well organized and funded the corporations are. "This mismatch is a 
disaster," he said. "The progressive movement is going nowhere if it does 
not address the problem of resources."
"""

For me, the idea (Manuel de Landa) of balances of meshworks and hierarchies 
helps give context to understanding this.
   http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/meshwork.htm
"Hence, demonizing centralization and glorifying decentralization as the 
solution to all our problems would be wrong. An open and experimental 
attitude towards the question of different hybrids and mixtures is what the 
complexity of reality itself seems to call for."

And on resources, as I've pointed out before, there is enough money even in 
just the wasted health care spending in the USA (the cost of *not* insuring 
everyone like the French and Canadians can) to implement a "Santa Claus" 
project globally, that really gives US$150 worth of presents every year to 
every person on the plant. That's just a thought experiment, but it shows 
the scale of our global society and global wealth at this point -- that, due 
to scarcity assumptions (health care in the USA must be guarded extensively 
by private firms) we throw away a post-scarcity abundance that could make 
Santa Claus effectively a *reality* each year. So, the cost of just that one 
scarcity assumption in just one country is the abortion of Santa Claus.

And there are trillions more US dollars every year I could point to that are 
wasted in various ways on scarcity issues we could move beyond.
   http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/AchievingAStarTrekSociety.html
So, the issue is *ideology* not *resources*. Or in other words, it is not 
lack of resources that is the problem, but how we direct the use of those 
resources as a society that is the problem.

Still, changing ideology *quickly* takes resources. So, the real issue is, 
how patient are we? And how much can we accept ongoing problems and risks 
until that all gets sorted out organically?

For example, if the world continues its exponential growth of adoption of 
solar and wind energy at about 20% to 30% per year, plus did energy 
efficiency, plus more research into energy storage and buffering, which is 
all happening, exponential trends put the entire planet as essentially 
running on all renewables in two to three decades. Places like Germany that 
push harder may get there sooner (like, if Germany puts big solar plants is 
a depopulating East Germany). But instead the dominant ideology (as 
represented by this article) still is despairing (and also pro nuclear):
   "The Impending Power Gap: Where Will Germany's Energy Come From? - 
SPIEGEL ONLINE"
   http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,547555,00.html

I think one cause for optimist is to make (where appropriate) exponential 
graphs instead of linear graphs. If you consider the spread of some ideas 
like the spread of a pandemic, then one may hope that a p2p system might 
transition to enlightenment much faster than one expects. This is both fro 
exponential technical trends and exponential social trends.

 From something I wrote in 2000:
   http://www.dougengelbart.org/colloquium/forum/discussion/0126.html
"""
These technological trends involve exponential growth for both capacity
and deployment. So, these trends may not be obvious to most until they
are unstoppable. We are very used to thinking in linear terms.
Exponential growth is non-linear.
   For example, imagine it takes a year for one tiny duckweed plant to
cover a pond, doubling every day for 365 days. Here is how the last few
days look:
Day Coverage
358 0.78125%
359 1.5625%
360 3.125%
361 6.25%
362 12.5%
363 25%
364 50%
365 100%
   Let's say it is your responsibility to keep the pond free of duckweed.
So, after 358 days of exponential growth, the pond is still less than 1%
covered. It would be easy to say on day 358, "Oh, the pond has just a
little duckweed on it. I've watched it for almost a year, nothing seems
to be happening. I'll go on vacation." And just seven days later when
you return, "BAM!" the entire pond is covered by duckweed -- seemingly
out of nowhere. In fact, you could swear (correctly) that the day before
your return you had your assistant check for duckweed, and the half of
the pond they looked at was practically empty of it!
"""

Anyway, let me dismiss the term "post-scarcity" for the moment. :-) I'd 
suggest an important aspect of p2p research should be a better understanding 
of the interaction of exponential growth and p2p. :-) Does that sound less 
dogmatic? :-)

That might make for some very interesting studies and PhD projects. I posted 
before on how those who analyze financial markets are also looking at these 
issues now, so that is really topical work that might lead to jobs etc.:
"Incorporating Human Behavior Into Wall Street Mathematical Models"
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/09/13/1626257/Incorporating-Human-Behavior-Into-Wall-Street-Mathematical-Models
"""
Financial markets, like online communities, are social networks. Researchers 
are looking at whether the mechanisms and models being developed to explore 
collective behavior on the Web can be applied to financial markets." Another 
avenue they're exploring is how we react to the spread of disease. Jon M. 
Kleinberg, a computer scientist at Cornell, said, "The hope is to take this 
understanding of contagion and use it as a perspective on how rapid changes 
of behavior can spread through complex networks at work in financial markets."
"""

There are many people who talk about exponential growth and society and 
technology; Ray Kurzweil is one starting point.
   http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1

By the way, on Nader's point about limited resources, it was always Bucky 
Fuller's metaphor to be a "trimtab".
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_tab
"""
     Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man 
could do. Think of the Queen Mary -- the whole ship goes by and then comes 
the rudder. And there's a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim 
tab.
     It's a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low 
pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I 
said that the little individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it's going 
right by you, that it's left you altogether. But if you're doing dynamic 
things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that 
and the whole big ship of state is going to go.
"""

Now, a step fureth is perhaps to consider a merger of Bucky Fuller's trimtab 
idea with a viral/exponential growth model of p2p communications and 
activities, and thinking about where that all leads. :-)

Naturally there are countertrends, S-curves, and so on.

Another post by me from 2000, prior to the previous one on such limitations:
   "[unrev-II] "S" curve limitations related to bootstrapping and evolution"
   http://www.dougengelbart.org/colloquium/forum/discussion/0061.html

So, if one wants to move from analysis to synthesis, that is a set of issues 
to explore.
   "Analysis and Synthesis: On Scientific Method - Based on a Study by 
Bernhard Riemann" by Tom Ritchey
   http://www.swemorph.com/method/anaeng-r.html
"""
The terms analysis and synthesis come from (classical) Greek and mean 
literally "to loosen up" and "to put together" respectively. These terms are 
used within most modern scientific disciplines -- from mathematics and logic 
to economy and psychology -- to denote similar investigative procedures. In 
general, analysis is defined as the procedure by which we break down an 
intellectual or substantial whole into parts or components. Synthesis is 
defined as the opposite procedure: to combine separate elements or 
components in order to form a coherent whole.
   Careless interpretation of these definitions has sometimes led to quite 
misleading statements -- for instance, that synthesis is "good" because it 
creates wholes, whereas analysis is "bad" because it reduces wholes to 
alienated parts. According to this view, the analytic method is regarded as 
belonging to an outdated, reductionist tradition in science, while synthesis 
is seen as leading the "new way" to a holistic perspec­tive.
   Quite aside from the fact that it is the synthetic method which, 
historically, is associated with a reductionist approach to scientific 
inquiry, such interpretations arise from a fundamental misunderstanding of 
the relationship between these two methods.
   Analysis and synthesis, as scientific methods, always go hand in hand; 
they complement one another. Every synthesis is built upon the results of a 
preceding analysis, and every analysis requires a subsequent synthesis in 
order to verify and correct its results. In this context, to regard one 
method as being inherently better than the other is meaningless.
   There are, however, important situations in which one method can be 
regarded as more suitable than the other. This concerns the question of 
which method is most appropriate as the primary method or chief point of 
departure for the study of a given system or object of scientific inquiry.
   This article deals with the foundations of analysis and synthesis as 
scientific methods, and especially with the requirements for the successful 
application of these methods. The article is based upon a short, brilliant 
methodological study by the 19th century mathematician Bernhard Riemann. The 
study in question is a fragment of Riemann's last (unfinished) work, "The 
Mechanism of the Ear", written in 1866. ...
"""

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/