[p2p-research] a new funding mechanism for useful online services

[Ryan Lanham]

On 1/5/10, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ryan,
> when I say 'capitalism is dying', you say you agree with that 'in the long
> term',.
>
> but then, what is your long term,
>
> for me, it's 30 to 50 years away, and it needs to be to avert climate
> catastrophe on a massive scale, and do deal with its aftermaths if it does
> occur,
>
> that doesn't mean a guaranteed p2p future, but it does mean humanity will
> look to replace a failing system with something else,
>

Michel,

I think capitalism is "dying" right now.  When will it be dead?  I suspect
never.  Money, banking and credit will be with us for a long time.  Rome
never really died...nor did Feudalism.  Elements carry on.  Capitalism will
be the same.  It is a matter of recognizable influence and dominion.  So I
see no great boundary event.  It may be the recent economic crisis was it.
If you had told me the US stock market would end 2009 where it began in
2000, I would have said such an outcome meant catastrophe.  But it didn't
mean catastrophe.  So I am perhaps not yet as skilled at prediction as I
wish.  Change happens sometimes in a way that is quite hard to discern.

Still, as I have previously noted, I expect technology in life extension,
robotics and AI to deeply influence the human condition to something else
within 40 years...perhaps within 10.  This is part transhumanist fantasy and
part rational expectation.  I am too close to it now to be able to separate
the two in myself.

Regardless, I don't expect the current work situation to extend to the
normal lifespans of my children who are 8 and 12.  Work is about to change
dramatically...I'd guess within 15 years.  The end of the baby boom,
demographic crises, etc. are all drivers.  So too is climate change.

I fear the developed world has come to the conclusion that climate change
action is too costly and risky to be justified even though nearly all
reasonable and informed persons recognize the toll will be
dramatic...possibly even species changing for us.  My worst fears are
basically playing out.  I just see no interest in the US or China to act.
That is almost half the problem.  Europe cannot do it on its own...and even
Europe is barely acting.

That means we are in a world of climate crisis, demographic crisis, and work
crisis.  Honestly it doesn't look good.  I try very hard not to be
dystopian, but without a technical solution set that acts as a sea/game
changer, I simply don't share the optimism of most on this list about a
friendlier, sharing world of harmony.

I come here in part out of a search for something to hope for.  Paul
Fernhout's abundance ideas, which are heavily influenced by Paul
Romer--someone I now take to be one of the lasting intellectuals of our
times (along with Ray Kurzweil), (and which struck me as nearly insane the
first 200 times I read it) ultimately impressed me to rethink a lot of
things.  Small currencies have had a similar impact on me earlier.  I look
for those models I think can be meaningful.  I'm not sure if P2P is an
ethos, a set of tools, something that is blurring into other things, etc.
But if a "p2p world" arises, I suspect it will be based on highly empowered
and connected individuals globally working in a world where stuff-production
capacity makes industrial capitalism effectively obsolete.  I think we are
close to that right now...not more than 20 years away...at most.

The problems associated with this massive change are fascinating to me.  I
am astonished how asleep most of the world is when the facts are relatively
plain.  I first heard Kurzweil utter something very like that a few years
ago.  It struck me as arrogant in the extreme--like he could see something
the rest of us couldn't.  Now I somehow have a much clearer understanding
what he was saying.  Maybe I've picked up his neurosis or maybe I've gotten
a bit smarter.  Hard to say.  It isn't brilliance, it is simply hard work at
trying to extrapolate trends and to see boundary events.  To my mind, that
is the most important work social scientists could possibly do.

Ryan
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