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

[Michel Bauwens]

you are right that old forms, even as they loose their dominance as core
logic of the system, can perdure for hundreds, if not thousands of years, in
habits and remnants of institutions ... as you perhaps suggest, Rome is
still alive through the Catholic Church, in that sense yes indeed,
capitalism will survive as long as people are willing to make money without
taking into account social and ecological externalities, in that sense, it's
a state of consciousness; the new state of consciousness, centered around
sharing, the commons, peer to peer ethics, is now emerging, and will
profoundly change the other modalities that still exist, such as the market,
the state, etc... They will exist, but modified by the new chaotic
attractor,

Michel

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 10:03 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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