New Economic Paradigm, Collaborative Commons

[jae208]

Talking about non violent solutions is also a bit of a luxury problem. I'm not at all certain that no conflict of interest will occur about some basic necessities of life, such as drinking water for example. I'm also not that confident that the peaceful solution will prevail when things go sour even a little bit. The sustainability of the rapid growth of human population is another thing I'm not very certain of, but that might partly be caused by me having grown up in rather densely populated country. I'm bearish about the organization, structure and philosophies of most current market-leader countries and I've been expecting an economic "crisis" on a far bigger scale than the one we're in at the moment, for quite a while now.

From what I gather even though the current human species is a lot older than our recorded history, our modern civilization and success coincides with the recent period of unusual stable climate (from the last ice-age up till now). In that regard I don't have high hopes that our current specialized system of food production is very robust against even small climate changes which are bound to happen, pollution or not. I wonder what'll remain of human civilization and sensibilities once the going gets though. Of course I don't know if we'll life to see changes on that scale, but I'm hearing signals of a change from several different sources, from studies of repeating patterns in history (some matching it to some kind of 300 year or so climate cycle of our sun), right up to NASA predicting imminent climate changes based on their measurements. Curiously most seem to suggest things will start to get interesting sooner rather than later with estimates from the latter part of 2014 or 2015 extrapolated from patterns in human-history and NASA estimating a tipping point in climate change around the 2025 mark.

So for me the efforts to create robust, self-regenerative, corruption resistant means of communication and collaboration are also partly motivated out of hope to create a framework to help overcome bad times. In that regard I hope the short term estimates of 2015 are wrong, because I think of open-source, bitcoin, bitshares-dacs and the like as only the first small steps and I don't think they've penetrated human consciousness and culture far enough to cope with the effects of a short term more significant global downtrend.

I'm no pacifist.  I fully expect others to resort to violence in certain circumstances, and I fully support good, peace loving people being prepared to use violence to defend themselves if necessary.  I don't support lowering the standards to which we hold ourselves regarding the initiation of violence simply because we consider violence to be inevitable.  I'm very optimistic about the possibility of new technologies and structures reducing the occurrence of violence, but I think it's important to remain ready, since it will always only take one senselessly destructive person to break the peace.

Live and let live. If everyone followed this there wouldn't be as much violence.

[Troglodactyl]

Talking about non violent solutions is also a bit of a luxury problem. I'm not at all certain that no conflict of interest will occur about some basic necessities of life, such as drinking water for example. I'm also not that confident that the peaceful solution will prevail when things go sour even a little bit. The sustainability of the rapid growth of human population is another thing I'm not very certain of, but that might partly be caused by me having grown up in rather densely populated country. I'm bearish about the organization, structure and philosophies of most current market-leader countries and I've been expecting an economic "crisis" on a far bigger scale than the one we're in at the moment, for quite a while now.

From what I gather even though the current human species is a lot older than our recorded history, our modern civilization and success coincides with the recent period of unusual stable climate (from the last ice-age up till now). In that regard I don't have high hopes that our current specialized system of food production is very robust against even small climate changes which are bound to happen, pollution or not. I wonder what'll remain of human civilization and sensibilities once the going gets though. Of course I don't know if we'll life to see changes on that scale, but I'm hearing signals of a change from several different sources, from studies of repeating patterns in history (some matching it to some kind of 300 year or so climate cycle of our sun), right up to NASA predicting imminent climate changes based on their measurements. Curiously most seem to suggest things will start to get interesting sooner rather than later with estimates from the latter part of 2014 or 2015 extrapolated from patterns in human-history and NASA estimating a tipping point in climate change around the 2025 mark.

So for me the efforts to create robust, self-regenerative, corruption resistant means of communication and collaboration are also partly motivated out of hope to create a framework to help overcome bad times. In that regard I hope the short term estimates of 2015 are wrong, because I think of open-source, bitcoin, bitshares-dacs and the like as only the first small steps and I don't think they've penetrated human consciousness and culture far enough to cope with the effects of a short term more significant global downtrend.

I'm no pacifist.  I fully expect others to resort to violence in certain circumstances, and I fully support good, peace loving people being prepared to use violence to defend themselves if necessary.  I don't support lowering the standards to which we hold ourselves regarding the initiation of violence simply because we consider violence to be inevitable.  I'm very optimistic about the possibility of new technologies and structures reducing the occurrence of violence, but I think it's important to remain ready, since it will always only take one senselessly destructive person to break the peace.

[puppies]

I appreciate your honesty and depth of consideration.  I think we'd get much further on these widespread political debates if people acknowledged the role violence plays in human interactions.  I think there's certainly a case to be made that certain levels of destruction of the environment in which others are attempting to live constitutes an attack and justifies defensive violence, but I've never seen a case in which it was anywhere close to sufficiently clear that I would personally feel morally justified in using force against it.

I view legitimate government authority as the aggregation of voluntarily delegated moral authority, so I think that if a person could not morally justify using force themselves for something, they should not support their government using force for it.

The most obvious alternatives are protest and boycott for general use.  I agree about elephant tourism being a non-generalizable solution.

Oh snap.

Did this conversation just get really interesting?   

Thanks for both of you looking past the labels and getting down to the really important question.

P.s.  I really like the way you stated the aggregation of voluntary moral authority.   I've spoken at length of the bundling of rights,  often to no avail.   I will definitely use this to better explain myself.

[JoeyD]

Talking about non violent solutions is also a bit of a luxury problem. I'm not at all certain that no conflict of interest will occur about some basic necessities of life, such as drinking water for example. I'm also not that confident that the peaceful solution will prevail when things go sour even a little bit. The sustainability of the rapid growth of human population is another thing I'm not very certain of, but that might partly be caused by me having grown up in rather densely populated country. I'm bearish about the organization, structure and philosophies of most current market-leader countries and I've been expecting an economic "crisis" on a far bigger scale than the one we're in at the moment, for quite a while now.

From what I gather even though the current human species is a lot older than our recorded history, our modern civilization and success coincides with the recent period of unusual stable climate (from the last ice-age up till now). In that regard I don't have high hopes that our current specialized system of food production is very robust against even small climate changes which are bound to happen, pollution or not. I wonder what'll remain of human civilization and sensibilities once the going gets though. Of course I don't know if we'll life to see changes on that scale, but I'm hearing signals of a change from several different sources, from studies of repeating patterns in history (some matching it to some kind of 300 year or so climate cycle of our sun), right up to NASA predicting imminent climate changes based on their measurements. Curiously most seem to suggest things will start to get interesting sooner rather than later with estimates from the latter part of 2014 or 2015 extrapolated from patterns in human-history and NASA estimating a tipping point in climate change around the 2025 mark.

So for me the efforts to create robust, self-regenerative, corruption resistant means of communication and collaboration are also partly motivated out of hope to create a framework to help overcome bad times. In that regard I hope the short term estimates of 2015 are wrong, because I think of open-source, bitcoin, bitshares-dacs and the like as only the first small steps and I don't think they've penetrated human consciousness and culture far enough to cope with the effects of a short term more significant global downtrend.

[Troglodactyl]

I appreciate your honesty and depth of consideration.  I think we'd get much further on these widespread political debates if people acknowledged the role violence plays in human interactions.  I think there's certainly a case to be made that certain levels of destruction of the environment in which others are attempting to live constitutes an attack and justifies defensive violence, but I've never seen a case in which it was anywhere close to sufficiently clear that I would personally feel morally justified in using force against it.

I view legitimate government authority as the aggregation of voluntarily delegated moral authority, so I think that if a person could not morally justify using force themselves for something, they should not support their government using force for it.

The most obvious alternatives are protest and boycott for general use.  I agree about elephant tourism being a non-generalizable solution.

[gamey]

Probably off topic, but you've got me curious about your "environmental solutions" philosophy also.  Do you view pollution/environmental damage as violence against others that justifies defensive violence against them?  Obviously the framing of that question says a lot about where I'm coming from.

I would think so, although I've never thought of it like that.  For laws to be effective, they do have to be backed by violence.  So yes.  I've come to frame individual freedom issues as "Is this worth putting a man in a cage via the imminent threat of death?".  Something like that..  I'm sure it comes across as being a crank to some, but anyone with half a brain should realize that it is actually a truer statement than most.

The problem with pollution etc is that it does not readily go away.  While society constantly changes, the earth will not ever go back to the equilibrium that existed 100 years ago. So the polluters (for lack of a better word) are not just committing "violence" against us, they are committing it against unborn generations upon generation. 

To assuage feelings of guilt due to my foray into mining, I told myself I was going to write a website like one of those carbon footprint calculators, but actually measure how much damage it does.  Maybe 1 person only adds .00000000000001 (or whatever) to the problem, but when you multiply that by everyone for generations and generations it becomes a completely different thing. 

Outside of violence, what other solutions are there ?  I once went to a Libertarian website and looked up their solutions to ecological problems.  They pointed to elephants in Africa becoming a tourist attraction with funds directed to conservation.  That is great and noble, but it just doesn't work with 99% of the other problems.

I read something recently how environmentalists are relatively disliked as a whole.  That pretty much tells you where the world is headed..... So I give up.  I'm here on this world to make money so I can **** ******* and have  good time for the rest of my life.

[Troglodactyl]

Trog, I agree with you and liked the article.

Many are instantly dismissive because something seems to be similar to communism or socialism.

In a similar way, I am dismissive of these people, because I have my own stereotypes I put people's thoughts in. 

I can't even figure out if I am liberal or conservative.  I like libertarians but I don't find their environmental solutions convincing in the least.  I guess I'd call myself progressive.  The problem with being a liberal is it is a bit of a catchall for anything that doesn't fall under the conservative umbrella. 

Simplifying things into labels is rarely good for truly understanding whats going.  Using labels is good for conjuring up preconceived ideas and thereby manipulating people and/or avoiding truths.

I think if we apply some "unbundling" to our politics, some exciting things will happen.  Even assuming you think both should exist, what good reason is there for the FDA to be affiliated with the NSA or the SSA?  That's an absurd bundling of almost completely unrelated products.  The problems with labeling are related to the tradition of bundling the issues and then grouping people by which political party's bundle they choose.  People choose a bundle because it contains at least something they like (even if that's only avoiding another bundle) and because they can tolerate the other contents, or consider it the lesser evil.  When labeling people, we tend to assume they wholeheartedly support everything in their chosen party or group's bundle.

Probably off topic, but you've got me curious about your "environmental solutions" philosophy also.  Do you view pollution/environmental damage as violence against others that justifies defensive violence against them?  Obviously the framing of that question says a lot about where I'm coming from.

[gamey]

Trog, I agree with you and liked the article.

Many are instantly dismissive because something seems to be similar to communism or socialism.

In a similar way, I am dismissive of these people, because I have my own stereotypes I put people's thoughts in. 

I can't even figure out if I am liberal or conservative.  I like libertarians but I don't find their environmental solutions convincing in the least.  I guess I'd call myself progressive.  The problem with being a liberal is it is a bit of a catchall for anything that doesn't fall under the conservative umbrella. 

Simplifying things into labels is rarely good for truly understanding whats going.  Using labels is good for conjuring up preconceived ideas and thereby manipulating people and/or avoiding truths.

[bytemaster]

gamey, I think these are the trends you're looking for: http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/10/fred-wilson-on-bitcoin-unbundling-data-leakage-and-health-care/

I think most of the BitShares projects and most of the BitShares community is based on the idea of making the world a better place (creating value) by freeing the market from the overhead, inefficiency, and barriers to entry that are inherent in traditional hierarchical structures.  There's nothing anti-capitalist about collaborating, if you can find the right people with whom to collaborate such that it increases your productivity.  In fact, if collaboration is the most efficient approach, those who refuse to collaborate will not be able to compete and succeed in a free market.  The suggestion of a new system that is "not competition based" implies tyranny, because the two ways to get people to accept a new system are competing to convince them that it is best so they'll accept it voluntarily, or trying to force them to accept it.  No one has to be forced to collaborate if collaboration is to everyone's benefit, and no one needs to be forced to look for alternatives to scarce resources.

Where BitShares and blockchain technologies fit in is reducing economic friction such that anyone can be their own bank, and participate in global business of many other types, not just the well established and well connected.  This reduction to the barriers to entry, and expansion of reach for potential business relationships and collaboration streamlines free market capitalism, reducing overhead costs and creating more value for everyone.

And the result is a competitive advantage.   

Improve society through making the right thing to do more profitable and competitive than the wrong thing. 

[Troglodactyl]

gamey, I think these are the trends you're looking for: http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/10/fred-wilson-on-bitcoin-unbundling-data-leakage-and-health-care/

I think most of the BitShares projects and most of the BitShares community is based on the idea of making the world a better place (creating value) by freeing the market from the overhead, inefficiency, and barriers to entry that are inherent in traditional hierarchical structures.  There's nothing anti-capitalist about collaborating, if you can find the right people with whom to collaborate such that it increases your productivity.  In fact, if collaboration is the most efficient approach, those who refuse to collaborate will not be able to compete and succeed in a free market.  The suggestion of a new system that is "not competition based" implies tyranny, because the two ways to get people to accept a new system are competing to convince them that it is best so they'll accept it voluntarily, or trying to force them to accept it.  No one has to be forced to collaborate if collaboration is to everyone's benefit, and no one needs to be forced to look for alternatives to scarce resources.

Where BitShares and blockchain technologies fit in is reducing economic friction such that anyone can be their own bank, and participate in global business of many other types, not just the well established and well connected.  This reduction to the barriers to entry, and expansion of reach for potential business relationships and collaboration streamlines free market capitalism, reducing overhead costs and creating more value for everyone.

[gamey]

I disagree.  I think there is actually quite a bit more to this thread and think you do yourself a disservice pigeonholing things. 

Some people have a huge tendency to start ranting communism and socialism at any hint of something vaguely related.  I recall wanting to warn against this in one of my posts.

I have no doubt the book is not particularly informative if you are someone who takes in a lot of the world/media.

I do think it brings about an interesting discussion about where American society is currently heading. 

I also have no doubt the book is full of trend-speak (not having read it.) but it is about trends.. shrug

The questions to me are more like where are these trends headed ?   If anyone hasn't noticed, wealth distribution in this country has become more and more skewed.  I personally don't think this is healthy, but there are people that'll declare socialism/communism for having these views. IMO the pendulum has started to swing in the other direction.  So what are the repercussions ?  Where do blockchain/bitcoin 2.0 technology fit in ?

[Troglodactyl]

I stumble upon a good debunking of Rifkin's nonsense by Eric Raymond, prominent advocate of open-source, author of The Cathedral and The Bazaar:
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5558

[...]
The book is a blitz of trend-speak. Thomas Kuhn! The Internet of Things! 3D printing! Open source! Big data! Prosumers! But underneath the glossy surface are gaping holes in the logic. And the errors follow a tiresomely familiar pattern. What Rifkin is actually retailing, whether he consciously understands it that way or not (and he may not), is warmed-over Marxism – hostility to private property, capital, and markets perpetually seeking a rationalization. The only innovation here is that for the labor theory of value he has substituted a post-labor theory of zero value that is even more obviously wrong than Marx’s.

All the indicia of cod-Marxism are present. False identification of capitalism with vertical integration and industrial centralization: check. Attempts to gin up some sort of an opposition between voluntary but non-monetized collaboration and voluntary monetized trade: check. Valorizing nifty little local cooperatives as though they actually scaled up: check. Writing about human supercooperative behavior as though it falsifies classical and neoclassical economics: check. At times in this book it’s almost as though Rifkin is walking by a checklist of dimwitted cliches, ringing them like bells in a carillon.
[...]

Very nice.  I think that about covers this thread.

[BldSwtTrs]

I stumble upon a good debunking of Rifkin's nonsense by Eric Raymond, prominent advocate of open-source, author of The Cathedral and The Bazaar:
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5558

[...]
The book is a blitz of trend-speak. Thomas Kuhn! The Internet of Things! 3D printing! Open source! Big data! Prosumers! But underneath the glossy surface are gaping holes in the logic. And the errors follow a tiresomely familiar pattern. What Rifkin is actually retailing, whether he consciously understands it that way or not (and he may not), is warmed-over Marxism – hostility to private property, capital, and markets perpetually seeking a rationalization. The only innovation here is that for the labor theory of value he has substituted a post-labor theory of zero value that is even more obviously wrong than Marx’s.

All the indicia of cod-Marxism are present. False identification of capitalism with vertical integration and industrial centralization: check. Attempts to gin up some sort of an opposition between voluntary but non-monetized collaboration and voluntary monetized trade: check. Valorizing nifty little local cooperatives as though they actually scaled up: check. Writing about human supercooperative behavior as though it falsifies classical and neoclassical economics: check. At times in this book it’s almost as though Rifkin is walking by a checklist of dimwitted cliches, ringing them like bells in a carillon.
[...]

[tipon]

When i talk about capitalism, i refer to the actual system.
The actual structure of the world.
Our system is based and depends of fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels are centralized ( it need to be centralized ) and tend to create centralized structures.
We could descentralize the production of energy (renewable energies ) , but that would go against the interests of big capital ( the economic elite) .
If we change into a descentralized energy production system, that would be a painful crash in the structure of the world that is gonna selforganize into something new.
And im not sure to call that post fosil system : capitalism.
It would be very different system.
I wont be based on competition or infinite growth..... it would be low energy system.

So the question should be:

how can we use these new technologies for constructing the post-capitalism world?

instead of :

how can we integrate these new technologies into the capitalist market?

I think theres a conflict between centralization and descentralization.
I think descentralization is against capitalism.
Capitalism tend to concentrate power and generate centralized structures of control and command with a top down approach.
We have now the technology for descentralize , miniaturize and integrate to human scale all the components of society but this go against the interests of big capital .

I dont think we are gonna shift from centralized to descentralized in a peaceful way.
Big capital is trying to centralize everything.  For example the internet , they are trying to finish with the "neutrality of internet". They want to recentralize all the architecture of internet.

Descentralization is dangerous for  capitalism.
...

Decentralization I think is a threat to monopolistic capitalism, crony capitalism, fascism, and probably a great many other things, but I don't see how it's a threat to capitalism.  Probably this is a question of what connotations "capitalism" has, depending on your political background.  Decentralization and flattening hierarchical structures doesn't undermine property rights, productivity, or investment, but it lowers the barriers to entry, which I think is a direct decrease on economic friction.  Basically I think it will increase the efficiency of the capitalist system, by making the market more free.

[Troglodactyl]

I think theres a conflict between centralization and descentralization.
I think descentralization is against capitalism.
Capitalism tend to concentrate power and generate centralized structures of control and command with a top down approach.
We have now the technology for descentralize , miniaturize and integrate to human scale all the components of society but this go against the interests of big capital .

I dont think we are gonna shift from centralized to descentralized in a peaceful way.
Big capital is trying to centralize everything.  For example the internet , they are trying to finish with the "neutrality of internet". They want to recentralize all the architecture of internet.

Descentralization is dangerous for  capitalism.
...

Decentralization I think is a threat to monopolistic capitalism, crony capitalism, fascism, and probably a great many other things, but I don't see how it's a threat to capitalism.  Probably this is a question of what connotations "capitalism" has, depending on your political background.  Decentralization and flattening hierarchical structures doesn't undermine property rights, productivity, or investment, but it lowers the barriers to entry, which I think is a direct decrease on economic friction.  Basically I think it will increase the efficiency of the capitalist system, by making the market more free.

[tipon]

I think theres a conflict between centralization and descentralization.
I think descentralization is against capitalism.
Capitalism tend to concentrate power and generate centralized structures of control and command with a top down approach.
We have now the technology for descentralize , miniaturize and integrate to human scale all the components of society but this go against the interests of big capital .

I dont think we are gonna shift from centralized to descentralized in a peaceful way.
Big capital is trying to centralize everything.  For example the internet , they are trying to finish with the "neutrality of internet". They want to recentralize all the architecture of internet.

Descentralization is dangerous for  capitalism.

Compulsive neccesity of growth ( result from competition)  tends to centralization of power and control , gigantism and ecological unsustainability  .

Now humans have the possibility (as result of technological developments)  of generating a post capitalist system based on collaboration and descentralization of power and control, that works at small scale and in a sustainable way .
...

Technological developments can lower barriers to entry and non-scaling overhead costs, which can make decentralized or small scale approaches more competitive, but I don't see what that has to do with a "post capitalist" system.  People already collaborate when they think doing so is beneficial, and I expect that will continue.

See Fred Wilson's megatrends here: http://www.datafox.co/blog/fred-wilsons-talk-at-leweb-the-3-big-megatrends/

[jae208]

The ability to filter information to find IMPORTANT information or ACCURATE information is also scarce.

That is probably because people aren't as rational as we'discussed like to believe. For instance we have the conformation bias where people believe something just because you have others believing in it like religion.

[luckybit]

The ability to filter information to find IMPORTANT information or ACCURATE information is also scarce.

Isn't that what prediction markets help to solve?

[Troglodactyl]

Compulsive neccesity of growth ( result from competition)  tends to centralization of power and control , gigantism and ecological unsustainability  .

Now humans have the possibility (as result of technological developments)  of generating a post capitalist system based on collaboration and descentralization of power and control, that works at small scale and in a sustainable way .
...

Technological developments can lower barriers to entry and non-scaling overhead costs, which can make decentralized or small scale approaches more competitive, but I don't see what that has to do with a "post capitalist" system.  People already collaborate when they think doing so is beneficial, and I expect that will continue.

See Fred Wilson's megatrends here: http://www.datafox.co/blog/fred-wilsons-talk-at-leweb-the-3-big-megatrends/

[bytemaster]

The ability to filter information to find IMPORTANT information or ACCURATE information is also scarce.

[biophil]

is it not possible for capitalism to evolve into socialism? if the greatest means of production were information and all information were made free and public, is this a socialist or capitalist society? the reason for property rights stems from the tragedy of the commons. but with information, a non-scarce resource, you have what is known as a comedy of the commons where by information becomes more valuable as more ppl use it.

Information and knowledge will always be costly to acquire. Also the affirmation that an information is more valuable when more people know it is highly counterintuitive and debatable.

Blockchain technologies allow a decentralize control of ownership, they are the empowerment of the individual ownership. I don't see how we can interpret that as the premise of socialism.
Capitalism will end the day where human nature will change, a transhuman shift can end capitalism, nothing less. But even when transhuman technologies will be avalaible I don't think people will choose to abandon the primacy of their individuality.

I don't see how information and knowledge is costly to acquire since there are tons of free resources online that allow you to acquire new information/knowledge. Coursera, Udacity, various forums, youtube etc.

I think a deeper issue is that information and knowledge are costly to produce. Sure, once they're out there, modern technology allows them to be distributed with almost no cost, but distribution is not the same as production. Today's abundance of information is pretty cool, but it's at least a little illusory: is something abundant because there are a million identical copies of it? Or is it scarce because it takes training, education, resources to create the very first copy of it?

[tipon]

Compulsive neccesity of growth ( result from competition)  tends to centralization of power and control , gigantism and ecological unsustainability  .

Now humans have the possibility (as result of technological developments)  of generating a post capitalist system based on collaboration and descentralization of power and control, that works at small scale and in a sustainable way .




 

Capitalism is not only the private ownership of wealth.  Capitalism is basically the compulsive necessity of growth that emerge as result of competition.
Capitalism is based on competition.
New postcapitalist economy should be based on collaboration.

I think to say that capitalism exist since the 19th is completely clueless. The term capitalist was coined by Marx in the 19th and the idea of a transition from feudalism to capitalism with the Industrial Revolution is also a Marx one. Repeating Marx's storytelling and categories is a serious handicap to say something intelligent about economic reality.

What people call capitalism since Marx is actually the private ownership of wealth (included the means of production), that reality exist since the dawn of Humanity and is not about to change.


Edit: After having watch the video, I read the article now. I found it very bad.
Pervasive marxism :
- "the failling rate of profit"
- "value creators are spoil of their value with capitalism, that can't last!"

And poor understanding of existing economics concepts:
"no more division of labor but distribution of tasks", oh yeah completely different!
" bla bla mutual coordination...  bla bla social collaboration", too bad the author don't hear about free market!

Always funny to see how people make appear revolutionnary and progressive the same old song.

What is collaboration but voluntary trade and elimination of initiation of force or fraud.  The society that emerges from that reality will be what is right and is free from all labels you may wish to put on it. 

"distribution of tasks"  by whom... this is called CENTRAL planning.

If you are going to debate over the definition of terms that is one thing... but realize that is all you are doing. 

I think that capitalism is based upon competition to collaborate the most effectively.    The division of labor is the result of collaboration.   Explain collaboration without central authority?

[bytemaster]

is it not possible for capitalism to evolve into socialism? if the greatest means of production were information and all information were made free and public, is this a socialist or capitalist society? the reason for property rights stems from the tragedy of the commons. but with information, a non-scarce resource, you have what is known as a comedy of the commons where by information becomes more valuable as more ppl use it.

Information and knowledge will always be costly to acquire. Also the affirmation that an information is more valuable when more people know it is highly counterintuitive and debatable.

Blockchain technologies allow a decentralize control of ownership, they are the empowerment of the individual ownership. I don't see how we can interpret that as the premise of socialism.
Capitalism will end the day where human nature will change, a transhuman shift can end capitalism, nothing less. But even when transhuman technologies will be avalaible I don't think people will choose to abandon the primacy of their individuality.

I don't see how information and knowledge is costly to acquire since there are tons of free resources online that allow you to acquire new information/knowledge. Coursera, Udacity, various forums, youtube etc.

Getting the value of Bitcoin is costly to acquire without a centralized exchange or BTS X.... somethings are not reference facts, but instead the result of continuous integration of random bits of information throughout the market.   IE: getting price information is not easy today.

[jae208]

is it not possible for capitalism to evolve into socialism? if the greatest means of production were information and all information were made free and public, is this a socialist or capitalist society? the reason for property rights stems from the tragedy of the commons. but with information, a non-scarce resource, you have what is known as a comedy of the commons where by information becomes more valuable as more ppl use it.

Information and knowledge will always be costly to acquire. Also the affirmation that an information is more valuable when more people know it is highly counterintuitive and debatable.

Blockchain technologies allow a decentralize control of ownership, they are the empowerment of the individual ownership. I don't see how we can interpret that as the premise of socialism.
Capitalism will end the day where human nature will change, a transhuman shift can end capitalism, nothing less. But even when transhuman technologies will be avalaible I don't think people will choose to abandon the primacy of their individuality.

I don't see how information and knowledge is costly to acquire since there are tons of free resources online that allow you to acquire new information/knowledge. Coursera, Udacity, various forums, youtube etc.

[jae208]

I think to say that capitalism exist since the 19th is completely clueless. The term capitalist was coined by Marx in the 19th and the idea of a transition from feudalism to capitalism with the Industrial Revolution is also a Marx one. Repeating Marx's storytelling and categories is a serious handicap to say something intelligent about economic reality.

What people call capitalism since Marx is actually the private ownership of wealth (included the means of production), that reality exist since the dawn of Humanity and is not about to change.


Edit: After having watch the video, I read the article now. I found it very bad.
Pervasive marxism :
- "the failling rate of profit"
- "value creators are spoil of their value with capitalism, that can't last!"

And poor understanding of existing economics concepts:
"no more division of labor but distribution of tasks", oh yeah completely different!
" bla bla mutual coordination...  bla bla social collaboration", too bad the author don't hear about free market!

Always funny to see how people make appear revolutionnary and progressive the same old song.

He is saying that because of the recent technological revolution we are in, producing an additional unit of a good or service costs almost nothing. As a result, goods and services are nearly priceless, free, and abundant.(physical goods will become more abundant with the advancement of 3D printers)

What does this mean in terms of the free market when goods and services are abundant and cheap? What happens when everything around you is no more than an information file you upload to a website like thingiverse.com and then print at home with your 3D printer?

If for the first time in human history technology makes everything abundant will the same market forces that applied in the old paradigm still apply to the new? Now, human demand may be insatiable but will the same economic forces that apply in today's resource scarce world apply in a world with virtually unlimited resources?

You say that the private ownership of wealth existed since the dawn of humanity and I find that a little hard to believe since if you were unfortunate enough to be a slave at any point in history the only concept of private ownership you would know of was about you belonging to your owner.

[clout]

the cost of acquiring information can be paid for with a derivative asset that is correlated to its utility in society. in this way we no longer need patents. innovators do not have to pay the fees associated with patents and the economy does not need to suffer an artificial monopoly, all while still providing incentive to research and innovate.
...

how is information not more valuable as more people use it? that seems to go against the entire premise of the open source movement. 

I do not get the first part at all.  How would a derivative asset correlate to the utility of society ?  How would it be determined ?



Information has many different categories.  The 4 off hand that have may different answers to your questions.

1) General advances.  Medical, engineering etc.

More valuable to society when more use it, but not necesarily more value to those acquiring it.  Their skills are diluted, more competition etc.

2) Entertainment.  You'd need to define value to the consumer or value to the producer in a way similar to the above.

3) Exploitive knowledge that is not widely know.  The value plummets as more use it.  Similar to category 1.

4) Open source ?  I may derive value in using it, but that doesn't mean that I receive more value as more people use it.

Really this is a semantic issue and you need to be more precise in defining value and to whom.

look to this thread to understand the first part: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=1053.15

and im talking about value added to society on a whole.  less information asymmetry leads to more efficient exchange in the free markets. more information leads to more solutions to solving scarcity, thus greater economic development. some information is certainly more valuable than others, and some information might lead to adverse outcomes, but its very hard to keep of information secret in the information age.

[bytemaster]

Capitalism is not only the private ownership of wealth.  Capitalism is basically the compulsive necessity of growth that emerge as result of competition.
Capitalism is based on competition.
New postcapitalist economy should be based on collaboration.

I think to say that capitalism exist since the 19th is completely clueless. The term capitalist was coined by Marx in the 19th and the idea of a transition from feudalism to capitalism with the Industrial Revolution is also a Marx one. Repeating Marx's storytelling and categories is a serious handicap to say something intelligent about economic reality.

What people call capitalism since Marx is actually the private ownership of wealth (included the means of production), that reality exist since the dawn of Humanity and is not about to change.


Edit: After having watch the video, I read the article now. I found it very bad.
Pervasive marxism :
- "the failling rate of profit"
- "value creators are spoil of their value with capitalism, that can't last!"

And poor understanding of existing economics concepts:
"no more division of labor but distribution of tasks", oh yeah completely different!
" bla bla mutual coordination...  bla bla social collaboration", too bad the author don't hear about free market!

Always funny to see how people make appear revolutionnary and progressive the same old song.

What is collaboration but voluntary trade and elimination of initiation of force or fraud.  The society that emerges from that reality will be what is right and is free from all labels you may wish to put on it. 

"distribution of tasks"  by whom... this is called CENTRAL planning.

If you are going to debate over the definition of terms that is one thing... but realize that is all you are doing. 

I think that capitalism is based upon competition to collaborate the most effectively.    The division of labor is the result of collaboration.   Explain collaboration without central authority?   
 

[tipon]

Capitalism is not only the private ownership of wealth.  Capitalism is basically the compulsive necessity of growth that emerge as result of competition.
Capitalism is based on competition.
New postcapitalist economy should be based on collaboration.

I think to say that capitalism exist since the 19th is completely clueless. The term capitalist was coined by Marx in the 19th and the idea of a transition from feudalism to capitalism with the Industrial Revolution is also a Marx one. Repeating Marx's storytelling and categories is a serious handicap to say something intelligent about economic reality.

What people call capitalism since Marx is actually the private ownership of wealth (included the means of production), that reality exist since the dawn of Humanity and is not about to change.


Edit: After having watch the video, I read the article now. I found it very bad.
Pervasive marxism :
- "the failling rate of profit"
- "value creators are spoil of their value with capitalism, that can't last!"

And poor understanding of existing economics concepts:
"no more division of labor but distribution of tasks", oh yeah completely different!
" bla bla mutual coordination...  bla bla social collaboration", too bad the author don't hear about free market!

Always funny to see how people make appear revolutionnary and progressive the same old song.

[gamey]

the cost of acquiring information can be paid for with a derivative asset that is correlated to its utility in society. in this way we no longer need patents. innovators do not have to pay the fees associated with patents and the economy does not need to suffer an artificial monopoly, all while still providing incentive to research and innovate.
...

how is information not more valuable as more people use it? that seems to go against the entire premise of the open source movement. 

I do not get the first part at all.  How would a derivative asset correlate to the utility of society ?  How would it be determined ?



Information has many different categories.  The 4 off hand that have may different answers to your questions.

1) General advances.  Medical, engineering etc.

More valuable to society when more use it, but not necesarily more value to those acquiring it.  Their skills are diluted, more competition etc.

2) Entertainment.  You'd need to define value to the consumer or value to the producer in a way similar to the above.

3) Exploitive knowledge that is not widely know.  The value plummets as more use it.  Similar to category 1.

4) Open source ?  I may derive value in using it, but that doesn't mean that I receive more value as more people use it.

Really this is a semantic issue and you need to be more precise in defining value and to whom.

[bytemaster]

what is the marginal cost of spreading information? what is the marginal benefit?

the cost of acquiring information can be paid for with a derivative asset that is correlated to its utility in society. in this way we no longer need patents. innovators do not have to pay the fees associated with patents and the economy does not need to suffer an artificial monopoly, all while still providing incentive to research and innovate.

how is information not more valuable as more people use it? that seems to go against the entire premise of the open source movement. 

im not saying capitalism will end, what i am saying is that when the main mode of production is information based and information is free, does that make us a socialist society as well?

Socialist / Capitalist is all missing the point... all that matters is the use of force.  Eliminate that and the voluntary transactions of individuals is all that matters. 

[clout]

what is the marginal cost of spreading information? what is the marginal benefit?

the cost of acquiring information can be paid for with a derivative asset that is correlated to its utility in society. in this way we no longer need patents. innovators do not have to pay the fees associated with patents and the economy does not need to suffer an artificial monopoly, all while still providing incentive to research and innovate.

how is information not more valuable as more people use it? that seems to go against the entire premise of the open source movement. 

im not saying capitalism will end, what i am saying is that when the main mode of production is information based and information is free, does that make us a socialist society as well?

[BldSwtTrs]

is it not possible for capitalism to evolve into socialism? if the greatest means of production were information and all information were made free and public, is this a socialist or capitalist society? the reason for property rights stems from the tragedy of the commons. but with information, a non-scarce resource, you have what is known as a comedy of the commons where by information becomes more valuable as more ppl use it.

Information and knowledge will always be costly to acquire. Also the affirmation that an information is more valuable when more people know it is highly counterintuitive and debatable.

Blockchain technologies allow a decentralize control of ownership, they are the empowerment of the individual ownership. I don't see how we can interpret that as the premise of socialism.
Capitalism will end the day where human nature will change, a transhuman shift can end capitalism, nothing less. But even when transhuman technologies will be avalaible I don't think people will choose to abandon the primacy of their individuality.

[clout]

we've touched upon socialism and capitalism in this thread. i have often wondered if socialism and capitalism go hand in hand. at first i believed as many believe that capitalism is socialist progression from feudalism. capitalism, however, has always been the structure of society, even if at points certain individuals or nations perturbed the efficiency of the free markets.

is it not possible for capitalism to evolve into socialism? if the greatest means of production were information and all information were made free and public, is this a socialist or capitalist society? the reason for property rights stems from the tragedy of the commons. but with information, a non-scarce resource, you have what is known as a comedy of the commons where by information becomes more valuable as more ppl use it.

[gamey]

There is something there about marginal costs approaching 0.  This is and will continue to have a huge impact on our society, perhaps as much as other issues.  I posted the same huffpost piece the other day in another thread.  (Or one very similar) 

One of the things about Bitshares is that it will make the marginal cost of an IPO/corporation approach 0.  Mayhem !  looooooooool.

I'm glad one of the 2 skills I learned well in life is writing code. 

[jae208]

I decided to post this here as I think this may be of interest to some of you. It certainly was interesting to me.
This resonates with what we are doing with Bitshares.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xOK2aJ-0Js



The quote below was taken from an article I'll link to below. Each one of us is actively promoting the transition to a post-capitalist social order. DACs do have near zero marginal costs and the cost of starting a new digital bank will be as simple as forking.

"Past historical phase transitions, say the transition from the Roman Empire slave-based system to feudal serfdom, or the transition of feudalism to capitalism, where not exactly smooth affairs, so it may be un-realistic to expect a smooth and unproblematic phase transition towards a post-capitalist social order." 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michel-bauwens/beyond-jeremy-rifkin-how-_b_5185948.html

That is what we are doing. And they know about Bitshares.

I agree 
I did not know they knew about Bitshares.

[BldSwtTrs]

I think to say that capitalism exist since the 19th is completely clueless. The term capitalist was coined by Marx in the 19th and the idea of a transition from feudalism to capitalism with the Industrial Revolution is also a Marx one. Repeating Marx's storytelling and categories is a serious handicap to say something intelligent about economic reality.

What people call capitalism since Marx is actually the private ownership of wealth (included the means of production), that reality exist since the dawn of Humanity and is not about to change.


Edit: After having watch the video, I read the article now. I found it very bad.
Pervasive marxism :
- "the failling rate of profit"
- "value creators are spoil of their value with capitalism, that can't last!"

And poor understanding of existing economics concepts:
"no more division of labor but distribution of tasks", oh yeah completely different!
" bla bla mutual coordination...  bla bla social collaboration", too bad the author don't hear about free market!

Always funny to see how people make appear revolutionnary and progressive the same old song.

[luckybit]

I decided to post this here as I think this may be of interest to some of you. It certainly was interesting to me.
This resonates with what we are doing with Bitshares.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xOK2aJ-0Js



The quote below was taken from an article I'll link to below. Each one of us is actively promoting the transition to a post-capitalist social order. DACs do have near zero marginal costs and the cost of starting a new digital bank will be as simple as forking.

"Past historical phase transitions, say the transition from the Roman Empire slave-based system to feudal serfdom, or the transition of feudalism to capitalism, where not exactly smooth affairs, so it may be un-realistic to expect a smooth and unproblematic phase transition towards a post-capitalist social order." 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michel-bauwens/beyond-jeremy-rifkin-how-_b_5185948.html

That is what we are doing. And they know about Bitshares.

[jae208]

I decided to post this here as I think this may be of interest to some of you. It certainly was interesting to me.
This resonates with what we are doing with Bitshares.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xOK2aJ-0Js



The quote below was taken from an article I'll link to below. Each one of us is actively promoting the transition to a post-capitalist social order. DACs do have near zero marginal costs and the cost of starting a new digital bank will be as simple as forking.

"Past historical phase transitions, say the transition from the Roman Empire slave-based system to feudal serfdom, or the transition of feudalism to capitalism, where not exactly smooth affairs, so it may be un-realistic to expect a smooth and unproblematic phase transition towards a post-capitalist social order." 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michel-bauwens/beyond-jeremy-rifkin-how-_b_5185948.html