Re: [P2P-F] A Distributed Economy -- A blog involving Linked Data
Dear All, I've realized many things. Perhaps the most important is that a lot of the ideas that I discovered had already been considered by others. Thus, I find it difficult to say I'm incredibly unique. Moreover, I do not know everything and my knowledge of computing and its limits and possibly platforms such as these are likely dwarfed by many on this list. However, experience tells me that sitting passively on the side lines has never accomplished anything. Thus, if I have the means I will strongly consider going to the 7th IEEE International Conference on Digital Ecosystems and Technologies Special Theme - Complex Environment Engineering IEEE DEST 2013 on 24-26 July 2013 in Menlo Park, California, USA Website: http://www.dest2013.digital-ecology.org/ Moreover, I will attempt to contextualize at least some of what I have learned about and place it in a paper and submit it to said conference. If it is rejected I will know that I was rejected. If it is accepted I may learn a lot from the feedback. I may make new friends, and in the extreme case be invited to join a team. Whatever happens, I will not know unless I try. Thank you Milton for pointing out this conference. If anyone would like to collaborate with me on this paper, please let me know. If not, I hope you go. Maybe we'll meet there. It looks like there will be a month to submit (Paper Submission: April 15, 2013). Again, it is a blessing to know that so many scientists and engineers are looking at this area. Maybe looking into this was worthwhile. In any case, thanks for being here. Thank you to the W3C and the P2P Foundation for providing a community of interaction. I look to learning more from you in the future. -Brent On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 11:14 AM, Gannon Dick <[email protected]> wrote:
Milton Ponson wrote: Thus we are able to create economic models that incorporate security, resilience, reliability and sustainability.
As we speak thousands and thousands of engineers and scientists are already tackling the fundamental task of coming up with new all-encompassing paradigms and the 7th IEEE International Conference on Digital Ecosystems and Technologies will deal with quite a few of these issues. ============= Let me rephrase in these terms ...
If work starts at Noon, the next Noon is about 23h56m (Sidereal Time) away. The probability of you being paid to start work 4 minutes early is Zero*.
"all-encompassing paradigm":The mechanics of time and labor for hire are the Perfect Storm of truncation errors.
--Gannon
* Before somebody else says it: The probability of an unnoticed 4 minute per day systemic failure is (Political Science + Economics)/2.
------------------------------ *From:* Gannon Dick <[email protected]> *To:* Brent Shambaugh <[email protected]>; Michel Bauwens < [email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
*Cc:* ProjectParadigm-ICT-Program <[email protected]>; Samuel Rose <[email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; Paul Cockshott <[email protected]> *Sent:* Saturday, March 16, 2013 10:02 AM
*Subject:* Re: A Distributed Economy -- A blog involving Linked Data
Hi Brent,
Cheer up, everybody's closet has Monsters. At least you have your closet and not mine :-)
The dark side to a distributed economy is that models which stretch time along latitude lines for navigation purposes also "predict" Global Warming at the Equator. This is a whole different problem than *observing real* Global Warming in the Arctic. The motivation of the Overseer to keep the Field Hands at work (just a little) longer (than the Plantation down the road) is age old.
However, if you know the "stretch" you can compute this "Global Economic Warming" artifact. Tie a rubber band to the equator and tie the other end to the Arctic Circle on the other side of the Pole. Stretch over the Pole Apparent time 90.833 Degrees Civil Time 96 Degrees Nautical Time 102 Degrees Astronomical Time 108 Degrees
The difference in apparent duration of sunlight (%) integrated over a year is: Canberra 99.32% Santiago de Chile 99.71% Jakarta 104.6% Singapore 105.4% Kiev (Kyiv) 95.22% London 94.84% Washington 98.49%
This is the apparent "cheap labor" business has been chasing. Scientists (should not) want any part of this made up nonsense. Linked data is vulnerable to the deception ... unless you understand the game.
--Gannon
------------------------------ *From:* Brent Shambaugh <[email protected]> *To:* Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> *Cc:* ProjectParadigm-ICT-Program <[email protected]>; Samuel Rose <[email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; Paul Cockshott <[email protected]> *Sent:* Saturday, March 16, 2013 1:17 AM *Subject:* Re: A Distributed Economy -- A blog involving Linked Data
Hello Everyone,
Sometimes I get upset and afraid. I know I am missing a lot, and it is difficult for me to comprehend what is going on in the world. I'm happy that everyone is here.
-Brent
On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 6:12 PM, Brent Shambaugh < [email protected]> wrote:
In an attempt to understand the conversation we had, I was sent in a flurry of confusion. I started checking out books, and one was Resilience by Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy. I found a few quotes that seem exciting to me:
"Adhocracies thrive on data. And by the stroke of fantastic luck, we're currently witnessing the global birth of an adhocracy of data -- a global revolution that, for the first time, empowers orgranizations with the capacity to collect and correlate widely distributed real-time information about the way many critical systems are performing. This kind of open data will play a central role in resilience strategies for years to come." pg. 266, Resilience, Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy
"And for organizations of all types there is a powerful lesson here: Resilience benefits accrue to organizations that prioritize the collection, presentation, and sharing of data." pg. 269, Resilience, Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy
"A related theme in the resilience discussion is the importance of networks, which provide a universal, abstract reference system for describing how information, resources, and behaviours flow through many complex systems. Having a common means to describe biological, economic, and ecological systems, for example, allows researchers to make comparisons between the ways these very different kinds of entities approach similar problems, such as stopping a contagion - whether an actual virus, a financial panic, an unwanted behavior, or an environmental contaminant - when it begins to spread. Having a shared frame of reference allows us to consider how successful tactics in one domain might be applied to another - as we'll see in newly emerging fields like ecological finance." pg 19, Resilience, Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy
"Rather the resilience frame suggests a different, complementary effort to mitigation: to redesign our institutions, embolden our communities, encourage innovation and experimentation, and support our people in ways that will help them be prepared and cope with surprises and distruptions, even as we work to fend them off." pg 23, Resilience, Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy
It is interesting that Buckminster Fuller wrote about similar ideas over 30 years ago:
"The inefficiency of automobiles' reciprocating engines - and their traffic-system-wasted fuel - and the energy inefficiency of today's buildings, are only two of hundreds of thousands of instances that can be cited of the design-avoidable energy wastage. But the technical raison d'etre for either the energy-effectiveness gains or losses is all completely invisible to human eyes. Thus, the significance of their omni-integratable potentialities is uncomprehended by either the world's leaders or the led. Neither the great political and financial power structures of the world, nor the specialization-blinded professionals, nor the population in general realize the sum-totally the omni-engineering-integratable, invisible revolution in metallurgical, chemical, and electronic arts now makes it possible to do so much more with ever fewer pounds and volumes of material, ergs of energy, and seconds of time per given technological function that it is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a "higher standard of living than any have ever known.", pg. xxv, Critical Path, R. Buckminster Fuller
"World Game will become increasingly effective in its prognoses and programming when the world-around, satellite-interrelayed computer system and its omni-Universe-operative (time-energy) accounting system are established. This system will identify the kilowatt-hour-expressed world inventory of foods, raw and recirculating resources, and all the world's unique mechanical and structural capabilities and their operating capacities as well as the respective kilowatt-hours of available energy-income-derived operating power with which to put their facilities to work. All the foregoing information will become available in respect to all the world-around technology's environment-controlling, life-sustaining, travel- and communication-accomidating structures and machines.", pg. 219, Critical Path, R. Buckminster Fuller
I'm happy that Milton Ponson pointed out Resilience. I had never thought about resilience before. Looking into it was very gratifying. It gave me some confidence that I was perhaps doing some things right, but at the same time startled me by how much there is to learn to somehow survive the free fall. Doing a search for Linked Data and Resilience gave me a result from rkbexpolorer ( http://www.rkbexplorer.com/explorer/#display=project-{http%3A//wiki.rkbexplorer.com/id/resist}<http://www.rkbexplorer.com/explorer/#display=project-%7Bhttp%3A//wiki.rkbexplorer.com/id/resist%7D>) which is from the ReSIST (Resilience for Survivability) project in Europe ( http://www.resist-noe.org/). They also have some links to some free course material at <http://resist.isti.cnr.it/home.php>.
I believe my blog evolved to explore a peer-to-peer economy. Michael Bauwens desribes such economies as distributed networks, "As political, economic, and social systems transform themselves into distributed networks, a new human dynamic is emerging: peer to peer (P2P). As P2P gives rise to the emergence of a third mode of production, a third mode of governence, and a third mode of property, it is poised to overhaul our political economy in unprecendented ways." ( www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499)
This suggests something broader. As a result of our conversation, I also looked at some people with socialist views such as Roberto Verzola, W. Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell, Raoul Viktor, and Heinz Dieterich.
Roberto Verzola describes an economy of abundance, which may indeed be linked to P2P technologies.
"An economy of abundance seeks to dismantle or reform these scarcity-generating institutions in such a way as to affirm our freedom to live life as art (self-expression to others), social equity (so that everything can live life as art), and sustainability (so that all life can thrive into the future). Among other things, this implies a much greater role for various forms of shared property, individual an community-level self-reliance, and participatory decision making." ( http://www.shareable.net/blog/event-the-economics-of-abundance)
He also argues that for innovation to proceed, everyone seeking knowledge should have access to it.
"the most important means to ensure that innovation can proceed is to ensure that everyone seeking knowledge has access to it. ... Knowledge that helps empower people depends on openness, while knowledge that is used to coerce, to exert power over the disempowered, thrives on secrecy" p. 150, The Economics of Abunance: A Political Economy of Freedom, Equity and Sustainability, Roberto Verzola
This seems to align well with my present feelings.
I feel that engineering is so saturated with IP, that it is hard to feel like you're not going to be doing that. At the same time I want to develop my skills and thrive. How do become a Professional Engineer and not feel like you're going to be doing that? What if you don't like the lawyer saturated culture where people are suing other people over some idea you or someone else produced? I can sense that a lot of people, especially in the hacker and maker community, want to be able to support themselves and work on cool new things but don't want to deny other people to work on the same cool things. Why do ideas have to take on a life of their own and become part of something you might be employed by, but have no control beyond that? Sorry about the extreme language, but why do I imagine it as making deal with the devil? Betraying your friends so you can enjoy life and eat? In this, there is an underlying assumption that there are institutions that do not want to share or partner, or make it very difficult. If it is easier, I feel that could be better.
Buckminster Fuller also wrote about such things:
"2. Grandmother taught us the Golden Rule: "Love thy neighbor as thy self--do unto others as you would they should do unto you.
3. As we became older and more experienced, out uncles began to caution us to get over our sensitivity. "Life is hard," they explained. 'There is nowhere nearly enough life support for everybody on our planet, let alone enough for a comfortable life support. If you want to raise a family and have a comfortable life for them, you are going to have to deprive many others of the opportunity to survive and the sooner, the better. Your grandmother's Golden Rule is beautiful, but it doesn't work.'" p. 123. Critical Path, R. Buckminster Fuller
Is it possible to have a win-win between people an business? Are there any financial barriers to entry and/or partnership? Sometimes I fear that I will never be paid enough to implement my ideas, or if I do then it will be too late to enter the market. Either I can't afford to do the work, or someone who developed and patented something that matches at least some of my idea decides not to involve me. Thus I would question spending the time developing my idea. I'm assuming I can develop my idea for my own personal use (possibly not?). However, I am more certain I may have trouble sharing and selling things developed from my ideas. I imagine that this favors those who already have money.
People like Eric von Hippel and Michael Bauwens both speak about a lot of innovation goinf on outside the firm. For example Michel Bauwen's states:
"The French-Italian school of 'cognitive capitalism' stresses the value creation today is no longer confined to the enterprise, but beholden to the mass intellectuality of knowledge workers, who through their lifelong learning/experiencing and systematic connectivity, constantly innovate within and without the enterprise. This is an important argument, since it would justify what we see as the only solution for the expansion of the P2P sphere into a society at large: the universal basic income. Only the independence of work and the salary structure can guarantee the peer producers can continue to create this sphere of highly productive use value." The Political Economy of Peer Production ( www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499)
Eric von Hippel also speaks about his book. ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:20060123-Eric.von.Hippel-Democratizin... )
However, giving people money for doing nothing makes me feel uncomfortable. Of course, as Heinz Dietrich suggests, if you already have money, things work just fine: "The first step, in fact, would be to establish a new cybernetic principle; you need something that coordinates billions of economic transactions everyday. And, so far, the market has been a relatively well-functioning system under two conditions: If the market is not monopolistic and you have the buying power for the merchandise you produce and for the services, then the market coordinates quite well."-- The Socialism of the 21st Century ( http://eipcp.net/transversal/0805/dieterich/en)
Paul Cockshott, and Allin Cottrell suggest a payment system determined democratically, "The payment system outlined in chapter 2 depends on the idea that the total labour content of each product or service can be calculated." p. 8, Towards a New Socialism
If this is by the state, then I am moved to say I do not trust the government to do much right at all. Certainly, this is what I feel if I spend any length of time watching the news. But I would like to look into it. If this develops into something, the state should be involved at some level. I feel bad about this. I'll have to read more. However, I agree that with more democracy things would be better.
"The principal bases for a post-Soviet socialism must be radical democracy and efficient planning. The democratic element, it is now clear, is not a luxury, or something that can be postponed until conditions are especially favourable. Without democracy, as we have argued above, the leaders of a socialist society will be driven to coercion in order to ensure the production of a surplus product, and if coercion slackens the system will tend to stagnate." p. 7, Towards a New Socialism
I definately think there needs to be some way to accomplish things that makes it fair to people. In terms of me, I believe this underlies a larger problem than me being connected with the right job or being afraid of debt going back to school. It is the problem of connecting people with the right jobs, utilizing the skills they already have so they don't have to fear paying to learn what they already know, and raising awareness that the jobs are there. I dream about linked data being able to illuminate relationships between present skills and related skills to job seekers and employers. I also dream about linked data allowing people to market themselves with clarity as a basket of skills that represents who they really are rather than a basket of skills that was set by a well-meaning college, trade-school, or university. I honestly believe that people who do something they have a passion for, will be more effective employees or entrepreneurs.
But how to pay for it? If you take out debt you need to find a way to pay it off. If you can't find something that reflects your values you may feel like you're enslaved to something else while trying to pay it off. It can be a pressing struggle as Paul Grignon's Money as Debt video on Youtube describes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K5_JE_gOys). Paul Grigon and others say that our present monetary system leads to infinite growth.
"We need to become politically sensitive to the invisible architectures of power. In distributed systems, where there is no overt hierarchy, power is a function of design. One such system, perhaps the most important of all, is the monetary system, whose interest-bearing design requires the market to be linked to a system of infinite growth, and this link needs to be broken. A global reform of the monetary system, or the spread of new means of direct social production of money, are the necessary conditions for such a break." (http://p2pfoundation.net/About_The_Foundation)
I'd imagine this would create no problems for people as long as there is the will and resources to grow infinitely. However, Paul Grigon points out an exception: those with the money to lend at interest will eventually wind up with all of the money, and due to forclosure the property too.
My site explores distributed funding. ( http://adistributedeconomy.blogspot.com/2012/03/distributed-funding.html). I am still not sure how exactly to accomplish it. I think it may involve something like Ripple (https://classic.ripplepay.com/) and PaySwarm ( http://payswarm.com/). A friend of mine pointed out that it did not seem that Ripple allows to keep track of what you owe who, whereas PaySwarm appears to do so. I may need to develop something on my own ( http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webpayments/2013Feb/0034.html) that involes donations, and whatever models are needed. Embarrasingly, I'm still learning JavaScript. Thankfully, my friends are also encouraging me to focus on some small project.
A few other thoughts:
As I was reading, I noticed some mention of rival and non-rival goods. Rival goods could be seen as raw materials or products, and non-rival goods could exist in an infinite amount. In the maker world I see things such as CAD files as non-rival and raw materials and end products as rival. I question whether people would still pay for rival goods, and perhaps donate for non-rival goods if there was an open source economy? What if things such as PaySwarm made it easy to do so?
The Rep Rap and Ardrino are open source hardware, and all products by Makerbot used to be (http://josefprusa.cz/open-hardware-meaning/, http://www.hoektronics.com/2012/09/21/makerbot-and-open-source-a-founder-per...). People can share their designs, but would people share their profits with those who contributed to their idea? It wouldn't have to be much, as small amounts still add up. Would this be bad? Even if people don't have to pay, things might still vary as does the amount you might get by selling a book? Concieveably if you have a lot of open source hardware, then you could have as much flexibility in the physical world as you do in the software world. In an extreme case, maybe you could have open source spaceships. They are after all lots of little parts, much like a GNU/Linux distro.
If things could be freely copied and not exclusively owned as in the GPL, would you still have brand loyalty? While not going into the fine details, the Ultimaker and the Makerbot Thing-O-Matic look very similar. Why would I want one over the other? If whatever you chose was linked to previous innovations, and people let their donations flow to those authors, how much would it matter?
Would the crowd maintain accountability so people would not collect money for doing nothing? The maker community seems to be supportive of things that they are free to contribute to. How far could this go, especially with support from arguments made by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams in the book Wikinomics? For the legality, things like the JOBs act seem exciting. However, this seems to be for equity-based crowdfunding and not just donations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JOBS_Act). I'd imagine that it would be both even if some of the things were as described above. What if you were retired, and you had money, but nothing you contributed was being used? Could you grow your money to support yourself?
The potential of digital technologies seems huge. I read about the Industrial Internet, as pointed out by Milton Poson. The GE report titled, "Industrial Internet. Pushing the Boundaries of Minds and Machines"< www.ge.com/docs/chapters/Industrial_Internet.pdf>, by Peter C. Evans and Marco Annunziata has the following quote:
"The combination of physics- based approaches, deep sector specific domain expertise, more automation of information flows, and predictive capabilities can join with the existing suite of “big data” tools. The result is the Industrial Internet encompasses traditional approaches with newer hybrid approaches that can leverage the power of both historic and real-time data with industry specific advanced analytics."
Of course, this makes me want to go down the path of Density Functional Theory and Molecular Dynamics. I had a brief exposure to these concepts in graduate school, and it reminds me of the layout algorithms in Gephi (at least MD, I know a little less about DFT). Yes! I just learned about DBSCAN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBSCAN) in R ( http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~dq209/others/Rdatamining.pdf) and ELKI ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELKI). And here you have it, the original DBSCAN paper (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.121.9220).
In addition, they speak about Enterprise Management Software in terms of the Industrial Internet:
"At the other end of the spectrum, enterprise management software and solutions have been widely adopted to drive organizational efficiencies at the firm level. The benefits of these efforts include better tracking and coordination of labor, supply chain, quality, compliance, and sales and distribution across broad geographies and product lines. However, these efforts have sometimes fallen short because while they can passively track asset operations at the product level, the ability to impact asset performance is limited. Optimizing the system to maximize asset and enterprise performance is what the Industrial Internet offers."
This reminds me of a presentation given by Dr. Manoj Dharwadkar of Bentley Systems Inc. titled, "Using Sematic Web Technologies in Open Applications" ( http://www.w3.org/2008/12/ogws-slides/Bentley.pdf). It also reminds me of the The Simantics Platform at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland ( www.vtt.fi) and the mission of Dassault Systems (www.3ds.com). They all have the ISO15926 ontology in common.
I wasn't sure if they were talking about linked data in the report:
"To make information intelligent, new connections need to be developed so that Big Data ‘knows’ when and where it needs to go, and how to get there. If imaging data is better connected, the right doctor could automatically receive a patient’s rendered images so the information is finding the doctor instead of the doctor finding the information. " --- Opportunity for Liked Data?
random paper with medical devices communicating with the semantic web: http://radiographics.rsna.org/content/30/7/2039.abstract
http://www.mdpnp.org/uploads/8-3_Schluter_26Jan.pdf (devices commmunicating, like Industrial Internet)
Further, they go into what is needed to to build the Industrial Internet:
"The Industrial Internet will require an adequate backbone. Data centers, broadband spectrum, and fiber networks are all components of the ICT infrastructure that will need to be further developed to connect the various machines, systems, and networks across industries and geographies. This will require a combination of inter- and intra- state infrastructure order to support the significant growth in data flows involved with the Industrial Internet. "
I heard that Oklahoma, and the U.S. in general, needs more fiber. Someone said that Denver, Dallas, Kansas City, Silicon Valley, Austin(?), all have good networks.
How would the talent to build the Industrial Internet be gathered? Here are a few more quotes:
"Other alternatives for sourcing cross-discipline talent might include developing the existing resources in the native domain through collaborative approaches. Instead of building or buying talent that has multiple skills, create environments that accelerate the ability of people with different skills to interact and innovate together. On a larger scale, approaches such as crowdsourcing might be able to close some of the capabilities gaps that are sure to occur."
"Today, the people that manage big data systems or perform advanced analytics have developed unique talents through self-driven specialization, rather than through any programs that build a standard set of skills or principles. Co-development of curriculum, integration of academic staff into industry, and other approaches will be needed to ensure that the talent needs of the Industrial Internet do not outpace the educational system."
There definately is a lag between the development of IT, and its adoption. In Chemical Engineering, I'm pretty sure people thought I was crazy when I started talking about the Semantic Web. People in network security, and even computer science were not familiar with it. If you're talking about Wikinomics (Openness, Peering, Sharing, Acting Global) thinking there might be some growth to do. I heard of people at universities and hackerspaces speak of themselves as universities, but their culture is very different. Maybe hackerspaces are on the extreme of being open, whereas universities are less so? Maybe this is the case with IP. Maybe less so, with papers (but who can access them?). See a presentation in 2008 by RIC Jackson, then Director of the FIATECH Consortium: ( http://www.slccc.net/documents_pdf/Technology-Ric%20Jackson%200811.pdf). Adoption of new tech for the enterprise is slow: ( http://pandodaily.com/2012/02/11/why-oracle-may-really-be-doomed-this-time/ ).
There are some, such as the Mayor of Newark, NJ, who bothered to go to SXSW to speak about the adoption of more tech: ( http://pandodaily.com/2013/03/10/cory-booker-calls-for-tech-empowered-open-d... ).
Here are three more quotes from the report:
"Measures to ensure the security of restricted data, including intellectual property,proprietary information, and personally identifiable information (PII) are critical. " --- this reminds me of the Read Write Web Community Group
"Currently there are several standards bodies, but they are fragmented. The promotion and adoption of common and consistent standards on data structure, encryption, transfer mechanisms, and the proper use of data will go a long way in advancing cyber security."
I was made fun of by a CS graduate when I was excited about a possible new standard.
"Academia: Further research on data security and privacy should be pursued, including research on enhancing IT security, metrology, inferencing concerns with non- sensitive data, and legal foundations for privacy in data aggregation."
Perhaps more collaboration with the hacker community? Is it true that some programmers, and some in CS tend to build things and ignore security in the process? I wonder what is going on at hacker conferences like Blackhat and DEFCON. BTW, people at the Chaos Communication Congress are geniuses.
Whew! That's enough. If you're interested in more, read the report. It's exciting. :)
I asked myself this question: What is the future role of the University?
The university may serve as a repository for books, a place to do research, and a meeting place. Lectures? I'm not sure.
How do the things that Michael Hammer & Lisa W. Hershman talk about fit in?
They wrote a book titled, "Faster, Cheaper, Better: The 9 Levers for Transforming How Work Gets Done". I believe they were talking about Business Process Improvement ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_improvement). Would Process Owners, as mentioned by them, serve a major role in the Industrial Internet? (http://it.toolbox.com/wiki/index.php/Process_Owner)
----------------
Resources that I am considering reading:
The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, Evengy Morozov, 2011
To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism, Evengy Morozov, 2013
The Wealth of Networks, Yochai Benkler, Yale University Press, 2006
Science and the Crisis in Society, Frank H. George, Wiley, 1970
Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age, Steven Johnson, 2012
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organization Without Organizations, Clay Shirky, 2008
Nasa's Advanced Automation for Space Missions, http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/ (Robots, Expert Systems, Etc..), The Technical Stuff, 1980
The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change, Al Gore, 2013, http://www.amazon.com/The-Future-Drivers-Global-Change/dp/0812992946, Reviewed by Tim Berners-Lee, may relate well to the previous link
An Inquiry to Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, LL.D. F.R.S., MDCCCXLIII (1843) (according to Wikipedia, it was first published in 1776)
Books by Chris Anderson and Lawrence Lessig
Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom, Rebecca MacKinnon, 2012
Business Process Improvement: the breakthrough strategy for total quality, productivity, and competitiveness, H J Harrington , 1991
Faster, better, cheaper : low-cost innovation in the U.S. space program, Howard E McCurdy, 2001
On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 11:42 PM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>wrote:
it seems to me that these shifts have already started, before 2013, including in these fields, but are also much more long-term transformations ... in the case of deep-pocketed and politically powerful vested interests, only moderate bottom-up advances can be expected in the very short term ...
both telecom and banking are still heavily centralized, they enabled people-based p2p dynamics but control the infrastructure, the data, the design and many other aspects of their only partly distributed systems ...
I'm sure the same is true of GE .. no corporation will allow a fully p2p distributed system without some form of centralized control
Michel
On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 2:54 AM, ProjectParadigm-ICT-Program < [email protected]> wrote:
2013 will see the advent of new paradigms for infrastructures that up until now where centralized, i.e. electric power generation and distribution, intermodal transportation and logistics, food and agro-industrial production and distribution, industrial production and distribution, consumer products manufacturing and distribution, pharmaceuticals production and distribution, energy extraction and distribution (including coal, gas, shale oil/gas and biofuels).
The data and telecom infrastructure and parallel the banking and financial sectors are the only ones espousing decentralized distributed P2P (and B2B) processes.
Resilience is a property that can only be achieved by copying the structure of the internet and some of its inherent characteristics.
By defining strategic infrastructures as decentralized networks of distributed P2P (B2B) processes embedded in an intelligent grid it becomes possible to define resilience in a way similar to the resilience of the Internet.
And a resilient grid lends itself perfectly to embedding in a semantic web overlay grid.
The Industrial Internet as defined by GE and outlined in a recent white paper comes pretty close to it but not quite yet.
See http://www.gereports.com/meeting-of-minds-and-machines/.
Milton Ponson GSM: +297 747 8280 PO Box 1154, Oranjestad Aruba, Dutch Caribbean Project Paradigm: A structured approach to bringing the tools for sustainable development to all stakeholders worldwide by creating ICT tools for NGOs worldwide and: providing online access to web sites and repositories of data and information for sustainable development
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------------------------------ *From:* Brent Shambaugh <[email protected]> *To:* ProjectParadigm-ICT-Program <[email protected]> *Cc:* Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>; Samuel Rose < [email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; Paul Cockshott <[email protected]> *Sent:* Wednesday, January 9, 2013 2:10 AM
*Subject:* Re: A Distributed Economy -- A blog involving Linked Data
Oh well, I'll share my story on a W3C forum no less.
Model, true. Would my experiences even translate? I think you'd have to see this from my own personal perspective. Even though I grew up in an American home there was a lot of discourse in my family. There wasn't a lot of room for personal expression, and my family was very religious so I was afraid of offending God if I went against the dominating figure and/or ideology in the family. I was also very shy growing up, and I did not have much money, even though I came from an upper middle class family. I felt out of place most of the time, and sometimes I had ideas that people did not seem to understand or be interested in. I liked computers, and wanted to learn more about them. I was always asking people doing computer stuff how to program, even though I had a lot of trouble doing it myself. I think it was because I struggled with algebra (and other maths), but more so algebra. I also was a bit lost in some documentation, and may have not been fully aware of other resources that may have helped. I was afraid of tinkering, but I built webpages and was proud of them and I also built structures in the woods (but that is a bit off topic). My family paid for my college. I'm thankful for that, but it also leaves me with a feeling of responsibility to them. I'll admit to not being in sync with things in my undergraduate years. It looks very good if you have an internship. But at the time I made a few mistakes perhaps. I was a bit afraid to try because the companies I qualified for either were not doing something that interested me and/or something that I felt reflected my beliefs, values and possibly something else that is hard to describe. In short, perhaps passion. Over time I realized that it would probably be wiser to accept things as is if I ever hoped to be employed. Making the sale was difficult though. I think perhaps people think I'm lazy, or uniformed, because I did not work (except for academic things) in college. Or was it emotion? Ideas out of place? I was also affected by many of the same family things growing up.
I have an interest in physics, electronics, economics, systems, etc. I think that if I ever hope to use my education, and share what I have learned, I need to do something amazing. I could go back to school, take on a lot of debt, and just hope that I get enough good grades to impress enough people (and not have them think I'd get bored when trying to get a job). Or I could learn things on my own, participate in projects, and hope that people receive me with open arms.
Since 2007 when I discovered Polywell nuclear fusion I've gained new perspective on the world. I never actually built a fusion reactor, but I did try to learn what was behind them. This motivated me to read lots of books, and my desire to do other things to explore my uniqueness as an individual led to even more books. GNU/Linux facilitated my graduate work, and I can relate to it's philosophy through my many frustrations. Open source is great, because I don't have to worry so much about my skills wasting away. Being at the university also helps. I also don't have to manufacture things or do anything special to have excitement about it.
But you know, how much can you actually get from someone who hasn't experienced that much real employment? Because of that automatically people see me in a certain way. And my views may not be necessarily realistic for lack of experience. But whatever it is, it seems I have have found a lot of energy and my friends seem to notice. I think about what I am learning more too.
But would this model help people in the real world? I feel that had it existed it could have helped me growing up, but that is my own personal experience. In addition to studying, a lot of my peers spent their time drinking beer, socializing, and playing and/or watching sports. And most seemed to have more money. Now most seem to have even more money, and spend time on Facebook talking about things they have bought or families that they are raising. Their educational level is hard to discern. Not many seem to be posting things about hacking, making or things that might suggest deep insight. But not everyone fits that.
I guess what matters is whether it will work or not, and whether it truly will benefit others. For that both an experiment and conversation will help. Thank you Samuel for referring me to Michael. Milton, I am not certain what it will do yet.
I am not certain what resilience truly means. I'm definitely bothered by the wastefulness brought upon by obsolescence of products. It would be much better I think if we knew how they worked so we could reuse the them (I'm saying the parts) in other things. We've had this problem at the hackerspace. We have lots of stuff around that if we had the blueprint, it would be much better. If we knew how this blueprint connected to other things I personally think that would be even better.
On a separate issue. In graduate school there were people there that seemed really lost. I mean they were doing their work, but didn't seem to have a joy about it. There also was not a lot of organization, and it was hard to find things.
Outside of school, there are people that I know could go to graduate school but didn't. It was frustrating to me that I could not seem to sell them on thinking more deeply about things, or when they said I was really smart (but did not have the confidence or belief that they could do it themselves). Still others just weren't there. I've seen those who weren't there at the hackerspace. I question why, and think the world would be a better place if this could be tapped into.
" Roberto Verzola is to my mind the political economist who has done most in studying this, see http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Commons_Economics ; Wolfgang Hoeschele is planning an ambitious database based on a Needs, Organisational REsources, (I forgot what the A stands for)
I'm sure that the proposed modelling effort will contribute to this field; if you are ideologically open, you may also want to talk with people like Paul Cockshott and the people of the Center for Transition Science at UNAM in Mexico City; who are very good at econometric modelling and interested in a cybernetic planning revival, "
I still have to think more about this. I was reading over it a bit today.
I might have seen something about this today. Someone was talking about how technologies were allowing us (or could? ) to become more mobile, and that people really didn't have to be co located. I don't remember what technologies that they were referring.
"Peer to peer processes in addition should be defined as geography independent, historically nomads, hunter gatherers and technomads in the modern age all show this to be true."
I hope to write soon.
On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 6:57 PM, Brent Shambaugh <[email protected]
wrote:
I'm feeling that this is shaped by my own personal experience? I'm willing, but should I risk putting it out there?
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
<http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
#82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/
do have a look perhaps at http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:P2P_Infrastrructure and http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Ecology for raw material on the topic, updates are always very welcome, Michel On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 5:07 AM, Brent Shambaugh <[email protected]>wrote:
Dear All,
I've realized many things. Perhaps the most important is that a lot of the ideas that I discovered had already been considered by others. Thus, I find it difficult to say I'm incredibly unique. Moreover, I do not know everything and my knowledge of computing and its limits and possibly platforms such as these are likely dwarfed by many on this list. However, experience tells me that sitting passively on the side lines has never accomplished anything. Thus, if I have the means I will strongly consider going to the 7th IEEE International Conference on Digital Ecosystems and Technologies Special Theme - Complex Environment Engineering IEEE DEST 2013
on 24-26 July 2013
in Menlo Park, California, USA
Website:
http://www.dest2013.digital-ecology.org/
Moreover, I will attempt to contextualize at least some of what I have learned about and place it in a paper and submit it to said conference. If it is rejected I will know that I was rejected. If it is accepted I may learn a lot from the feedback. I may make new friends, and in the extreme case be invited to join a team. Whatever happens, I will not know unless I try.
Thank you Milton for pointing out this conference. If anyone would like to collaborate with me on this paper, please let me know. If not, I hope you go. Maybe we'll meet there. It looks like there will be a month to submit (Paper Submission: April 15, 2013).
Again, it is a blessing to know that so many scientists and engineers are looking at this area. Maybe looking into this was worthwhile. In any case, thanks for being here. Thank you to the W3C and the P2P Foundation for providing a community of interaction. I look to learning more from you in the future.
-Brent
On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 11:14 AM, Gannon Dick <[email protected]>wrote:
Milton Ponson wrote: Thus we are able to create economic models that incorporate security, resilience, reliability and sustainability.
As we speak thousands and thousands of engineers and scientists are already tackling the fundamental task of coming up with new all-encompassing paradigms and the 7th IEEE International Conference on Digital Ecosystems and Technologies will deal with quite a few of these issues. ============= Let me rephrase in these terms ...
If work starts at Noon, the next Noon is about 23h56m (Sidereal Time) away. The probability of you being paid to start work 4 minutes early is Zero*.
"all-encompassing paradigm":The mechanics of time and labor for hire are the Perfect Storm of truncation errors.
--Gannon
* Before somebody else says it: The probability of an unnoticed 4 minute per day systemic failure is (Political Science + Economics)/2.
------------------------------ *From:* Gannon Dick <[email protected]> *To:* Brent Shambaugh <[email protected]>; Michel Bauwens < [email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
*Cc:* ProjectParadigm-ICT-Program <[email protected]>; Samuel Rose <[email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; Paul Cockshott <[email protected]> *Sent:* Saturday, March 16, 2013 10:02 AM
*Subject:* Re: A Distributed Economy -- A blog involving Linked Data
Hi Brent,
Cheer up, everybody's closet has Monsters. At least you have your closet and not mine :-)
The dark side to a distributed economy is that models which stretch time along latitude lines for navigation purposes also "predict" Global Warming at the Equator. This is a whole different problem than *observing real* Global Warming in the Arctic. The motivation of the Overseer to keep the Field Hands at work (just a little) longer (than the Plantation down the road) is age old.
However, if you know the "stretch" you can compute this "Global Economic Warming" artifact. Tie a rubber band to the equator and tie the other end to the Arctic Circle on the other side of the Pole. Stretch over the Pole Apparent time 90.833 Degrees Civil Time 96 Degrees Nautical Time 102 Degrees Astronomical Time 108 Degrees
The difference in apparent duration of sunlight (%) integrated over a year is: Canberra 99.32% Santiago de Chile 99.71% Jakarta 104.6% Singapore 105.4% Kiev (Kyiv) 95.22% London 94.84% Washington 98.49%
This is the apparent "cheap labor" business has been chasing. Scientists (should not) want any part of this made up nonsense. Linked data is vulnerable to the deception ... unless you understand the game.
--Gannon
------------------------------ *From:* Brent Shambaugh <[email protected]> *To:* Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> *Cc:* ProjectParadigm-ICT-Program <[email protected]>; Samuel Rose <[email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; Paul Cockshott <[email protected]> *Sent:* Saturday, March 16, 2013 1:17 AM *Subject:* Re: A Distributed Economy -- A blog involving Linked Data
Hello Everyone,
Sometimes I get upset and afraid. I know I am missing a lot, and it is difficult for me to comprehend what is going on in the world. I'm happy that everyone is here.
-Brent
On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 6:12 PM, Brent Shambaugh < [email protected]> wrote:
In an attempt to understand the conversation we had, I was sent in a flurry of confusion. I started checking out books, and one was Resilience by Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy. I found a few quotes that seem exciting to me:
"Adhocracies thrive on data. And by the stroke of fantastic luck, we're currently witnessing the global birth of an adhocracy of data -- a global revolution that, for the first time, empowers orgranizations with the capacity to collect and correlate widely distributed real-time information about the way many critical systems are performing. This kind of open data will play a central role in resilience strategies for years to come." pg. 266, Resilience, Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy
"And for organizations of all types there is a powerful lesson here: Resilience benefits accrue to organizations that prioritize the collection, presentation, and sharing of data." pg. 269, Resilience, Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy
"A related theme in the resilience discussion is the importance of networks, which provide a universal, abstract reference system for describing how information, resources, and behaviours flow through many complex systems. Having a common means to describe biological, economic, and ecological systems, for example, allows researchers to make comparisons between the ways these very different kinds of entities approach similar problems, such as stopping a contagion - whether an actual virus, a financial panic, an unwanted behavior, or an environmental contaminant - when it begins to spread. Having a shared frame of reference allows us to consider how successful tactics in one domain might be applied to another - as we'll see in newly emerging fields like ecological finance." pg 19, Resilience, Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy
"Rather the resilience frame suggests a different, complementary effort to mitigation: to redesign our institutions, embolden our communities, encourage innovation and experimentation, and support our people in ways that will help them be prepared and cope with surprises and distruptions, even as we work to fend them off." pg 23, Resilience, Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy
It is interesting that Buckminster Fuller wrote about similar ideas over 30 years ago:
"The inefficiency of automobiles' reciprocating engines - and their traffic-system-wasted fuel - and the energy inefficiency of today's buildings, are only two of hundreds of thousands of instances that can be cited of the design-avoidable energy wastage. But the technical raison d'etre for either the energy-effectiveness gains or losses is all completely invisible to human eyes. Thus, the significance of their omni-integratable potentialities is uncomprehended by either the world's leaders or the led. Neither the great political and financial power structures of the world, nor the specialization-blinded professionals, nor the population in general realize the sum-totally the omni-engineering-integratable, invisible revolution in metallurgical, chemical, and electronic arts now makes it possible to do so much more with ever fewer pounds and volumes of material, ergs of energy, and seconds of time per given technological function that it is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a "higher standard of living than any have ever known.", pg. xxv, Critical Path, R. Buckminster Fuller
"World Game will become increasingly effective in its prognoses and programming when the world-around, satellite-interrelayed computer system and its omni-Universe-operative (time-energy) accounting system are established. This system will identify the kilowatt-hour-expressed world inventory of foods, raw and recirculating resources, and all the world's unique mechanical and structural capabilities and their operating capacities as well as the respective kilowatt-hours of available energy-income-derived operating power with which to put their facilities to work. All the foregoing information will become available in respect to all the world-around technology's environment-controlling, life-sustaining, travel- and communication-accomidating structures and machines.", pg. 219, Critical Path, R. Buckminster Fuller
I'm happy that Milton Ponson pointed out Resilience. I had never thought about resilience before. Looking into it was very gratifying. It gave me some confidence that I was perhaps doing some things right, but at the same time startled me by how much there is to learn to somehow survive the free fall. Doing a search for Linked Data and Resilience gave me a result from rkbexpolorer ( http://www.rkbexplorer.com/explorer/#display=project-{http%3A//wiki.rkbexplorer.com/id/resist}<http://www.rkbexplorer.com/explorer/#display=project-%7Bhttp%3A//wiki.rkbexplorer.com/id/resist%7D>) which is from the ReSIST (Resilience for Survivability) project in Europe ( http://www.resist-noe.org/). They also have some links to some free course material at <http://resist.isti.cnr.it/home.php>.
I believe my blog evolved to explore a peer-to-peer economy. Michael Bauwens desribes such economies as distributed networks, "As political, economic, and social systems transform themselves into distributed networks, a new human dynamic is emerging: peer to peer (P2P). As P2P gives rise to the emergence of a third mode of production, a third mode of governence, and a third mode of property, it is poised to overhaul our political economy in unprecendented ways." ( www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499)
This suggests something broader. As a result of our conversation, I also looked at some people with socialist views such as Roberto Verzola, W. Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell, Raoul Viktor, and Heinz Dieterich.
Roberto Verzola describes an economy of abundance, which may indeed be linked to P2P technologies.
"An economy of abundance seeks to dismantle or reform these scarcity-generating institutions in such a way as to affirm our freedom to live life as art (self-expression to others), social equity (so that everything can live life as art), and sustainability (so that all life can thrive into the future). Among other things, this implies a much greater role for various forms of shared property, individual an community-level self-reliance, and participatory decision making." ( http://www.shareable.net/blog/event-the-economics-of-abundance)
He also argues that for innovation to proceed, everyone seeking knowledge should have access to it.
"the most important means to ensure that innovation can proceed is to ensure that everyone seeking knowledge has access to it. ... Knowledge that helps empower people depends on openness, while knowledge that is used to coerce, to exert power over the disempowered, thrives on secrecy" p. 150, The Economics of Abunance: A Political Economy of Freedom, Equity and Sustainability, Roberto Verzola
This seems to align well with my present feelings.
I feel that engineering is so saturated with IP, that it is hard to feel like you're not going to be doing that. At the same time I want to develop my skills and thrive. How do become a Professional Engineer and not feel like you're going to be doing that? What if you don't like the lawyer saturated culture where people are suing other people over some idea you or someone else produced? I can sense that a lot of people, especially in the hacker and maker community, want to be able to support themselves and work on cool new things but don't want to deny other people to work on the same cool things. Why do ideas have to take on a life of their own and become part of something you might be employed by, but have no control beyond that? Sorry about the extreme language, but why do I imagine it as making deal with the devil? Betraying your friends so you can enjoy life and eat? In this, there is an underlying assumption that there are institutions that do not want to share or partner, or make it very difficult. If it is easier, I feel that could be better.
Buckminster Fuller also wrote about such things:
"2. Grandmother taught us the Golden Rule: "Love thy neighbor as thy self--do unto others as you would they should do unto you.
3. As we became older and more experienced, out uncles began to caution us to get over our sensitivity. "Life is hard," they explained. 'There is nowhere nearly enough life support for everybody on our planet, let alone enough for a comfortable life support. If you want to raise a family and have a comfortable life for them, you are going to have to deprive many others of the opportunity to survive and the sooner, the better. Your grandmother's Golden Rule is beautiful, but it doesn't work.'" p. 123. Critical Path, R. Buckminster Fuller
Is it possible to have a win-win between people an business? Are there any financial barriers to entry and/or partnership? Sometimes I fear that I will never be paid enough to implement my ideas, or if I do then it will be too late to enter the market. Either I can't afford to do the work, or someone who developed and patented something that matches at least some of my idea decides not to involve me. Thus I would question spending the time developing my idea. I'm assuming I can develop my idea for my own personal use (possibly not?). However, I am more certain I may have trouble sharing and selling things developed from my ideas. I imagine that this favors those who already have money.
People like Eric von Hippel and Michael Bauwens both speak about a lot of innovation goinf on outside the firm. For example Michel Bauwen's states:
"The French-Italian school of 'cognitive capitalism' stresses the value creation today is no longer confined to the enterprise, but beholden to the mass intellectuality of knowledge workers, who through their lifelong learning/experiencing and systematic connectivity, constantly innovate within and without the enterprise. This is an important argument, since it would justify what we see as the only solution for the expansion of the P2P sphere into a society at large: the universal basic income. Only the independence of work and the salary structure can guarantee the peer producers can continue to create this sphere of highly productive use value." The Political Economy of Peer Production ( www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499)
Eric von Hippel also speaks about his book. ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:20060123-Eric.von.Hippel-Democratizin... )
However, giving people money for doing nothing makes me feel uncomfortable. Of course, as Heinz Dietrich suggests, if you already have money, things work just fine: "The first step, in fact, would be to establish a new cybernetic principle; you need something that coordinates billions of economic transactions everyday. And, so far, the market has been a relatively well-functioning system under two conditions: If the market is not monopolistic and you have the buying power for the merchandise you produce and for the services, then the market coordinates quite well."-- The Socialism of the 21st Century ( http://eipcp.net/transversal/0805/dieterich/en)
Paul Cockshott, and Allin Cottrell suggest a payment system determined democratically, "The payment system outlined in chapter 2 depends on the idea that the total labour content of each product or service can be calculated." p. 8, Towards a New Socialism
If this is by the state, then I am moved to say I do not trust the government to do much right at all. Certainly, this is what I feel if I spend any length of time watching the news. But I would like to look into it. If this develops into something, the state should be involved at some level. I feel bad about this. I'll have to read more. However, I agree that with more democracy things would be better.
"The principal bases for a post-Soviet socialism must be radical democracy and efficient planning. The democratic element, it is now clear, is not a luxury, or something that can be postponed until conditions are especially favourable. Without democracy, as we have argued above, the leaders of a socialist society will be driven to coercion in order to ensure the production of a surplus product, and if coercion slackens the system will tend to stagnate." p. 7, Towards a New Socialism
I definately think there needs to be some way to accomplish things that makes it fair to people. In terms of me, I believe this underlies a larger problem than me being connected with the right job or being afraid of debt going back to school. It is the problem of connecting people with the right jobs, utilizing the skills they already have so they don't have to fear paying to learn what they already know, and raising awareness that the jobs are there. I dream about linked data being able to illuminate relationships between present skills and related skills to job seekers and employers. I also dream about linked data allowing people to market themselves with clarity as a basket of skills that represents who they really are rather than a basket of skills that was set by a well-meaning college, trade-school, or university. I honestly believe that people who do something they have a passion for, will be more effective employees or entrepreneurs.
But how to pay for it? If you take out debt you need to find a way to pay it off. If you can't find something that reflects your values you may feel like you're enslaved to something else while trying to pay it off. It can be a pressing struggle as Paul Grignon's Money as Debt video on Youtube describes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K5_JE_gOys). Paul Grigon and others say that our present monetary system leads to infinite growth.
"We need to become politically sensitive to the invisible architectures of power. In distributed systems, where there is no overt hierarchy, power is a function of design. One such system, perhaps the most important of all, is the monetary system, whose interest-bearing design requires the market to be linked to a system of infinite growth, and this link needs to be broken. A global reform of the monetary system, or the spread of new means of direct social production of money, are the necessary conditions for such a break." (http://p2pfoundation.net/About_The_Foundation)
I'd imagine this would create no problems for people as long as there is the will and resources to grow infinitely. However, Paul Grigon points out an exception: those with the money to lend at interest will eventually wind up with all of the money, and due to forclosure the property too.
My site explores distributed funding. ( http://adistributedeconomy.blogspot.com/2012/03/distributed-funding.html). I am still not sure how exactly to accomplish it. I think it may involve something like Ripple (https://classic.ripplepay.com/) and PaySwarm ( http://payswarm.com/). A friend of mine pointed out that it did not seem that Ripple allows to keep track of what you owe who, whereas PaySwarm appears to do so. I may need to develop something on my own ( http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webpayments/2013Feb/0034.html) that involes donations, and whatever models are needed. Embarrasingly, I'm still learning JavaScript. Thankfully, my friends are also encouraging me to focus on some small project.
A few other thoughts:
As I was reading, I noticed some mention of rival and non-rival goods. Rival goods could be seen as raw materials or products, and non-rival goods could exist in an infinite amount. In the maker world I see things such as CAD files as non-rival and raw materials and end products as rival. I question whether people would still pay for rival goods, and perhaps donate for non-rival goods if there was an open source economy? What if things such as PaySwarm made it easy to do so?
The Rep Rap and Ardrino are open source hardware, and all products by Makerbot used to be (http://josefprusa.cz/open-hardware-meaning/, http://www.hoektronics.com/2012/09/21/makerbot-and-open-source-a-founder-per...). People can share their designs, but would people share their profits with those who contributed to their idea? It wouldn't have to be much, as small amounts still add up. Would this be bad? Even if people don't have to pay, things might still vary as does the amount you might get by selling a book? Concieveably if you have a lot of open source hardware, then you could have as much flexibility in the physical world as you do in the software world. In an extreme case, maybe you could have open source spaceships. They are after all lots of little parts, much like a GNU/Linux distro.
If things could be freely copied and not exclusively owned as in the GPL, would you still have brand loyalty? While not going into the fine details, the Ultimaker and the Makerbot Thing-O-Matic look very similar. Why would I want one over the other? If whatever you chose was linked to previous innovations, and people let their donations flow to those authors, how much would it matter?
Would the crowd maintain accountability so people would not collect money for doing nothing? The maker community seems to be supportive of things that they are free to contribute to. How far could this go, especially with support from arguments made by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams in the book Wikinomics? For the legality, things like the JOBs act seem exciting. However, this seems to be for equity-based crowdfunding and not just donations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JOBS_Act). I'd imagine that it would be both even if some of the things were as described above. What if you were retired, and you had money, but nothing you contributed was being used? Could you grow your money to support yourself?
The potential of digital technologies seems huge. I read about the Industrial Internet, as pointed out by Milton Poson. The GE report titled, "Industrial Internet. Pushing the Boundaries of Minds and Machines"< www.ge.com/docs/chapters/Industrial_Internet.pdf>, by Peter C. Evans and Marco Annunziata has the following quote:
"The combination of physics- based approaches, deep sector specific domain expertise, more automation of information flows, and predictive capabilities can join with the existing suite of “big data” tools. The result is the Industrial Internet encompasses traditional approaches with newer hybrid approaches that can leverage the power of both historic and real-time data with industry specific advanced analytics."
Of course, this makes me want to go down the path of Density Functional Theory and Molecular Dynamics. I had a brief exposure to these concepts in graduate school, and it reminds me of the layout algorithms in Gephi (at least MD, I know a little less about DFT). Yes! I just learned about DBSCAN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBSCAN) in R ( http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~dq209/others/Rdatamining.pdf) and ELKI ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELKI). And here you have it, the original DBSCAN paper (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.121.9220).
In addition, they speak about Enterprise Management Software in terms of the Industrial Internet:
"At the other end of the spectrum, enterprise management software and solutions have been widely adopted to drive organizational efficiencies at the firm level. The benefits of these efforts include better tracking and coordination of labor, supply chain, quality, compliance, and sales and distribution across broad geographies and product lines. However, these efforts have sometimes fallen short because while they can passively track asset operations at the product level, the ability to impact asset performance is limited. Optimizing the system to maximize asset and enterprise performance is what the Industrial Internet offers."
This reminds me of a presentation given by Dr. Manoj Dharwadkar of Bentley Systems Inc. titled, "Using Sematic Web Technologies in Open Applications" (http://www.w3.org/2008/12/ogws-slides/Bentley.pdf). It also reminds me of the The Simantics Platform at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (www.vtt.fi) and the mission of Dassault Systems ( www.3ds.com). They all have the ISO15926 ontology in common.
I wasn't sure if they were talking about linked data in the report:
"To make information intelligent, new connections need to be developed so that Big Data ‘knows’ when and where it needs to go, and how to get there. If imaging data is better connected, the right doctor could automatically receive a patient’s rendered images so the information is finding the doctor instead of the doctor finding the information. " --- Opportunity for Liked Data?
random paper with medical devices communicating with the semantic web: http://radiographics.rsna.org/content/30/7/2039.abstract
http://www.mdpnp.org/uploads/8-3_Schluter_26Jan.pdf (devices commmunicating, like Industrial Internet)
Further, they go into what is needed to to build the Industrial Internet:
"The Industrial Internet will require an adequate backbone. Data centers, broadband spectrum, and fiber networks are all components of the ICT infrastructure that will need to be further developed to connect the various machines, systems, and networks across industries and geographies. This will require a combination of inter- and intra- state infrastructure order to support the significant growth in data flows involved with the Industrial Internet. "
I heard that Oklahoma, and the U.S. in general, needs more fiber. Someone said that Denver, Dallas, Kansas City, Silicon Valley, Austin(?), all have good networks.
How would the talent to build the Industrial Internet be gathered? Here are a few more quotes:
"Other alternatives for sourcing cross-discipline talent might include developing the existing resources in the native domain through collaborative approaches. Instead of building or buying talent that has multiple skills, create environments that accelerate the ability of people with different skills to interact and innovate together. On a larger scale, approaches such as crowdsourcing might be able to close some of the capabilities gaps that are sure to occur."
"Today, the people that manage big data systems or perform advanced analytics have developed unique talents through self-driven specialization, rather than through any programs that build a standard set of skills or principles. Co-development of curriculum, integration of academic staff into industry, and other approaches will be needed to ensure that the talent needs of the Industrial Internet do not outpace the educational system."
There definately is a lag between the development of IT, and its adoption. In Chemical Engineering, I'm pretty sure people thought I was crazy when I started talking about the Semantic Web. People in network security, and even computer science were not familiar with it. If you're talking about Wikinomics (Openness, Peering, Sharing, Acting Global) thinking there might be some growth to do. I heard of people at universities and hackerspaces speak of themselves as universities, but their culture is very different. Maybe hackerspaces are on the extreme of being open, whereas universities are less so? Maybe this is the case with IP. Maybe less so, with papers (but who can access them?). See a presentation in 2008 by RIC Jackson, then Director of the FIATECH Consortium: ( http://www.slccc.net/documents_pdf/Technology-Ric%20Jackson%200811.pdf). Adoption of new tech for the enterprise is slow: ( http://pandodaily.com/2012/02/11/why-oracle-may-really-be-doomed-this-time/ ).
There are some, such as the Mayor of Newark, NJ, who bothered to go to SXSW to speak about the adoption of more tech: ( http://pandodaily.com/2013/03/10/cory-booker-calls-for-tech-empowered-open-d... ).
Here are three more quotes from the report:
"Measures to ensure the security of restricted data, including intellectual property,proprietary information, and personally identifiable information (PII) are critical. " --- this reminds me of the Read Write Web Community Group
"Currently there are several standards bodies, but they are fragmented. The promotion and adoption of common and consistent standards on data structure, encryption, transfer mechanisms, and the proper use of data will go a long way in advancing cyber security."
I was made fun of by a CS graduate when I was excited about a possible new standard.
"Academia: Further research on data security and privacy should be pursued, including research on enhancing IT security, metrology, inferencing concerns with non- sensitive data, and legal foundations for privacy in data aggregation."
Perhaps more collaboration with the hacker community? Is it true that some programmers, and some in CS tend to build things and ignore security in the process? I wonder what is going on at hacker conferences like Blackhat and DEFCON. BTW, people at the Chaos Communication Congress are geniuses.
Whew! That's enough. If you're interested in more, read the report. It's exciting. :)
I asked myself this question: What is the future role of the University?
The university may serve as a repository for books, a place to do research, and a meeting place. Lectures? I'm not sure.
How do the things that Michael Hammer & Lisa W. Hershman talk about fit in?
They wrote a book titled, "Faster, Cheaper, Better: The 9 Levers for Transforming How Work Gets Done". I believe they were talking about Business Process Improvement ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_improvement). Would Process Owners, as mentioned by them, serve a major role in the Industrial Internet? (http://it.toolbox.com/wiki/index.php/Process_Owner)
----------------
Resources that I am considering reading:
The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, Evengy Morozov, 2011
To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism, Evengy Morozov, 2013
The Wealth of Networks, Yochai Benkler, Yale University Press, 2006
Science and the Crisis in Society, Frank H. George, Wiley, 1970
Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age, Steven Johnson, 2012
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organization Without Organizations, Clay Shirky, 2008
Nasa's Advanced Automation for Space Missions, http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/ (Robots, Expert Systems, Etc..), The Technical Stuff, 1980
The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change, Al Gore, 2013, http://www.amazon.com/The-Future-Drivers-Global-Change/dp/0812992946, Reviewed by Tim Berners-Lee, may relate well to the previous link
An Inquiry to Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, LL.D. F.R.S., MDCCCXLIII (1843) (according to Wikipedia, it was first published in 1776)
Books by Chris Anderson and Lawrence Lessig
Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom, Rebecca MacKinnon, 2012
Business Process Improvement: the breakthrough strategy for total quality, productivity, and competitiveness, H J Harrington , 1991
Faster, better, cheaper : low-cost innovation in the U.S. space program, Howard E McCurdy, 2001
On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 11:42 PM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]
wrote:
it seems to me that these shifts have already started, before 2013, including in these fields, but are also much more long-term transformations ... in the case of deep-pocketed and politically powerful vested interests, only moderate bottom-up advances can be expected in the very short term ...
both telecom and banking are still heavily centralized, they enabled people-based p2p dynamics but control the infrastructure, the data, the design and many other aspects of their only partly distributed systems ...
I'm sure the same is true of GE .. no corporation will allow a fully p2p distributed system without some form of centralized control
Michel
On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 2:54 AM, ProjectParadigm-ICT-Program < [email protected]> wrote:
2013 will see the advent of new paradigms for infrastructures that up until now where centralized, i.e. electric power generation and distribution, intermodal transportation and logistics, food and agro-industrial production and distribution, industrial production and distribution, consumer products manufacturing and distribution, pharmaceuticals production and distribution, energy extraction and distribution (including coal, gas, shale oil/gas and biofuels).
The data and telecom infrastructure and parallel the banking and financial sectors are the only ones espousing decentralized distributed P2P (and B2B) processes.
Resilience is a property that can only be achieved by copying the structure of the internet and some of its inherent characteristics.
By defining strategic infrastructures as decentralized networks of distributed P2P (B2B) processes embedded in an intelligent grid it becomes possible to define resilience in a way similar to the resilience of the Internet.
And a resilient grid lends itself perfectly to embedding in a semantic web overlay grid.
The Industrial Internet as defined by GE and outlined in a recent white paper comes pretty close to it but not quite yet.
See http://www.gereports.com/meeting-of-minds-and-machines/.
Milton Ponson GSM: +297 747 8280 PO Box 1154, Oranjestad Aruba, Dutch Caribbean Project Paradigm: A structured approach to bringing the tools for sustainable development to all stakeholders worldwide by creating ICT tools for NGOs worldwide and: providing online access to web sites and repositories of data and information for sustainable development
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------------------------------ *From:* Brent Shambaugh <[email protected]> *To:* ProjectParadigm-ICT-Program <[email protected]> *Cc:* Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>; Samuel Rose < [email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; Paul Cockshott <[email protected]> *Sent:* Wednesday, January 9, 2013 2:10 AM
*Subject:* Re: A Distributed Economy -- A blog involving Linked Data
Oh well, I'll share my story on a W3C forum no less.
Model, true. Would my experiences even translate? I think you'd have to see this from my own personal perspective. Even though I grew up in an American home there was a lot of discourse in my family. There wasn't a lot of room for personal expression, and my family was very religious so I was afraid of offending God if I went against the dominating figure and/or ideology in the family. I was also very shy growing up, and I did not have much money, even though I came from an upper middle class family. I felt out of place most of the time, and sometimes I had ideas that people did not seem to understand or be interested in. I liked computers, and wanted to learn more about them. I was always asking people doing computer stuff how to program, even though I had a lot of trouble doing it myself. I think it was because I struggled with algebra (and other maths), but more so algebra. I also was a bit lost in some documentation, and may have not been fully aware of other resources that may have helped. I was afraid of tinkering, but I built webpages and was proud of them and I also built structures in the woods (but that is a bit off topic). My family paid for my college. I'm thankful for that, but it also leaves me with a feeling of responsibility to them. I'll admit to not being in sync with things in my undergraduate years. It looks very good if you have an internship. But at the time I made a few mistakes perhaps. I was a bit afraid to try because the companies I qualified for either were not doing something that interested me and/or something that I felt reflected my beliefs, values and possibly something else that is hard to describe. In short, perhaps passion. Over time I realized that it would probably be wiser to accept things as is if I ever hoped to be employed. Making the sale was difficult though. I think perhaps people think I'm lazy, or uniformed, because I did not work (except for academic things) in college. Or was it emotion? Ideas out of place? I was also affected by many of the same family things growing up.
I have an interest in physics, electronics, economics, systems, etc. I think that if I ever hope to use my education, and share what I have learned, I need to do something amazing. I could go back to school, take on a lot of debt, and just hope that I get enough good grades to impress enough people (and not have them think I'd get bored when trying to get a job). Or I could learn things on my own, participate in projects, and hope that people receive me with open arms.
Since 2007 when I discovered Polywell nuclear fusion I've gained new perspective on the world. I never actually built a fusion reactor, but I did try to learn what was behind them. This motivated me to read lots of books, and my desire to do other things to explore my uniqueness as an individual led to even more books. GNU/Linux facilitated my graduate work, and I can relate to it's philosophy through my many frustrations. Open source is great, because I don't have to worry so much about my skills wasting away. Being at the university also helps. I also don't have to manufacture things or do anything special to have excitement about it.
But you know, how much can you actually get from someone who hasn't experienced that much real employment? Because of that automatically people see me in a certain way. And my views may not be necessarily realistic for lack of experience. But whatever it is, it seems I have have found a lot of energy and my friends seem to notice. I think about what I am learning more too.
But would this model help people in the real world? I feel that had it existed it could have helped me growing up, but that is my own personal experience. In addition to studying, a lot of my peers spent their time drinking beer, socializing, and playing and/or watching sports. And most seemed to have more money. Now most seem to have even more money, and spend time on Facebook talking about things they have bought or families that they are raising. Their educational level is hard to discern. Not many seem to be posting things about hacking, making or things that might suggest deep insight. But not everyone fits that.
I guess what matters is whether it will work or not, and whether it truly will benefit others. For that both an experiment and conversation will help. Thank you Samuel for referring me to Michael. Milton, I am not certain what it will do yet.
I am not certain what resilience truly means. I'm definitely bothered by the wastefulness brought upon by obsolescence of products. It would be much better I think if we knew how they worked so we could reuse the them (I'm saying the parts) in other things. We've had this problem at the hackerspace. We have lots of stuff around that if we had the blueprint, it would be much better. If we knew how this blueprint connected to other things I personally think that would be even better.
On a separate issue. In graduate school there were people there that seemed really lost. I mean they were doing their work, but didn't seem to have a joy about it. There also was not a lot of organization, and it was hard to find things.
Outside of school, there are people that I know could go to graduate school but didn't. It was frustrating to me that I could not seem to sell them on thinking more deeply about things, or when they said I was really smart (but did not have the confidence or belief that they could do it themselves). Still others just weren't there. I've seen those who weren't there at the hackerspace. I question why, and think the world would be a better place if this could be tapped into.
" Roberto Verzola is to my mind the political economist who has done most in studying this, see http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Commons_Economics; Wolfgang Hoeschele is planning an ambitious database based on a Needs, Organisational REsources, (I forgot what the A stands for)
I'm sure that the proposed modelling effort will contribute to this field; if you are ideologically open, you may also want to talk with people like Paul Cockshott and the people of the Center for Transition Science at UNAM in Mexico City; who are very good at econometric modelling and interested in a cybernetic planning revival, "
I still have to think more about this. I was reading over it a bit today.
I might have seen something about this today. Someone was talking about how technologies were allowing us (or could? ) to become more mobile, and that people really didn't have to be co located. I don't remember what technologies that they were referring.
"Peer to peer processes in addition should be defined as geography independent, historically nomads, hunter gatherers and technomads in the modern age all show this to be true."
I hope to write soon.
On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 6:57 PM, Brent Shambaugh < [email protected]> wrote:
I'm feeling that this is shaped by my own personal experience? I'm willing, but should I risk putting it out there?
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
<http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
#82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/
participants (2)
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Brent Shambaugh -
Michel Bauwens