[P2P-F] Central Infrastructures and High Overhead vs. Distributed Infrastructures and Ephemeralization

Thu Oct 27 01:11:16 CEST 2011

The first part of the word (ephemeron) means temporary. Sarx means
flesh(used in religion to mean the body of christ). So i dont get how you
went from the one to the other..

2011/10/27 Kevin Carson <free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com>

> The following brain dump came to me as I was driving, and I'm keying
> it in here at the brew pub.  I cc'ed this to Andy and Francesca, since
> it's sort of in their bailiwick.  What I'd like help with is reducing
> this to a more succinct and coherent principle with fewer moving
> parts.  And I'm especially interested in how it applies to distributed
> activist movements like OWS.
>
> Paul Hawken and the Lovinses stated a general principle that when
> load-bearing infrastructures are built to handle the load at peak
> demand, about 80% of the unit cost comes from the added infrastructure
> that comes from the 20% increased usage that comes from the tiny
> fraction of the time when the infrastructure experiences peak load.
> They gave the  specific example of home heating, where enormous
> savings could be achieved by scaling capacity to handle only modal
> usage, with additional demand handled through spot heating.
>
> More generally, centralized infrastructures must be scaled to handle
> peak loads even when such loads only occur a small fraction of the
> time.  And then they must amortize the extra cost, by breaking user
> behavior to the needs of the infrastructure.
>
> At the opposite pole is distributed infrastructure, in which most of
> the infrastructural  goods are distributed among the endpoints,
> relations are directly between endpoints without passing through a
> central hub, and volume is driven entirely by user demand at the
> endpoints.  Since the capital goods possessed by the endpoints is a
> miniscule fraction of the cost of a centralized infrastructure, there
> is no  incentive to subordinate end-users to the needs of the
> infrastructure.
>
> The classic example is Bucky Fuller's own:  the replacement of the
> untold millions of tons of metal in transoceanic cables with a few
> dozen one-ton satellites.  The entire infrastructure consists of
> satellite dishes at the endpoints commuinicating -- via free,
> immaterial ether! -- to the satellites.
>
> Likewise projected systems which replace the fiber optic backbone with
> satellite connections and last-mile meshworks.
>
> Also the enormous infrastructure tied up in the civil aviation
> system's central hubs and batch-and-queue processing, as opposed to
> small jets flying directly between endpoints.
>
> Another example is mass-production industry, which minimizes unit
> costs by running its enormously costly capital-intensive machinery at
> full capacity 24/7, and then requires organizing a society to
> guarantee consumption of the full output whether consumers want the
> shit or not -- what's called "supply-push distribution."  If consumers
> won't take it all, you soak up surplus output by destroying it through
> a permanent war economy, sinking it into an Interstate Highway System,
> etc. -- or maybe just making stuff to fall apart.
>
> The opposite of mass-production is distributed production on the
> Emilia-Romagna model, with the capital infrastructure distributed to
> the point of consumption and output geared to local demand.  The
> transnational corporate model of outsourcing is an attempt to put this
> new wine in old bottles.  It distributes the production facilities,
> but does so on the basis of local labor cost rather than the location
> of market demand.  So it still relies on the centralized
> wholesale/retail infrastructure of warehouses on
> wheels/containerships, scaled to peak load, to transfer goods from the
> distributed production sites to the point of final consumption.  The
> pure and adulterated distributed manufacturing model, OTOH, does away
> with this infrastructure by siting production at the last-mile network
> of consumption.
>
> My last example, the one I suspect is more functionally related to
> distributed activism models, is the distributed model of stigmergic
> organization in Wikipedia or in open-source design as described by
> Eric Raymond.  Individual contributions are coordinated entirely by
> endpoint users, coordinating their efforts with the finished body of
> work, without the intermediary of a centralized institutional
> framework as in old-line activist organizations.
>
> BTW, what's a good word for the opposite of "ephemeralization"?  Maybe
> something that riffs off of gnostic concepts like sarx/sarcos?  If so,
> does this mean that Alfred Sloan was the Demiurge?
>
> --
> Kevin Carson
> Research Associate, Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
> Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
> http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
> Desktop Regulatory State:  The Countervailing Power of Super-Empowered
> Individuals http://desktopregulatorystate.wordpress.com
> Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html
>
> _______________________________________________
> P2P Foundation - Mailing list
> http://www.p2pfoundation.net
> https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>

-- 

Sincerely yours,

     Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ourproject.org/pipermail/p2p-foundation/attachments/20111027/36dd8a00/attachment.htm 