Occupy Round Table on Bitcoin

[Serge]

This is a prime example of inside-the-box thinking. No one would ban barter in a resource-based and it's perfectly possible that there would be trade for certain items and services, but the main bulk of the economy would work without money or trade. I see it as beyond baffling that people can't even imagine this happening, when it is actually technically possible anytime we want.

We have gotten very far from the days where economists claimed resources can't be distributed with computers as efficiently as the price mechanism can. This argument is still used but I think it is a very outdated view. Questionable to say the least. As someone with IT knowledge, I don't find it at all impossible to computerize and automate the entire process of international trade. And the numbers we base everything on would be more advanced than price, instead of a one-dimensional model (price) we would have a multi-dimensional model where we take account things that price is incapable of telling us.

For a change we should start from computerizing and automating most of governmental tasks; the more we could optimize it, less it will cost us to run it, less taxes, everyone's happy.

[Technomage]

This is where force comes in. You are going to need a state to extort money from the populace for certain "democratic" projects. Lovely.

It still seems hard for you to imagine there being no money. You can't extort money from the populace if there is no money. No one owns anything either, all the resources would be the common heritage of all people. This does not eliminate personal possession though, you could still have and keep whatever you need as long as you need it. But possessing a lot of things that you don't need at the time is simply a burden in this kind of environment, but it's your burden if you want it.

[Technomage]

I would at the very least have to take a job in this society but I would have little say in what I could do and how I could do it. I would probably end up not working at all due to this dissatisfaction. I wouldn't be the only one. I hope you enjoy your society full of bums.

On the contrary, you would have complete freedom in what you choose to work on. With SOME limits of course, if what you want to do requires so much resources or energy that it's a problem for the sustainability of the system. For most imaginable things that you'd want to do this limitation is not an issue and in any case the limitation is very understandable, what we don't have the resources to do, we simply can't do. The natural world sets some limits, this has to be understood before we can build a sustainable society.

[LightRider]

Regarding Dunbar's number, I would assume that the number of people a person interacts with at an extremely early age conditions the brain to only recognize and relate to a small number of other people. Early childhood has become one of the most overly protected periods of time in a person's life today, and so a child would be limited in the number of people that have substantial and significant interactions with. If children were not treated as property and society at large actually started caring for all children, then the people that they relate to would likely increase. It is only my assumption, however.

[Technomage]

Inventing a new razor, toothbrush or a vacuum cleaner with no meaningful advancements needs money.

Yes because the advancements mean nothing to you personally, they are useless.

My point was that over 90% of the so called technological advancements in our current society are there because a company has calculated that they can create sufficient demand for that product. Regardless of 1) if there are any actual life improving or resource-efficiency improving qualities in the product and 2) the fact that the demand for the product will be artificially created, by mass advertising.

Real advancements that actually improve things are a different story, but it's obvious as hell that people have natural incentives to improve the products they themselves use. For example, Linus Torvalds created Linux because he wanted a better operating system. But he wanted to give it to others as well. Then others started developing it, leading to a much more advanced product. Real technological development does not necessarily require money as an incentive.

[cbeast]

I acknowledge all that has been said. Pardon any rudeness on my part. I think all of you guys are nice people. I just hope you don't cease my property and businesses in the future.

I may consider building a Walmart where you live and will simply invoke eminent domain. You will be evicted, but with reasonable remuneration, of course. Talk to my lawyer. Capitalism Rulez!  

[Technomage]

For a change we should start from computerizing and automating most of governmental tasks; the more we could optimize it, less it will cost us to run it, less taxes, everyone's happy.

I agree. Massive changes do not happen just like that but we can slowly attempt to nudge the world in the right direction, one baby step at a time. Governments are so massively inefficient that it makes sense to start there. The best way to improve things is to simply make current structures obsolete. Bitcoin is one step forward, it makes a lot of things obsolete. Self-sufficient communities make even more things obsolete. There is a lot we can do to go forward.

[bb113]

Science is based off data. Most data is noisy. So noisy that most of the time even if you get stat significance and did it yourself you still don't trust it 100% until multiple other groups have replicated it. There is no replication in sociology or economics (and this is the noisiest data of them all). So there is no way to be confident in your science-based decision in the same way you would in an experiment involving a simpler system. Every time a government employs a political or economic policy it is basically experimenting on its citizens. Think about it that way.

Exactly. But try telling this to a physicist. All science has chaos. We are barely beginning to understand the fractal universe. However, we are developing algorithms to filter the noise and find useful data to make predictions.

Try doing sociology and economics at the 5-sigma level. It is not feasible for the foreseeable future.

5-sigma? Cleanliness? Not following.

Sigma refers to standard deviations from the expected value. Science is all about generating data and seeing if you find more than the expected amount of hits further away than an arbitrary number of standard deviations away from the expected value. In the social sciences, as well as biology (which I do), most people will have their results accepted by their peers if they are significant to p<.05  ( 1 in 20 chance of being wrong, which corresponds to about 2 sigma). Physicists are good at math so they use 5-sigma events, which are very rare (1 in 3,488,555). A 5-sigma event (Russian gov't defaulting) is what destroyed LTCM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management by the way.
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[bb113]

My point is not to equate sociology or economics with physics. Beyond striving to utilize the scientific method, they aren't the same. The systems under study are many orders of magnitude different in complexity.

[Technomage]

If you guys can accomplish this without guns, I am all for it.

...

I acknowledge all that has been said. Pardon any rudeness on my part. I think all of you guys are nice people. I just hope you don't cease my property and businesses in the future.

I approve this message. I want to confirm that the whole RBE scenario is first and foremost an educational paradigm. I don't blame capitalists nor do I want to seize anything, I just want to explain to people that the whole system is fundamentally flawed. After we experience sufficient value change and achieve critical mass, the society will start changing by itself. The society I would like to live in would be one where we maximize personal freedom while acknowledging that the natural world sets some limits on our activities. And it would be a world with more equality than this one, a world where no one has to live in poverty. This is not utopian, it's achievable. The biggest challenge is overcoming the value system disorder that we are all experiencing, some more than others.

[bb113]

Yes, everyone would love that. Why do you claim it is based on science though?

[cbeast]

My point is not to equate sociology or economics with physics. Beyond striving to utilize the scientific method, they aren't the same. The systems under study are many orders of magnitude different in complexity.

Brain science is allowing us to understand how we think. Psychology is becoming well researched. Sociology and economics are less useful predictors of behavior.

[Technomage]

Yes, everyone would love that. Why do you claim it is based on science though?

Clarify, please. RBE applies scientific method to the whole economy. But science doesn't give us values. The values are sustainability, equality and freedom. I guess there are more values than that, happiness and health apply as well. Based on these values we can choose the indicators that matter and then let science handle the rest.

[bb113]

My point is not to equate sociology or economics with physics. Beyond striving to utilize the scientific method, they aren't the same. The systems under study are many orders of magnitude different in complexity.

Brain science is allowing us to understand how we think. Psychology is becoming well researched. Sociology and economics are less useful predictors of behavior.

I am not sure what this means... Please answer my earlier questions about why you believe human society is less complex than the human brain.

Yes, everyone would love that. Why do you claim it is based on science though?

Clarify, please. RBE applies scientific method to the whole economy. But science doesn't give us values. The values are sustainability, equality and freedom. I guess there are more values than that, happiness and health apply as well. Based on these values we can choose the indicators that matter and then let science handle the rest.

I guess just show me your data (not a youtube video or philosophical essay) and I'll try to find something wrong with it. If I can't then I will also be about RBE. Worst case scenario is I give my critique and we are both better off for it.

[Technomage]

I guess just show me your data (not a youtube video or philosophical essay) and I'll try to find something wrong with it. If I can't then I will also be about RBE. Worst case scenario is I give my critique and we are both better off for it.

I understand what you're getting at and I have to admit that as far as I know, there are no scientific papers on RBE. If you look at it this way, it's true that the model is not scientific. The only excuse I can offer is that the general idea of an RBE has only really been talked about for a few years.

It hasn't reached the stage yet where we have scientific papers or an actual computer model for such a system. There have been plans for this but this type of development is slow. The best I have to offer is lectures or essays on this, or information on the latest technology (http://www.zeitnews.org/).

I have no doubt though that eventually the idea of an RBE will be put to the test, at least as a real computer model. And in real life as well, in form of a RBE village or city. It needs to be self-sufficient to not be reliant on trade, but even with some trading it can be done if there is funding for such a project. As long as we live in a world that uses money, we need it to create a RBE prototype.

[cbeast]

My point is not to equate sociology or economics with physics. Beyond striving to utilize the scientific method, they aren't the same. The systems under study are many orders of magnitude different in complexity.

Brain science is allowing us to understand how we think. Psychology is becoming well researched. Sociology and economics are less useful predictors of behavior.

I am not sure what this means... Please answer my earlier questions about why you believe human society is less complex than the human brain.

Human society is unpredictable. It's like asking why electrical theory is less complex than ToE. There is no sense on postulating theories with little more than correlative data. When we understand ourselves, we can begin to find a ToE for human behavior. That's a long way off. It's simpler to use accepted axioms. Society isn't really complex because it doesn't really even exist. Society is a reification. Religion makes society simple, even if the religion is science.

[Technomage]

What if your idea of sustainability, equality and freedom is wrong?

The whole idea is that the system is designed to improve itself automatically. The indicators we use today to see how an economy is doing are false, such as GDP. In RBE the indicators would be very different. We would of course have sustainability as one indicator and this includes a lot of things such as resource efficiency, energy efficiency, resource scarcity levels etc. But on top of this we would have population happiness, physical health, mental health, crime, education, innovation etc. These would be the guidelines we would use to improve the system. The things that really matter. If you don't agree that these things matter, then RBE is not for you.

[LightRider]

What if I believe that the only that matters is what an individual desires?

What if I believe I don't know what is best for other people?

If you are unwilling to change your beliefs when you acquire new information and data, then they are ultimately irrelevant. Reality does not persist based on your beliefs.

[Technomage]

What if I believe I don't know what is best for other people?

No one knows what is best for other people. But we can find out using science. Ask people, track their consumption and predict. It's not that different from the methods companies use today. They use science to create the products and distribution methods that best meet the demand of their customers. RBE is not all that different but one major difference is that in RBE there are no incentives to create demand for products artificially (by marketing and advertising). This would radically reduce consumption and improve both our lives and our sustainability as a species.

[cbeast]

What if I believe that the only that matters is what an individual desires?

What if I believe I don't know what is best for other people?

You then believe desires are real things that you can put in a container.
Mirror Neuron Receptors.