Phil Henshaw wrote: >That could cause a wave of change in how >money is used to multiply money. The people following the new >practice could choose not to do business with those clinging to the old way, >interpreting it as 'cheating'. > A robust system has to at least tolerate clever people acting in their own self interest. The profits from financial instruments are so big that just making something taboo wouldn't slow rational people from doing it. It would have to be illegal to significantly slow, and that would require a broad consensus throughout the major governments and financial centers of the world not to mention a highly-instrumented banking data processing infrastructure for enforcement by agents acting in the public interest. Maybe Ralph Nader in front of a terminal press "Y" and "N"? Perhaps funders of terrorism will motivate such a system and it could then be retasked?
Another view is that the `explosions' are unavoidable and akin evolutionarily to punctuated equillibrium. Some problems can only be addressed with huge wealth and a focus that a democracy may have trouble finding. Thus the Gaia of $$$ finds people like Bill & Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett to soak up the excess and ultimately channel it. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
