Markus wrote: > 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. Yes, and perceptions of self-interest can change. For the people of the Soviet Union their totalitarian system lost credibility and the expressed self-interest of the vast majority shifted abruptly as a result. > 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. Absolutely! We're talking about a system that could not be changed without a substantial global consensus that there's something deeply wrong with a plan to just explosively multiply economic activity and never establish a sustainable system of life support. > 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? I guess you're trying to say it would take events that could never happen? Never is a big word. There are lots to things that seem like they could never happen just because people haven't thought of how to do it yet. > Another view is that the `explosions' are unavoidable and akin > evolutionarily to punctuated equilibrium. Yes, all complex systems seem to come about through an explosion of organizational development. It perfectly fits the MO of the 'missing data' and whole system change of state patterns of punctuated equilibrium. This could account for the appearance that the great majority of evolutionary change occurs by organizational change spurts in a growth system. It clearly applies to the 500 year growth spurt of modern civilization. Now we're at the 'big wow' point where the future becomes visible, and we begin to see a clear choice. Growth taken to it's absolute limit always leads to an absolutely impenetrable wall of complexity, at which point turbulence or it's equivalents interrupt the whole process. I don't think we want to do that. > 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. I'd tend to agree that's a plausible good side of concentrated wealth, even if Bill and Warren are still believers in the idea that the greatest good for all is done by giving them the most money, which I doubt. If people and institutions were no longer able to multiply their wealth by driving the environment around them to multiply its returns to them for..., there would still be a use for single creative individuals having control over how large sums of money are used. I can't predict how that would develop, but I expect it would. > > ============================================================ > 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 > > ============================================================ 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
