Talk:Distributive Economics

Let me first summarize my response to this article: OSE is a tool for small groups of people. There's no reason to believe it will be used any wiser than hunter-gatherers used steel. OSE provides the perfect start for making weapons.

• Item 1, design repository, is acheived by the internet.
• Item 2, Appropriate scale, does not give any actionable information, except for suggesting an interesting read from 1973.

• Item 3, Flexible fabrication, is apparently about digital fabrication and is meant to point out that "3D printing" flattens access to the produced goods. This, along with item 1, seem to be the core of this article, as described by the intro: "promotes the equitable distribution of wealth through a combination [of these things] towards replicability [without regard to the larger political structure]"

• Item 4, Lifetime design, ignores advances in technology by stating that if it lasts 10 times longer it is worth 10 times more. However, this may be (or is being) used as a guide for OSE: already the majority of things being constructed have not changed much in the past 50 to 150 years.

• Item 5, Free enterprise, points out that 1 and 3 have the ability to prevent monopolies. It seems to blame monopolies on the welfare state and Keynesian thought, which is a drastic misunderstanding of economics. I recommend reading http://michael-hudson.com to learn the basics of advanced classical economics. Marx took classical economics to its logical conclusion, which paved the way for a better understanding of economics which has not occured anywhere except in Michael Hudson's articles and video appearances. "Political economy" in 1800's America meant efficient use of energy for the movement of matter. This practical political thinking led to forced balance of trade and incubation of industry through tarrifs in order to leave colony status behind (to go from a mere resource producer for the benefit of Europe to a self-sufficient industrial state). Michael Hudson explains the steam engine and steel of politics and economics. Incorrect neoliberal economic ideas are flooding the world's mind-space, largely for the benefit of interest-charging banks that no longer loan capital for the purpose of increasing efficiency of production. Mich seems to know "modern" economics is all screwey, but his comment indicates he has not yet stumbled on the right source of information to explain it.

• Item 6, Responsibility, means locally experiencing the consequences of your actions, again the result of 1 and 3.

• Item 7, Radical cost reduction, is again the result of 1 and 3. (modularity and lifespan are the result of 1)

OK, so we have 1 and 3 as the essence of the article and the others as elaboration or food for thought. Let me explain how this ties into a larger political and economic structure.

Going deep into government, markets, evolution, and intelligence: First, Mich has said elsewhere that politics and economics will follow the OSE technology. This is not true. OSE provides a foundation upon which a larger structure (society) can be built. OSE solves local problems and acheives local goals. As such, it is merely a tool for larger scales to utilize. Without coordination through economics and government at higher and higher levels, OSE communities (OSEs) can ban together, or act independently, to adversely affect other OSEs and others in general. Spreading OSE technology is no different than spreading steel technology. Intelligence for the whole system (let's say the human species) is not an emergent behavior of independent intelligent agents such as OSE-like communities. Intelligence does not automatically emerge except through processes like evolution which form a higher structure of laws. For example, cells obeying the laws of their programming act in the best interest of the the body carrying them. Cells also act, with less concern, for the species, because copies of similar sets of genes (suimilar cells) are elsewhere in the species. We have that concern for species given to use through our cellular programming, so sometimes we are more intelligent than governments. But this does not mean that governments do not sometmies need to control people and OSEs that have gone against society's best interest in persuit of their personal goals. Cells in our body are really and sincerely programmed to act right or die. Minor changes can destroy all surrounding cells (cancer). This kind of self-enforced programming is not an option for OSE, or any other human technology (so far). So humans developed government at higher and higher levels in the same way the brain is organized to exhibit intelligence for the whole body (see Palm founder Jeff Hawkings's book "On Intelligence" for how the brain works at the largest scale, building up from identical smaller units). In the same way, large organizations have engineers, marketers, accountants, and lawyers to work out details at small space and time intervals (sensation and motor coontrol) while CEOs, CFOs, and CTOs work at much larger space and time intervals with only a vague consciousness of the details below. The managers are not any smarter, they just have a different skill set (i.e. their pattern recognition and predictive power is at larger space and time intervals). In the brain, the managers are consciousness, as we have no knowledge of the computations going on in the first layers of neurons from sensation. So there needs to be management at higher levels (groups of OSEs). To summarize, Mich seems to have faith that programming individual units can cause them to act in a way that is beneficial for the whole. This is how cells operate. This is also the faith of free marketers wanting to do away with government. It works in cells, but it does not yet work in markets or any other human institutions. And even in the body, cells were found to be in-effective for fast changing-environments so they organized themselves into brains which could reprogram behavior.

A completely free market where government only enforces honesty and fairness for each and every transaction does not exhibit intelligence at a higher level. The market is only a mathematical process that seeks the optimum solution for a given set of conditions, similar to bayesian and nueral networks. These are not intelligent. Intelligence occurs when these networks incorporate feedback connections (not merely feedback signals for adjusting variables) that work across groups of nodes. This is the purpose of voting: to enforce laws and flatten wealth through progressive taxation. Instead of welfare, the taxes from the wealthy should be used like they were in the 1800's: to increase the efficiency of production by building infrastructure that also happens to flattern wealth (equal roads, police, and education for all) and to stop monopolies (including sub-contracting utility work) and fixing other issues market forces can't address ("externalities" to market transactions such as pollution). This type of feedback can't be invisibly a part (programmed) of the independent economic agents (people, NN nodes, or OSEs). "Governing" requires purposeful, intelligent design, or it's going to left up to anarchistic evolution (intelligent design by death of the least agressive). We have a different group of laws at different levels (cells, person, OSE, society) in order to exhibit intelligence at higher and higher levels (solving the prisoner's dilemma for "cooperate" at each level of organization) for the purpose of efficiently finding and using energy to move matter in order to replicate.

OSE "codes of conduct" are the beginning of law for the OSE community. It's not needed any more than at any other "company" because we already have governments enforcing the essentials on individual brains in bodies whose cells are programmed to give priority to the individual. I would more seriously treat OSE as a repository for technological innovation that can solve food and shelter problems at the smallest possible level without getting philosophical or trying to venture into politics and economics. This will provide appeal to a wide variety: survivalists, DIYs, farmers, and 3rd world towns. I would also 1st seek production of profitable units rather than asking for charity. Reinvest in the next module. You'll only make profit where the module is needed and not available elsewhere. Focus. Zawy 14:06, 1 August 2011 (CEST)