Designed To Let Us Down... our deliberately frail cell phone system

Dr. Andrew J. Viterbi, an expert on communications theory at USC, spoke up recently in support of one of the concepts I have been pushing. Based upon the obscene situation that we saw during the Hurricane Katrina Crisis, when tens of thousands of victims found themselves cut off from the world, even though they had, in their pockets, sophisticated radio communications devices -- cell phones that betrayed folks the very moment they were needed most. Viterbi commented (and apologies for the embedded self-quotation):

Brin goes on to say that the teachable moment provided by Katrina was lost, and that the cellular industry could make a relatively simple, inexpensive change that would allow cell phones to still function to network survivors in a crisis :

".... almost no attention has been paid to improving the reliability and utility of our cell networks, to assist citizen action during times of emergency. To the best of my knowledge. no high level demand has gone out - from FEMA or any other agency -- for industry to address cell-system problems revealed in the devastation of America 's Gulf Coast. A correction that should be both simple/cheap and useful to implement.

"What do we need? We need ways for citizens to self-organize, both in normal life and (especially) during crises, when normal channels may collapse, or else get taken over by the authorities for their own use. All this might require is a slight change -- or set of additions -- in the programming of the sophisticated little radio communications devices that we all carry in our pockets, nowadays.

"How about a simple back-up mode for text messaging? One that could use packet-switching to bypass the cell towers when they are down, and pass messages from phone to phone -- or peer-to-peer -- at least among phones that are of the same type? (GSM, TDMA, CDMA etc.) All of the needed packet-switching algorithms already exist. Moreover, this would allow a drowning city (or other catastrophe zone) to fill with tens of thousands of little spots of light, supplying information to helpers and reassurance to loved ones, anywhere in the world."

These pushes of mine have not gone completely ignored or unnoticed. As Viterbi's riffs on the topic show, there have been some fascinating and insightful exchanges, discussing how the nation and public might benefit by adding peer-to-peer supplemental capabilities to the present cell system.

Some object that this development could cost millions. But that is not any real obstacle in an industry making hundreds of billions in the US alone. If either the government or the cell companies saw a clear benefit model, it would be trivial to justify the relatively small expense. Certainly far smaller than incorporating web browsers and MP3 players!

The problem is that top-down hierachy mentalities do not easily grasp the potential of flattened networks.... and this despite the clear example of the Internet itself, as a super-empowering, hierarchy-flattening phenomenon.

(Indeed, I believe that there are underlying PSYCHOLOGICAL REASONS that the twin examples of the Internet - and citizen competence on 9/11 - may have prompted an immune reaction against citizen empowerment, on the part of some members of the Paid Protector Castes. But that's another story.)

One more-cogent objection to the notion of augmenting cell phones with Peer-to-Peer capability: it takes a lot more energy to transmit than to receive. Most cell phones are actually very weak transmitters that function poorly without energetic base towers nearby.

The answer to this objection is simple. In order to use P2P effectively in a crisis, when the towers are down, personal cell phones do not have to carry voice. In an emergency, text messages can make a tremendous difference, e.g. in calling for help, or informing loved-ones that you are okay, or in passing crucial information to authorities. Especially since text messages can be transmitted with multiple repetition-redundancy, simple calculations show that pocket transmitters (cell phones) could pass these along at trivial power expenditure.

Obviously, this same answer deals with objections that P2P (peer to peer) does not carry voice well. So?The algorithms for passing along text messages are very little different from classic packet switching for email, on the Internet. Implementation ought to be trivial.

How to explain why this simple augmentation has not been implemented, even though it is clearly in the national and public interest? One theory is that the cell companies may feel threatened by P2P capabilities. Or that they see no way to make money off them. But this needn't be a problem. For one thing, it should be easy for each hand set to track passed-on messages and inform the network, for billing purposes. Or else the P2P system can be turned off, whenever there is a fully functional cell tower nearby! Thus, automatically reverting to P2P only under circumstances when the capability is actually needed!

Moreover, there is an added allure to this approach, one that could help the cell-cos make real money. By developing P2P capability, companies may open the door to a new method for solving their "last mile problem" - or how to extend coverage into dark zones, just beyond reach of their current network of towers. Think. Why not let customers who happen to be at the edge of the coverage area get a small pay-back fee for every text message that they pass through, from people who are just outside the covered zone? The same way people with solar or wind generators can make their meters run backward, feeding power into the grid.

If such customers had a more sophisticated home-cradle unit, they might even be able to pass through voice calls from a nearby dark zone. Reducing their own bill, helping the company, and making our entire communications system more robust.

Indeed, can anyone doubt that someday, somebody will realize there is a business plan in this? An entirely peer-to-peer network, in which, customers home-cradle units make up the bulk of an alternative cell system? But we'll save that futuristic sci fi scenario for another time. What I am talking about, here, is something that could be implemented in just one year, if anyone (like FEMA) were actually serious about fostering a more resilient and robust society. A pretty big "if" - apparently.

The fact that cell phones served the national defense so well on 9/11, yet failed in Katrina, should have been enough to tell us that serious work is needed, work that has been entirely lacking while we let ourselves be distracted on other adventures. I mean, isn't it a no-brainer for Homeland Security and FEMA to support this kind of capability, in the national interest?

After thinking about it, how do YOU feel about the sophisticated little tranceiver radio in your pocket, now that you know that it was designed almost perfectly to let you down, someday, at the very moment that you might need it most?

==See more of my articles on Emergency Preparedness

How societies work... and improve...

I have just cross-linked my “Adopt An Ostrich” article on Daily Kos. (It took a little while to figure out the convoluted format.) I’ll only do this for the most “important” essays and I doubt I will do much comment-response there. So any Kos-ers who keep an eye open over there, please let me know if I ever need to pay closer attention.

And yes, go thou forth, all of you, and Adopt an Ostrich! Seriously. People like you are only a couple of degrees of separation from the civil servants and skilled officers who we must reach. The inherently conservative -- but modernist and deeply loyal and sincere -- men and women who are members of the Protector Caste, who need to be awakened to a basic truth. That the Republic and civilization is in greater danger now than it has been for all our lives, and from an enemy as bad as communism ever was.

If we can waken enough of these sincere Goldwater conservatives, a tipping point may be reached and our civilization may yet be saved. Be tenacious, relentless.

==How Societies Work==

Some of you may be interested in a paper by Rand Corp research David Ronfeldt, part of his continuing efforts to develop a framework about social evolution -- past, present, and future: In Search of How Societies Work: Tribes -- The First and Forever Form.

I’ll give the entire abstract here, because I think it is a fascinating topic and one worth considerably more sophisticated thinking than most of us apply to it.

ABSTRACT: "The latest in a string of efforts to develop a theoretical framework about social evolution, based on how people develop their societies by using four forms of organization-tribes, hierarchical institutions, markets, and networks-this installment focuses on the tribal form. The tribal form was the first to emerge and mature, beginning thousands of years ago. Its main dynamic is kinship, which gives people a distinct sense of identity and belonging-the basic elements of culture, as manifested still today in matters ranging from nationalism to fan clubs.

"This report provides a lead-off chapter that sketches the entire framework, plus a "rethinking" chapter that shows why David Ronfeldt thinks that social evolution revolves around four forms of organization. A chapter then traces the evolution of tribes and clans, and the final chapter describes modern manifestations of the tribal form. An appendix reprints three op-ed pieces that sprang from Ronfeldt's efforts to understand the tribal form and its continuing relevance. Ronfeldt maintains that societies advance by learning to use and combine all four forms, in a preferred progression. What ultimately matters is how the forms are added and how well they function together. They are not substitutes for each other; they are complements. Historically, a society's advance-its progress-depends on its ability to use all four forms and combine them into a coherent, well-balanced, well-functioning whole. Essentially monoform tribal/clan societies and biform chiefdoms and clan-states, some dressed in the trappings of nation-states and capitalist economies, remain a ruling reality in vast areas of the world. It therefore behooves analysts and strategists who mostly think about states and markets to gain a better grip on roles the tribal form plays in both national development and national security.”

Fascinating stuff, by one of the brightest and most agile social thinkers around.

And while we are being intellectual, let me reiterate the recommendation that folks have a look at Must-know terms for the 21st Century intellectual by George Dvorsky. Another fellow who pours far too much energy into blogging... to our benefit. Dvorsky strives to come up “with a list of the most fundamental and crucial terms that are coming to define and will soon re-define the human condition.” Following all the links could keep you plenty busy. Too busy to go out to bars hunting for a mate. So it is a eugenics plot, after all.

==Mass-produced laptops==

See screen shots of the proposed GUI for MIT $100 computer... the project, the initiative to put $100 laptops in the hands of children around the world. The interface uses a highly abstracted spatial navigation metaphor, an extension of the familiar desktop metaphor, for easy, intuitive navigation that makes the most of the laptop’s networking capabilities. Children can move through four levels of view—Home, Friends, Neighborhood, and Activity—and connect with others in the network “mesh” formed by users.

Of course this is an area of great interest. Let me offer some thoughts.

1) by the time these laptops are mass produced, they will also have cheap cameras, augmenting the effect that cell phones are already having in the Developing World (see my earlier posting about this) empowering local activists with powerful tools of reciprocal accountability. (Obviously I am expecting that parents will also use these machines.) The proliferation of cameras, P2P computer nets etc will worry hierarchical despotisms... And yet the most sincere of those despotisms will WANT some of the anti-corruption effects of reciprocal accountability to apply upon LOW level public officials, whose waste and parasitism depletes the entire nation, the way an infestation of tapeworms can impoverish your body. You can expect nations like China to embrace grass-roots anti-corruption efforts, enhanced by these tools, while suppressing them at national levels.

2) As mentioned, there is discussion of empowering these laptops with peer-to-peer (P2P) capabilities so that they can network even without the existence of local hubs. If this happens, it will be one more example of how the 3rd world may leapfrog past the 1st world, with capabilities that we, here in the West, badly need. I feel that today’s cell phone companies, for example, have utterly betrayed the national and public interest by not engendering a P2P backup capability for at least text messaging -- capabilities that would have proved useful during crises like Katrina. (See more about this under “Comments” later, just below.)

If another disaster happens, in which many thousands or millions are cut off, with charged/sophisticated radios in their pockets that are completely useless when needed most, there will be hell to pay. Or there ought to be. Next time, the cell-cos themselves may get some of the blame.

3) Back to the $100 laptop. It is a great program and deserves massive support. And yet...

And yet... you keep hearing about how smart the interface design people at MIT are... and I don’t get it. The layered GUI of the proposed $100 laptop is sweet and intuitive... and still misses several key insights having to do with allocation of scarce human attention. It is an incremental improvement... and may do a lot of good. But it patronizes the ultimate users. And strenuously avoids the bigger steps that would actually help make things a lot better.

==Communication for the 21st Century==

And yes, this segues into my Holocene invention. The recent awarding of my incredibly broad (126 claims) patent has somewhat raised the level at which people are taking these ideas seriously. Seriously... but often with a sense of heated rage... almost like the way a tsunami of geek-letters poured in, after my “Why Johnny Can’t Code” article, a few months back.

So far, I have been amazed by a rich variety of responses that seek to AVOID discussing the issues raised by my patent... how to help online users divide and allocate scarce attention across screen based environments, using methods and tools similar to those we already have used in the real world, ever since the caves.

Instead, a majority seem driven to complain at peripheral issues like:

“Why would anyone want to do that?”
“How can you patent something so obvious? Of course there’s prior art!”
”Patents are evil!”

Look... either these things are being done, usefully, right now, or they are not. The question is a simple one. And yet, a vast majority seems determined to avert their gaze in ANY direction but at the very basic issue, almost as if it hurts to look at a conceptual blind spot...

...but I won’t waste space here at the top level, answering this nonsense, especially since a few of the very brightest out there are starting to lift their heads from the depressing-dulling imagination-suppressing effects of the 21st-Century-So-Far.

I may add a little riff, below, in comments, elaborating. Overall, though. I am learning the value of patience. Waiting for the times to catch up, I suppose.

Operation "Adopt an Ostrich"

People. Our national (and world) crisis has reached the point -- amid an all-out assault upon western traditions of law, openness and accountability -- that I believe it is time to re-institute the draft. I mean a special kind of draft, insisting that all decent modern citizens simply have to take on duties on the nation’s desperate POLITICAL FRONT.

Seriously, all of us know hopeless “ostrich conservatives” - who cling desperately to the notion that Bush & Co are regrettable... but “certainly no worse than Clinton was.”

This is where the battle must be fought. It is time to grab these people into head-locks and not let go until they admit that, this time, it is their side that has gone completely mad.

I want to announce a new program. Adopt an ostrich will be a nationwide endeavor under which every single moderate American, or reasonable liberal, will latch onto ONE decent person whom they know to be one of these head-in-the-sand conservatives. People who used to stand by Barry Goldwater or Bob Dole or Billy Graham... ALL of whom thought very highly of Bill Clinton, by the way! All three of whom utterly despised the dark directions that they saw modern “neo” conservatism heading.

Yes, the administration of George W. Bush has plummeted to deep levels of unpopularity. They lost the recent Congressional elections, a great first step toward reclaiming the United States and our Great Experiment. But clearly, it is not enough.

There must be a tipping point, somwehere up ahead, where the rising national revulsion sweeps up millions of Goldwater-Dole-Graham-Reagan conservatives, too. Where denial can no longer be supported and decent people cry out Enough! A point when loyal-but-self-deluding men and women in the civil service and CIA and FBI and US Officer Corps shake themselves out of their stunned torpor, realize that genuine treason is afoot, and decide that it is their job to stand up, to take some initiative and help us all to deal with the most poisonous threat to our civilization since communism.

This tipping point, I have come to realize, will only happen after hard work at the grass roots. One reluctant, bitterly delusional republican at a time. Because there is little more than can be achieved simply by hoping that our fellow citizens will heed all the bad news. The one-third that is left has their ears covered. Their eyes are closed while they shake their heads going “Nah! Nah! Nah!”

(Recent science shows that doing this is physically chemically addictive. And yes, liberals do it too.)

No, if we are to reach the tipping point, it will have to be down, way down, at the level of individual citizenship. Each of us can -- and must -- hammer at just one or two ostriches, until they wake up from hysterical denial. And when enough of them do -- when advertising revenues on Fox News start shriveling and GOP reps in suburban America start screaming in pain -- we may start to see the REAL uprising against monsters. A quiet revolution in which heroes in the civil service and intelligence agencies and law enforcement etc stymie what is left of this administration of horrors. Simply by doing their jobs.

At least enough so that we can hope to REACH the next set of elections with a nation still largely intact.

No, I am not talking about converting truly rabid neocons, or truly corrupt kleptocrats, or the maniacal ultra-fanatics who are cramming Intelligent Design down our throats. They are a much smaller minority than the one-third who still officially back the president. Moreover, we do not need them, or their nasty "culture war".

We do need your decent neighbor or uncle, who would take you in, if your house burned down. Whose conservatism is not so awful that he or she would turn back the clock on civil or womens’ rights. Indeed, whose views include a few that may be worth listening to... if we can just take care of more important business, first. (Go ahead and promise that you will listen. A bit. Later. If he or she will first listen to his nation’s call.)

Do it. Pick an ostrich andgrab his or her lapel. Do not let go. Make lists and keep citing one travesty after another, while asking: “What would you have said if Bill Clinton did this?”

And “would you have LET Clinton send our entire army, marines and reserves to be ground down in a hostile foreign land, on the excuse of pure lies, in a grunt land war of attrition without any goal, run by meddling politicians who never saw a day of combat, all in a futile attempt at so-called nation-building?”

They will sputter and fume. They will try to claim that “Whitewater” -- involving $80,000 -- represented corruption equal to Halliburton stealing tens of billions from our boys and girls in Iraq. They will claim that Clinton’s fib about Monica was worse than outright lies about WMDs or terrorism or promises to “listen to our generals.” Or that an administration dedicated to decreasing secrecy can even be compared to one that has multiplied darkness and unaccountability one hundredfold. Or that political activity by today’s eviscerated labor unions can be compared to outright control of our government by a new feudal, kleptocratic caste.

They will writhe and squirm and try all of this -- and dozens of other contrived excuses and polemical tricks. Denial is powerful and you must gird yourself to be utterly relentless. Even if you live in a “blue” state, you will still be a soldier for civilization if you do this.

It matters.

When people switch from Fox News to MSNBC, the masters will notice. Their solidarity will start to crumble. More henchmen will blow whistles. Then some of them will start to break.

It may be wishful thinking. But it seems our best hope. Moreover, it depends on the one bet we have always made, since the American Revolution. A wager on the People.

===

SEE: The Ostrich Papers: How it will take all decent Americans to restore decency to America

Misc worries... plus the insanity of "Surge"...

We’ll dive into a strongly-worded political riff about surge insanity. But first, a few miscellaneous postings, starting with a question...

...did any of you especially like my brief TV “series” on the History Channel called “The ArchiTechs”?

I mean really like it... perhaps enough to create a fannish web site? I could probably persuade the producers to provide some material/content... if there’s one or two folks who would maintain the site. Would also provide a place for future announcements, in case there is a re-run... or they ever decide to run the first pilot. It’s just a thought.

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Here’s a scary on: Today, both the Financial Times and Forbes published the predictions of the Global Risks prediction market. Take an excerpt from the Forbes story: The predictive market contracts … are currently forecasting the outbreak of bird flu in 22 countries in 2007, which Thomson Financial calculates will result in a fall of in the Dow Jones Industrial Index of 0.4% during the year. However should the spread of bird flu reach 60 countries it is anticipated that this would cause a fall in the Dow of over 10%.

Creepy scary. Now imagine something big (or several somethings) happening while all our troops and reserves are away. Where are all those kooky, paranoid “black helicopter” boys, now, when we need their dour, crazed imaginations? Bloody hypocrites.

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This ancient conquest map of the middle east is kinda cool and informative... but also neglectful. Nothing of Sargon or the Sumerians. Noting showing the rise and fall of the Hashemites or the rise of the Saud family. And so on. Still, it frames stuff.

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Lookit how far they’ve progressed on that Crazy Horse statue in SD.

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And then see how three new websites:
http://www.zillow.com/
http://www.addresses.com/
http://www.wikimapia.org/
can be combined to produce the "seating chart" for most American neighborhoods, at least for those houses that have listed phone numbers. This can be done by anyone, anywhere on the Internet on any American neighborhood. Just take a look at the results for Barron Park.

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And take an amazing tour of the Hubble Deep Space Field project.

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And now some political ranting, that partly features great riffs by Russ Daggatt on the topic of SURGE... or insane/dismal/incompetent leadership compounding itself, over and over again.

Now that Democrats are in control of Congress, the Republicans are whining like little kids on a long car trip. Listen to Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH):

"What we really expect out of the Democrats is for them to treat us as they would like to have been treated."

Boehner's Golden Rule: We hope that -- no, we expect -- you to treat us the way we should have treated you.

But if you treat us even a little bit the way WE DID TREAT YOU -- then watch us scream bloody murder.

I swear. Every time I thought these monsters could not possibly become more loathesome...

From the Carpetbagger blog:
Under the Republican majority, legislation was written without Dem input; bills were passed without letting Dems read it; Dems’ bills were denied hearings and votes; Dems weren’t allowed to offer amendments to legislation; Dems weren’t even allowed to use hearing rooms. If Dems managed to win a key vote on the floor, Republicans would simply keep the vote open — literally for hours, if necessary — until enough arms could be twisted and/or lawmakers bribed. Being a congressional Democrat in recent years was frequently nothing short of humiliating.

Now, the process is going to be far more pleasant. Or, at least, it’s going to start out that way.Dennis Hastert was poised to get a lousy office-space assignment, so Nancy Pelosi intervened and got him a better one. Pelosi has also reached out to House Minority Leader John Boehner to help create a task force on congressional ethics rules and supervision of the page program. For the first time in 12 years, conference committees will actually have members of the minority party participating.

But back to Russ Daggatt:
This "path forward" is an escalation of our military involvement in one last throw of the dice. But Bush faced some big problems with his approach. For one, of the American people support escalation (by contrast, three times as many -- 34% -- support and ). Not that Bush really cares all that much what the American public thinks -- he doesn't have to run for election again and he is an authoritarian at heart anyway.

Even more problematic for Bush is the fact that the Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously oppose escalation as does the head of the Central Command (which includes all of the Middle East), Gen. John Abizaid, and the head of all US forces in Iraq, Gen. George Casey. He can ignore the Joint Chiefs, because they aren't in the direct line of command (which goes from Casey to Abizaid to Gates to Bush). But obviously Gen. Abizaid and Gen. Casey presented a problem.

So, not surprisingly, both Gen. Abizaid and Gen. Casey will be moving on. This, of course, brings to mind former Army Chief of Staff Erik Shinseki, who famously said before the war that it would require several hundred thousand troops. For that he was ridiculed by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and forced into early retirement. His name has now become a verb: to be "Shinseki'd". That is what is now happening to Gens. Abizaid and Casey.

Bush has been insisting ever since he started the Iraq war that troop levels were determined by the commanders on the group in Iraq. To take just one of many examples, this is what Bush said :

“General Casey will make the decisions as to how many troops we have there. And that's important for the families to know. It's really important. General Casey is a wise and smart man who has spent a lot of time in Baghdad recently, obviously. And it's his judgment that I rely upon. He'll decide how best to achieve victory and the troop levels necessary to do so. “I spent a lot of time talking to him about troop levels, and I told him this,; I said, you decide, General. I want your judgment, your advice. I don't want these decisions being made by the political noise, by the political moment. It's just unfair to our troops and it's unfair to their families.”

But Gen. Casey wasn't going along with Bush's escalation, so now he is out of the chain of command. Meanwhile, Bush is replacing Gen. Abizaid as the head of Central Command with an Admiral. It is hard to figure out why you would put a Navy guy in charge of two land wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan. But I guess he couldn't find any Army guys who wanted to completely destroy their service.

And yet, there is no monopoly on incompetence. Can you see, anywhere, the democratic of liberal polemicist who has an eye - or ear - for the polemical jugular?

. . . Take the NUMBER ONE EXCUSE FOR DEFEAT IN VIETNAM that we have all heard, for decades, from jingoist morons on the far right.

“We lost because of outrageous meddling in military decisions by a bunch of arrogant and clueless politicians.”

Yes, that is verbatim what we all heard, ad nauseum, for 30 years -- ever since Donald Rumsfeld oversaw America’s LAST utter humiliation in a stupid and goalless land war of attrition in Asia.

No commentary is necessary. Just a fierce and unrelenting dedication to confront these assholes with the very words they yammered at us, since 1974. DO IT!

Lay it out there.

Daggatt concludes: “Can you even begin to comprehend what the Republicans would be doing right now if it was Clinton who got us into a disastrous war and then proposed to escalate it for political purposes in opposition to all his top military leaders?“

Scarcity Economics: Value and Non-Zero Sum Games

It seems that “theories of value” have been hot, lately. I posted a rumination on “the ultimate refutation of Karl Marx” just a few days ago, that seems highly relevant: Blackmail Reminders: and the ultimate refutation of Karl Marx

Phil Cubeta wonders about “value” and I agree that there are many non economic ways to view it. And some mystical ways that pretended to be about economics, such as Marx’s Labor Theory of Value.

And yet... always contrarian... On another site. It was pondered whether the attention economy... if all other human needs are satisfied (say by nanofactories) ... might that bring about a surprising result? If all other scarcities vanish, except that of scarce human attention, then human TIME becomes the highly valued desideratum. In that case, might the quaint notion of Karl Marx's labor theory of value come true, after all?

Tell you what. I’m going to attach below a posting made by Chris Phoenix recently on another (Predictions Markets) group. A guest screed that I think sets things in very useful perspective. He uses the notion of Zero-Sum and Positive Sum games, which Robert Wright expresses very well in NONZERO: The Logic of Human Destiny. It seems a powerful insight to help explain why some valuable entities are best protected by a hierarchical “guardian” like the state... while others will be hampered or destroyed if they are valued in that way.

Interstingly, I have found that negative, zero and positive sum games are also very useful in appraising human personalities! Negative sum people would harm themselves if only to get at their enemy. Zero sum types see life as a series of win-lose wars. (And such people dominate ALL political wings, because of their zeal and intensity.)

Cynical zero sum people simply cannot comprehend the infinite problem-solving enthusiasm of those who are wired for positive-sum thinking, and vice versa.

Want an excellent litmus for quickly diagnosing which “sum” dominates another person’s personality? Try Asking: What would you wish for, knowing that your worst enemy would get twice as much of whatever you got?”

One negative-sum person immediately answered “I’d ask to go blind in one eye.”

One guy gave an answer which was maybe zero... or positive sum... or just clever. ”I’d ask for a mate who was all the woman a guy could possibly handle.” (*snort*)

Here is that riff by Chris Phoenix:

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CP: Follow-up to the type-of-economy and scarcity issues that were discussed a few days ago, and the intriguing phrase "scarcity economics":

A trusted friend is house-sitting for you. When you get back from vacation, your friend tells you, "I borrowed your kitchen table, but it fell off my truck and got smashed. How much do I owe you?" You shake your head and name a figure.

A second friend says, "I picked up your father's funeral urn, and dropped it. How much do I owe you? There's no good answer--there's something wrong with the question.

A third friend says, "I watched two of your DVDs while I was here. How much do I owe you?" The answer of course is "Nothing--what are you talking about?"

The discussion on what kinds of economy are most suitable for what kinds of resource has been focused too small. Some resources are monetizable, and can participate naturally in an economy. But some resources are not easily monetizable, and those are of two different kinds. Each kind of resource needs a different kind of handling. If one kind of resource is handled as though it were another kind, bad things happen.

Some resources, though in theory monetizable, in practice will not change hands without coercion. A nation's territory is an example of this. Such resources are guarded by systems that promote stasis. Interestingly, the guardian systems are also useful for enforcing property rights, preventing involuntary (win-lose) transactions of priced goods. Win-lose transactions are usually an overall loss, as when a stolen car goes a chop shop, so should be minimized.

Win-win transactions should be optimized and maximized (unless they have hidden costs). The commercial system--very different from the guardian system--has evolved to promote such transactions. Since many possible transactions are not mutually beneficial, the commercial system promotes honesty. Since the general welfare improves with each good transaction, the system promotes inventivness. Since resources can make more resources, the system promotes thriftiness. (Readers may recognize Jane Jacobs' Systems of Survival here. But she didn't talk about the third system.)

The trouble with Communism was that it applied a zero-sum Guardian administration to tradeable goods, precluding any positive-sum outcome. In fact, it actively destroyed positive-sum opportunities.

The third kind of resource can be used without consuming it, and copied without scarcity. Obviously there are incidental costs to any activity, but if those are sufficiently small, and the value created is large and unrelated to the costs, it seems fair to call the transaction "unlimited sum." Many instances of information fall in this category, especially since the development of networked digital computers. The Free Software and Open Source movements rely on the insignificant cost of copying text, and the high value of that text. Note that creation of significant value is likely to create incidental benefits all around; if the incidental benefits to me from an "unlimited-sum" transaction are likely to outweigh my incidental costs, then it is in my best interest to encourage as many transactions as possible without trying to meter or monitor them.

For more on the "Three Systems," see THREE SYSTEMS OF ETHICS FOR DIVERSE APPLICATIONS, by Chris Phoenix

Now, about scarcity:

Information-type "unlimited sum" resources are not naturally scarce. They may be made artificially scarce, as by intellectual property law. (Some IP law is stimulatory, some is protectionistic. The US software industry did better without software patents, but software copyright was probably a good thing.) In this information-rich age, it's easy to think that everything should be non-scarce. A little thought will show that that's impossible.

There's another type of non-scarcity that I'll call non-shortage until an economist tells me the real name for it. That's when there's enough of a thing available that the cost is driven down to a level just high enough to prevent profligate waste--in normal circumstances, for typical uses, a person in a Western nation never has to think about the cost of a glass of tap water. As manufacturing and material handling improve, more and more things can be placed in that category.

It is tempting to think that non-shortage implies that a thing should be free. Humans like free lunches. But if a material good were actually free, it would be wasted until it became scarce. If food (and janitorial services) on the Star Ship Enterprise were truly free, people would fill each other's rooms with vanilla pudding as a prank. That doesn't mean that in real life, a food dispenser would need a coin slot to prevent waste. The limit might be imposed by social mores or by programming in each food dispenser rather than by direct monetary transaction. But the limit would be there.

Conversely, it is tempting to think that goods should never move into non-shortage status. What would happen if people had all the ___ they needed, without having to pay for it? Wouldn't that be an immoral free lunch? Well, scratch the surface of that, and you'd find that a major part of the resistance comes from the "lost" revenue to the companies that have provided the expensive good. Another aspect of the resistance comes from simple fear of change. I don't have much use for either of those motivations--let the creative destruction roll!

Will there always be some things that are scarce? Yes. Will they always be the same things? No. Are there some things that should never be scarce? Yes.

So can we have a society without "scarcity economics"? No. Can we have a society without shortages of basic resources? Yes. Can we have a society that makes profligate use of every resource? No. Can we have a society that continually improves, sustainably? Yes. Can people rationally give things away without calculating their reward? Yes, but only the "unlimited sum" class of things.

Can we have a society in which all people are satisfied and productive, and rarely if ever conscious of scarcity? That depends on human psychology, but I think so: Develop the economy until all basic needs are in the non-shortage category, and focus human activity on the unlimited-sum categories. Will the weakening of profit and capitalism cause economic instability and regression? I don't know--there's probably a balance to be struck. Can such a society be created through redistribution and ideology, as the Communists tried to do? NO! That approach is corrosive at every turn.

-- Chris Phoenix cphoenix@CRNano.org Director of Research Center for Responsible Nanotechnology

The Enlightenment Keeps On Kicking....

America's big names in engineering, as well as millions of Internet users around the world, are being asked to weigh in with their picks for the greatest technological challenges of the next century — a nine-month process that could give birth to new research initiatives. The project, called the "Grand Challenges for Engineering" program, is aimed at gathering up all those ideas and distilling them into a list of 20 puzzles for engineers to solve — in fields ranging from energy to communications to aerospace to advanced materials. The National Academy of Engineering, an arm of the Washington-based National Academies, is supervising the project, armed with a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The academy is a congressionally chartered, nonprofit organization that provides the U.S. government with expert advice on engineering issues.

More important and closer to the heart of CITOKATE...

“Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact; this means our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by non-technical people. We have received over 1.1 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources.”

I have long pushed for something like this, hoping that some billionaire like George Soros would fund it well enough to truly draw forth whistleblowers from the top tiers of the kleptocracy. But even without help from a billionaire, the tools and hard work seem to be falling into place for anti-corruption transparency to start flowing at the lower end, where it may be needed even more. (Of course, we always need to stay 1% paranoid that things like this are fronts, suborned or co-opted by the very same elites that should fear them. Such things have happened often enough to keep the tickle of doubt always there, in deep background.)

Project Witness tries to use transparency against corruption in the 3rd world by providing video cams to local activist groups. But Witness's standard approach may be about to be put out of business in the best possible way, by the stunningly rapid proliferation of cheap cell phones in developing regions. When these have cameras and audio recording ability, they will empower common citizens with powerful anti-corruption accountability tools. In fact, I have suggested that Witness re-allocate effort to leverage this phenomenon in ways that interact well with endeavors like Wikileaks.

Now (breaking news) I now find that Witness is trying to take steps in that direction, developing a participatory website - the Video Hub, where anyone with human rights related footage can upload video that can be used to create change. Using technologies such as cell phones and other mobile devices, web-based video upload and content distribution, online community building, advocacy and organizational tools, the Video Hub will provide new opportunities to feed the populist shift toward user-generated content with media in the service of global human rights advocacy.

Lacking a billionaire sponsor, let me ask that you folks at least spread the word to people who you think may have the skills to help this worthy effort.

... And added late note. Apparently Witness has some transparency related JOBS posted at their web site! Witness.org. If you (or somebody you know) have skills related to the program, I can think of few kinds of work that are more relevant to saving the world...

And meanwhile, innovation continues. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales will launch Wikiasari, a search engine to compete with Google, Yahoo, Ask and others early this year. Wikiasari would apply the "wisdom of the crowd" to judging the value of a Web page.


----- WHAT'S SIMILAR IN SCIENCE FICTION? -----

See a “literature map” that shows “what else readers of David Brin read.” Some expected results... but also several different misspellings of Michael Crichton, including one that’s closest in! For many years O.S. Card and I have been “irked” by the massive overlap in our readership... though my own “irk” is with a wry smile. All told? I am rather pleased by the company I keep.


------ AND NOW SOME MISC ITEMS! ----

(...many of them with a nod of thanks to Ray Kurzweil, a modernist who makes me look quite pallid-grumpy, by comparison...)

-- Google, HP Labs, Yahoo, and Microsoft are among companies using "prediction markets" to improve forecasts. The technique rewards employees for success in making predictions....

A device the size of a sugar cube will be able to record and store high resolution video footage of every second of a human life within two decades, according to speakers at the Memories for Life conference at the British Library. Also see: Memories for life: a review of the science and technology, J. R. Soc. Interface (2006) 3, 351-365...

IBM has created 12 islands in the popular virtual world Second Life, where employees and customers can hold meetings, take orientation and training sessions and discuss projects. Too bad the interface limits discourse to one sentence at a time! If that’s IBM’s notion of “discussing projects”... well... I am buying competitor stock.

DARPA's Urban Challenge, safety issues, artificial muscles, a multifunctional home robot, and Microsoft involvement will be the five key developments in robots

Chinese astronauts walk on the moon, the world has splintered into currency blocs after an international exchange rate shock, and even robots have the vote. It sounds like the exaggerated vision - utopian or distopian according to taste - of a parlour futurologist. But these scenarios of what life might be like around the middle of the century have emerged from 270 rigorously researched papers commissioned by the government that together purport to be the world's most extensive look into the future. The Horizon Scan covers a vast range of science and technology, politics, economics and society - from internet crime to robotics, banking to the computer-brain interface, stem cell research to "grey power" in an ageing population. While still in the development stage, the horizon scans have already started to influence policy-making. Ahem... there are two criteria needed for a successful horizon scanning program that they seem to be missing (1) metrics for tracking credibility/success... and (2) getting the right scie fi guys involved...

A glass microscope slide covered with bits and pieces of genetic information from nearly 30,000 different viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites can quickly tell disease hunters whether a patient has malaria, influenza or myriad other diseases, researchers say.

In a recent study, fuel cell expert Ulf Bossel explains that a hydrogen economy is a wasteful economy. In contrast, in an efficient "electron economy" most energy would be distributed with highest efficiency by electricity and the shortest route in an existing infrastructure.

Study Detects Recent Instance of Human Evolution New York Times December 10, 2006 . A surprisingly recent instance of human evolution has been detected among the peoples of East Africa. It is the ability to digest lactose, the principal sugar of milk, in adulthood, conferred by genetic changes that occurred as recently as 3,000 years ago

Web 3.0, expected to debut in 2007, will be more connected, open, and intelligent, with semantic Web technologies, distributed databases, natural language processing, machine learning, machine reasoning, and autonomous agents. Wait a minute! What ever happened to Web 2.0?

 A new concept, "vehicle-to-grid," would allow plug-in hybrids to help stabilize the power grid. Millions of cars, each with several kilowatt hours of storage capacity, would act as an enormous buffer, taking on charge when the system temporarily generates too much power, and giving it back when there are short peaks in demand.

New recordings of electrical activity in the brain may explain a major part of its function, including how it consolidates daily memories, why it needs to dream and how it constructs models of the world to guide behavior. The recordings capture dialogue between the hippocampus, where initial memories of the day’s events are formed, and the neocortex, the sheet of neurons on the outer surface of the brain that mediates conscious thought and contains long-term memories. Such a dialogue had been thought to exist, but no one had been able to eavesdrop on it successfully.

The Ultimate Refutation of Karl Marx

Since most of my recent postings have been neutral or targeted at the right, it felt like time to do a leftward poke, just to keep that hand in ;-)

--- THE ULTIMATE REFUTATION OF KARL MARX ---

Bernd Skiera has lately written about ever-shortening reinvestment horizons. "Due to the shortening of product lifecycles, the development of new products is one of the biggest challenges that companies currently face." I’d like to share with you folks a riff that I wrote in response to that statement. Actually, this one phenomenon (shortening re-investment horizons) is of more significance than people imagine... in the realm of social-political theory. It is, in fact, the most decisive and fundamental refutation of Marxism.

Was any more refutation needed? The failure of the Soviet empire and all other Leninist experiments would seem to have been sufficient. But not in the eyes of many quasi-Marxist intellectuals and campus postmodernists, who claim (with some justification) that countless Marxian variants were never tested in real life. In particular, Lenin veered steeply off course, down a path that was exacerbated by Stalin & Mao, etc. A detour into personality-cult despotism and murderous paranoia that Marx probably would have disavowed. Hence --"The experiment was never really tried," they claim.

Of course, to non-Marxists, there appear to be plenty of refutations of his ornate dogma on a scientific level. e.g. the inherently competitive nature of humanity and the patent absurdity of the labor theory of value. Above all, old Karl’s complete misunderstanding of Darwinian evolution doomed him to Lamarckian-style thinking. Absolutely (and proudly) ignorant about biology or tribal anthropology, he simply did not have a clue about the raw material (human nature) that he was working with.

It is all-too easy to forget that Marx was brilliant in other areas. His work on the underlying process of capital formation was a huge leap forward... before he got sucked into the egomania of becoming a cult guru. Worst of all was the mental sin of *tendentiousness*... a belief that there is some teleological TREND to history. That is mysticism, not science. Still, true believers and excusers can -- and do -- wave all of this aside. True believers (of all kinds, not just Marxists) are great at armwaving away inconvenient inconsistencies.

But what they cannot wave aside is a decisively mistaken explicit prediction. One that is absolutely fundamental to the entire Marxian edifice. One of old Karl’s keystone assumptions... and one that has proved diametrically wrong.

Marx confidently forecast (and hence this is also of interest to any predictions group) that once the capitalization process was "completed" in any nation - the means of production established and all factories finally in place - there would be no further use for the (till then) necessary entrepreneurial/capitalist class. They could then (but not before) be eliminated by the urban proletariat, since capitalist-entrepreneurial skills would no longer be required. No more creative investment or reinvestment, hence no need for competitively motivated investment specialists.

(As one sign of the grotesque ignorance of today’s howlingly ill-educated leftists, very few have likely ever encountered the notion that Marx highly approved of capitalists! He saw their “historical role” as absolutely vital in forming the productive capital that all subsequent prosperity would depend-upon. True, he saw them as somewhat rapacious, greedy and shortsighted, but he did not hold that against them. Their role was to build factories! And then to be toppled once that job was finished.)

All of this may have seemed reasonable in 1848, when the world only had a few centers of mass production. Marx could peer ahead and imagine Manchester City duplicated everywhere on Earth -- a vast proliferation of steamdriven mills -- after which all human needs would be satisfied. Voila. Only, today, this entire notion is revealed as profoundly absurd!

As capitalization proceeds, we realize that rates of obsolescence ACCELERATE. Management of capital and investment becomes an evermore frenetic art, requiring increased, not declining entrepreneurship.

Now, let’s keep perspective here. I am NOT saying that capitalism lacks a whole slew of problems of its own. We are living through an era when the human-nature propensity for outrageous cheating by corrupt elites may threaten doom for the very same free markets that engendered them. (If he were alive today, Adam Smith, the “first liberal” would be tearing the guts out of every monopolist.) Moreover, just because it is proved that entrepreneurial investment is still needed at accelerating rates, this process does not have to be controlled by a ruthless plutocrat caste of oppressive and secretive exploiters.

Still, however the re-investment process is done, it remains an utterly dynamic process requiring leadership skills and ever-advancing proficiency at prediction/extrapolation, all motivated by the great efficiency-driver of profit. Moreover, it seems proved that this is best done along competitive market lines. (Find one counter-example.) The crux: there appears to be no “completion of capitalization of the means of production.” The very notion - fundamental to Marxism - is utter nonsense.

Alas, this fierce and absolute disproof of one of the great quasi-religious dogmas of all time goes without notice. The significance of the recapitalization curve would not have escaped an earlier generation, steeped in the old debates over Marxist theory. But today, amid a steady decline in the intelligencia, it seems not even to have been raised, allowing campus romantic-leftists - profoundly ignorant and unread - to keep dwelling on scenarios that are now, decisively, disproved.

Will they eventually take the blatant lesson and finally abandon Marx, along with the whole suite of vocabularies and assumptions that are as quaint as phlogostin, turning instead to the mature task of negotiating a trimmed-down and more scientific approach to world liberation? The same goals (universal peace and freedom and tolerance) could be approached from angles that are consistent with human nature and scientific fact, as well as hard lessons from the past. It could be done!

But watch. See what they consider more important. Clutching, indignantly, to comforting traditional rituals and dogmas and incantations will be far more important and precious than sacrificing favorite illusions. Lazy to a fault, they will neglect to do the very thing that Marx himself was bold enough to do... re-invent a movement that is badly, badly in need of some fresh air.


--Blackmail and other asides--

Highly varied responses to my previous posting about the danger of blackmail in public life. Some people complain about the length of my blog-missives, which are often full-length essays, seemingly archaic in an era of clipped, micro-rants. But I refuse to be hurried. Some ideas deserve detailed appraisal. And this one -- suggesting that unscrupulous enemies of the West would seek to entrap and blackmail public servants -- badly needs wider exposure.

Capsule summary: Nowadays many people worry about “corruption” and politicians “selling” their services. But if rich and powerful forces out there really are conniving and cheating their way into influence, it is far more effective, long-lasting, and economical to lure decision-makers into well-photographed compromised situations than it is to keep paying and paying for every favor. Public servants (especially Washington neophytes.) need to stay vigilant for entrapment, ESPECIALLY by “friends.”

Those who are already trapped ought to contemplate the “algebra of redemption” and keep their eyes open for opportunities to change their role. To be the heroes who stand up, fight back, and are forgiven everything.

-- Other matters --

* Robin Hanson (world expert on prediction registries) has a new blog. Says Michael Vasser: “It has replaced www.marginalrevolution.com as my choice for "best thing on the web" (imago.hitherby.com still deserves honorable mention).”

* Speaking of provocative but sometimes cogent blogging. The December Armageddon Buffet is now online. Also, while I am not always a big fan of Truthout, this article by Richard Clarke is terribly important.

* The drive by the Christian right to take control of military chaplaincies, which now sees radical Christians holding roughly 50 percent of chaplaincy appointments in the armed services and service academies, is part of a much larger effort to politicize the military and law enforcement. This effort signals the final and perhaps most deadly stage in the long campaign by the radical Christian right to dismantle America’s open society and build a theocratic state. A successful politicization of the military would signal the end of our democracy.

Author Chris Hedges goes on to offer yet more-chilling insights: “Erik Prince, the secretive, mega-millionaire, right-wing Christian founder of Blackwater, the private security firm that has built a formidable mercenary force in Iraq, champions his company as a patriotic extension of the U.S. military. These mercenary units in Iraq, including Blackwater, contain some 20,000 fighters. They unleash indiscriminate and wanton violence against unarmed Iraqis, have no accountability and are beyond the reach of legitimate authority. The appearance of these paramilitary fighters, heavily armed and wearing their trademark black uniforms, patrolling the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, gave us a grim taste of the future.”

A Timely Warning To All New Democratic Members Of Congress

In observing - with some approval - today’s official transition from the corrupt, incompetent and astonishingly lazy 109th Congress, it is not without some worry that we greet the young and hopeful 110th. Will the cynics prove right? Will politicians do what they have so often in the past... fall into bad habits that soon tarnish their idealism?

Let me say that I am less worried about the things that dour pundits normally dwell upon -- e.g. political temptations like earmarking and lobbyist dinners -- than by something far more profound and potentially devastating. Today's topic is a vital alert that I hope will percolate through channels to every officeholder and/or sincere civil servant, during an era of political transition.

Indeed, it may also be pertinent to some members of the Republican establishment. For we are about to discuss a danger and an opportunity that cross party lines. We’ll be dealing with traits like honor and pragmatism, cynicism and patriotism, cynical self-protection... and courage.


While negotiating the ethical and political minefield that is Washington, always remain wary of a particular worst-case scenario... one that can systematically undermine even the most well-meaning politicians.

That worst-case scenario is BLACKMAIL.


--------- A Little Background -------------

All of you enthusiastic neophytes to national power, this may be the very moment for a little protective paranoia. Remember, some powerful people will see you as a threat to their interests. Some of the more unscrupulous may seek to neutralize that threat, using some classic methods known across history. One of the most basic ancient techniques - going back to biblical times - has been entrapment and blackmail.

Remember the U.S. Marine guards at our embassy in Moscow, some decades back? It all started when a few boys -- lonely and far from home -- were invited to party with some local "students." A little alcohol, then sex with local hookers... (where's the harm?)... were followed by a drug high or two... and a few lewd pictures... then some incriminating ones...

At any point, early on, those young men could have saved their own lives and served their country, simply by turning themselves in. The very first to do so might even have saved his career. Others could have escaped with minor punishments. Instead (alas), they let themselves be blackmailed, by gradual stages, into doing the KGB "just a few harmless favors"...

...relatively harmless, at first. Xeroxing a few embassy visitor lists. Penny-ante stuff. Only then, the Soviets had real dirt on the poor fellows. Proof of espionage that could produce real prison time. And meanwhile the girls and drugs kept coming. Plus flattery. ("You are special, james Bond types - above normal loyalties and laws." Very similar patterns of ego-milking helped to suborn the Walkers and that FBI agent, Hanssen.) Very soon, they were trapped. Fully in the pockets of their nation's enemies. And betraying really harmful secrets.


---------Do You Doubt That It Still Goes On? ------

Security experts and intelligence agents know all about this process, which has been used by kingdoms, empires, syndicates and unscrupulous groups since time immemorial. Indeed, all through World War Two and the Cold War, it was a key job of counter-intelligence professionals to watch carefully for hints of subornation. They collected and correlated patterns of travel, or unaccountable wealth or crony-favoritism, keeping a wary eye open for anything consistent enough to merit closer scrutiny.

So now? Does it really matter that our roster of “enemies” has changed a bit? The KGB is gone. But there are others who do not want our civilization to thrive. Or who would influence our top decision-makers in order to be better parasites. Anyone who thought that this classic danger ended with the Cold War has got to be titanically naive.

Moreover, consider this. Bribery is actually far less efficient and reliable than blackmail! If you bribe an official or representative, they may demand more, next time, or simply say “I helped you enough, this year.” But blackmail puts them in your pocket for good. It makes the victim less a business associate and more your personal servant.

Has this scenario already been in play, among members of the present ruling caste? Of course the imagination can run wild - colored by your degree of paranoia and your personal politics. (How else would you explain some decision patterns, in recent years, that seem relentlessly to benefit just a few hostile interest groups, over and over again? Always start by listing the big winners.) No, I won’t go into detail here as to who I think may be orchestrating present-day attempts at subornation. I have no proof... nor does that matter, since nobody can point to a single era of history when it did not happen.

We are better off assuming the tradition goes on. And that some enemies of our republic, our civilization, and the Western Enlightenment are doing it right now.


----- The Warning Applies To You. ----

Oh, you incoming Democratic lawmakers, don't be fooled by the fact that most known American traitors, across the last 40 years, were Republicans! (e.g. the Walkers, Hanssen, etc.) Democrats are fallible, corruptible and human, too! Indeed, there may be forces at work in DC, right now, who aim to test this methodology on the newest players in that wild and ethically-challenged town.

(Hence, even veteran Democratic representatives may only lately be interesting targets for subornation, now that their party has a majority.)

Even if I am exaggerating the current extent of suborned betrayal within the many branches and agencies and media that make up the American Establishment, this will always be a danger. A peril that can turn almost any friend of our civilization into a snake, dwelling in our heart.

Hence, let me offer a little advice to all loyal Americans - whether Republican or Democrat - who may be embarking upon careers along avenues of power.


------Take some simple precautions ----

1) Consign yourself to live a super-clean life. Become a personal prude. Back away from temptations, even if they take place in the apparently secure confines of (say) a billionaire's yacht or on a private estate, or a royal palace in some foreign land.

Especially in those environs! Because those may be the very people who would like to “own” a Representative or bureaucrat. The more flattering and friendly and ego-stroking they may seem - assuring you of secure and private pleasures - the stronger the possibility that the very walls may have cameras. Aimed in order to guarantee that you will remain a valued friend.

2) Hire a good professional paranoid for your staff. Someone who knows all about these nasty tricks and who can spot bait-lures on the horizon. Likewise, have a truly wise confidant to whom you can turn, when temptation comes your way. And don’t entirely trust either of them.

3) Have a scenario-plan worked out, for when you are approached with either a potential entrapment or a followup blackmail threat. Those first instants of surprise and confusion could be critical. If you are prepared (especially technologically),you may be the one to turn the tables on your persecutors... and thus do your nation a service out of all proportion to any "goods" that the bad guys have on you.

Indeed, talking this over among yourselves, you may also be well served to look into whether agencies like the FBI may offer pre-training services, empowering you, and others like you, to act decisively and confidently, when and if such a time comes. (And if they don’t offer such services, they sure ought to! Ask why not.)

4) Contemplate the algebra of forgiveness. Some of you reading this may have already tumbled over the edge. It may already have happened to you. Some moment of weakness or falling into temptation. Perhaps even blackmail based upon faked photos, or something you never did! Maybe you have been on a hellish spiral for years, hating yourself...

...or else rationalizing that you are really serving a superior side. That’s what human beings often do. Even the worst traitors seldom view themselves that way.

However it has come down, consider this. It's never too late to do the right thing. If the subornation process that I describe has been going on in a systematic and pervasive way, polluting our institutions and corrupting our trusted public servants, how do you think history will view the first of you to show some guts? The first to stand up and fight back?

If you do it with savvy and skill, somehow turning the tables on your blackmailers, can you even doubt that your nation will value the service, far higher than it disdains your original, disreputable deed?

5) Help foster a civilization that rewards openness and forgiveness. This is a long term goal. But if we keep making progress toward a civilization that has a sense of proportion about lesser human failings, then we may neutralize many situations that were, or remain, “blackmailable.” Little sexual lapses should matter less than graft and treason, for example. (but remember, once you are blackmailed for the one, you may then commit the latter and be blackmailed for THAT!)

In any event, we all need to help foster trends toward a nation and a world where people will feel safe to own up to their faults, rather than feeling terrified that their smaller slips and faults will doom their hopes. We should not be led by folks who are afraid of light.


--- The Situation Is Unstable: So Pick The Ultimate Winner. Civilization. --

The crux?

Consider this: blackmailers love to give their victims a sense of helpless isolation. But the sickness may be far more pervasive than you imagine. and spreading. For it is the nature of evil men that they are insatiable. They will keep trying whatever has been working, casting their nets wider and wider, under an illusion that the good times can go on forever...

...until, at last, they try these tricks on people who do have the courage, wit and patriotism to fight back. At which point, the whole vile deck of cards may come tumbling down.

Where will you be, when that happens? According to the algebra of redemption, only the first who blow the whistle will get to be heroes, forgiven all, rewarded with everything. After them will come the most agile rats, abandoning a sinking ship, tattling and pointing fingers, in exchange for partial clemency...

...and the last to come out will be hung.

History shows that this kind of thing is never stable. Either it will result in democracy being thoroughly corrupted and destroyed... as has happened many times before...

... or else such schemes will collapse, as American civilization continues its inexorable progress toward an open and transparent and accountable society.

In the first of these two eventualities, you may thrive, having sided with the new oligarchs. But you will know (deep inside) that you helped to end the Great Experiment. May it gnaw your guts.

But suppose what happens is the second outcome (and I have strong reason to believe that it will be so). Then the cowards who let themselves be blackmailed or cozened or suborned or bribed or flattered into treason will eventually be brought to light. And they will be sorry.

Either way, you can see what is at stake. So be careful. Take precautions. Cut through the rationalizations. Keep your eyes open.


--- You Chose This Path: So Remember Your Oaths. ----

If you seek the people’s trust and to be granted political power, that makes you a soldier. Live with it.

We are a civilization that is at war for its very survival. Moreover, “terrorists” are among the most pallid and laughable of our enemies. There are worse threats to the continuation of a Great Experiment in open civilization, in science and democracy, in social mobility, in truly free markets and a joyfully open mix of competition and cooperation.

None of those great things can work well in darkness, manipulated by cheaters.

Stand up. Know what the enemy can do. And deny them the power.

-----

Manifestos of Optimism... plus science goodies.

My article “Prediction as Faith, Prediction as a Tool: Peering into Tomorrow's World” appeared in Futures Research Quarterly, vol.22 no.2 (2006) - the flagship publication of the World Future Society. It has caused a bit of stir...

But nothing like the what impresario/agent John Brockman manages to foment every year or so, when he gathers fifty or so intellectual luminaries for one of those unique, eclectic, annual group-think sessions on his mental Brahmin site “Edge.” This year’s “big question” topic is all about something we’ve been discussing here. The perils of lethargy-inducing cynicism in an era that demands vigorous attention to problem-solving.

See: Causes for Optimism -- The Edge Annual Question: What are you optimistic about? Why?

Only, before you go wading, be warned that it’s a wide, capacious pool... and sometimes even deep. Of course, most of the ideas expressed are kind of ho-hum and even shallow, in a been-there sense. Still, with sparkling minds like Kevin Kelly, Stewart Brand, William Calvin and many others aboard, you are bound to come across some real nuggets of surprise, insight and wisdom.

Here’s one sample. Chris Anderson, one of the curators of the TED Conference, offered this refreshing reminder that humans are far better tuned to perceive bad news than good:

“The publication last year of a carefully researched Human Security Report received little attention. Despite the fact that it had concluded that the numbers of armed conflicts in the world had fallen 40% in little over a decade. And that the number of fatalities per conflict had also fallen. Think about that. The entire news agenda for a decade, received as endless tales of wars, massacres and bombings, actually missed the key point. Things are getting better. 

“If you believe Robert Wright and his NonZero hypothesis, this is part of a very long-term and admittedly volatile trend in which cooperation eventually trumps conflict. Percentage of males estimated to have died in violence in hunter gatherer societies? Approximately 30%. Percentage of males who died in violence in the 20th century complete with two world wars and a couple of nukes? Approximately 1%. Trends for violent deaths so far in the 21st century? Falling. Sharply.

“In fact, most meta-level reporting of trends show a world that is getting better. We live longer, in cleaner environments, are healthier, and have access to goods and experiences that kings of old could never have dreamed of. If that doesn't make us happier, we really have no one to blame except ourselves. Oh, and the media lackeys who continue to feed us the litany of woes that we subconsciously crave.”

I’ll offer a few more riffs on optimism at the EDGE site, during some ensuing postings. But of course, that’s a poor substitute for having a look for yourself... and pondering whether Brockman’s site is achieving its true potential.


----OTHER ITEMS IN THE NEWS----

And this predictive hit: NASA scientists are developing a speech recognition system that can understand and relay words that haven't been said out loud.

The human body produces a natural painkiller several times more potent than morphine. When given to rats, the chemical, called opiorphin, was able to curb pain at much lower concentration than the powerful painkiller morphine.

If you enhance your workout with the new Nike+ iPod Sport Kit, you may be making yourself a surveillance target. A report from four University of Washington researchers reveals that security flaws in the new RFID-powered device from Nike and Apple make it easy for tech-savvy stalkers, thieves and corporations to track your movements. With just a few hundred dollars and a little know-how, someone could even plot your running routes on a Google map without your knowledge.

While the political debate over global warming continues, top executives at many of the nation's largest energy companies have accepted the scientific consensus about climate change and see federal regulation to cut greenhouse gas emissions as inevitable.

An ambitious teenager in Rochester Hills, Mich., is ranked as the 18th amateur to create nuclear fusion - combining atoms to create energy. 17-year-old Thiago Olson set up a machine in his parents' garage and has been working exhaustively for more than two years. His machine creates nuclear fusion on a small scale.

After decades of intensive effort by both experimental and theoretical physicists worldwide, a tiny particle with no charge, a very low mass and a lifetime much shorter than a nanosecond, dubbed the "axion," has now been detected by the University at Buffalo physicist who first suggested its existence in a little-read paper as early as 1974. This is amazing. The axion has been mythical for so long, this is truly tremendous news.

The axion has behttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifen seen as critical to the Standard Model of Physics and is believed to be a component of much of the dark matter in the universe. "These results show that we have detected axions, part of a family of particles that likely also includes the very heavy Higgs-Boson particle, which at present is being sought after at different laboratories,"

Boeing-Spectrolab has managed to create a solar cell with 40.7 percent sunlight-to-energy conversion efficiency.

Josh Duberman supplied this one.

"Businessman Joao Pedro Wettlauser was in Cologne, Germany, on Sunday when he received an alert on his phone informing him that someone had entered his vacation house in Guaruja, 54 miles south of Sao Paulo, police said.He quickly turned on his laptop and, thanks to security cameras connected to the Internet, was able to see a tattooed man stuffing goods into trash bags…"

Which is, of course, our future, when the cost of global bandwidth drops low enough, and the value of what's to be protected is high enough, to make it cost effective to engage eyes anywhere. In this case it was pretty simple, with a traditional alarm piping its alert over the phone network; he could have just had the alarm call in the police, though having one's own eyes on the situation avoids paying for false alarms, etc. But imagine when cheap bandwidth means that anyone with some spare time can be drafted into a "hey, watch my stuff, 'k?" network. Some Kalihari bushman's day job will be checking in on Beemers in parking garages in Manhattan.

Alas, the only thing missing was “as forecast long ago by...”

That’s it for now. These things have been accumulating so I have a large store of them... plus a sure-to-be controversial posting, soon, about the biggest danger to the incoming U.S. Congressional majority... anon...

2007 - the hard work on our plate

Here's a two-part New Year's message.

1) Russ Daggatt suggests a list of ways that we should party like it's 1999.

On December 31, 1999:

Bill Clinton was President
Al Gore was Vice President
Bruce Babbitt was Secretary of the Interior
Wesley Clark was the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO after running our most successful (and brief) "war" of all time.
For the fiscal year just ended (9/30/99), the US government ran a $125 billion surplus; for the year just beginning (10/1/99), the gov’t would go on to run a $236 billion surplus
The federal debt was $3 billion lower than it is now
The NASDAQ was up 84% (!) for the year just ended
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 24%
The S&P 500 was up 19%
The US was not at war
No one had heard of Paris Hilton

I would add that in 1999 an American could wander the globe without pretending to be a Canadian, and happy allies would buy you drinks.

In 1999 the opposition party was incensed with our state of military readiness; the US Army could only handle "one large and one medium surprise landwar-crisis." (Today it could not respond to even one surprise crisis.)

In 1999 the worst accusation that could be made against the Administration was that the first couple had fudged a failed land deal that lost them $80,000... and that the president fibbed about consensual nookie in a hallway.

We had better hope that centuries actually begin a few years after the calendar change. Because we have our work cut out for us, setting a progressive theme for the 21st.

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2) A little side topic: Musings about" tech-refusniks" --


The recent publication on an open site of my essay "Singularities and Nightmares" has spawned some press interviews. Let me share here some ruminations that seem apropos to the new years... having to do with the "tech-refusniks" who - for many reasons - seem prone to reject the benefits of high technology in an onrushing scientific age.

There are many styles of tech-refusenik. The Amish are classic examples of the type who reject modernity for theological or ideological reasons. The Unabomber - Ted Kaczynski - expressed his revulsion by dwelling in a shack, then using high tech means to attack targets who represented a technological age.

Some who despise this era relish a return to lifestyles that were less democratized or flattened by the "great equalizer" of mass access to tools. The Oklahoma City bombers were good examples of a "militia type" who often yearn for a general social collapse, as in Mad Max, whn old fashioned male strengths would matter more, as they did in the past. (My novel, The Postman, reflects on this.) At another extreme are neo-feudalists, who don't mind technology and comfort, but resent the fact that the masses are getting almost as many toys and rights and privileges as aristocrats, nowadays. How much better to have an old-fashioned pyramid of privilege, with a few on top lording it over many, below. But that won't happen if the masses are technologically empowered. Hence, much of the propaganda of fear, trying to promote refusnikism on a very broad scale.

From another angle, consider the effect of labor saving devices in the home. Today, a vast majority of Americans can avoid drudgery in ways that - formerly - only the very rich knew. Human servants used to perform the tasks now done by refrigerators and cars and microwaves and vacuum cleaners, etc. All of thistechnologically-driven equality seems to rob all our advances of their sense of wonder. This is prime territory for romantics. If everybody - the masses - has something, then it cannot be good or beautiful or worthwhile.

At the opposite extreme are folks who worry deeply about the COST of over-dependence upon technological crutches. This includes people who are concerned with the ecological damage done by wasteful-wastrel masses who seem bent on consuming simply for consumption's sake. Certainly there is a reasonable argument for some steps toward better common sense in today's "throw-away culture," where nothing is ever repaired, only replaced with the next shiny thing. A little "puritan conservatism" in this area may be a good influence on our civilization, so long as it does not tip over into nonsense.

Moreover, there are the ill effects of couch potato laziness. Not only in spreading waistlines! Lately, concerns are expressed about "nature defficiency syndrome"... in which children who never get outside appear to lose the _ability to notice complex natural patterns in a landscape filled with trees and other living things! Get them out of doors, in the dirt, go camping.

Finally, there is the matter of resiliency. It is one thing to use technological gadgetry to empower us, to get more things done, more of our ambitions accomplished, better use of scarce lifespan. It is quite another to become so dependent upon the widgets that we cannot thrive or succeed... or even survive... without them.

For this reason, I put my kids in scouting, encourage self-reliant skills like martial arts, teach them basic repairs and show them my old typewriter. Programs like CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) aim to enable whole neighborhoods to at least continue a minimal level of civilized life, even if they become cut off from the rest of the world for some time (as happened to New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina). I am encouraged by the movement to turn a million roofs into solar energy collector arrays.

Any people who are civilized and robust - instead of decadent - will do this kind of thing... and indeed, make a pleasant passtime of such things.

As pleasant as keeping the #%$##*! cell phone turned off, for long periods of serene time.

Some fear that we are becoming overly dependent on our tools. Connection-addiction is worrisome, seriously affects many of those who spend too much of each day online. Indeed, a sci fi scenario sees us all so link-addicted in a hundred years (perhaps because the neo-web will enhance IQ ... or else it may act like a drug). An addiction so intense that nobody at all wants to sail forth to colonize the stars.

Which may at last explain the Great Silence out there.

Balance, folks. Lots of citokate. Stay resilient and robust. And that's my new years message to you all.