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> Subject: [unrev-II] Digest Number 143
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> There are 5 messages in this issue.
>
> Topics in this digest:
>
> 1. Separation of Business and State (was Re: "Ishmael", Caveman
> Diet, Garden of Eden)
> From: Paul Fernhout <pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com>
> 2. Economics and the Garden of Eden
> From: Paul Fernhout <pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com>
> 3. RE: Glossary - just breaking the ice on this task
> From: altintdev@webtv.net
> 4. Re: Economics and the Garden of Eden
> From: Paul Fernhout <pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com>
> 5. Ontology, Glossary, Alignment
> From: Rod Welch <rowelch@attglobal.net>
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
> ________________________________________________________________________
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2000 10:33:20 -0400
> From: Paul Fernhout <pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com>
> Subject: Separation of Business and State (was Re: "Ishmael", Caveman
> Diet, Garden of Eden)
>
> Interesting essay!
>
> Eric Armstrong wrote:
> > [snip]
> > But guess what? Government programs are *so* widely influenced by
> > business, that government isn't doing it either! This leads to my
> > basic proposition: The one weak link in our entire civilization,
> > the one problem that prevents all the *other* problems from being
> > solved, is the lack of separation between business and state.
> >
> > The framers of our constitution saw the need to separate church
> > and state. In one stroke, they prevented the excessive and abusive
> > exercises of power that characterized other nations, and they
> > prevented religions from exerting a stranglehold on government
> > action. However, they could not have foreseen the rise of the
> > industrial civilization that is now exercising a new kind of power,
> > frequently in ways that ultimately harmful. (On television last
> > night, there were drugs to make you go to sleep, drugs to fix
> > your upset stomach, drugs to solve you "social anxiety" problems,
> > and drugs for a variety of other conditions. There were also ads
> > for cereals, soft drinks, beer, and dozens of other fun but
> > so essentially-unhealthy substances that they should be treated
> > like cigarettes -- you can sell them, but you can't advertise
> > them. When you add up all the harmful things that are being sold
> > over the airwaves, it's pretty sickening, really.)
> >
> > So how, HOW, does one achieve a separation of business and state?
> > What does that mean? What does it translate to in terms of things
> > that the government can and cannot do? The question is important,
> > because I'm not sure there is any way for culture to begin
> > approaching a garden of eden, unless we answer it.
>
> Eric -
>
> This is a brilliant insight and very consisely put. You have framed this
> issue in a way that one can begin to think about more clearly. Thanks
> for the great contribution!
>
> -Paul Fernhout
> Kurtz-Fernhout Software
> =========================================================
> Developers of custom software and educational simulations
> Creators of the Garden with Insight(TM) garden simulator
> http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
> ________________________________________________________________________
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2000 12:05:24 -0400
> From: Paul Fernhout <pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com>
> Subject: Economics and the Garden of Eden
>
> John -
>
> You make many good points, but there are a few that I think needs
> elaboration.
>
> John \"sb\" Werneken wrote:
>
> > [Snip]
> > There is a simple solution to the problem that some things are without
> > ownership and hence tend to be treated poorly by the markets - such as
> > species diversity, clean air, or unspoiled vistas. Give them owners.
> Then
> > they will be given value in the market place and will be conserved, as
> all
> > valued properties are.
>
> However, a big issue here is external costs.
>
> If I own "clean air" and I sell the right to pollute, and other people
> have a greater chance of getting lung cancer, I am passing on an
> external cost to the community. It is unlikely under today's law that I
> could be successfully sued for this because it is difficult to prove
> damages. So it is profitable for me as the "air owner" to kill people
> (statistically).
>
> Another issue is perceived value of cash vs. a non-cash resource, which
> is often highly idiosyncratic to the owner and immediate needs.
>
> Lets say developers want to pave the Amazon to build a large parking
> lot. I own 100% of the worlds biodiversity rights. They approach me, and
> say we'll give you $200,000 for the right to pave the Amazon. Imagine I
> have a whiny child who want to go to Princeton. I need the cash right
> now! Seems like a good deal. Who is hurt? Me? No! Maybe just future
> generations who never get various medicines or can enjoy nature. But, it
> is a profitable exchange in the light of the priorities of the resource
> owner. Granted, maybe The Nature Conservancy http://www.tnc.org/ might
> have offered me more money in the future, but I needed the cash now.
> Plus, the remaining world's biodiversity is even more valuable since
> there is less of it, so my remaining asset may actually increase in
> value.
>
> Think this is a silly example? It's pretty much what is happening right
> now as the remaining old growth forests in the USA are being cut down to
> give antiquated timber mills a few more years of profit before those
> mills are obsolete. You might argue timber companies might make more
> money out of using the remaining forest for recreation or harvesting new
> DNA, but they don't see that as their business, and they have an
> existing physical plant and cultural system based on cutting down
> forests. (By the way, the replacement monoculture "tree farms" with
> nicely spaced rows bear little resemblance in biodiversity to the
> original forest.)
>
> Another real example is the destruction of the "state" owned environment
> in the old USSR by various factories. The government owned both the
> environment and the factories -- it just decided to sacrifice one for
> the other.
>
> I don't see how replacing the state with an individual or corporation
> will make things better. Even within a corporation, perceptions may
> differ as to the value of a non-cash asset. For example, the Newton was
> way ahead of it's time, but Apple decide to kill it because it wasn't
> profitable to keep it up. Or for example, in the 1970's sci-fi movie
> "Silent Running",
> http://starriders.net/sfmovies/silent.htm
> the Earth's remaining biodiversity is stored in habitat domes in "Pan
> Am" space freighters, and the decision is made to blow up the domes and
> return the freighters to commercial service (probably because that would
> be more profitable in the short term). Everyone goes along with this
> except one ecologist who resists.
>
> I think preserving biodiversity for example takes social consensus, and
> when necessary, enforcing laws related to the public well being and "the
> seventh generation". Every fight to preserve biodiversity has been
> difficult. Creating the National Parks system in the 1930s and
> preserving places like Yellowstone was a huge political fight.
>
> > Business is nothing but the desires of all individuals, expressed
> > autonomously and honestly in their purchasing decisions.
>
> Business reflects the desires of individuals to the extent they can pay
> for goods and services. If you are a poor farmer in Ethiopia, "business"
> cares not a bit about your desires. This is a fundamental problem with
> markets. They reflect the interests of people with the money. That is
> why they need to be tempered with morality and laws.
>
> There's a catchy song I heard on NPR once.
>
> An example verse is something like:
> "Someone owns the water, someone owns the soil,
> someone owns the land, and someone owns the oil.
> Someone owns the sky, someone owns the trees,
> Someone owns my body but they can't own me."
>
> The refrain goes something like:
> "Everyone's a criminal unless you got the money, honey".
>
> Anyone know who the songwriter / singer is?
>
> > Government in contrast reflects the decisions of a smaller group.
>
> In theory, Government should reflect a broad community that is governed.
> In practice you may be right (especially given the lack of separation of
> business and state Eric points out).
>
> > [Your general sentiment of the value of capitalism and ownership.]
>
> In general, I think you are right. A market system has been involved in
> the production and availability of all sort of interesting goods and
> services. People do tend to take better care of resources when they own
> them. For example, it is often said that home owners take better care of
> them and their communities than renters.
>
> This also has to do with feedback mechanisms as you mentioned.
> Christopher Alexander discusses this in his book "Notes on Synthesis of
> Form" where he gives the example of living in a mud hut vs. living in a
> skyscraper. The owner of the mud hut will patch a hole that causes a
> draft. The inhabitant of a skyscraper does not have access or
> understanding of the building's air circulation system. Further, the
> architects who designed the skyscraper will probably never (or only
> years later) get feedback on the problems with the ventilation design.
>
> Both Christopher Alexander and Langdon Winner (in his book "Autonomous
> Technology") make the point that technical systems should be readily
> understood and adaptable by the inhabitants, so that they can be made
> more responsive to the inhabitants needs and prevent the tyranny of the
> infrastructure. Unfortunately, there is money to be made in supplying
> difficult to understand technical systems with proprietary parts which
> resist modification, because that keeps the "user" dependent on the
> "supplier", with a resulting continuous revenue stream for the supplier.
> As Eric points out, most bioengierring efforts for example work in this
> direction -- "terminator" seeds or plant requiring heavy applications of
> pesticides (i.e. "Roundup-ready Soybeans").
>
> The issue is taking things to extremes, the difficulty of assigning
> external costs, and differences in perceived long term value of
> resources of a scale we can't comprehend [like nature].
>
> It used to be considered profitable to enslave people. That is rarely
> overtly done now because it is now generally considered morally wrong.
> In part this is also because it turns out you can get more work out of a
> "free" person for less total cost than owning a slave, especially when
> the free person is part of certain types of organizations with capital
> for tools. Someday the same thing might be widely thought about
> destruction of biodiversity. And again, this will be in part because
> economically you can get more out of biodiversity than pavement or
> lumber.
>
> What is economic to do? In part it depends on the laws. If it is illegal
> to kill
> or beat your slaves, it may be more profitable to employ them. If it is
> illegal to destroy biodiversity, it may be more profitable to use it for
> sightseeing, medical research, or attracting programmers to Seattle (the
> most profitable use of old growth forest in the Pacific Northwest so far
> -- too bad old-growth forest owners can't easily profit from it -- this
> is the reverse situation of "external costs" I guess: "external
> profits").
>
> > "These people clearly did not have our relationship to the world,
> > they were of it and not its masters.
>
> You may not have meant to imply this, but I think it is a dangerous
> assumption that we today are in any sense "masters" of nature. It is
> more like (I think I encountered this idea in Geologist Preston Cloud's
> book "Oasis in Space") humans have become a geological force. We can
> destroy nature, but that doesn't not mean we can rebuild it.
>
> And, I would argue (to boil down Manual De Landa's "War in the Age of
> Intelligent Machines") the upcoming singularity involving intelligent
> autonomous machines will may with some probability (small or large?)
> leaves us with very little mastery of many things. Eric has a good point
> in suggesting we turn our attentions to building "Edens", however the
> inhabitants define "Edens". For me, that means creating decentralized
> resilient self-replicating infrastructure for life support and economic
> production.
>
> -Paul Fernhout
> Kurtz-Fernhout Software
> =========================================================
> Developers of custom software and educational simulations
> Creators of the Garden with Insight(TM) garden simulator
> http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
> ________________________________________________________________________
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2000 10:26:25 -0700 (PDT)
> From: altintdev@webtv.net
> Subject: RE: Glossary - just breaking the ice on this task
>
> Hello,
> I put this version of a glossary at
>
>
> www.hypermultimedia.com/DKR/glossary.htm
>
> Thanks and Best Regards,
> Joe
>
> Alternative Interface Devices.
> Improve Accessibility and Utility of the WWW...
>
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
> ________________________________________________________________________
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2000 13:43:56 -0400
> From: Paul Fernhout <pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com>
> Subject: Re: Economics and the Garden of Eden
>
> Coincidentally, I just noticed a Slashdot thread on this sort of issue.
>
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/06/01/1910234&mode=thread&threshold=
> 2
>
> The thread is spawned by a review of "Natural Capitalism", a book aimed
> at "reconciling nature lovers with free market enthusiasts".
>
> -Paul Fernhout
> Kurtz-Fernhout Software
> =========================================================
> Developers of custom software and educational simulations
> Creators of the Garden with Insight(TM) garden simulator
> http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
> ________________________________________________________________________
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 02:26:13 -0700
> From: Rod Welch <rowelch@attglobal.net>
> Subject: Ontology, Glossary, Alignment
>
> Jack,
>
> Review of the web site for Ontologos showed very powerful capabilities, as
> you
> suggested in our telecon on 000602...
>
> http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/00/06/02/155108.HTM#L211402
>
> I sent Ontologos a letter asking for support on implementation.
>
> http://www.welchco.com/04/00067/61/00/06/0201.HTM#0001
>
> Hopefully Ontologos can helps us move forward on the category requirements
>
> which Eric indicates in v0.7 is modeled on the Traction program...
>
> http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/00/06/01/163557.HTM#5933
>
> Bill Bearden...
>
> Thanks for your update on development of a glossary....
>
> http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/00/06/02/155108.HTM#L0704
>
> Defining vocabulary is a big part of creating a new discipline, as
> contemplated
> by "Knowledge Management," requiring proactive support by the entire team.
>
> Thanks again for getting us off to a good start.
>
> Rod
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
> ________________________________________________________________________
>
>
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