The political landscape is very divisive because everyone is approaching society's problems from slightly different perspectives. We are convinced that we are right and everyone else is an uncaring, selfish, idiot. We simultaneously perceive ourselves as caring, generous, geniuses. Today I want to present a unified political theory that should be consistent with the goals and principles of these seemingly contradictory philosophies.
Before I get into the theory, I would like to encourage you to discard all preconceived notions about what things are possible and/or contradictory. I consider myself an voluntarist who believes in private property, austrian economics, and self-government. This means that I would never advocate solutions that depend upon taxation or coercion. It also means that I seek solutions that are internally consistent and free from internal contradiction. You can imagine my surprise when I stumbled across a theory that supports some solutions advocated by socialists (i.e. universal basic income).
Apparent Conflict between Anarchy and Socialism
I have always viewed socialism as a means of wealth redistribution from the “rich” to the “poor”. There are many different justifications for this redistribution, but I have never found them compelling. Socialism and/or communism are usually based upon the idea of “taking from those according to their ability and giving to those according to their need.” When viewed from this perspective, those with ability will naturally resist giving up that which is theirs. It would appear that in order to support those in need some form of government must exist to coerce those who are able to produce. I reject the notion that violence and government are necessary.
Like most things in life, if you ask the wrong questions, then you will get the wrong answers. The socialists have their heart in the right place when they want to taking care of those in need. This is a noble end and something that everyone from anarchists, to libertarians, to capitalists, socialists, and communists can support. The problem isn’t with the “goal”, but with the “means” by which it should be achieved.
What socialist could complain if a system were developed that gave every man, woman, and child a guaranteed income that automatically grows with the economy. On what basis could a socialist complain if this income was automatically regulated (without politics, speculation, or expert algorithms) to balance the production capacity of society with the rate of consumption to ensure that society never consumes tomorrow's productive capacity to feed today’s wants.
With a guaranteed income automatically tuned to society's productivity, everyone could buy the balance of food, shelter, education, healthcare, and leisure that suits their preferences within a market-defined sustainable budget.
Don’t Redistribute Wealth
The root of the conflict between capitalists and socialists is that one wishes to redistribute property which the other perceives as theirs. There is obviously a moral problem with stealing from one person to give to another, but that doesn’t make the capitalists right and the socialists wrong.
Both sides are wrong and both sides are right. The capitalist is wrong in believing that they own something they don’t and the socialist is wrong in believing they must take something by force that rightfully belongs to the capitalist. The problem is the word redistribute and the root of the problem is the belief that all of the world is already “owned” by someone.
Two people crash on a deserted island. One lands near the only tree with fruit and the other on a barren beach. The man near the fruit will naturally claim ownership of the tree and the man on the beach will cry foul. The island existed before they both arrived. Neither individual has the right to make any claims. At most you can say they each have a 50% interest in the island. Before any resources can be allocated, both men must agree. Once they agree all trades are final.
If one man agrees to let the other man have the fruit in exchange for the right to the beach and everything on it then that is a fair trade. After this trade if the man on the beach is hungry because he is unable to catch fish, then he has no moral right to ask for the fruit to be redistributed. Distribution has already occurred.
The Earth is an Island
The earth is an island floating in space that we all crashed on. No one has any more right to the earth’s resources than anyone else. In order to fairly distribute the earth’s natural resources we give every man, woman, and child a token representing one share in the earth. All resources can then be auctioned off to the highest bidder (using shares as money). Proceeds of the sales are paid to each proportional to their shares. Through this process all the world's resources can be fairly distributed.
Naturally people are born and die. The question becomes does one generation have the right to claim and consume all of the world's resources or do future generations have a property right? Time is a dimension like space. Those who are born “first” are like the man near the fruit tree. He got lucky and crashed near some food. One could argue that he crashed “first” and thus inherited the whole island.
I believe that resources should be allocated fairly across time and space and all people regardless of where or when they were born have equal claim on the earth and should be allocated an equal share in “Earth, Inc”.
Distribute our Natural Inheritance
If you imagine all the earth is owned by a single corporation and this corporation pays all people 1 share of stock per day and anyone who wishes to take resources from Earth, Inc must buy them from the corporation at auction then you can imagine how wealth can be distributed to all without taking from anyone. Once the resources are purchased from Earth, Inc they become the private property of individuals.
No need to hit Reset on Property Rights
One of the problems faced by all the *-isms is that they often require a massively disruptive change to the way the world works to be implemented. You may think that it would be politically impossible to get the whole world to agree to “redistribute everything at auction”. It would be impossible and it would require force and violence. Fortunately this is not required.
Imagine Adam and Eve auctioned the entire earth. They each bid with their individual shares and allocated all of the earth's resources. Earth, Inc is now a company with no assets. Let’s assume that Eve agreed to let Adam buy the whole earth for his 1 share. Eve now owns all of Earth, Inc and Adam owns all of the Earth.
At first glance Eve may appear to be the sucker because Adam purchased the Earth. This is where one last detail remains. Earth, Inc cannot sell its future interest because the future interest is what backs it’s future shares, only today’s interest can be sold. Tomorrow is a new earth and Adam and Eve are each given new shares. On this second day Adam has 1 share and Eve has 2 shares. Because Eve saved, she now has three times the purchasing power of Adam.
Suppose Adam and Eve go about life and after a few generations everyone “forgot” about Earth, Inc and its daily shares. Suppose they all started fighting to claim land and started using gold and silver as the basis of trade. It would appear that Earth, Inc no longer mattered. All the resources of the world have been claimed and people believe they are the rightful owner. This is the world we live in today.
Earth, Inc still exists and everyone is still earning their rightful shares. All that has happened is that people have forgotten about this virtual resource. No one is buying or selling shares in Earth, Inc nor recognizing the purchasing power due those who hold the shares.
Suppose that a group of people rediscovered Earth, Inc and started using shares in Earth, Inc as a unit of account? Like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies these shares would gain market value based upon speculation and the size of the economy built around it. Those who use shares in Earth, Inc are choosing to honor every individual’s natural inheritance in the earth. Those who reject Earth, Inc would continue to deny the birthright of their fellow man.
It should be obvious that no one is going to recognize Earth, Inc’s claim to the natural resources of the world and therefore there will be no daily land auction. However, mankind is not limited to existing natural resources. Those who work to revive Earth, Inc can grant it new virtual resources that can be auctioned off each day. These resources can be namespaces, bandwidth, influence, smart contract computation, and attention.
If shares in Earth, Inc were to grow to become the reserve currency of the world then it would once again serve as a fair arbiter of property rights. It would be as if Adam recognized that Eve’s shares had value even after she sold him the earth. By honoring the purchasing power of Eve’s shares Adam would effectively be allowing a fair “return policy”.
It is entirely possible for society to transform through voluntary exchange into a world that respect the property rights of all while simultaneously giving every man, woman, and child a basic income of one share in the economy per day. Initially the economy would be small and the shares would be worth little, but as more people recognize the natural rights of their fellow man and adopt the currency the shares would grow in value.
Selling your Birthright for a Bowl of Stew
If a new cryptocurrency were to be launched that gave everyone one share per day, then many people would take their “share” and sell it on the market for next to nothing. Those who believe in the system could buy the share speculating that the market will gravitate toward the platform due to its recognition of everyone's birthright. Everyone would get to decide whether they want to be Esau, and sell their birthright, or Jacob who picks it up at the bargain basement price of a bowl of stew.
Unlike the story of Jacob and Esau, the proposed system does not allow you to sell your birthright all at once. Instead your birthright is held in trust and distributed on a daily basis. This “feature” of the system should appeal to the socialists who do not trust their fellow man to be able to budget their inheritance. At scale, no one would ever be completely broke.
Conclusion
There is a system that is free from politics, violence, and manipulation where by honest individuals can trade amongst themselves while respecting both the property rights and the birthright of every individual. If this system were voluntarily adopted by all of the proponents of socialism then it would become one of the largest currencies in the world and each individual’s basic income could be sufficient to cover their daily food, shelter, clothing, and healthcare. There would be no need for taxation which would save the economy hundreds of billions of dollars in accounting overhead every year while protecting everyone’s financial privacy.
The reduce taxation and regulatory burden combined with the politically neutral, market-based approach would bring the capitalist / conservatives / libertarians on board and further grow the economic power behind the token and therefore the minimum standard of living afforded by our birthright interest in our planet and our universe.
We love you DAN!!!
Keep up the good work.
Can't wait for EOS
Thanks for this, Dan! I get the sense that you're truly "wired for benevolence." I also believe you're seriously thinking about the hard problems. I come from a slightly different perspective, having spoken with ~100 to ~400 people per day, for months on end, about politics (I was a libertarian party petitioner/"activist"/pamphleteer).
I believe that drilling down into subsections of "cybernetics"(History, Economics, Law, Philosophy) is only useful at a young age, in a "common law"(economically free, spontaneous-order-generating) system that has not been thoroughly corrupted. Because the system is now dominated by sociopaths, the labels we have for any cybernetic sub-system won't matter: those labels, if good, will be dishonest. (Even so, I actually like that you took things back to "fundamentals" using basic moral archetypes, for that reason. I just think that given the well-established works of cybernetics, anything that presents itself as a "unified theory" should reference Norbert Wiener's "Cybernetics" and "empath vs. sociopath Psychology"--Stanley Milgram, Philip Zimbardo-- more than "Economics" or "Philosophy.")
All human beings are fighting over who has the ability to control money: central bank insiders(and their corrupted stooges, the major party voters), or individuals(precious metal owners, bitcoin owners who know cryptography and practice rigid opsec, those with "leading force" technology)? But the battle isn't unfolding in the domain of "Economics," it's unfolding in the domain of "processing networks" and "psychology." The "Economics" battle is a mid-level battle that was politically lost a long time ago.
I guess that my only real objection to this article is that it doesn't recognize that the problem is not one of comprehension or understanding. The problem is a battle which rarely escalates to physical fighting, because one side is far superior in strength to the other. Educating the side that has the power is unnecesary and useless: they know why they have the power. Power allows them to steal unlimited amounts of money (by controlling the money creation process itself), that can then buy them the best food, reproductive privileges, shelter, travel privileges, and fungible resources stores(money).
They know that even US "libertarians" (much less some subset of libertarians, such as "objectivists," "agorists," "ancaps," "classical liberals," etc.) lack the will to abolish the fed. They are too comfortable to fight for something that means giving up that comfort. If they weren't, they be like Frederick Douglass and Lysander Spooner: they'd be organizing against unjust punishment EFFECTIVELY.
Organizing effectively means you have to be honest about the psychological priorities of the majority.
The majority wants comfort over freedom. They want to be able to raise families first, and want to be free second. (Luckily, it's "second" rather than "not at all," or we'd have no chance.) The majority confers power on the bankers and prison profiteers, because they believe "anarchists" offer no viable alternative. (And sadly, they are usually correct.)
In order to get the libertarian society they claim to want, libertarians have to figure our the optimal formulation of their beliefs, both PHILOSOPHICAL and STRATEGIC. Without both of the prior elements, libertarianism will not get the free and prosperous "classical liberal" society it desires.
The term "anarchy" is strategic death, because, to the average voter, it means "nobody comes to arrest Jeffrey Dahmer ...nobody has the legitimate authority to investigate the smell of dead bodies coming from his apartment." This is a problem that anarchists can't bring themselves to deal with honestly. So they take the dishonest path of "redefining the term 'anarchy'." Yet, in every way the current system has a "ruler" who enforces "rules" on pot smokers, the current system has a "ruler" who enforces "rules" on serial murderers. The classical liberal system says, "here's how those rulers and rules need to be different." The anarchist system says "get rid of the rulers entirely, in all circumstances." (Now sure, anarchists will claim that's not the case, and they will give you "their definition" of the term anarchy, but it's not the same as the one inthe dictionary, so this discrepancy causes the vast majority of mainstream people to reject anarchy. This is a strategic weakness, because, most of what agorists actually want is the same thing desired by "sufficiently radical classical liberals.")
The central bankers know everything I've written is true. They know it at such a deep level that they encourage "agorists" and even pay for them to speak out on message boards against electoral participation.
Electoral participation can uncover rigged votes(via exit polling and exit-polling videos). Staying at home on election day cannot.
Until a "unified theory" of politics combines philosophy with strategy and addresses both in great detail, it will not be a "unified theory." Moreover, both prior subjects will need to be addressed in the language of "cybernetics" or "control and communication in the animal and the machine."
Your arguments are very interesting. The problem, I believe, lies with the "ifs" in the last few lines. You need to assume quite a bit about human nature. In fact, I believe that some aspects of human nature (some of us might argue that women would behave better than men in this respect) would/will inevitably play the role of stumbling blocks towards the implementation of your vision. I am thinking of the desire to PREVAIL, of e.g. the "alpha male", who wishes to have more than other males (more sex, more food, more recognition). Fair trade would not fulfil that need, I believe. I could elaborate further on this, but I am sure you get the point, so I can stop here and help keeping our blockchain light and lean :-)
I'll gladly vote you leader of STEEM island once we procure it.
As unofficial Sheriff of STEEM and newly converted universal income supporter I'm excited to see exactly what you're got hatched for a plan to put all of these ideas into motion so we can all live them rather than merely swap hypotheticals. :)
Maybe this will be the chance for TDV to go legit and start selling Steem Island passports.
https://storage.googleapis.com/vidsums/53454af5-4188-4635-b622-e187582d4095.mp4
( a clip from the movie Super Troopers)
I really love your comment @klye. Dan's theory really feels like a revelation to me. I have seen this theory elsewhere. It give me a new perspective on things. I'm glad you came around. I too was always weirded out by UBI prior to reading Dan's posts. I too am impress by Dan's work and it seems the more I read and uses his creations the more I'm impressed.
Sadly behind all the *isms are some people who value power over others more than the property itself. Some people get a kick out of belittling and keeping people down. These type of people will likely always exist as we even see such behavior in very young children. We see it in animals, and especially those with an Alpha.
This idea of yours has a lot of potential. I only mention these other types of people because, they are the natural opponent to adopting such things. If it removes their opportunity for power over others they will fight it.
The interesting thing is it seems to be the power seekers that rise through the ranks of corporations, governments, and organizations simply because they volunteer for tasks and positions that the rest of us would rather not have to deal with. If a person is a power seeker then volunteering for the positions the people are apathetic about, but is a decision making position affords a ladder to power.
That is an issue I am uncertain how to address short of education, and emphasis on critical thinking and reason.
I partially address your concerns in my child reply (further indented, same thread).
Further clarification is necessary, but takes too long if I address the psychological objections from all common psychological profiles, rather than just your own. Also, I might not profile you correctly, and might address concerns different than your actual concerns. For this reason, if you want additional clarification from me, we'll have to talk.
Yes, I was not hung up on the alpha male. That is just the direction it headed based upon a reply. I more indicated there are those who seek power and they tend to rise through organizations simply because they volunteer for roles many of us would rather not do. These roles tend to be tedious, but involve decision making so they lead to an expression of power and typically opportunity to further advance. This issue will be something any Utopian dream would need to address. While i do not believe perfection is attainable, I do believe it and Utopia are both simply expressions of infinity and something we can strive towards and never reach. As such while Dan's proposal intrigues me I was playing devil's advocate and saying WHAT ABOUT people like this? The power seekers. How do we address them? Someone replied to me and took it into the females seeking powerful people direction. My initial post about power seekers was much more broad than simple biological imperatives.
I'm better with the written word myself. There's much I'd like to address here when given the moment. With my basis that I don't prescribe to materialist outlook of evolution being the prime factor in our behaviour. I would call it evolutionary dogma. Regarding the sex instinct, coincidentally, I am in the process of writing a post which includes some points about the fallacy in evolutionary/'man as animal' reductions. I will cross post the relevant paragraphs here. Your comments have inspired some further insights thank you.
We can't be truly sovereign individuals if our impulses, civilizations, relationships and everything about us is a totality of the primitive aspects of evolution.
Your comments on the sociopath I agree with (some machiavellianism shoudnt be shunned) though I dont agree with the construct itself. In some ways it is a prejudice against masculinity. Pathologizing behaviours in some instances is non-humanistic. I wrote a post about psychopathy I think you'd agree with:
https://steemit.com/psychology/@radioactivities/social-control-series-1-why-the-concept-of-psychopathy-is-more-dangerous-than-a-psychopath
in studying primate behaviour it was noticed that when the leading male is a jerk the rest conspire to 'overthrow' him. Murder him even.
Even in the animal world the females don't go for the most brutal and 'powerful' in the violent way.
It's bizarre that people attribute this characteristic to human females universally. There's no evidence for it except through eyes clouded with desire and envy. It's only because women who stay with shitty men stand out, being seen as tragic due to female intrinsic value among other things.
True but if males assume this is the case then it is a motive for some of them to seek power.
I don't think the biological impertive reductionism is the biggest factor. Perception definitely effects it. A look around shows few women opt for polygamy with some 'rich' and 'powerful' dude. Maybe its just easier for some people to believe.
Every "rich and (therefore) powerful" dude who really wants multiple women has them. But being rich and powerful is fairly difficult, (unless you inherited the ability to print money), so there are few such situations. The balance that has arisen is a consequence of ongoing cyclical competition for scarce resources.
Sure. Same for any handsome masculine dude regardless wealth. My guy friend whose slept with the most women is unemployed.
Most women dont opt to exclusivity with these guys either. Pussy is not some finite resource.
This is a reply to the child comment above. Since child comments are cut off for lack of further indentation.
My point was just that all undesirable variables can be offset by fungible resources. If you're ugly, you try harder for pussy or sometimes pay for pussy. If you're really ugly you only pay for pussy. All variables can be approximately separated out for planning purposes.
Girls who really want a smart guy are rare, but girls who really want a handsome guy are common. ...But the guy must be independent (he must have found a niche where he doesn't have to be smart). Independent wealth(ability to exploit one's environment, including predominantly-equal-intelligence human cybernetic networks) is the single most important variable, because, if it weren't, replication resources would have been squandered by being improperly allocated.
For the 50,000,000 years when muscle was as or more important than brains, and essential during frequent conflict, muscle was programmed by statistical selection into female sexual preferences.
Nature/"Evolutionary selection" tends to not squander replication resources. If it did, we(sociopaths+empaths) might look and/or act a lot different.
It's always important to remember that there is no "we," except in the statistical sense. "We" includes empaths and sociopaths. In nature, a hungry sociopath will eat an abandoned baby, whereas a hungry empath will pick up the baby and try to protect it from human and animal "state of nature/sociopathy-by-default". A hungry partial sociopath who is "on the sociopathic-spectrum" (stunted mirror neurons, stunted empathy) but is aware of the cybernetic systems created by empaths will bring the baby back to the tribe, as a means of currying favor or trust, so he's in a position to steal far more than one meal.
The last describes the position of political sociopaths in our society. They use their superior understanding of society to gain trust from people who are clearly less intelligent, but more moral than they are.
Some females may dislike this type of sociopath, but there are very clearly millions who do not.
There is no disincentive toward legalized bullying, largely because "anarchists" have subtracted themselves from the one technology that has slowly placed limits on organized sociopathic bullying: political technology. See: https://www.leadershipinstitute.org/resources/files/THE%20REAL%20NATURE%20OF%20POLITICS.pdf
This is a binary or "all-or-nothing" backlash against a position that is "statistically relevant." Earning power combined with decision-making power is highly sought, both by bad people and good. A good person has to be more skilled than a bad person to seek and win positions in government and industry, because bad people also have access to highly-effective "immoral strategies." This would be enough to make "good women" crave "bad men(sociopaths)," strengthening statistical distributions of "the warrior gene" (sociopath genetics) as "selfish genes." (Ignore the term "selfish genes" if you have not read Dawkins' book "The Selfish Gene," because you will almost certainly misinterpret the use of the term "selfish," if so.)
Cybernetic systems are a subset of evolutionary systems, and vice-versa. (One can emerge from the other, as dumb-molecules very slowly gave rise to colonies of bacteria, then colonies of insects, then more advanced brains and brain modules, and eventually the most advanced land-mammal brains gave rise to evolved software run at THz speeds.)
A statistically large number of women won't stay with a man who doesn't rape them. Few women, as a percentage of the whole number, want a man they can physically overpower. But millions do want such a man. This simply means that a smart weak man who wants a woman who can overpower him can find such a woman --but he has to exert more effort to do so. Also, he runs a greater risk of being tricked by a woman who does not share his goals.
Evolution saddled us with our current genetic situation. Those who fight(disbelieve) genetics are likely to lose. This is why voluntaryism should readily accept "pro-social" sociopaths (like Gary Johnson, etc.) into the fold, so long as they do not behave as sociopaths, and are watched closely for external corruption.
In short, there are no "universal" sexual desires, but to statistically profile "what there is a market for" need only deal with "large enough percentages to matter."
A huge percentage of women desire a man who is "more than adequate" to provide for her young. How much "more than adequate"? That estimate requires difficult calculation, so the female instead relies on reliable "signals" as a decision-making heuristic. This reliance on signals is not a conscious choice, it's evolutionarily selected for and built into sexual attraction.
If it were not, females would be physically superior to men, would dominate decision-making positions, and would be opened up to slaughter by competitors during pregnancy.
This is a consequence of 50,000,000 years of human evolution; of selection under "might makes right" tribal precursors to civilization.
What you're arguing over is whether 30% of women want an "alpha male" or whether 60% or even 90% want an alpha male. ...And how many of the percentage who secretly want an alpha male will settle for something less, or for a beta who knows when to pretend to be an alpha (in the bedroom!) so that evolutionarily-selected-for sexual preference "signals" can be satisfied or "tricked."
The latter seems to work just fine, and is easily incorporated into evolution's paradigm.
And the reason behind men wanting power is women wanting men with power.
I don't think that covers it that nicely. :) Nice thought though. I've seen this in homosexuals as well. I have seen it in elderly that are well beyond any concerns. Would that all things were so simple. You are correct that this is an instinctual motivation for many basic power seekers. Yet that seems to be more the physical bully, puff out your chest type of power, not the long term planned commitment to attaining power. I'm sure I'm wrong about some of this. :)
...and the reason behind men wanting power, and women wanting men with power, is women and men wanting the ability to be one of the few who are financially able to pack up and move when a flood is predicted, and women wanting the ability to provide optimally for several children, and men wanting the ability to mate with an unlimited number of teenage girls, and gay men wanting the ability to mate with an unlimted number of teenage boys(I assume it's the same or similar to straight men), etc...
...and this doesn't even go into the huge, immense, enormous differences between sociopaths and empaths. Alpha sociopaths who are aware of cybernetics and seek political power are the most dangerous people on the planet. They print the money, they hack the crypto-currencies, they buy the intelligence necessary to win every conflict in the ongoing war for dominion.
Only a few libertarians/voluntaryist minarchists even have the right ideas necessary to fight them, but they lack the resources.
...And it is a "fight," it's not "an education." There is an enemy, and everything you do to improve things, that enemy will attempt to undo. That's why you need to be smarter strategist than the enemy, you do not simply need to "possess immense education resources."
I suggest it's 40 years too late for libertarians to persist in having a naive attitude toward politics.
What should we do? We should fight for the ideals outlined in the 1994 LP platform. We should wage political war, intelligently and effectively. ...Or we should get very good at being slaves, and saying "Would you like my first-born daughter with that order of filet mignon, sir?"
When you realize that that's how high the stakes are(no pun intended!), it should motivate libertarians to win.
But it doesn't. How do I know this? Because, with more than enough resources to win spent every 4 years, the Libertarian Party continues to be a wholly-controlled-arm of one or two FBI infiltrators.
I was completely alone in the LP as a person who actualy wanted freedom. Most people who want freedom are "anarchists" who have left the LP, rather than try to correct it. ...But leaving politics simply leaves them even weaker than they were within a political structure.
Blackwell found "the strategic truth" even though he wasn't as good at philosophy. Here it is:
https://www.leadershipinstitute.org/resources/files/THE%20REAL%20NATURE%20OF%20POLITICS.pdf
I fully agree with your comment @dwinblood. This leads me to believe the UBI concept cannot work at humanity's current stage of psychological / sociological development (but I'm glad others are open to exploring the possibilities nonetheless). It also reinforces my belief that the real root of society's problems aren't economic but rather are in our thinking, and much of that is dictated by our early childhood conditioning.
However, that's not to say real value and incremental improvements short of better conditioning in childhood can't be realized. Waiting for a comprehensive solution or workable "unified theory" need not stop us from trying to find solutions to specific problems we can identify, even if they aren't the root cause.
Very interesting and well-informed post @dantheman I loved reading it!
Frankly I don't agree with most your post, but above all I don't agree with this part:
"Both sides are wrong and both sides are right. The capitalist is wrong in believing that they own something they don’t and the socialist is wrong in believing they must take something by force that rightfully belongs to the capitalist. " I believe you should fix this, either the capitalist owns or doesn't but it sure isn't clear in this sentence.
The capitalist owns some, but not all of what he claims. Through issuing shares we resolve the issue.
So, your position is kind of a "techno-Georgist" or "Hayekian, post-disparities-caused-by-central-banking" position? Interesting.
This is a very good explanation of the way VIVA works, I'm glad were' on the same page.
https://steemit.com/vivacoin/@williambanks/introduction-to-viva-a-price-stable-crypto-currency-with-basic-income-that-s-not-hypothetical
The primary difference is that the size of your right is determined by the length of time you participated. That's how you prevent sybil attacks.
Also by allowing you to work doing whatever you love, there is a sense of satisfaction, a lack of boredom and a feeling of value and worth in both the coin and yourself.
I was just going to see if you had seen this as it sounded a lot like the Viva engine using political and religious analogies. I do see a distinction between the two, Dan's unifying theory gives shares for what I am calling birthright where with Viva shares are given for living your life whether it is writing, art, music, painting, inventing, drawing, conducting, scientific discovering...because the bottom line in my journey through socialism and being a Berner...the push back is no one wants to subsidize the life of someone who isn't living theirs.
Good point I hadn't noticed that! Economies are more than resources and resource distribution. Production needs to occur. People are happiest when they are proud of what they've built or created.
At some point in the future, technology will have shrunk to the size that we can make all we "need", directly from the atoms and molecules in the environment. When this happens we will also be able to make all we "want". From there it really is the top order needs of self actualization that need to be fulfilled and that is invention / creation and learning.
Either way, right of existence posses a problem. You can fake existence. It's just a piece of paper you certify every year or so. You can also fake a stream of activity, and with enough bots you could gain some serious wealth.
What can't be faked is creativity and knowledge. By moving to a creators society. By us all becoming "creators of our own worlds", we become fully self actualized and the fact that we are bringing these children of the mind into existence and those children find appreciation with our peers, this is the true currency of the future. I share with you my epic story, you share with me your latest painting.
We just need to cover everyone's lower order needs as we move forward towards that and wait for the machinery to catch up with our dreams.
I do appreciate this 'rights' approach to basic income, especially since governments are eliminated as the brokers/protectors/grantors of this 'right' to the production of society. Yes, rights are what we say they are if and only if they have been systematized in some effective way. Additionally, cryptocurrencies are the most promising way forward in making systematized trustless systems of social rules of all kinds, including the defining and honoring of our rights as individuals in our societies.
I've spent some effort on grappling with the problem of basic income myself, but from a 'contributions' approach rather than a 'rights' approach. It can hardly be disputed that rights and proper governance to provide for their protection are indispensable to lay down the social construct in which we individuals are to interact with one another. I have no quarrel with any such notion. However, as I've been grappling with the fundamentals of money as a language for human communication of contributions to each other's well-being, my own focus has been on the psychology of credit and how that might affect the implementation of universal basic income schemes.
I take the notion of reciprocity as fundamental to interactions between all kinds of social animals. I would assert that without an innate sense for reciprocity, animals can hardly behave socially at all. Humans have even developed the language of money to communicate to the group who has made contributions to its members, and therefore who is owed future contributions of his choosing from the rest of the group.
The beauty of monetized credit for contributions is that the value of the contribution is agreed upon between the buyer and seller of a contribution in a voluntary way (in the ideal case, of course). That which has been sold is a real contribution, and the payment is a credit to the contributor which she can then present any other member in the community for redemption for some contribution of theirs. The notion of reciprocity is thus satisfied, but in a paid-forward and communal way.
Universal basic income as it has thus far been discussed has no sense of reciprocity attached to it, beyond perhaps the sense of fairness in that it applies to all members of society equally. One member does not give UBI to another and expect a future payment of UBI in return. And we need this sense of reciprocity to be satisfied in some way to psychologically prosper as social animals. Of course, no one is suggesting that UBI should be the only economic interaction in the future, to the exclusion of any interaction that would satisfy the psychological demands of reciprocity. But the 'right' to UBI is not in itself a natural product of human psychology.
What I would propose is a cryptocurrency project that accounts for benefits enjoyed in a novel way, and continues to credit those individuals who have had a role in the provision of such benefits. This differs from income received from sales, in that sales must repeat for repeat credits to be given for them. This incentivizes teasing behavior on the part of the seller who wants to remain relevant rather than the provision of lasting and satisfying benefits to the end user. When benefits can be accounted for, benefits providers can approach their craft in the least wasteful way, both in terms of the input of their own time as well as in the consumption of materials. Repeat sales are easy to account for, but how are such ethereal benefits to be accounted? I've written my full proposal in the 14th chapter of my book available here: https://www.academia.edu/30656167/Accounting_for_Contribution_and_Commitment
Such a system of accounting could possibly produce similar beneficial results to Dan's UBI rights-based proposal, but with the added psychological benefit of its participants feeling that they have "put in their time" and contributed to society to deserve their own claims against the production of society. This would also work against the development of a sense of 'entitlement' that is so corrosive to the human soul.
I welcome any discussion of this proposed system of benefits accounting, and how such a system might work in tandem with rights-based UBI schemes such as that proposed by dantheman Larimer.
This topic certainly compels reflection and there have been historical precedents of its implementation throughout the world. Just stumbled upon this post after reading your tweet referencing it. I thought you would find this quote relevant, as I cited the source in my response to you on Twitter:
"The dignity of the individual says that no matter what a person’s capabilities are, whether he is the leader or whether he is person who is crippled or elderly or can’t do anything, he still has a place in the tribe… Guaranteed Adequate Income is really an Indian concept. It is the way the Indians themselves ran their early communities.” - Loretta Domencich, 1976," The Fourth World: the Imprisoned, the Poor, the Sick, the Elderly and the Under-aged in America, an anthology"
Any solution that includes money will come with the improvident being slaves of those that become rich from that improvidence.
Money is not needed, caring and sharing will solve our issues.
When we begin to populate the local planets we will have plenty of work for all to do, but if we try to accomplish this goal while taking half the money off the table for profit, it will never happen.
Imagine how little we would have to work/how much more we could do if half of our work hours no longer went into the pockets of the oligarchs/banksters.
Super-abundance helps to solve this problem.
A fifty-year old wealthy man still wants to cum in a beautiful teenage girl's body, and eat the best food, even though he can no longer produce competitively. How do free markets solve this problem? What the young alpha made when he was young was induced by the incentive to have pleasure and comfort as an older man, or as an ugly man.
Money and fungible wealth is necessary, but unearned money and fungible wealth is a drain on the system.
This makes me agree with your opposition to the oligarchs and banksters, but disagree with your opposition to profit. If systems were only based on profit, there would already be Drexlerian "radical abundance" and Freitas's "tangible nanomoney" (google it).
Money is a medium of exchange. That's all it is. It facilitates the most basic economic exchange - barter - by increasing the coincidence of wants.
Well, at least until you get enough of it to buy slaves,....then doors open that are closed to us less fortunate types,...I wonder how the slaves like the 'economic exchange'?
OH, that's right, they falsely think themselves free.
Question your authorities, please.
I do. That doesn't change the fact that money is, was, and always will be a medium of exchange. Unless you think that voluntary exchanges of goods between people is somehow immoral, you'll be hard-pressed to demonstrate how making those exchanges easier is somehow immoral.
EDIT: Since I didn't make this clear, money should not be confused with currency. Money can be anything that is considered a store of value, among other qualities that separate it from, say, using ham sandwiches to facilitate exchange.
I'm saying that requiring your neighbor to (wage)slave for a crapitalust, or to require his neighbors to do so by operating his own business, makes the whole system involuntary.
It's your greed that enslaves you.
You think you can emulate the boys club at the top because that is the bs that they have fed you your whole life.
Open your mind to alternatives, if you only accept what you already have been fed by others you will never know if you have been fed a line,...
...I don't accept that I've been fed by others. I start from the individual and build a consistent moral framework from that. Voluntary exchange does not enslave anyone. Absent any other human being, an individual is still going to have to work in order to produce the necessary requirements for survival. Work will always have to be done, until we acquire the means, as someone else mentioned elsewhere, to literally create out of whole cloth those things that individuals require to survive. Once scarce resources are no longer scarce (though whether that could actually occur is a matter of debate), then ownership becomes meaningless.
However, until that time occurs and technology progress to the point of replicators able to grant us materials at will, scarce resources must be accounted for, and since no one will have access to everything at any given time, voluntary exchanges between individuals for resources that one party desires and the other party has in abundance will occur. Money facilitates that exchange, making it easier for wants to coincide and people to raise their standard of living.
I dunno if you realize this, but voluntary exchanges only happen when both parties expect to benefit from it. Unless force and coercion are used, individuals will not exchange anything, including their time, for anything else unless they stand to benefit from it.
nesting stops at six
Here is a link to material that you probably have not been fed,...
http://theanarchistlibrary.org
I don't have enough data to determine exactly what is what with you, but may I assume that the reading you have done was mostly in school, or at the behest of the school?
I can lead you to the materials that have me on this side of the issue.
Like I said, I start at the individual and work my way out with building a consistent moral framework. All that requires is reasoning and logic.
Ok, I agree, but learning from those that come before us saves us from a lot of trouble, look at the bears, if they could pass knowledge from great grandpa to great grandson the world would be a different place.
I hope you take some time to look through the library.
http://theanarchistlibrary.org
If this system falls apart hard enough, it may just go back to the individuals, where it belongs.
The difficulty is when people believe we need government to live... all we need is to stick to the basic and common sense rules of living created thousands of years ago.
As this refers to the Steem community (my read into it anyway), as well as crypto currencies... well I wholeheartedly agree and why I am here.
Intriguing post @dantheman
Wow... this symbolism, metaphor and allegory is really painting a clearer picture. Reblogged this post. It will really help to open people's vision. Thanks. Peace.
Yup I too feel like this version is much clearer and a probably more enticing more accessible read for everyone.
Excellent post sir @ dantheman, I totally share with your writing and your point of view.
My people are the descendants of Guarani indigenous peoples, our ancestors taught us to care for all living beings around us to respect and preserve them, the pachama (the earth as a whole).
Congratulations for another great post
For the more cynically inclined among us, it is the rent-seeking aspect of the massive disruptions that tends to drive the "ism".
How much power and/or wealth does the disruption generate for those involved in initiating the "hope and change"?
I like the Jacob/Essau analogy to Steemit.
Do I understand it correctly that you are solving this issue I raised under your previous post in the following way? :
Every unit of time (a day) every human being is awarded 1 share. Thus the inflation / deflation depends on the ratio of the population growth to the growth of the economy.
What if Earth, Inc. was created / established by somebody or something? And this entity took right to the majority of the genesis shares?
What if they did? That is a good question! I think it would impact adoption if they took too much or to little at genesis.
a pre-mine by the devs would be an arbitrary appropriation of the worlds resources bigger than their birthright, a landgrab without consensus.
it kind of defeats the purpose of the coin. it would be looked upon like a dubious money making scheme by the devs. In this case personally I wouldn't support it and a clone would likely pop up with no premine.
I'm sure there could be other ways to fund development ( a dedicated steemit account which ppl will upvote to fund devs?) , or some sort of foundation to fund development could be setup , maybe making the whole thing a DAO.
I really think if it is launched "pure" the community itself will support and promote this coin like no other. the coin could spur political movements and changes like we never seen before, but not if there's an entity which seized at genesis more than its birthright. it would then be the same as the current property system, an house of cards based on an initial act of aggression.
comon Dan do this one for the history books, profits will still come from the recognition and reputation of being the creator etc
Thanks for your reply. They / or better said / this entity could claim it has that the right to these shares because of some initial input. I won't go into how this initial input was obtained.
This could skew the whole system and impact the adoption as you've put it.
The balancing act :)
This hypothesis is detailed in an episode of the cartoon "Rick and Morty." Rick creates a world that he taxes for electricity to keep his battery charged.
"took right to" ??? Sentence construction - what does this mean?
a) the entity claimed a right to the majority of genesis shares
b) the entity immediately made a claim for the majority of genesis shares
c) ?
OK, I'll put it this way:
Interesting, on your paragraph about redistribution, what if another plane crashes on one side and there's more people? Should there not be a redistribution?
Each new person that arrives would be entitled to 1 share per person per day. Whether they arrive by plane or stork.
Why would they be entitled to to a share if they were not the first to land there and others have already claimed? The distribution has already happened. I may be misunderstanding this.
It comes down to the fact that the first to arrive didn't derive their claim by virtue of being first, but by virtue of their being human. Otherwise, two men crash on the island 1 second apart and the first man has claim and the second man gets nothing.
Now since it is only 1 share per person per day, someone who is there for 100 days will have 100x the claim as someone who just shows up. After 3 years the new guy would have 91% the number of shares as the first guy. After 100 years they would be effectively equal in the shares allotted to them.
On a big enough timeline, two people arriving 1 year apart is as indistinguishable as two people arriving 1 second apart.
Ahh ok well put
The numbers tells a nice story. Thank you for this post. I feel like its a rehash of one you just posted last week. I love it. I think it might help a lot of people better understand your point of view. This comment makes things more succinct too.
I have often thought that this world belongs to us all equally but when you said:
And before that:
Dan! Thank you! Its much further than i took it. I believe that just because i worked to grow this tree doesnt make all the fruit mine. No man is an island and the tree needed the sun and the earth and the moon and ofcourse the earth and her water, so the way i see it, you should not be able to claim it all for yourself.
Thanks man!
This post has been linked to from another place on Steem.
Learn more about and upvote to support linkback bot v0.5. Flag this comment if you don't want the bot to continue posting linkbacks for your posts.
Built by @ontofractal
What's the point of an auction if everybody only has 1 share to bid? The quoted text doesn't mention the time component you later expand the example to. The only way an auction makes any sense is people must have different amounts of resources to bid. The quoted text doesn't provide for that option.
OK, so move forward in time several days. Presumably people would begin trading among themselves for the things they want using their shares. In fact it will begin on the first day, leaving some people with shares and others with none before the second day arrives.
Perhaps it's due to your writing style, but I had difficulty following along at times as I read. You seem to make assumptions about this "genesis" stage, and based on several comments I see here others have noticed this also.
I find this topic interesting and I'm grateful to you for tackling it. I may have difficulty fully understanding the nuances of the problem but that is feedback to you to find a better way to explain it.
Shares are infinitely divisible. So you can bid .0001 share or .000000001 shares.
Ah yes, good point. However, such a concept is a detail of implementation that seems to go beyond the simple example stated. Funny tho that divisibility of shares didn't even occur to me.
What if this blockchain had optimized smart-contracts for polycentric law as well? It would not just be a share in the Earth's resources, but also a share in Earth's governance. Eliminating poverty and violence all at once! It obviously couldn't be done in the short term because it would threaten the massive power structures and all, but theoretically, both the resources and the laws that govern society would belong to the people.
Incredible! What time in future did you come from Dan? History in the making, no one is going to hold back this revolution, thank you for your efforts, you are a genius =)
This is an amazing Post! You are definitely the man, and this theory is very inspiring! Keep up the good work!
one direct consequence of this model is the Gerontocracy government of society. innovation by younger would be difficult, that's the same we're living in Europe now where we've another additional problem, the rate of newborn is very low respect the emerging countries
another great argument.
Sounds like there could be some similarities between these political ideas and a little known 20th century political theory called Distributism.
Distributism shares with Marxism the goal of the workers owning the means of production and of eliminating the alienation of the worker from his product. (Of course, distributists meant that the workers should really own the means of production—not, as communists usually did, that the workers should “own” them through the intermediary of the state.) And distributist class analysis resembles Marxist class analysis in obvious ways.
Along with free-market economists, however, distributists recognize the importance of private property. Further, modern distributists recognize the crucial role of something that early advocates such as Chesterton and Belloc did not have the theoretical resources to articulate: namely, the vital role of true market prices in achieving economic efficiency. As Friedrich Hayek put it, market prices are able to incorporate knowledge of the “particular circumstances of time and place” into a worldwide economic system.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/distributism-is-the-future/
You are the best EOS guys! The Universe and the universal love (as one God for everyone the same) supporting you to change the world in better. No worries, no fear, we EOS community are with you! The best frequencies and connection to you. Andrea
Dan's vision is compelling in the crypto space, partially because of what i perceive as a lack of conversation about the political and social change the decentralisation could bring. We should all be thinking about the political possibilities for changing the world into a fairer more evenly distributed place to live. Yet the myth of the free market troubles me, the "free market", really isn't free at all, its a highly regulated set of laws that allows corporations to extract wealth from a population and its resources.
Striving for excellence often isn't driven by the rewards for profit.
Whilst every dollar made in profit, the state must spend in order for that profit to be made and in its current form that means socialism for the powerful corporations, and capitalists scarcity for the poor. There is no free market, only laws that protect the rich. Without these laws no corporation would have the means to exist in the first place, no educated workforce, no roads, no courts, laws or governance to control their profit making activities. This paradox is central to decentralisation, yet how this could ever exist in a tax free system remains to be seen. Would a company that operates as a non profit have any less ambition to achieve excellence that that of a profit making enterprise. If excellence was assessed by the welfare of workers and the quality of life that company contributes to that community or nation or planet then maybe we could reach for real meaningful change? Non profit corporations that are paid for their total contribution to society and rewards distributed to individuals invested invested with their time or resources. The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is a good example of wealth redistribution, accumulated from North sea oil and gas in comparison to the UK with sold it rights to private companies.
Some of this is incorrect. Did you forget about the variable of "mixing your labor" with something? Anarcho Capitalists do not believe in "first come, first serve". An Ancap believes that the first person that labors into and uses a resource, owns that very specific resource. For three reasons. 1) It helps others identify your claim, 2) It prevents "claiming the whole island", and 3) thus stealing property becomes akin to slavery, as someone is necessarily stealing your labor. With the fruit tree, nobody can own the tree itself like that. They need to either own the land around it first, or cut it down, etc... But with the fruit, as long as the tree is accessible, whoever grabs the fruit and picks it could be said to be the owner of the specific fruit.
@dantheman
I have a question.
I also want to know if you actually believe all this, or of some of this was just a phase.
Without the system, it is impossible for anyone to get rich. People get rich not through their efforts alone, by is reliant upon a multitude of factors that grants the person opportunity while also feeding upon the efforts of others who may have contributed to the infrastructure in significant ways but doesn't rip the same degree of benefits. One example is how CEOs gets to dictate how much they themselves are being paid, while essential hard workers at the bottom may be paid slavery wages and struggling to survive (depending on food aids funded by tax payers to allow them to survive).
"Universal income" on the blockchain imposes a fair and just automated taxation of those who have benefited from the system, and re-injects it back into the community. Putting resources on the least wealthy (who would spend those funds almost immediately on necessities rather than stashing the wealth aside) will continue to drive the economy and keep the whole economy healthy and going, which in turns benefits everyone, including the rich.
A free market system will ultimately be rigged by those with the most resources to their favor, and eventually the whole system isn't really a free market anymore.
A balance between a free market while satisfying people's basic socialistic NEED is a good idea, to maintain the society. Too many angry and frustrated underpaid and overworked struggling poor workers, and the underemployed and jobless, and society will eventually crumble as a whole.
However, to maintain a socialistic democracy is difficult as there are not many politicians that are proven to be consistent, reliable and sincere to the cause. However with blockchain based governance, democratic socialism can work.
Also it needs to be said that there is a BIG difference between a socialistic DICTATORSHIP (e.g. Venezuela) and a socialistic DEMOCRACY (e.g. many European countries, such as Switzerland). Socialism isn't the problem with Venezuela, but an incompetent government controlling the country as a DICTATORSHIP is.
Dividends is paid to stakeholders on a 1:1 basis depending on their stakes. Whereas, for the Universal Basic Income solution to our changing global economy, the inflation is paid out equally to all participants in the system.
Although a tricky balance needs to be struck such that the very "Basic" income should be minimal enough to still compel people to seek better quality of lives via work or starting their own businesses, so as to build up a savings that can be stashed somewhere for rainy days (instead of spending).
This controlled distribution of wealth could also drive the economy, as the money is quickly spent back into the economy by those who are actually (still) dependant solely on it.
Hard or close to impossible to find a government that is non-corruptible, while at the same time, competent to run a greed-driven capitalistic economy that is balanced to people's basic socialistic needs. Only with trustless decentralized blockchain technology can this be actually realised and sustained.