Douglas,

Very inspiring!

Do you have thoughts on issuing a personal time-based currency?

If so, will you outline a paths for others to earn it?

After hearing on your talk (and reviewing ideas of E.C. Riegel) I’m tempted to prepare personal vouchers, redeemable in donated time, as a way to good causes in our rural community.

Highlights of this start small/start now scenario are sketched out below.

I’d welcome your comments on how the personal voucher scenario below might best be launched. In appreciation, I’ll send you a voucher for a free hour of my time that I’ll be glad to donate to a good cause of your choosing.

Best,

Mark Frazier
Openworld.com
@openworld (twitter)

—- A way for “time donation vouchers” to launch personal currencies —-

1) Prepare personal vouchers

To begin, a person can design, print out, and individually sign personal vouchers committing to do a specified number of hours of work for the recipient of the voucher or his/her assigns. The issuer would choose how many personal vouchers to issue in (for example) 1 hour, 5 hour, and 10 hour denominations.

Each voucher that a person issued would be numbered and recorded on a web site along with a profile of the recipient.

The issuer’s profile would set out the skills/types of work redeemable via the voucher. It would also include the person’s experience, references, and feedback-based reputation scores for any work performed via the voucher system.

2) Donate the issued vouchers to local good causes of the issuer’s choosing

The second step would be for the issuer to give the vouchers to local nonprofit organizations of his or her choosing.

These organizations would then make use of the vouchers directly, in cases where the person’s skills were a good fit for their needs.

If the nonprofit organizations wished, they could also pass on the vouchers to third parties (e.g. to employees or vendors who agreed to accept them) as a way to reduce out of pocket operating expenses for the nonprofit organization.

The monetary value of the vouchers used in such “offset” cases would be worked out after the prospective third party recipient had looked over the skills and reputation profile of the issuer (links to the issuer profiles would be on the printed voucher).

If a financial crisis – inflationary or deflationary – proves to be in the cards, communities that move ahead on such a reputation-backed personal voucher system may fare better than those that put full faith and trust in fiat currencies.

The communities might also be better able to withstand scenarios that could include confiscation of gold, silver, or other precious metals.

Launching personal currencies on a basis that helps philanthropies and good causes from the outset may provide a further measure of insurance against political risk. Or so is the hope…

Any observations/suggestions on how to launch — and scale — such an initiative will be very welcome.

Thought, ideas, speech, are not labor. Not unless you are, and everyone else is, retarded. As to your criticism of copies and derivatives, well, everything that exists is a copy and a derivative of something else.

I do like the idea of Money v2.0. But your lame attempt at protecting the ip scam, is just that, lame.

Utter nonsense mika. Simply based upon the assertion that nothing *is* new under the sun, it can be demonstrated that certain thought and expression is work. It is even easier to argue that the reason so many of us seem to be retarded is because we have not done any work.

WHAT WORK IS

We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is—if you’re
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it’s someone else’s brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, “No,
we’re not hiring today,” for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who’s not beside you or behind or
ahead because he’s home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You’ve never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you’re too young or too dumb,
not because you’re jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don’t know what work is.

oops.
that was by Philip Levine
some guy who did some work for me
so when my heart was broken once
some woman bought his poems
because that’s part of what work is

Openworld, best wishes for your project. Consider posting this in the “Forums” section (top of this page, right hand tab). It’s been quiet over there for a while, but there are good folks there.

-mason

mason,

Doug is scamming to make a buck on the back of the monopoly rights racket. The same fascist corporatist system he likes to rails against. So excuse me for not sharing your sycophant reverence for Doug’s “originality”, because none exists. And if Doug was in any way truthful, he’d confirm and acknowledge that. That aside, it is exactly this sick psychological mindset, this sick reverence for false gods, for any god, that has gotten us into deep trouble over and over again. I expect better from you.

@mika: i sympathize with the last part of your comment. but obviously it takes time and effort to write books, articles, software, sequence genes, develop drugs, etc… it’s work. the real question is whether these things should be free. you allude to this in referring to the intellectual property scam. there, the debate is going to have to concern the powers that property rights will grant to property holders. those rights might be weak (e.g. entitlements to recognition-credit for a discovery) or they might be strong (e.g. anyone in possession of something similar to my product is subject to a fine, if they have not already paid me). in the most dramatic case where ip rights are too weak, people will not be able to make a living creating ip, and labor markets based on ip will be leveled and probably take down public research with them, unless we no longer make access to those forms of labor depend on income. if livelihood is no longer derived from writing, programming, speaking, recording, composing, filming, designing, discovering, etc., maybe it would be derived from a basic income. is that the idea?

btw: just be clear, i’m saying that i sympathize with the anti-ip attitude, not with the attitude toward mason.

I am happy to respond to thought-out, negative views. But not name-calling. There’s a real world many of us still must live in. That means using US dollars while we attempt to do better. The value of the dollars we are using is based, largely, in killing other people.

Does that mean it is hypocrisy to both assert the rights of people to live and to use dollars? Yes. Likewise, it is contradictory to both criticize corporate structures and depend on them. But that is life. There are contradictions, and part of growing up is learning how to surf them. It is painful and confusing.

And of course, things other than farming still count as labor.

Yes, I’m very interested in alternative currencies and voucher systems. I will read up and respond.

It’s about love.

Why do people pirate movies? I think it’s because the movies are the same old stories and themes, rehashed with better special effects, but still the same. Who wants to pay for a story you’ve heard before?

The new thing will be for people to create things with love. The gift is in the giving, and when people create things purely to help the other people in their community, when looking after others becomes more important than looking after yourself. When you turn around and see that you don’t need to look after yourself anymore because everyone else in your community is doing it for you (and you for them of course), that is when we will have entered the new age.

Fine. Then if it’s labor, get paid for labor, not for monopoly rights. As for time expense and exertion amounting to labor, I say bullshit. It takes time money and effort for me to eat food, digest it, and shit it out. Now, imagine I incorporate myself as a fascist corporation and get my fascist government lackeys to enforce monopoly rights on my shit. Anyone that handles my shit pays me royalties on my royal shit. That’s exactly where we are now.

@Eddie: Sorry, but it’s very hard to believe that the reason people pirate movies and TV is because they find them boring and unoriginal, still want to watch them, but don’t want to pay. People don’t pay more for increased quality in entertainment. In fact, they want exactly the opposite.

People pirate stuff because why would you pay for stuff when you can get it for free? It’s completely rational and doesn’t demand the creation of some new-found aesthetic sense that we both know the media-consuming public has never had.

And by the way, the world you speak of where you don’t have to look after yourself, because everyone else looks after you? That’s a DYStopia you speak of, not a Utopia.

Anthony Landreth,

I completely reject monopoly rights, I completely reject the corporatist system, and I completely reject government coercion to extract wealth from persons thru taxes and inflation. And I will do everything I can to cause these things to cease and deceest

(deceest should read desist)

There’s a lively ongoing discussion on this over at Metafilter:
http://www.metafilter.com/86891/The-Plague-of-Free

Douglas,
I keep thinking that the extraction capability of currency is also linked to what Tony Giddens called “distanciation.” We’ve seen how the placelessness of the international currency markets allow these to rush to those states that offer what they seek (transaction cost savings, transparency or its lack, etc.). We may need to find a way to privilege the local again. Many of the services we might exchange are local-biased (farming, baking, car repair, elder care…). Perhaps we can emerge from our Facebook fugue state with some version of local societies (plural), as local peer-to-peer organizations (e..g, Rochedale coop-type orgs) that form society-to-society links between locales.

I am certainly the intellectual bumpkin here. All, please bear with me.

Mika, but for your temper i revere you as much as Anthony, Douglas and Eddie. I *regard* you all and g-d equally. I especially love your great humor, just like i especially love certain attributes of Eddie, Douglas and Anthony.

Eddie, i totally agree about the mind set of the new age as it were, but piracy (even of derivative and imprisoning garbage) is not about love. I think mika and i would prefer some hacker mod or g-d squad rather *destroyed* these tired narratives and the, um, ‘fascist’ corporations that produce and traffic them. OTOH they are a part of the matrix in which we live. The narratives work, because we work them. That is why love and certain other energies or attributes will have to create the new narratives, necessities and beauties.

We will always have also to *look out for ourselves,* and not just for others. Today, this implies, making sure one gets a taste, a piece of the pie or the action. It implies watching one’s back or having a reliable surveillance system. In the days ahead it is going to mean a lot of things, like getting over old group identities.

The fact is we may never completely arrive to the new age. But i suspect looking out for ourselves will be a sort of discipline occupied primarily with regarding one’s responsiveness, one’s freedom and one’s duty.

I know very little of what’s on the table concerning intellectual property legislation. But i gather from Anthony that Strong and Weak are key terms (almost like electron bonds?). I also imagine the new laws should consider the varying scale of participants and practices. The important principle for the designers/legislators is to be thinking “abundance.” The system should function as smoothly as possible. Any and all resultant proceeds from friction in the system should be churned back into the regulatory and taxpayer domains.

-mason

First of all the last 20 years have been a Cambrian explosion of musical innovation. Not at the level of massive corporate top-ten hits, which are sickly retreads of 40 year old top ten hits, but rather at the level of small, fast innovative new ideas. If you don’t think we’re in the midst of an irruption of creative production, you need to adjust your focus. Your statement of the problem is fatally flawed if you don’t recognize the new culture being generated right now.

Second, I suggest that the business-to-business barter-like currencies you describe already exist. The are the bizarre value laundering mechanisms used by financial services corporations, far removed from the realm of cash or democratic regulatory oversight. At the level of global exchange, that kind of nonce value swapping nearly sent us back to the middle ages last year…

But you are correct. Those kind of local value systems did make a few people insanely rich. Which is one reason the financial services corporations are trying so hard to push for a “cashless” system. Get rid of a relatively neutral exchange medium and move everybody into localized value exchanges. Instead of dollars or yen, you can rely on gift cards or cell phone bux! And unlike cash, those privatized systems lose value for the user, grow massive value for the owner of the system.

I think your utopian idea resembles the same dystopia that Visa is desperately trying to build for us right now.

and Doug is right. there will be profit. more certainly than a ‘basic income .’-)

in the meantime, i am equally unqualified to engineer a broad system for the exchange of currency:-(

all i really *know* is based upon how i care for my chickens and what i happily accept for their eggs. the rest is just a very spotty exposure to the softer humanities. the rest i am learning from other eggmen!

Strength to each of us!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBRss3HUipw
If the sun don’t come we’ll get our tans from standing in the acid rains, or with afternoon tea
which knows no segregation, no class nor pedigree
It knows no motivations, no sect or organisation,
It knows no *one* religion,
Nor political belief.
-mason

This is a vastly complex issue, for reasons Doug touched on in his history/preamble. Essentially, we are challenged (every man, woman, and child) to uncouple ourselves from a system that has provided a framework for virtually every detail of civilization from the dawn of time. The fuck up ratio on that is off the charts.

It staggers the mind trying to envision the processes involved in stepping from the only model we have ever known, to one where communities of people willing to sacrifice their future for smokes and plasma TV’s will buy in. Or can buy in.

Like in the late middle ages, anybody who has a relative advantage in commerce over his neighbor will resist as if life itself depended on it, while those on the other side will sheepishly agree if only because they gotta eat.

I realize that the direct intention is simply to reorder the “net”, however the net does not exist in a vacuum. There are real people at every IP address. Usually. They gotta live in both worlds and so that point of overlap is where the friction will come. Otherwise, those who “get rich” on a newly modeled net will simply be usurping a new slat in the social hierarchy as many have done before them. Folks who have no chance in hell of gaining even electricity are as screwed as they ever were.

Complex problem, no? But entirely worthwhile. The same old same old just isn’t going to work anymore with the rise of technology, and the result will be increasing gaps in wealth and social standing, where the hip get rich, and the rest do as they have always done. Go hungry.

mason,

They say that humor is just another form of aggression.
Tempered as my comments may or may not be, they are not born out of aggression, but out of truth as I see it. You know I bare no malice towards you (0r Doug).

But back to topic. Anthony and Doug are arguing the argument of ‘how many angels can fit on the head of a needle’. I’m arguing that that whole conversation and paradigm view is idiotic, that we need to quit it and get away from it. Subtlety in arguing idiocy is still idiocy.

Our economic problems are a symptom of our political problems. Political problems are a symptom of cultural problems. Cultural problems trace themselves directly to us as individuals. This is crucial to understand. Our psychological mindset is key in us resolving and solving this mess.

By and large we all have a similar objective.

I am fairly certain that engineering a nonviolent transition is far from idiocy. The revolution is personal, but the work is collective. If your reasoning in post 16 were sound, Oprah Winfrey’s idols and angels would be satiated by your services.

Don’t be angry with me!

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-11-20/oprahs-kremlinologist/

-mason

I am fairly certain that engineering a nonviolent transition is far from idiocy.
==

That’s not what we have from Doug and Anthony. What we have from Doug and Anthony, at least on the monopoly rights front, is not a transition away from fascism, but a kindler gentler version of fascism. Fascism with a smile. Which I completely reject.

As for the Oprah Winfrey’s minions, they all voted for the bankters’ fraudster Hussein Obama, which should tell you all you need to know of their iq level and situational awareness.

..banksters’ fraudster..

mika, i can’t continue trying to work with someone who writes off millions regardless of their IQs or awareness. Even as a teen, when (due to some personal traumas) i believed in a benevolent fascism, i never was able to entertain such a sentiment.

As for Anthony, i believe he’s asked for your vision on obtaining livelihood in a re-structured system. I assume a view to the short, mid or long term is your choice.

-mason

I’m sorry, mason, if my words are sharp and hurtful, but what else can you say of idiots mesmerized by the idiot box?

There’s a book called “Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization” (http://bit.ly/YEtFL) that I think makes a related point, that control and power is shifting to decentralized forms of organization and away from traditional formal authority.

The problem is that this possibility is inherent in the form of P2P itself. The peers themselves may be formally equal, but this conceals the fact that the network/protocol/infrastructure that connects them can be controlled. Anyone can be autonomous and publish whatever they want, but Google can control you by excluding you from its index. We could respond with a P2P solution: propose a federation of search providers that anyone can participate in. But then power shifts to controlling that infrastructure, and so on.

If we’re interested in critiquing power, this is where we should do it; whether Google, Wikipedia’s elite class of editors or open source software’s exclusion of non-programmers.

Is it possible to measure the loss of individual wealth for those that participate in a central bank controlled single currency system with speculators buying and selling the currency ?

As for Anthony, i believe he’s asked for your vision on obtaining livelihood in a re-structured system.
==

First we have to ask ourselves what a restructured system looks like.

@mika

The box is deserved of sharp criticism. Not the people.

May I ask. How do you pay your bills?

Charles Frith,

The box exists because people watch it. If the box is deserved of sharp criticism, the people that sustain it deserve even more criticism.

I pay my pill my performing work. I get paid for labor. There’s no ip monopoly rights or free rent involved.

That’s my sober answer.

And this, of course, is why I’m considering “comments off” by default. But if this space is amusing and useful to some, I can keep it going.

Hi Douglas, Great talk! Very interesting ideas and lots for me to think about and try to comprehend.

We have linked your talk in one of our information sections in our “Share this Course” blog. http://www.sharethiscourse.org/2009/11/22/sharing-links/
This is a group led by Mark Pesce and based on learning about sharing and creating a group project. Thanks for your insight and check out our project if you can.

Anthony,
Concerning post #6

I see public research as another great value and would especially hate to see it impaired. I fear i lack the understanding to prioritise it among other great values. No doubt, however, private research is funded by and/or buried by some very predatory interests in much the same way as the value of the dollar is based, largely, on killing other people, or rather the business/occupation/work of killing other people.

It is painful but necessary to realise that most universities are now largely subsidiaries of corporations in general or the military industrial complex specifically. Most all private research is somehow connected to some social faction, political interest or cartel. There must be or rather there ought to be some way taxed public currency can be guaranteed for public research and researchers. Clearly, said currency is already being used by the Fed to bail out local corporations and foreign banks. Clearly, said currency has always been provided to the private sector with nary a string attached? Or am i nuts?

If this seems at all practical or logical, please continue with your thoughts!

Douglas, i am sorry if i have contributed to what can only be described as a poisonous sort of amusement.

At the risk of appearing overly reverent i consider this thread and your contribution quite useful.

-mason

@mika: Your rhetoric and hasty judgements betray your message. Your argument that nothing is original is a tool used by the broken to excuse their lost imagination. Obviously Douglas has generated his theories and statements from information passed down through time, but that is what makes a culture great. The ability to build on the ideas of your fathers and their fathers before them is what allows our society to grow rather than starting from scratch with every generation. The lessons of the past should not so easily be refuted. What’s more, you claim to despise intellectual property law, but refuse to accept that all creation is intellectual property. You weren’t born with the ability to use a shovel. That is learned over time and now you do it every day in your “general labor.” What’s more, your employers don’t refuse to pay you just because they could have used that shovel too if they wanted to and don’t see why they would pay someone for something they can do. The reason they pay you is for the time and the ability that you have developed over time. The same goes for Douglas. His ideas are a product of ideas past, but his were developed from research and extrapolation.

You have been asked several times how your ideas would differ and you offer mere circumstance in return. The only way to determine what the system would look like, is to examine the possibilities, which takes time that we laborers don’t have. The problem lies in the fact that that people with the time either have to be rich (in which case why would they change anything?) or be able to find a way to develop those strategies, yet still survive in the existing society (i.e. getting paid for your developing ideas).

The change that you preach is drastic and if there’s one thing society hates, it’s drastic change, so much so that they are willing to die fighting against it. What you desire is a revolution and in this day and age revolution will be squashed long before it changes anything. Now, an unseen revolution, one that occurs gradually and is under the radar of the governments and class structure that controls the global economy until it’s strength has grown beyond simple rhetoric still stands a chance, but in order to create such a movement, you’re going to have to start being a lot nicer to people and listening to both their input and their concerns instead of immediately writing them off as idiots or ignoramus’. You might call me an idiot for saying this, and that’s ok, I’ll just ignore it, but if you come back with valid points and critical thought, as well as respect for varying positions, I’ll definitely take you seriously.

@Douglas: I’ve been an avid reader of your work since high school. “Playing The Future” made me excited to enter a world where the far more digitally literate youth had a chance to outshine their elders through their intimacy with technology, but such intimacy would have never developed had it no been for community, yet this speech seems to place community as secondary to the individuals desire to profit. I think it is more prudent to look at open source almost as heritage. Open source is really a way to pass the knowledge of the community on to those who are developing new ideas, not unlike your own development of ideas from historical precedence and research. A better model for open source is similar to creative commons licenses of media in a similar fashion to Cory Doctorow’s release of both digital and print versions of his books. For instance, open source software could well be free to developers and contributors, but shareware to users who do not build upon the infrastructure. This would discourage inhibition in development and information transparency, yet allow the software to develop in a natural fashion through those persons with the knowledge to facilitate it. What we must not forget is that the internet has made the information needed to be able to develop this software free. I can spend two days on the internet and learn how to program in any number of various languages, sit down for several hours and have a product I could sell. My time is valuable, granted, but so is my community that has passed this information to me and given me the tools to profit for free. Just thought that was worth mentioning.

Thanks for everyone’s time. Let me know how much you charge to read this…

“And this, of course, is why I’m considering “comments off” by default..”
==

Yes, of-course it is.

I might have been plastered last night, but you’ve yet answer my basic question regards your “originality”.

Because you accuse me of running a scam. I do not recognize such attacks, and see no reason to respond to them.

(Although I will continue to pay for the server space for such attacks to be spewed. And to get you an audience for them. You’re welcome.)

As for the idea of originality, Noah, I do agree. The Bible is itself an amalgamation – a remix – of earlier myths. There may be original thought and ideas, or they may not be. As to how much of a “remix” counts as original and is worthy of new money – I don’t really care.

The creative commons argument I make for myself in the above video has nothing to do with money, and everything to do with contact. I gave electronic copies of my book away to anyone who wanted it – but I didn’t post it for the hive. The former still feels somewhat personal to me; the person had to ask. The latter feels less like turning my work over to other humans than to a hive-mind I don’t yet understand, and don’t yet feel comfortable with.

Furthermore, what we are seeing as “free” is really just profit for Google. It’s not that there’s no corporation exploiting the property (and using it as the content for ads that it serves). It’s that the corporation doesn’t cut the writer in on the proceeds.

I think it is a beautiful thing that some people want everything they do to be subject to the entire world’s remixing and recontextualization as soon as it is created – or even before it is created. Go for it. But I don’t think participation in that should be mandatory.

See, it’s possible that none of our creations are novel. And it’s also possible that the speed with which copies are generated has increased, making this non-originality all the more apparent. I see the logic in trying to get this to speed up even further – remove the personal altogether. Make everyone realize that they are just cogs in a larger organism – that they have had no original thoughts, and never will. That art and expression are all useless. We are careening towards death, plain and simple.

But individual human experience may still have value, and the maintenance of some boundaries helps contemplation occur. I do think it’s okay to choose which friends you want to come to a particular party, and that barriers to entry can be erected thoughtfully.

I also believe people can demand to be paid for the work they put into their writing or music – if they choose to. Others can choose not to.

Now open source projects spanning multiple generations – that’s something like what the Jews were working on with Talmud. And as long as people credited back where they got stuff from, everything and anything could be used. They actually did it with the belief that they were contributing to a collective line of inquiry.

Open source is a beautiful thing, and I’ve argued for it since before it was called open source. Unfortunately, so far it has tended to produce copies of things developed in the non-profit or private sector, rather than creating anything even marginally original. Linux is Unix. A great achievement, for a group of people to be able to get together and make something as great as Unix, for sure, but it does leave me thinking that we may need some models for collaboration *in addition* to open source.

It’s not open source I object to at all. It is a mandatory openness, an obligation for everything to be delivered to Google, and the assertion that keeping something out of Google’s balance sheet is an affront to democracy or the future of civilization.

Hi Douglas,

Why do you think that creativity is on the wane?

Because Me and Clay Shirky reckon that the opposite is happening – that we’re witnessing the greatest explosion of creative/expressive capability that humanity has ever seen.

So I’d question that I think – if you’ve got some metrics, I’d be interested to see them.

I’m a musician – played in bands in the UK back in the late 80s, early 90s… and we didn’t really think about money – and the odds were massively stacked against us – far more than today. In London. we had to pay venues to play in them… the radio was locked up by the industry and the only way through was via gatekeepers.

We didn’t do it with the hope of turning into U2 or Led Zepplin, we did it to get girls, and to satisfy some sort of grand narrative about ourselves… and because we really loved music.

Are you talking about originality? If so, then I don’t think I’d blame file-sharing, I think I’d blame television – on a number of different levels. It’s (still) the great cultural mirror – and it’s set up in such a way as to encourage dross… and (according to my mum who’s a teacher) it has a fundamentally detrimental effect on imagination in children. They copy what they see, rather than making stuff up.

When you ask “where is the creative commons law” – I think that’s the Attribution part isn’t it?

“As a result of all this freedom, the abundance of creative output is declining”

Any evidence for that? – I’m guessing there isn’t, because if there was, the copyright englobulators would be trumpeting it from every battlement.

ps (you don’t have to publish this)

There’s nothing wrong with banning people who are turning up drunk and are just chucking abuse about.

It’s that the corporation doesn’t cut the writer in on the proceeds.
==

When did writers start to get a cut on copies produced? Why should you get a cut on copies produced, you did not produce them. You got paid for the copy you produced, what happens afterwards is none of your business. How I produce my copy is my business, not yours.

@mason: I’m a neurobiology postdoc at UCLA, so I’m familiar with public research funding. Funding is certainly connected with corporate interests through the military and NIH. Nevertheless, most of the intellectual products are free in the form of papers that scientists will send to you if you ask them. Science runs on recognition credit, but recognition credit is coupled to research funding and livelihood. Your interpretation of my position on ip was correct. I would like us to get away from it. The other guy must not have read my comment closely. I was asking for an outline of transitional strategy, not defending ip rights… I think Doug raises an important point concerning the alienation of people from the fruits of their labor. Got to run.

“I was asking for an outline of transitional strategy, not defending ip rights..”
==

You transition away from ip monopoly rights by denying the oligarchy their accrued privileges. You deny them their privileges in deciding the curriculum of our schooling, you deny them their privileges in deciding finance and what money is, you deny them their privileges in deciding politics, in deciding the design of our towns and cities, in deciding the design and distribution of our physical communication networks, in deciding the design and distribution of energy consumption, in deciding our social communication networks, in deciding the legal framework of property rights and personal rights. All of these changes can be easily affected, by simply avoiding centralization models and switching to decentralized and democratized models.

In response to:
“I think it is a beautiful thing that some people want everything they do to be subject to the entire world’s remixing and recontextualization as soon as it is created – or even before it is created. Go for it. But I don’t think participation in that should be mandatory.”

I don’t think anyone has argued that there should be a mandatory “openness”. I’d agree with you that for some things, we’re going to have difficulty with getting creativity without some sort of incensitivization. At the same time, the current generation of technical mechanisms to keep the hold on the creative works move the power of someone’s computer to a third party (actually two parties, the copyright holder and the DRM holder).

I also want to clarify a point- that is the distinction between a functional work and an artisitic one. I think there is a very well understood, compelling reason for functional works to be Free/Open Source. This has been explored in depth thousands of times, so there’s little point in reiterating the point.

I’d say similar arguments are in play with scientific works. They should be disseminated in a way that spreads scientific knowledge.

Artisitic works such as fiction, plays, movies, etc. are something we’re struggling with. We don’t yet know the right answer to how these should work, what mechanisms should be used to compensate someone for their work.

I don’t believe any of us in the Free Culture movement believe that all work must be Free by fiat, but rather that we believe it benefits the author in almost every circumstance. And so long as an alternate economy does not infringe on someone’s rights (the way DRM does), then I don’t think you’ll find anyone making arguments against it other than we need something concrete to evaluate.

“The Bible is itself an amalgamation – a remix – of earlier myths.”

I agree with what you are saying. Basically Google is to Open Source software what King James was to the mono-myth stories of the Bible. They take something created organically through a group and package it as their own.

I suppose I look at Google’s embrace of Open Source software as a love hate relationship. As you said yourself, it costs money to host discussions and information on the internet and what Google does is give that space (along with myriad other resources required for development) to the community in exchange for their input, ideas, and time. The issue arises when they take that trade, repackage, and sell it off to other corporations and whether that trade of resources equates with the profit they earn.

Like all kings, Google exists as a benefactor to the “lowly masses”, providing food and shelter in exchange for their sacrifices of time and skill. You can’t deny that these resources are needed, but at what point does their provision become their sole-business and their profit become the sweat of another’s brow?

I think mika is arguing this same point above with his/her ideas regarding ip rights. Take the power from the central authority and instead decentralize into a democratic group, but this requires organization of some form and at what point does that entity providing organization go from altruistic to tyrannical? And what’s more, at that point, aren’t you just developing smaller private companies by trying to choose who has access to your information?

These are just thoughts that popped up reading your reply. I appreciate your clarifications on the speech you gave and hope I didn’t miss the point completely.

No, you didn’t miss it at all. I don’t think.

I really didn’t see it as about drm and copyprotection algorithms so much as about a culture lacking originality. We seem to think new creative stuff is in abundance, but I think it is not. I think we have a whole lot of websites pointing at other things, but very few new things. And it seems that the pointers are making the money, while those making or thinking up the things are not.

Now, Mika might be right in that I should only be paid for creating the first book, and someone else should get all the money for copying them. And if we returned to a Renaissance society, perhaps I could find a patron capable of supporting these first works. Today, that would mean finding a friendly corporation for whom to write white papers – and it may be the direction I go.

But the substance of my talk was not an attack on the open source movement at all – just on the notion that this is the only direction for everything. And, more importantly, that the operating system of money is obsolete.

I was arguing for us to program a new kind of money, more able to facilitate the kinds of transactions we’d like to have today.

Today, that would mean finding a friendly corporation for whom to write white papers – and it may be the direction I go.
==

Or you could leverage your intellect, knowledge of economic and social history, communication skills, in a way that doesn’t involve corporations. Yeshua bar Yehosef had it right. He avoided the Greco-Roman towns of Judea and Samaria, he harshly rebuked the Temple money changers, he asked that his disciples avoid using Roman coin (Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s), and that they avoid violence even when confronted by Roman brutality. Just saying.

“Now, Mika might be right in that I should only be paid for creating the first book”
==

No. That’s not what I said. What I said is you already got paid for the first copy. I my universe you would not have been paid for such activity. As I stated quite emphatically earlier, thought and communication are as much a labor as taking a shit.

Douglas i recomend you to read Phyles, the translation of a new spanish book from David De Ugarte call “Filés: democracia económica en el siglo de las redes”

http://deugarte.com/gomi/phyles.pdf

I just saw your talk though Reddit. I didnt know anyone else was also trying to create a system like this for the internet.

Is there anyway I can email you with what I have been working on?

My basic assumption is that people need to be rewarded for their productive thoughts. Such as the ‘like’ button on facebook. We are starting to see the beginning of such an economy all around us. Reddit and their Karma system is proobably the best example so far.

By having someone say that what you did was helpful and making it into a number is the very beginning of new economy.

As an aside, it’s a delicious irony of history, that the very thing that killed Yeshua bar Yehosef, the corruption of the Rule of Law, is the thing that ultimately killed Rome. Karma has its own way of working its way thru the universe, and US dollar imperialism with the corresponding US corporate mafia, will not escape their karma. Just as Rome has not escaped its karma.

mika,
i’m really caught up in this thread now, but wanted to respond to #49 so i (er) joined twitter. http://twitter.com/mason_mem.

-mason

Yeah Tristan. You can email me. Check the CONTACT link on the right.

I see the point in not paying anyone for anything other than physical labor. Especially if you’re using scarce artificial centralized currency. And in such a case, everyone contributes some “real” work and also gets to do some creative activity.

Then, once we can really get all our basic needs taken care of with just a couple of hours work per person per week, we figure out how to devise an alternative economic system based on the abundance of our creative output rather than the scarcity of our real resources.

Which is why the talk starts with just that concern, and why I bring up Norbert Weiner’s original question about how to value what people do, or create a new kind of economy based on excess rather than scarcity.

Otherwise, we are doomed to scarcity as a way of life.

The other path is true enlightenment, of course. When we no longer have to “value” each other’s work numerically because we understand the exchange intuitively.

I just want to point out that “Render unto Caesar the things of Caesar” doesn’t mean “Don’t use Roman currency”. It means “If you’re going to use Roman currency, follow Roman laws about it”. The context is that Jesus was asked a question meant to trap him in a dilemma between angering the Roman authorities or the non-collaborator Jews: “Is it lawful to pay the tax to Caesar?” The story has him responding by asking to see a Roman coin and pointing out that it was stamped with the emperor’s image, then the famous line “Render unto Caesar the things of Caesar and unto God the things of God”. The point being that by using the Roman coin, you’re already choosing to participate in the Roman system, so refusing to pay taxes doesn’t acquit you of buying in.

Indeed. And if there *were* a currency implication, it would be to use both. Long distance currency for long distance applications, and local currency for local ones.

All I’ve been trying to emphasize, myself, is that there’s more than one tool available to us – or there should be.

“The point being that by using the Roman coin, you’re already choosing to participate in the Roman system, so refusing to pay taxes doesn’t acquit you of buying in.”
==

This is a subtle rephrasing of my point. The point being, not to use Roman coin in the first place. What’s not so subtle is, that even with all the distortions, obfuscations, misdirections, misrepresentations, the NATIONALIST historical narrative can still be glimpsed under the centuries of imperialist Roman redaction and lies.

@Mika: “thought and communication are as much a labor as taking a shit.” Speak for yourself.

Hi Douglas,

Thank you very much for your clear and inspiring talk!

We have been busy with exactly the thing you endorse so much: 100% pure digital giral (interest-free) peer-to-peer value exchange, similar to http://wiki.aardrock.com/Pekunio.

I like your talk so much that I have put in the effort to subtitle it. Feel free to add it to your video on YouTube.

Pick up the English subtitles from http://aardbron.nl/rushkoff-obsolete-money-system.utf8.english.srt

Dutch subtitles to follow soon.

Succes en plezier,

Martien.

Please note: subtitles have been moved to http://aardbron.nl/radicale-overvloed/ (a proper translations of ‘Radical abundance’).

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Martien.

Both the English and Dutch subtitles can be picked up from:

http://aardbron.nl/radicale-overvloed/
http://aardbron.nl/rushkoff-obsolete-money-system.utf8.english.srt
http://aardbron.nl/rushkoff-obsolete-money-system.utf8.nederlands.srt

Can you please have them added to the video?

Thank you.

Succes en plezier,

Martien.

Tell me how to add them? Or email me via contact link on right.

thanks very much for the just-listened-to 11-16-09 dr. leary, “media squat,” podcast. the term, (psychological) “neoteny,” stuck out and has opened up a wonderful avenue toward my exploring developmental biology. so along that line:

what psychological factors do you see corporate media structures openly or surreptitiously using to entrain or trigger an individual into neotenous habits and behaviors?

(do you follow philip zimbardo’s work? his areas of study seem like they might fit in with your style of analysis. btw, great web 2.0 talk)

what is this

Douglas, I haven’t been able to load any of the two subtitle files in any of the subtitle file editors I have. They might have been produced in an non-standard compliant format that is thus non-trivial to handle.

Besides this, there is some thinking to be done before you embed any subtitles in a video file about the way this is done and the versatility of any approach to the task.

Starting with the fact that you use flash videos from YouTube, you should be aware of the platforms limitations regarding subtitles.

As far as I am aware, the only way to use subtitles in YouTube is to blend them as part of the image of every picture frame of the video. So there is no way of watching a video straight from Youtube with subtitles that were not originally blended into it… and every version without or with any one of the subtitle versions need to be a complete separate video. If you start producing one with English subtitles and one with Dutch… expect to be asked the same for any other language.

I think the better way to help everybody help himself, is to show how the flash video files can be downloaded and stored locally, and how they can be viewed locally together with any subtitle file of your choosing if it is already available or a new one if you’re willing to produce it. All it takes then is adding links to the various subtitle files that are made available anywhere on the web under the link of the video as soon as you are made aware of their existance.

This way you are not encumbered with the task of modifying the original files yourselt.

A viewer like VLC can take almost any video format and show it together with any available standard-compliant subtitles file, and does so automatically without hassles if the video file and the subtitle file are in the same directory and share exactly the same filename exept for the file extension.

About ‘How We Get Past “Free” and Learn to Exchange Value Again’… you are right, we need to get past “Free”.

Nothing is free or for free, or shouldn’t be that has a cost. Not even thoughts or ideas insofar as their production needs a brain that has to be nurtured in a sane body. The english expression FREE is albeit very confusing as it is used almost indistinguishably either as “without constraints, either explicit or hidden” or “without cost, gratis”.

This confusion is very annoying as it is psychologically imposing that anything related to the fight for freedom should be made available for free… and thus anyone involved in a struggle for freedom is prevented from making a decent living.

It is indeed imperatively necessary to get past “Free” economics if any attempt to get rid of “Predatory” economics is to succeed.

As we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of Seattle, we should be aware that what went wrong with Indymedia was the inherent eternal lack of resources associated with the implicit rule that everything had to be contributed for free and everything should be obtained for free. It sidetracked the need for responsibility and trust, but at what cost? The internet platform lacks serious contributions and resorts to begging for paypal donations, the print version with its increased cost structures never got off the ground.

Starting from further back in time, but almost at the same point in evolution right now, consider anarchism… the assembly structure is a mere mechanism to avoid power grabs from inside, making them impossible, thus eliminating the need for responsibility and trust simply by making sure there is no gain to be made by having the power. But this gross mechanism also prevents that someone wanting to contribute to anarchy can break free from other constraints because not even the simplest of a life can be built upon advocating anarchy alone. Of course, this is not the only reason, but it is a big one when what you have to face is unrelenting capitalism.

Capitalism is an illogical system which imposes quite a few constraints to logical thinking because one has to build a logical framework that is not only solid, but that has to keep its vertical balance through the rough ride the icebergs that break free from the mammoth held together by sheer power are providing.

Now, I do not know which answer to expect most, yours, or Mika’s…

NingúnOtro,

Capitalism imposes a logical system, you’re absolutely right. So does IP monopoly. IP monopoly leads directly to despotism. Rushkoff not getting his cut, is a small price to pay in defense against corporatist/government despotism.

So, if we decide not to pay any journalists – which is fine – what do we do about the fact that your despots are still paying for professional public relations and propaganda?

I totally understand why you believe all journalism should be performed for free. But then should journalists ever go to war zones and report from there? Or should we trust what our generals tell us? Or what the paid professionals from the Pentagon’s public relations office?

I do see how that might be happier, in the short term. But it is much much worse for the despotism.

Maybe if you make paying anyone for anything illegal, then we can level the playing field. But other than that, I think you may want to reconsider deprofessionalizing all journalism.

Re subtitles: the original poster of a YouTube video can add the subtitles to the video. In this case O’Reilly.

Go to http://youtube.com/my_videos and click the ‘Captions’ button for the video you want to add subtitles to. Next, click ‘Add New Captions or Transcript’. The rest is self-explanatory. Enjoy.

Subtitles are plain UTF8 encoded text files. Use Save As… to download and store them locally.

If you download the video from YouTube and name the subtitle file similar to the YouTube file, you can select the subtitle from Video > Subtitles Track.

E.g.:
rushkoff-radical-abundance.flv
rushkoff-radical-abundance.utf8.english.srt
rushkoff-radical-abundance.utf8.dutch.srt

Wow, this is going to be a tough semantic battle to start with, and English not being my mothertongue you should be aware of the fact that sometimes I might lack the subtlety required to fine-tune the expression of my thoughts.

Having said this, I can’t argue at any level, Mika, if you choose to misunderstand the obvious… it is beyond my actual skills to trace the intellectual process by which you transform my “Capitalism is an illogical system” into “Capitalism imposes a logical system”.

Both expressions are mutually exclusive beyond any reasonable doubt, without even having to argue about which one might eventually be right or wrong.

If capitalism imposes anything at all, such imposition can only be based on the sheer weight of its actual power and dominant position, and does not come from the fact of being logical.

So does Intellectual Property monopoly, but with the slight difference that it does not impose its own power, but tries to extend capitalisms despotism to the inmaterial produce of the mind. The despotism IP monopoly leads to, or strives to lead to is one of this kind: Once I have invented the atomic bomb, all wars should be fought with the atomic bombs only I have… how dare you stab me in the back with a simple knife and claim victory? A simple knife, or a simple explosive artifact with an human detonator, to expose the logic behind the actual capitalist war on terror.

If a simple human detonator can be such a threat to capitalism, imagine the power of simple inmaterial ideas that can spread like wildfire and tear apart the shaky logical grounds on which capitalism is built.

Only capitalism should be able to feed its highly technified soldiers.

Now, I agree with the fact that IP monopoly leads to despotism. Illustrated despotism? But the opposite of monopoly is not the total absence of rights. Abscence of rights is only a convenient way to secure that who has the power, in this case the material power of capitalism, can grab whatever it likes… and by using a logic that assigns no material-equivalent value to ideas, it tries to do this in the cheapest way possible… for peanuts.

Rushkoff not getting his cut is not a defense AGAINST corporatist/government despotism. It is a defense IN FAVOUR OF corporatist/government despotism insofar as Rushkoff is being prevented from using his ideas in a way as to gather resources which might be used to oppose corporatist/government despotism.

Mika should make up his/her mind, and decide to be a liberal all the way and not only when it suits an hitherto hidden agenda.

Rushkoff, and anybody else exploring and synthesizing ideas to fight the corporatist/government despotism, should be able to create ressources with his ideas and have the moral right and legal power to prevent them from being used in a way he did not mean to… the most illogical of them being to end up in a capitalist arsenal for the exclusive use of the ones he intended to fight in the first place. If this is not possible, we end up with a situation as we have now: logic intellectuals prefer to keep their mouths shut. And I think this is too high a price and this situation should be avoided.

Without Intellectual Property Rights, as far as mere ideas are concerned, though it might be arguable for patents on material constructs also, the only way we can fight the corporatist/government agenda with ideas is releasing only these which can not be coopted and are sufficiently coherent in their own right to attain the inherently proposed intellectual goals without the need to be kept in the hands of the right people.

A real smartass should be capable of attaining his proposed goals by giving his ideas away to the ennemy.

Considering the enemy at hand… it would be even smarter if this enemy were made to believe you were one of his own kind, a little smarter than himself in pursuing the same goals.

Douglas is obviously not addressing the points I raise in my own comment but reacting to Mikas short one as if it were a little skirmish, one more, of a battle that is mostly being fought elsewhere.

As far as I can see, the problem is not a choice between professional and non-professional journalism. Looking at it from that point of view gets us straight to the deadlock anarchism finds itself in, having to sell its workforce to the enemy to get the ressources with which to fight the enemy. If you dont get at least 50% of the profit in the process you feed the enemy more than you feed yourself… and logically you don’t get anywhere but to insanity.

Everybody should get paid as much as he can get for what he does. It is not really what you get paid that matters (other than that it should be at least enough to pay for the needs that can not be satisfied otherwise than by paying for them), it is what you freely decide to do with the ressources you get that you can spend any way you like.

It ultimately boils down to being responsible and responsive to the constraints of the unavoidable context.

To be or not to be, an individual decision with statistical implications on the final outcome we can’t avoid but shaping together.

The playing field is very confusing indeed, built upon miriads of little victories of force over logic. Recently, someone went as far as to call Maurice Allais (Google is your friend) a liberal socialist. I thought… what a nice way to call an anarchist something else.

Martien…

http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=100077

Three different solutions, subtitle files in two different formats (.sub or .srt) and plain transcription file with Youtube doing the timing wizardry. Perhaps the reason why I could not read your sutitle files with Gnome Subtitles is because you used one of the formats but appended the wrong extension to the file?

I’m guessing, as I am not going through the checking process again.

A service in the beta stage provides voice recognition subtitling for the deaf, but of course no instant translation of the audio, so only English subtitling for English audio. In the near future perhaps?

I don’t know what video player you use, but logically… either you rename ONE subtitles file exactly as the video file except for the extension, and the only possible outcome is picked up automagically, or you manually select a specific subtitles file through the viewers menus, in which case the name of the file to select is irrelevant but for the fact that you have to know it, just as you have to know its location in the directory structure as it is not necessary that it be in the same as the video file.

I am not a YouTube (nor any other video provider fan), and I’ve never viewed a video with a choice of subtitles, but I guess there is no way to view a video on-line with subtitles which have not previously been uploaded to the same account.

” ..what do we do about the fact that your despots are still paying for professional public relations and propaganda?”
==

I guess that’s their prerogative. And it’s my prerogative to expose these propaganda meisters and the despotism that they support and that supports them, and to refuse to support a system that allows cover and support for such relationship.

As for the “deprofessionalizing” of journalism, I’m looking forward to it with great anticipation, and to the day when these priestly scum and their political handlers take their parasite infested sandbox and go away.

“Capitalism is an illogical system” into “Capitalism imposes a logical system”. Both expressions are mutually exclusive beyond any reasonable doubt,..
==

Har!

Well, English is not my mother tongue either, and neither is subtlety. But,..
Even an “illogical” system has it own internal logic. Everything operates thru laws, even chaos. I thought you understood this, as your writings suggested that you did.

As to your defense of Rushkoff, I completely reject it. I’ll make it very simple. There’s no defense for the indefensible. And as far as I’m concerned, IP monopoly rights are utterly indefensible.

Btw,
You shouldn’t confuse Liberal and Libertarian. They’re quite different political animals. I’m no Liberal.

You thought well. Of course every system has a framework on which it builds its structure. The reason why I wanted to avoid the use of the term “logic” together with capitalism is because I regard logic as being intellectual optimization, and I do not consider capitalism as intellectually optimized. The apparent internal cohesion of capitalism is due to the uniformity induced by the need to build up physical strength of comparative magnitude if one does not want to be beaten. And I say apparent because this uniformity is not due to design but merely a darwinian survival of the fittest without planned structure.

Capitalism today, through its logical need to concentrate power, has evolved to create a few mammoths… and humanity has hunted mammoths before. Logical optimisation beats brute force singlehanded.

Okay, from your point of view IP monopoly rights are indefensible and I can live with that as I won’t miss not being able to argue with you about them. But where do you draw the line, if any, and for what reason? Because Intellectual Property is immaterial creation, thought expressed and captured on paper, film, stage, etc. but Industrial Property is just the same if not for the fact that it gives form to a material artifact. And sometimes what keeps them apart is pure convention, compare for example sound captured in magnetically oriented iron on a tape recording or laser-shaped micro-mirrors on a cd, that are considered intellectual property, and a very few molecules of active agent in a saline solution, medicine, that are considered industrial property? By what logic the intellectual processes that give birth to both outcomes ought to be treated differently?

Monopoly is indefensible if unlimited, be it about IP, about rights, about property, or anything else.

I can understand that those who own property like property rights. Those rights were granted once to compensate for effort in a balanced way, and have been expanded ever since to accommodate greed. Or shrinked for the same reason if it suited better (dollars without gold backup to be able to have more dollars than gold).

Intellectual property rights were granted to compensate effort in the same way. The fact that they have been expanded to be a sure business for third party industries, and that greed has pushed its limits off any logical scale, is no reason to stop compensating intellectual production all the way.

It might just be the way material property owners try to prevent the rise of ideas that challenge their cosy status quo, for they have the means to buy the rights… and silence the ideas, or have it the other way around… make them so worthless that time spent thinking is wasted time.

Labels, sublabels… I do not argue about labels as they hardly cover their dictionary definition anymore, being abused to cover a content that hardly shows in the perceivable acts.

But where do you draw the line, if any, and for what reason?
==

As you can guess, I don’t. There is no line. The whole system is utterly repulsive and needs to go away. Rushkoff, being a Heb, a cultural derivative derived from the original Hebrew/Israeli culture, should know and understand this. The Hebrew language itself, was a direct opposition to the monopoly and tyranny of Pharaoh/The State and the privileged hieroglyph system. Hebrew script (Aleph-Bet) democratized thought and knowledge by making writing simple and accessible to all. This did not exist prior to the Hebrews. Same for the Hebrew Bible, as it could be rea, commented, and added on by all. Rushkoff, no doubt knows all this, yet he persists in his defense of IP monopoly.

There are an abundance of copying in our culture because there are lots of people who are perfectly happy with copies; most of them also believe in money, which feeds the cycle.

I think the real challenge underlying Doug’s ideas is to grow a culture where creativity is generally sought and valued.

I believe this can be done virally: if each individual who understand the importance of creation began showing appreciation for genuine creators and helping enhance their reputation, this attitude could be expected to propagate out to others.

A dynamic like this is already happening in a subset of the blogosphere, and elsewhere as well.

Once they’ve got enough to eat, creators are free to accept things other than (scarce) global currency as payment. Local currency, attention, and social capital are alternatives. I’d say they are even more satisfying than money, once you’ve tasted them.

I think what each person who is through with artificial scarcity should do is to invest their surplus into these alternatives. For instance, one way of turning global currency into social capital is to buy food and drinks and organize pow-wows.

Should Doug be right and global money be doomed, we would be well-advised to spend it now (and not try to grow it in the same form), before it radically shrinks in value.

(This comment is public domain, BTW.)

And you, mika, are Ivri?

Along our watchtowers freedom’s sons and daughters are sky high. I believe today the canoe is a warhead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTW-GHHugyU

So this ain’t no Tel Aviv
http://videos.sapo.pt/KaDvI7bv2QzzuI1BT9Zk

No disco, or just you know, Ivanhoe. We are in Record.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g8lFmsCXhg

A time for big decisions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51IZG6Ryeis&feature=related

Optimal Logic?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLy1gdqSLuM&feature=fvw

Not too Libertarian Blues
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLJOLmV8t1I&feature=related

Shine on You Crazy Diamond
http://www.mindmagi.demon.co.uk/Bacon/bacon.htm

Could i think as articulately and beautifully in Spanish as you discourse in English, Ningún, i would indeed be a happier man, not more fortunate, but more blessed. Thanks for your views, which address the Degrees of Good in measures appropriate to the topic.

“We proceed now to that knowledge which considereth of the Appetite and Will of Man, whereof Solomon saith, Ante omnia, fili, custodi con tuum, nam inde procedunt actiones vitæ In the handling of this science, those which have written seem to me to have done as if a man that professed to teach to write, did only exhibit fair copies of alphabets, and letters joined, without giving any precepts or directions for the carriage of the hand and framing of the letters; so have they made good and fair exemplars and copies, carrying the draughts and portraitures of good, virtue, duty, felicity; propounding them well described as the true objects and scopes of man’s will and desires; but how to attain these excellent marks, and how to frame and subdue the will of man to become true and conformable to these pursuits, they pass it over altogether, or slightly and unprofitably; for it is not the disputing that moral virtues are in the mind of man by habit and not by nature, or the distinguishing that generous spirits are won by doctrines and persuasions, and the vulgar sort by reward and punishment, and the like scattered glances and touches, that can excuse the absence of this part.

The reason of this omission I suppose to be that hidden rock whereupon both this and many other barks of knowledge have been cast away; which is, that men have despised to be conversant in ordinary and common matters, the judicious direction whereof nevertheless is the wisest doctrine; for life consisteth not in novelties nor subtilties. But contrariwise they have compounded sciences chiefly of a certain resplendent or lustrous mass of matter, chosen to give glory either to the subtlety of disputations, or to the eloquence of discourses. But Seneca giveth an excellent check to eloquence:

Nocet illis eloquentia, quibus non rerum cupiditatem facit, sed sui.

Doctrine should be such as should make men in love with the lesson, and not with the teacher, being directed to the auditor’s benefit, and not to the author’s commendation; and therefore those are of the right kind which may be concluded as Demosthenes concludes his counsel,

Quæ si feceritis, non oratorem duntaxat in præsentia laudabitis, sed vosmet ipsos etiam, non ita multo post statu rerum vestrarum meliore.

Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired of a fortune, which the poet Virgil promised himself, and indeed obtained, who got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning in the expressing of the observations of husbandry, as of the heroical acts of Æneas:

Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum
Quam sit, et angustis hunc addere rebus honorem.
(Georg. iii. 289.)

And surely if the purpose be in good earnest not to write at leisure that which men may read at leisure, but really to instruct and suborn action and active life, these georgics of the mind concerning the husbandry and tillage thereof, are no less worthy than the heroical descriptions of virtue, duty, and felicity. Wherefore the main and primitive division of moral knowledge seemeth to be into the Exemplar or Platform of Good, and the Regiment or Culture of the Mind; the one describing the nature of good, the other prescribing rules how to, subdue, apply, and accommodate the will of man thereunto.

The doctrine touching the Platform or Nature of Good considereth it either simple or compared, either the kinds of good, or the degrees of good; in the latter whereof those infinite disputations which were touching the supreme degree thereof, which they term felicity, beatitude, or the highest good, the doctrines concerning which were as the heathen divinity, are by the Christian faith discharged. And, as Aristotle saith, ‘That young men may be happy, but not otherwise but by hope;’ so we must all acknowledge our minority, and embrace the felicity which is by hope of the future world.

Freed therefore, and delivered from this doctrine of the philosophers’ heaven whereby they feigned an higher elevation of man’s nature than was, for we see in what an height of style Seneca writeth, Vere magnum, habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei, we may with more sobriety and truth receive the rest of their inquiries and labours; wherein for the nature of good, positive or simple, they have set it down excellently, in describing the forms of virtue and duty with their situations and postures, in distributing them into their kinds, parts, provinces, actions, and administrations, and the like; nay farther, they have commended them to man’s nature and spirit, with great quickness of argument and beauty of persuasions; yea, and fortified and entrenched them, as much as discourse can do, against corrupt and popular opinions. Again, for the degrees and comparative nature of good, they have also excellently handled it in their triplicity of good; in the comparison between a contemplative and an active life; in the distinction between virtue with reluctation, and virtue secured; in their encounters between honesty and profit; in their balancing of virtue with virtue, and the like; so as this part deserveth to be reported for excellently laboured.

Notwithstanding if before they had come to the popular and received notions of virtue and vice, pleasure and pain, and the rest, they had stayed a little longer upon the inquiry concerning the roots of good and evil, and the strings of those roots, they had given, in my opinion, a great light to that which followed; and specially if they had consulted with nature, they had made their doctrines less prolix and more profound: which being by them in part omitted and in part handled with much confusion, we will endeavour to resume and open in a more clear manner.

There is formed in everything a double nature of good, the one as everything is a total or substantive in itself, the other as it is a part or member of a greater body; whereof the latter is in degree the greater and the worthier, because it tendeth to the conservation of a more general form: therefore we see the iron in particular sympathy moveth to the loadstone, but yet if it exceed a certain quantity, it forsaketh the affection to the loadstone, and like a good patriot moveth to the earth, which is the region and country of massy bodies; so may we go forward and see that water and massy bodies move to the centre of the earth, but rather than to suffer a divulsion in the continuance of nature they will move upwards from the centre of the earth, forsaking their duty to the earth in regard of their duty to the world.”

When mika presents his mastery of Talmud and Duty i will no longer try to catch the plum blossoms, nor man hold copyright. But see them alighting from the clear riparial bottom, Salmon!

The Yurok here say they crossed similar streams on the backs of salmon.

From the Yurok:
Ey-lekw (I don’t know)
pronounciation note: ey makes sound of “long a” as in hey

“‘I dini ken’ means I don’t know” Says Alison – Age: 12 – From UNITED KINGDOM. I understand this is from the Scottish, but thought “dini” included the first person?

—You know what, Otis?
—What?
—You’re country.
—That’s all right.
—You straight from the Georgia woods.
—That’s good.
—You know what? You wear overalls, and big old brogan shoes, and you need a haircut, tramp.

Shalom, mason

Rekw-woy kee nue hey-gok ( I’m going to Requa)
Saa-We-Lek (I’m cold)

“Step it up and go” nu?
Dylan’s or Blind Boy Fuller’s versions will do.

http://www.yuroktribe.org/departments/education/Yurok_Tribe_Language_Program/PhrasesoftheMonth.htm

“yes, yes. i can’t sit and sway. gotta step it up and go.”

-mason

Hi Seb,

Doug is undoubtedly right… global money IS doomed. The anglo-saxon cabal has shown it can not be trusted, and money is an representation of value that stands or falls with trust.

When one has to work hard to earn 1.000 dollars, and the value of those 1.000 dollars is equal to hours of sweating… on does not agree when others only spend paper and ink to create 1.000.000.000’s of dollars. Not when the only thing all those dollars can buy is the 1.000 dollar worth of value you have sweated for.

We don’t have the power to stop them printing dollars, thus we will leave them all to them to clean their asses with, and we will look for alternative ways to represent the value we produce and want to exchange.

Right now, they will print dollars (or euros, or yens… once one starts all have to follow) as long as anybody is left willing to handle over real wealth in exchange of wank notes. In fact, what they are doing now is hurrying up in competence with all the others before its over. Like some sort of chair dance… until the music stops.

The problem is not building an alternative system, though, the real need is getting rid of the parasites before they infect any new system.

The real problem is to change the paradigm that survival can only be best achieved through competition. Survival through competition started easily when one could just explore some uncharted earth and hunt, grow barley, raise chickens, find gold, etc. (especially when eventually met indians or africans could be labeled sub-human and exploited as any other resource). But at one time free space to expand into ceased to exist, and at another more benefit could be made siphoning off wealth from sedentary peasant settlements than exploring something new.

And guess what, as securing survival was the first goal since the beginning… those predators got aware of the fact that the biggest threat to it was no longer the unknown, but any other predator that had been developing the same strategy (and they do not need to know the other guy’s strategy… they just know their own… they have to be the most ruthless, because otherwise it could be the other guy).

This is when survival needs shifted from merely securing food and shelter, a finite need, to having more than any other predator to be sure to withstand any agression… an infinite need.

It is not any one alternative system that might be bad… it is the need to account for the existence of predators that turn any system but darwinian chaos into an unpossible utopia.

Nothing will be possible until we clearly define the threats inherent to this predator mindset, and we put in place some kind of mechanism to isolate those predators without the need to attack them (simply denying them resources, but in such a way as to maintain a balance among them and avoid that any of them feel strong enough to grow by agression).

Once we get rid of the people with an infinite need in order to fend of agression, we can eliminate the need to hoard resources against future scarcity induced by the pillage of predators…

… and then everyone will be able to produce whatever he does best, material or inmaterial, without the need to defend it to provide for future needs.

Like you say Seb, once you only need to provide for the inmediate future and are not threathened in any way you need to hoard resources to defend against agression, anyone, anyway, is able to give much more than he needs to take, and we reach radical abondance.

What each person should do is organise to refuse handing over resources to anybody identified as a predator, and invest surplus into fencing them until they cure or get extinct, preventing the rise of a next generation. Real predators are not that many, and if we really get aware of how to handle them we can change the world.

Your diagnosis is right Ningún, but it is harder getting rid of the mindset than you think. Lot’s of people beneath the boot have and (perhaps) need this aggressive attitude. We need to develop the new currencies and networks not only to keep our energies away from the oppressors, but to allow the survivors and the confused to heal.

Otherwise, concerning your earlier posts:

Could i think as articulately and beautifully in Spanish as you discourse in English, Ningún, i would indeed be a happier man, not more fortunate, but more blessed. Thanks for your views, which address the Degrees of Good in measures appropriate to the topic.

“We proceed now to that knowledge which considereth of the Appetite and Will of Man, whereof Solomon saith, Ante omnia, fili, custodi con tuum, nam inde procedunt actiones vitæ In the handling of this science, those which have written seem to me to have done as if a man that professed to teach to write, did only exhibit fair copies of alphabets, and letters joined, without giving any precepts or directions for the carriage of the hand and framing of the letters; so have they made good and fair exemplars and copies, carrying the draughts and portraitures of good, virtue, duty, felicity; propounding them well described as the true objects and scopes of man’s will and desires; but how to attain these excellent marks, and how to frame and subdue the will of man to become true and conformable to these pursuits, they pass it over altogether, or slightly and unprofitably; for it is not the disputing that moral virtues are in the mind of man by habit and not by nature, or the distinguishing that generous spirits are won by doctrines and persuasions, and the vulgar sort by reward and punishment, and the like scattered glances and touches, that can excuse the absence of this part.

The reason of this omission I suppose to be that hidden rock whereupon both this and many other barks of knowledge have been cast away; which is, that men have despised to be conversant in ordinary and common matters, the judicious direction whereof nevertheless is the wisest doctrine; for life consisteth not in novelties nor subtilties. But contrariwise they have compounded sciences chiefly of a certain resplendent or lustrous mass of matter, chosen to give glory either to the subtlety of disputations, or to the eloquence of discourses. But Seneca giveth an excellent check to eloquence:

Nocet illis eloquentia, quibus non rerum cupiditatem facit, sed sui.

Doctrine should be such as should make men in love with the lesson, and not with the teacher, being directed to the auditor’s benefit, and not to the author’s commendation; and therefore those are of the right kind which may be concluded as Demosthenes concludes his counsel,

Quæ si feceritis, non oratorem duntaxat in præsentia laudabitis, sed vosmet ipsos etiam, non ita multo post statu rerum vestrarum meliore.

Neither needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired of a fortune, which the poet Virgil promised himself, and indeed obtained, who got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning in the expressing of the observations of husbandry, as of the heroical acts of Æneas:

Nec sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum
Quam sit, et angustis hunc addere rebus honorem.
(Georg. iii. 289.)

And surely if the purpose be in good earnest not to write at leisure that which men may read at leisure, but really to instruct and suborn action and active life, these georgics of the mind concerning the husbandry and tillage thereof, are no less worthy than the heroical descriptions of virtue, duty, and felicity. Wherefore the main and primitive division of moral knowledge seemeth to be into the Exemplar or Platform of Good, and the Regiment or Culture of the Mind; the one describing the nature of good, the other prescribing rules how to, subdue, apply, and accommodate the will of man thereunto.

The doctrine touching the Platform or Nature of Good considereth it either simple or compared, either the kinds of good, or the degrees of good; in the latter whereof those infinite disputations which were touching the supreme degree thereof, which they term felicity, beatitude, or the highest good, the doctrines concerning which were as the heathen divinity, are by the Christian faith discharged. And, as Aristotle saith, ‘That young men may be happy, but not otherwise but by hope;’ so we must all acknowledge our minority, and embrace the felicity which is by hope of the future world.

Freed therefore, and delivered from this doctrine of the philosophers’ heaven whereby they feigned an higher elevation of man’s nature than was, for we see in what an height of style Seneca writeth, Vere magnum, habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei, we may with more sobriety and truth receive the rest of their inquiries and labours; wherein for the nature of good, positive or simple, they have set it down excellently, in describing the forms of virtue and duty with their situations and postures, in distributing them into their kinds, parts, provinces, actions, and administrations, and the like; nay farther, they have commended them to man’s nature and spirit, with great quickness of argument and beauty of persuasions; yea, and fortified and entrenched them, as much as discourse can do, against corrupt and popular opinions. Again, for the degrees and comparative nature of good, they have also excellently handled it in their triplicity of good; in the comparison between a contemplative and an active life; in the distinction between virtue with reluctation, and virtue secured; in their encounters between honesty and profit; in their balancing of virtue with virtue, and the like; so as this part deserveth to be reported for excellently laboured.

Notwithstanding if before they had come to the popular and received notions of virtue and vice, pleasure and pain, and the rest, they had stayed a little longer upon the inquiry concerning the roots of good and evil, and the strings of those roots, they had given, in my opinion, a great light to that which followed; and specially if they had consulted with nature, they had made their doctrines less prolix and more profound: which being by them in part omitted and in part handled with much confusion, we will endeavour to resume and open in a more clear manner.

There is formed in everything a double nature of good, the one as everything is a total or substantive in itself, the other as it is a part or member of a greater body; whereof the latter is in degree the greater and the worthier, because it tendeth to the conservation of a more general form: therefore we see the iron in particular sympathy moveth to the loadstone, but yet if it exceed a certain quantity, it forsaketh the affection to the loadstone, and like a good patriot moveth to the earth, which is the region and country of massy bodies; so may we go forward and see that water and massy bodies move to the centre of the earth, but rather than to suffer a divulsion in the continuance of nature they will move upwards from the centre of the earth, forsaking their duty to the earth in regard of their duty to the world.”

When mika presents his mastery of Talmud and Duty i will no longer try to catch the plum blossoms, nor man hold copyright. But see them alighting from the clear riparial bottom, Salmon!

The Yurok here say they crossed similar streams on the backs of salmon.

From the Yurok:
Ey-lekw (I don’t know)
pronounciation note: ey makes sound of “long a” as in hey

“‘I dini ken’ means I don’t know” Says Alison – Age: 12 – From UNITED KINGDOM. I understand this is from the Scottish, but thought “dini” included the first person?

—You know what, Otis?
—What?
—You’re country.
—That’s all right.
—You straight from the Georgia woods.
—That’s good.
—You know what? You wear overalls, and big old brogan shoes, and you need a haircut, tramp.

Shalom, mason

Rekw-woy kee nue hey-gok ( I’m going to Requa)
Saa-We-Lek (I’m cold)

You all know the power of the word, and yet you all underestimate it. Don’t!

vayomer eloim yehi or
vayehamer eloim yehi or
http://goo.gl/fFps

Everybody Knows
http://bit.ly/5HSq6Y

mason,

bamakor lo aya nikud
kabala badoar

re 81
vayehamer?

re82
Seems like modern Hebrew?
Something about Kids not getting a tax deduction at the post office?

YMR! ?

OK. i suppose you’re suggesting the Masoretic text could be considered a complete rewrite already? If so, aninteresting point.

Or at least a mashup.
Maybe the cavemen said it all…

vayomer eloim yehi or => And eloim spoke and there was light
vaye’amer eloim yehi or => And eloim wagered and there was light

It’s a play on words. In the ancient Hebrew text you would not know which was actually meant. You’d have to guess.

Via Wiki: In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikkud (Hebrew: נִקּוּד, Biblical נְקֻדּוֹת, Modern nekudot Tiberian nəquddôṯ ; “dots”) is the system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several systems for representing Hebrew vowels were developed in the Early Middle Ages.

Now that I reread that, “yehi or”, rings awful like “yeh’ee or”, ie, to revive light or bring to life light. These psychological suggestion a Hebrew reader would constantly receive as s/he reads to text. A kind of subconscious programing.

“kabala badoar” is another play on words. Kabbalah, as in the study of kabbalah, which is the esoteric study of Hebrew words, and the plain Hebrew meaning of kabala which means receipt for service rendered. Your receipt is in the mail, was in reference to this Rushkoff discussion.

Here’s another Leonard Cohen
The Future – http://bit.ly/5iRPjj
No need to guess with this one.

I read read your vayehamer as “boasted” from YMR which would have run over into OR, thereby discounting it as an object. This reading seems to go totally against the construction of the opening passages, whether we think the Masoretes did a mash up or merely took a photograph of of the canon as it looked at that time. (Certainly *not* what went on in Nicaea).

That “guess” factor is why i could not continue christian. There was something profoundly honest and revealing about the Hebrew construction in Torah. It is we who wager (or boast i suppose) whether Torah was known to the Fathers and/or authored by Moses and/or eloim Who also revealed *all* Oral Torah. I can believe anything the Rabbis have argued about long and successfully and doubt anything Wittgenstein suggests may lack proper construction.

Clearly your reading would not discount OR as the next Thing [DBR] Word. I am in some receipt But you have not addressed Bacon and my suggestion that your logic is perhaps not optimal concerning Douglas. We all recognise and i sympatihse greatly with your strong position on IP. It just seems you are a bit (pardon me all for the only mildly humourous irony) niggardly with the light when it comes to my sometimes overly cautious fellow Heb (if i may so promote [YMR] myself).

Help me out with the cavemen Douglas. I suppose some of those diagrams were by or from a rabbi or two, but there is really not great interlocking structure in the record, or is there?

Mika, i did not see mekuvvin but Maccabbean. Now *that* is a stretch! OTOH Steven Deadalus would suggest no difference. Before i be tempted to consider myself Ezra or the Deuteronomist i would have to know much much more about Galic origins and take my first acid trip.

But you have not addressed Bacon and my suggestion that your logic is perhaps not optimal concerning Douglas.
==

Logic is incomplete. Logic only describes what is. And even then, it’s a very fragmentary system, prone to error. Logic does not subscribe why is. For that you need a soul.

Why did eloim speak? Why did he decide to gamble with a creation? That we can never know. We may deduce thru logic how things came about, but never why.

Logic does not subscribe why is. For that you need a soul.
==

Amen.

only

i have this feeling that, in this IP debate, your prosecution of Douglas and my advocacy is in the workings of Netzach and Hod.

http://www.aish.com/sp/k/48969806.html
suggests:

“Feet are usually only the means for a person’s activity. The hands are the main instrument of action and the feet are simply a vehicle to bring the person to the place in which he wishes to execute that action.

Secondly, the distinction between right and left foot is nowhere as pronounced as the distinction between the left and right hands. Similarly, while the distinction between chesed and gevurah is sharp, the distinction between netzach and hod is less sharp. Both are a mixture of chesed and gevurah and therefore the distinction is blurred.”

Let’s keep the sharpness in the proper arena. We *all* are judged and judge, each in our individual cases and in the general case, as feet and hands and souls. I think Alan Watts knew and respected this. He too chose to publish.

-mason

mason,

Alan Watt – the illuminati detective

But even netzach (infinity) has multiple meaning. As these russian illuminated ones have discovered:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/infinity-1214.html

Leonard Cohen – The Future

Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it’s lonely here,
there’s no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that’s an order!
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that’s left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I’ve seen the future, brother:
it is murder.

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant

You don’t know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I’m the little jew
who wrote the Bible
I’ve seen the nations rise and fall
I’ve heard their stories, heard them all
but love’s the only engine of survival
Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It’s over, it ain’t going
any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil’s riding crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder

Things are going to slide …

There’ll be the breaking of the ancient
western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There’ll be phantoms
There’ll be fires on the road
and the white man dancing
You’ll see a woman
hanging upside down
her features covered by her fallen gown
and all the lousy little poets
coming round
tryin’ to sound like Charlie Manson
and the white man dancin’

Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don’t like children anyhow
I’ve seen the future, baby:
it is murder

Things are going to slide …

I’ll get to watt.

Inifinity is just a name for it, like eternity and victory or endurance. I’m just suggesting netzach and hod are both stances and tendencies admixed from both sides. Moreover, one is mindful of Tiferet’s influx etc.

Both sides and your mathematicians derive (in some degree) from without end, but whereas the right side tends to stability in an undifferentiated state, the left tends to differentiate and frame and possibly destabilise. The middle stations are the best opportunities for significant speech or optimal utterance and transmission.

For me, there is very little practical value in speculating on without end or end itself, besides the fact that already it is quite beyond anyone’s ken let alone experience. I consider successful moments practical as embedded in a name, but not really producible from meditation upon same name at will — unless there is absolute comprehension of the set.

Hence infinity as our Russian friends have found it is, indeed, experienced as a sort of resistance or absence in contemplating sets, not by addition or reduction to individual sets. Another admonition concerning Torah which i appear to have demonstrated.

The world can scarce contain or take proper action from the useful data sets already revealed.

The voice is Edom’s, but the feet are Jacob’s. And Leonard is pretending to be Issac. One wonders the siach in the fields issac took too. It’s not logical or necessary one did appear with a ram’s head caught therein, but there it is. A true point to meditation for the gifted is a song and for the rest of us a blessing.

mason,

I just finished a full bottle of Carmel Winery White Zinfandel so I can get in the mood for their mystical and esoteric gobiligook. But it’s not helping. My natural disposition and aversion to their childish gobiligook just wont give sway. The labyrinth of medieval age reason does more to distract and misdirect than it does to illuminate. If you can follow that gobiligook then you have my greatest respect, cause I sure can’t.

Reality Check
Alan Watt Part 1 of 9
http://bit.ly/4ZA1iW

We *all* are judged and judge, each in our individual cases and in the general case
==

Indeed.

The Central Bank Warfare Model:

The Central Bank prints money to pay the military, and the military then forces everyone else to accept that paper as money.

The US military strong-arms oil producers to sell oil in US dollars. Everyone else has to work and produce value for this paper US dollar, while the US only needs to print the paper.

Simcha Jacobovici:

http://exodusdecoded.com/index1.jsp

Starting sober, halfway thru anything Watt argues i need to go out for some fresh air and consider having a sip of beer this guy is is about as logical as Descartes.

I love you mika, but give me me medieval Oral Torah or gobiligook if you will, but i don’t get any light from Watt. I *do* get light weighing his conclusions against my own and others’. Many of the facts are easy to agree upon, but i don’t see the conspiracies, the “long term business plan” envisioned by Watt.

but i don’t get any light from Watt
==

LOL!

I know you’ll get it now. Tiz elementary my dear.. son

In the international conspiracy system you can also use Joules and Coulombs.

mason,

Love for the Torah is misguided. The TaNaKh is just a derivative of the real the thing. The real thing being the Land of Israel and the People of Israel in the land of Israel.

Re 101: I know what you mean mika. My sister just got back from a business trip to Istambul. All i could think about was Rebbe Nachman’s long trip and rather brief stay in Israel. So long as the tzadikim cleave to Torah so shall Israel be the real thing whether we deserve her or not.

Psalm 137

No other nation wrote such.
No other nation had the strength to persevere.
No other nation will have the strength to persevere.

Tonight I emailed the pal who gave me The Ecstasy Club a few years ago:

“I finally started reading The Ecstasy Club. I was already starting to fall for Rushkoff just from that. Then I googled him. Good God, I just can’t contain myself around these fabulously intelligent open-source-will-save-us Jews. I saw a YouTube video of a recent lecture of his and may have actually started panting. The downside is that the video may have revealed that he’s gay. Is he gay? He writes the hetero viewpoint character in The Ecstasy Club pretty convincingly.

The book is also hard to read because it reminds me how much I’ve missed. While everyone was taking e and dancing, I was doing therapy and taking Wicca classes in Mountain View from a gal with fake nails. I really wasted the 90s.

Anyway, thanks for the book (and the new-found obsession!)”

BTW, the subject heading of this email was “I want Douglas Rushkoff to get me pregnant. Immediately.”

But seriously…I really appreciate Rushkoff’s work. Since I broke up with my boyfriend last July (a fabulously intelligent open-source-will-save-us Jew) I’ve really missed having an intelligent man to talk to. Reading intelligent stuff helps.

Also, mika and mason should just get married already.

Happy holidays, everybody.

Welcome to the party Carolyn!

Check out
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/media-squatters/
and the forums at the top of the page (Tab furthest to the right)

Doug is spoken for and i’m already married. Mika and i would never have worked out all the prenuptials so we just love each other from afar.

-mason

Carolyn,

I’m definitely straight, and unlike Doug, or Mason, I’m available!
(Donno bout da intaligent part, but me will try me best. Call me!)

Mason, thanks for your kind welcome!

Mika, impress me by making “I” statements the next time you want to go off on something. (I’m joking but also not.) Seriously, I broke up with the guy last July because he was too angry, so I don’t think it’s in the cards for us. I do think that the conversation here would benefit from more “I” statements, however. (I wish I knew how to say thanks but no thanks in a really nice way that wouldn’t potentially make you feel bad or embarrassed in this very public forum. I apologize because I don’t know how to do that.)

Okay…let’s navigate from PostSecret back to Radical Abundance…(or did I drag this all the way to the Craigslist personals?)

What I kept thinking about today was DR’s comment about how there hasn’t been any good music in 20 years. It was a small piece of what he was saying, but it really stayed with me. Who agrees with him?

My thoughts are:

1. I really wouldn’t know because I am 36 and music from before 1989 was formative — part of my teenage years, part of how I developed a sense of identity, even. It’s hard for me to compare.

2. I think lots of people who are over 30 think that new music is crap.

3. Has DR ever really listened to Moby’s album Play? Moby is at least 85% as brilliant as The Talking Heads, which is saying something.

4. Isn’t the emergence of techno and electronica, with 6/8 time, kind of amazing? And from the last 20 years?

5. Maybe what we’re doing with music is what’s new. Maybe the music of the last 20 years isn’t as notable as the music from the 20 years before that. But perhaps people expect more of a spiritual experience from dancing or otherwise experiencing the music. The emergence of ecstatic dance (FiveRhythms, Trance Dance, Soul Motion) suggests this. The music doesn’t need to make headlines because we’re more interested in our internal experience with the music. It’s the vehicle to the object of our affection, no longer the object of our affection itself.

At the same time, I think that people have always listened to music to be transported. And I think that people have attended rock concerts to have peak experiences for decades. But now people are using music and dancing to get a peak experience, no tickets, stadium or drugs required.

I’m not sure that there is less creativity out there when it comes to music. I would love to hear what other people have to say about this.

But in all creative media, particularly visual design (fashion design, graphic design), I believe that there has been nothing new or interesting in 20 years because by 1989 a huge number of creative visionaries had died of aids. That’s why we haven’t seen anything new. There were no defining trends from the early 1990s. People tried to call grunge a trend but it was hardly that major. By the mid 1990s we had 1970s retro and now we’re headlong into 1980s retro. Which means we’re out of retro. Which is awesome because now something new might happen. The question is: will the new generation of designers know how to be visionaries when they’ve grown up without them?

I had a sculpture teacher once who said that we shouldn’t sculpt because everything’s been done already. I don’t think that’s ever true, in any medium.

BTW, in case anyone is feeling cynical: queer folks in Mexico City can get married now (unlike in San Francisco, grrr.) I didn’t see that coming and it gives me great hope.

I’ve a little more than a decade on you Carolyn and i too have had the feeling of being a latecomer and time waster. Before new wave came to the fore, the 70’s were fairly dismal for me. Lamentably, i did not listen to rap until the 90’s. By the late 70’s – early 80’s i was finishing my investigations into the roots of Blues and R & B. From thence forward, it’s been Jazz and the lyrical Standards popular to generations since the depression.

Occasionally, i run into a great new act. But largely this hasn’t happened since the 90’s. Once i *do* get that new experience, however, it’s back to tracking influences and references – doing the joyful work of discovering older values in the new value.

It’s like the gospel standard “99 and a half won’t do” which i first heard in the winter of 1993 at a “Hartford Gospel All Stars” concert in CT. I can’t find a recording or a “copy” of their renditions which have much more swing than jump (if you will), but for me personally, Talking Heads were only 95 and a half, most of the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9emxL1cYJ0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxRK9OzD-uw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIa8pq8Pr6c&feature=related

When it’s approached, found and felt at 100, one dwells, there is abundance.

In this musical context, to me, what Doug is saying is that we can’t really copy and/or sell “it.” This is our current antiquated Operating System. The Digital Age assists us in navigating roots. With a sizable enough database, it can even take your personal melody and make it sound like Thelonious Monk or play it 6/8.

In 2008, i heard Chubritza play at the farmer’s market in Arcata CA. After one song the leader asked if anyone knew the time in which they had been playing. I was the only person in this highly musical university town who piped up and offered, “I don’t know, but i heard lots of 7’s, 9’s and 13’s.” The real point is that dozens of mixed couples and children were dancing and the rest were buying local produce from the booths lining every inch of the town plaza. Just another link.

http://california.tribe.net/event/JEWISH-AND-EASTERN-EUROPEAN-CONCERT-DANCING-WITH-CHUBRITZA/trinidad-ca-95570/d11c7ce5-c188-47ec-bdca-efe4e3bddf18

Your sculpture professor is wise. We have a taxonomy for everything now. This is the old Operating System. It says we can only copy. We will never make anything alive again approaching life or creation with this mentality. It is best for the student/artist to get over this. Moreover, i suspect professors say this to dissuade folks who have been enveloped by the old OS, kinda like someone turned by the notorious “Agent Smith.” I think what this means is “Do what emerges from those 100 percent moments. Keep doing it when our expression is 99 and a half and less.

The Brits used to have the kids sit and translate Greek and Latin texts word by word. This is a great start, but the point is to find the wonderful text for ourselves so we can create the wonderful understanding and interpretation. I’m a big fan of Krishnamurti and this is essentially his philosophy of education. An educator must have the ability to accompany the student in the search for this text or the special root of the student’s soul. Otherwise, all exchanges will be corrupted and the soul will wither.

The more we are mediated in this old Operating System the quicker our souls will wither. I can’t recall where at this moment but Jewish tradition says Find a Teacher and support him or her. This is what supports a tradition of education and what nourishes a soul. When there is a minyan in the community, whether they be growers, herders, musicians or solar engineers there is no reason that abundance should go unrecognised or unenjoyed.

When there is a minyan and/or a soul that has experienced it’s root once at 100, there is no reason said individual can not (with a little joyful effort) shape this into something complete for the benefit of others.

Mika, impress me
==

Not interested in impressing old hens. Particularly, hens who think too much of themselves. I find them throughly repulsive.

mika, darling, you humbug, you polecat!
you *are* intelligent, available and (probably two glasses into some good wine) you said “call me.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTdaPc4kuj4

The old hen says, impress me.
Q: Why would anyone want to impress an old hen?

This is for you, Carolyn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fny40Ut_RZA

mika.
it’s clear the Franken character should either “talk to Roz” or give that poor bastard his double scotch, because “darn it” he’s good enough and smart enough and people like him. But as for you, you handsome devil you don’t have to impress anyone. My wife cares little for most of my convictions. Eventually i gotta work out “VD Woman” on guitar or “promise i won’t be gully no more”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49yZzCggSJM

and one of us will come around

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU9_Q7PJuNQ

I think you’re circling close by not quite home free on your ideas about money. I think the deeper distinction is between investment and transactions. Central currencies “tend” to emphasize investment, at least it’s the usual medium of investment. Local currencies emphasize transactions. The more we’re biased to transactions, the more egalitarian the results; the more were biased to investment, the more unequal the results.

The article: Wealth Happens – Wealth Distribution and the Role of Networks by Mark Buchanan reviews the modeling work by Jean-Philippe Bouchaud and Marc Mézard of the University of Paris. Their model demonstrates the observed consequences of these two uses of money.

I appreciate your thinking, and it helped me sort through some of my own. Keep up the good work both of thinking and of expounding.

Investment can be very excellent too, especially if one really only desires some of the actual product rather than capital. Otherwise, to my mind, you appear in complete agreement with Douglas: Local currencies really need our use! Let’s use them!

-mason

Carolyn DeRoo said:
“1. I really wouldn’t know because I am 36 and music from before 1989 was formative…”

I believe it is a myth that one can’t learn to love sounds other than the sounds on grew up with. After all, I only learned to appreciate Mozart rather recently. And I’m very close in age to you.

Another thought: if you can’t relate to newer music, doesn’t that mean it’s in some way “new.”

“2. I think lots of people who are over 30 think that new music is crap.”

I think that’s a bit of an over-generalization… Surely “music” isn’t one homogenous entity?

“3. Has DR ever really listened to Moby’s album Play? Moby is at least 85% as brilliant as The Talking Heads, which is saying something.”

I can assure you that as a composer who works with both experimental and dance forms (underground house and techno), Moby’s work is not considered particularly brilliant. In fact, all Moby does is sample “real” musicians playing “authentic” sounding music, stick a fairly obvious sampled drum beat over top of it, and call it a new piece. If anything, Moby’s album is perfect evidence of the lack of originality in recent music.

On the other hand, I hear he is a nice guy, and someone I knew actually dated him I believe.

“4. Isn’t the emergence of techno and electronica, with 6/8 time, kind of amazing? And from the last 20 years?”

How could reinventing something that has existed for hundreds of years be amazing? This again just shows we are going backwards. Just take a look at the rhythms of classical Indian music in comparison.

Now, surely there have been some interesting moments in electronic music in the past 20 years; but what is interesting about the best examples is less any radical innovation in style, as much as their ability to inject a feeling of soul and humanity back into music that technology is increasingly making bland and homogenous–reminding us that maybe there is still hope that we can learn to live with technology and not simply be controlled and consumed by it.

Suggested electronic listening from the last 20 years (albums):
+Carl Craig: “More Songs About Food and Revolutionary Art” (90’s)
+Akufen: “My Way” (2000)
+Omar S: “Fabric 45 – Detroit” (2009)

“5. Maybe what we’re doing with music is what’s new… But perhaps people expect more of a spiritual experience from dancing or otherwise experiencing the music.”

Again, people have been doing this for thousands of years, how can it be considered new? Worse, one could argue that this is not progress, but rather a regression to a pre-aesthetic state of consciousness, where one passively surrenders to the sounds whatever they happen to be, but loses the ability to make an aesthetic judgment which was once considered a hallmark of subjective consciousness (see Kant).