Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Forget Free Money Day. I Declare Increase Output Day!

commentary by Roger Erickson

I just read about Free Money Day, held on September 15th, organized by the Post Growth Institute.

They sound well meaning but operationally naive.

However, it might be noticeable if the 1% endorse it in spades! :)

Seriously though, why should any evolving species EVER endorse a "post growth" initiative. What is that? Hibernation? An Ice Age? Death?

What if prokaryotes had endorsed that concept 3.5 billion years ago? Or if any idiots had, at any time throughout the intervening history, right up to the formal definition of Luddites?

Answer: they would have INSTANTLY been run over by some other evolving "truck," without ever even getting the license plate!

I guess the proper definition of "post growth" = lunch.

I'm going to suggest an Increase Output Day instead, where people just get together to do insanely great things, and challenge themselves to AUTOMATICALLY denominate - with scalable agility - all the unpredictable transaction chains incidental to the options they explore.
  The point will be to focus on our REAL OPTIONS, while making all of accounting a simple automatic stabilizer.  Maybe a Fed-app on Android phones?  Hell!  The app could even spout a stream of inscrutable nonsense - just to warn anyone from ever again failing to see the reality for the coincidental accounting.

ps: Where's Will Rogers when we need him more than ever? We need a robotic density detector, constantly flailing it's arms & screaming "Danger, Will Rogers!" "Danger, Will Rogers!" every time the level our discussion in the most distributed levels of our electorate becomes lower than we could hope to survive. Can we extract the tiny parts of Dick Stockton's brain that are actually useful, now that it's in it's post-growth phase, graft it into such robots, and use them to maintain distributed awareness? Sounds like a great student challenge.

7 comments:

y said...

"the unpredictable transaction chains incidental to the options they explore".

Do you mean money?

"The point will be to focus on our REAL OPTIONS, while making all of accounting a simple automatic stabilizer."

You can't control all the variables. The exchange rate, for example. And politics is slow.

"Maybe a Fed-app on Android phones?"

Do you mean private debt?

Hell! The app could even spout a "stream of inscrutable nonsense - just to warn anyone from ever again failing to see the reality for the coincidental accounting."

If the coincidental accounting doesn't keep up with the reality, the incidental accounting can become worthless. And then reality might become inscrutable nonsense.

Paulo Garrido said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Paulo Garrido said...

post growth = development

no problemo

development =
growth OR transformation

they don't utter post growth because they are evil

they utter post growth because they fear

Chris Watkins said...

Think of them as provocateurs rather than economic theoreticians.

I had concerns when I first heard of the plans for a Post Growth Institute, and expressed them to Donnie Maclurcan, one of the founders. I mean, we want to get past the need for growth powered by fossil fuels, for example, but if it's economic activity without a significant downside, then let's have growth in that. Services, renewable energy (assuming minimal embedded energy)... they can grow.

And they realize that. But they're questioning the fetish for growth (as it's usually understood) and the way we think about money. I may not buy all their conclusions, but I like that they're doing something to provoke thought.

Bottom line - don't feel safe in assuming they're idiots. Dig a little deeper.

Roger Erickson said...

I'm saying it's idiotic to try to constrain the definition of growth.

Our populous is not entirely dumb, but poor semantics can be very damaging.

There are infinite ways for "growth" to mean doing still more with even less. That still means our capabilities have grown.

You get people started on zero growth, and you can't predict what you'll unleash.

Roger Erickson said...

y said...
["the unpredictable transaction chains incidental to the options they explore".]



?? For Pete's sake!
Transactions.
Multiple, linked, transactions.
Transaction chains = any & all organized sequences of transactions. [e.g.,logistics]

["The point will be to focus on our REAL OPTIONS, while making all of accounting a simple automatic stabilizer."]



If that's the way you prefer to restate the same thing.


["Maybe a Fed-app on Android phones?"]



No. Just miniaturized, leaner banking operations, including crowd-sourced credit evaluations, all cheaply reported to and tracked by the populous guaranteeing our currency liquidity - through it's Treasury accounting system.

[Hell! The app could even spout a "stream of inscrutable nonsense - just to warn anyone from ever again failing to see the reality for the coincidental accounting."]



Our perception of reality can become nonsense, but that's about it. Reality would be that we're toast, as a nation and culture.

The way to avoid being toast is to continuously improve the quality [including tempo] of distributed decision-making.
http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2012/08/return-on-coordination.html

In this case, we do that by making currency accounting far leaner/faster/better. Replace the Fed with an Android app. It could be done, easily. That would free up a lot of claimed intellect to work on more productive things.

Roger Erickson said...

y said...
["the unpredictable transaction chains incidental to the options they explore".]

(Do you mean money?)

?? For Pete's sake!
Transactions.
Multiple, linked, transactions.
Transaction chains = any & all organized sequences of transactions. [e.g.,logistics]

["The point will be to focus on our REAL OPTIONS, while making all of accounting a simple automatic stabilizer."]

(You can't control all the variables. The exchange rate, for example. And politics is slow.)

If that's the way you prefer to restate the same thing.


["Maybe a Fed-app on Android phones?"]

(Do you mean private debt?)

No. Just miniaturized, leaner banking operations, including crowd-sourced credit evaluations, all cheaply reported to and tracked by the populous guaranteeing our currency liquidity - through it's Treasury accounting system.

[Hell! The app could even spout a "stream of inscrutable nonsense - just to warn anyone from ever again failing to see the reality for the coincidental accounting."]

(If the coincidental accounting doesn't keep up with the reality, the incidental accounting can become worthless. And then reality might become inscrutable nonsense.)

Our perception of reality can become nonsense, but that's about it. Reality would be that we're toast, as a nation and culture.

The way to avoid being toast is to continuously improve the quality [including tempo] of distributed decision-making.
http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2012/08/return-on-coordination.html

In this case, we do that by making currency accounting far leaner/faster/better. Replace the Fed with an Android app. It could be done, easily. That would free up a lot of claimed intellect to work on more productive things.