Rambling this morning with various key word searches using various words all trying to elicit something related to the broad application of Object Oriented Thinking to general social system structures I found this interesting analysis of of Metaphor.
The technical application of Object Orientation is downward toward programming. My application is upward toward high level abstract system architecture. Statement of fundamental kernel belief on which systems are based. Much like the Constitution.
The computer information age metaphor is something that is understood in the most complex detail. It is rapidly becoming in the broadest sense the best metaphor for structuring our social systems as well as our personal lives.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Friday, December 28, 2012
2012 Ends Badly for Economics
This is the first part of a year end picture of the economy and the cliff by Michael Hudson at New Economics Perspectives. Extremely unfortunate that we are operating in such a pathetic system and are able to do so little about it because people do not understand the system. Failure to understand a complex structure of smoke and mirrors and refusal to enforce regulations as well as banking an finance using their political and media power to misinform the public.
It is a sad situation that Michael describes but unfortunately excellent in its accuracy.
Recently I have been reading about the need for balance in an ecological system. The result of those systems is balance not efficiency. Efficiency is not a determinant of system structure in nature. Factors and forces of balance determine evolution of the structure.
Finance and Banking, actually, to include all the players "FIRE" have created a system designed for efficiency in serving their objective, not designed for balance nor for balance to determine or cause correction to a natural state but efficiency to maintain an unnatural out of balance condition as the norm. The norm that currently benefits the 1% and will continue to benefit them to a greater extent as they become private owners and renters of property that was once public. They have all the money to buy things in the public domain. Where else can so much money be invested for profit return? When government enforces austerity of decreased expenditures and increased taxes taking money out of the money supply what else can it do but sell off the public commons?
The "We must pay our debts" meme stupidity of the Fiscal Cliff is astounding. As astounding as getting ignorant low and middle working class to vote tax cuts for the rich and for the party of the rich through the media propaganda of hate, fear, class division and distortion of the truth.
It is a sad situation that Michael describes but unfortunately excellent in its accuracy.
Recently I have been reading about the need for balance in an ecological system. The result of those systems is balance not efficiency. Efficiency is not a determinant of system structure in nature. Factors and forces of balance determine evolution of the structure.
Finance and Banking, actually, to include all the players "FIRE" have created a system designed for efficiency in serving their objective, not designed for balance nor for balance to determine or cause correction to a natural state but efficiency to maintain an unnatural out of balance condition as the norm. The norm that currently benefits the 1% and will continue to benefit them to a greater extent as they become private owners and renters of property that was once public. They have all the money to buy things in the public domain. Where else can so much money be invested for profit return? When government enforces austerity of decreased expenditures and increased taxes taking money out of the money supply what else can it do but sell off the public commons?
The "We must pay our debts" meme stupidity of the Fiscal Cliff is astounding. As astounding as getting ignorant low and middle working class to vote tax cuts for the rich and for the party of the rich through the media propaganda of hate, fear, class division and distortion of the truth.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Reduction to Simplicity
My annual creative insight thinking runs from September to January. It always has for my entire life although I only recognized the cyclical nature of this gift at about age 30. During my navy career I would generate and propose big ideas during this time frame that I would subsequently be tasked with implementing for the rest of the year. The rest of the year I did not have the keen insight to the complex problems that I had when I came up with some broad approaches or solutions to them during the cyclical window of insight. I struggled to deliver! Sometimes I wished I had kept my mouth shut and just done my routine job of managing the existing operation. That however, is not what I viewed my job as a navy officer to exclusively be. Charging ahead into unknown challenges with confidence, courage and daring was what being a navy officer was all about.
My insight peaks around Thanksgiving then tapers to New Years. Then for the rest of the year I struggle to see with clarity what I saw then and do something with it. It is one thing to get grand ideas, another to implement them. Not remembering clearly the ideas, I shift to doing physical things. Implementing work projects. New ones but generally ones undone. I have increasingly progressed on installing the glass floor over the entrance and installing in the laundry room the old cabinets taken from the remodel of the kitchen 5 years ago. Those cabinets have been sitting on the floor of the laundry room and in storage since then.
My creative thoughts during the last three month have taken me hither and yon and I have followed the main stream of thought; the monetary system, as well as the side thoughts related to it that have taken me elsewhere with connections to the main thought that only I see. It has been fun, challenging, revealing, educational, and leading to greater insight in so many things.
Wrapping up all those thoughts is what this blog post is all about.
Our information systems are the best current model for organizing our conceptual structures. Everything from monetary systems to religion. Monetary systems and other major social systems like politics, law, the practice of medicine as opposed to the science of medicine, international relationships, etc. Religious reforms as a function of information and knowledge structures not coming until the end of this century. They must come and will be the last to come because traditional religion has not changed to adapt itself to our society which is becoming information and knowledge based in structures that serve us. They do not serve us as well as possible now, the Money System being the current biggest problem. That however is a problem that our information systems will solve -- or we will enter a new dark age, which I sincerely doubt. There is no going back to that, we would only fail to progress for awhile as the worst case scenario. Falling back to clinging to guns and bibles making the leap to a new paradigm more difficult and delayed. I hope that is not what it takes to get there.
The model is the information system. While we see the physical presence of the system in computers, our computer based media devices, business devices, the social institutions that increasingly employ computers in their functions. The progress of computer application to our world has been one from functional application to do things to object orientation to structure the conceptual design in which those things are done.
Object Orientation theory and practice is the reduction of complexity to simplicity that will carry us to a new age of enlightenment.
Some can see that now. It is perhaps not just chance that one of the last things that I have chosen to write about is consolidation of of the Object Oriented paradigm to a single basic foundation for the entire system.
I find myself at the same place I stood conceptually when I bought two technical books in the early 80's that became foundational in my development of shipyard supply system design concepts at Naval Sea Systems Command. That was my last and most demanding assignment in the navy. The last assignment, Defense Depot, Ogden was a pay off retirement tour chosen by me instead of accepting the assignment of Supply Officer of an aircraft carrier leading to promotion to Captain. It was time to get out. While the conceptual thinking was there at the time to do a major restructure of the shipyard supply system, the real ability to do it was not. Only the reality that ideas were ahead of their time and it was not the battle that I wanted to fight without the existence of hardware and software systems to fight it.
The two books I bought in the early 80's were "Language as a Cognitive Process" by Terry Winograd and SmallTalk-80 The Language and Its Implementation.
From these two books, one presenting the beauty of our natural language to organize and express our conceptual thoughts and the other the beauty of expressing the fundamental object oriented nature of machine structured language to do the same from the simplest to the most complex level of abstraction.
The technical refinement of our natural language as well as our machine oriented language to express complex concepts as well as reduce them to simplicity for comprehension has come a long way as they have come closer together in structure and function. They are now the model on which to build new systems in an information age beyond those they created in an industrial oriented age.
The essential "take away" from this cyclic period of creative thought is the conceptual structure of the information age that is to be applied to our social structures in this century:
Kernel
Operating System
Application Programs
All three in the broad harmony of Computational Trinity
If I can't clearly recall every insight over the last three months, some of which I have written in this blog, these things will remain as my point of entry to the Problem Domain when I pick up on the challenge during my next insight cycle.
Until then I will seek to apply this point of entry and the insights I have gained to some kind of practical implementation to solve the monetary system problem and any other problems the basic methodology of organizing information and knowledge might solve....which is just about everything!
Simple!
Mom had the greatest gift of reducing complexity to simplicity. Her precious words words echo in my mind:
"Praise the Lord I have lived so long to learn so much!"
and;
Good enough is good enough!
My insight peaks around Thanksgiving then tapers to New Years. Then for the rest of the year I struggle to see with clarity what I saw then and do something with it. It is one thing to get grand ideas, another to implement them. Not remembering clearly the ideas, I shift to doing physical things. Implementing work projects. New ones but generally ones undone. I have increasingly progressed on installing the glass floor over the entrance and installing in the laundry room the old cabinets taken from the remodel of the kitchen 5 years ago. Those cabinets have been sitting on the floor of the laundry room and in storage since then.
My creative thoughts during the last three month have taken me hither and yon and I have followed the main stream of thought; the monetary system, as well as the side thoughts related to it that have taken me elsewhere with connections to the main thought that only I see. It has been fun, challenging, revealing, educational, and leading to greater insight in so many things.
Wrapping up all those thoughts is what this blog post is all about.
Our information systems are the best current model for organizing our conceptual structures. Everything from monetary systems to religion. Monetary systems and other major social systems like politics, law, the practice of medicine as opposed to the science of medicine, international relationships, etc. Religious reforms as a function of information and knowledge structures not coming until the end of this century. They must come and will be the last to come because traditional religion has not changed to adapt itself to our society which is becoming information and knowledge based in structures that serve us. They do not serve us as well as possible now, the Money System being the current biggest problem. That however is a problem that our information systems will solve -- or we will enter a new dark age, which I sincerely doubt. There is no going back to that, we would only fail to progress for awhile as the worst case scenario. Falling back to clinging to guns and bibles making the leap to a new paradigm more difficult and delayed. I hope that is not what it takes to get there.
The model is the information system. While we see the physical presence of the system in computers, our computer based media devices, business devices, the social institutions that increasingly employ computers in their functions. The progress of computer application to our world has been one from functional application to do things to object orientation to structure the conceptual design in which those things are done.
Object Orientation theory and practice is the reduction of complexity to simplicity that will carry us to a new age of enlightenment.
Some can see that now. It is perhaps not just chance that one of the last things that I have chosen to write about is consolidation of of the Object Oriented paradigm to a single basic foundation for the entire system.
I find myself at the same place I stood conceptually when I bought two technical books in the early 80's that became foundational in my development of shipyard supply system design concepts at Naval Sea Systems Command. That was my last and most demanding assignment in the navy. The last assignment, Defense Depot, Ogden was a pay off retirement tour chosen by me instead of accepting the assignment of Supply Officer of an aircraft carrier leading to promotion to Captain. It was time to get out. While the conceptual thinking was there at the time to do a major restructure of the shipyard supply system, the real ability to do it was not. Only the reality that ideas were ahead of their time and it was not the battle that I wanted to fight without the existence of hardware and software systems to fight it.
The two books I bought in the early 80's were "Language as a Cognitive Process" by Terry Winograd and SmallTalk-80 The Language and Its Implementation.
From these two books, one presenting the beauty of our natural language to organize and express our conceptual thoughts and the other the beauty of expressing the fundamental object oriented nature of machine structured language to do the same from the simplest to the most complex level of abstraction.
The technical refinement of our natural language as well as our machine oriented language to express complex concepts as well as reduce them to simplicity for comprehension has come a long way as they have come closer together in structure and function. They are now the model on which to build new systems in an information age beyond those they created in an industrial oriented age.
The essential "take away" from this cyclic period of creative thought is the conceptual structure of the information age that is to be applied to our social structures in this century:
Kernel
Operating System
Application Programs
All three in the broad harmony of Computational Trinity
If I can't clearly recall every insight over the last three months, some of which I have written in this blog, these things will remain as my point of entry to the Problem Domain when I pick up on the challenge during my next insight cycle.
Until then I will seek to apply this point of entry and the insights I have gained to some kind of practical implementation to solve the monetary system problem and any other problems the basic methodology of organizing information and knowledge might solve....which is just about everything!
Simple!
Mom had the greatest gift of reducing complexity to simplicity. Her precious words words echo in my mind:
"Praise the Lord I have lived so long to learn so much!"
and;
Good enough is good enough!
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Christmas Day--Reducing Complexity--Object Orientation
A child was born today. Born in simplicity: A stable. Not in a more complex structure where there was no room, no available space in which to be born. The Inn keeper did not reject entry nor slam the door shut saying the child could not be born in the Inn. There simply was no room within which to be born.
That simple story was the beginning. The magnitude of what that beginning has become is what we celebrate today. The exact thing we celebrate today is not the birth event of the past, except to the extent that it did happen (conceptually or in fact the reality of the bible for believers), but the result that is woven throughout our American, Christian oriented social structure today.
Christmas is our Holy Day. It does not exist or is rejected by the other major religious traditions. To put Christmas in perspective requires a digression to a review of the the Abrahamic religious traditions and beliefs to establish the frame of thought for building this idea: All seek to reduce Complexity to Simplicity. A concept of Unity from which all derives. Here is what is important and what this entry on this Christmas day intends to present: All of this religious tradition is based on conceptual and actual descendancy. The word "Conceptual" as used here being an elusive term to the extent that the object of the conceptual word or expression may or may not have "Really" existed in temporal time and space and anything existing beyond temporal time and space as we know it may or may not "Really" exist. Confusing? Yes, of course! That is the point: Reducing complexity to simplicity. The perception of complexity (or ultimate simplicity of Unity) of everything beyond temporal time and space is an optional conceptual matter that may or may not be believed. Believe in it or not, the implementation of the belief or non-belief in the spiritual existence of a Source of descendancy is not contradictory to the temporal real world implementation of our human existence and the ideal natural social structure of relationships among people and our social institutions.
Different interpretations of the Source in the spiritual world and implementation of those beliefs in the real world are merely different user views of the same "Thing". Identifying the "Thing" as a child of the spiritual "Thing" or the child as the conceptual and real " "Thing" we call a "Human" can make no difference. A "Human Being" any specific real human child, is an instance of an Entity of Human Beings even if there is no higher non-human being Entity which anyone may believe that the child descended.
Maybe that preceding thought is a shared universal joy of birth. We are all children born of parents. Conceived from the instant of independent yet still dependent existence as baby child with ability to know only natural behaviors. Learning natural behaviors until born and then beginning to know conceptual behaviors. Beginning to know conceptual behaviours from the moment of birth. Natural and Conceptual existence that may or may not be attributed to but in any case would not conflict with any beliefs in non-natural real world spiritual origins.
Abrahamic Religion: (Wikipedia Link)
It has been suggested that the phrase, "Abrahamic religion", may simply mean that all these religions come from one spiritual source.[2] Christians refer to Abraham as a "father in faith".[Rom. 4] There is an Islamic religious term, Millat Ibrahim (faith of Ibrahim),[3][4] indicating that Islam sees itself as having practices tied to the traditions of Abraham.[10] Jewish tradition claims descendance from Abraham, and adherents follow his practices and ideals as the first of the three spiritual "fathers", Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
All the major Abrahamic religions claim a direct lineage to Abraham.
The largest Abrahamic religions are, in chronological order of founding, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Baha'i Faith.
However, the term "Abrahamic faiths", while helpful, is also misleading.[14] It conveys an unspecified historical and theological commonality that is problematic on closer examination. While there is commonality among the religions, in large measure their shared ancestry is peripheral to their respective foundational beliefs and thus conceals crucial differences. For example, the common Christian beliefs of Incarnation, Trinity, and Jesus' Resurrection are not accepted by Judaism or Islam (see for example Islamic view of Jesus' death). There are key beliefs in both Islam and Judaism that are not shared by most of Christianity (such as strict monotheism and adherence to the Law), and key beliefs of Islam and Christianity not shared by Judaism (such as the prophetic and Messianic position of Jesus, respectively), and so on.[15]
I find that there is a real world paradigm of conscious birth and beginning to learn that is analogous to child birth that has been developing since the birth of consciousness, self awareness, that made us distinctly human. That paradigm is the application of our human mind to create a conceptual structure in harmony with our human nature. The best structure that we could come up with at any point in our prior history. Always progressing although sometimes regressing as a failure to progress.
The best conceptual and physical structures that we are able to create today are the product of, the implementation of, our best ability so far to organize and apply our thoughts based on simplicity to their implementation in complexity. The ability to produce the complexity of real and conceptual structures as a product of a few great minds employing the minds and physical resources of many has gone beyond the ability of the minds of the many to reduce the complexity we face in this world today to the simplicity we seek as an explanation.
Old explanations of spiritual origin simplicity were good enough. They served us well. They can continue to serve us well for those that wish to continue to believe in them but we must have a real world simplicity of non conflicting real world perception of conscious thought that we all accept as as a true simple reality that organizes our conceptual structures and the real world around us that we have created form those thoughts: The real world of our thoughts as expressed by our social structures as well as the physical things those thoughts and social structures have produced.
A simple single source concept that is the product of our best thinking to reduces our temporal complexity to simplicity is expressed by Object Oriented thinking. It is that school of thought upon which to build our future real and conceptual structures. Object Oriented thinking is in harmony with the natural temporal world of our existence as well as in harmony with any spiritual world in which any individual or society may wish to believe.
While Object Orientation is a programming methodology at the computer application level it is also a methodology for conceptualizing high level abstract thought. The state of the art is the result of pioneers in this area. Pioneers that, unlike those that won us the west, are still living today and continuing to lead us in showing the way. Things are happening faster. Those that gave birth to the big concepts that are our progress today and are still at the forefront of thought development are the ones to look to for guidance for the methodologies to solves the complexities of today's problems to simplicity in comprehending and seeing what the nature of the problems and the solutions are.
This is what I find to be our best hope. The birth of a new high level abstract conceptual child that will lead us in information and knowledge technology as science has lead us industrially in the past.
SEMAT
SEMAT (Software Engineering Method and Theory) is an initiative to reshape software engineering such that software engineering qualifies as a rigorous discipline. The initiative was launched in December 2009 by Ivar Jacobson, Bertrand Meyer, and Richard Soley.[1]
The sponsors and supporters of the SEMAT initiative have agreed and signed the following Call for Action [2]:
Software engineering is gravely hampered today by immature practices. Specific problems include:
SEMAT is the science that precedes the engineering application of information to create knowledge. We are proceeding in that direction in many areas. SEMAT is what organizes the progress at a high level with proscriptive specifications Kernel as described here: "Another Step Forward For SEMAT"
A conceptual child is born to guide us. For believers that choose to find the origin Source of Guidance in the spiritual world: God gifting us as he always has with a child to lead us in His way. For non-believers in God or that we are all the collective spirit of God: A child of Our minds to lead us in Our way.
For the believers: The Child's Father was a Creator. The Child's father was a carpenter, a human builder that creates structures in the real world.
My tribute to the one I love who lead me in my doing and thinking. My inspiration for who I am and where I am at today and where I am to go on this adventure.
The inspiration of SEMAT:
The book: The Essence of Software Engineering: Applying the SEMAT Kernel
The following the end of my comment in this paragraph is an excerpt from the end of the book. The book is the center. To the right is the application of the kernel to do things in the software computing world. What is most fascinating to me is to left circle, outside the book. In the direction to a higher level abstraction of the kernel to universal application to our conceptual structure view of the world and our relationship to it.
That simple story was the beginning. The magnitude of what that beginning has become is what we celebrate today. The exact thing we celebrate today is not the birth event of the past, except to the extent that it did happen (conceptually or in fact the reality of the bible for believers), but the result that is woven throughout our American, Christian oriented social structure today.
Christmas is our Holy Day. It does not exist or is rejected by the other major religious traditions. To put Christmas in perspective requires a digression to a review of the the Abrahamic religious traditions and beliefs to establish the frame of thought for building this idea: All seek to reduce Complexity to Simplicity. A concept of Unity from which all derives. Here is what is important and what this entry on this Christmas day intends to present: All of this religious tradition is based on conceptual and actual descendancy. The word "Conceptual" as used here being an elusive term to the extent that the object of the conceptual word or expression may or may not have "Really" existed in temporal time and space and anything existing beyond temporal time and space as we know it may or may not "Really" exist. Confusing? Yes, of course! That is the point: Reducing complexity to simplicity. The perception of complexity (or ultimate simplicity of Unity) of everything beyond temporal time and space is an optional conceptual matter that may or may not be believed. Believe in it or not, the implementation of the belief or non-belief in the spiritual existence of a Source of descendancy is not contradictory to the temporal real world implementation of our human existence and the ideal natural social structure of relationships among people and our social institutions.
Different interpretations of the Source in the spiritual world and implementation of those beliefs in the real world are merely different user views of the same "Thing". Identifying the "Thing" as a child of the spiritual "Thing" or the child as the conceptual and real " "Thing" we call a "Human" can make no difference. A "Human Being" any specific real human child, is an instance of an Entity of Human Beings even if there is no higher non-human being Entity which anyone may believe that the child descended.
Maybe that preceding thought is a shared universal joy of birth. We are all children born of parents. Conceived from the instant of independent yet still dependent existence as baby child with ability to know only natural behaviors. Learning natural behaviors until born and then beginning to know conceptual behaviors. Beginning to know conceptual behaviours from the moment of birth. Natural and Conceptual existence that may or may not be attributed to but in any case would not conflict with any beliefs in non-natural real world spiritual origins.
Abrahamic Religion: (Wikipedia Link)
It has been suggested that the phrase, "Abrahamic religion", may simply mean that all these religions come from one spiritual source.[2] Christians refer to Abraham as a "father in faith".[Rom. 4] There is an Islamic religious term, Millat Ibrahim (faith of Ibrahim),[3][4] indicating that Islam sees itself as having practices tied to the traditions of Abraham.[10] Jewish tradition claims descendance from Abraham, and adherents follow his practices and ideals as the first of the three spiritual "fathers", Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
All the major Abrahamic religions claim a direct lineage to Abraham.
The largest Abrahamic religions are, in chronological order of founding, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Baha'i Faith.
However, the term "Abrahamic faiths", while helpful, is also misleading.[14] It conveys an unspecified historical and theological commonality that is problematic on closer examination. While there is commonality among the religions, in large measure their shared ancestry is peripheral to their respective foundational beliefs and thus conceals crucial differences. For example, the common Christian beliefs of Incarnation, Trinity, and Jesus' Resurrection are not accepted by Judaism or Islam (see for example Islamic view of Jesus' death). There are key beliefs in both Islam and Judaism that are not shared by most of Christianity (such as strict monotheism and adherence to the Law), and key beliefs of Islam and Christianity not shared by Judaism (such as the prophetic and Messianic position of Jesus, respectively), and so on.[15]
I find that there is a real world paradigm of conscious birth and beginning to learn that is analogous to child birth that has been developing since the birth of consciousness, self awareness, that made us distinctly human. That paradigm is the application of our human mind to create a conceptual structure in harmony with our human nature. The best structure that we could come up with at any point in our prior history. Always progressing although sometimes regressing as a failure to progress.
The best conceptual and physical structures that we are able to create today are the product of, the implementation of, our best ability so far to organize and apply our thoughts based on simplicity to their implementation in complexity. The ability to produce the complexity of real and conceptual structures as a product of a few great minds employing the minds and physical resources of many has gone beyond the ability of the minds of the many to reduce the complexity we face in this world today to the simplicity we seek as an explanation.
Old explanations of spiritual origin simplicity were good enough. They served us well. They can continue to serve us well for those that wish to continue to believe in them but we must have a real world simplicity of non conflicting real world perception of conscious thought that we all accept as as a true simple reality that organizes our conceptual structures and the real world around us that we have created form those thoughts: The real world of our thoughts as expressed by our social structures as well as the physical things those thoughts and social structures have produced.
A simple single source concept that is the product of our best thinking to reduces our temporal complexity to simplicity is expressed by Object Oriented thinking. It is that school of thought upon which to build our future real and conceptual structures. Object Oriented thinking is in harmony with the natural temporal world of our existence as well as in harmony with any spiritual world in which any individual or society may wish to believe.
While Object Orientation is a programming methodology at the computer application level it is also a methodology for conceptualizing high level abstract thought. The state of the art is the result of pioneers in this area. Pioneers that, unlike those that won us the west, are still living today and continuing to lead us in showing the way. Things are happening faster. Those that gave birth to the big concepts that are our progress today and are still at the forefront of thought development are the ones to look to for guidance for the methodologies to solves the complexities of today's problems to simplicity in comprehending and seeing what the nature of the problems and the solutions are.
This is what I find to be our best hope. The birth of a new high level abstract conceptual child that will lead us in information and knowledge technology as science has lead us industrially in the past.
SEMAT
SEMAT (Software Engineering Method and Theory) is an initiative to reshape software engineering such that software engineering qualifies as a rigorous discipline. The initiative was launched in December 2009 by Ivar Jacobson, Bertrand Meyer, and Richard Soley.[1]
The sponsors and supporters of the SEMAT initiative have agreed and signed the following Call for Action [2]:
Software engineering is gravely hampered today by immature practices. Specific problems include:
- The prevalence of fads more typical of fashion industry than of an engineering discipline
- The lack of a sound, widely accepted theoretical basis
- The huge number of methods and method variants, with differences little understood and artificially magnified
- The lack of credible experimental evaluation and validation
- The split between industry practice and academic research
- Include a kernel of widely-agreed elements, extensible for specific uses
- Address both technology and people issues
- Are supported by industry, academia, researchers and users
- Support extension in the face of changing requirements and technology
SEMAT is the science that precedes the engineering application of information to create knowledge. We are proceeding in that direction in many areas. SEMAT is what organizes the progress at a high level with proscriptive specifications Kernel as described here: "Another Step Forward For SEMAT"
A conceptual child is born to guide us. For believers that choose to find the origin Source of Guidance in the spiritual world: God gifting us as he always has with a child to lead us in His way. For non-believers in God or that we are all the collective spirit of God: A child of Our minds to lead us in Our way.
For the believers: The Child's Father was a Creator. The Child's father was a carpenter, a human builder that creates structures in the real world.
My tribute to the one I love who lead me in my doing and thinking. My inspiration for who I am and where I am at today and where I am to go on this adventure.
The inspiration of SEMAT:
The book: The Essence of Software Engineering: Applying the SEMAT Kernel
The following the end of my comment in this paragraph is an excerpt from the end of the book. The book is the center. To the right is the application of the kernel to do things in the software computing world. What is most fascinating to me is to left circle, outside the book. In the direction to a higher level abstraction of the kernel to universal application to our conceptual structure view of the world and our relationship to it.
Appendix B. What Does This Book Cover with Respect to the Kernel?
In this book we introduced a number of concepts in the kernel, and how you can use them in your software endeavor. However, as we did so we inevitably also added our experiences and adaptations. We would also like to say that this book does not describe the entire kernel, but an important part of it, namely: alphas, their states, checklists, and the ability to extend the kernel. So, as a reader you might like to know what parts of the kernel are left out of this book, and what are the things we add on top of the kernel in this book.
Figure B-1 Scope of this book
Monday, December 17, 2012
Platinum Coin 2.0
Joe Firestone is making entries at New Economic Perspectives regarding the Platinum coin as the issue of the debt cliff heats up.
It is a brilliant idea!!! Absolutely!
Joebhd commented that the idea can go even farther than the multiple choices of applying it to resolving the National Debt pseudo crises.
Absolutely!
Joebhd has outstanding ideas about public money that I fully agree with and the Platinum Coin applies to those broader money system ideas.
I will call this the broader application which would be the basis for creating and implementing the monetary system I propose. This broader aspect I will call: "Platinum Coin 2.0".
There are no Google hits on the quoted words "Platinum Coin 2.0" Therefore I am the first to coin that phrase!!
It is a brilliant idea!!! Absolutely!
Joebhd commented that the idea can go even farther than the multiple choices of applying it to resolving the National Debt pseudo crises.
Absolutely!
Joebhd has outstanding ideas about public money that I fully agree with and the Platinum Coin applies to those broader money system ideas.
I will call this the broader application which would be the basis for creating and implementing the monetary system I propose. This broader aspect I will call: "Platinum Coin 2.0".
There are no Google hits on the quoted words "Platinum Coin 2.0" Therefore I am the first to coin that phrase!!
Small Change Module
In a rare comment I made expressing my digital unique serialized dollar idea on a public forum someone commented: How do you handle the small change less than one dollar if the entire system is structured on unique serialized dollars all with a value of one.
It is a minor detail to deal with the small change. The amount that fills two places to the right of the decimal point. It could actually be extended to three places to the right of the decimal point enabling payment in mills (thousandth of dollar) . Actually, an idea that would enable micro payments an an ideal way of paying for information on the internet. That however is beyond the scope of this entry which will only deal with paying down to the one cent level.
Every single serialized dollar value of one has an associated owner account number. When that owner spends from the account an amount to the right of the decimal (cents), how is the change handled?
The situation is the same as if I had only single paper dollars in my pocket and the person I am buying something from like a bus driver requires exact change. I have to go somewhere with my dollar bill and exchange it for coins to make the exact change. Since the dollar is digital, the exchange of one of my digital serialized dollars is made for 100 pennies. Then I pay in the exact amount of change equal to more than 1 penny or equal to or less than 99 pennies.
The operating system takes care of it. It sees that there is an amount to the right of the decimal point in the total amount of the transaction. Each registered money system account authorized to use the money system (bank accounts mapped to a single user registered to use the money system. A single money system user can have many bank accounts but must have at least one bank account) has a permanent digital small change coin purse. When change of ownership of change is required it goes from the paying accounts coin purse to the coin purse of the receiver money system account.
If there is sufficient change in the payers purse then payment is made. If not then one of the payers serialized dollars taken by a change agent by changing the current owner to the new owner which is the change agent administrative account and the change agent putting 100 cents into the payer's small change purse. That amount adds to whatever is already in the payer's change purse, if anything, but the change purse will never have more than 199 pennies.
Likewise the payee small change purse will never have more than 199 pennies in it and if it receives anything small change from a payer that puts it over 199 pennies then 100 of those pennies go to the change agent administrator account in return for the change agent causing the payee to receive one of the serialized dollars in its account.
Small Change Module could work something like that. There are probably more elegant ways to do it, things that I have not thought of yet but this method will suffice to document that something can be devised to handle the small change problem and it may even provide an opportunity for a micro payment system in mills as an internal operating system to cover cost or also an external system for micro payments.....or both.
It is a minor detail to deal with the small change. The amount that fills two places to the right of the decimal point. It could actually be extended to three places to the right of the decimal point enabling payment in mills (thousandth of dollar) . Actually, an idea that would enable micro payments an an ideal way of paying for information on the internet. That however is beyond the scope of this entry which will only deal with paying down to the one cent level.
Every single serialized dollar value of one has an associated owner account number. When that owner spends from the account an amount to the right of the decimal (cents), how is the change handled?
The situation is the same as if I had only single paper dollars in my pocket and the person I am buying something from like a bus driver requires exact change. I have to go somewhere with my dollar bill and exchange it for coins to make the exact change. Since the dollar is digital, the exchange of one of my digital serialized dollars is made for 100 pennies. Then I pay in the exact amount of change equal to more than 1 penny or equal to or less than 99 pennies.
The operating system takes care of it. It sees that there is an amount to the right of the decimal point in the total amount of the transaction. Each registered money system account authorized to use the money system (bank accounts mapped to a single user registered to use the money system. A single money system user can have many bank accounts but must have at least one bank account) has a permanent digital small change coin purse. When change of ownership of change is required it goes from the paying accounts coin purse to the coin purse of the receiver money system account.
If there is sufficient change in the payers purse then payment is made. If not then one of the payers serialized dollars taken by a change agent by changing the current owner to the new owner which is the change agent administrative account and the change agent putting 100 cents into the payer's small change purse. That amount adds to whatever is already in the payer's change purse, if anything, but the change purse will never have more than 199 pennies.
Likewise the payee small change purse will never have more than 199 pennies in it and if it receives anything small change from a payer that puts it over 199 pennies then 100 of those pennies go to the change agent administrator account in return for the change agent causing the payee to receive one of the serialized dollars in its account.
Small Change Module could work something like that. There are probably more elegant ways to do it, things that I have not thought of yet but this method will suffice to document that something can be devised to handle the small change problem and it may even provide an opportunity for a micro payment system in mills as an internal operating system to cover cost or also an external system for micro payments.....or both.
Printing Money vs Creating an Instance of a Class
Printing money is not just an unfortunate term, it is stupid. It creates a frame that ignorant people relate to paper money rolling off printing presses. Printing money is a meme that means creating money with a key stroke on a computer. The writing of an amount to a computer record.
Creating an Instance of a Class is a far better term for the creation of money but the idea of creating instances of dollars is only applicable in the frame that I propose for a monetary system composed of uniquely serialized digital dollars each with a unit value of one where the dollar is a fixed record an association to an owning account changes.
This link defines Instance
This link defines Class
Both links are definition of terms in Object Oriented Programming
Creating money as an instance of a class is an alien concept in the current monetary system. Money is not an instance of a Class Object called Money in the current system it is a number. A Number Object is an object wrapper for primitive numeric values.
Number objects are created with new Number().
In the debt money system new money is created when a loan is made. When a specific number representing the amount loaned is entered in the loan agreement. A lump sum of loaned money. One single number of variable numeric value stating the total amount of the loan. Payment on the loan is another numeric value stating a total amount that returns money to the nothing that it was created out of when the loan was made. Plus interest! Don't ask where that interest came from because there are a variety of explanations. If you want a good laugh at people twisting their knickers in a knot over the issue of where the money comes from to pay interest then go to this link. Nobody really knows. Some think they do. On the other hand, interest is really paid. However, interest is a side issue not the object of discussion here.
The point: Money at the working level in the current monetary system is nothing more than a variable lump sum numerical amount with properties of the Object Class: Number. What is called "Printing Money" in the current system is entering a variable number in a computer accounting record. Actually entering it to two balancing records: The Credit Record and the Debit Record. Funny thing here. Go to the Credit link at Wikipedia and you get an extensive explanation. Substitute "Debit" for "Credit" and you get nothing at that link! Ahh... the mystery of Balance Sheet Accounting in the Double Entry Book Keeping System. I hated it in high school, I still hate it. I hate the entire frame.
Creating Money in the monetary system I propose is creating each unique dollar one at a time by assigning it a unique serial number as an instance of the Class called Money. Money becomes independent of its purpose. Meaning exactly that money is not debt, a representation of debt. It has nothing to do with debt other than it is one of the things that can be done with money: loaned to someone or some financial entity to spend on something with a promise repay the loan. Otherwise money is money and when it is owned without relation to debt then it is by definition.....think about this.....it is debt free! Money in the system I propose was not born in debt nor in a lump sum.
My system gives money an identity beyond a number. It also gives it messages that it can respond to and carry out operations it knows how to do called methods. It is an object oriented system from its highest level of abstraction down to its lowest level of operation.
In the current system digital money must always have an associated account. It appears as as sum or balance in the account. This link explains the object oriented UML view of a bank account and the variable number balance attribute called money in it.
This from the beginning of that link: In this example money is a variable current value balance attribute of the object: "Account". The Account:State equals the Account:Balance.
Creating an Instance of a Class is a far better term for the creation of money but the idea of creating instances of dollars is only applicable in the frame that I propose for a monetary system composed of uniquely serialized digital dollars each with a unit value of one where the dollar is a fixed record an association to an owning account changes.
This link defines Instance
This link defines Class
Both links are definition of terms in Object Oriented Programming
Creating money as an instance of a class is an alien concept in the current monetary system. Money is not an instance of a Class Object called Money in the current system it is a number. A Number Object is an object wrapper for primitive numeric values.
Number objects are created with new Number().
In the debt money system new money is created when a loan is made. When a specific number representing the amount loaned is entered in the loan agreement. A lump sum of loaned money. One single number of variable numeric value stating the total amount of the loan. Payment on the loan is another numeric value stating a total amount that returns money to the nothing that it was created out of when the loan was made. Plus interest! Don't ask where that interest came from because there are a variety of explanations. If you want a good laugh at people twisting their knickers in a knot over the issue of where the money comes from to pay interest then go to this link. Nobody really knows. Some think they do. On the other hand, interest is really paid. However, interest is a side issue not the object of discussion here.
The point: Money at the working level in the current monetary system is nothing more than a variable lump sum numerical amount with properties of the Object Class: Number. What is called "Printing Money" in the current system is entering a variable number in a computer accounting record. Actually entering it to two balancing records: The Credit Record and the Debit Record. Funny thing here. Go to the Credit link at Wikipedia and you get an extensive explanation. Substitute "Debit" for "Credit" and you get nothing at that link! Ahh... the mystery of Balance Sheet Accounting in the Double Entry Book Keeping System. I hated it in high school, I still hate it. I hate the entire frame.
Creating Money in the monetary system I propose is creating each unique dollar one at a time by assigning it a unique serial number as an instance of the Class called Money. Money becomes independent of its purpose. Meaning exactly that money is not debt, a representation of debt. It has nothing to do with debt other than it is one of the things that can be done with money: loaned to someone or some financial entity to spend on something with a promise repay the loan. Otherwise money is money and when it is owned without relation to debt then it is by definition.....think about this.....it is debt free! Money in the system I propose was not born in debt nor in a lump sum.
My system gives money an identity beyond a number. It also gives it messages that it can respond to and carry out operations it knows how to do called methods. It is an object oriented system from its highest level of abstraction down to its lowest level of operation.
In the current system digital money must always have an associated account. It appears as as sum or balance in the account. This link explains the object oriented UML view of a bank account and the variable number balance attribute called money in it.
This from the beginning of that link: In this example money is a variable current value balance attribute of the object: "Account". The Account:State equals the Account:Balance.
Objects, Classes, and Packages
Object = Identity + Operations + Attributes
"An object is anything-- concrete or abstract-- that has
attributes and that can perform certain operations.
A typical operation might change one of the object's
attributes, calculate something, report an answer, and/or ask another object to
perform one of its operations.
We call the current values of an object's attributes its state.
For example, a bank account is an object that performs three
operations:
account.withdraw(25.25);
account.deposit(32.18);
account.getBalance();
account.deposit(32.18);
account.getBalance();
The account performs the first operation by deducting $25.25
from its balance, and performs the second operation by adding $32.18 to its
balance. We can think of the balance as the account's state:
account.balance
The account performs the last operation by reporting its
current balance to the operation's requestor."
Reversing the object and state roles of Account and Money Balance makes Money the object and Account the variable state attribute "Balance". An instance of the Object:Money is a uniquely serialized single digital dollar with a value of one. Its "Balance" attribute variable is only one thing and that is an associated specific unique current Money Supply Financial Entity user account number. Current account "Balance" state is a variable user account value Money Supply Financial Entity user account number but the Object:Money must always have a relationship to a single unique stated (state) Money Supply Financial Entity user account number. A one to one exclusive relationship at the unique instance of an entity level for two different instances of an object. One being Money the other being Account.
The account number that the Object:Money has a relationship to is the Money Supply Financial Entity account number. A number to which any and all associated related unique bank accounts are mapped that represents the associated Money Supply Financial Entity that "owns" that dollar and has access to control of that dollar through its bank account to change ownership from current owner to new owner of the unique digital dollar instance of the Object:Money
While account is a state relationship to the Object:Money in the total debt free centrally managed money supply system it is also a variable sum total state called Account:Balance of Object:Account at the bank account level. The total of all state balances of all accounts that relate to (are mapped to) the consolidating master account of the unique financial entity at the Money Supply level must always equal the sum of all unique serialized digital dollars associated with the same unique Money Supply Financial Entity account state at the Total Money Supply level.
At the Total Money Supply level Class:Money always knows its total state value sum balance. Instances of the Class:Money always know their related Money Supply Financial Entity and the total sum of all instances of the Class:Money having the same Money Supply Financial Entity Identifier. That sum always equals the sum of all bank accounts related to that unique Money Supply Financial Entity.
Bankers would be horrified by this system which gives Money an Object Identity instead of only a state in a bank account. It is an accountable debt free money structure.
From the prior link example of UML:
Alternate View making Money an Object, Account a State:
The UML icon for the Money class:
We can also show the attributes and operations:
|-----------------------------|
| Money |
|-----------------------------|
| balance: Account |
|-----------------------------|
| Change (amt: Account)|
|-----------------------------|
Class:Account is a very common example used in Object Oriented Programming tutorials. Simply google: Object Oriented Class Account to find examples to any degree of complexity in a variety of object oriented languages including the design language of UML.
Not many examples of using Object Class:Money. Money is not an object in the current money system. It is a state of the Object:Account called: Balance.
From the prior link example of UML:
UML Class, Object, and Package Icons
The UML icon for the Account class:
We can also show the attributes and operations:
Sometimes, if we are feeling lazy or lack details, we simply
write:
UML icons representing instances of the Account class (i.e.,
account objects):
Alternate View making Money an Object, Account a State:
The UML icon for the Money class:
We can also show the attributes and operations:
|-----------------------------|
| Money |
|-----------------------------|
| balance: Account |
|-----------------------------|
| Change (amt: Account)|
|-----------------------------|
Class:Account is a very common example used in Object Oriented Programming tutorials. Simply google: Object Oriented Class Account to find examples to any degree of complexity in a variety of object oriented languages including the design language of UML.
Not many examples of using Object Class:Money. Money is not an object in the current money system. It is a state of the Object:Account called: Balance.
Coinage Clause in the Constitution
This link is an exhaustive study of the the coinage clause in the Constitution.
Exhausting to read as well!!!!
I enter it in this post for the reference record since it relates to fundamental "coinage" issues.
It relates to the 'Platinum Coin" coinage issues.
Exhausting to read as well!!!!
I enter it in this post for the reference record since it relates to fundamental "coinage" issues.
It relates to the 'Platinum Coin" coinage issues.
Miles of Wind
Its Monday morning just after midnight and it is windy outside. The wind woke me up and I started thinking. Too early for that!
Just after 3am Sunday morning I was awaken by a loud beeping tone I had never heard before. It was my new iPhone. There is an alert system that sends warning messages to smart phones. It was a weather alert for blizzard conditions.
I look at things in different ways. Listening to the wind this early morning I wondered if there was a measurement called miles of wind. A different way of looking at wind rather than miles per hour at a given place and time.
Miles of wind would measure the number of miles the wind travels going by a certain point over a period of time. It is concept that gets some google hits. It is simply not a weather concept that is common. A different way of looking at wind. Just like I have a different way of looking at money and many other things. Looking at the same thing in a different way, a different point of view entry to the problem domain.
For example: The windiest place around right now is the top of Mt. Bachelor ski area here in Bend. Often it is so windy up there at about 10k feet that the lift has to be shut down. A wind anemometer measures wind speed and there is one at the top of the mountain. It would be interesting to know how many miles of wind pass over the top of Mt. Bachelor every year.
Easy to produce the miles of wind number but what would it mean? The meaning would be in its variation or trend and what caused either one of those things.
Connection to global warming?
New ways of looking at something give new information relationships.
New perspectives.
New thoughts.
Problem solutions.
Think different.
Miles of Wind!
Also called Wind Run
Wind Run
Wind run is measurement of the "amount" of wind passing the station during a given period of time, expressed in either "miles of wind" or "kilometers of wind". WeatherLink calculates wind run by multiplying the average wind speed for each archive record by the archive interval.
For Example:
Average Wind Speed = 5 mph
Archive Interval = 30 minutes (0.5 hours)
Wind Run = 5 mph x 0.5 hours = 2.5 miles of wind
A Weather Station uses a 5 minute archive interval.
Then the 5 minute archive records are totaled for the 24 hour period from midnight to midnight giving the wind run for the day in miles.
Glen Allen Wind Run Information near the Bottom of the Chart
My note from the Universe (TUT) that was received just after posting this entry to the blog:
Here's a hint on figuring out your life's purpose...
Tim, it almost never lies behind the doors marked, "Be Practical," "Get Real," or "Nothing to Fear"!
There is a third dimension to wind travel and that is the wind traveling miles in a 360 degree circle from the point of measurement. This dimension might be graphically measured by a polar plot displaying travel during a period of time.
Just after 3am Sunday morning I was awaken by a loud beeping tone I had never heard before. It was my new iPhone. There is an alert system that sends warning messages to smart phones. It was a weather alert for blizzard conditions.
I look at things in different ways. Listening to the wind this early morning I wondered if there was a measurement called miles of wind. A different way of looking at wind rather than miles per hour at a given place and time.
Miles of wind would measure the number of miles the wind travels going by a certain point over a period of time. It is concept that gets some google hits. It is simply not a weather concept that is common. A different way of looking at wind. Just like I have a different way of looking at money and many other things. Looking at the same thing in a different way, a different point of view entry to the problem domain.
For example: The windiest place around right now is the top of Mt. Bachelor ski area here in Bend. Often it is so windy up there at about 10k feet that the lift has to be shut down. A wind anemometer measures wind speed and there is one at the top of the mountain. It would be interesting to know how many miles of wind pass over the top of Mt. Bachelor every year.
Easy to produce the miles of wind number but what would it mean? The meaning would be in its variation or trend and what caused either one of those things.
Connection to global warming?
New ways of looking at something give new information relationships.
New perspectives.
New thoughts.
Problem solutions.
Think different.
Miles of Wind!
Also called Wind Run
Wind Run
Wind run is measurement of the "amount" of wind passing the station during a given period of time, expressed in either "miles of wind" or "kilometers of wind". WeatherLink calculates wind run by multiplying the average wind speed for each archive record by the archive interval.
For Example:
Average Wind Speed = 5 mph
Archive Interval = 30 minutes (0.5 hours)
Wind Run = 5 mph x 0.5 hours = 2.5 miles of wind
A Weather Station uses a 5 minute archive interval.
Then the 5 minute archive records are totaled for the 24 hour period from midnight to midnight giving the wind run for the day in miles.
Glen Allen Wind Run Information near the Bottom of the Chart
My note from the Universe (TUT) that was received just after posting this entry to the blog:
Here's a hint on figuring out your life's purpose...
Tim, it almost never lies behind the doors marked, "Be Practical," "Get Real," or "Nothing to Fear"!
There is a third dimension to wind travel and that is the wind traveling miles in a 360 degree circle from the point of measurement. This dimension might be graphically measured by a polar plot displaying travel during a period of time.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Same Old Thing?
My prior post referenced an older post being talked about some more. Same old thing being talked about again. Is it flogging a dead horse or contributing to the body of knowledge?
The body of knowledge is every post entry in this blog since the first one. If it was not going anywhere then I would give it eternal peace with a press of the delete key, which I contemplate from time to time. This is a google site and google sent me an email the other day raising the fear that the entire site could be lost for some reason other than me pressing the delete key. For every fear raised by marketing there is a product to reduce fear.
Wow, I have to throw in a new paragraph here just to digress on the thought that fear is a negative debt based idea where the focus is on the thing that was made a thing as a function of its absence of another thing that has existence as a presence! Fear is to security as debt is to asset. Money is a debt based thing. The absence of money. Money is debt. The establishment of debt creates money. Fear is an absence based thing. The establishment of fear creates security?????
Peddle fear. Sell security.
But I divert to something to look at later. Seems to be relevant.
Back to the Same Old Thing:
Covering ground is action movement progress. The joy of movement from point A to Point B. Actually walking, biking or driving from Point A to Point B is a joy of my life. I have done much of that and I call them adventures.
After several of my adventures I have written that they are not over when they are over. Over being when Point B is reached. The journey continues and that journey is to find the meaning of the journey not in all the foot steps taken between Point A and B but how it conceptually changed where I was at Point A to where I was at Point B. I know my geographic Point A start and could go back there to do the trip over again but I can never go back to the place I once stood conceptually at geographic Point A. Or, as the saying goes: Can't put your hand in the same river twice.
Heraclitus was a sad man! Says Diogenes: "Finally, he became a hater of his kind (misanthrope) and wandered the mountains ... making his diet of grass and herbs." Diogenes states that Heraclitus' work was "a continuous treatise On Nature, but was divided into three discourses, one on the universe, another on politics, and a third on theology." According to Diogenes Laërtius,[5] who had just explained that Heraclitus wrote his book "rather unclearly" (asaphesteron) so that only the "capable" should attempt it.
Maybe our writing has something in common!
Writing maybe but not where it goes.
What I need to do is to have some repository of central ideas that I go to and refine as I travel step by step with post entries to this blog. That means I have to start investing and continue to refine ideas in my personal Wiki. The wiki is a living body of knowlege.
There are two types of triathletes: Those that have done the same Kona Ironman X times the same way, those that have done a Kona Ironman X times a different way. Some only want to finish again. Some only want to finish better.
Same old thing if all I want to do is finish each post and not finish better and refine the prior concept of finishing.
The body of knowledge is every post entry in this blog since the first one. If it was not going anywhere then I would give it eternal peace with a press of the delete key, which I contemplate from time to time. This is a google site and google sent me an email the other day raising the fear that the entire site could be lost for some reason other than me pressing the delete key. For every fear raised by marketing there is a product to reduce fear.
Wow, I have to throw in a new paragraph here just to digress on the thought that fear is a negative debt based idea where the focus is on the thing that was made a thing as a function of its absence of another thing that has existence as a presence! Fear is to security as debt is to asset. Money is a debt based thing. The absence of money. Money is debt. The establishment of debt creates money. Fear is an absence based thing. The establishment of fear creates security?????
Peddle fear. Sell security.
But I divert to something to look at later. Seems to be relevant.
Back to the Same Old Thing:
Covering ground is action movement progress. The joy of movement from point A to Point B. Actually walking, biking or driving from Point A to Point B is a joy of my life. I have done much of that and I call them adventures.
After several of my adventures I have written that they are not over when they are over. Over being when Point B is reached. The journey continues and that journey is to find the meaning of the journey not in all the foot steps taken between Point A and B but how it conceptually changed where I was at Point A to where I was at Point B. I know my geographic Point A start and could go back there to do the trip over again but I can never go back to the place I once stood conceptually at geographic Point A. Or, as the saying goes: Can't put your hand in the same river twice.
Heraclitus was a sad man! Says Diogenes: "Finally, he became a hater of his kind (misanthrope) and wandered the mountains ... making his diet of grass and herbs." Diogenes states that Heraclitus' work was "a continuous treatise On Nature, but was divided into three discourses, one on the universe, another on politics, and a third on theology." According to Diogenes Laërtius,[5] who had just explained that Heraclitus wrote his book "rather unclearly" (asaphesteron) so that only the "capable" should attempt it.
Maybe our writing has something in common!
Writing maybe but not where it goes.
What I need to do is to have some repository of central ideas that I go to and refine as I travel step by step with post entries to this blog. That means I have to start investing and continue to refine ideas in my personal Wiki. The wiki is a living body of knowlege.
There are two types of triathletes: Those that have done the same Kona Ironman X times the same way, those that have done a Kona Ironman X times a different way. Some only want to finish again. Some only want to finish better.
Same old thing if all I want to do is finish each post and not finish better and refine the prior concept of finishing.
Still looking for Debit Savings Numbers
Much of my thinking today added to my prior post "Looking For Debt Savings Numbers" and getting to a broader focus on Redistribution of Wealth from the narrow focus of how much do consumers have in their savings account. That specific number I still do not know for the sub category of consumer that also uses credit as their revolving debt based payment system as apposed to a direct savings based payment system.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Alternative Framing of Money: Coda
Coda definition is here.
The title of this post is the same title that Randall Wray used to wrap up his many postings at New Economics Perspectives about a meme for money.
His postings are excellent, I have learned much from them. Much about money and much about thinking. Much about putting the two things together with good thinking. With good thoughts expressed as memes. The meme is like glue connecting simple perceptions of a concept that are "liked" because we have a preference to like them. Perceptions that jive with our frame of mind.
Conceptual things find a natural receptor in us just like the things that float around in our bodies until they find something with a natural receptor to take it in. All kinds of different keys that float around our bodies until it finds the lock they fit. Conceptual things from out minds float around and find an inviting home to enter where the key fits in the same way. Things we like we send to friends we like (or don't like if they would not like it). That is a hug to friends and hit to frenemies. Liked conceptual things called meme ideas spread to liked people, or at least to people who are willing hosts. Some of those willing hosts that give entrance to the to the floating thing cause its death (apoptosis) most often for a greater beneficial systemic purpose to enable a new or healing thing by its absence.
Conceptual things called memes spread by encapsulation in a packet frame consisting of control information wrapper with the address of the receiver and a user (receiver) payload.
What you say??
I have just presented two analogies that serve to open the door to the understanding of meme. One was biological and the other from the internet where the mechanics of a machine (hardware) work with the logic of our minds (software). Artificial intelligence is machines not just applying the logic product expression of our minds expressions to do something but formulating the logic in a machine mind like we do in our mind.
The body of a single example person and how it works is a good analogy to use in the explanation of mind and meme. I could develop that frame to explain meme in terms of a total body and how all of its unique micro parts exist and work together. Once developed I could make the same explanation in the frame of computers and society. It would be a simple one to one substitution of words. Words that may be different but have the same contextual systemic relationship meaning. Society is structured and works analogous to how a person works at the biological level because our minds work with conceptual things in the same way.
I choose to use the analogy of computer hardware and software. I understand that better and is one step closer than biology analogy to the ultimate narrow focus problem domain of money, the problems there and their solutions. The step to get there is in the problem domain of society. Money is first and foremost a (even if we know or understand absolutely nothing about it) purely conceptual social thing that expresses itself in our real social structure.
Randy Wray is a subject matter expert. His broad subject matter domain is Economics. His applied specialized domain is Modern Money Theory MMT. While that link is his specific explanation of the concept a broader and maybe less accurate description if given by the Wikipedia description in terms of Chatlism.
Randy's domain expert concepts are at the Leading, Bleeding Edge.
The R and D of discovering what money is money and finding that it really exists or is better expressed and understood in a different frame than what we commonly believe to be the best given frame of understanding money (which we do not because it is a mysterious unknown thing that we only make guesses about and our current frame is our best frame just like black magic or flat earth was once a frame of understanding)
Sidebar here: Some not only bled for daring to push the frame but also got burned for it others have a day named after them that we celebrate. Some got burned first and them got a name celebrating what they got burned for. Social stuff is fascinating!
Back to Randy and his search for a meme. He took the elegant approach to his focused problem domain by going to a broader domain that is necessary to promulgate a better idea. A better idea that is Economic Progressivism , an idea that is Progress in the Political Domain. An idea that is Progress in the Social Domain. The domain of structural morality or at least efficiency. The possibilities in their meaning and relationship is something else to explore. Some efficient structures were moral in their own frame but obscene in a larger frame.
How to change a conceptual framework? An age old problem. Methods are old as well. New understanding of the underlaying concepts of old methods is perhaps the way to more effectively accomplish change. If change is happening faster then perhaps the rate of speed is entirely due not to a faster car but better way to apply basic energy. Progress!
Am I getting somewhere here????
The other eternal quest for progress!!
If there are any readers of these posts you may have discovered that I publish any new post as it develops and some time later after I add to it I update it. It is generally a work in progress with many updates as it progresses until I move on to the next post.
There is more to come on this one until it grows to such a length that it requires re-focusing. Randy wrapped up his focusing on solutions with a Coda on exploration and application of meme. I will make a Coda of my explorations too.
This is Lakoff:
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
The Debt Meme
Having written what I had to say this morning I went to New Economic Perspectives to see what new thing Randy Wray had to say about his development of the meme for money.
Coincidental? Should I be surprised? Convergence?
Randy's beginning paragraph:
Deficits and Debt are probably the most terrifying topic that MMT addresses. We need to be careful. We are treading on moral (or religious) grounds. We know that one should not be a debtor (or, a creditor)—most religions tell us so. One who proclaims that deficits and debts are OK is automatically engaged in blasphemy of various sorts, not least of which is a crime against morality. Let’s try to frame the discussion.
Coincidental? Should I be surprised? Convergence?
Randy's beginning paragraph:
Deficits and Debt are probably the most terrifying topic that MMT addresses. We need to be careful. We are treading on moral (or religious) grounds. We know that one should not be a debtor (or, a creditor)—most religions tell us so. One who proclaims that deficits and debts are OK is automatically engaged in blasphemy of various sorts, not least of which is a crime against morality. Let’s try to frame the discussion.
Money is the Elephant
Money is the elephant in the room that cannot be talked about in terms of it being a god.
It is a manifestation of god, a tool that is the conceptual product of mind that we were given and the power of that mind to create things we call conceptual tools to build conceptual systems.
Use the word money in even the vaguest relationship to concepts of god and the capacity to do good, an eternal nature, etc is skating on thin ice that cracks when anyone we wish to discuss the idea with puts it in the frame: So money is your God?........
Funny that the first to put money in that frame might be those that seek it the most?
That is the power of framing!
Vote against taxing the rich! Vote for it even if you are not rich and there is nothing in it for you. Money is not a God, it is God's way of recognizing his best and most deserving chosen children that earned his love the most by doing good things with it that will trickle down to you. You believe in God don't you? That he rewards those that do his work (on Wall Street).
What if we start talking about money in terms of a Creator and what He intended in giving us the power to create for ourselves. To create money as a power invested in the rights of the people. A power that was endowed upon us, not banks any more than the rights to control what is ours was invested in a monarchy?
We used to have monarchies we still have financial system and an organized religious system that claims rights over money and religious concepts. It will take a long time for organized religion to change but if we change the financial system to claim what is ours to create by right and reason and enlightenment, the creators of organized religion, the oldest social institution with claims to ownership of a concept, may have reason to fear they are next. Maybe they will be. Maybe in anticipation organized religion must either adapt by changing to support a new financial structure in terms of its conceptual philosophy or become extinct like the creators of money which is merely another form of social control in the hands of the few to dictate the behavior of the many.
It is a manifestation of god, a tool that is the conceptual product of mind that we were given and the power of that mind to create things we call conceptual tools to build conceptual systems.
Use the word money in even the vaguest relationship to concepts of god and the capacity to do good, an eternal nature, etc is skating on thin ice that cracks when anyone we wish to discuss the idea with puts it in the frame: So money is your God?........
Funny that the first to put money in that frame might be those that seek it the most?
That is the power of framing!
Vote against taxing the rich! Vote for it even if you are not rich and there is nothing in it for you. Money is not a God, it is God's way of recognizing his best and most deserving chosen children that earned his love the most by doing good things with it that will trickle down to you. You believe in God don't you? That he rewards those that do his work (on Wall Street).
What if we start talking about money in terms of a Creator and what He intended in giving us the power to create for ourselves. To create money as a power invested in the rights of the people. A power that was endowed upon us, not banks any more than the rights to control what is ours was invested in a monarchy?
We used to have monarchies we still have financial system and an organized religious system that claims rights over money and religious concepts. It will take a long time for organized religion to change but if we change the financial system to claim what is ours to create by right and reason and enlightenment, the creators of organized religion, the oldest social institution with claims to ownership of a concept, may have reason to fear they are next. Maybe they will be. Maybe in anticipation organized religion must either adapt by changing to support a new financial structure in terms of its conceptual philosophy or become extinct like the creators of money which is merely another form of social control in the hands of the few to dictate the behavior of the many.
Talking to Myself
Instead of talking to myself, which is what this blog is all about, I am going to talk to you because it is important that you understand my thoughts expressed here by translating them to solid ideas using simple language to explain them in simple terms that you will not only understand but agree with. This is a test to see if I can really do that and it is a big challenge to me because I do not feel that I am very skilled at explaining complex things simply.
Me: I am going to tell you a simple common meme used to explain things: If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck then somehow it must be very much like a duck.
You: No, no you don't get it! Then it is a duck! That is how the meme is said! Can't you even get a simple meme right? Everybody knows what the meme is! It is a duck! You dummy!.....Why do you call it a meme? What is a meme? You called it common and simple! What does it have to do with ducks anyhow? I don't understand that.
Me: Everything is a kind of a thing of a thing. A duck is a kind of a bird, a bird is a kind of an animal, etc....If a kind of a thing has all the characteristics as another thing then it is the same as the other thing. That thing however, while having all the characteristics of another thing can know how to do different things. It possesses information about what it can do. Like a gene has information enabling it to do something.
You: Its been nice talking to you....
..........................................
My sister has enough faith and trust in me to believe that what I think and say has some value but that value needs to stand the test of being recognized as valuable in the public forum of ideas and communication where they are conveyed in simple terms. Where complex thoughts are reduced to the beauty of simplicity.
She reads what I write and says:
"Tim, The answer may be written on the wall, but only you seem to understand it. Why don't you go back to your posted comments to expand and clarify. I am sure it is clear in your mind but it isn't clear on paper. It should make sense to anyone picking it up to read, but it seems to have a lot of "insider" talk. It needs to be simple enough for ME to understand without working too hard."
"ME" is also her signature. We talk a lot about stuff. Smarter than me.
The problem with simplicity, ultimate simplicity is that all things can be explained in terms of one thing that they are a thing of. The reduction of all things to one simple thing, or summing up if you want to look at it that way, of all things to one simple thing results in that thing being the same thing. A thing called unity. Unity is only one thing and how simple a concept can that be???? It is so simple that we have been trying to explain it since the beginning of time. Some have very complex explanations of the Unity Simplicity starting with the One Simple Thing and expanding it to everything. Others have explanations of the Unity Simplicity starting with everything and reducing it to Unity Simplicity.
For some people a duck is a duck. For others a duck is a type of complex thing composed of even more complex related parts all originally produced from a Creator . For others it is a complex thing that lead to a creator.
Artists create simple statements of beauty from the simplicity of nothing and we get it. Reducing the complexity of an existing universe of things where some things are physical and other things are conceptual expressions of physical things or purely conceptual things requires an artist as well. I am not much of an artist in either domain but those are the two domains that we all operate in. The two conceptual domains: The One. The Parts. Either of these can be viewed as the creator of the other if they are equal. Two places to start to get the same result. For the sake of simplicity it is easier to start with the One to explain the complexity. The One is so mysterious that on the other hand it is easier to start with any level of complexity that given thing is at and work up to its relationship to a higher level until getting to the single thing at the top: One.
The trick of the thing is that explaining any thing in relation to God, yes that is what the Thing is that I have used other words in capital letters for, if you have not gotten that yet, is that I dare not go beyond a certain higher level domain of what a thing is a part of and give it all the nature of God that is manifest in it. People went that far to give that nature to a golden calf and see what happened in that situation. It threatened a higher level structure in that it as viewed as anti-God by replacing God.
For that reason and the fundamental, strictly constructed concept of God that most people at least proclaim to have I can't really say that money is a duck that walks, talks and quacks like God. It does. It has all the characteristics of God. God has his meme. The meme of all powerful, supreme, the giver of life, the creator, all present, etc.
I can't really say that. How can I therefore express as simply as I can what money is when that is the simplest explanation. An explanation that like God being Love, money is love. That is what money is.
I better stick to saying that money is a digital, serialized single dollar record existing on a central computer. In sum total it all belongs to us. The money system permeates our lives. It controls us or we control it. It controls us when its creator is the bank and it is debt money. The idea that something is owed to the creating bankers in return for its existence and we must pay the same way we must pay honor and glory to a creator. The creator of the thing we must pay honor and glory to for its existence will get us if we don't pay up. We decided that debtors prison was not a viable concept and the paying masters for freedom that always belonged to us, claiming rightfully what is ours, was the right thing to do.
Money is not a false god. Bankers placing themselves in the position of the creators of money is the false god. We the people are the creators of money. Money has no debt side except to a higher level than us. Debt money is a false concept. The debt is at a higher level. While bankers chose to call themselves the highest level having the right to create money, it is our right as well as the right to choose whatever higher level than us is responsible for the creation of everything.
Money is not money because it quacks like money when it buys stuff. It is the creation of a higher level of thing. That higher level is a bank and the buck starts there when they create it in a bargain to pay it back once given as an IOU. The power to create is at a higher level. Our government, which is us, of the people. We do not owe anyone but ourselves for its creation, unless we choose to recognize a higher level of Creator. I do not believe I owe God anything others bow down to pay what they feel they owe because they were saved and must pay in return. I say thank you for what was given and what was given was not a sacrifice. That ultimate "thank you Lord" goes to where ever it may find a home and in my way of thinking it better find a home in good works.
Working on getting money right, as the thing it should be in the conceptual scheme of things is a good work.
I can't do good work if I never apply my thinking, if it is good for anything, to externally doing something beyond recursive cycling in my own head. I do believe that I am getting to a place where it can be external to the do-loop in my head because that do-loop is growing in information and knowledge, not just chasing the same old idea.
What I write on this blog is me talking to myself in order to get my thoughts together. I understand, to some degree what I write. Nobody else has to understand it. Things said in prior posts are in fact wrong. I have not gone back to correct them. They were not said for anyone but me. I write them any way I choose but attempt to be as accurate as possible and express my thoughts so that someone might be able to find some idea of what I am talking about.
Here is the big however. Lately I have posted some comments to two blogs where money matters are discussed. That requires writing for an audience with the purpose of influencing ideas. That takes more than what I write here that is intended to influence no one but me. To shape my thoughts. When they fall in this forest I hear them.
The challenge of communication is communication. I can communicate with myself, therefore I am. I am good at communicating with myself. Mostly I am the only one always available to communicate with. If I had a dog would I talk to it? No, beyond some chosen words like "treat" it would not understand.
If I am to turn my thoughts outward then they must be expressed clearly. I read things on the internet expressing economic thinking in clear terms. Some going into pages of math using symbols I do not understand. I am sure it is clear to someone.
Communicating complex thoughts with the lowest level of common thought, the vernacular, is a skill. Comedians do it well. All they do is press buttons that connect to thought structures that are extremely complex because they are feeling based conceptual structures that may to some degree relate to thinking based conceptual structures. In either case, what comedians say, the Jon Stewarts, Stephen Colberts, Bill Mahr, etc. needs no explanation. People get it in their conceptual feeling/thinking frame. If it has to be explained them people would not laugh at it.
Things that people already understand do not have to be explained. What they do not understand has to be explained in terms that they already understand. It has to build on that. When people do not understand much about a particular area of knowledge depending on its complexity there is a long ways to go. On the other hand, there are so money complex conceptual and real physical structures in the world today that none of them can be fully understood by everyone, only a few.
It is only necessary that the fundamental high level relationships be understood, the unstated thing in knowing the basics is that they are in fact supported by all of their complex lower level relationships. Belief in the high level ideas and things are on a "trust me" basis. I trust my my computer exists and works to connect me with the world. It is self evident. I really don't know exactly how it all works. Somebody does. I don't need to know what they know. I trust but can verify if I am smart enough and study all they things they did to know and apply what they know to create this complex structure.
If the basic things and their relationships are right and prove they are right by proclamation that they are right or justification in logic and reason that they are right then the complex structure deriving from the fundamental things and what is done as a result of the relationships is ranges from good to perfect. The basic relationship has to range from good enough to perfect depending on the requirements for the strength, efficiency and accuracy of the system.
Me: I am going to tell you a simple common meme used to explain things: If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck then somehow it must be very much like a duck.
You: No, no you don't get it! Then it is a duck! That is how the meme is said! Can't you even get a simple meme right? Everybody knows what the meme is! It is a duck! You dummy!.....Why do you call it a meme? What is a meme? You called it common and simple! What does it have to do with ducks anyhow? I don't understand that.
Me: Everything is a kind of a thing of a thing. A duck is a kind of a bird, a bird is a kind of an animal, etc....If a kind of a thing has all the characteristics as another thing then it is the same as the other thing. That thing however, while having all the characteristics of another thing can know how to do different things. It possesses information about what it can do. Like a gene has information enabling it to do something.
You: Its been nice talking to you....
..........................................
My sister has enough faith and trust in me to believe that what I think and say has some value but that value needs to stand the test of being recognized as valuable in the public forum of ideas and communication where they are conveyed in simple terms. Where complex thoughts are reduced to the beauty of simplicity.
She reads what I write and says:
"Tim, The answer may be written on the wall, but only you seem to understand it. Why don't you go back to your posted comments to expand and clarify. I am sure it is clear in your mind but it isn't clear on paper. It should make sense to anyone picking it up to read, but it seems to have a lot of "insider" talk. It needs to be simple enough for ME to understand without working too hard."
"ME" is also her signature. We talk a lot about stuff. Smarter than me.
The problem with simplicity, ultimate simplicity is that all things can be explained in terms of one thing that they are a thing of. The reduction of all things to one simple thing, or summing up if you want to look at it that way, of all things to one simple thing results in that thing being the same thing. A thing called unity. Unity is only one thing and how simple a concept can that be???? It is so simple that we have been trying to explain it since the beginning of time. Some have very complex explanations of the Unity Simplicity starting with the One Simple Thing and expanding it to everything. Others have explanations of the Unity Simplicity starting with everything and reducing it to Unity Simplicity.
For some people a duck is a duck. For others a duck is a type of complex thing composed of even more complex related parts all originally produced from a Creator . For others it is a complex thing that lead to a creator.
Artists create simple statements of beauty from the simplicity of nothing and we get it. Reducing the complexity of an existing universe of things where some things are physical and other things are conceptual expressions of physical things or purely conceptual things requires an artist as well. I am not much of an artist in either domain but those are the two domains that we all operate in. The two conceptual domains: The One. The Parts. Either of these can be viewed as the creator of the other if they are equal. Two places to start to get the same result. For the sake of simplicity it is easier to start with the One to explain the complexity. The One is so mysterious that on the other hand it is easier to start with any level of complexity that given thing is at and work up to its relationship to a higher level until getting to the single thing at the top: One.
The trick of the thing is that explaining any thing in relation to God, yes that is what the Thing is that I have used other words in capital letters for, if you have not gotten that yet, is that I dare not go beyond a certain higher level domain of what a thing is a part of and give it all the nature of God that is manifest in it. People went that far to give that nature to a golden calf and see what happened in that situation. It threatened a higher level structure in that it as viewed as anti-God by replacing God.
For that reason and the fundamental, strictly constructed concept of God that most people at least proclaim to have I can't really say that money is a duck that walks, talks and quacks like God. It does. It has all the characteristics of God. God has his meme. The meme of all powerful, supreme, the giver of life, the creator, all present, etc.
I can't really say that. How can I therefore express as simply as I can what money is when that is the simplest explanation. An explanation that like God being Love, money is love. That is what money is.
I better stick to saying that money is a digital, serialized single dollar record existing on a central computer. In sum total it all belongs to us. The money system permeates our lives. It controls us or we control it. It controls us when its creator is the bank and it is debt money. The idea that something is owed to the creating bankers in return for its existence and we must pay the same way we must pay honor and glory to a creator. The creator of the thing we must pay honor and glory to for its existence will get us if we don't pay up. We decided that debtors prison was not a viable concept and the paying masters for freedom that always belonged to us, claiming rightfully what is ours, was the right thing to do.
Money is not a false god. Bankers placing themselves in the position of the creators of money is the false god. We the people are the creators of money. Money has no debt side except to a higher level than us. Debt money is a false concept. The debt is at a higher level. While bankers chose to call themselves the highest level having the right to create money, it is our right as well as the right to choose whatever higher level than us is responsible for the creation of everything.
Money is not money because it quacks like money when it buys stuff. It is the creation of a higher level of thing. That higher level is a bank and the buck starts there when they create it in a bargain to pay it back once given as an IOU. The power to create is at a higher level. Our government, which is us, of the people. We do not owe anyone but ourselves for its creation, unless we choose to recognize a higher level of Creator. I do not believe I owe God anything others bow down to pay what they feel they owe because they were saved and must pay in return. I say thank you for what was given and what was given was not a sacrifice. That ultimate "thank you Lord" goes to where ever it may find a home and in my way of thinking it better find a home in good works.
Working on getting money right, as the thing it should be in the conceptual scheme of things is a good work.
I can't do good work if I never apply my thinking, if it is good for anything, to externally doing something beyond recursive cycling in my own head. I do believe that I am getting to a place where it can be external to the do-loop in my head because that do-loop is growing in information and knowledge, not just chasing the same old idea.
What I write on this blog is me talking to myself in order to get my thoughts together. I understand, to some degree what I write. Nobody else has to understand it. Things said in prior posts are in fact wrong. I have not gone back to correct them. They were not said for anyone but me. I write them any way I choose but attempt to be as accurate as possible and express my thoughts so that someone might be able to find some idea of what I am talking about.
Here is the big however. Lately I have posted some comments to two blogs where money matters are discussed. That requires writing for an audience with the purpose of influencing ideas. That takes more than what I write here that is intended to influence no one but me. To shape my thoughts. When they fall in this forest I hear them.
The challenge of communication is communication. I can communicate with myself, therefore I am. I am good at communicating with myself. Mostly I am the only one always available to communicate with. If I had a dog would I talk to it? No, beyond some chosen words like "treat" it would not understand.
If I am to turn my thoughts outward then they must be expressed clearly. I read things on the internet expressing economic thinking in clear terms. Some going into pages of math using symbols I do not understand. I am sure it is clear to someone.
Communicating complex thoughts with the lowest level of common thought, the vernacular, is a skill. Comedians do it well. All they do is press buttons that connect to thought structures that are extremely complex because they are feeling based conceptual structures that may to some degree relate to thinking based conceptual structures. In either case, what comedians say, the Jon Stewarts, Stephen Colberts, Bill Mahr, etc. needs no explanation. People get it in their conceptual feeling/thinking frame. If it has to be explained them people would not laugh at it.
Things that people already understand do not have to be explained. What they do not understand has to be explained in terms that they already understand. It has to build on that. When people do not understand much about a particular area of knowledge depending on its complexity there is a long ways to go. On the other hand, there are so money complex conceptual and real physical structures in the world today that none of them can be fully understood by everyone, only a few.
It is only necessary that the fundamental high level relationships be understood, the unstated thing in knowing the basics is that they are in fact supported by all of their complex lower level relationships. Belief in the high level ideas and things are on a "trust me" basis. I trust my my computer exists and works to connect me with the world. It is self evident. I really don't know exactly how it all works. Somebody does. I don't need to know what they know. I trust but can verify if I am smart enough and study all they things they did to know and apply what they know to create this complex structure.
If the basic things and their relationships are right and prove they are right by proclamation that they are right or justification in logic and reason that they are right then the complex structure deriving from the fundamental things and what is done as a result of the relationships is ranges from good to perfect. The basic relationship has to range from good enough to perfect depending on the requirements for the strength, efficiency and accuracy of the system.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Money Is a Stock- Account is a flow
There is a discussion at New Economic Perspectives. It is a comment by Eric that is so entrenched in a counterproductive meme of money as a metaphor for a flow that produces energy as a function of flow in a stock/flow concept that I just have to address as a fallacious unproductive way of looking at money in my opinion.
Money is the stock not the flow. The flow is in owning accounts. That is where the work of money is done.
I did not make a reply comment but these are a couple I started on:
Eric:
I understand your perception of money. It can also be viewed using an alternate perception. For the sake of argument let's just make it two diametric views: Money is a flow or money is a stock. Digital money.
Money as a flow goes from account to account. Money does not have existence unless it is related to an account. If it is not in an account then where is it? In that state of non-existence at a higher level waiting to be called into existence in an account. It only flows and works as long as it is an account. The account is the stock like a battery in which the flow power of money does work as it passes through to another account.
Money as a stock with accounts flowing through it is the diametric view. Money becomes the fixed stock, accounts that own a fixed unit of money are flowing through that unit. The unit of money holds the account as its owner for some period of time then that same unit holds a new owner account as a function of a transaction. The power is in the movement flow of accounts, not the flow of money.
This is a paradigm shift. Which should be the fixed thing and which the variable? Money or account? What produces the energy, the capacity to do work as it moves from one fixed thing to another (flow)? Is it the movement or flow of money from fixed account to fixed account? Or: Is it the change of current account ownership of a single fixed unit of money to new variable account ownership? When current account relationship becomes a prior relationship then it ceases to exist?
Subsequent shorter version: ( not by much)
Money is a conceptual creation thing. That fact gives us the opportunity to extract its logical relationships and functions and manipulate them independent of their tightly bound or absolutely bound physical relationship or metaphor. That is why money is digital now. More logical than physical when it was paper or gold and had associated physical constraints (that some may long for).
Currently, a financial bank account is a fixed record pre-existing the money in it. Money flows as transaction sums from account to account and cannot exist except in relation to an account. Money moves at the macro level, while it exists, from one unique account to another in lump sum totals until it is extinguished by loan payment because it was debt created out of nothing in the first place. Accounts it may have been in (related to) at any previous time live on.
An alternate money system: Money is the fixed record at the lowest unit level (dollar for example) and the owning account is associated with on a one to one basis is the variable record that changes as a function of replacing the current owner account relationship to a new owner account relationship.
Money is the stock not the flow. The flow is in owning accounts. That is where the work of money is done.
I did not make a reply comment but these are a couple I started on:
Eric:
I understand your perception of money. It can also be viewed using an alternate perception. For the sake of argument let's just make it two diametric views: Money is a flow or money is a stock. Digital money.
Money as a flow goes from account to account. Money does not have existence unless it is related to an account. If it is not in an account then where is it? In that state of non-existence at a higher level waiting to be called into existence in an account. It only flows and works as long as it is an account. The account is the stock like a battery in which the flow power of money does work as it passes through to another account.
Money as a stock with accounts flowing through it is the diametric view. Money becomes the fixed stock, accounts that own a fixed unit of money are flowing through that unit. The unit of money holds the account as its owner for some period of time then that same unit holds a new owner account as a function of a transaction. The power is in the movement flow of accounts, not the flow of money.
This is a paradigm shift. Which should be the fixed thing and which the variable? Money or account? What produces the energy, the capacity to do work as it moves from one fixed thing to another (flow)? Is it the movement or flow of money from fixed account to fixed account? Or: Is it the change of current account ownership of a single fixed unit of money to new variable account ownership? When current account relationship becomes a prior relationship then it ceases to exist?
Subsequent shorter version: ( not by much)
Money is a conceptual creation thing. That fact gives us the opportunity to extract its logical relationships and functions and manipulate them independent of their tightly bound or absolutely bound physical relationship or metaphor. That is why money is digital now. More logical than physical when it was paper or gold and had associated physical constraints (that some may long for).
Currently, a financial bank account is a fixed record pre-existing the money in it. Money flows as transaction sums from account to account and cannot exist except in relation to an account. Money moves at the macro level, while it exists, from one unique account to another in lump sum totals until it is extinguished by loan payment because it was debt created out of nothing in the first place. Accounts it may have been in (related to) at any previous time live on.
An alternate money system: Money is the fixed record at the lowest unit level (dollar for example) and the owning account is associated with on a one to one basis is the variable record that changes as a function of replacing the current owner account relationship to a new owner account relationship.
Monday, December 10, 2012
China And The Cure For Cancer
What if China discovers the cure for cancer and also the secret of unlimited energy from cold fusion process or 100% efficiency in the conversion of solar power.
China could do that. It is possible.
What if they did it?
Then what if the Chinese leadership said that they are a People's government. Their economy and the products of their nation are for the people. They are not an extractive economy that would seek to extract what the market for these discoveries would bring to the highest bidder and control of monopoly on the things for well being and the benefit of all.
They would give their discovery to the people of the world with the caveat that there would be no excessive extraction of profit, only the covering of the cost to produce and a reasonable return on investment.
What if the USA discovers these things?
It might make an interesting movie scenario.
Two different movies.
Maybe science fiction set in a future time or planet.
I see more hope in China discovering these things.
China could do that. It is possible.
What if they did it?
Then what if the Chinese leadership said that they are a People's government. Their economy and the products of their nation are for the people. They are not an extractive economy that would seek to extract what the market for these discoveries would bring to the highest bidder and control of monopoly on the things for well being and the benefit of all.
They would give their discovery to the people of the world with the caveat that there would be no excessive extraction of profit, only the covering of the cost to produce and a reasonable return on investment.
What if the USA discovers these things?
It might make an interesting movie scenario.
Two different movies.
Maybe science fiction set in a future time or planet.
I see more hope in China discovering these things.
More Money Meme Comment
My comment in the last post was published at New Economic Perspectives and the discussion there is ongoing and getting into the realm of Progressive philosophy. I did a follow up comment in the context of what is being discussed. It is here in that context.
My Comment:
That is the problem with false creators of money! The only truth in their creation is that it serves them first and foremost and they are few. The truth of true creators of money is that their creation serves us all, just like the world as a resource does, as equally and justly as we can make what has been created for us do that through money. The ability to do that with money is progressive. It is from our hands that it was created and in our hands to do good stuff.
There is a famous painting symbolizing the passing of something from hand to hand as a medium of exchange that answers where things come from. It passes the power to create. That is the gift of life. To create concepts for ourselves applying to what was created for us out of eternity. Use our heads! That is progressive too. That's the only way to get ahead in this world and the concept we created called the Grand Experiment.
Sovereignty is a self evident truth. You can bank on it!
Another subsequent post to the discussion:
I think that the only thing we can truly create out of nothing are our own thoughts. Beyond that they become something when expressed somehow. We work with conceptual things. To build our fundamental concepts on the very "absence of a thing" being the conceptual building block used to build a conceptual structure is, well, just funny. Or pathetic. Things real or conceptual are not built that way, at least for most of us in the broadest of terms. At least at the present time but that is where we are at....and progressing.
We proclaim what "is" like a self evident right then build on it, not what exists by virtue of being absent. That is what the debt money concept is founded on. Absence creates presence. Then it comes into "real" existence by virtue of a binary creation from nothingness of a counterpart existence of something that "is". The thing that "is" goes back to nothing (not is) when its job is done. That job is the work of its creator, the banking system. The logic base is absence theory.
A different way of creating is with a thing that exists simply because we say it exists, maybe in abundance, and in conceptual truth it always existed. Once brought into existence by revelation of a truth the strongest conceptual structures never go out of existence because they were founded on the existence of something like our rights and freedom not their absence nor born of an absence. The absence of freedom was the building block of a prior system until we proclaimed that the absence of something is not a good thing to build upon. A paradigm shift.
All we have to do is make a proclamation of what "is" to replace a concept built on non-existence. We are good at doing that and building on it. At least we used to have the courage to do that. It took courage and conviction to face those that built on the absence concept that created the dominant power structure. True then, true now.
Money is the nothing.....etc. That is the current money system foundation concept. Slavery was also an implementation of philosophy based on the absence of something. Freedom by proclamation replaced that idea. The second great application of an earlier proclamation. Is that a progress model? Might it work again? Is there some self evident answer?
Courage, conviction, better thinking? It is progressive! The non-presence conceptual based side is defensive. Defense to prevent the other side from scoring is a game strategy based on fear of losing something. Defending freedom is a good strategy. Defending the non-existence of something against the advance of progress is rather pointless unless it there is a very strong self interest on the side of the defenders that they can win by the illusion there is something there they are defending. Conservative core thinking and the foot soldiers that carry the meme has worked so far to defend it. Give the foot soldiers a new logic, a new meme and they will rally to the progressive side leaving few remaining.
My Comment:
That is the problem with false creators of money! The only truth in their creation is that it serves them first and foremost and they are few. The truth of true creators of money is that their creation serves us all, just like the world as a resource does, as equally and justly as we can make what has been created for us do that through money. The ability to do that with money is progressive. It is from our hands that it was created and in our hands to do good stuff.
There is a famous painting symbolizing the passing of something from hand to hand as a medium of exchange that answers where things come from. It passes the power to create. That is the gift of life. To create concepts for ourselves applying to what was created for us out of eternity. Use our heads! That is progressive too. That's the only way to get ahead in this world and the concept we created called the Grand Experiment.
Sovereignty is a self evident truth. You can bank on it!
Another subsequent post to the discussion:
I think that the only thing we can truly create out of nothing are our own thoughts. Beyond that they become something when expressed somehow. We work with conceptual things. To build our fundamental concepts on the very "absence of a thing" being the conceptual building block used to build a conceptual structure is, well, just funny. Or pathetic. Things real or conceptual are not built that way, at least for most of us in the broadest of terms. At least at the present time but that is where we are at....and progressing.
We proclaim what "is" like a self evident right then build on it, not what exists by virtue of being absent. That is what the debt money concept is founded on. Absence creates presence. Then it comes into "real" existence by virtue of a binary creation from nothingness of a counterpart existence of something that "is". The thing that "is" goes back to nothing (not is) when its job is done. That job is the work of its creator, the banking system. The logic base is absence theory.
A different way of creating is with a thing that exists simply because we say it exists, maybe in abundance, and in conceptual truth it always existed. Once brought into existence by revelation of a truth the strongest conceptual structures never go out of existence because they were founded on the existence of something like our rights and freedom not their absence nor born of an absence. The absence of freedom was the building block of a prior system until we proclaimed that the absence of something is not a good thing to build upon. A paradigm shift.
All we have to do is make a proclamation of what "is" to replace a concept built on non-existence. We are good at doing that and building on it. At least we used to have the courage to do that. It took courage and conviction to face those that built on the absence concept that created the dominant power structure. True then, true now.
Money is the nothing.....etc. That is the current money system foundation concept. Slavery was also an implementation of philosophy based on the absence of something. Freedom by proclamation replaced that idea. The second great application of an earlier proclamation. Is that a progress model? Might it work again? Is there some self evident answer?
Courage, conviction, better thinking? It is progressive! The non-presence conceptual based side is defensive. Defense to prevent the other side from scoring is a game strategy based on fear of losing something. Defending freedom is a good strategy. Defending the non-existence of something against the advance of progress is rather pointless unless it there is a very strong self interest on the side of the defenders that they can win by the illusion there is something there they are defending. Conservative core thinking and the foot soldiers that carry the meme has worked so far to defend it. Give the foot soldiers a new logic, a new meme and they will rally to the progressive side leaving few remaining.
Power of the Money Meme--God Meme
Discussion is continuing at New Economic Perspectives. Today Randy Wray published his comments An Alternative Meme for Money, Part 5: A Spending Meme
I submitted this comment which did not immediately post to the forum. I expect that it has key words that caused it to be brought to the attention of moderators for review prior to posting.
My comment:
There is a God meme in money being expressed clearly in the Platinum Coin idea as the Source and in this alternative meme analysis expressing the goodness of a source as spent that can never run out of goodness because it is Sovereign.
Think about it. The Shoe seems to fit. It is a well established Meme that quickens the meme. money is a tool for us to use to create goodness. Some say money is a false god but on the other hand it has all the temporal characteristics of being all powerful and everlasting goodness. How long is that Platinum Coin going to last? It is big enough to be divided and held by each and all of us to do good things without being expended, but in application it is spent. Kind of a mystery how that happens. It should only do good things but why do bad things happen? That is a mystery too.
Think about it and extend the comparison to the God meme. It seems to take me a along like writing on the wall. It permeates everything being said about the Platinum Coin as well as what we wish the implementation of the concept of the coin as money to do for a better world. What are we really talking about and there are a lot of good people talking about a powerful idea here and how to enlighten others.
Think about it. Maybe a good meme pattern that is the model for explanation as well as the answer to creating a better system. That is the power of creation.
I submitted this comment which did not immediately post to the forum. I expect that it has key words that caused it to be brought to the attention of moderators for review prior to posting.
My comment:
There is a God meme in money being expressed clearly in the Platinum Coin idea as the Source and in this alternative meme analysis expressing the goodness of a source as spent that can never run out of goodness because it is Sovereign.
Think about it. The Shoe seems to fit. It is a well established Meme that quickens the meme. money is a tool for us to use to create goodness. Some say money is a false god but on the other hand it has all the temporal characteristics of being all powerful and everlasting goodness. How long is that Platinum Coin going to last? It is big enough to be divided and held by each and all of us to do good things without being expended, but in application it is spent. Kind of a mystery how that happens. It should only do good things but why do bad things happen? That is a mystery too.
Think about it and extend the comparison to the God meme. It seems to take me a along like writing on the wall. It permeates everything being said about the Platinum Coin as well as what we wish the implementation of the concept of the coin as money to do for a better world. What are we really talking about and there are a lot of good people talking about a powerful idea here and how to enlighten others.
Think about it. Maybe a good meme pattern that is the model for explanation as well as the answer to creating a better system. That is the power of creation.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Cuba - New Money System
Economists like to use the "Desert Island Model" to explain economics theory of money.
China has some program to develop and apply new money theories in selected cities.
It seems to me that the most obvious "Desert Island" in the world and the one needing a money system to lift it out of its current economic condition is Cuba. Now wouldn't that be ironic. A communist country establishing a debt free money system based on a Platinum Coin that would be a model for the rest of the world.
Cuba is isolated, politically, geographically. the perfect "Desert Island".
What is the monetary system of Cuba? Nobody cares so I would not expect to find much on it. Maybe that is what makes Cuba the ideal place to adopt a new money model???
Travel to Cuba!
Banking in Cuba
The Central Bank: Wow! It is hard to travel to Cuba but easy to go there on the internet!
As the governing authority of the Cuban banking system, BCC has the mission:
Russia Eyes Cuba's $25 Billion Debt
Maybe a platinum coin would work for Cuba?
Maybe China could buy the debt cheap from Russia and use Cuba as a "Desert Island" site for monetary reform to a debt free money system as a place to launch an assault on the debt money system of Cuba's nearest neighbor???
The Russians tried that idea once but they are so crude they used missiles instead of money!
Chinese are clever people.
China relations with Cuba here
China has some program to develop and apply new money theories in selected cities.
It seems to me that the most obvious "Desert Island" in the world and the one needing a money system to lift it out of its current economic condition is Cuba. Now wouldn't that be ironic. A communist country establishing a debt free money system based on a Platinum Coin that would be a model for the rest of the world.
Cuba is isolated, politically, geographically. the perfect "Desert Island".
What is the monetary system of Cuba? Nobody cares so I would not expect to find much on it. Maybe that is what makes Cuba the ideal place to adopt a new money model???
Travel to Cuba!
Banking in Cuba
The Central Bank: Wow! It is hard to travel to Cuba but easy to go there on the internet!
As the governing authority of the Cuban banking system, BCC has the mission:
- To issue the national currency and seek for its stability.
- To contribute to the macroeconomic balance and orderly development of the economy.
- To keep custody of the country’s international reserves.
- To propose and implement a monetary policy which allows to attain the economic goals established by the country.
- To ensure normal internal and external payment operations.
- To dictate mandatory regulations.
- To exercise the functions related to the discipline and supervision of the financial institutions and representative offices authorised to establish themselves in the country and of any other entrusted to it by the laws.
Russia Eyes Cuba's $25 Billion Debt
Maybe a platinum coin would work for Cuba?
Maybe China could buy the debt cheap from Russia and use Cuba as a "Desert Island" site for monetary reform to a debt free money system as a place to launch an assault on the debt money system of Cuba's nearest neighbor???
The Russians tried that idea once but they are so crude they used missiles instead of money!
Chinese are clever people.
China relations with Cuba here
Monetary System Conceptual Restructure
In the 20th century we built a progression of awesome real things from the beginning to the end of the century. Planes, trains, automobiles, war machines, movies, road systems, cities, telecommunications, medicine. With the progress of developing all these things came associated conceptual structure frameworks in which to manage them. Conceptual framework structures emerging just as fast as all the new physical things.
At the beginning of the 21st century most of all the major physical things that we will have and live with are fairly well established. It is the conceptual systems in which these things will all operate and operate together that will be what continues to progress in the Information Age.
At the beginning of the 20th century there were established conceptual systems that were relatively unrelated to the physical material industrial progress and their products we experienced during the course of the century.
Conceptual systems like politics, religion, money, etc. The social systems. The conceptual systems that were the products of history. Things of the Industrial Revolution and the Information Age work to serve us because they are built on conceptual structures that created hand in hand with the physical things we created make them work, conceptual structures designed and designed well to make them work.
We became better at making cars and stuff but we are becoming very much better now at making everything work well together in an integrated world of conceptual structure..or not work better.
It seems that our learned ability to make conceptual structures related to the new physical things we created during the 20th century is going to challenge the very foundation of some established social conceptual structures that existed at the beginning of the 20th century and that went through the past 100 years relatively unchanged.
Information is a science. We learned how to use it apply it, manage it at a rapidly growing rate of efficiency and accuracy for 100 years. We have a tremendous ability to create purely conceptual structures that are becoming the driving force of the systems that serve us in this century rather than the "catch up" nature it had to the manage the physical things we created in the previous century.
The challenge of this century is to re-engineer our basic major social conceptual systems using the general knowledge and capability we have created to design and implement any conceptual system.
It will take another hundred years to start to redesign conceptual structures of religion, maybe not that long to begin working on the political conceptual system. The monetary conceptual system is the immediate one that is so out of wack with logic that it is becoming non-functional.
The Platinum Coin idea is a legal vehicle to prevent a cliff.
As I see it, it is the rock upon which to build an entire restructure of the monetary system that is sneaking in the back door as an immediate solution to the immediate problem but scales well to solve the entire Problem Domain on Money.
A google search on "information scaling" gives results that demonstrate the power of a conceptual system that applies to a problem solution at a lower level applying to the broader system problem solution.
China is taking an interesting step in permitting the development of some fundamentally different monetary system concepts at local levels that would be experiments in finding solutions that would scale to the national level.
We could not do that in the USA simply because we would find a solution at the local level or a solution to one aspect of the total problem that would scale to the solution of the problem at the broadest level. There is too much to be lost by those that so heavily invested in continuing the benefits derived from perpetuating a poorly designed system.
Information science and knowledge management related to conceptual system design and implementation will eventually force revision of the monetary system.
It is easier to simply design and implement a better conceptual system based on new conceptual foundation and let it scale up and replace the old system as the those clinging to the old conceptual ideological foundation die of natural causes and fail to perpetuate because most people either don't care for the old concepts or they never really understood them in the first place
In the case of money I am inclined to think that a more clearly understood foundational concept will win out simply because most people just did not have any understanding of the old concept that caused to many problems and why it caused them.
The old system will be re-designed because nobody could understand it except the few that used it to their advantage. All that is needed is to present a clear idea of the new foundational concept.
Like a Platinum Coin.
One of the first things I can remember playing with besides the 2 X 4 scrap wooden pieces from whatever dad was working on were coins. Understanding those was child's play.
Platinum Coin: A grown up toy for us to play with.
At the beginning of the 21st century most of all the major physical things that we will have and live with are fairly well established. It is the conceptual systems in which these things will all operate and operate together that will be what continues to progress in the Information Age.
At the beginning of the 20th century there were established conceptual systems that were relatively unrelated to the physical material industrial progress and their products we experienced during the course of the century.
Conceptual systems like politics, religion, money, etc. The social systems. The conceptual systems that were the products of history. Things of the Industrial Revolution and the Information Age work to serve us because they are built on conceptual structures that created hand in hand with the physical things we created make them work, conceptual structures designed and designed well to make them work.
We became better at making cars and stuff but we are becoming very much better now at making everything work well together in an integrated world of conceptual structure..or not work better.
It seems that our learned ability to make conceptual structures related to the new physical things we created during the 20th century is going to challenge the very foundation of some established social conceptual structures that existed at the beginning of the 20th century and that went through the past 100 years relatively unchanged.
Information is a science. We learned how to use it apply it, manage it at a rapidly growing rate of efficiency and accuracy for 100 years. We have a tremendous ability to create purely conceptual structures that are becoming the driving force of the systems that serve us in this century rather than the "catch up" nature it had to the manage the physical things we created in the previous century.
The challenge of this century is to re-engineer our basic major social conceptual systems using the general knowledge and capability we have created to design and implement any conceptual system.
It will take another hundred years to start to redesign conceptual structures of religion, maybe not that long to begin working on the political conceptual system. The monetary conceptual system is the immediate one that is so out of wack with logic that it is becoming non-functional.
The Platinum Coin idea is a legal vehicle to prevent a cliff.
As I see it, it is the rock upon which to build an entire restructure of the monetary system that is sneaking in the back door as an immediate solution to the immediate problem but scales well to solve the entire Problem Domain on Money.
A google search on "information scaling" gives results that demonstrate the power of a conceptual system that applies to a problem solution at a lower level applying to the broader system problem solution.
China is taking an interesting step in permitting the development of some fundamentally different monetary system concepts at local levels that would be experiments in finding solutions that would scale to the national level.
We could not do that in the USA simply because we would find a solution at the local level or a solution to one aspect of the total problem that would scale to the solution of the problem at the broadest level. There is too much to be lost by those that so heavily invested in continuing the benefits derived from perpetuating a poorly designed system.
Information science and knowledge management related to conceptual system design and implementation will eventually force revision of the monetary system.
It is easier to simply design and implement a better conceptual system based on new conceptual foundation and let it scale up and replace the old system as the those clinging to the old conceptual ideological foundation die of natural causes and fail to perpetuate because most people either don't care for the old concepts or they never really understood them in the first place
In the case of money I am inclined to think that a more clearly understood foundational concept will win out simply because most people just did not have any understanding of the old concept that caused to many problems and why it caused them.
The old system will be re-designed because nobody could understand it except the few that used it to their advantage. All that is needed is to present a clear idea of the new foundational concept.
Like a Platinum Coin.
One of the first things I can remember playing with besides the 2 X 4 scrap wooden pieces from whatever dad was working on were coins. Understanding those was child's play.
Platinum Coin: A grown up toy for us to play with.