Re: [ox-en] Re: The nature of apple trees
- From: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 gmail.com>
- Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2009 09:10:58 +0700
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On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 12:41 AM, Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de> wrote:
Hi Michel and all!
BTW: I stop cross-posting.
@Michel: Well, may be I'm writing Chinese but from your answer you
seemingly did not get my point. Please let me try to make
things clearer step by step.
In short: A system of small innocent ingredients can develop
an own logic. This logic can be stronger than any human
intervention - regardless how well-meaning you are.
agreed, this is why changing monetary protocols is so important, I'm so glad
you understand that!!
Is this acceptable to you?
Exchange based systems in the given historical circumstances
are one example of such systems.
Is this acceptable to you?
yes
In addition: To recognize the interrelation of small innocent
ingredients and to recognize how they build a powerful system
can well be a scientific endeavor and your all-day
consciousness might not be helpful here. Systems like that
*are* powerful because they are in a way self-organizing.
agreed
and that historically, those that try
to cut down the tree, saw it grow somewhere else.
Well, in fact historically the opposite is true. There were several
attempts for an apple tree system (aka abstract labor / capitalism)
like in the late Roman Empire or in the North Italian cities during
around the 13th century. But only in the 18th / 19th century (aka when
the means of productions had developed enough) it gained momentum
(germ form theory: expansion step). Before that the germ form vanished
again and again.
I was referring to money specifically, not to capitalism as such, attempts
to coercively do away with money have not worked, as was the case in the
Soviet Union and other places; this is the argument put forward, based on
historical evidence, by raoul victor at oekonux 4
So it's not at all about
'vanishing' all the problems, but about lessening them For example, in a
time of hyper-inflation, to protect the local community from its
devastating
effect.
Fine with me. attac and meanwhile standard politicians are doing that.
It's classic social democrat business. I'm glad they do because during
the decline of the money system there need to be some people which
prevent the worst things - but it has nothing to do with peer
production.
the direct social production of money is the peer production of money, in a
way; while not the same as peer production, it is related as part of the
broad transformation towards the direct social production of value through
the social sphere
Well, it can damage peer production for instance if
scarcity needs to be improved for the sake to uphold the exchange
system...
In any case: Peer production is what Oekonux is about. More and more
this seems to me like the big difference between P2P Foundation and
Oekonux: P2P Foundation does not limit itself to peer production but
includes lots of other, basically unrelated topics.
yes, indeed, the P2P Foundation takes a broader view of social change; BUT,
the different distributed infrastructues, and the direct social production
of open money systems are definitely related to the p2p paradigm; though
they have of course to be differentiated, and understanding all these
differences is what p2p-f is all about
Why do you keep using 'money trickery', would you appreciate it if I said
software trickery for free software?
Sorry, but you are confusing categories here. Money is a mechanism of
an economy. Software - Free or not - is a product. In fact the
products of Free Software and proprietary software are not very
different in technical terms. They are both written in the same
programming languages for instance.
the designing of money protocols, of software protocols, of social media
platform protocols are related as value-sensitive design and mechanisms of
protocollary power which have significant effect on social structure and
human potentialities
What *is* different is the underlying economy - and because of this
there are even some technical differences like stronger modularization
in Free Software. So if you want to use the word trickery you could
say "economy trickery". However, it does not match very well because
Free Software economy is not playing tricks with an existing
economical system but sets up a new one beyond the old.
FS is doing both, it is not just creating the new, but also embedded in the
old and changing the rules of the old; similarly for open money; it's part
of the creation of the new, while changing the nature of the exchange system
MORE LATER, the google 101 course is starting here at DPUIC
Michel
The peer production advocate now would continue: What we want to
arrive at is a world where apple trees play a minor role - if at all.
What we want is a world where we have lots of different fruits but
also vegetables, meat, fish, honey and so on. For this we already have
a couple of examples like pork (aka Free Software).
Exactly, that is exactly the pluralist economy preference of the P2P
Foundation, to reduce the role of exchange to a minor subsystem. One of
the
ways of doing that, is by minimising the harm that the current
ill-designed
format has.
See at the top: It is not ill-*designed* but there are mechanisms
inside.
If it would be ill-designed you would have to assume that we are in
the current situation because
* either people are just too stupid so far
* or there is a conspiracy putting all these ill design elements in
because THEY profit from it
Of course none of them is true. People did well under the given
conditions. At all times there were bright people. It's the logic of
the system they can not counter. And as far as the conspiracy is
concerned: I strongly hope we don't need to discuss this...
If you don't assume that you are the first bright person on this
planet - which by the way you are not because the money trickery stuff
is more than 100 years old - then you have to agree that there must be
forces which led to the current situation. These are the systemic
forces I'm talking of.
In fact there are many systems working that way. Capitalism - or
rather any exchange based system on an interesting scale - is not the
only one. Life itself is an example which probably is impossible to
eradicate from this planet completely by human means. This can not be
sooo hard to understand.
The peer production advocate continues: For this goal to reach any
modification of an apple tree seed is not useful because in any case
you just end up either in apple trees or nothing at all. You simply
can not modify an apple tree seed to become a pig.
we agree, we stay within the exchange mechanism, to make it better as
long
as we have to partially or majorly rely on it, it's part of the panoply
of
measures and constructions we undertake.
It does not support peer production any more than any other endeavor
including war, hunger and bringing people to Mars and it might be
harmful for peer production. I prefer to put my energy in supporting
peer production because it's more promising for general human
emancipation. And if more people do that we are faster there than you
believe...
It is in fact you who is ignorant because you continue to say that you
can modify the apple tree seed to deliver pork or at least help the
production of pork.
never said that, anywhere, you're either imagining or creating a strawman
that is easy to counter; that's bad debating style
I'm sorry. I thought I understood that. I'm actually glad that I'm
wrong.
So to make this clear: Your attempts to remedy exchange based systems
are not related to peer production. It would be great if I got you
right this time because I can finally stop discussing this and in
Oekonux we can go back to more important things.
while we improve the alternatives, we remove the most toxic forms of
money,
at the same time,
You *attempt* to do this. So far there is not a single example on an
interesting scale. For more than 100 years now...
there is no contradiction, both strategies are congruent
and complementary
More or less: Yes.
Grüße
Stefan
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_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de