The Machine Economy: An Essay on The Communication of Value in an Automated Economy

With ILP or Interledger Protocol decentralizing transactions in this fashion is possible.

No one cryptocurrency or digital coin of any kind will rule them all and it would be impossible to scale a system like this using only one ledger.

The future is interoperability of cryptocurrencies, fiat digital currency, interbank transactions, and machine to machine transactions.

a reply to: projectvxn

1. "Our daily lives would be consumed with exploration, education, and innovation without having to concern ourselves with menial tasks or the real threat of poverty."
What about art and archetecture?

2. " This would turn all affected human beings into legal employees of their respective governments. If the proceeds of production are to go to a workforce that doesn't exist, then it is only a government that can mandate this. They would have to convert everyone in the country to government employees and pay accordingly, but what does that do to the relationship between our now constitutional government that protects our rights, and a government-as-a-national-employer that reserves the power to restrict the rights of its employees? For the UBI to work, all industry would have to be nationalized, all humans would necessarily become wards of the state, and all private property would then have to be dissolved and appropriated by the state for later distribution. "

You really expect people to accept this laying down? For one thing, its unconstitutional. The processes for accumulating real property in a record title system is one of the foundational aspects of the Anglo-American economic system. Its what sets the US apart from, as an example, Egypt which has no record title system. Its foundational to the creation of wealth.

a reply to: TonyS

They're trying it by selling it to people as the Universal Basic Income.

This essay is a criticism of the UBI as well as a proposal for an alternative.

The taking of property rights is foundational to the UBI. It wouldn't work otherwise.

a reply to: projectvxn
Well, if you are saying UBI is a bad idea, doubtless these fools will buy into it and doubtless get what they deserve.

a reply to: projectvxn

O.K., I should have read this first before commenting. My apologies.

I don´t want to reduce this very good thread to this but in a gist, it also comes down to energy.

When you pay me for any amount of apples you are not paying for the apples. The apples were free but the energy I spent while caring for the trees, collecting the apples and bring them in so you can get the end product, is not.

I need to eat to get the energy I spent on all those things. This can be applied to everything. The ore mined etc.

So basically, if we could cover our ground needs in terms of energy input in the form of food, and energy preservation in the form of shelter and clothes for everyone, that still leaves us with the nature as something to discover (again) for pleasure, but eventually we have have people that create board games. They spent energy on that and they need to replace that energy at some time. They may have enough reserves from their food but at some point, this will not be enough for physical reasons alone. For that they need some of your food.

Oh wait, I just created a currency again. I think with our human nature, some form of currency has the be around, and it has to be based on some energy convertion model. Humans want to experience their senses.

This all is based on the idea that food is distributed equal and not endlessly available at any given moment. Over large timeframes with the biologic cycle of course it is, in theory.

Good thread, enjoyed the read. I was surprised it did not get more attention.

a reply to: verschickter

I don´t want to reduce this very good thread to this but in a gist, it also comes down to energy.

As referenced here The Machine Economy Page 6 we can actually create a more efficient energy distribution system by automating the sale of excess energy from idle producers, such as electric vehicles left plugged in overnight or excess unusable energy produced by solar panels can be diverted and automatically sold to other areas where demand is higher.

With a sophisticated enough physical distribution system and real-time smart metering technology, we can accurately make these transactions. You and I would never see a physical power bill again unless we wanted to track our individual transactions. At this level, a monthly power bill would make no sense since you'd be making hundreds of transactions an hour or more. All of this going on in the background and you'd never know it unless you had an interest.

When you pay me for any amount of apples you are not paying for the apples. The apples were free but the energy I spent while caring for the trees, collecting the apples and bring them in so you can get the end product, is not.

All cost analysis is taken into account with regard to pricing automatically. This is a function of mathematics and pretty easy to take into account. The hard part is logistics and raw material sourcing and tracking. Supply chain tracking is being done with blockchain now and seems to be holding promise for the future.

Oh wait, I just created a currency again. I think with our human nature, some form of currency has the be around, and it has to be based on some energy convertion model. Humans want to experience their senses.

Precisely. The communication of value is inherent to humans and the cost of production (whatever that it may be) is calculated against human labor, raw materials, energy costs, and regulatory costs. In the future decentralized manufacturing for many consumer goods maybe what is necessary. But this too would change some fundamental aspects of the economy we know today.

This all is based on the idea that food is distributed equal and not endlessly available at any given moment. Over large timeframes with the biologic cycle of course it is, in theory.

I'm an ardent proponent for genetic literacy and for the application of GM technology to food. Coupled with a high-tech supply chain system and we may actually solve world hunger and get rich doing it...Passively.

I was surprised it did not get more attention.

That's probably my fault for spending too much time in the political forums and not enough time discussing new ideas.

I'll do better.

originally posted by: projectvxn
I wrote this essay with the help of members of ATS in the following thread:

Machine Economy vs. Universal Basic Income

Because of their challenges, this essay, while admittedly incomplete in terms of potential and scope, got me an A in my Com 101 class, so it was at least good for that.

The concept itself is something I'm very passionate about. I believe we can expand upon this in terms of mechanics to fundamentally change the role of money in our lives. I want to make money obsolete, and I believe this is how we do it.

A guy named R.Buckminster-Fuller (an 'elite' who became a "comprehensivist humanitarian" (the guy C60 aka "Buckyballs" is named after ... he is the 'father of the geodesic dome' and numerous other "humanity oriented designs" and this is from the last book he wrote called "The Critical Path"

Here's a snip of his ideas on this matter:

"...those who have learned to make money with money-which money can never be anything but a medium of wealth exchanging-have now completely severed money from its constant functional identity with real wealth.

With their game of making money with money the money-makers and their economists continue to exploit the general political and religious world's assumptions that a fundamental inadequacy of human life support exists around the planet."

Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path, Chapter, The World Game Our government has its own currency:
"World Kilowatt Dollars."

"In this cosmically uniform, common energy-value system for all humanity" Fuller wrote, "costing will be expressed in kilowatt hours, watt-hours, and watt-seconds of work. Kilowatt-hours will become the prime criteria of costing the production of the complex of metabolic involvements per each function or item.

These uniform energy valuations will replace all the world's wildly intervarying, opinion-gambled-upon, top-power=system-manipulatable monetary systems.

The time-energy world accounting system will do away with all the inequities now occurring in regard to the arbitrarily maneuverable banker-invented, international balance-of-trade accounting"

the concept is that using 'state of the art technology' "costs" the same in 'materials and energy'' to manufacture whatever country it is done in, so people would be 'paid' i "kilo/megawatt dollars" and the 'prices of goods (in particular) would be the same worldwide

IF these "created scarcities" (aka "economic stress tests") were wound in and stopped

He also 'suggested' that a "power/electricity grid" be a worldwide one with computers directing the loads as required --- and as people use more energy during the day, IF this 'grid' went across the north pole the whole world could be connected

AND, he calculated that with ALL the Only 'non nuclear' generation plants running at 75% capacity (at the time ~1981 iirc) and the power being 'shifted' as the days end, we would immediately have either 33x the 'available power' OR 'power at 1/33 the current cost'

the guy was a scientific genius, with numerous patents to his name (the geodesic 'tensegrity structures' he patented) financed the rest of his life!) C60 looks just like a geodesic dome hence the nickname -- in Fact;

A fullerene is an allotrope of carbon in the form of a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, tube, and many other shapes and sizes. Spherical fullerenes, also referred to as Buckminsterfullerenes or buckyballs, resemble the balls used in association football.

Cylindrical fullerenes are also called carbon nanotubes (buckytubes). Fullerenes are similar in structure to graphite, which is composed of stacked graphene sheets of linked hexagonal rings. Unless they are cylindrical, they must also contain pentagonal (or sometimes heptagonal) rings.[1]

The first fullerene molecule to be discovered, and the family's namesake, buckminsterfullerene (C60), was manufactured in 1985

are known as "fullerenes" en.wikipedia.org...

he's one bloke well worth checking out his stuff

a reply to: JohnnyJetson

Using an SI unit for the basis of value of a currency is already being done with crypto-mining.

BTC miners have to factor in the cost of energy vs the difficulty of solving blocks over time and the price of 1 BTC at any given moment.

For most western miners that process isn't as profitable as it used to be. But our margins are much thinner with regard to power consumption than the Chinese, who have very cheap power and can therefore tolerate a drop much lower than 3400. By my analysis they can tolerate another $1000 - $1500 dollar price drop from current levels and still be mostly profitable, though margins would be threatened at those levels and a few would go out of business.

In a distributed machine economy energy would be bought and sold billions of times per hour and there are many ways to make money from that too. Relay fees, for instance. Same can be done with how the internet connects.

Most of this would happen without anyone ever giving it much thought.

Thanks for the good read:

a reply to: projectvxn

yes, that's an interesting 'spin' on the idea

I first used Btc in 2011 and almost bought an ASIC to mine with and even back then, the power consumption required to mine a block was almost as much as the Btcs you mined! However at the times ASIC's had only appeared in the past few months and prior to this most of the 'mining rigs' were mulitple GPU's running in series with a primary computer running the code while they cruncheed the numbers and they were huge consumers of electricity/power

However, Bucky suggests that if we were to all 'pay the same for electricity' (due to a worldwide power grid' -- he's done all the math and drawn the maps to show what needs to go where etc) He coined a term "dymaxion" to describe his work, here's an example of his "Dymaxion Map", one of The. Most. Accurate. Maps ever made pre GPS! en.wikipedia.org...

It shows how the "earth" is a long elongated 'island' that goes across the north pole on the pllanet which he called "spaceship earth"

This seems a pretty good place to start learning about him and his ideas in general www.instructables.com... You might even be able to pick up a copy of his last book , called, ""The Critical Path" which he wrote when he was 83 and was published shorty before he died ,, it's unique in many ways but it's his "crtical path plan for Spaceship Earth" and co9nsidering it was written nearly 40yrs ago, much of what he says is still relevant, appropriate And applicable.

some of the things he says in the book are unprecedented and many as unique as the way he thought! , and he's (also big on 'coining new words'!)

Being a "comprehensivist" and a "humanist" and using technology toi improve the 'quality' of the way people live and subsequently "think" He postlated that by providing the technology to give everyone the basic things they Need to survive and by doing do it would allow these people the time needed to let them focus on "other things" which they would like to do and many would like to improve their their educations

He wanted to help people improve their lives through technology and due to his upbringing he knows many people in 'high places' and he says in the 2-3 chapter of the book called "Legally Piggly" where he talks about the Importance of patents and how many people have Tried to scam him, US govt included, and at one point he says "many of my friends would call me a "traitor" for writing this book ...!!!" and he calls the CIA "Capitalism's Invisible Army" cool huh! He was the classic "brilliant eccentric" who gave a Lot to the world

I like what you're trying to do bro, it's a Big topic you're taking on re: "how should.can we 'replace/change" the 'currencies' we use to "keep up with the times/world/reality?"

But remember, "money" is simply "a means to exchage energy" and whether that energy is is moving electrons floqwing down a wire or through a device that's "doings" any one of a million things, including 'robotic creation' and using Bucky's methods of "kilowatt dollars" via a solid non-centralized crypto currency which is easily convertable into other forms of fiat currency used in different parts of the world.

But nobody would really need to carry much fiat except for small stuff like food and drinks and buying things from farmers markets in the bush (who have no EFTPOS etc or even power sometimes! lol) and some 'dark' transactions, although I hope by then "personal responsibility" will have become a "priority" in our world while at the same time realizing that
"we Are ALL in 'this' together' so "taking personal responsibility is really "Being the Changes you want to see e.g. you don't like bullies, the stand up to ANYONE you see getting bullied, I'm sure you wouldn't find yourself 'alone' in doing so

You don't like the way people get scammed by financial institutions? Then don't work for one OR anything related while doing what you can to "change it", by educating others about it and supporting 'non-profit community banks' (they're great, and these days just as 'fast' as any other bank, if not faster!)

Start "walking your Talk" ... DO something to help change things for the Better for Everyone even if it's a tinyy thing like waiting another 60seconds to find a bin to put some rubbish in, istead of dropping it on the ground to get washed through the swerers into the sea where it might choke a turtle or something that thought a Mars bar wrapper was a fish, oops, a dead turtuse/tortle, SHIP!

I can 'feel' and see from the way people around me are behaving that the "moral consciousness of The World" has changed and "the people" are completely fed up with the greed and corruption (all around them BUT) intiated and encouraged bythe "elite's companies" who use the MSM and 'advertising to Be the "trimtab factor" of the world:

Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary—the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there's a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab. It's a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it's going right by you, that it's left you altogether. But if you're doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go. So I said, call me Trim Tab. — Buckminster Fuller

I get the 'feeling' that the people who have simple HAD E-F#ckingnuff of being Lied to by "politicians and business leaders and any other bastards who don't care about You, they just want YOUR money

They're no longer "turning a blind eye' to the things they know about which shouldn't be happeneing ... which I'd say IS the case in at least 50% of Govt work/jobs, both Federal and State level are occupied by people who do as little work as possible as they know they are almost 'impossible to fire'!

Such people are leeches upon our society and a sincerely 'disabled' person on benefits does Far Less harm, in every Way than these bureacrats who get paid $120k+ p.a. to DO bugger all! ... they are the True "parasites" of this society, not those on unemplyment or welfare benefite



"United we stand, divided we fall"

I LOVE THE INTERNET for "bring people together" AND giving them "The Library of The World" at their fingertips, 24/7
Text

Interesting how 911 waa in 2001 ans the internet didn't really take off outside of a few countries due to super slow connetions until around '03, '04 and was rocking by '05 with huge 'coverage' as people began to "share the Love" (and ppron lol) Just in time!


Now it's finally happening, and The Don et al are doing an amazingly good job, the worlds been basically PEACEFUL since he came in and NO "new wars" have started since he became POTUS .... "words whisper, Actions BELLOW" and his Actions are speaking for themselves, it's great to see/watch

I'm glad you enjoy the links, please pardon the 'ravey' post

talk again matey :

a reply to: JohnnyJetson

I wonder how Bucky would thinkk about the current world and it's tech?

like I sometimes wonder what taking an ipad)/ph (or ipod even!) back to some 1960's scientists and blow their minds

feel free to ask me for more links if you want OP

a reply to: projectvxn

Nice job on the OP.


However, i'm trying to understand exactly what you are proposing as the solution and how would we transition to it from start to final implementation status?


You mention

We can prepare for this today by using personalized blockchain ledger-based accounts. For instance, a digital currency can be used for service interactions between machines. Excess energy from your solar power system can be sold via this currency as a service rendered.

How did you get ownership of that solar power?

Decentralizing and automating digital processing, fabrication, assembly, and service transactions linked to a single ownership account on a blockchain, would ensure that the owner gets paid and continues to participate in the economy

How did you become owner?

Decentralized economic networks and automation in a machine economy would make a cellphone, an electric car, or an idle computer a contributor to the economy, while the person reaps the benefits.

How did that person get to buy or obtain ownership to reap the benefits?

if the value of labor is work divided by time, then this can be transferred on to an idle CPU to render a service that benefits the owner

I keep seeing the word OWNERSHIP come up.

Today we work so we can get paid and the buy goods and services such as bitcoin .We can even buy with our money systems to mine bitcoins. In todays society to own anything or to start a business it takes money and you have to either work or inherit it.

However when there are no jobs available or very few jobs available for the unskilled workforce or the masses how do you break into the system to obtain ownership of anything with your solution? How do you obtain value in order buy ownership of anything? How do you purchase that ownership when first starting in the workplace or marketplace?

a reply to: interupt42

Rough day. I have half of Friday off so I will have to do this then.

It may seem weird, but I try to get back to people in a reasonable amount of time, if I cannot I try to offer a postponement.

originally posted by: projectvxn
a reply to: interupt42

Rough day. I have half of Friday off so I will have to do this then.

It may seem weird, but I try to get back to people in a reasonable amount of time, if I cannot I try to offer a postponement.

No worries i have been swamped myself

a reply to: interupt42

How did you get ownership of that solar power?

The solar panels are yours.

All the power they produce belongs to you.

How did you become owner?

Depends on how far along the path of maturity for this concept we are talking about. If we are discussing TODAY, then existing economics will suffice to make that purchase.

But let's back track a bit here. What I propose we do first is strengthen what it means to own your identity. Right now California is mulling over a law that would pay a dividend to individuals in California for the corporate buying and selling of their identity. Not only is this a good idea, but it is central to my proposal. We have to start with the codification of self-ownership AND enforce it aggressively.

Corporations should have to pay you for your personal data and ID. They currently do not.

The second step would be to hardwire IoT processing and protocols, as well as blockchain and the Inter Ledger Protocol (ILP) and enable this level of functionality from the get go. I mean everything from a digital watch to your fridge. The further we decentralize the economy and our ability to produce energy, the better this system will work. It also has the added benefit of becoming more secure over time as more and more ledger networks are added.

We enabled every home almost the world over with electricity. We created a network where nearly the whole planet can participate. We need to do the same with automated exchange of power, processing time, storage space, and our basic tasks in the world. As mentioned in the other thread with some of the projects I listed, just about any activity or process can be monetized. AI can help us identify where and how things, behaviors, or other data based on human activity can be monetized.

The 3rd step is to modernize the electrical grids, roads, rails, shipping lanes, and air/space infrastructure to be able to participate in such an economy.

Anything you buy must be legally bound to you unless you decide to sell it or it becomes decommissioned or dispossessed. Since nearly all items you can purchase that use power can contribute to the IoT, that means that all the work they perform belongs to you as well. That work is how you make money.

I'm talking about taking automation to EVERYTHING and introducing an automated internet of value exchange all locked to individual user accounts. Not just giving the benefits of automation to the corporate and government ruling class.

Decentralization is yet another corner stone to this type of an economy. Much like a free-market economy, only far more efficient and much more fair.

In this system there would be no need for taxation as the government would benefit from the same economic exchange system as anyone else. This does not mean that governments COULDN'T introduce taxes, however.

I hope I have answered all of your questions. Let me know if there's something you wish for me to clarify.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk about this. I appreciate your questions.

The tenets of this essay seem to be gaining market legitimacy.

Great!