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Rare Sharing of Data Led To Results In Alzheimer's Research
jamie passes along a story in the NY Times about how an unprecedented level of openness and data-sharing among scientists involved in the study of Alzheimer's disease has yielded a wealth of new research papers and may become the template for making progress in dealing with other afflictions. Quoting:
"The key to the Alzheimer's project was an agreement as ambitious as its goal: not just to raise money, not just to do research on a vast scale, but also to share all the data, making every single finding public immediately, available to anyone with a computer anywhere in the world. No one would own the data. No one could submit patent applications, though private companies would ultimately profit from any drugs or imaging tests developed as a result of the effort. 'It was unbelievable,' said Dr. John Q. Trojanowski, an Alzheimer's researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. 'It's not science the way most of us have practiced it in our careers. But we all realized that we would never get biomarkers unless all of us parked our egos and intellectual-property noses outside the door and agreed that all of our data would be public immediately.'"
Stop trying to replace it with a capitalistic mockery of science.
"It is the stillest words which bring the storm. Thoughts that come with doves' footsteps guide the world."
...but I sometimes forget where I put it.
My new definition of irony:
A story on great leaps in progress being made because of openness being closed off behind a paywall.
Hey mate, spare a sig?
It's great to see that they suspended profit and property motive for the pursuit of something that can improve the lives of humanity as a whole. It's a nice change, even if temporary, against the backdrop of patented genes, seeds, and the like in our day and age.
*At least that's what it sounds like, I don't have an NYTimes login and don't have interest in one, so I didn't RTFA.
Now all we need is for this to become the norm.
Quite frankly I don't understand how it has been allowed for things like genes and sequences and such to be patented, and I think the notion that such things can be patented is ridiculous. But who am I, other some peon somewhere, right?
"Scientists attempt to actually better society, are surprised to find that it works"
...it's a Sudden Outbreak Of Common Sense. How come no-one else tagged it thus?
Sharing of data and ideas to further the cause of science and humanity.
Then greed took over and corrupted it completely.
It's nice to see a gleam of the dreams of progress can still exist somewhere.
"Method of patent free knowledge sharing between scientists."
Free flow of information boosts scientific research. News at 11.
Please, rivalry and secrecy have been the way of things since the dawn of human history, ffs...
more and more I wonder about the 2012 thing.
new sig
It's rather reminiscent of Gorbachev-era glasnost. Since such openness lead to this awesome surprise, perhaps if carried further it can also point the way to the IP version of the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. Who knows what else lies beyond? The terrain that beckons is certainly much more enriching to humanity-at-large than todays's walled gardens of data. Too often those gardens seem to be allowed little purpose other than than for their intellectual fruits to be monetized at all costs and defended against any influence that would delay that. It's very encouraging to see a group go so far against that trend!
Can't stop the Beta? Time to evacuate to ##altslashdot at webchat.freenode.net - Slashcott in effect.
I think it was also governments who decided that science should be made profitable and not being fully paid by taxes, especially when the costs for science seems to increase more and more. Many scientist nowadays, have no other way then to depend on fundraising, and that can only be done effectively with writing papers. In some fields, for example computer science, there are areas where people put all their energie in writing papers with actually no content, just speculations and promisses. There are incrowds who only visit their own conferences and go on producing papers after papers with no real results at all.
I have been following research around Alzheimer's Disease in the past four years, because my wife has Early Onset Alzeheimer's Disease (she is only 53), and also in this area, I have encountered papers that present no result, but only talk about a potential application of a certain mechanism, which sole purpose seems to be fund-raising. And in a sense, I do not object against those papers, because if there is one disease that does not receive enough funding, it is Alzheimer's Disease. The costs of Alzheimer's Disease for society as a whole is probable of the same order as that of all forms of cancer together, but only a fraction of the amount of research that is put into cancer is put into Alzheimer's Disease. Especially in western countries, with a relatively large percentage of people over the age of 65, the costs for Alzheimer's Disease are becoming a great burden.
It's indeed good that, in this case, profit was put aside for "the greater good," as it were.
But what about all of the useful drugs that are produced by profit-seeking corporations? If, as all the chest-pounders in this thread would have it, "profit were just laid aside," would these corporations still exist? Would they still be conducting research that has undeniably benefited sick people? The answer is probably "no."
"Profit" has, unfortunately, become synonymous with "greed" in the minds of all too many people -- and it many cases, it unfortunately plays out that way. What's lost in such caricatures, however, is that "profit" is also a great motivator to conduct good research and produce quality products that people want to buy.
In my mind, there's a place for both models. All this shouting about the evils of profit and capitalism and how it destroys "real" science strikes me as more than a little naive.
Peer review doesn't require publishing in a journal? Heresy!
That recently, huh? "No no! These 6in teeth are for... you know... nothing!"
Alzheimer's disease cannot be diagnosed unless through pathology, but for those with probable cases, this is good news. I'm glad to see this sort of information sharing. Science used to move at the speed of journal publishing schedules. Hopefully this will be influential in bringing science into the 21st century.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Did the other people on the project really know their data was being shared? .... ;)
Who would have thought a TEAM could accomplish more then the individual. I guess there is no "I" in team, but apparently there are a lot of d-bags in medicine that patent everything and profiteer off poorly treating peoples health.
Of course science has never been perfect, but the state of science as we know it today is a peace dividend of the post-Soviet era. That includes the anemic state of space exploration.
Once upon a time, everything was all about the US vs. the Soviets. Anything decision more complicated than choosing the "Soviet" or "US" was quaintly labeled "multilateral" and dismissed as vaguely tacky and uncooperative. In those days, there was a huge contest to see which form of society was the society could produce the most sustainable progress. We don't get this in modern civilization struggles because Communism had this doctrine of historical determinism. Communism (the communists said) would usher in a golden age for humanity, a society so perfect that history itself would become obsolete.
So, it was very important to show which economic and political system had the biggest progress balls. Can *you* go to the moon? Can *you* create wonder drugs that horrible diseases? Can *you* discover the fundamental laws of the universe? And we spent a lot of public money on this creative machismo contest. Well, not that much really when you look at what we got out of it, but a lot when you look at how much we're willing to spend to Benefit the Progress of Mankind [tm] today.
And then, we won.
Suddenly, the contest wasn't all that important any longer. We had all this expensive to keep running research capability, and no reason to spend the money. And somebody came up with a creative idea that was almost like money for nothing. We'd be able to sustain the growth in our research infrastructure without growing our public investment in it.
It's hard to realize this today, but the concept of university research institutions as primarily IP generating engines was novel in 1980. It even seemed almost a bit obscene, because only a few years prior academic research was ostensibly all about Benefiting the Progress of Mankind [tm].
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
That said, one of the problems is that, when submitting research papers, you have to deposit your putative genes and all into the common databases, and some researchers have a nasty habit of kicking out a fast paper based on those newly submitted sequences before yours finishes the 38th draft before being published.
As to diagnosis, we're getting fairly good at that, but as another poster confirmed, we can't ascertain it exactly without taking your brain, which we don't do until you die and are no longer using it. In fact, for the best research, we really need to flash-freeze your brain within two hours of death.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
In a perfect world, full of unicorns and magic fairy dust, scientists would share everything and work together. But in the world we live in, each tries to be more successful than the next in order to remain employed and feed his family.
It would be interesting if the Global Warming priests would do something like this. Think of the knowledge that could be gained if they weren't so insistent about hiding everything, and making sure nobody can double check their results.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Something I wrote on that begins: http://www.pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-grantmakers-and-donors-on-copyright-policy.html
"Foundations, other grantmaking agencies handling public tax-exempt dollars, and charitable donors need to consider the implications for their grantmaking or donation policies if they use a now obsolete charitable model of subsidizing proprietary publishing and proprietary research. In order to improve the effectiveness and collaborativeness of the non-profit sector overall, it is suggested these grantmaking organizations and donors move to requiring grantees to make any resulting copyrighted digital materials freely available on the internet, including free licenses granting the right for others to make and redistribute new derivative works without further permission. It is also suggested patents resulting from charitably subsidized research research also be made freely available for general use. The alternative of allowing charitable dollars to result in proprietary copyrights and proprietary patents is corrupting the non-profit sector as it results in a conflict of interest between a non-profit's primary mission of helping humanity through freely sharing knowledge (made possible at little cost by the internet) and a desire to maximize short term revenues through charging licensing fees for access to patents and copyrights. In essence, with the change of publishing and communication economics made possible by the wide spread use of the internet, tax-exempt non-profits have become, perhaps unwittingly, caught up in a new form of "self-dealing", and it is up to donors and grantmakers (and eventually lawmakers) to prevent this by requiring free licensing of results as a condition of their grants and donations. "
I sent a longer version to the Markle Foundation in 2001, two years before this open partnership on Alzheimer's started: :-)
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-funding-digital-public-works.html
Maybe it helped?
By the way, adequate vitamin D and eating organic whole foods heavy on vegetables, fruits, and beans (with a few selected supplements like B12 and DHA) may help delay Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia greatly; see:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/cat-alzheimers-disease.html
So, the answers are out there even without people cooperating to make some magic bullet. The cooperation through basic publications and the hard work of a few key people like Dr. John Cannell and Dr. Joel Fuhrman putting together such information has made huge difference. Now if just more people would pay attention to these findings -- but unfortunately there is not much profit in emphasizing getting mdoerate sunlight exposure (or taking cheap supplements) and eating right, so that is another part of the partadigm problem of a for-profit health care and R&D system.
Moderate exercise and some other things can help too (see Dr. Andrew Weil for the bigger picture of the holistic side fo health, though his nutrition advice is not quite as good as the above links) but again, there is not the huge profits in that as, say, doing triple bypasses.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
If it's publicly funded, shouldn't the research results be publicly available?
Really. Same as with cars, change oil regularly, less engine troubles. Prevention beats cure, all the time.
Taking a cue from Linux I see!
I gave long thought it would benefit society by requiring the open sourcing of all medical knowledge. As it is now for the most part, a profit center, yet the profit takes away from the general productivity, it doesn't add to it, it just helps it a little by not getting any worse. As such, it is more profitable to have healthier people with less medical expenses. Medical expenses fall under the "broken windows fallacy" of economics.
As to alt energy, I hear ya. I also like how it is suitable for decentralization, which increases security (more points of production, less chance of cascading failures) and can help to drop cost, as individuals can eventually pay off their own means of production, which is the same as locking in a futures contract on commodities.
I'm part way there. I have some solar PV, and rely on solid state nuclear fusion batteries..errr.. my firewood stash. Actually out splitting some today in this heat. Not a lot, I did three large rounds today, but I try to do some every day, year round. Sort of get paid to workout. At least that is what I psych myself out with, ha!
There's just so much that *could* be done all over, to help the economy, to improve healthcare, to improve the energy situation..waiting for the big change from the establishment won't work, it is up to the individual to just do it themselves. A million, ten million, whatever, individuals doing it IS change. Route around the government and entrenched corporate bottlenecks.
This is why I embrace modern survivalism, or practical preparedness, getting independent of as much as possible in your basic day to day human needs allows you to be wealthier, without the necessity of having to count your wealth in the terms of their scam fiat currency units.
the system today is set up and run to transfer your labor upstream into as few of hands as possible. All you have to do is...stop doing that. the more people work directly for themselves, the better off they get and the more of their labor that goes to enrich them, and not to further enrich already obscenely wealth entities.
Examples, pay off your land, then build your house as you can afford the materials. Result, no interest payments, no mortgage required, a nice home, at a fraction of the money-your labor-required. Most people don't realize how attractive this is as an option, you can have a paid off home in a few years, rather than a thirty year note that winds up costing you quadruple or more *for the same house*.
a garden..people don't realize how much wealth creation they can get from a garden,beats most any stock on the stock exchange. Example, this year we grew -as part of our gardens- around 20 watermelons. cost was a few seeds, saved from previous melons, maybe one gallon total fuel for my tiny tractor to rototill the area up, and maybe another buck or two for electricity to run the well for the few times we watered it. At even wholesale prices, we spent a few bucks and made over 40 bucks, and at retail, say around five bucks per (organic) melon, which is still cheap, we made about a hundred dollars worth of fine melons, which we have been eating and giving some away. It's a tremendous solar powered force multiplier and wealth multiplier. If say around half the suburban lawns out there were repurposed to productive gardens, that would add billions to the economy, and also drop energy demand. there is already expense and energy use going to keep the lawns cut, the same energy could be put into food production. And people would still have half their lawn to enjoy...
Insulation, run buildings up to R55 or 60 level, with some appropriate other tricks, and we could drop heating and cooling demands down to less than a third, for as long as the building is standing. People just don't run the numbers to see what an incredible deal this is economically, plus to lessen energy demand and improve the environment that way.
Don't forget the old adage of "publish or perish", as a professor's worth is not measured in salt but in publications turned out. Thus, a professor that knows their material, makes new discoveries that they share openly, and is an excellent teacher most likely will not make tenure. It is one more reason why text books are such a burden to so many students. (Oh, and for industrial scientists, they have no reason to publish - as you said, it is a for-profit business model so why would you ever publish trade secrets?)
I agree with you also. In my idealistic mind, I would love to see heavy government investment into the university system. Then, in return, the universities would be bound to releasing all discoveries under automatically granted open-source patents and/or equivalent in copyright. This would allow all universities to build previous successes and companies to utilize this output for profit (as they are selling a tangible product made from the scientific discoveries and not the scientific discoveries themselves - ie, they are selling a pill containing a chemical compound, and not the scientific breakthroughs that are represented in the discovery of that chemical compound's structure).
Of course, this is not an ideal solution. Two arguments rise up to the top right away. The first is the exclamations of "COMMUNISM!!!" - as anything run by a state in the US is immediately considered evil communism, even if the benefits to society are far greater and foster an environment of discovery. The second is "politicizing science" - and, yes, it would be. A political entity would be giving out the grants (just as they do now to some extent), and so there would always be accusations that "liberals" are trying to "push their global warming (now extreme climate change) agenda" or that "conservatives" are trying to promote "capitalistic market philosophies". Unfortunately, in any condition of limited resources there will be politicization of that resources distribution... because that's what politics is for, a study of the social dynamics in which a collection of individuals come to a communal consensus.
'It was unbelievable,' said Dr. John Q. Trojanowski
Oh right, like I'm going to trust any "free gift" data I get from a guy with a name like that!
Einstein would have found out that relativity had already been discovered by Poincare, Lorentz, ...
[...] And when Mendel fudged his data about heredity [...]
Although Fisher claimed Mendel fudged his data (or rather, out of respect for Mendel, 'an overeager assistant', which of course did not exist), this was later shown to be due to an incomplete model of how fertilization en the pea-plant he studied takes place. Please read Ending the Mendel-Fisher controversy, especially Teddy Seidenfeld's contribution, also available from his website: P’s in a Pod: some recipes for cooking Mendel’s data.
Wow, that all sounds pretty neat and mostly a lot of "hard fun".
http://www.papert.org/articles/HardFun.html
And related:
"Mortgage Free!: Innovative Strategies for Debt Free Home Ownership"
http://books.google.com/books?id=U8olv7h0of4C
"How to Survive Without a Salary: Learning How to Live the Conserver Lifestyle"
http://books.google.com/books?id=ImmgMBhdeHkC
"Life After the City: A Harrowsmith Guide to Rural Living"
http://books.google.com/books?id=Fmq19Hv1fqYC
We live in a somewhat passive solar home, and do a bit of organic gardening (but we can't bear to cut down the beautiful trees where we are to have a bigger spot to garden or more sunlight, although I agree with you about the economics of that -- plus, doing stuff outdoors also saves on entertainment expenses and, as you allude to, gym memberships. :-)
Karl Marx and his fans (like Simon Clarke in "The Global Accumulation of Capital and the
Periodisation of the Capitalist State Form")
http://www.riff-raff.se/en/furtherreading/clarke_global.php
predicted an extension of credit to keep capitalism going just before it collapsed (whatever one can say about his proposed cures, a lot of Marxian diagnosis of problems with capitalism was accurate).
Someone just recently sent me this summary about Simon Clarke's writings: "The stages he addresses and ultimately rejects as being too vaguely defined to be considered as true periods are: Mercantilism, Liberalism, Imperialism, Social Democracy, and Monetarism. He identifies (in 1992 or before) monetarism as either being a new phase or (as it turned out) a reassertion of free-market Liberalism that will cause overaccumulation, the solution to which will be imperialism and extension of credit, which will only delay a deeper recession or depression. That's nearly a 20-year-out economic prediction that turned out to be very accurate! (Granted, he didn't offer dates, but he predicted some of the most critical events.)"
I'm adapting the following from a reply on that.
Just one more datapoint on that predicted "extension of credit":
"Debts Rise, and Go Unpaid, as Bust Erodes Home Equity"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/business/12debt.html?src=me&ref=business
as "capitalism hits the fan" (a talk by a Marxist economist)
http://www.capitalismhitsthefan.com/
So, agreeing with others, it is a good diagnosis by Marx and fans, up to a point, but poor prescription for current day events, as this essay says from 1971 by Murray Bookchin (someone more into decentralization):
"Listen, Marxist!" by Murray Bookchin
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bookchin/listenm.html
A fan of Charles Fourier suggested to me that everything good about Marx came from the earlier Fourier. And Fourier was more into self-reliant living (though at a village level).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fourier
Here is a document I put together forty years after Murray Bookchin wrote, and two hundred after Charles Fourier:
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
The document suggests that there are four majo
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I posted on that here: :-) But, there may be a huge problem here with public funding strategies or research. The proprietary approach to research knowledge may literally have been costing trillions of dollars a year (in current dollars) for decades taken across the globe. For the past fifty years, at two trillion a year in excess medical costs, this might add up to US$100 trillion in excess medical costs due to such medical knowledge being proprietary and researchers not cooperating more. Of course, then the huge public health bills are used to justify *increasing* the proprietary aspects of medical knowledge to create more artificial scarcity -- which is a tremendous and sad irony. "
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005081.html
And here:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html
"So, were people perhaps denied Vitamin D as an example of a public institution being funded by public dollars privatizing research results? Something Princeton itself does and encourages. If people were somehow getting less Vitamin D because of the societal consequences of patents (including competitivenesses among researchers, but also making techniques to costly to use or delaying their widespread adoption), it is possible the the consequences of proprietary knowledge from just this one issue might have cost our global society many trillions of dollars and untold personal suffering. Enough money to fund endless researchers making more free knowledge. Enough to fund endless chairs of Computer Science, instead of just the one Phil endowed before he died. Meanwhile, the University of Wisconsin got a little bit bigger, and so did PU. Obviously, I'm all for the Vitamin D researchers at the University Wisconsin as well as other universities getting all the resources they need to do good work, even Princeton.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I predicted the US would collapse economically back in the sixties when I studied the great depression and social security, etc. Obvious as all get out it is a ponzi scheme that is unsustainable now that the boomers are retiring. They only have two options, print money, or bump off the boomers with plausible deniability, using slow plagues that are man made or other options available to them. This is called the "great cull" theory. I think they will choose both options.
Another one I made Was the bankruptcy of GM. Again, easy to see when I worked for them. Obvious. management always at war with employees/labor/unions at war with investors, and all of them convinced they are worth five times what their products were really worth. This was right before the huge japanese car floods to come in. I got laughed at, derided, "no one will ever buy any of those teeny little jap cars".
I think I was the only person in Detroit to see it coming. I looked at what japanese cars were out there, the build quality, mileage, price, etc.then looked at the insane detroit horsepower wars with ancient car designs, just throw more pushrod engine at the situation.. I went "these people are all loony tunes crazy" and quit.
You wrote: "I think I was the only person in Detroit to see it coming. I looked at what japanese cars were out there, the build quality, mileage, price, etc.then looked at the insane detroit horsepower wars with ancient car designs, just throw more pushrod engine at the situation.. I went "these people are all loony tunes crazy" and quit."
I guess part of the problem with predictions is where does it leave the individual who believes them when it is so out of step with what everyone else believes? There you felt you needed to quit your job because your accurate beliefs were so far out of touch with the self-delusion (though presumably you moved onto something better, but for many, that may be the end of a profitable career). In the 1970s, Amory Lovins was one of the people who predicted oil shocks and said, all externalities considered (including security costs and pollution), renewables where cheaper:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
For some people, they turn that prediction into money through investments (though it takes money to make money, plus business savvy, luck, connections, etc.). Although sometimes that entails other ethical compromises.
"From Predators to Icons; How to succeed as an entrepreneur : The New Yorker"
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/browse_thread/thread/9b81e569f28d8739
But for most people, there is not much you can do with that knowledge (other than, as you did, on a very local scale). My wife had a related metaphorical idea, of moving above the scene of the world and having a great vision of what was "reality", but then that vision not always being that helpful when you come back to Earth. As I said elsewhere, what good does it do to the fly to know the chemical composition of amber? Still, there may be some use, since people are not flies and have more capacity to act (like you did, to improve your local self sufficiency). A related post by me that touches on some of that:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/6819187b74f4b7db
Still, as I heard recently, talking about alternative stuff can help create small communities of practice, that are working towards common goals, or at least inspire others to think about stuff going on in that area. For example, Home Power Magazine has long been an inspiration to me.
Also, the trends are not all bad. I predict that between curing vitamin D deficiency (Dr. Cannell) and people eating more whole foods (Dr. Fuhrman) the USA may save upwards of a trillion dollars a year in medical costs. Just one supporting point:
"A Decade Of Vitamin D Supplementation Would Save $4.4 Trillion Over A Decade"
http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi111.html
So, that's good news to go with the bad. The future is a mix of both. What's really crazy is that, if you realize that, giving health care (including nutritional counseling and access to whole foods) to everyone in the USA is really affordable.
"Eat an Apple (Doctor's Orders)"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/business/13veggies.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=business
So, it is sad to see all the misinformed arguing and all the needless suffering, whether of sick people with preventable disease, accomplished machinists and toolmakers who lose their chance to make lots of useful stuff, or even kids suffering in prison-like schools.
http://www.thewaronkids.com/
One alternative public school is documented here (and AERO lists many alternatives)
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
It's sad/funny to see how slashdot is so US centered.
YOUR society is the one fucked up by greed and power. The US != The World. Do something, you little lazy bastards, as we do in Europe to fend off the insanity.
Most people equate all those three things. Same as they think any "job" helps the overall economy.
I gave up long ago trying to change the world, it just slap doesn't work. What does work is anyone changing themselves, then their friends and neighbors and relatives might get interested in this or that aspect, and adopt it, or consider it, or make a change to it and adopt that, etc.
Macro changes are usually accompanied by wars or other nasty stuff. Micro changes done by individuals are immediately rewarding and the best way to influence over all human trends.
I'd like to see more alt energy, so I bought me some and use it. Better mileage vehicles so I got one, and it was well used to boot, and needed (and still does some) repairs, recycled rather than scrapped and replaced with new.
and yada yada. That adage thing globally act locally REALLY applies once people realize that act locally means "you".
In the sixties we had a saying, still fits today, you are part of the problem, or part of the solution.
Oh, predictions..it doesn't matter in the long run. Example, I "predicted" a long time ago a decent demand/market in fat tired comfortable to sit on multi speed bicycles. I wanted one, they didn't exist, no one had one for sale. So I built one, used it as a bragger in front of my bicycle store. Now they are known as mountain bikes. Never made a penny directly off that "prediction", other than anyone can buy one now cheap, so all is good there as far as I am concerned. To me the wealth I made off of that-my working and very fun to ride prototype, and now all the zillions of models out there, became a global force multiplier in wealth, and I can share in it today, we all collectively got wealthier.
All of those concepts exist widely in the survival preparedness communities.
(gift economy, basic income, resource-based planning, and local subsistence communities)
gift economy: a lot of sharing goes on and mutual help and support. both in cyberspace and meatspace
basic income: survival and preparedness folks almost universally have more than one source of income, because they know how vital this is to survive, they don't like the "all your eggs in one basket" approach. they also understand the difference between money and wealth, and why it is a good idea to accumulate wealth, and not so much fancy IOUs masquerading as wealth.
resource-based planning: this is top of the heap for survival/preparedness. Resources=tangibles for the most part, and we understand tangibles. We look at almost all possible situations, see any negatives that might arise, and develop contingency plans and mitigation efforts in advance. This concept is called "having backups for backups". And on the other hand, we see and act on opportunities that exist, even if they are small, because we realize a lot of smalls add up to "big" or "big enough".
local subsistence communities: all community starts at the personal and family level and goes up from there. I think you'll find that survivalists are the most heavy into gardening, livestock, home crafts, canning and food preservation, doing repairs, recycling, etc, plus being active in the local community and with their neighbors. They also are the most prepared when it comes to routing around fiat currency shortfalls, by having and using precious metals/barter/back to sharing, being earlier adopters and evangelists for alternative energy devices, owning HAM gear, having a ton of tools, etc.
The old community barn raising is another old example there, along with modern day use of open source software and open source knowledge sharing (like my board and many other free survival boards, free sharing of survival skills and resources)
I tell ya what is weird though..it is way more older folks like the greatest generation (ww2 era folks), boomers and the earliest (the oldest) gen Xers who are into it today. Unfortunately, we aren't getting it across to the later Xers and the gen Y and younger folks why this is a good idea. They have known only prosperity mostly, comfort, easy climate controlled living, a lot of leisure time, stores always full, instant always there communication, all of that, and just don't grok how fast things can change, like overnight or even faster, and why you need to concentrate on basic life necessities first, and get independent and have backups, before you go to wasting time and resources on frivolities and entertainments, etc.
They also *really* don't understand that they are half way to a full bore big brother society, because this is all they have known, it is "normal" to them. No idea how being tied so heavily to the system makes you a slave. They have never lived when random roadblocks were unheard of, or when security cameras weren't all over, etc, and "no knock" raids were exceedingly rare and reserved only for the most heinous crimes/criminal suspects.
I mean, to be fair and not come across as too much of a curmudgeon, I grew of age in the sixties, so I know *full well* what "party down" means ;) Ain't a generation out there that can hold a candle to the boomers when it comes to "party"...
It's not like I am unfamiliar with this concept o_0..but, I always had a garden, I learned every hand tool and power tool I could get my hands on, learned all the wood craft and fieldcraft I could, learned various means and forms of self defense, learned to cross country navigate *large distances* using a compass and a few cheap maps, educated myself on politics and economics and the blend there known as geopolitics..and so on. It wasn't *all* party time.
And I am not seeing that so much with the two youngest generations now, scares hec
I have to agree with your sentiment. And "Nature Deficit" disorder is part of it, but that does not explain why most kids may not understand what a bootloader is on a computer or whatever if they are indoors a lot around computers. I guess I was lucky to just come in at the edge of things (my first computer was a 6502-based KIM-I, and my first languages were Assembler, Commodore BASIC, and Forth). Still, anyone can run a Virtual Machine on their PC and watch what happens with a simulated computer booting up.
Maybe this is related? :-) From:
"Ignorance, Apathy, and Greed"
http://www.progress.org/fold21.htm
"The causes of social problems exist on many levels. When we ask why social problems such as poverty, unemployment, crime, and war exist, each time we determine a cause, we can ask "why" again, as children often do until they are hushed. Poverty exists because some folks can't find jobs or the jobs pay poorly. But then why is the wage level so low? Because of the tax and land-tenure systems. Why do we have those systems? Because special interests pay to legislate it. Why do special interests get away with it? The voting structure lets them. Why does that structure exist? The voters don't demand to change it. Why not? When we dig down through all the layers to the roots of the causes, we find three fundamental causes of social problems: ignorance, apathy, and greed. The ultimate remedy for social problems therefore must confront all three root causes. It does little good to just run down the street shouting "share the rent!" or "stop war!". Uttering a slogan does no good unless it arouses sympathy."
Here is something related I posted on how my perspective may be different because my mother lived through the German bombing and invasion of Rotterdam and subsequent intentional starvation:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1755090&cid=33264228
Still, there are exceptions with some younger people, like the "open manufacturing" community I am involved in.
http://www.openmanufacturing.net/
Which includes indirectly the RepRap, MakerBot, Maker, etc. scenes:
http://www.makerbot.com/
http://www.makerbot.com/
http://makezine.com/
http://100kgarages.com/
While small, that's an encouraging trend towards DIY and an encouraging hopeful scene.
At the other end of trends, you may find some other links through your local historical societies. I've found that mine is a place where there are people who are interested in how things work (or worked) in various ways (mostly older women in that crowd, but some older men who know a lot about machinery and industry). These are people who know all this sort of stuff:
http://www.lindsaybks.com/dgjp/index.html
My father was a Merchant Mariner for twenty-something years, then a machinist and tool-maker, so I've learned some stuff from watching him.
While I agree with your parallels on the rest of the points, on basic income, while you make a good point, in general, it means something a little different (essentially, it means social security for everyone young or old as a substantial check from the government every month acknowledging their right as a citizen to the fruits of some of the industrial commons, as a formal government program to deal with rich/poor divides, the concentration of wealth, the lack of jobs, etc. in a systematic way still within a capitalist framework).
http://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.html
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
This is a step forward and should be used to set a precedent, especially amongst the scientists who are not at all involved with the evil crap being done by companies for patents etc....seriously, can you imagine if we could just make cures for the sake of curing illnesses....we might have half the illnesses we do today.
Ha! You sure do give me a lot of homework with those links! hahaha!
Basic social security check for all:
that's part of my alternative currency system I developed, a bottom up gift approach, not a top down credit/lending approach like we have today.
The idea is simple, freeze the currency we have at the current level, to establish a baseline.
Now, accrue the data (currency units again) for the top 100 traded tangible commodities inside your domestic economy.
Now divide the latter into the former, this gives you your baseline 'worth" for a single currency unit. (I was informed my idea is a variation on Keynes "bancor" theoretical currency, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor, but I developed it independently of that bit of data) (I leave out all non wealth production "jobs" in the economy on purpose, the commodities index gives you closer to the true worth, the rest are service and governmental jobs that don't add to the pie, just make more slices)
Now every quarter, accrue the data again, notice any productivity gains. You can garner a percentage up or down. If up, like it should be, the money supply is inflated accordingly. (If down, oh well, better luck next quarter) The first stakeholder for new money is government, now run on a pay as you go effort, no borrowing. A lot of the new money gets into circulation that way. What is left over, is divvied out to all adults in the nation as an equal proportional check, to do with as they please. That's how the rest of the new money gets into circulation.
Dollars now go up in value all the time, not drop in value. You can save money with a clear conscious, or invest it elsewhere, knowing that it will always be worth more down the line when you need it.
At the border, "quid pro quo" tariffs are imposed, with the opposite nation setting the rates..they decide, we match it. If they want 0% tariffs, fine, we match it. They charge us 50% tariffs, we match it. About as fair as it gets, they set the rates. This also helps to fund government, and also encourage REAL free trade, free and fair, not scam trade like we have now. And no picking and choosing, this means any goods that cross the border.
No more fractional reserve lending, that's out, because it is a *congame*. Lending can still exist, from private banks, or by individuals, but it would have to be full asset backed.
The official currency is now "backed" by 100 commodities, that can change as the economy changes. Buggywhips can fall off the list, RAM chips can be added..along those lines, and we include gold and silver for historical and practical reasons, plus it fulfills constitutional requirements, as we issue ONE official gold coin per quarter, and declare its "worth" based on our previously collected data, and it gets put up on the wall at a national museum. The rest is like we run it now, printing press money, but now backed with the process being fully opened.
The mint can still issue coins like they do now, silver and gold and platinum eagles, for collectors or as global hedges, whatever. (ha, just turned in a my change can full of clad coins today, got another silver eagle..my modest "investment" strategy)
Personal and corporate income taxes at the federal level are *no longer needed at all* at this point. Mass pandemonium and celebration breaks out across the land, and champagne gets sold out! This gives the most possible "stimulus" to the economy that can be constructed, and foreign investment would flock here from those rates. You just can't beat zero taxes... Everyone working just gets a huge increase in pay from not having to fork out the federal tax. An easy sell to the population.
We go from top down, the "trickle down" method of running a fiat currency, to bottom up, the "rising tide lifts all boats model".
A few central bankers lose their cushy jobs, and not a single tear is shed....
States and local governments remain the same as they are today per fu
There are potentially trillions (skimmed out of the real economy) present in this discussion from the other side, carbon credits. A completely unnatural (there is no natural demand for a "carbon credit") and artificial conjob "market" that is promoting AGW as hard as it can, so it can get its hands on these new tradeable commodities. More sticky fingers in a huge new cash cow pie, pushed as force of law, that no one will be able to avoid, a new massive stealth tax. How wonderful...
As some people say, the anti AGW folks might be funded by big oil and coal so their views could be tainted, suspect, but check out who wants AGW to be adopted as the official "approved and settled science", such world class benefactors and all around good guys as Goldman Sachs. These sort of "gents" are the main big money behind this. And we are supposed to be completely trusting now, that there is no corruption involved??
In fact, the idea of carbon credits comes from our good and honest friends back at Enron.
http://www.investigatemagazine.com/archives/2006/03/investigate_oct_5.html
The old saying of stones and glass houses comes to mind with this accusation of who is being influenced by what behind the scenes big money.
Myself, personally, I am all for alternative and more decentralized energy. I think its spiffy. based on itself, as stand alone things, as just a general good idea, but not based on casino banker gangster backed lobbying groups or their tame scientists utterances. I find that as potentially suspect and corrupt as anything else with these sorts of sums involved.
Cleaner environment, less coal, more solar, more geothermal, more wind, more hydro, biofuel made from non food crops eventually, more individuals getting freedom from the current big energy cartelists? Hell ya! All good ideas, bring it on!
Carbon credits? Why do I want to support the white shoe mafia boys, who have already been proven to be the biggest scammers and liars and cheats and thieves on the planet?? They are crooks, and the groups/individuals/institutions taking their crooked blood money are now highly suspect in my book.
The science is *tainted*. It needs to be thrown out, new studies done from scratch, completely open and transparent every step of the way. What has gone on so far is not lily white pure neutral, "let the chips fall where they may" science, not with those crooks involved it isn't, it *can't* be, those boys expect results for their "support". That's how they operate..
I like your proposal, especially because it has a basic income as part of it: "What is left over, is divvied out to all adults in the nation as an equal proportional check, to do with as they please. That's how the rest of the new money gets into circulation." That is also called "social credit", and indeed it is important that the government gets new money first, and not the banks, which is a great thing about your proposal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit
You've probably seen "Money as Debt II Promises Unleashed"?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=money+as+debt+ii
Here is a website about creating local currencies if you pursue your interest in currency at the local level: ... is a group of people from a small community who all agree to exchange goods and services with each other without the need for cash. "
http://www.lets-linkup.com/
"LETS
Still, a big problem with designing currency is it serves two separate purposes, which get at the issue you raised of money vs. wealth. One purpose is a store of value (so, "wealth"), the other is to signal demand (which is not exactly "money", but is similar). These are related purposes (because you can use wealth to signal demand, or you can process demand to create wealth), but they are not the same.
If you want to store value abstractly, you want something like what you outline -- some sort of commodity (gold, land, energy, ram chips, grain, whatever). Granted, some commodities may be better than other -- gold historically has been useful, as grain molds and ram chips become obsolete. (Though, once we have nuclear fusion, something like gold might be produced cheaply, the same as how aluminum used to be worth more than gold and platinum, but now we throw aluminum away because it has become cheap through technological innovation. Or even through, as mentioned on your linked home site, finding some "forgotten" big mining opportunity in some country like Afghanistan.)
The problem with running a big economy on gold or whatever is that the biggest issue is to signal demand. Think of this as like in a factory with "Kanban" tokens. From (more homework? :-) Or you may know this from automotive days?):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban
"An important determinant of the success of production scheduling based on "pushing" the demand is the quality of the demand forecast that can receive such "push." Kanban, by contrast, is part of an approach of receiving the "pull" from the demand. Therefore, the supply or production is determined according to the actual demand of the customers. In contexts where supply time is lengthy and demand is difficult to forecast, the best one can do is to respond quickly to observed demand. This is exactly what a kanban system can help with: It is used as a demand signal that immediately propagates through the supply chain. This can be used to ensure that intermediate stocks held in the supply chain are better managed, usually smaller. Where the supply response cannot be quick enough to meet actual demand fluctuations, causing significant lost sales, then stock building may be deemed as appropriate which can be achieved by issuing more kanban. Taiichi Ohno states that to be effective kanban must follow strict rules of use[4] (Toyota, for example, has six simple rules, below) and that close monitoring of these rules is a never-ending task to ensure that the kanban does what is required."
Kanban tokens can be anything, like a ball or a basket. They don't have value in themselves; they just signal demand within the system (of course, outside a controlled factory, there could be counterfeiting of tokens). Fiat dollars have something of this role in the economy, too. Fi
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.