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"Get Mine" vs. "Grow Ours" - Two Responses to Scarcity
Posted to: Targeted Currencies by Mickki Langston (CCAL30) (1054), Tue, 18 Jul 2006 13:28:17 PDT
Edited: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 14:25:55 PDT
Feedback score: 14 (* * * * * * * * * *)
Tags: balance collective-intelligence cure-for-cancer currencies economic-models evolution-of-the-human-species gift-economy grow-ours os-earth reputation upward-spiral
Comments: 22 by 8 members
Viewed: 400 times by 58 members
The following text was written by Arthur Brock as part of the business plan we are writing for OS-Earth. This section provides the context for OS-Earth, our technology to nurture and support a gift economy. We are sharing this here in hopes to expand the conversation and continue to include the community in the context of our work
There are two important and distinct responses to scarcity: 1) Get Mine and 2) Grow Ours. The first describes the regular phenomenon of getting things that you need to survive. The second illustrates the ability to stretch resources, reuse, reinvest & recycle them – to have one’s “output” produce value for the rest of the system. “Survival of the fittest” is often understood refer the creatures which are best at doing #1 and getting lots of goodies. “Survival of the fit” may provide a better understanding. The best fit for the whole system means requiring the least of #1 to do the most of #2.
A business that requires less materials, energy or cash to produce a greater value or productive output than another business has a competitive advantage. Part of the value that eBay provides, for example, comes from being able to disintermediate expensive layers of middle-men and directly connect producers and consumers, while simultaneously enabling redistribution of other surplus and used goods. They can charge little cash per transaction (a mere fraction of traditional distribution channels) while creating access to more markets and even enabling the re-use and redistribution of goods which would otherwise only be used once.
A great example of this pattern in nature is photosynthesizing plants. They convert sunlight to create carbon-based organic matter. As if it was not enough that they supply the foundation of the whole food chain and produce all of the oxygen that we animals breathe, what most people don’t realize is that they also supply most of the fresh water as well. Ocean evaporation only supplies about 11 inches of annual rainfall – barely enough to support a barren desert. Land-based plants use more of their energy for plant transpiration than for photosynthesis, creating most of our rainfall by pumping water up from their roots and evaporating it again so that it can fall again to re-supply life. The efficiency of plants to require little #1 energy consumption in producing massive #2 benefit may be a good reason that there is so much more plant bio-matter than lions, tigers and bears (even though those seem bigger and stronger in the competitive interpretation of “survival of the fittest”).
Organisms which overtax their environment by requiring more of #1 than they provide of #2 die off (often after devastating their host environment). We’re familiar with patterns in rabbits and deer of overpopulation, overtaxing food supplies and resulting population crashes from starvation. But one of the most vivid examples of the necessary balance of #1 and #2 is cancer. Cells within a body continue #1 duties of survival and multiplication, but they stop cooperating with the larger body and performing their #2 functions. The cancerous cells hoard blood flow and nutrients only to perform more #1 growth, replacing healthy cells and eventually killing their host. Here it is easy to recognize that “healthy” cells are defined by their ability to perform #2 functions. There are plenty of cells and bacteria that flourish in our bodies because their #1 task also serves a #2 role, so they help us survive.
Humankind faces a pressing question of where we stand with respect to the balance of our #1 consumption and our #2 effect on our environment. In the past few hundred years since the industrial revolution brought capacities for massive production (which involved massive resource consumption) we have been like trust-fund babies who have been splurging the principle built up in the earth’s bio-bank. Our whole market economy rests on the ability to consume these readily available natural resources – schools of fish, hillsides of lumber and fields of fertile soil. We use the energy from bio-stored sunlight to fuel our production and distribution – oil, coal, bio-diesel and natural gas. We are currently consuming these things much faster than they replenish. The cumulative effects have become visible in the form of over-fished seas, clear-cut landscapes, depleted soil, strip-mined hillsides, diminished oil reserves, dwindling aquifers, polluted oceans and poisoned rivers.
So, are we a cancer that is killing our host? Or are we beneficial species who can harness our skills and intelligence to benefit the collective whole?
Part of the answer to this question may lie in another important transition that we are currently immersed in. Just as new production efficiencies emerged from industrial equipment, fossil fuels and mechanized processes, the same kind of benefits are now being derived from new informational capacities. “Information” is not just bits of data floating around, more importantly it is patterns of organizing – transferable knowledge, techniques, efficiencies, expertise and specialization
This is extremely significant. Although we’ve diminished natural external stores of energy, complexity, diversity and possibilities, society has been engaged in a process of internalizing complexity, diversity and possibility. For the “downward spiral” of resource consumption, there has been a corresponding “upward spiral” of technology development, specialization and physical and intellectual capacities. Unlike industrial equipment, informational resources are not scarce and can be organized around collective benefit (#2 responsibilities) since sharing information does not deprive the supplier of any of the expertise being supplied. Finally, instantaneous electronic communication (Internet, cell phones, etc.) disintermediates expensive layers of “expertise middle-men” (such as corporations, guilds and universities) connecting producers of information directly to its consumers.
The information revolution akin to the emergence of a collective nervous system. This has the potential of creating much greater efficiencies in production, distribution, energy use, resource allocation, education and every other domain that information effects. This presents us with a precarious opportunity. Will we use these new efficiencies only to increase our abilities to consume more? (#1 only) Or will we harness them to restore the balance and create greater collective benefit? (performing our #2 responsibilities)
Some would say our future is none too bright. Our current systems glorify the power of #1 and marginalize the importance of #2. If we continue to reward cancerous behavior (e.g. the companies collect the most profits while externalizing the most problems) the future holds increasing conflict over decreasing resources. However, if we can harness the technological tools developed in the #1-focused competitive economy to build new infrastructure for a #2-focused collaborative economy, we may be able to restore a healthy balance. This is the importance of the toolset for currencies and resource flows that we are building called OS-Earth.
[Edited by group owner: Arthur Brock on 18 Jul 2006 14:25 PDT: fixed a few typos]
By Mickki Langston (CCAL30) (1054), Tue, 18 Jul 2006 14:35:08 PDT
Comment feedback score: 0
I'm glad you posted the watershed research. It just pains me to see how so often we make choices based on #1, without thinking of the consequences. Where do they think they get the water from? Knowing that plant transpiration is responsible for so much of our water supply, how can they justify destroying the plants? This demonstrates how much we can be blinded by just getting what's "mine" instead of looking at the bigger picture.
topBy Debbie Gleason (CCAL30) (2543), Tue, 18 Jul 2006 19:35:14 PDT
Comment feedback score: 5 (* * * * *)
Arthur,
This is pretty dense stuff. I need to reread this several times over. But your first post about large plant populations... My immediate reaction is that this breaks my heart. My second reaction is, Jesus, how stupid, arrogant and shortsighted can these people be? Oh, yeah. I forget. They don't give a damn about the rest of us. Or am I too cynical? Certainly people in the current administration don't give a damn about the rest of us. It's hard to remember where I stashed my idealism when I read about stuff like this. I think we need to forget about these business owners and concentrate on educating the people in the neighborhood.
I remember being at the SE Alaska State Fair and coming across the loggers' booth. Loggers wives hellbent on saving their husbands' jobs. And right near them was the Sierra Club attempting to say, look it, we don't want to see your husbands lose their jobs. We want to preserve the ecology for everyone. We want to see things done responsibly.
How can we educate people from the bottom up? Once we alleviate fear then these people will help put these horrible company owners out of business. Gotta alleviate fear and educate. One person at a time. And one way to educate people is to let them see these ecosystems firsthand. Damn. Too bad we couldn't have taken a field trip to the prairie. Speaking of decimation... I don't recall the numbers, but even this state, The Prairie State, has, what, maybe only 1% of prairie left? Maybe more than that. But certainly less than 10%. One man's flower is another man's weed. And so it goes. But to add insult to injury, not only is the prairie uprooted to make way for development, but people have planted things that crowd out the prairie plants. Buckthorn. What a horrible, ugly tree. But it's so very pervasive. Purple loosestrife. Pretty enough, I guess, but also pervasive. And on and on. This is because people don't know about the natural beauty of the native species. Somehow the prairie is considered substandard. Yet it's prairie plants that withstand harsh droughts and other harsh conditions. Prairie plants have amazing root systems. Well, some of them. We're talking about plants that can send roots five, six feet down or so to find moisture. Naturally they don't grow so tall in lean years, but they do manage to survive and flourish. Think bonzai. That's how the prairie was this one particularly brutal summer. Bonzai prairie. Was really impressive.
By CM M~a~q~o~w~a~n (2394), Tue, 18 Jul 2006 20:30:28 PDT
Comment feedback score: 0
"I summarize this wealth of knowledge about diverse places and crops: photosynthesizing 1 to 6 g of biomass consumes 1,000 g of water. [Whoa! That's not very efficient. We need to breed them to cut down on their drinking. ;-) ]
Use of the 1 to 6 g/kg to calculate the limit of water for feeding ten billion people requires global quantities. Annually, 62 x 10^12 cubic meters of water [that's a lot!] evaporates from land. At the same time, the biota on land takes in 110 x 10^9 tons of carbon [please keep it up]. A cubic meter of water is a [metric] ton, biomass is largely carbohydrate, and carbohydrate is 40% carbon. So the global production of biomass per evaporation is (110 x 10^9 tons carbon/0.40 carbon per biomass)/(62 x 10^12 tons water), or about 4 g/kg, within the range of 1 to 6 g/kg in containers and fields..."
Whereupon the author concludes that if we only farm all 13 billion hectares of land on planet earth, we can feed 400 billion people.
Source: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/nature/node22.html
By Gerry Gleason (CCAL30) (1972), Wed, 19 Jul 2006 04:39:02 PDT
Tags: flow sustainability
Comment feedback score: 6 (* * * * * *)
Great stuff.
CM, if I understand, you have demonstrated the kind of goofy thinking that Arthur refers to above. Forgetting, of course, that the water that plants "consume" evaporates and falls again downstream. The water we have to worry about is the part that just flows away and drains into the oceans.
In respiration, monoculture industrial agriculture is no different that a prarie, but not in terms of diversity. Industrial monoculture pumps ancient aquifers dry to keep up production whereas the prarie plants tap scant local moisture and grow more modestly in those years. Genetic diversity is a resource whenever adapting to changes is an issue.
#1 vs. #2 no doubt characterizes the parasite/simbiote difference as well. This is bringing me back to the conference when we were talking about pattern language, and about how the two party system concentrates flows in destructive ways, and I was trying to relate it to political boundaries (how they are arbitrary or engineered by political operatives). I know there are some key insights around boundaries and identity that could connect all of these elements in a coherent analysis, but it is just beyond my grasp.
Thinking about population limits is a case in point. How many humans is the right number for our planet? It sure as hell isn't 400 billion, but if we live lightly it may be considerably more than current, hopefully enough so that we can just level out at some point in the coming decades.
The question is at what level can we acheive a sustainable balance between economy and ecology. These are fundamentally resource questions at one level, but it is the information flows that control the allocation of resources. In my view it is the increasing capacity of the peer-produced commons of shared cultural resources that will finally put us on the right track. You don't have to think very hard to identify assets created in the last ten years representing many millions of person-hours. What is there economic value? Hard to say because they are free for everyone to use. What is the value of having a choice even if you don't take the option? What does Linux mean for Windows users?
By CM M~a~q~o~w~a~n (2394), Wed, 19 Jul 2006 09:51:59 PDT
Comment feedback score: 1 (*)
Yes, Gerry. Estimating carrying capacity still involves a lot of arm waving.
For example, the source I quoted estimated rainfall from land evaporation at 62,000 cubic kilometers. I could find other numbers with an extra one or two thousand cubic kilometers. Recent research estimates global precipitation (from all sources falling on land and sea) at 577,000 cubic kilometers. That's 177,000 cubic kilometers more than the hydrometeorologists thought forty years ago. When such tomes as Silent Spring or The Population Bomb were published, rainfall was "misunderestimated" by 44%.
At the rate that we're "discovering" new rainfall (or oil reserves or...) we'll be able to support a trillion people for sure!
/measure twice cut once
By Dav in Phoenix (CCAL30) (3194), Wed, 19 Jul 2006 13:41:39 PDT
Edited: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 13:46:15 PDT
Comment feedback score: 3 (* * *)
The issue isn't really the number of people as much as it is how we behave.
For instance, if the price of residential electricity were on a plan to go up 1% per month, so people could plan into the future, you'd see amazing increases in efficiency. We could easily cut our electricity and natural gas usage by 75% without giving up any functionality. And if we really set our minds to it, we could probably cut it by 99% and still live in the same luxury as now.
The energy wasted each day by each person is incredible.
By CM M~a~q~o~w~a~n (2394), Wed, 19 Jul 2006 14:17:00 PDT
Comment feedback score: 1 (*)
Good point, David.
Meanwhile, I'll be needing one of these
/OK I'll buy the recycled paper
By Christophe Hinton (203), Mon, 14 Aug 2006 04:34:02 PDT
Comment feedback score: 1 (*)
BRILLIANT!!!
Thank You for your absolutely Brilliant work in the service of... well... every single air breathing, fresh water drinking, being on Earth, and certainly, every single man, woman, and child, alive today. Wow! I'm going to get some sleep, and dream on this. Then, I'm going to wake up, and read everything you, and Arthur, have put down. Afterwards, I'm sure I'll want to have a long conversation that includes the words: "inertia", "entropy", and "emergency". Thank You, Mickki.
-Christophe.Some would say our future is none too bright. Our current systems glorify the power of #1 and marginalize the importance of #2. If we continue to reward cancerous behavior (e.g. the companies collect the most profits while externalizing the most problems) the future holds increasing conflict over decreasing resources. However, if we can harness the technological tools developed in the #1-focused competitive economy to build new infrastructure for a #2-focused collaborative economy, we may be able to restore a healthy balance.
By Christophe Hinton (203), Tue, 15 Aug 2006 03:16:06 PDT
Comment feedback score: 1 (*)
Mickki, Arthur, thanks again. I wish that I could have this conversation in more technical and detailed terms. But, in the past, my area of expertise dealt with the movement and protection of large groups of people, and support logistics, during emergencies. What I have just read above tells me that if the United States, Peoples Republic, Russia, India, Japan, and every other capitalist nation with an industrialized fossil fuel energy driven economy do not, within a short period of time, CHANGE the source of that, which they are ultimately built on, and sustained by, then we could see (in our lifetimes) economic collapse, societal collapse, and a resulting die-off that hasn't been seen in a geologic age.
Anybody, feel free to tell me how wrong I am.... Anybody?...
By Mickki Langston (CCAL30) (1054), Tue, 15 Aug 2006 15:32:04 PDT
Comment feedback score: 0
Christophe,
I'm very glad you enjoyed the posting. I'm curious - could you say more about this:
"But, in the past, my area of expertise dealt with the movement and protection of large groups of people, and support logistics, during emergencies."
and how you see your experience relating to the systems we're building to restore the balance in our economic/social systems?
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
By Christophe Hinton (203), Tue, 15 Aug 2006 17:45:09 PDT
Comment feedback score: 0
Mickki,
I didn't say that I enjoyed it. I expressed a true, and heartfelt relief, and gratitude to you, and Arthur, and others for the work you are doing in the service of humanity.
The following was a question.
"What I have just read above tells me that if the United States, Peoples Republic, Russia, India, Japan, and every other capitalist nation with an industrialized fossil fuel energy driven economy do not, within a short period of time, CHANGE the source of that, which they are ultimately built on, and sustained by, then we could see (in our lifetimes) economic collapse, societal collapse, and a resulting die-off that hasn't been seen in a geologic age."
My experience only comes into play, IF my above interpretation is correct, (which, has yet to be shared with me...) and IF the above change does not take place. I am more than happy to let experts go about their business, offer encouragement, and positively contribute where I am able. I willingly volunteer myself as "guinea-pig", and "man-on-the-ground". So, am I correct?
By Dav in Phoenix (CCAL30) (3194), Thu, 31 Aug 2006 21:08:29 PDT
Comment feedback score: 5 (* * * * *)
If we set our minds to it we could cut our electricity usage in half in less than a week (I just did it, for myself -- it took me 3 months, but I wasn't in any hurry). Then we could cut it in half again, without seriously impacting most of the stuff people value.
If we wanted to eliminate fossil fuels completely, that would probably take a year or more, mainly because of transportation issues, including food cultivation and transport.
If we wanted to we could plant a billion trees per day. Anyone want to join me in this?
Today I bought 12 compact flourescent bulbs, which I am going to use to replace 12 incandescent ones in my new office, cutting electricity use for lighting by about 80%, and reducing cooling costs some too.
By Christophe Hinton (203), Sun, 03 Sep 2006 05:33:48 PDT
Comment feedback score: 0
I'm on it! And, I'll spread the word. -The larger momentum?
By Dav in Phoenix (CCAL30) (3194), Sun, 03 Sep 2006 08:42:46 PDT
Comment feedback score: 12 (* * * * * * * * * *)
I am contemplating buying 1000 reams of recycled paper and donating one to each business in the neighborhood of the Staples that carries that product, with a note about the environmental impacts of paper. Kind of like my Tree Free TP project.
I was thinking of doing the same with energy efficient bulbs. I could go door to door and trade one for any incandescent bulb currently in use. Then I could take all the incandescent ones and put them in a box outside home depots and walmarts so people can take them for free (reducing the number of incandescent bulbs purchased).
By Arthur Brock (CCAL30) (2066), Sun, 03 Sep 2006 10:31:46 PDT
Comment feedback score: 0
David, I like how action-oriented you are!
By Christophe Hinton (203), Sun, 17 Sep 2006 23:27:44 PDT
Comment feedback score: 0
Well Gerry, David F. is indeed a Man-of-Action!
Gerry Gleason said:
?
By Dav in Phoenix (CCAL30) (3194), Tue, 19 Sep 2006 20:19:41 PDT
Comment feedback score: 0
David F. is indeed a Man-of-Action!
On a good day, yes! :)
By Christophe Hinton (203), Tue, 19 Sep 2006 22:59:22 PDT
Comment feedback score: 0
I think that statement by Mickki, at the top of the thread is a real 400lb. Gorilla!
By Jean Russell (CCAL30) (3614), Sun, 10 Dec 2006 23:13:24 PST
Comment feedback score: 0
If you like it, point it Christophe. Lift it up so people who filter discussions can see it too.
By Arthur Brock (CCAL30) (2066), Tue, 18 Jul 2006 14:29:36 PDT
Comment feedback score: 0
Thanks for posting this Mickki.
Something scary I stumbled across while doing some research on transpiration.
Ironically, many watershed managers, operating from the #1 response, view plant transpiration as major competition for their local water supply and have begun experimenting with decimating large plant populations so they can hoard their water. By confusing transpiration with their own water consumption and toxification practices instead of recognizing its role in recycling and stretching the supply of clean and fresh water, they're willing to endanger our collective water, air, food & weather by trying to hoard their local water supply.
Cool stuff, huh?