The Democractic Manifesto

[Akhlut]

I'd say keep up the devil's advocacy then, because it's not a "concern" so much as it is a reason why weeding out "cheaters" would be unnecessary. Productivity today is so high that a single farmer can supply more than a hundred people with food. So, simplified, a hundred people could share a 40 hour work week of farming (so they'd work half-an-hour each per week, but coercing people to do so, and especially keeping track of their efforts, would be impractical and voluntary labour would probably be a lot more efficient).

For some jobs, this is plausible, but not really for farming, at least in a lot of first world nations. In the US, for instance, the largest metropolises have a distinct lack of farmland and are not adjacent to any for some distance, and, further, farms have a very severe boom-bust cycle as far as labor is concerned; winter months have very, very little going on aside from some paperwork (which would need to be highly centralized), while spring is a short burst of intense activity to plant crops, summer has a light work load (applying pesticides and herbicides, primarily), while fall sees the enormous ramp up of harvesting all the fields. It's not the sort of thing, at least for cereal and soy farming, that allows for a steady stream of people putting in a few hours a week, especially with modern tech.

However, that sort of system might work out quite well in an urban public garden system. Then, people can put in 10 or 20 hours a week of weeding, watering, pruning, harvesting, tilling, etc. for the entire growing season. Especially if it were mandated for all flat rooftops to have gardens on them, in addition to cleared plots especially for gardening.

[Akhlut]

That runs into problems on the distribution end (who takes how many of what?). It also runs into problems because of simple envy and frustration- I cannot get 'more' in any tangible sense by working harder at essentially the same job than my neighbor does; in short there is no overtime pay.

[scratches head]

For distribution issues, I'm not quite certain. For necessities, those should be distributed fairly equally, though, perhaps on a triage basis for extreme necessities (such as food, water, and healthcare), while luxury items might just be a first-come, first-served sort of affair. I'm not entirely certain on how to do that, precisely, without running into some problems. However, I think once the system was in place for a while, distribution at the consumer end would be largely self-regulated simply based on needs and desires; after all, at a certain point it becomes a pain in the ass to continually "purchase" walk-in freezer units, to take an extreme example.

As for the envy portion: I'm not sure the current system even addresses that sort of idea adequately anyway; CEOs in the US earn over 300 times as much money as the lowliest office worker, yet I'm pretty sure the CEO doesn't perform 300 times the labor as the lowliest office monkey. I know a tu quoque isn't an actual argument, however, I think that this 'issue', such as it is, is one that isn't necessarily something that can or even should be addressed by an economic system. When people are envious or jealous of intrinsic difference or non-economic differences (coveting spouses, for instance), well, we don't and shouldn't really address that in an economic system, so I think it'd be perfectly okay to say that envy and jealousy over differences in labor output versus reward shouldn't be addressed by the system either.

[Simon_Jester]

As for the envy portion: I'm not sure the current system even addresses that sort of idea adequately anyway; CEOs in the US earn over 300 times as much money as the lowliest office worker, yet I'm pretty sure the CEO doesn't perform 300 times the labor as the lowliest office monkey. I know a tu quoque isn't an actual argument, however, I think that this 'issue', such as it is, is one that isn't necessarily something that can or even should be addressed by an economic system. When people are envious or jealous of intrinsic difference or non-economic differences (coveting spouses, for instance), well, we don't and shouldn't really address that in an economic system, so I think it'd be perfectly okay to say that envy and jealousy over differences in labor output versus reward shouldn't be addressed by the system either.

What I mean is that you'll have people who think "I pull twice my weight, he pulls half his weight, we both get paid the same and there's not a damn thing I can do about it."

That does not make for job satisfaction, nor does it motivate people to keep working. Even at a job they really enjoy, people can get burnt out if there's no sense of a relationship between what they put into their work and what they get out of it... and tangible return is always going to be part of what you get out of your job.

[Ryan Thunder]

What I mean is that you'll have people who think "I pull twice my weight, he pulls half his weight, we both get paid the same and there's not a damn thing I can do about it."

That does not make for job satisfaction, nor does it motivate people to keep working. Even at a job they really enjoy, people can get burnt out if there's no sense of a relationship between what they put into their work and what they get out of it... and tangible return is always going to be part of what you get out of your job.

This actually comes off as a pretty good description of issues that plague the current system and are just kind of ignored.

[Simon_Jester]

They're ignored between classes, yes- but not within classes, not between men who work side by side at the same task and compare each other's output every damn day.

That's where you run into a problem.

[madd0ct0r]

how many people do you know hate their job becuase they feel their boss (ostensibly a higher class) is a num nuts?

[Akhlut]

What I mean is that you'll have people who think "I pull twice my weight, he pulls half his weight, we both get paid the same and there's not a damn thing I can do about it."

That does not make for job satisfaction, nor does it motivate people to keep working. Even at a job they really enjoy, people can get burnt out if there's no sense of a relationship between what they put into their work and what they get out of it... and tangible return is always going to be part of what you get out of your job.

That should probably be more of an issue for management, then. I'm not sure of universal incentives for work, or that the "stick" part of the stick and carrot should be used solely, but if someone's not pulling their weight, then they should probably be demoted or let go from their current position.

EDIT: There's also the matter of perks being gained within the work environment. Sure, while I'm not at work, I could acquire whatever I want, but I can't go out and get whatever I want while I'm at the job, so conceivably the boss could give me a bonus within the job for good work, such as casual dress days, access to snacks, or whatever.

[Simon_Jester]

how many people do you know hate their job becuase they feel their boss (ostensibly a higher class) is a num nuts?

Their personal boss? Plenty. The CEO of the company? He's so far up in the stratosphere that the average employee doesn't see his intelligence or stupidity.

The real class divide in this country is between a small oligarchy (the "one percent") and everyone else; that's where the division of income is. And the average member of the 99% does not spend enough time working with the 1% to develop the feeling that they are getting paid too much for the importance of their work- indeed, that's the problem with attempts to inspire class solidarity among the 99% of American society. They don't have a shared experience of seeing nobles live in palaces while they starve in mud huts, because the rich no longer live commingled with the poor and don't directly tax the poor for their living the way medieval nobles used to.

So the psychological impact of huge income disparities at the top and bottom isn't what I'm getting at; I'm getting at the smaller disparities in the middle where things like overtime pay, bonuses for work, and possible promotions exist and are considered.

And it's the people who deserve to be acknowledged for their relatively good work, but also feel they deserve some tangible benefit for their hard work, that I'm worried about demoralizing.

You can fix this- the USSR had its Stakhanovites and gave them honors and privileges. But you have to have a way to do it somehow, in my opinion.

[Lord Zentei]

I think Stas's point is that trying to do all this informally, using Iron Age tools such as big piles of paper in filing cabinets and Steam Age tools such as telephones, may fail... but trying to do it using Information Age techniques might well succeed, or at least provide a more viable alternative to capitalism. One that could keep the economy from becoming a total basket case, while avoiding most of the major problems endemic to a capitalist economy, even if it doesn't provide all the creature comforts and other benefits of capitalism.

If you could get cybernetic control of the major economic sectors going (jury's very much out on that), you'd be in a better position to abolish money. Because you'd be better placed to command that things happen and have them carried out in the absence of piles of dollars to drive the actions that need doing.

You may certainly be able to abolish currency, we're already well on our way there. But abolishing money is a far more ambitious goal, and not one I'm seeing as feasible. No matter how you slice it, you're going to need some kind of measure of wealth resource value, a store of same, a mechanism for gauging and directing exchanges, a measure of cost-benefits to decide how to direct production and allocation, etc. That something has to do all the things money does without being money (only money is defined as a quantifiable economic entity, whether an object or a record, which does these things). So more accurately, you'd need to reform the fundamentals of how people interact to make money irrelevant. And THAT is why it's implausible. Automation is only another form of the same old.

Besides which, IMHO the creature comforts and other benefits provided by capitalism are well worth its "endemic problems", provided that you have proper rule of law, independent courts, respect for human rights, a non-corrupt representative government and in general a functioning civil society.

[madd0ct0r]

so, regarding currency vs money (a distinction i had'nt made in my head) so we're talking about petrol and hydrocarbons

one is energy convenient for carry about, the other is a good source of energy.

But how does wealth work without a means of exchange?

[Ryan Thunder]

What is the purpose of 'wealth' as you put it? And this stuff about creature comforts is easily true of many systems.

[Lord Zentei]

so, regarding currency vs money (a distinction i had'nt made in my head) so we're talking about petrol and hydrocarbons

one is energy convenient for carry about, the other is a good source of energy.

Currency is merely one form of money.

But how does wealth work without a means of exchange?

Exactly my point.

What is the purpose of 'wealth' as you put it?

Improvement of living standards and achievement of human ambition, duh.

And this stuff about creature comforts is easily true of many systems.

What are you talking about?

[Ryan Thunder]

What is the purpose of 'wealth' as you put it?

Improvement of living standards and achievement of human ambition, duh.

And this stuff about creature comforts is easily true of many systems.

What are you talking about?

Let me put it this way; what is it about a capitalist system that makes these 'creature comforts' exclusive to it?

Consider, for instance; billionaires. If we cut their income (whatever form it takes) down to, say, double the GDP per capita, say, we have hundreds of millions of dollars floating around to provide services with.

Now, that's an overly simplistic way to look at it but I'm just doing it for the sake of example. Am I making sense?

[Ryan Thunder]

Consider, for instance; billionaires. If we cut their income (whatever form it takes) down to, say, double the GDP per capita, say, we have hundreds of millions of dollars floating around to provide services with.

Excuse me. This statement is totally nonsensical. Let me get back to you later when I've had some coffee.

[K. A. Pital]

You may certainly be able to abolish currency, we're already well on our way there. But abolishing money is a far more ambitious goal, and not one I'm seeing as feasible. No matter how you slice it, you're going to need some kind of measure of wealth resource value, a store of same, a mechanism for gauging and directing exchanges, a measure of cost-benefits to decide how to direct production and allocation, etc.

Direct planning does not rely on any monetary intermediates. Energy accounting in a massive planned economy would not utilize classic money. Money is both a medium of exchange and a means for savings. If money starts losing its key functions (exchange lost due to planning and supply via planning; savings lost due to the inability of personal accumulation of money in a totally planned economy), it is no longer money. The means of accounting for the planners can be various and different, but a universal savings mechanism would not be present. I am not entirely sure this is easy to achieve, but certainly theoretically feasible.

That something has to do all the things money does without being money (only money is defined as a quantifiable economic entity, whether an object or a record, which does these things). So more accurately, you'd need to reform the fundamentals of how people interact to make money irrelevant. And THAT is why it's implausible. Automation is only another form of the same old.

Like I said before, if production and consumption become maximally close to each other with people rarely "exchanging" anything outside the massive planned economy network (or a non-planned economy; but I admit this is not feasible at the current tech level) - I'm not sure you could point to any "fundamental" interaction between people which has to be reformed.

Besides which, IMHO the creature comforts and other benefits provided by capitalism are well worth its "endemic problems", provided that you have proper rule of law, independent courts, respect for human rights, a non-corrupt representative government and in general a functioning civil society.

That's certainly a good position for maintaining what you have. After all, attempts to build a better society often end with break-your-neck aftereffects. However, the creation of new societies is a more challenging task, a more worthwhile goal for the intellectual. Or so I think.

P.S. As for the "tit-for-tat" thing, don't we use stuff like ratings, karma points, seed-to-leech ratio etc. in digital communities? The seed-to-leech ratio, however, is quite different than money or capital. You cannot 'save' it. You cannot make property the basis of future prosperity, since the ratio is a value, not the means of production. It cannot "work" separately from you and you cannot get dividends just off this very ratio. So if you introduce such a ratio instead of money, you'd be hard pressed to call it "money". The ratio cannot be used as a medium of exchange neither for savings (or investment and hiring, for that matter). However, it could be used by the central planners (if present) to determine which citizens are the most productive and creative ones. Pure "leeching" - which is essentially free-riding - can be disparaged by social norms and peer pressure in much better fashion than by simple government decree.

As an example, many planned economies had little problems with bus and tram freeriders, since people bought tickets and stamped them inside the bus with only sparse control. After the transition to the market, people had to put tourniquettes into buses to stop people from massive free-riding. Giving people the benefit of the doubt and allowing them to purchase tickets and stamp them inside the bus or tram was quickly forgotten. However, peer pressure and popular upbringing was good enough to keep people from abusing the public transport to the point of collapse before. One could argue that such peer pressure is a non-stable mechanism (state control would work better, being codified and possibly eternal if the laws won't change some day), but that is just an auxiliary mechanism. State control over free-riding is still possible in any occasion and in times of trouble one can revert to it by default.

[Lord Zentei]

Direct planning does not rely on any monetary intermediates. Energy accounting in a massive planned economy would not utilize classic money. Money is both a medium of exchange and a means for savings. If money starts losing its key functions (exchange lost due to planning and supply via planning; savings lost due to the inability of personal accumulation of money in a totally planned economy), it is no longer money. The means of accounting for the planners can be various and different, but a universal savings mechanism would not be present. I am not entirely sure this is easy to achieve, but certainly theoretically feasible.

Theoretically feasible? I remain to be convinced. There have been a number of models suggested, but I haven't seen one which would scale well.

In any case I find it even more dubious that people would want a system where they are so completely beholden to "planners".

Like I said before, if production and consumption become maximally close to each other with people rarely "exchanging" anything outside the massive planned economy network (or a non-planned economy; but I admit this is not feasible at the current tech level) - I'm not sure you could point to any "fundamental" interaction between people which has to be reformed.

The actors in the economy obviously need to exchange resources and produced goods in order for the economy to function. You need to allocate responsibilities and goods and services: these get exchanged. And the fundamental interaction that gets changed is that people are no longer autonomous and sovereign actors.

Besides which, IMHO the creature comforts and other benefits provided by capitalism are well worth its "endemic problems", provided that you have proper rule of law, independent courts, respect for human rights, a non-corrupt representative government and in general a functioning civil society.

That's certainly a good position for maintaining what you have. After all, attempts to build a better society often end with break-your-neck aftereffects. However, the creation of new societies is a more challenging task, a more worthwhile goal for the intellectual. Or so I think.

Maybe so. At least I'm not adverse to new ideas being tried, though I am adverse to radical change for the sake of change (or for the sake of cynicism) particularly with changes to the fundamentals. As an aside, I'm not really sure how it would make society better to reinvent the wheel with regards to these things. If social pressure and cultural norms can keep people in line in a planned economy, preventing the free rider problem, why shouldn't the same be feasible to keep people in line in other systems (like the one we have, for example)?

P.S. As for the "tit-for-tat" thing, don't we use stuff like ratings, karma points, seed-to-leech ratio etc. in digital communities? The seed-to-leech ratio, however, is quite different than money or capital. You cannot 'save' it. You cannot make property the basis of future prosperity, since the ratio is a value, not the means of production. It cannot "work" separately from you and you cannot get dividends just off this very ratio. So if you introduce such a ratio instead of money, you'd be hard pressed to call it "money". The ratio cannot be used as a medium of exchange neither for savings (or investment and hiring, for that matter). However, it could be used by the central planners (if present) to determine which citizens are the most productive and creative ones. Pure "leeching" - which is essentially free-riding - can be disparaged by social norms and peer pressure in much better fashion than by simple government decree.

There are tit-for-tat systems which don't have all the functions of money, though they will generally have some of them, so as to replace it within whatever contexts are relevant.

[Simon_Jester]

Besides which, IMHO the creature comforts and other benefits provided by capitalism are well worth its "endemic problems", provided that you have proper rule of law, independent courts, respect for human rights, a non-corrupt representative government and in general a functioning civil society.

I don't actually disagree- but the far left can point out, not without reason, that something is wrong with this picture. The argument being that the machinery of capitalism is almost ineluctible and will tend to undermine all those things over time anyway, thus making the appeal of having an alternative that works, if not 'as well' when measured in creature comforts and other benefits, 'well enough.'

Personally, I'm not that keen on the argument, but I do think it would be nice if we had more than one model for how our civilization is supposed to work- I worry about blundering into systemic traps without realizing it, if we let ourselves get tunnel vision about How Things Are, and how they are Meant To Be.

That something has to do all the things money does without being money (only money is defined as a quantifiable economic entity, whether an object or a record, which does these things). So more accurately, you'd need to reform the fundamentals of how people interact to make money irrelevant. And THAT is why it's implausible. Automation is only another form of the same old.

Like I said before, if production and consumption become maximally close to each other with people rarely "exchanging" anything outside the massive planned economy network (or a non-planned economy; but I admit this is not feasible at the current tech level) - I'm not sure you could point to any "fundamental" interaction between people which has to be reformed.

The real kicker when it comes to implementing this is choice- what I want on a given day (week, month, year) isn't always easy to average out into rations. To pick an example of a controlled price in a planned economy that I actually happen to know, largely by coincidence, some days I want to spend my two rubles eighty-seven kopeks on a bottle of vodka, some days I want to spend it on something else.

Up to a point, this can be handled in a moneyless economy by producing enough that random fluctuations in demand are not a problem. Beyond that point you have to do it by manipulating people's desire for things not supplied by the system- which I regard as a form of wing-clipping, and do not like.

The society you've portrayed that I'm most familiar with manages this by being post-scarcity: the means of production can produce anything, so anything is available without too much difficulty, aside from a few finite resources that don't take the place of money (energy). But I don't see how you can manage that by simply refining the concept of Cybersyn to the Nth degree, without magic nanites. You can guarantee reliable and efficient production of things everyone needs in predictable quantities (food, electricity), but what do you do about things which are desired in unpredictable quantities, prone to fluctuate on timescales of months and years (say, little plastic figurines for roleplaying games)?

Can you do anything aside from declaring that all desire for commodities not provided by the central system is banned?

[K. A. Pital]

Theoretically feasible? I remain to be convinced. There have been a number of models suggested, but I haven't seen one which would scale well.

In any case I find it even more dubious that people would want a system where they are so completely beholden to "planners".

In a system with proper feedback mechanisms people would no more be beholden to planners than they are to the water suppliers. If they cut off water, millions of people would die in a short order from thirst. And yet, they aren't turning into water dictators (well, outside of some really freaky corporations doing really nasty stuff in some arid spots of the Third World).

The actors in the economy obviously need to exchange resources and produced goods in order for the economy to function. You need to allocate responsibilities and goods and services: these get exchanged. And the fundamental interaction that gets changed is that people are no longer autonomous and sovereign actors.

Perhaps so. But you're not really that "autonomous" in your choice of TCP/IP as a protocol to go online. In any case, it is clear that if money loses the exchange, savings and personal investment function, it can no longer be money.

If social pressure and cultural norms can keep people in line in a planned economy, preventing the free rider problem, why shouldn't the same be feasible to keep people in line in other systems (like the one we have, for example)?

I never said it is impossible, actually. I dislike the current system for other reasons, but I acknowledge it is rather robust. Peer pressure plays a variety of functions inside the current order, some good, others I find reprehensible, but in any case it keeps the system working.

There are tit-for-tat systems which don't have all the functions of money, though they will generally have some of them, so as to replace it within whatever contexts are relevant.

In a way, yes. Doctorow's Whuffie is replacing some functions of money, though not all of them. One might call it a partial abolition of money, then. Because without the four classical functions "money" slowly ceases to be itself in my view.

[Simon_Jester]

Theoretically feasible? I remain to be convinced. There have been a number of models suggested, but I haven't seen one which would scale well.

In any case I find it even more dubious that people would want a system where they are so completely beholden to "planners".

In a system with proper feedback mechanisms people would no more be beholden to planners than they are to the water suppliers. If they cut off water, millions of people would die in a short order from thirst. And yet, they aren't turning into water dictators (well, outside of some really freaky corporations doing really nasty stuff in some arid spots of the Third World).

Well... it's more complicated than that.

In the current system, water suppliers' theoretical power is neutralized by the fact that you can call the police. Men with guns can appear at the offices of the water company and demand that they turn the water back on, in less time than it takes for anyone to die of thirst. Any civilized society can handle that kind of random power grab by rogue idiots well enough; otherwise civilization would not exist.

In a system where planners run the whole economy, you don't have that; what the planners are doing is legal and necessary for the established régime to work. So even if they're abusing their power it's very hard to get rid of them or force them to change their ways, because the means by which they cause harm are systemic and deep rooted, and people will be quick to characterize them as "too big to fail," just like Wall Street executives.

[Kane Starkiller]

P.S. As for the "tit-for-tat" thing, don't we use stuff like ratings, karma points, seed-to-leech ratio etc. in digital communities? The seed-to-leech ratio, however, is quite different than money or capital. You cannot 'save' it. You cannot make property the basis of future prosperity, since the ratio is a value, not the means of production. It cannot "work" separately from you and you cannot get dividends just off this very ratio. So if you introduce such a ratio instead of money, you'd be hard pressed to call it "money". The ratio cannot be used as a medium of exchange neither for savings (or investment and hiring, for that matter). However, it could be used by the central planners (if present) to determine which citizens are the most productive and creative ones. Pure "leeching" - which is essentially free-riding - can be disparaged by social norms and peer pressure in much better fashion than by simple government decree.

I don't see how you reached that conclusion. It would be perfectly possible for someone to seed files for months without uploading and thus saving up a large ratio that he could use to download files for others in exchange for services and goods. He could wait for something very interesting to appear on the net and then offer to download that file for others that don't have large enough ratio in exchange for data of their own. If the file is interesting enough he could demand say 1GB for each 100MB of the "interesting" file.
Ultimately he could accumulate huge amount of data together with a huge amount of seed-to-leech ratio and then leave the username and password to his son when he dies.
So yes it's possible to save it, use it to do your work for you and get dividends.
Then people who used up all of their seed-to-leech ratio on porn could accuse you of being a dirty capitalist and demand that if you accumulate more than "100GB of leech" 40GB of it shoud be taken away from you and given to those less fortunate

[K. A. Pital]

Technically "the police" will also starve of thirst if the water suppliers go forward with their plan. Though certainly the more and more resources a centrally planned system controls, the more broadly democratic its decision making process must be, otherwise you would just be creating OmniCorp. Einstein noted that when he argued for the planned economy to replace the market - without democratic responsibility of the planners, they wouldn't be much different from Wall Street execs.

I don't see how you reached that conclusion. It would be perfectly possible for someone to seed files for months without uploading and thus saving up a large ratio that he could use to download files for others in exchange for services and goods. He could wait for something very interesting to appear on the net and then offer to download that file for others that don't have large enough ratio in exchange for data of their own. If the file is interesting enough he could demand say 1GB for each 100MB of the "interesting" file.

The savings rate is very low. Exchange is based much more on the properties of the files in question than on his ratio or reputation.

Ultimately he could accumulate huge amount of data together with a huge amount of seed-to-leech ratio and then leave the username and password to his son when he dies. So yes it's possible to save it, use it to do your work for you and get dividends. Then people who used up all of their seed-to-leech ratio on porn could accuse you of being a dirty capitalist and demand that if you accumulate more than "100GB of leech" 40GB of it shoud be taken away from you and given to those less fortunate

What's your point? Pure leeching is not a significant enough factor to make the system collapse. Just like freeriders do not make the public transport collapse. Torrents can use throttling if there is a risk of systemic abuse. The ease of copying decreases the precise value of each individual copy of the information to nigh zero.

So just like you would be hard pressed to become a capitalist by collecting public transport tickets to provide them to freeriders (when most people are just using the public transport system in a normal fashion), you'd be hard pressed to use the ratio system as money. After all, it is just a ratio. It does not mean you can hire people or make people do your bidding just because you have a high ratio.

[Kane Starkiller]

The savings rate is very low. Exchange is based much more on the properties of the files in question than on his ratio or reputation.

If I download a file and then let 5 users donwload it from me that's 5:1 seed-to-leech ratio right there. I never said that file would be interesting due to the person uploading it. The point is that if people use up most of their seed-to-leech ratio (as people tend to do whether it's money or something else) then they won't have enough to download the file. Then the person who does have enough ratio can download the file and offer to others to bring it to them on a DVD or USB or whatever in exchange for their files at an arranged data ratio. Say 500MB of "interesting" file for 1000MB of other files.
He can then use the additional data and upload that aswell further increasing his ratio.
He can even speculate on when certain data might become interesting and download it to exchange it later for an increased ratio.

What's your point? Pure leeching is not a significant enough factor to make the system collapse. Just like freeriders do not make the public transport collapse. Torrents can use throttling if there is a risk of systemic abuse. The ease of copying decreases the precise value of each individual copy of the information to nigh zero.

So just like you would be hard pressed to become a capitalist by collecting public transport tickets to provide them to freeriders (when most people are just using the public transport system in a normal fashion), you'd be hard pressed to use the ratio system as money. After all, it is just a ratio. It does not mean you can hire people or make people do your bidding just because you have a high ratio.

When you get on the bus you consume your ticket and it no longer has any value. When you download a file it still possesses a value and can be resold to other people or rented or exchanged for services or more data.

[K. A. Pital]

Oh, you mean he's speculating outside the system. That stuff happened before in planned economies. And earlier in subsistence economies. But it was not speculation which brought them down, alas. So the speculator argument does not hold water. Using ratio in such a fashion is rather complicated and pretty much pointless.

When you download a file it still possesses a value and can be resold to other people or rented or exchanged for services or more data.

Can you resell my avatar? If no, why?

[Kane Starkiller]

Oh, you mean he's speculating outside the system. That stuff happened before in planned economies. And earlier in subsistence economies. But it was not speculation which brought them down, alas. So the speculator argument does not hold water. Using ratio in such a fashion is rather complicated and pretty much pointless.

I'm not really sure what you are talking about. Ratio is calculated from two absolute values: total download size divided by total upload size. Total upload size can be accumulated and later traded or exchanged. How does using high upload ratio do download files which you project will be in greater demand later in any way differ from doing the same with wheat or oil?

Can you resell my avatar? If no, why?

I can sell and resell access to it. Indeed unless you have free internet you had to pay to upload it just as I had to pay to view it. If someone else wants to see it and they don't have access to internet I can charge them for letting them access it through my computer. I can do this ad infinitum theoretically.

[K. A. Pital]

I'm not really sure what you are talking about. Ratio is calculated from two absolute values: total download size divided by total upload size. Total upload size can be accumulated and later traded or exchanged. How does using high upload ratio do download files which you project will be in greater demand later in any way differ from doing the same with wheat or oil?

So why does the oh so dangerous ratio speculation not occur in real life? There's lots of people with bad ratios. Lots of people with good ratios. The latter don't speculate, don't save, don't "burn DVDs" for those with bad ratios for money. Nobody just does this sort of crap.

I can sell and resell access to it. Indeed unless you have free internet you had to pay to upload it just as I had to pay to view it. If someone else wants to see it and they don't have access to internet I can charge them for letting them access it through my computer. I can do this ad infinitum theoretically.

Theoretically, I can sell even air. Practically, that was only feasible in deeply polluted Tokyo of the 1970s.