The Information Age?

We live in the shiny, new world of digital information where more information is available to humanity than ever before. Some say information is the new oil.

These tropes are tired marketing for dataminers like Google and Facebook. Humanity arguably has less unfettered acceess to information than in earlier decades, notwithstanding increasing literacy globally. Information is the new oil. It is scarce, controlled, and valuable.

Digital information has more barriers to access than we like to think. Nor is it a stable medium, demonstrated by the Library of Congress' decisison to back up in formats other than digital.

To read a book a person needs 1) to be literate in the language of the text, 2) have access to the book, and 3) have some light (freely provided during the day).

Now consider reading that book as backed up digitally by the opticon. You need 1) literacy, 2) access to a complex and expensive hardware array (phone, computer etc), 3) access to sophisticated software that can translate the machine language stored in the memory into human words, 4) a power supply, and 5) access to the network or server where the digital book is stored,  probably via a paid portal. Each of these steps requires extremely complicated social and technological applications, like education, manufacturing, resource extraction, utility provision and others. Each offering an opportunity for dominance by governments, individuals, or companies that are the arbitors of access. Each requires access to wealth. So people with scarce resources now need not only to provide education to their children, but must also participate in an economic system likely set up to exploit them and their time on this planet to pay for the phone, the power bill, the internet connection and any software needed.

So is digital information really more accessible? For some, but now with many gates, each susceptible to capture, corruption and/or failure.

Book burning is becoming trivially easy. Massive information loss is just as much a threat as it was in the days of the great fire in Alexandria.

Proof-of-Carbon-Capture

As The Economist recently pointed out, if humanity is to avoid potentially

cataclysmic climate change in the coming decades limiting carbon emissions is simply insufficient. Even if tomorrow we all drove electric cars and generated electricity with wind and solar exclusively, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is already too high. Removing CO2 from the atmosphere now a necessity.

There are many, many obstacles to this imperative as their front cover article discusses.  Notwithstanding climate change deniers awaiting the four horsemen, a massive global collective action conundrum, and feeble/nascent R&D, this is a problem that will not wait for a next election cycle. We need to start pulling carbon out of the atmosphere yesterday.

Planting trees is a simple and elegant natural solution. Unfortunately, trees are slow to grow, compete for water and land that is needed for human sustenance, and at risk of pouring carbon back into the atmosphere when the trees burn or are harvested for human processing.

Chemical solutions, like calcium hydroxide, have been shown effective at capturing CO2, but no scalable application has demonstrated that it can deliver a minimum viable product. Innovative solutions such as Swiss Climeworks’ direct air capture (DAC) plants are beginning to show the economic viability of capturing and selling carbon. Unfortunately, start up costs are in the millions of dollars, thus likely requiring concerted political/governmental effort to scale globally. As we have seen, focusing the minds of politicians beyond their next election is futile and unelected leaders have almost no incentive to act as the brunt of climate change is falling on the non-elite.

Enter blockchain and the potential for global decentralized ‘mining’ of economic value by demonstrating effort. Right now, Bitcoin is an environmental disaster, burning through astounding amounts of energy to compute proof-of-work solutions on specialized hardware. The original idea of the decentralized network of Bitcoin mining nodes was that people could use their home computers to run cryptographic hash guesses in a race to confirm blocks of transactions on the network. The winning nodes are rewarded with bitcoins.

Skeptics of this borderless economic enterprise abound, but what can be said with confidence is that Satoshi Nakamoto opened some box or squeezed something out of a tube. Today there are probably over a 1,000 cryptographic tokens modeled on the Bitcoin blockchain concept.  These tokens are traded and speculated on by a new community of young tech-savvy pseudo-investors. I use the term ‘pseudo’ because the economic activity around these tokens is extremely gamified, almost entirely stripping out Warren’s value fundamentals. For regulators this is a shocking and dangerous, but it offers an important insight that could be harnessed for the good of the planet.

People (at least in countries where I have lived) like making money, especially easy money. Lifting things and showing up at the office are falling out of favor as a social value. We increasingly want winning lottery tickets, instant American Idol fame and fortune, or a least some quick bucks from swapping digital tokens or video game swords and shields. So proof-of-carbon-capture.

Perhaps we could develop a network where normal people with a few thousand dollars could set up small DAC filter systems and join a global network that rewards them economically for demonstrating that they are pulling carbon out of the air. There are lots of issues to work out, such as how to verifiably connect ‘on-chain’ representations of carbon-capture, with ‘off-chain’ actual real-world carbon capture, or how to ensure that the energy used isn’t being stolen from the local coal plant or that captured carbon is not improperly dumped or otherwise used to game the system. There are lots of problems and maybe the idea is completely unworkable, but much smarter people than me are already working on how to make crypto assets more environmentally friendly. 

Are you one of them?

Proof-of-work as a primary motivator of human value

What is the great limiter of a human being? Death and decline. Human impermanence is the foundation of the app economy (saving you valuable time) as well as Buddhism (relinquishment of attachment to things that will fail and fade away). Because human lives all terminate, and as living beings we relish our aliveness, time becomes the most valuable item.  That is why, when people cross social norms (or unscrupulous despots), time is what is taken from them through prison (or worse). In certain cultures, the fetish of youth lionizes that unholdable virtue of vigorous life that time takes from everyone.

Human beings are collector monkeys. We are primates that delight in and excel at collecting and storing things. This is how early womankind probably shifted from sustenance-level hunter-gathering (also a collecting and storing activity) to civilization-making agriculture. Collect and store. “The individual (and competing) collection of shiny things” describes the core of our current economic model. People collect things, ideas, status, power, and other people. The one thing we have so far failed at successfully collecting is time.

Time continues to slip through our fingers just as it has for millennia. The inescapable and melancholy passage of time, that takes everything from us, inspires and directs our most sincere art, or religious ideals and practices, as well as the structures of our families and social orders.

The race to bottle up time has been on for a long time and modern medicine, from the mundane (antibiotics) to the bizarre (cryogenic freezing), is a response to that deep human need to try to collect time. Just a bit more. Before we go.

Modern management gurus are learning that time is the new gold watch. Retirement and pensions are becoming laughable bygone Technicolors, rendering a heartless fraud the promise of future time to be with family in exchange for unrelenting work now. Time was invented in the factory mills to order humans as laborers. The company stopwatch timed the part-worker and determined if they would be kept on tomorrow. Wages are paid by the hour; lawyers bill by the fraction of an hour; and politicians govern in tranches of years. Time limits and motivates us all.

Enter Bitcoin. What does this have to do with Bitcoin (or more importantly, the future economy)? Hashcash; Solomon shell money; and the proof-of-work. Bitcoin is built on a decentralized model that rewards time-consuming work (calculating a valid block hash), essentially the investment of time (and energy and hardware - also made up of someone’s time). This process is at base the same as the millennia-old practice of adding shells to strings used as currency in the Solomon Islands. The demonstration of the effort (and time) expended on the strands is immediately self-evident to an observer seeing all the little shells tightly bound in neat rows.  This is how winning blocks are verified on the Bitcoin protocol - a first-to-the-post proof-of-work, neatly combing the ancient value in time investment with modern concepts of “first-is-best”.

Bitcoin, therefore, rewards the investment of time (not only in running the hashes, but in setting up the hardware and facilities to compute the hashes). A brief review of some other human endeavors shows how widespread and deeply ingrained this proof-of-work (i.e. proof-of-time-spent) value is in the human psyche.

In sport, the proof-of-work is the demonstration of hours, months, and years of practice, training, and toning, be it in individual exercise and time spent honing the body, or in group sports and time spent developing and executing strategy and skill. In e-sports (yes, playing video games is a sport now, ever since watching people gamble became a sport[1]), becoming a champion player is a clear expression of the intense amount of time invested in the effort.

Art, in all its forms, tends to convey the time the artist spent developing their skill and then crafting their art. The rapper who has developed her style and poetry from an early age; the 16^th century academia-trained classical painter; the lifetime masterpiece of the composer; the years of experience in the hands of a craftswoman; the novelist hammering out words for days, weeks, years.

The concept of the meritocracy values time (as it translates to experienced skill) above all else.

It is possible, and I believe, that the proof-of-work, recently popularized as a concept by Bitcoin, is a fundament of human valuation. It seems to be a universal value, seen across time and cultures. It could be the atomic building block of our value system and in turn our civilizations. Bitcoin will fail; the Westfalian state will fail. All fall to the ceaseless master of time. That is why we value time above all else and value those people, places[2], and things that readily show us that time (the most valuable resource to a human being) has been preciously spent.

This understanding/belief about human value is a cornerstone is sheparding in the next economy. The current economy is broken and dead, staggering on as reflected in the recent popular fascination with zombies (from Romero to GoT). The mill’s wage hour does not compute a sustainable life. The relentless and successful collection of money and power over time has reached an unstainable level. Automation and artificial intelligence change what is means to be a human with respect to the value of work and time spent working. Adjustment is coming, either in disconcerting increments or rending tumult. Work is dead, but the people considered “workers” are not.[3] A new economy that values humans as beyond workers or consumers must be born.

As we learn a new nomenclature and way of thinking about how people “make a living” and “fit into society” we must understand what people value.  People seem to value time and the proof-of-work and time spent.  How this transl

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[1] It’s interesting to reflect on societies’ difficult relationship with gambling. Could this relate to the apparent disconnect between a reward (equally possible for the one-time ticket buyer as for the daily lifetime lottery buyer) and time investment? Gambling appears to offend our underlying value that things are valuable because of the time spent on them, not the “unfair” results of random outcomes.

[2] It is notable that people spend tremendous sums planning trips to see ancient buildings, while the 1950’s US tract-house tourism industry has yet to gain any momentum.

[3] Proponents of human life and dignity must struggle against forces who would rather kill the worker along with the work, or reduce economic population pressures by unnaturally decreasing our numbers (birth control is a good idea, killing fields are bad).

Brand New Second Hand - The Current Cycle of (American) Xenophobia

For people who study immigration to the United States, there have been clear historic cycles of anti-immigrant sentiment.  In 1798 the brand-new federal government passed laws to keep out European radicals. This was followed by Chinese exclusion, anti-Catholicism, restrictions on eastern and southern Europeans, national origin quotas, English-only, Japanese internment, OperationWetback, etcetera, etcetera. Today’s cycle is just another iteration. Or is it?

The modern world is driven by media, more so than ever before in the history of humanity. It was very hard to hear the high priest yelling from atop the ziggurat.  Today the high priest is in your pocket.

The strength of the United States as a producer of services is it’s brand, or as academics call it “soft power”.  This is a plain truth for anyone who works in a service industry.  Image matters.  In many cases image, and the relationship that follows, is practically the only thing that matters.  Substance behind image is becoming less important—or so the recent U.S. elections would indicate.

The current cycle of anti-immigrant hysteria is marring the image of the United States.  Kennedy and Reagan’s “city on a hill” looks pretty shabby right now. The statute of liberty is an over-priced tourist trap, not an ideal, in 2017.

Like all of the past waves of anti-immigrant fear mongering, this one will pass, one way or another. The question is, what will be left of the brand?

Given the long history of dirty wars, black sites, and WMDtesting and use, the brand of the United States has proven remarkably resilient. Much of this, I would posit, has been due to the fact that the money seems to pour here. People seem willing to ignore a transgression or two or three for a couple pieces of gold or some cheap land.  Here’s the rub.

The West has been settled, the economic boom of the 1950’s and WWII global destruction is long gone, and the world economy is likely entering a period of low growth. The concentration of wealth and the crumbling of the “job” likely mean that money will not gush for most people. Land is not cheap. If the United States can’t wash away its sins with indulgences, its brand becomes increasingly relevant. 

Your services are valued if you are. If the United States appears to the world as a grumpy old white man walling in his wealth, that will be hard to sell. That is not sexy. That is not beyonce.[1] In the era of the image, public political temper tantrums, like the earlier waves of xenophobia, may have a much more damaging effects.

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[1] beyonce: (adj.) the state of being cool and sexy in everything one does; having the air of infinite poise and sex appeal

Migrants & Plutocrats

This post is an extreme oversimplification - a hyperbolic reduction of dynamic complex systems humans do not understand.  This post is a meme, a tweet, a hashtag.  This is a post of the time.

Modern migrants are the tool and byproduct of plutocrats the world-round. 

Plutocrats are the hyper-rich (mostly men) who divert and collect vast lakes of wealth for their purposes, without popular input or moral justification.  

Corrupt, self-interested elites dominate resources in communities and countries everywhere. Many economic theories assert that wealth concentration and elite amassing can “grow the pie” or avoid a zero-sum game.  If these theories are true anywhere, it is evident that they are not playing out for the majority of the world’s population. Thus, elite wealth amassing is often zero-sum, and every dollar, yuan, or sol diverted into the orbit of plutocrats is taken from the average person. In many locations where the pillage is particularly savage or where resources are very scarce to begin with, this diversion of resources results in terrible hardship. Average people are faced with two stark options: 1) wrest back resources from the local elites or 2) migrate.

The “Arab Spring” has shown what is involved with “wresting back” resources - death, asymmetric war, prison, and torture. Only the most desperate or foolhardy opt for revolution. Migration makes sense.

Those responsible for the concentration of local resources are doubly happy to see their victims depart because it is almost always the young, strong, and smart who go.  The revolution is diasporaed.  The unemployed, hungry young people are not in the street marching, they are gone, but they left family. And they send them money.  So not only is the political pressure off to make reforms or share some of the resources, but now, a new resource stream is flowing in that can be gorged on – remittances. Local wealth concentration continues unabated – a profitable dystopic cycle.

The migrants arrive in a new place.  Most of the time, this is not the land-of-milk-and-honey they set out to find, but a nearby place with its own elites busily amassing wealth and disenfranchising the average people.  Sometimes these migrants do make it to places of wealth, but it is irrelevant, the choreography is the same.

Elites amass wealth, the average person suffers the hardship and faces the same quandary – fight with the powerful for resources or migrate. However, in places where migrants have arrived the elites have a new ploy, a new tool.  When the angry take to the streets, offer them a scapegoat – the migrant – the perfect whipping boy.

Migrants have no political sway, they do not belong, and their social networks and clout are often weak or even non-existent. They have no voice to contest the undeserved responsibility laid at their door by those with the money and the megaphone. When the average person notices that there seems to be less wealth to go round, they are told to blame the immigrant.  Given our natural proclivity for tribalism, this scapegoat ploy has yet to fail. Set the average people upon themselves. Continue amassing wealth. Rinse. Repeat.

Of Work & Play

Over the past year-and-a-half I have neglected this blog, distracted by the pressures and unexpected turns of life, and ultimately deeply disheartened with the worsening global “migration crisis”.  I have railed against politicians of every stripe, ignorantly jumped into intricate policy webs more complex than any person can fully comprehend, and shared my two-cents consoled by the knowledge that no one would actually read this thread in the era of out-going media where everyone is so busy sending tweets we don't have time to read any.  I have chosen to continue to speak, even if my voice is drowned out completely by the NASCAR hurricane of our modern existence.

A global xenophobic era is upon us—Brexit, Trump, and the genuine potential for the collapse of the European Union.  Concern for the details of migration policy ring distant and elitist at best, or bordering treasonous by the reckoning of the angry class. Personally, I have been experiencing the dust devil vortex of work in the United States, where nights and weekends are as meaningful to my daily life as the Mayan calendar.  This personal unease has brought me to reflect on my relationship with work and my growing awareness that work is not working.  There I stumbled upon the unifying thread, the bow to wrap up my disparate and distracted musings. 

What is at the heart of human migration and globalization?

Work.

I believe that work—more precisely the failings of work—is also at the heart of the global xenophobic era and the primary stimulant for the angry class—be they nationalist voters or caliphate militants.

Work has played different roles in human societies since those first stone tools were crafted.  Today, we face a coming crossroads where the widespread industrial conception of workers, labor, and production is peeling away in the face of automation, hyper connectivity, population growth/decline, and environmental capacity reaching. My task is to start reading, but in the meantime, I rechristen this lonesome corner of the internet “Of Work & Play”, keeping in mind that doe-eyed naiveté that we should strive for a world where there is a place and a need for all of us.

Migration Policy: Devolution or Centralization?

            The setting of migration policy is, and has been in modern times, a function of national governments.  The control of movement of people into (and less frequently out of) national territory has been seen as a prerogative of the sovereign.  Even in federalized states such as the United States or Argentina, migration policy rests with the national government.  This is a product of internal power dynamics between the federal and state governments as much as a by-product of the Westphalian system of independent sovereign states.  However, there has been a growing global discussion questioning this status quo.  Consider the recent upsurge in state-level immigration laws enacted in the United States.  According to the Immigration Policy Center, in 2006, 570 state-level immigration bills were introduced; 84 laws were enacted and 12 resolutions were adopted.  However, in the first quarter of 2010, 1,180 immigration bills were introduced; 107 laws were enacted, and 87 resolutions were adopted.  At the local level in the United States, the emergence of the “sanctuary-city” reflects another attempt to devolve immigration policy away from the national epicenter.  Both Canada and Australia have regional (that is, sub-national) immigration programs.  For example, in Canada all of the country’s provinces may nominate a certain number of people for visas each year.  This trend reflects the fact that local and regional governments are the most affected by the costs and benefits of immigration.  The current national-level policies often fail to reflect these specific needs or are too slow in responding.

At the same time, regional (supra-national) integration continues to trundle along, glacially assembling blocs of countries along geographic or ideological criteria.  The most famous scheme is the European Union, but there are a plethora of such integration plans with varying goals and levels of institutionalization.  Regional integration can take the form of free trade areas such as NAFTA or customs unions like MERCOSUR or regional trade blocs such as ASEAN or the African Union.  Through a process denominated “spillover” by Philippe Schmitter, integration schemes tend naturally to grow beyond their initial purpose to encompass more policy areas.  The European Union began in the 1950’s as a coal and iron agreement between France and Germany.  More recently the customs union between Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela (MERCOSUR) has expanded into migration policy and lead to the establishment of a special visa for member citizens.  Given this hypothesis of integration spillover, migration policy will increasingly grace the agendas of such integration bodies.  For example, the European Commission is currently considering the creation of a Commissioner for Migration.  

As local and sub-national actors create immigration policies to respond to their real world needs and supra-national integration actors are forced to respond to the transnational impacts of human migration, the Westfalian nation-state is stuck in the middle.  What is the appropriate balance?  Where can effective and coordinated immigration policies be incubated?  Unfortunately, the answer must be a mix of all three levels: the micro, mezzo, and macro.  This will require a level of information sharing and communication never before seen in human governance.  It is a challenge that confronts many policy areas, not just migration.  The increasing global connectivity of people, as well as the growing agency of the individual, makes sensible local, national, and supra-national policymaking essential.   There is some hope that information technology can offer solutions to this gargantuan problem, but these tools are by no means a panacea.  Further complicating the task are political tug-of-wars between policymakers at each level, all trying to maximize their political clout and relevance.  While local and supra-national actors step into the breach of policy making around immigration, the nation-state will not lightly divest itself of such a powerful and symbolic policy area.  The benefits of coordinated and inclusive migration policies are not hard to imagine, however neither are the costs of establishing such a system.  

Like most political endeavors, change is unlikely until the costs of inaction so clearly outweigh the costs of action that policy makers are essentially forced to move.  The current trend seems to indicate that we as a species are headed in such a direction.  Global population continues to increase and migration-related policy issues such as public health and environmental protection are increasingly gaining political salience.  Global inequality and armed conflicts add pressure to the mix.  The need for cogent, multi-level migration policies will grow ever more apparent, even as reactionary and xenophobic responses also grow.  Fortunately, sensible migration policy can only be achieved thought true and representative democracy, thus the struggle for such migration policies is also the struggle for renewed democracy across the globe.