Deep Web Search Engine is here. This represents a new economic paradigm since increasing the available information increases the rate of change of knowledge across diverse communities. Keep your eyes on this one – it’s a big one.
This Open Letter is directed to all Deep Web researchers, authors, developers, practitioners and people who have a great interest in what lies beyond the popularity contests playing out on the ‘surface web’.
I submit this letter in appreciation for the work that you do I also want to present an important application to your research for which you may not yet be fully aware.
As they say, beauty is only skin deep and the hard work of organizing the Deep Web offers an astonishing opportunity for the next economic paradigm. Very few people are aware of this.
Who are we?
I am the director of The Ingenesist Project, an obscure Think Tank in the Seattle area modestly funded by visionaries. Our job is to specify an alternate financial system that we loosely describe as an innovation economy built on a platform of social media.
Consequently, we also specify a new currency backed by innovation instead of debt. Innovation currency is very similar to debt currency since they both ‘represent’ future productivity. As such, these two currencies would be readily “convertible” in exchange – something that we all may need in the not-too-distant future.
Where do you fit in?
Essential to this concept is the relationship between data, information, knowledge, and innovation which we express as a differential equation. Here is a quick explanation – please bear with me:
We can predict the value of innovation by observing rates of change of knowledge. We can predict the value of knowledge by observing rates of change of information. But the most critical element is the ability to predict the value of information by observing rates of change of data. The most critical element in the next economic paradigm is the human interaction with data.
With that missing piece, a new financial system can then capitalize and securitize these “predicted future values” much like Wall Street does with social debt. Deep Web Researchers literally hold the key to ending the oppression of debt economics worldwide. No kidding.
What’s in it for you?
This is where your work gets us really excited: Google induced economic incentives that drove millions of entrepreneurs into the work of creating new information – and yet direct widespread monetization remains elusive. In contrast, human interaction with the Deep Web will unleash economic incentives that will drive millions of entrepreneurs to create databases. The difference is that new Data are the only thing that a market is willing to pay for – not the popularity contests. And wow, is there a market waiting for you.
I understand that you are all very busy given the magnitude and complexity of your work. If this letter speaks to you, then please speak with me. Let’s discuss how your work would be applied to this very important effort. I’m easy to find in the datasphere.
Thank you
(Editor’s note: some ideas adapted from writings of Peter T. Leeson and introduces the idea of IOUs trading as a proxy for production. The monetization of social media will likely evolve from such an idea)
No sane blogger would post an article suggesting that anarchy is superior to government as a means of producing widespread cooperation…or would they?
As Milton Friedman put it, “government is essential both as a forum for determining the ‘rules of the game’ and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided upon.” Most great anarchist theories are duly faulted for significant problems coping with cheating and violence.
Nonetheless, large swaths or anarchy exist today. For example, there is no World Court to enforce World Law, if such laws existed. Nor is there a Global commercial law to enforce contracts between Global traders. Even at a local level there is no guarantee that the government will protect your property or enforce your contracts.
A common objection to anarchy is that without government the strong will plunder the weak because the weak have an inherent inability to protect themselves. How can self-governance alone protect the weak?
Social Piracy?
The FTC recently issued guidelines for payola to bloggers. The impact and opinions are now emerging over what this means for social media. As with any game played on a new field, rules need to apply. The questions emerge regarding who the rules hurt, who they help, and how the game will develop in the future due to those rules.
Straight from the horse’s mouth:
The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers.
Extrapolate into the future:
A New Economic System of the country of Montenegro is based on complete and unfettered economic freedom; in other words, the elimination of all barriers to conducting business. Is Freedom A New Economic Paradigm?
Veselin Vukotić ‘s paper titled Economic Freedom and New Economic Paradigm, offers a case study that enlightens us as to some of the core changes, some easy and some difficult, that any proclaimed ‘new economic paradigm’ would place on people, culture, politics, and the markets. From this insight, perhaps we’ll see a new paradigm emerge.
Freedom; A competitive Advantage
Montenegro has achieved a competitive advantage in their Eastern European region by reducing international trade barriers, treating foreign and domestic concerns equally, reducing “contribution” fees and other taxes, reduction of public spending, affirmation of private property, and encouraging entrepreneurship. Veselin Vukotić also notes that the concept of economic freedom is a complete theoretical and practical expression of an idea. He quotes Plato:
The difference between concepts is the difference between starting ideas!
Therefore, he concludes that the idea of economic freedom is freedom of an individual to conduct business (earn money), and that business is the key factor of a society’s development and individual wealth. While we now know that unfettered capitalism breaks down at some point, he does accomplish something important – the elimination of all government as a defining element of freedom.
The Singularity Solution
We know it is often easier to solve a problem if we can remove certain elements, even temporarily, and analyze components individually. Suppose we eliminate Government from the equation, corporations would rule. However, corporations are made up of individuals, so individuals would rule…they would rule whom? The logic also breaks down.
There is one exception: what if all individuals were corporations and they ruled only themselves? Corporations are keeping government out of their affairs by keeping people off the books. The solution is for everyone to structure their existence as a corporation contracting to each other for every conceivable business arrangement. Heck, it only costs 40 dollars to open a business in the the U.S.
Self-regulating Freedom?
Knowledge would be shared freely, people would be paid for their productivity, diversity and strategic combination of knowledge would be rewarded. Everyone would own their knowledge and would seek to accumulate more. Trade barriers would be eliminated, taxes would be reduced, private property would be affirmed, and entrepreneurship would be encouraged. Like a family, no corporation could become wealthy at the expense of another corporation for very long.
Would you be willing to pay the government to leave you alone? Is that Freedom or a new economic paradigm or both?
(Editor’s note; This is the first in a series of articles that challenges the “degree system” of knowledge measurement as archaic and irrelevant to what is actually happening in the world today. Like the resume system – it is ridiculous if not outright damaging to the prospect of knowledge behaving, and therefore, trading like a financial instrument.
Why do we still care about college ‘degrees”?
The information that fuels the next economic paradigm will not be captured in the form of college degrees; rather, it will be captured in extremely detailed granularity of unique collections of knowledge assets in diverse combinations of persons that solve complex puzzles – and then share the solution with others.
This begs the question, why do we still care about University Degrees?
Continuing our series on the Search for the Next Economic Paradigm, we feature an unlikely authority on Economic development. The Gross National Happiness Metric hails from the Himalayan country of Bhutan listed by the UN as a “Least Developed Country”.
The linked presentation below reports on the GNH (Gross National Happiness) conference. Yes, people are getting together for an annual GNH conference just like the famed GNP (Gross Domestic Product) conferences elsewhere.
Hypothesis: Paradigm shift related to global societal development
• ‘Economic growth’ as the dominating paradigm of ‘progress’ is increasingly under challenge
• Growth of GDP is unsustainable and does not lead to more happiness
• We are in a process of Redefining Progress and Global Transformation
• Needed: Multi-stakeholder, multi-cultural and intradisciplinary as well as participatory public support networks for an emerging new development paradigm
The Production of Happiness
Too many things too big to fail.
It could be currency collapse, an environmental collapse, a pandemic collapse, a food collapse, a water collapse, Energy collapse, a political collapse, or any number of Black Swan events – something somewhere too big to fail will fail. When that happens, it will take everything else down with it. After all, that’s what too big to fail means.
Look on the Sunny Side
The Idea of a New Economic Paradigm is gaining modern popularity. This declaration is a indeed a grand and lofty goal for the collective human consciousness to grasp. But grasp it we must; both Socialism and Capitalism are bankrupted social models. Quit bickering, It’s time to move on
Do something, anything:
The point of this recurring article is to understand the ideas of other people as to what a new economic paradigm is or needs to accomplish. The following are a few that I’ve dug up and will feature here as a repeating feature Called: In Search of The New Economic Paradigm.
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It’s Time For A New Economic Paradigm by Joe Kresse, Foundation for Global Community
Revolutionary:
Ask the French about linguistic purity and you get the feeling that an attack on the language is an attack on the culture. Likewise, corporations arising from the industrial revolution communicate internal structure and processes through the use of a well protected internal taxonomy. This serves as both a means of storing knowledge across generations of workers, and as a means of encrypting the knowledge from those who would pillage the enterprise.
For example, some people who leave Boeing (a 94 year old company) have a very difficult time re-integrating into society because many of their professional skills and tools are articulated in a language that nobody outside Boeing understands. Ex-employees of many large corporations often find themselves professionally invisible through an extended period of re-adjustment.
Melting Pot Economics
The very nature of the traditional corporation is called to question by the Social Media Paradox:
Definition (by me):
Social Media Paradox: The degree to which the act of engaging in the social media paradigm reduces one’s ability to engage in the pre-social media paradigm; and vice versa.
Success in social media requires humility, authenticity and commitment to the medium. Like a tattoo, that impression defines the person and is not easily removed – after all, everyone’s got to have some skin in the game.
Social media rewards people for doing what they are best at and saying what they feel to be most true. Furthermore, brands need to trust their employees to represent them – this means that they need to give up control of the message. The more they try to control the message, the less effective they are in a social medium.
Sounds like a great idea, but is it practical?
Many people still need to work for a living often find ourselves at the mercy of corporations for an actual paycheck. Social Media provides a free source of reference material on a new candidate. If a person is seen as edgy, ‘counter culture’, or defiant by any number of risk averse HR gatekeepers, one’s “old-paradigm” employability can be affected. The subtle irony that the those who best understand the medium can make themselves unemployable as a result.
The opposite is also true:
USocial is now going after YouTube. These clever guy and gals have figured out a way to bypass the democracy of social media to bring is a new form of merchant class capitalism…SUPER SPAM. For a small fee, you can get your message to the head of the line – in effect pushing the rest backwards. Presumably for a bigger fee, you can get ahead of those who paid a smaller fee, and so forth.
Once the bastion of lobbyists and special interest groups, anyone with a few bucks can now pull themselves up the ladder by pushing other people down the ladder. Once the domain of high powered PR firms and Marketing agents; just a few dollars cast among the USocial Gods delivers those long elusive eyeballs of the old radio/TV marketing paradigm.
Watch this one carefully kids. Social Media has long proven uncontainable. Saying that you can beat social media at its own game is like saying you can repair a credit score. Like a credit score, you can do more damage than good trying to steal what does not belong to you in an effort to boost your income.
Those eyeballs, those followers, and those “friends” do not belong to USocial and are therefore not theirs to sell. They belong to you and I and we control them – or we don’t play. If USocial keeps their client list secret, this would be the capital offense in social media space.
Innovation economics is an economic doctrine that reformulates the traditional model of economic growth so that knowledge, technology, entrepreneurship, and innovation are positioned at the center of the model rather than seen as independent forces that are largely unaffected by policy.
Innovation economics is based on two fundamental tenets. One is that the central goal of economic policy should be to spur higher productivity and greater innovation. Second, markets relying on price signals alone will not always be as effective as smart public-private partnerships in spurring higher productivity and greater innovation. This is in contrast to the two other conventional economic doctrines, neoclassical economics and Keynesian economics.
A Definition for Innovation Economics
What does Sarah Palin tell us about ourselves as a culture, a nation, or as individuals?
No matter whether you like her or not, you can’t help but feel something for her. The Cinderella launch into worldwide stage, full public disclosure of her laundry room, dumped at the altar by the grizzled groom, sent back to Alaska with a scarlet letter (take your pick) tattooed on her forehead. Alas, the epiphany: God speaks to the persecuted one; “Rise Up and serve thy mission!”
The thing that America has in common with Sarah is the time table. All of this happened in 16 months. The same 16 months of time as a new genre of bad news was also thrust upon us: astonishing job losses, crippling deterioration of wealth, unspeakable corruption, and complete disregard for what happens to a family when they a kicked out of their home by the law they elected.
“Too big to fail” means the rest of us are too small to succeed. Then here comes Sarah reminding us of ourselves; so much to blame on others and absolutely nothing that can be done about it. The only thing she has left is the moose horn. Let me tell you, if I had a moose horn like hers, I’d yell into it every day, all day long until someone smarter, stronger, and with less dignity (or nothing more to lose) steals it from me. This says a lot about the people who can’t shut Sarah up.
As president, she would be woefully inadequate, but as a Hockey Mom, she’s quite talented – when everyone else plays with fire, she plays the game of ice. The home team hates her, the opposing team hates her, the coaches conspire against her – nothing she says makes much sense anywhere else except those few seconds of a game long ago played – at least her mission, whatever it may be, is being accomplished.
Most bloggers invite you to share their content far and wide on any one of many aggregation sites. But some people get really upset if you post that article on your own aggregation blog (even with full credit and back links).
I am always amazed when I get that proverbial chest thumping quasi-barrister “cease and desist” letter, followed by remedial citation of copyright law, and always ending with some pathetic accusation of irreparable damages and criminal violation. They get upset if you change the content and they get upset if you don’t. The worst is when it comes from a self-proclaimed social media guru who touts all ‘dat social media Kool Aid in their consultancy propaganda.
Reality Check:
Editor’s note; The following analysis by Daniel Indiviglio from The Atlantic regarding a NYT article is foreboding of an unknown future. Half insightful synthesis and half tongue-in-cheek, this article suggests that virtual currency may impact the current monetary system. The conclusion is brilliant suggesting that the national debt could be paid in virtual currency. It seems quaint now, but what would happen if the dollar fails? During the Mexican Crisis, citizens emptied WalMart because today’s peso would be buy fewer Levies tomorrow – and it happened very fast. Get this and get it well: currency is a social agreement. People will trade what ever people agree to trade.
by Daniel Indiviglio
Is Virtual Currency A Real Problem?
All that time spent playing video games may finally be paying off. Literally. According to a fascinating New York Times article today, virtual currency — credits to buy stuff in video games — is being taken very seriously. China worries that make-believe video game money could affect its ability to control its money supply. As a result, it’s slapping limits on virtual currency. I’m not kidding.
From the NY Times:
Some people have even traded virtual currencies in China, and exchanged them for clothes, cosmetics and other goods. Last year, nearly $2 billion in virtual currency was traded in China, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. Some experts say they believe there is a much larger underground economy in the virtual world.
And it gets wackier:
