Tag: finance Page 1 of 3

The Ingenesist Project: Making Money

Nobel Economist Robert Solow calculated that 80% of economic growth is the result of advances in technology. This Makes sense. Technology makes us more productive.

However, GDP measures the products, not the producers. Engineers, Scientists, and Technologists are responsible for ideation, design, and implementation of new and improved technology.

Unfortunately, Engineers, Scientists and Technologists are classified as “intangibles” Intangibles are, in turn, classified as expenses to be minimized, not investment to be maximized.

Here’s the good news… 80% of the true global economy is simply hidden from view. Trillions upon trillions of dollars are sitting on the table waiting to be measured into existence. Can you see it?

The Ingenesist Project uses game theory, blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence to convert Intangible Assets into a tangible form.

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Analysis

The purpose of this video is to synthesize the simplest interpretation of value and test that against prevailing economic principals. Engineers, scientists and technologists are treated as EXPENSES, let that sink in. If they are not assets, then they are LIABILITIES… full stop. This is a clear, present and vastly consequential flaw that must be addressed by someone somewhere.

Otherwise, if there is no institution willing or able to defend this flawed economic principal, then it is super-vulnerable to disruption. We need to maximize innovation, not minimize innovation. There needs to be a wholistic and systemic approach to solving problems in the world. We must head off global systemic risks. As clever and experienced as the VC community is, they cannot be expected to pick and choose winners and losers in the next economic paradigm.

There is far more ‘money to be made’ by shifting engineers, scientists, and technologists to the ASSET column of the global balance sheet.

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An Invisible Economy

By Admin

An Invisible Economy: The Ingenesist Project

A firefighter is worth millions of dollars per hour preserving lives and property… but only when there is a fire. A Fire Protection Engineer can design thousands of buildings that will never burn.

In the absence of a fire, the true value of the Scientists, Engineers, and Technologists is invisible. But the value of their economic contribution continues to persist.

What if we could measure the true value of intangible assets into present value existence. A massive new asset class would be unlocked.

The Ingenesist Project uses Game Theory, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence to convert intangible assets into tangible form, at scale. There is no shortage of money, only a shortage of imagination.

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Analysis

The purpose of this video is to demonstrate how engineers, scientists, and technologists remove RISK from complex systems. Risk is directly correlated to “return” and, therefore, profits.

So what happens to all of that value that a single diligent engineer creates when they remove all of the risk? Is it paid to the engineer? no. Is it returned to the non-victims of the calamity averted? no. Is captured by the the banking system as some form of arbitrage? Yes, absolutely, yes.

This is the deep dark secrets of finance. Don’t let the engineers, scientists, and technologists know that they are paid 2-20% of what they are worth. They may want free stuff like healthcare, job security, or royalties, or else they’ll go build something else that pays better social dividends. Can’t have that.

Obviously the question becomes, what happens when there are no more engineers to eliminate risk? There is a tipping point and we are dangerously close to approaching it. These things are easy to measure, assess, and resolve but there needs to be an institution able to secure material facts and assert the economics of those facts.

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A Tiny Flaw

By Admin

A Tiny Flaw. The Ingenesist Project

What if there was a tiny and nearly imperceptible flaw in Market Capitalism that could be easily corrected? To do so would solve many of society’s most pressing needs without disrupting the institutions upon which we depend.

Technological change must always precede economic growth. We are going about the business of civilization as if economic growth must always precede technological change. It’s like driving a car while looking through a mirror. In other words, money is not the cause of innovation. Money is the result of innovation. The implications of this tiny flaw impacts everything from Climate Change and Social Equity to Venture Capital and Global Debt.

It started with classical economic theory. In the 1700’s economic inputs such as Land, Labor, and Capital were easy to measure. The products that resulted from these inputs were also easy to measure. However, in the 1700’s; social, creative, and intellectual inputs by humans were not so easy to measure. Accountants call them intangibles, but they are simply “invisibles”.

Today, this is an easier problem to solve. Ironically, technological Change has brought us new ways to measure intangible assets. All we need to do is convert them to a tangible form. The resulting economic growth will far exceed global debt because there is no such thing as “not enough money to innovate”. Together we can correct A Tiny Flaw

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Analysis

This is largely the initial video in the series and the first that we published. Attention should be drawn to the idea that maybe there is a tiny flaw that can be easily corrected. Instead of trying to solve every single problem that is strangling civilization as we know it, we could solve one single problem and the other problems will solve themselves.

The question becomes: are we too vested in our misery to even consider such a possibility? Are we so narcissistic to believe that our particular problem is the one that must be solved even if it worsens someone else’s problem? Are we all expecting the “other guy” to change and that will make your world work? Good luck with that.

The flaw is no tiny, so hidden, yet so obvious that it defies the imagination. All we need to do is measure ourselves differently. Who is stopping us from doing this? nobody. What law says we can’t do this? There is none. And if we do correct the flaw, who suffers? No one.

Will we do it?

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A Knowledge Inventory System

By Admin

A Knowledge Inventory System; The Ingenesist Project

Have you ever wondered why the credits at the end of a movie are printed so small and scroll by so fast? The credits are not there for your benefit. The credits exist for the benefit of the movie industry.

Film production is a highly intellectual, creative, and social enterprise. In other words, Hollywood is denominated by knowledge assets. The rolling credits serve as a knowledge asset inventory system for all things needed to make the next movie.

Everything revolves around being on the credits or being known by people on the credits. This is how people find each other. The rolling credits make this possible. Not unlike a blockchain, in order to cheat the system, one must alter every instance of the celluloid reel or digital file.

Engineering, science and technology are also social, creative, and intellectual industries fueled by knowledge assets. Not unlike a blockchain, engineering processes are irreversible and immutable.

When we look at a sturdy bridge, or magnificent structure, or a brilliant piece of software, there is no easy way to find the people who are responsible for a specific element of that work. The Ingenesist Project uses game theory, blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence to create a knowledge asset inventory so that Engineers, Scientists, and Technologists can find each other.

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Analysis

Engineering and science have long been compared to the Arts as a creative profession. The point of this video is to demonstrate how other creative professions deal with the intangibles gap. While the Hollywood system has its own set of pros and cons, the comparison is worthwhile. Notably, the arts often compensate creators with “royalties” while engineering, science, and technology most often pay hourly wages.

In addition, there are comparably fewer barriers, silos, or human resource management hurdles to navigate for artists. They don’t attempt to reduce a 4-dimensional performance down to a 2-dimensional CV/resumé. Instead, they can submit the 4D performance as their resumé. A great deal of efficiency is retained.

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An Algorithm For Innovation

By Admin

An Algorithm For Innovation; The Ingenesist Project

A useful definition allows people to identify, replicate, or measure the subject being defined. Yet the best definition we have for Innovation is basically, “You know it when you see it”.

How can we sustain our world if we cannot even define the sole instrument of change?

Have you ever had an epiphany? That ah-ha moment that comes from deep within… …when suddenly your knowledge about something grows exponentially within a very short period of time? Let’s call that “innovation”, where one large innovation is comprised of many smaller innovations.

In order to measure innovation, all you need to do is measure the rate of change of knowledge with respect to time. You don’t need Calculus to recognize this as an algorithm for innovation … but it helps.

If that idea doesn’t change the world, nothing will.

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Analysis

Innovation is a great mystery that does not need to be. Everyone innovates – it is necessary for survival. Yet the magic and mystique of the innovator is a cultural phenomenon that forms the foundation of tech social status. Innovation is denominated in money – if you are not flush with cash, then you are not an innovator. Only VC can be innovators due to their ability to navigate financial markets. It almost seems that the more difficult it is to identify something, greater scarcity can be assigned to it. With greater scarcity come greater value. Again, when we become vested in our own misery, progress grinds to a halt.

This is all quite counter productive.

The problems of the future will require innovation, creation, new ideas, and vast execution at an astonishing scale. In order to achieve true economic sustainability, we need to a metric to denominate true value, not propped up scarcity value.

It is relatively easy to create and measure where high rates of change are occurring in a community or society. It is then relatively easy to observe what innovations take place as a result. This isn’t exactly a unicorn farm, but you probably can’t have a unicorn without these conditions in the first place. It is then only a matter of memorializing these conditions in a tangible form.

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Dividends of Innovation

By Admin

The Dividends of Innovation

Innovation is not linear Modern civilization did not begin 10,000 years ago with 250 Trillion dollars sitting in a box somewhere in the desert.

Money was measured into existence as a function of the things that scientists, engineers, and technologists built. Innovations such as the wheel, wedge, and lever came long before the invention of International Trade Agreements Innovations in machinery, transportation and energy enabled advances in sanitation, healthcare, and computers

Yet, the wheel, wedge, and lever are more important and more widely applied than ever. Wouldn’t it make more sense if we developed a monetary system backed by the dividends of innovation rather than the gravity of debt?

The Ingenesist Project uses game theory, blockchain, and artificial intelligence to measure the true economic contribution of engineers, scientists, and technologists.

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Analysis

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How It Works

By Admin

How It Works; The Ingenesist Project

The Ingenesist Project Uses Game Theory, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence to convert intangible assets to a more tangible form.

Part One: Observe The game is based on a system of claims and validations among a population of players.

Part Two: Measure Blockchain acts like a giant datalogger that captures time-value data of game transactions.

Part 3: Predict The Percentile Search Engine predicts the likelihood various combinations of players would produce novel outcomes.

These three applications acting together create a virtuous circle that converts intangible assets into a more tangible form. Join The Ingenesist Project

Analysis

In almost every video, we make the statement that The Ingenesist Project uses game theory, blockchain, and AI to make intangible assets more tangible. This sounds pretty complicated, so how do you explain it in under a minute? The audience deserves to know how we intend to deliver on the promises that we are making.

The answer to this, and almost every engineering or scientific problem, boils down to making observations, measuring outcomes, and predicting future results. The same should be true here.

We’ve also stated that engineers remove risk from complex systems. Risk assessment follows a similar sequence; first you need to identify the risk exposure, then you need predict the likelihood it will manifest, then you need to measure the consequences of the event.

The game sets things into motion, the blockchain records the motion, and the AI reads the recorded motion and predicts the next point on the curve.

So what may seem like a very complicated and jargon laden geek storm is actually an extremely simply set of tasks that almost everyone already practices in the professional lives. Why reinvent the wheel?

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Network Effects

By Admin

Network Effects: The Ingenesist Project

To borrow from a famous quote: “Uber, owns no vehicles… Google and Facebook create no content… Alibaba holds no inventory… Airbnb owns no real estate….” But they have a combined value of almost 3 Trillion dollars. This is very interesting.

Whereas most companies are priced according to strict financial performance, Network platforms provide a virtual bridge that connects people to each other. They are priced proportional to the square of the number of human connections they serve.

This is known as Metcalfe’s Law of Network Value. If network platforms create a virtual bridge connecting people, why can’t we value real bridges using Metcalfe’s law? Why can’t we value roads, airports, buildings and all manner of engineering, scientific, and technological infrastructure as proportional to the connections they serve?

The Ingenesist project uses game theory, blockchain, and artificial Intelligence to convert intangible assets into a more tangible form. Join The Ingenesist Project

Analysis

We often say that Engineers, Scientists, and technologists need only to measure themselves differently in order to become “more tangible”. Most people’s eyes glaze over as if we’re living in some fantasy world. This video demonstrates that principal exactly as it happens with network platforms that are popping up everywhere around us. Really, we’re not making this up.

Metcalfe’s law arose from the telecommunications industry to measure the utility of telephone connections. The value of the network grows exponentially with the number of points in contact. Let’s start by saying that telephone networks themselves are a creation of engineering and scientific professions.

The engineering value of a bridge is equal to it’s replacement cost – so that’s what they pay engineers to create one. However, the economic value of the bridge includes every transaction, truck delivery, soccer game, doctor appointment, and math class that resulted from the ability for 10,000 people per day to cross the river.

Facebook, Google, Alibaba, AirBnB, et al, could not exist if they were valued according to their replacement cost. Imagine what amazing works of engineering, science, and innovation are non-existant today only because it is valued incorrectly.

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Risk And Return

By Admin

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Risk and Return

As the saying goes, money makes the World go around. This may not be entirely true.

Where risk is high, the cost of money is high. Where risk is low, the cost of money is low. Engineers, scientists, and technologists specialize in removing risk from complex systems. So, why is there never enough money to mitigate the world’s most pressing risks?

Fortunately, all we need to do is reorganize engineers, scientists, and technologists and the money will surely follow

The Ingenesist Project uses game theory, blockchain technology, and Artificial Intelligence to reorganize the engineering and scientific professions.

Analysis

This video poses a legitimate question. If there is money to be made by mitigating risk, why are Engineers, Scientists, and technologists classified as expenses (liabilities), and not assets on global balance sheets?

It’s amazing how vested we are in this staggering little flaw in market Capitalism.

Key Phrase: Risk and Return

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The Innovation Standard

By Admin

The Innovation Standard: The Ingenesist Project

Solving the problems of the future will require humans to innovate at an astonishing rate… … far greater than anything our existing economic system can support. In order to achieve this, there must be a fundamental shift in how knowledge assets are measured, curated, and exchanged.

Today, a traditional bank distributes money backed by your promise of FUTURE productivity. Innovation is also a promise backed by FUTURE productivity. Two currencies backed by the same underlying asset are readily convertible.

In the future, an Innovation Bank, would issue currency backed directly by the true value of innovation. All we need to do is measure ourselves differently.

The Ingenesist Project uses game theory, blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence to convert intangible assets into a more tangible form.

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Analysis

The Innovation Standard is a reference to the Gold Standard or the Debt Standard, or the Oil Standard, etc. Whatever the standard, it needs to represent human productivity or else nobody would work in exchange for it (think about that for a sec).

The problems that face the world are global and they are systemic. That means that free markets technically don’t exist and the next thing that needs to be produced is the thing that society needs. Sure everyone wants a new Lambo, but it’s not very useful if the roads are too rough to drive it. Sure.Bitcoin is awesome but it’s contingent on a reliable energy grid. Sure, I love AI and much as the next geek but who’s going to read my content if they lack education to act on it?

Money as we know it just does not move fast enough. It does not represent the true productivity of Moms and Dads, soccer coaches, engineers, Scientists, teachers, and event organizers. Money needs to be produced as thenet sum of productive human behaviors. People know what problem needs to be solved next and if you give them the tools to fix things, they will.

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The Law of Nurture

By Admin

On November 22, 2023

Competition is one way of arriving at the optimal solution to a problem. Some call it the “Law of Nature”, survival of the fittest – where the final score can only be One to Zero. Unfortunately, in order to feed the winner, we must cultivate suitable losers. Evolution is slow and inefficient as a business optimization tool.

The laws of Nature provide infinitely more examples of collaboration than competition. Even if one player does not win today, their capacity to innovate remains to continuously improve the game for everyone later … if we let them.

The Ingenesist Project uses game theory, blockchain, and artificial intelligence to convert intangible assets into a more tangible form. Join The Ingenesist Project

Analysis:

This video acknowledges the value of competition as a solution optimization tool. So competition is not being called into question. However, a different problem involves preserving the knowledge, innovation, and wisdom that was created in the act of competition so that they can be developed in future or tangential problem solving environments.

Economics is the science of incentives which invariably invokes the discipline of game theory. we do have complete control over how a game is played, how players are preserved (or destroyed) and how equity is distributed. As such, we have complete control over the sustainability of the game which is ultimately in the best interest of everyone.

The conclusion is that a game which maximizes the health and welfare of the players ultimately maximizes the value of the game.

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A Virtuous Circle

By Admin

On November 21, 2023

A Virtuous Circle:

A bank won’t lend money to a project that is not insured. An insurance company will not underwrite a project that is not properly engineered. Engineering projects need to be financed to cover the cost of design and construction.

This is the Virtuous Circle of economic development. If any part of this cycle is broken, incomplete or corrupted, economic development fails.

Financial institutions simply issue paper receipts called “Money” to represent the actual things that engineers, scientists, and technologists create.

Money is, in fact, the intangible asset and engineering is the tangible asset! We’ve gotten it backwards.

When a virtuous circle reverses itself, it becomes a vicious circle. This is where we are today Fortunately, this is an easier problem to solve. The Ingenesist Project uses Game Theory, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence to reverse this vicious circle.

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Analysis:

The purpose of this video is to introduce the big picture of how the Innovation Bank will integrate with existing financial networks to make the production cycle more efficient and more responsive to systemic risk.

The point of this video is to isolate the idea that our global economy is an interrelated system with 3 critical components that must be integrated and operating at peak efficiency in order for the economy to serve global citizens equitably.

The challenges of the future will require humans to innovate at an astonishing rate – far more rapidly than our current financial system can support. There is no way that Venture Capital – our current “best bet” – can respond to the speed, breadth, and depth of technological change.

The problem ahead is systemic risk. It is not possible for a collection of competing VC to pick the winners and the losers of the next economic paradigm. Unintentionally, the the VC system may cause more damage than good.

This idea is useful for when we introduce the game, blockchain, and AI components – the blockchain serves as a check valve that allows the virtuous circle to spin in only one direction. The game mechanics provide the energy to keep the virtuous circle spinning in the right direction, Augmented Intelligence will help identify what components of the system are operating optimally so that innovation can be applied correctly.

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Decentralization Of Engineering, Science, and Technology

By Admin

On November 4, 2023

Decentralization is the rallying cry of the Blockchain Movement.

Few people realize that the Science, Engineering, and Technology professions are already decentralized. Unlike Banking and Finance, there are no all-powerful incumbents that must be vanquished. And the laws of Nature already apply to everyone.

Instead, Scientists, Engineers, and Technologists are contained by innumerable silos that have little to do with the Natural Laws We are segregated by jurisdiction, academia, ontology, corporations, politics, Trade Groups, Societies, international borders, and much more.

We represent 5% of the workforce but are responsible for 80% of economic growth. But collectively, we are weak, disorganized and powerless to prioritize the needs of our World. The only thing standing in our way, is ourselves. This is a much different problem than decentralization.

The Ingenesist Project uses Game Theory, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence to remove the silos that divide us.

Analysis:

The single point of this video was to introduce the distinction that a centralized institution and a collection of compartmentalized institutions may have similar characteristics to the participants, but are not the same thing. The former is far more difficult to disrupt while the latter is entirely vulnerable to disruption. This represents a huge opportunity for those who can see the distinction.

This idea plays a central role in the execution of The Innovation Bank. Where many see a stone wall of resistance to change, there may actually exists a paper veneer.

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A Tale From The Crypto

By Admin

On October 20, 2023

Have you ever wondered why a soccer goal has a net? The purpose of the net is to provide a visual contrast so that 50,000 observers can immediately reach a consensus that something very important has happened.

After that, a digital token is awarded to the team that scored a goal. The digital token also secures valuable business intelligence like game strategy, player stats, league standings, revenue, and everything else.

However, the consensus is by far the most important part. With the consensus, a player can make a lot of money. Without the consensus, they are invisible. With the consensus, the community can invest in a new stadium. Without the consensus, we can only play at the school yard. With the consensus, the economy flourishes. Without the consensus, it fails.

Lots of crypto projects have these same pieces. But mostly, they are mixed up. The Ingenesist Project uses Game Theory, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence to secure community consensus.

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Definition Of Innovation

By Admin

On May 10, 2021

Figure it out as you go along. — Image by David Mark from Pixabay

It is not as easy as it may seem to find a working definition of innovation. There are as many definitions as there are experts claiming to hold the secrets of innovation. The simplest definition of innovation that I could summarize based on top sources is as follows:

Definition of Innovation 1: A new idea resulting in an economic outcome.

The problem with this definition is that you cannot solve solve one equation with two or more unknowns. What is new? What is an idea?, and What constitutes an economic outcome? Finally, How can we identify innovation before it happens? These are significant barriers. I spoke with one VC about this problem and his response was:

Definition of Innovation 2: “I know it when I see it”

A definition is supposed to be distinct and precise. One should be able to predict, identify, or anticipate the object based on its definition. It appears that innovation can only be defined after the fact and not before, by most accounts. As a result, we treat innovation as if it were random or accidental or so unique that only a gifted few possess the ability to achieve it. This is important because innovation is the single most important determinant of achieving a sustainable economic environment.

Economics is the science of incentives. Calculus is the science of change.

When I was about 6 years old I got my first bicycle. It was a single data point sitting under the Christmas Tree. It came with a little pamphlet with lots of information on how to use it. My first attempt started just like the pamphlet described, until I crashed. The promise of stylish and speedy mobility was a strong incentive. Each time I crashed, my knowledge of bike riding increased at a very rapid pace as I developed new ideas about balance, coordination, and impact. I frantically innovated solutions to my problems until I was successful. As I progressed to bigger bikes and various motorcycles, I developed the ability to anticipate reactions to future obstacles based on a so called wealth of past experiences. I had developed Wisdom.

Toddlers can be readily observed innovating ways to carefully descend the stairs backwards on their tummy. This thought sequence repeats itself continuously throughout their formative years and into adulthood. A wise person is generally witnessed a great many outcomes and always seems to know what to do, when to do it, and why it should be done.

Hang on as this is going to get a little bit wonky:

Most engineers and scientists would recognize the following as a differential equation. The relationship between data, information, knowledge innovation, and wisdom are classic derivatives:

The value of information is derived from the value of the data
The value of knowledge is derived from the value of the information
The value of innovation is derived from the value of the knowledge
The value of wisdom is derived from the value of the innovation

This is the basis of the WIKiD Tools algorithm (Wisdom, Innovation, Knowledge, information, Data) developed by The Innovation Bank

Definition of Innovation 3: Innovation is proportional to the rate of change of knowledge with respect to time.

I certainly don’t expect a call from Merriam-Webster or widespread agreement from the innovation consultants any time soon. What is important is that this definition does not contradict any of the other definitions. And, it can be easily expressed as an algorithm suitable for machine learning, with data points that can be identified, measured, and validated.

We can now go about he business of creating conditions where knowledge is allowed to increases at a very high rate. Innovation cannot happen in a vacuum.

The Holy Grail of Finance

Predicting the fact of Innovation before it happens is the holy grail of finance. While many corporations and venture capitalists are somewhat successful at identifying a single product that will produce an economic outcome, they do it at the expense of foregoing the ecosystem from which that product arose. As such, predicting the Return on Investment (ROI) may be easily skewed by ignoring the broader social consequences of the product. Deficiencies in data, information, knowledge, and wisdom are the leading factors in start-up failures, not innovation.

Using a sports analogy, competition is a good way at arriving at the best solution to a specific objective. But in order to arrive at a single winner, you must first manufacture 10 times more losers. While conflict and competition is indeed entertaining, this is a very expensive and inefficient way to go about meeting the needs of consumers, let alone a crowded planet.

Intrinsic Value

Innovation is ubiquitous, interconnected, and interdependent on a sequence of factors shared across diverse people and places. Innovation is the intrinsic characteristic of our species and wholly responsible for the advancement of civilization itself. Everyone groans about how money is losing its intrinsic value because of inflation, corruption, or runaway national debt. As a result, cryptocurrencies conveniently drop the idea of intrinsic value altogether. People look to government, charismatic leaders, academia, and industry to solve staggering systemic risk and environmental collapse – to no avail.

Yet, all along, there may just be an extremely simple and inexpensive way to represent the intrinsic nature of innovation as the basis of value that we can quite literally pay for our own preservation. The following chapters describe this method. Please join us at The Ingenesist Project

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The Highest and Best Use for Blockchain Technology

By Admin

On May 14, 2016

The hallmark of a great society is the ability to capitalize it’s needs, not it’s arbitrage opportunities. The Highest and Best Use for Blockchain Technology must be to reduce the cost of capital by decentralizing risk, not necessarily money…yet

Blockchain technology carries a promise of great opportunity, efficiency, and fairness in business operations and governance for an entire struggling planet. If that is true, then Blockchain technology should be integrated broadly and uniformly across society and within as many existing institutions as possible. If that is true, then Blockchain development should not be the exclusive domain of a single sector, such as banking. Nor should Blockchain development reflect priorities of highest ROI from VC start-ups. Likewise, purely Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) may carry the risk of operating in an extralegal sector without legal recourse, thereby increasing net volatility, not decreasing it.

A different track is required.

The primary objective of Blockchain technology must be to reduce the cost of capital by decentralizing risk, not necessarily money. The highest and best use for blockchain technology is therefore insurance, not necessarily banking. In doing so, blockchain innovation can then be applied broadly, evenly, and intentionally across the economy. This makes sense because when building anything complex or important, one logical piece needs to go in front of the next logical piece regardless of it’s individual ROI, because the collective ROI is the true basis of valuation. If people tried to build an airplane in the same manner we are now trying to build decentralized economics, a few may benefit, but an air transportation system, as a whole, would be tragically constrained.

We have seen this before.

Many of the issues currently propping up the narrative to the Blockchain phenomenon were also present during the time of this author’s participation in the NAFTA negotiations. Anyone who was around in the early 1990’s may remember the mantra of modern globalization was that decentralized markets were good and centralized markets were bad. The mathematics supporting the efficiency of free trade models such as the Theory of Comparative Advantage were, and still are, bullet proof. So what happened?

Unfortunately, decentralized markets were administered unevenly, disproportionately, and only partially insurable, at best. The act of trying to control a decentralized market eliminated many of the benefits of having one. Today, we face a similar peril, except we are playing with a far more powerful technology promising exponential efficiency, or exponential deficiency. Don’t let the pundits fool you. It can go either way.

The difference today is that we also have the knowledge, foresight, a technological tool kit, and profound responsibility to get it right this time.

Let’s begin.

The place to start developing blockchain technology is through a consortium of Insurance and Professional Engineering institutions for the creation of relevant infrastructure and the physical derivatives upon which everyone utterly depends. This includes renewable energy, clean air, safe water, transportation systems, health and welfare, housing, building systems, computer networks, etc. After all, bitcoins aren’t worth a whole lot when the power goes down.

Infrastructure projects, and all their beneficiary derivatives, require financial institutions that can bridge the capitalization gap between the inception of a project and revenue from the project. This period of time is rife with peril because the “money and title” precedes the delivery of the physical asset. The cost of capital is directly proportional to the risk associated with project delivery. Wherever the insurance industry is capable of pooling project risks, the cost of capital will fall precipitously. The insurance industry is therefore an imperative component to this objective. Banking is relatively simple, accounts can be cleared with a placeholder currency; a token, if you will.

Herein lie both the challenge and the opportunity facing Insurance and Engineering institutions related to Blockchain Technology:

First, as with all new technology, we need to recognize that society will reorganize itself around Blockchain Technology. We need to provide hundreds of millions of entrepreneurs and citizens the support systems with which to do so.

Second, if each component part of the blockchain system is insurable, so too should the entire system. We need to insure and reinsure each individual components of a blockchain business system(s) in order to lower its cost of capital.

Finally, once insurable, each component part of the new economy will have the same cost of capital as any other part. The relative value of an investment will therefore be ordered in time — the most important and valuable piece is the one that goes next in the critical path. This is how things get built.

Taken together, Insurance and Engineering are sufficiently disintermediated from short-term objectives and are ideally suited for the long game. Together, they can bridge the capitalization gap upon which everyone can then cross. They provide outcomes in the physical world that are essential to everyone. Together, they can deliver the projects that are most important — the ones that come next as we navigate our critical path into the future.

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Decentralized CRM With Curiosumé

By Admin

On March 6, 2015

(Photo: New York Times)

Modern CRM (Customer Relationship Management) emerged from the boiler rooms of corporate sales departments. They needed a way to keep track of contacts, leads, calls, and ping schedules. Soon they added client information like DOB, Spouses name, neighborhood news, etc. The customer responded remarkably well, in fact, perhaps too well – they started asking for things like better service, warranty claims, and “can I get that in purple”.

Salespersons, being so closely tied to the revenue, began telling the service department that they are choking revenue, and telling the warranty department when customers are defecting, and telling engineering to introduce new features. They got away with it because they had management support as a revenue driver. Pretty soon CRM systems began migrating across the enterprise evolving along the way. Ironically, CRM now finds itself losing touch with the customer despite the ever increasing amount of data that now populates the hit sheets.

Recently, we were asked to consider scenarios for Curiosumé applications in a CRM role in the financial industry. There are several important features of Curiosumé that can reconnect the customer to the enterprise.

Top level ontology in the commons
Instead of controlling people’s information, set it free and watch where the client leads you. When all market channels pull their information from the same network of nodes and branches, they can always be current and synchronized. When the client adds information to the commons, this becomes available to the vendor outside of a firewall eliminating many security issues. You don’t necessarily need (or want) to know the ID of the client in order to serve them better.

Anonymity layer / autonomous matching:
AUPOT (Anonymous Until Point of Transaction) allows clients to deploy anonymous personas so that they will be more willing to;

reveal true intentions to the commons,
perform their own pre-analysis in the commons
increase their insights and contribute that to the commons.

Customer Controls Their Data:
Help the client own and control their own engagement data. Give them the same tools and opportunities to experiment as researchers as the Big Data wonks have. Allow them to delete, save, edit or have as many different personas as they want. Let them deploy and retract personas as a way of finding you. A better and more efficient relationship will emerge between both sides of a transaction.

User interface layer:
Instead of leading your client like cattle through an arbitrary ontology tree, show them photographs that corresponds to nodes in the common ontology. These can then be matched algorithmically to advisors, products, or different departments in the firm, in real time. In essence, you can create a multi-agent algorithmic game in a user interface that could be fun, engaging, and sticky as heck.

Advisor interface:
When a client chooses to engage the advisor or a product or a transaction, they can submit their persona into the algorithm to select specialized advisors or a team of advisors. Only at the point of mutual acceptance, both players cross the firewall and engage in honest, trusting commerce. Layers and layers of bureaucracy, vetting, and security breaches can be eliminated until the actual exchange is made.

(Photo: The Philadelphia Orchestra)

Powerful Feature:
One of the most powerful and least recognized features of Curiosumé is the ability to constrain a “score” to a number or a range. One reason for this is to create imbalance around the mean – when the system is not balanced, it can never be static and will always have some movement (regression toward the mean). It will become largely self-managing, self centering, and even a little joyous.

For example: if we constrain the client to having a Curiosumé score of zero; that means that for the total of all (+) sigmas, they must also accumulate an equal and opposite total of (-) sigmas such that their net total is zero, in order to pass “go”. When we lay this back on to the top level ontology (Wikipedia), we can find a series of paths that unite the (+) sigmas to the (-) sigmas. This path tells us a GREAT deal about where the client wants to go. Likewise an older client may prefer a net (+) portfolio where a younger client may prefer a net (-) portfolio. Decentralized CRM with Curiosumé can also be applied to risk pooling in the same manner. The deviation s from the mean and resulting movements are precisely how we would price the derivatives of intangibles, i.e. tangibles.

Outcome:
Decentralized CRM with Curiosumé is readily ready to happen. We know that people, advisors, and products can be brought together in personal and emotional engagement when they intersect paths of common interest. This is the weakness of both the barter system AND modern technological Capitalism If we can envision interests flowing dynamically along vectors, we will have the ability to align human incentives and the markets that depend on them.

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Introduction To Curiosumé

By Admin

On September 13, 2014

(Editors note: We are publishing the documentation and tutorial for the Curiosumé application for review and comment)

Introduction To Curiosumé

Curiosumé is an open source specification for the analog-to-digital conversion of knowledge asset objects. Designed as a system to replace the résumé as a means for describing the interests, skills, and abilities of people, things, and ideas — it functions as a personal digital API for the trade and exchange of actionable knowledge.

Since semantic knowledge assets are machine-readable, they generate matches, proximity measurements, relevance and importance rankings, and predicted probabilities of various outcomes. As such, the economics of “intangibles” becomes computable and meaningful.

By activating knowledge assets within an economic system, social entrepreneurs may readily trade and exchange intangible assets much as they do with tangible assets. Curiosumé facilitates trade of intangibles through a unique distributed network of objects and assigned attributes.

Ownership of one’s Personal API
Anonymity until point of transaction
Deploying multiple personas
Combining multiple personae
Imaginary personae
Measuring proxies for economic output, matching, assessing, scenario testing
Anonymity and privacy

Use Cases:

The use cases for Curiosumé will be a numerous as the number of entrepreneurs who can articulate the protocol in a market. Since Curiosumé eliminates “Competition” from the onset, there is little or no economic incentive to lie, deceive, or cheat. This allows the market an opportunity to defer vetting mechanisms to downstream applications that can compare (for example) a submitted persona against a control personal as a cryptographic key to unlock a transaction or block chain, etc. In essence, making cheating too expensive to sustain.

Individuals may overlay their own persona on any dataset to visualize and discover adjacencies, paths, and connections.
Individuals may interact with the web using a Personal API
Protegé and Mentors may find each other in close proximity in community or within an organization.
People with special skills can find worthy and productive collaborations in communities or within the organization.
Trade in knowledge assets is facilitated through “anonymous until point of transaction” protocol. People will provide better data knowing that they have complete control over their personal identities.
Build Social Currency; multiple personas may combine Curiosumés to establish the knowledge inventory for a team or to discover the probability that a group of friends may produce any mutual affinity efficiently together.
Any product or service may be described in Curiosumé format and compared to a community listing to discover customers, partners, and employees.
Curiosume data is pre-normalized allowing any user to make predictive assessments about any collection of personas relative to a project, product, event, itinerary, or interaction with any physical asset.
Cryptographic; a personal API may be used as a private key in unlocking smart contracts on the block chain protocol
Toll Booth on Big Data; marketers, employers, or data aggregators would pay individuals for access to their persona.
Instead of advertising to a demographic, marketers may identify specific knowledge assets and may offset prices based on the social values or proclivities of the persona.
Economic development agencies can take a knowledge asset survey of a region to identify what institutions or industries they have a strategic advantage. Or, they may retrain or import specific knowledge assets in order to grow into new industries – with great precision.
Philanthropic institutions can assess need and impact prior to committing to directed giving by assembling strategic knowledge assets around a specific philanthropic goal.
Corporations may assess their ability to enter a develop a new products or enter a new market based on a Curiosumé survey
Competitors may assess the ability, and cost to defend against their competition disrupting a new product initiative.
Corporations can better tailor their products to what customers actually want to buy rather than trying to “market” what the company already knows how to produce.
Corporations can make hiring vs training decisions with better clarity based on a Curiosumé survey.
The college “degree” system may evolve in favor of boutique personas designed for innovation in an industry.
The financial industry (from the NYSE, Banks to VC) can determine the probability that a company may be able to execute a business plan given their Curiosumé survey
The Insurance industry can mitigate risk exposures by assuring that the right collection of knowledge assets are deployed to, say, a construction project.

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The Hack-plications That will Change Everything

By Admin

On October 8, 2012

Zertify, Gamidox, and Exoquant (ZGE) are NOT the applications that will change everything. Rather, the hack-applications that follow on the ZGE data suites will, in fact, challenge the idea that periodic economic collapse and hard-fought restructuring is a necessary inevitability of the human condition.

The current financial system is vulnerable to disruption.

One reason is that it is becoming unstable. However, by far the more important reason is that it is very inefficient. The underlying notion that competition alone can determine a winner is wasteful because the time, energy, and resources required to battle, kill off, and dispose of an opponent may exceed, many times over, the value of a win.

What exactly is the nature of winning and losing?

Can truly winning only happen when the opponent is truly dead? Can a student win by learning even if they can obviously be vanquished by their teacher? Does a teacher win by living among productive citizens, as they themselves become vulnerable elders? Can such an exchange form without there necessarily being a financial, or even governmental, intermediaries. Today, quite the opposite is happening in companies and communities facing both knowledge gap and layoffs.

How Stable are The Stabilizers?

The legal system is very expensive to maintain. Global military projection is certainly not cost free nor are the subsequent defenses. Even the so-called competitive “college degree” and “intellectual property” are outliving their accessibility, and therefore, usefulness. Ironically, it will be the financial system itself that is undermined by the scarcity of the lifeblood money. People will adapt to new forms of enterprise as they have for millions of years. This is what Zertify accellerates.

What are the alternatives?

It would be vastly unfortunate for civilization if the financial system were to become ineffective prior to human’s natural evolution to a high order of economics. In fact, it seems that the failure of society to evolve is the only thing keeping the current financial system in play – there is no other game in town. Think about it; if money does not represent your productivity, why would you work in exchange for it? When you can no longer “harvest” your own productivity, why would you sow that field? People would sow a different field. This is what Gamidox provides.

Let’s Measure Ourselves Into Existence

History shows that the darkest depths of re-organization preceded prior leaps of human civilization. But is that ultimate, inevitable competition and sacrifice actually necessary, except to measure the old system out of existence. People are already quite organized, why do they need to be re-organized except to fit within a measurement system that has outlived it’s usefulness, applicability and relevence. Exoquant allows the new humanity be measured into a new existence.

Let’s get it right this time

The ZGE applications provide the intermediate step that never existed at any other time in history. ZGE are built and structured upon trust networks and Internet connectivity. Why not start rebuilding now while we still have a chance to get it right, very right.

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The Wall Street Hack

By Admin

On August 25, 2012

In the first post of this series, we identified the 5 components of a financial system and suggested that Zertify, Gamidox, and Exoquant would serve to simulate their functions in a parallel economy before ultimately being adopted completely.

In this post we will identify the hack on the Wall Street Financial instrument regime. Although exoquant is a bit technical, the basic hack is quite simple:

Everyone knows that money is created through the creation of debt.
Everyone also knows that debt is a promise to produce something more in the future.

Likewise:

Everyone also knows that innovations increase human productivity.
Everyone also knows that innovation is a promise to produce something more in the future.

Here’s the hack:

Therefore, a currency backed by debt and a currency backed by innovation are both backed by future productivity. As such, two currencies backed by the same underlying asset are fully convertible with each other. Water dissolves water and innovation dissolves debt.

Here is how the Wall Street algorithm works:

People produce stuff in exchange for money
Bankers do not care about money, they care about the rate of change of money over time. This is called the “interest” rate.
Stockholders do not care about interest rate, they care about the rate of change of interest rate over time, this is called growth rate.
Hedge fund managers do not care about growth rate, they care about the rate of change of growth rate over time, this is the margin on their bets; options, and derivatives, etc.
CDOs and other financial exotica become increasingly divorced from the fact that people produce stuff for money.

The Exoquant Analogy:

The value of information is derived from the rate of change of data over time
The value of knowledge is derived from the rate of change of information over time
The value of innovation is derived from the rate of change of knowledge over time
The value of wisdom is derived from the value of innovation over time.

In order to “see” innovation before it happens, all we need to do is identify and measure rates of change of information in communities…and so on. Technically, this is a derivative, i.e., something whose value is derived from the value of something else. All of these metrics can be seen quite readily in the Zertify, Gamidox data sets. Each is a “derivative” backed by the stuff that people produce rather than the fiction of debt. The ability to predict future productivity is superior with an innovation backed currency and therefore superior to debt forced productivity – often compared to slavery.

The Silver Bullet

Innovation is a magic word. The hack is true to the Wall Street math as well as American culture. Anyone running for public office would not attack the proposition of an innovation backed currency. Therefore, the hack will not trigger an antigen.

The next and final post, The Currency Hack, will formulate this innovation currency in more detail.

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Hacking the Financial System

By Admin

On August 22, 2012

Hacking The Financial System is not about some doomsday scenario for the end times, it represents the natural ability for humans to adapt to constraints in their environment. Right now, the financial system is vulnerable to many new systems and technologies that are reorganizing society. This series hopes to describe the meta dynamics behind these trends and offer ways for all people and institutions to adapt.

The financial System is made up of 5 components; they act as a system. If any of these components falters or is corrupted, the whole system becomes unstable.

These 5 components are:

Markets (demand)
Entrepreneurs (supply)
Accounting System (inventory)
Institutions (to keep the game fair)
Currency (storage and exchange of value)

For example:

The dot.com crash was a problem with the accounting system failure. The 2008 crisis was a vetting mechanism failure. Devaluations across the globe are currency failures. Poverty is a market failure. Corruption is an entrepreneurial failure. All of these forces are interrelated and any one will have an impact on all of the others.

Curiosumé, The Value Game, and The WIKiD Tools Algorithm are specifically designed to replicate major functions of these 5 components – but in a different way. Since Finance and Economics are mathematical, and natural systems are also mathematical, we cannot escape the math – our hack needs to be true to the math. For this reason, the work may seem fairly technical.

On the other hand, we have an incredible opportunity to correct many flaws of the old economy. Anything that has no direct impact on the math also has no impact on performance and function of the 5 components – and can be easily designed OUT of the system.

For example:

We have an opportunity to swap out competition for collaboration
We have an opportunity to swap out scarcity for abundance
We have an opportunity to swap out mass consumption for mass sustainability
We also have the opportunity to eliminate a wide range of biases such as gender bias, racial bias, physical bias, social class bias, political bias, and many many more factors that may be irrelevant.

Where’s the Hack?

Every time there is an economic instability of any magnitude, black market currencies tend to form. We have all heard stories of Levis, cigarettes, or even tulip bulbs being used as currency. Black market currencies can also be quite subtle, yet no less tradable.

With 21st Century technology and social media, we are witnessing the emergence of what we can only now call “social currency”; such as reputation, referrals, vouches, influence, SEO, community, groups, and various other domains. These are all black market currencies because they are used for the storage and exchange of the value that people create…what they lack is the rest of the “system”.

The difference now – and perhaps this is the first time in human history – should the so-called black market currency become systemized to the same extent and actually perform better than the currency that it hedges, “a flip” will occur and the old system will fail to re-boot back to it’s current form as it has after every preceding economic crisis.

That’s the hack.

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Gambling With New Value

By Admin

On May 11, 2012

What if the origin of political division in this country could be traced to a simple glitch of the generally accepted accounting practices? Let me explain:

The Economist magazine recently wrote an article in favor of airlines unbundling fees; Ancillaries; You Know They Make Sense

“By charging fees, once neglected baggage service departments have become star revenue performers for airlines. Department managers can now justify new technology and equipment. Where before, baggage service only represented a cost, it now provides millions in revenue”.

In other words, charging money for baggage essentially transfers this service from the liability column to the asset column of the accounting statement. As a liability, it can only atrophy under the weight of austerity measures.

And Then The Carousel Starts Spinning

What happens next is quite remarkable. The airline PR machine twists this into a veiled statement of American individuality, claiming “freedom is about having choices” and touting themselves as the protector of all that is good and great in America. Then, they BLAME the traveler for expecting that mustachioed Soviet-era entitlement to unlimited [baggage] service.

Just give it a French name

“Passengers will continue to complain about being nickel-and-dimed, but it may be that they are making false comparisons … “When a la carte shopping is successfully implemented, it’s not an evil method. Quite to the contrary, it’s the ultimate compliment to the consumer—it acknowledges their right to choose.”

Roll in the legislators

The resemblance to political discourse about a whole myriad of issues is uncanny and would make anyone suspect a larger conspiracy. But what if the problems are real simple? What if the genus of political division in this country could be traced to a simple but widespread accounting anomaly? There is no accounting system for human values.

For example; consider the fact that Motherhood does not count in American Gross Domestic Product, but Day Care services do. So in order to stimulate economic growth, legislators subsidize day care so a parent can go to work while in the same breath witholding services if the mother “fails” to work. Don’t forget to always blame the customer when things don’t go right.

Gambling With New Value

Similar paradox never seems too far from key social issues such as education, health care, Internet privacy, Immigration, International Trade, Homeland Security, even Banking and Finance Reform:

From Fox News coverage of the JPO Morgan 2 Billion dollar loss:

The basic problem is that regulators have been working for the last two years to define the difference between hedging and gambling, and can’t. Either the rules would be too severe and shut down banking, or would permit reckless risk taking that could take down a huge bank, and potentially put the taxpayer on the hook to pay off depositors through the FDIC.

A hedge acts on both sides of the accounting balance sheet while a gamble does not. What if that’s what it’s all about; all the fighting, and slander, and division, and prejudice, and injustice, and violence, etc., caused by a simple accounting system problem.

When we do not have an accounting system for human values, we can only gamble with them. To hedge, New Value must be must be tangible. The problem is simple; it is a failure in the accounting system for New Value Movements.

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The New Economy Movement

By Admin

On March 27, 2012

The following 7 minute talk was presented at the Innotribe Sessions at SIBOS 2011 conference in Toronto Canada.

Here I identify a serious omission in our form of economics which may inhibit the ability for currency to represent the things that people do and make. I also introduce how a new class of financial instruments could re-connect currency with productivity thereby reintroducing vast amounts of value into the tradable asset (currency) pool.

What if the solution to the great complexity of economic collapse is actually fairly simple – and we don’t find it? What if the new economy is going to happen whether we want it to or not – and we are not prepared? What if the tipping point to the New Economy is already past – and we are not in the game?

The only ones to blame would be ourselves for not building the obvious.

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The Game and The Counter-Game

By Admin

On July 7, 2011

The term “Gamification” is pretty cool, except that it is meaningless. Anyone who has ever worked a day in his or her life knows that the World is already gamed. Anyone who follows politics and world events sees the game playing out constantly. Everyone, including the winners, know that the game is stacked. The last thing anyone needs is another game layer.

If you are like the majority of people on Earth, you are given a game that you can’t win playing by the rules. If you are like the majority of people on Earth, you would do anything for a chance to play a game that you CAN win. Imagine the value of an IPO for a gaming company with that prospectus.

What is a Counter Game?

Wikileaks – love them or hate them – is a Counter Game because they turned the lights on a game that was being played in the dark. Bloggers play a Counter Game because media was editorialized by powerful interests. Twitter is a Counter Game because it drives the narrative instead of being driven by it. In fact, any place where there is a broker – someone or something that benefits from you NOT having complete information – is an opportunity to introduce a Counter Game.

An astonishing array of Counter Games is forming in social media and the brokers are falling out of the sky like hailstones. Power brokers, mortgage brokers, energy brokers, media brokers, even Google is gamed by Counter Gamers. The better they get at hiding information; the better the Counter Gamers gets at rooting it out. The harder they try to control a message, the better the Counter Gamers gets at disclosing the truth behind the message.

The game creates the Counter Game.

Likewise, to kill the game is to kill the Counter Game. As such, the only way to kill the counter-game is to kill the game. Think about that for a bit…Do we really want to do that?

The Holy Grail of the Counter Game is the global monetary system. Money is supposed to represent human productivity; otherwise people would not go to work to make things that everyone else needs. The Game has caused Money to become increasingly divorced from actual productivity. People who produce the most value are exploited while those who produce the least are most grandly rewarded. The Game is stacked with money.

The Holy Grail of The Counter Game is to replace monetary currency with a True Value Currency.

The financial system stands on 5 pillars: currency, inventory, vetting institutions, entrepreneurs, and value arbitrage. All of these are slowly being replicated, mimicked, or duplicated in Social Media. When the 5 pillars integrate in social media systems, a new currency will emerge. People will use it to store and exchange the value that they create through their work. It will be a no-brainer

The Value Game

The Value Game is outlined in this short video using the now proverbial “Corporate Jet” as the turning point in the global economic paradigm. The Value Game does not kill the Financial Game, rather, it challenges, corrects, and improves it. The Value game has reached a critical milestone – it has been funded in dollars by investors.

This is not insignificant.

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Model For The Mobility of Engineering Professionals Under NAFTA

By Admin

On March 4, 2011