Tag: war

War Is A Social Agreement

On July 15, 2010

I often make the point that a currency is simply a social agreement. People need to agree that a monetary unit represents their productivity so that they will use it to trade their productivity with the productivity of another person. The test question for any so-called currency (coined by Jay Deragon) is: “Yeah, but can you buy groceries with it?”

I am now seeing a SHARP increase in the social interest for an alternate currency to the dollar. The dollar does represent productivity – albeit future productivity in the form of debt – that’s why it is still exchanged for the work that we do. My suspicion however is that the social agreement regarding the dollar is, in fact, increasingly becoming a social disagreement.

People have a deep seated unease with what the dollar is and what the dollar represents. To escape the dollar is to escape a tangle of influence that impacts everything we say, do, and think about ourselves and about each other. It almost seems that to escape the dollar is to escape ourselves.

That’s just the idea that came to me after watching this video about a soldier questioning the occupations. He is saying something very interesting:

War is simply the soldier’s willingness to fight it. It is a social agreement.

Is a social contract legally binding…and who cares?

By Admin

On July 13, 2009

In General Information

Trillions of dollars in play:

Trillions upon trillions of dollars worth of value that once coursed through the veins of Market Capitalism is being transferred to social media from the legacy economy now stifled by insurmountable debt. These numbers are indeed spectacular because they account for the invisible value “lost”, and most importantly, the calculations provides clues on how to “find” it again.

What is a Social Contract worth?

According to Legacy Economics, the term “social contract” describes a broad class of theories that try to explain the ways in which people maintain social order. The notion of the social contract implies that people give up some rights to a government or other authority in order to receive or maintain social order. Otherwise, we would each have unlimited natural freedoms, including the “right to all things” and thus the freedom to harm all who threaten our own self-preservation; there would be an endless “war of all against all”.

Take me to your leader

By contrast, Social Media begs the questions: who or what exactly is that authority? Isn’t the greatness of the Internet the lack of an all powerful authority? So why aren’t we at a war of all against all? What keeps social media at peace instead of an endless flame war? Whatever this alien is, it is capturing and storing trillions upon trillions of dollars of value away from the legacy economy, but where?

Separating facts from fiction

According to the old economy, it is a “fact” that human knowledge is an “intangible asset” of which there are only two types defined:

1. Legal intangibles such as trade secrets, copyrights, patents, and goodwill (brands).

2. Competitive intangibles such as knowledge activities, collaboration activities, leverage activities, and structural activities.

However, when we consider social media;

1. There is no law governing the phenomenon – so there are no legal intangibles.

2. Collaboration, leveraging and structural activities are not being conducted in a competitive environment (the context of one “Company” against another).

So, the definition fails to account for knowledge assets in social media. The Ingenesist Project discovers the lost trillions simply by treating the social contract like a legal contract.

Tangible assets are managed by contracts

Technically, any oral agreement between two parties can constitute a binding legal contract. The legacy economy limitation, however, is that only parties to a written agreement have material evidence (the written contract itself) to prove the actual terms uttered at the time the agreement was struck.

But social media, email, and blog posts, etc., all constitute vast “written” agreements and material evidence as far as most people are concerned. So what is missing? Are we waiting for permission from government, Wall Street, corporations, attorneys, or the Federal Reserve to say it is OK for people to stop competing with each other or to renegotiate the terms of the social contract (and currency of exchange)?

The mystery is no mystery

Guess what, there is nothing there. Absolutely nothing except philosophical barriers carried over from legacy economics built upon political division. The mystery is that there is no mystery except using social media to unite people. After all, the biggest Brand in the world is a Community Organizer. Such calculation provides clues on how to “find” value again.

The Winners of War Write the History

By Admin

On May 20, 2009

In General Information

Every once in a while the debate on written history emerges through school textbook selection, a controversial act of legislation, or by a historic figure defending their legacy long into what should otherwise be a comfortable retirement. Even in the age of Social Media, the tenet holds fast; the winners of the war write the history.

Enter Social Media.

Computer enabled society has a way of flipping ideas over on their head. For example; if the winners of the war tell the history, then the inverse must be true. Those writing history are the ones that win wars. As traditional news media gasps under the weight of a millions of bloggers, so goes one of the most prominent fortunes of war – the ability to define a culture. The history still gets written.

“Extra Virtual” Education

Education, like traditional media before it, is encountering their nemesis in the Internet. The content that kids get on the internet is superior in richness, diversity, and relevance than textbooks. No longer can school administrators select the material that students must learn. If they don’t agree with the way history is written, they can easily find an alternate history. They can live in “extra virtual” space – that is, outside the virtual world and inside a chosen reality. People discover their own culture. The history still gets written.

Historical Perspectives

Ultimately our new historians need to enter the workforce to decide what to innovate, what to produce, and what to be passionate about. Where will they find perspective?

The study of history is essential to the three ultimate purposes of education in a free society: to prepare individuals for (1) active citizenship, to safeguard liberty and justice; (2) a career of work, to sustain life; and (3) the private pursuit of happiness, or personal fulfillment.

Expanding Conclusions

Many conclusions are based on a set of assumptions. The more elaborate the assumptions the more risk there is at arriving at the wrong conclusion. However, when two opinions are built on the same assumptions and yet their conclusions differ, that difference is a very valuable set of data because it now defines a range of possible outcomes. As such, the inverse must also be true; there are many possible ways to achieve a solution within the range of desireable outcomes. This is the domain of the innovation economy.

The True Value of Education

The next economic paradigm will be characterized by many history tellers multiplied by the number of ways to attain the goals of education in a free society; including, but not limited to active citizenship, safeguarding liberty and justice, sustaining life in a joyful career, and the pursuit of happiness and personal fulfillment.

There is only one way to travel a single known path. However, from the ability to compare alternate histories, the purpose of education is greatly expanded and the value of education is multiplied many times over. The teacher will become the ultimate entrepreneur.

The Next Economic Paradigm