The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Definition of ‘True Cost Economics'
An economic model that seeks to include the cost of negative externalities into the pricing of goods and services. Supporters of this type of economic system feel products and activities that direct or indirectly cause harmful consequences to living beings and/or the environment should be accordingly taxed to reflect the somewhat hidden costs.
Continue reading “Reform Coalition: “True Cost” Economics & Genuine Progress + True Cost RECAP”
What do you think of the following: YouTube has an “informal system” that allows companies with copyrights to automatically scan all uploads for potential violations. If the software detects the “possibility” of a violation (image, tune, trademark, etc.), it automatically tells YouTube to delete the content. This software is so automated, it can censor millions of uploads a day without human intervention.
Here's an example of how this censoring system was used to block speech that Universal music found objectionable:
A site called MegaUpload, a “large file” sharing service based in Hong Kong, is targeted by copyright holders, including Universal Music, for shutdown. They believe the site makes “copyright piracy” easier.
To fight back on the media front, MegaUpload, a popular (50 m users a day), pays $3 million to produce a music video that promotes the service. The video features big name musical talent.
MegaUpload posts the music video to YouTube to share it with a global audience.
Universal Music, uses special access it has the to the YouTube system (inappropriately named the “content management system”) that allows it to scan all videos posted to the service for potential uses of Universal musical content or the mention of or likenesses of artists it has under contract.
Universal Music identifies that several of its artists are in the MegaUpload video. It automatically signals YouTube to remove/take down the video. YouTube complies. It does so automatically and without verification that Universal even has a valid claim to the copyright. Why?
Continue reading “John Robb: YouTube Censorship by the Millions”
The below report by Patrick Cockburn, one of the best reporters now covering the Middle East, describes the growing tensions in Iraq over the question of sharing its oil wealth among its constituent regions. Although his report is important in its own right, its contents become even more ominous when they viewed in a larger historical context:
The long view of history is likely to record the greatest ‘sins' of Iraq, Iran, and Libya prompting interventions by the West have been related to the control of oil — not nuclear weapons; not any communist leanings during the Cold War; not support of worldwide terrorism.
Each country committed the unforgivable sin of being governed at one time by nationalistic leaders who believed the oil under each country belonged to that country and should be controlled by the government of that country — therefore, these leaders had to be removed:
One short-term common denominator in these imposed regime changes was that the nationalist leader was replaced by a more compliant government that agreed to an opening of that country's oil fields to exploitation by privately owned western oil companies.
While history does not repeat itself, memories of the past condition events in the future. Over the longer term, perceived wrongs are not forgotten, and such interventions can provoke blowbacks, which in turn provoke counteractions that enmesh the intervener in a welter of increasingly complicated conflicts. In the case of Iran, for example, the 1953 coup eventually backfired in 1979, when Reza Shah Pahlavi was overthrown by the Islamic revolution led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini then established a regime retook control of Iran's oil fields, among other things. But the Iranian game is not over, and the historical pattern of move and countermove is in play, with the nationalist (Islamic) regime of Iran again in the West's crosshairs, allegedly because of its nuclear ambitions and support of international terror. Nevertheless, the glittering temptations of re-privatizing Persian oilfields are lurking in the background, attracting the private oil capitalists of the West like flies to honey.
Finish long comment from Spinney, plus reference, plus See Also.
Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Break-Up of Iraq, History of Oil Invasions”
Where the crypto rubber meets the Road of Finance…
December 11, 2011
Why (my, all) financial systems fail — information complexity
I spent over a decade building the snappiest financial system around. In that time I pursued one goal of efficiency: reduction of complexity. This wasn't only goodness in an angelic sense, it was a pragmatic goal to reduce my own costs in building systems.
The result was pretty spectacular: we were settling trades in seconds and doing so with every leg firmly fastened to the ground. That is, the whole thing was running with direct concrete ties to assets.
But, the big players weren't interested. Indeed they were more than uninterested, they were highly interested in making sure this would never ever happen. Time after time, the message was delivered: Never. Other companies received the same message, so after a few years, I started to take it seriously.
At the time I hypothesised that the reason for this was insider fraud, or at least profits capture. The complexities were endemic and there were very few people who could see the whole picture. So, I theorised that those who could understand the complexities were cashing in on their advantage; from the inside. And some very few who cashed in were also driving the information agenda, as their success made them both wealthy and influential: more complexity.
Of course such a hypothesis is unlikely to find proof. By its very nature, how do you prove such a tendency towards chaos? Here comes an alternate perspective from ZeroHedge, citing two papers (1, 2):
And the punchline: “Liquidity requires symmetric information, which is easiest to achieve when everyone is ignorant. This determines the design of many securities, including the design of debt and securitization.” Reread the last statement as it explains perhaps better than anything, the true functioning of modern capital markets and why they are terminally broken: in order to preserve the system, the banking cartel need to make everything of virtually infinite complexity so that no one has a clear understanding of what is going on!
Phi Beta Iota: In brief, finance is fraud. As William Greider documents in his book, The Soul of Capitalism, financial instruments (incomprehensible to their own vendors) appreciated seventeen times while real assets appreciated five times. Twelve is the fraud-complexity-corruption delta.
See Also:
Open (Source) Protest in Moscow
Posted: 10 Dec 2011 10:23 AM PST
Open source protest, an organizational method that allows many, many small groups to come together to take on larger foes, has been spreading by leaps and bounds. It's now reached Moscow. A picture from today: The crowds on Moscow's Bolotnaya Square (and the spires of the Kremlin beyond). Here are some nice aerial shots.
See Also:
My Talk With Tom Atlee: Primer on Citizen Intelligence
Review: The Power of the Powerless–Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern Europe
Review: A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
Review: Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Review: The Empathetic Civilization–the Race to Global Consciousness in a World of Crisis
Worth a Look: Books Reviews on Education for Freedom & Innovation
Government Capture – Two Ways it Affects Us All
Capture. Corporate power over government. It may seem like a dour topic (it is) and it may be hard to put it into perspective in our lives. How does it affect you and me? Lobbying, political influence, money in politics all seem very far away from daily life and it’s hard to see just where these issues touch our lives. So, let’s talk about it.
In the past couple of decades our country has been deeply divided on a number of topics but two issues stand out in the arena of corporate power over government: Health Care Legislation & War with Iraq.
. . . . . . . Two Examples Discussed: Health Care and Iraq . . . . . . .
This isn’t government of the people, for the people, by the people. It’s profit maximization for key industries and contractors with interests in military operation and healthcare. This is the essence of capture: corporate power has hijacked the language and purpose of government for their own ends. Democrat or Republican – it no longer matters at the national level because corporate money in politics has bought both parties.
The trap of social media noise
If we put a number on it, people will try to make the number go up.
Now that everyone is a marketer, many people are looking for a louder megaphone, a chance to talk about their work, their career, their product… and social media looks like the ideal soapbox, a free opportunity to shout to the masses.
But first, we're told to make that number go up. Increase the number of fans, friends and followers, so your shouts will be heard. The problem of course is that more noise is not better noise.
In Corey's words, the conventional, broken wisdom is:
Follow a ton of people to get people to follow back
Focus on the # of followers, not the interests of followers or your relationship with them.
Pump links through the social platform (take your pick, or do them all!)
Offer nothing of value, and no context. This is a megaphone, not a telephone.
Think you're winning, because you're playing video games (highest follower count wins!)
This looks like winning (the numbers are going up!), but it's actually a double-edged form of losing. First, you're polluting a powerful space, turning signals into noise and bringing down the level of discourse for everyone. And second, you're wasting your time when you could be building a tribe instead, could be earning permission, could be creating a channel where your voice is actually welcomed.
Leadership (even idea leadership) scares many people, because it requires you to own your words, to do work that matters. The alternative is to be a junk dealer.
The game theory pushes us into one of two directions: either be better at pump and dump than anyone else, get your numbers into the millions, outmass those that choose to use mass and always dance at the edge of spam (in which the number of those you offend or turn off forever keep increasing), or
Relentlessly focus. Prune your message and your list and build a reputation that's worth owning and an audience that cares.
Only one of these strategies builds an asset of value.
