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Grayclaves and Henry the Lion

brett — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:55:01 +0000

I read two articles on a similar theme this morning. Firstly there was Scott Adams' post Startup Country, about creating a small, elite, light-weight country inside another country and using it to bootstrap the economy of the larger country. Secondly I read The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty, published by The Atlantic. This article actually talks about Paul Romer's ideas on "Charter Cities" - a city governed by it's own charter, rather than national laws. According to The Atlantic, this idea goes back to the 12th century with Heny the Lion and the idea of Imperial Free Cities.

If I squint, I can maybe see this happening. Maybe it will be more along the lines of a Burbclave - a franchised nation nestled within a gated community (as envisaged by Neal Stephenson). Of course, by the time all this happens we'll be old and decrepit, so I think they'll be more like Grayclaves. We'll all be trading bio-engineered medicines with the Grayclave next door.

Coombe Abbey

The Future is Addictive

brett — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:15:49 +0000

I read Paul Graham's essay on the acceleration of addictiveness this morning, and it really struck a chord. I feel as though it is almost impossible to become bored these days, there is so much to do. Is this because the world is getting more addictive, or just because I have gotten older and have much more control over my life so I tend to do only those things I want to do?

If he is right and the world is becoming a more addictive place, then there are obviously many interesting implications for society as a whole. What will happen if most people are too addicted to the many pleasurable activities available to actually contribute to society? How can we make economically productive activities have the same level of addiction as those that consume economic capital? Definitely food for thought.

Citizen Journalism, social networking and reputation

brett — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:07:22 +0000

Bill Thompson has posted a thoughtful article over at the BBC about the changes that social networking is making to our standards of social interaction. He discusses his own tweeting and live-blogging at conferences, and then talks about the news updates that were tweeted by Tearah Moore during the Fort Hood incident.

Obviously these are two examples that illustrate both the good and bad sides of citizen journalism. The good being closer interaction with the audience, potentially closer exposure to events as they are unfolding and the speed at which events are reported. The bad being that there is no controls over the quality of the information being reported - it may be true, it may not. Also, citizen journalists may unwittingly or deliberately trample over the rights of the people being reported on.

I think that reputation is the panacea for the problems described above. Journalists have a reputation to consider when they are reporting. This keeps them focused on reporting the facts and ethically constrained (obviously something has gone horribly wrong at Fox News). As online reputation becomes more of a consideration for Joe or Jill Plumber, hopefully it will mean they too will be more concerned with "getting it right", as far as their tweets, blog posts, and Facebook updates go.

Social Collapse – Best Practices

brett — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:20:03 +0000

Hmmm.... first I read this transcript from a speech by Dmitry Orlov entitled "Social Collapse - Best Practices", and then I saw on Boing Boing the post How are you coping with Collapse-Anxiety?

The first post describes what might happen if the US collapses in the same way economically as the USSR did in the 1990's. It then goes on to making recommendations about what to focus on - essentially food, transportation, shelter and security. I thought it was fascinating because although I have been thinking for a number of years that the economic situation was going to get bad, I didn't envision quite a collapse of that order of magnitude. As the crisis continues however, the possibility suddenly seems to become credible.

I found the comments interesting in the Boing Boing post. It seems as though quite a number of people were actually starting to find themselves in situations reminiscent of those described in the first post - primarily from posters in the US. Scary.

Evidence of the Impending Singularity?

brett — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:47:01 +0000

While reading this article in The Economist, the section on rising inequality leapt out at me. The newspaper suggested that technology may be to blame. This is certainly a situation that I've been expecting for a while.

In contrast to the Singularity proposed by Vernor Vinge, I believe that as people become more educated, have better tools, and live longer, it will be harder and harder for young, less well educated, and poorer people to compete. This will stratify society.

The Redshift Techno-Economic Theory

brett — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:19:06 +0000

The Redshift theory basically categorizes computing needs as either growing faster or slower than Moore's Law. Traditional business is over-served by Moore's Law, whereas applications such as financial market simulations, drug industry research, computer animation, and the high-growth end of the internet industry (Facebook, You-Tube, Flickr), are needing computing resources faster than Moore's Law. These industries are apparently the ones going to generate above-GDP levels of return to an investor.

This theory was advanced by Greg Papadopoulos of Sun Microsystems. One of Sun's solutions for servicing the computing needs of "Redshifting" companies is Project Blackbox - providing as much computing power as possible inside a shipping container.

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