/XMR/ general weekly book club - WEEK 3

This is the third week of the book club. This week we continued by reading chapters 7 & 8 of the book "The Sovereign Individual" by Sir William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson.

Now onto brief description of the chapters:

>Chapter 7: Transcending locality: The emergence of the Cybereconomy

>The information economy is not like a highway, a railroad, or a pipeline. It does not haul or transport information from point to point the way the Trans-Canada Highway carries heavy trucks from Alberta to New Brunswick. What the world calls the “Information Superhighway” is not merely a transit link. It is the destination.

This chapter is mainly spent elaborating how the authors imagined the Cybereconomy will look like. It does make many startling predictions (for example the prediction of cybercash, though still naively pegged to gold). However, the more important aspect is the application of the shifted logic of megapolitics. In essence, in a world where transit is low-cost, protection of assets is cheaper with the cost of organized violence is rising, and relocation is cheap without consequence as to aforementioned assets or connections, physical locality no longer matters as much and new forms of economic organizations are bound to replace the large-scale Industrial operations of the bygone age.

>Chapter 8: The end of egalitarian economics: The revolution in Earnings Capacity in a world without jobs

>The Information Age means more than just a growing use of powerful computers. It means a revolution in lifestyles, institutions, and the distribution of resources.

This is an interesting pretense that logically follows from the contents of the previous chapters. When work is rewarded based on abilities to use technology rather than a position in a company and qualification, and locality ceases to matter as much an interesting phenomena starts to realize itself. That is a growing large inequality within jurisdictions, and drastically lowered inequality between jurisdictions. Furthermore, the authors lay down their case that because abilities are shaped in a normal distribution, small nudges can lock out large portions of the population. This will inevitably lead to a growing underclass that will advocate for nationalism, protectionism, "common sense" controls (by the logic of the Industrial Age that is), etc.

Questions:

1. What would be the principal factors affecting the speed at which certain "jobs", or rather roles of economic function, will shift into the new configuration and markets of the Information Age?

2. What do you think will be the first nation-states pushed towards rapid dissolution, and what will survive the transition? The authors mention Canada, Belgium, Italy for the first one, and New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Singapore as examples for the latter. Agree or disagree? What about other places?

3. In an age of rapidly forming/disolving and transforming "virtual corporations" would there be any overall structures that are able to persist in such a way that a more advanced dead-man switch can work autonomously, preserving itself?

But as always, feel encouraged to share your own thoughts, opinions, or summaries.

To keep the pagecount, (as well as some personal reasons for a lack of free time), now going for chapter 10 ending by the 7th of May. The site will be updated Monday morning with this post and discussions. See previous weeks' discussions/starter posts at

>https://xmrbookclub.neocities.org/sig/week2.html

>https://xmrbookclub.neocities.org/sig/week1.html

>https://xmrbookclub.neocities.org/sig/index.html

P.S. I know week 1's page is a tad bit more scuffed compared to week 2. I will eventually get around to fixing it so don't worry

Thanks for this, i'm way behind now so it looks like i have some Sunday reading to do after the torrent finishes, provided its still being seeded.

In theory it should still be seeded. But thanks I tried tuning down the pace since this week, so will try to keep that ~40 pages/week pace, hopefully enough for people to be able to catch up. Either way previous weeks' discussions are archived in case you want to take a look at them (or check out the posts directly >>54700145 and >>54611499).

Thanks, yeah its all finished up now, i'll keep seeding for the foreseeable future

It's interesting to note the authors predict the information age will be the end of egalitarian economics. However, further analysis of the chapter reveals that the economic playing field will be more fair than ever before due to globalized equal access to information:

-A high intelligence person will be able to compete on equal footing even if they are born in the smelliest poo smeared corners of earth. They will no longer be held down by their incompetent governments and fellow countrymen. Their quality of life will be lifted.

-The lazy and unintelligent lards in previously first world countries are in for a rude awakening as the fast burning nanny states lose the ability to prop them up. All these lards with epic skills such as writing inclusivity clauses will find they are uncompetitive in the global market place. Their quality of life will drop.

-Welfare leaches in first world countries as well as nations of low IQ masses who are propped up with foreign aid will lose access to this money and suffer immensely.

When the authors said "the end of egalitarian economics" what they really meant was "the end of manufactured equality". If you are intelligent and creative, you will do well, regardless of race or location. If you are an NPC lard, you will be replaced by an NPC simulating technology, and you will be poor.

My only question so far, and i have only just started chapter 2 so maybe this is addressed later and if so disregard the latter; if everyone is to be on the same footing in the cybereconomy, how is global accessibility brought to 100%, and address the cost variation of being connected?

Later on the authors do mention stuff like fiber optic cables and bandwidth growth outpacing Moore's law, etc. That is still chapter 6 though. But to summarize, bandwidth is already extremely cheap and it is becoming cheaper, so its core effects can manifest themselves equally throughout the world. Just as Youtube makes TV programming obsolete in the US, it does the same in India or Ethiopia. Or just as people turn to cryptocurrencies because of fiat failing, people outside of "the West" do so too, increasingly more. Bitcoin is more adopted in Nigeria, Turkey, El Salvador than Industrial era developed welfare states like Norway or Germany. Also there is the factor that aside from ping differences, connecting to France or Japan are the same cost.

Later on the authors do mention stuff like fiber optic cables and bandwidth growth outpacing Moore's law, etc. That is still chapter 6 though. But to summarize, bandwidth is already extremely cheap and it is becoming cheaper, so its core effects can manifest themselves equally throughout the world. Just as Youtube makes TV programming obsolete in the US, it does the same in India or Ethiopia. Or just as people turn to cryptocurrencies because of fiat failing, people outside of "the West" do so too, increasingly more. Bitcoin is more adopted in Nigeria, Turkey, El Salvador than Industrial era developed welfare states like Norway or Germany. Also there is the factor that aside from ping differences, connecting to France or Japan are the same cost.

With regards to 100% connection, similar logic applies. Newer technologies are less dependent on locale and infrastructure. This counteracts whatever burden a country might have, geographical, historical, governmental, etc. To quote the book:

>New technologies, such as the digital cellular telephone, allow communications to function independently of the ability of the local police to defend every telephone pole in a jurisdiction from copper thieves. By the way, this is Chapter 7, Lightening the Burden of Bad Government

>the end of manufactured equality

That is actually quite fitting, way less of a mouthful than

>a growing large inequality within jurisdictions, and drastically lowered inequality between jurisdictions

Nice elaboration anyways.

I think the author overstimates the impact of the cyber economy, bitcoiners are going to still get fucked with taxes, the cybereconomy runs on top of the real economy and you still need to pay and report your merchandise on the frontiers, also farmers are the backbone of every economy and while the book talks how violence is getting more costly Farmers are still fucked as 5000 years ago so i don't see how would they benefit from using bitcoin let alone monero they would probably go to jail.

>I think the author overstimates the impact of the cyber economy

>Farmers are still fucked

It's worth pointing out here that in Chapter 7 the authors posit three stages of cyber economy. In the first stage the internet is used to facilitate what are otherwise ordinary industrial-era transactions (not yet subversive to old-world institutions). The second stage is used for more advanced economic features which were difficult or impossible in the industrial age, such as remote accounting or medical diagnosis. However,

>The second stage of Net commerce will still function within the old institutional framework, employing national currencies and submitting to the jurisdiction of nation states. [...] These profits made on Internet transactions will still be subject to taxation.

The third stage is when economic activity has fully migrated outside the jurisdiction of nation states as they lose power due to the changing megapolitical factors. Here, the digital currency will be fully utilized and untaxed.

Clearly we're still in stage 2 and will be until the use of crypto is necessitated by further inflation, increased taxation, dystopian threat of CBDCs, war and blackswans. Thus the megapolitical implications of the internet are still far from played out. As for your point about farmers, they will certainly still require protection as they always have, along with manufacturing facilities which simply must be fixed to a geographical location. The megapolitics of the information age rewards efficiency, and the sovereignties of the future must provide protection at a low cost in order to be competitive, else they will choke themselves out in the highly competitive global market.

>how is global accessibility brought to 100%, and address the cost variation of being connected?

Any anons here who can speak about satellite internet tech? How good is Starlink right now and how is shaping up for the future?

You are right i suppose i read a little more about the ford example he gave in the book, for example in the book he speaks how ford was pilfered by unions and the goverment but another example worth sharing is how ford was pilfered by shareholders as well, for example the Ford Motor slashed its dividend in 1916 and minority stockholders—the Dodge brothers— who successfully sued Ford Motor Company for a big dividend payout

For example here ford didn't have as much money and to preserve his monopoly on cars he needed to build factorys faster, however eventually by goverment power due to the courts he was forced to pay the shareholders their fair share of dividends so in the short run he couldn't build more factorys and pay his workers more and was forced to pay money to parasites like the shareholder class, if the cybereconomy keeps developing and nation states lose power as a result of that then big companys that rely on the power of the state will also lose power as a result because ironically crypto is more free market than the current (((free market))), for example if big farms cannot use subsidies to feed their shitty monocrops then organic farmers may outcompete the big monocrop industrial facilitys and in the other hand vertical farming and miniaturization will make it easyer to create more competitors in the market however if big goverments lose power and free trade between nations gets hurt as a result of that because lets say there are more pirates in the seas i feel the multipolar world will look like encapsulated areas of big corporations as the new defacto rulers.

For example lets say the banking system keeps collapsing then it isn't only cryptocurrencys that benefit but software companys like apple and applepay become by the facto new banks for normies but replacing the state with private entitys.

If governments lose the ability to protect shareholders because the business owners are anonimous then it means it becomes almost impossible to ensure rules in the internet, thats why probably corporations will eventually settle on the blockchain but technically there are still the issues of real world logistics and if nation states become smaller it just means you will need more fees to freely transport goods via the frontiers so thats why i say while the money may be anonimous you still need to pay for the protection of your merchandise.

Other people have addressed some of the points I was going to make, corporations will be forced to become more efficient on an xmr standard, a return of policies and paradigms as under the gold standard, slavery, corporate law, neo anarchy, tribalism and feudalism

The power of your family will mean everything, xmr takes more effort to hold custody of than gold but has basically the same properties, federal governments will fail due to taxes being cut drastically

We go back to the times of kings queens, piracy, standard oil, monopolies