Talk:P2P Energy Economy: Difference between revisions

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CHANGE IN DIRECTION


These are responses I sent recently to the P2P Research list describing initial ideas on how to transform the P2P Energy Economy model to apply to digital goods and services. It includes the realization that the model is a lot more likely to achieve success there first before it can be applied to the much harder case of the physical world, and the key reason is the fact that physical things depreciate physically which makes the costing model complex enough to the point that the project would run out of steam before the costing models could be developed fully enough to prove it. It's not undoable, it's just unlikely.  
Digitally produced goods and services exist in a world of their own
that can be thought of as separate from our physical world in that
it's almost infinitely more efficient.


So with that said, here are the thoughts I have on moving the model first to the digital world where the calculations grow horizontally but not vertically (i.e. increase in number but not in complexity)
For example, building a house in Second Life takes dramatically less
 
in work energy than building a house in the physical world and the gap
Copied from P2P Research thread on "abundance and Second Life"
makes the difference between abundance now and abundance in 200 years.
 
--
 
To be more accurate the electrical energy part of the p2p energy costing model for digital goods and services would be based on joules per "cpu hour" (for processing during production process and during replication and delivery) as well as joules per hour (for powering storage units [if separate from server] and for routing [cable/dsl modems])
 
And to be more realistic when it comes to the cost of transporting bits, we do not co-own the transport infrastructure (the big telecom corporations do,) and we ,as p2p producers (i.e in a p2p setting, not like Second Life which is a centralized server farm and has a different cost-of-transport calculation), simply pay for the monthly ISP fee, e.g. $40, so need to figure out the maximum amount of upstream and downstream data we can send/receive per month (for that $40) and figure out the dollar cost per each bit based on that then knowing what each dollar buys in electricity today we can come up with a total estimate for electrical energy use for transporting each bit of data from/to ourselves (remember there is a two-way data flow happening with each send or receive because of how the internet protocol works and it adds up). So with the transport cost figured out and the cost in work energy for maintaining and upgrading the infrastructure (which in a p2p setting is our personal PCs, Macs, Linux boxes, and our houses i suppose which replace the data center) can be based on some universal constant (numerically derived) and knowing the electrical energy needed to power that infrastructure (per "cpu hour" for processing during production process and during replication and delivery as well as per hour for storage and routing) ... and of course there is the "man hour" to joules calculation for producing the given digital good or service
 
consider this a brainstormed and rough version ... but i think it's quite possible to measure total work energy for producing and delivering open digital content ...
 
the difficult challenge is that digital goods and services are not as easily standardized as physical ones... a tennis ball is a tennis ball.. but a digital model of a building may cost 100 Giga joules or 1 Mega Joules to produce depending on resolution of rendering and model size, so the categorization of digital content (as good) and their production processes (as services or factored into the cost of the goods) has to be much more finer grain, e.g. based on number of polygons a second and size.. So that's only for digital models of 3D objects.. how about all sorts of digital content? It can be done but the development of costing models may take years to nail down, but the benefit is that we'd end up with a way to account for our own energy use and for energy use in general... For example, do we know how much more CO2 is released into the atmosphere or how big is the environmental impact for hundreds of millions of people watching porn? Not to make out porn to be the bad guy, but we just don't know how energy is spent in the "Internet" We don't even know how it's spent in the real world. More importantly, to enable sustainable abundance in goods and services, be them physical or digital we do need to to have equitable exchange between peers, so everyone recoups the cost of their production, and so we encourage more efficient use of energy (the positive profit motive.. the only profit allowed under the model is one that leads to higher production efficiencies)
 
one key thing about energy as money is that it's not money anymore, i.e. it's not a means to ownership but a means to production and delivery
 
This means that if I "pay" someone for what it cost them to "produce (and/or replicate) and deliver" a digital good then I can "resell" that good at the cost it takes me to "acquire, replicate and deliver" it .. money is no longer a means to owning things.. it becomes a means for production and delivery..
 
I'll expand on these ideas later ...
 
<<
 
Patrick Anderson wrote:
 
Do you have any restrictions or requirements about what a 'producer'
(does that mean 'owner', or 'worker'?) do with any profit he is able
to aquire?  Will it be treated as his reward, or will the consumer be
considered?
>>
 
As the model moves from physical goods/services to digital goods/service, money as energy becomes a means for enabling production and delivery, not a means for enabling to ownership.  It can be argued that the model does not apply to most physical goods (it only applies to those physical goods that do not physically depreciate with time, e.g. diamonds?) So it is a natural step forward to move the model into the digital realm so as to avoid reinventing the world (the kind of calculations that take physical depreciation into account would involve a great deal of statistical analysis and the project would fail before it can prove itself, so its better to start in the digital world where goods do not depreciate, i.e. a digital model of a building will remain the same across time.. its just data) 
 
So there is really no concept of "owner" once the model is moved to the digital world.. In the current physical world version there is the concept of "owning the use of some good" by paying for it and owning the ability to resell it at cost (for goods that can be produced in abundance and that do not physically depreciate over time) but it's not "ownership" as in having right to prevent others from replicating it and reselling it at the median cost in energy it takes to replicate and deliver. In other words, the model was trying hard to break out of the physical world and while in that state it had fuzzy lines around the definition of ownership. As it moves into the digital world, there is zero ownership. The model will have to be adjusted for that.
 
I have to correct a line in my previous response to this thread: a person downloading some content produced and deliver by another person pays for that content at median cost in work energy it takes to produce, replicate and deliver it. That person can then resell that content at the same median cost in work energy, so if they happen to have less costly way to replicate and deliver it then they make a profit but so can the originator.
 
So again, money, becomes a means for enabling production and delivery, not a means for enabling ownership.
 
When it comes to profits, the only type of profit that I found to be abundance sustaining is profit that is due to increase in production efficiency (relative to other producers of the same good or service)
 
Any other type of profit would create scarcity.  
 
In an over simplified example based on the model, if every day I get 1 trillion joules from my solar generator and I spend 1 thousand joules per day on average in maintaining and upgrading it, then every day I have 1 billion joules of renewable energy to make food with and produce goods and services, i.e. grow, so why do I need to make a profit to grow? The sun is my profit. Anyone and everyone can make a profit from the sun. Why make profit from other people?
 
So again, the only type of profit that does not create scarcity, i.e. that which is derived from higher production efficiencies relative to other producers of the same good or service, is the only profit that one should.
 
[[User:MarcFawzi|MarcFawzi]] 13:06, 16 February 2009 (PST)


A house built in the physical world using a high degree of automation,
e.g. with robots and open architectural plans can be sold at the cost
of work energy it takes to build it (assuming it's made from renewable
materials and its production process meets the conditions for
sustainable abundance) but when will we have such high physical
production efficiency?


There is a lot that needs to happen in terms of dramatically
increasing production efficiencies for physical goods _before_ we need
an economy to sustain and enhance the abundance.


When it comes to digitally produced goods and services, we can start
with an example of why a new kind of economy and currency is needed.


If I can get 10 "cpu hours" a day from my PC, i.e. 10 X (1 gigaflops
processor running for 1 hour, as assessed by the Linpack benchmark
Rmax), and if it costs me less than 0.2 "man hour" a day on average to
maintain my PC (general PC maintenance) then I have 10 cpu hours and
e.g. 7.8 man hours a day (based on an 8 hour work day) to produce some
digital goods (e.g. open source music, open CAD designs, open Second
Life models, or open software etc) and if I invest in faster and/or
more efficient PC I will have more CPU hours and/or more man hours to
make more digital goods.


So given that I'm limited in my resources it's not sustainable for me
to give away the digital goods I produce or exchange them in
expectation of a potential return (in other digital goods) that may or
may not happen or that may happen only partially with a net loss to
myself.  If I don't get any return (in cpu hours or man hours or both)
I can not produce more digital goods, so my production will be limited
and that cannot lead to abundance.


I can sell both surplus cpu hours and surplus man hours I have in
return for cpu-hour tokens and man-hour tokens and I can also lend and
borrow both cpu-hour tokens and man-hour tokens. I can also invest
more man-hour tokens, i.e. hire someone with the tokens, or invest my
own man hours, and cpu-hour tokens, i.e. use someone else' machine (or
my own PC's cpu hours) to create more efficient production processes
for my digitally produced goods and services so that I get back more
than I put in when exchanging those digitally produced goods and
services for cpu hour tokens and man hour tokens. That's the only
profit that can be made and it drives the whole economy toward higher
and higher efficiency, i.e. otherwise, i get back roughly the same as
I put in in cpu hours and man hours.


~~


This model synopsis below is far less ambitious but far more effective
than the P2P Energy Economy that I've been working on. While it taught
me a lot as far as the principles of a sustainable economy, the P2P
Energy Economy, in attempting to apply itself to the physical world
outside of the computer, was aiming at a future when we have physical
abundance in essential resources.


For now, it seems that the only abundance we have is in computational
power and our own creative energy.


A lot of the ideas from the P2P Energy Economy are directly applicable
and will be reused but the model will become far less complex as it
changes trajectories from aiming to reinvent the world decades or
centuries ahead of the world naturally getting there (see prior
comment on the current "efficiency gap" between the digital world and
the physical world) to aiming at fixing the inequitable exchange model
for digitally produced goods and services.


One key difference between this model and the P2P Energy Economy
(besides the absence of smartgrid) is the existence of two currencies:
the cpu-hour token and the man-hour token. Like machine money and
human money.


Neither type of currency is meant to enable ownership. Both are meant
to enable production, not ownership.


So, I'll take the P2P Energy Model apart and compress it/remold it
into this new model that can be applied today to give us a sustainable
abundance economy in digitally produced goods and services.


Marc


[[User:MarcFawzi|MarcFawzi]] 17:46, 16 February 2009 (PST)




Revision as of 01:46, 17 February 2009

CHANGE IN DIRECTION

Digitally produced goods and services exist in a world of their own that can be thought of as separate from our physical world in that it's almost infinitely more efficient.

For example, building a house in Second Life takes dramatically less in work energy than building a house in the physical world and the gap makes the difference between abundance now and abundance in 200 years.

A house built in the physical world using a high degree of automation, e.g. with robots and open architectural plans can be sold at the cost of work energy it takes to build it (assuming it's made from renewable materials and its production process meets the conditions for sustainable abundance) but when will we have such high physical production efficiency?

There is a lot that needs to happen in terms of dramatically increasing production efficiencies for physical goods _before_ we need an economy to sustain and enhance the abundance.

When it comes to digitally produced goods and services, we can start with an example of why a new kind of economy and currency is needed.

If I can get 10 "cpu hours" a day from my PC, i.e. 10 X (1 gigaflops processor running for 1 hour, as assessed by the Linpack benchmark Rmax), and if it costs me less than 0.2 "man hour" a day on average to maintain my PC (general PC maintenance) then I have 10 cpu hours and e.g. 7.8 man hours a day (based on an 8 hour work day) to produce some digital goods (e.g. open source music, open CAD designs, open Second Life models, or open software etc) and if I invest in faster and/or more efficient PC I will have more CPU hours and/or more man hours to make more digital goods.

So given that I'm limited in my resources it's not sustainable for me to give away the digital goods I produce or exchange them in expectation of a potential return (in other digital goods) that may or may not happen or that may happen only partially with a net loss to myself. If I don't get any return (in cpu hours or man hours or both) I can not produce more digital goods, so my production will be limited and that cannot lead to abundance.

I can sell both surplus cpu hours and surplus man hours I have in return for cpu-hour tokens and man-hour tokens and I can also lend and borrow both cpu-hour tokens and man-hour tokens. I can also invest more man-hour tokens, i.e. hire someone with the tokens, or invest my own man hours, and cpu-hour tokens, i.e. use someone else' machine (or my own PC's cpu hours) to create more efficient production processes for my digitally produced goods and services so that I get back more than I put in when exchanging those digitally produced goods and services for cpu hour tokens and man hour tokens. That's the only profit that can be made and it drives the whole economy toward higher and higher efficiency, i.e. otherwise, i get back roughly the same as I put in in cpu hours and man hours.

~~

This model synopsis below is far less ambitious but far more effective than the P2P Energy Economy that I've been working on. While it taught me a lot as far as the principles of a sustainable economy, the P2P Energy Economy, in attempting to apply itself to the physical world outside of the computer, was aiming at a future when we have physical abundance in essential resources.

For now, it seems that the only abundance we have is in computational power and our own creative energy.

A lot of the ideas from the P2P Energy Economy are directly applicable and will be reused but the model will become far less complex as it changes trajectories from aiming to reinvent the world decades or centuries ahead of the world naturally getting there (see prior comment on the current "efficiency gap" between the digital world and the physical world) to aiming at fixing the inequitable exchange model for digitally produced goods and services.

One key difference between this model and the P2P Energy Economy (besides the absence of smartgrid) is the existence of two currencies: the cpu-hour token and the man-hour token. Like machine money and human money.

Neither type of currency is meant to enable ownership. Both are meant to enable production, not ownership.

So, I'll take the P2P Energy Model apart and compress it/remold it into this new model that can be applied today to give us a sustainable abundance economy in digitally produced goods and services.

Marc

MarcFawzi 17:46, 16 February 2009 (PST)


Old comments:

The section Energy Price Regulation says (shortened):

This value of Peer Dollar is regulated relative to the value energy, so that as energy becomes abundant its price will drop ... while preventing speculative boom and bust cycles from making the price of energy ... drop too low (in periods of low demand) as to make energy production economically unfeasible.

By "economically unfeasible" are you talking about Profit?

If so, would you consider an alternate view - where Price can safely approach and even equal Cost indefinitely without the organization needing to close?

Thanks, Patrick Anderson AGNUcius 12:32, 12 December 2008 (PST)

In the section Peer Energy Bank you say:

New money is only created by "Peer Bank" when the P2P energy production capacity becomes larger than the currency in circulation (i.e. more energy than there is money.)

and

At the start of the economy (as a process), Peer Bank would create new money in return for energy supplied by the participating peers, so it creates new currency that it gives to those peers. Then peers start trading using that currency, and when new energy surplus exist then new money will be produced.

This seems to say that there should be times where the Peer Bank issues new money in return for energy it buys and times where instead it doesn't. If I understand correctly, at startup of the system, enough money needs to be created to "fill the pot" so economic exchange between peers can happen. Then, there should be a time when Peer Bank only issues money for "surplus" energy.

What are the criteria for knowing when Peer Bank should issue new money and when it shouldn't? Ref: Money is only created by "Peer Bank" when the P2P energy production becomes larger than the currency in circulation.

How will you measure 1) How long the first period should last (creating enough money for the economy to run on) and 2) when to issue more money as energy production is larger than currency in circulation.

What would be the objective criteria for this, which the system can implement?

Thanks - Sepp Hasslberger --Sepp 02:53, 27 December 2008 (PST)

Please allow others to access this original work by making your modifications/remixes on a different wiki page.

Does this mean that I can not add anything on the original page? ( like I just did by adding at Category + related links ? ) Thanks, User:Dante

Patrick: energy price regulation does not exist anymore

Dante: it means you can add anything outside of the main text of the page...

Sepp: Sorry for the delay. This is the first time I look at the discussion tab :-) There is a better description of how money is created. It's in sync with increase in electric energy flow from peers with surplus to peers with deficit, and the money is created only for increase in the flow. It can be further explained with a diagram, which I plan to add.

MarcFawzi 13:06, 16 February 2009 (PST)

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