Discussions on the Future of the Economy

Introduction

This is a series of webconference sessions on the future of our economy. In this conference, we will be discussing key ideas on how to transform our economic infrastructure for the sustainable future. Due to the strong coupling between a proper treatment of this topic with necessary insight into current and future technological trends, this area has been poorly explored by mainstream economists, and will blossom with interdisciplinary perspectives.

Location and Time

(in progress)

It is organized as a series of sessions during the first week of August (night or morning to accommodate timezones in Thailand, East Coast USA, Korea, West Coast USA - ordered from least to most flexible according to count). Location is Google+ hangout. There are many interested people suggesting to keep the discussion going on a continuing basis, in the format of a 2 hour weekly session - we can announce that after the first meeting is successful.

People

(we’ve hit the limit on the number of people in G+ hangout - multiple sessions required if we want to accommodate more people who've expressed interest):

• Mr Michel Bauwens, Founder of the P2P Foundation
• Dr Marvin T. Brown, Professor, author of "Civilizing the Economy"
• Dr Adam Arvidsson, Professor, author of "Ethical Economy"
• Dr Christian Arnsperger, Professor, author of "Full-Spectrum Economics", creator of the "Eco-transitions" blog [1].
• Dr James Hughes, Executive Director for Institute of Ethics and Emerging Technologies
• Dr Mark D. Whitaker, Professor, environmental sociologist; author, Toward a Bioregional State (2005), and Ecological Revolution (2009); (creator of biostate [2] commodityecology [3] blogs)
• Dr Meera Sitharam, Professor, Complexity expert
• Dr Linda Hermer, Neuroscientist, studying Healthcare Policy
• Dr Amit Dhurandhar, Machine Learning researcher at IBM
• Mohamad Tarifi, PhD candidate in Computer Science

Topics

Please feel free to add new sessions, topics, modify existing ones, or otherwise change anything you want. I will act as moderator, but I think it’s better if you lead specific topics. Please write your name next to the topic(s) you wish to lead:

• Session 1: Technology and the Economics of abundance and scarcity.
  • Overview of the conference (Lead by: Mohamad Tarifi)
  • Automation and work (Lead by: Mohamad Tarifi)
  • Stability vs Efficiency and Environmental impact (contributed to by Mark Whitaker)

• Session 2: The relationship between the Individual and the Society
  • What do we mean by Economy? (Lead by: Marvin Brown)
  • Top-down, Bottom-up, P2P organization
  • Philosophical, Environmental, Ethical considerations (contributed to by Mark Whitaker)

• Session 3: Currency exchange systems
  • Scarcity based systems: traditional, bitcoin, the terra
  • Abundance based systems: ripplepay, community hours
  • Public commons (contributed to by Mark Whitaker)

• Session 4: Transition challenges ahead
  • Political, Social and Economic barriers (contributed to by Mark Whitaker)
  • From possible to probable and preferable solutions (contributed to by Mark Whitaker)
  • Special Announcement! (by Mohamad Tarifi)

• Session 5: Open discussion - this may evolve into an ongoing weekly or biweekly meeting.

Pre-Reading list

List of short introductory material:

• P2P in a Nutshell
• Some Brief Thoughts on How to Ensure a Good Future
• Introduction to Alternative Currencies
• What is Abundance-Based Money?
• Ripplepay
• Quadrant view of different kinds of exchanges
• Towards A Commodity Ecology
• Transitioning ideas from Christian Arnsperger
• Collective Intelligence: Number of Women in Group Linked to Effectiveness in Solving Difficult Problems - or please leave your ego behind
• An example of good multi-party debate (although this is more one sided than what we want)
• Americans are misinformed about distribution of money
• Five Interwoven Economies: Subsistence, Gift, Exchange, Planned, and Theft
• Deep Discounting Errors?