Talk:P2P Energy Economy
To be more accurate the electrical energy part of the p2p energy costing model 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 ...
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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.
MarcFawzi 13:06, 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)