Abundance Economics

Tempe AZ, May 24, 2016Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga

A Hegelian Complexity Theory of

Abundance EconomicsPart of a Series on Cryptophilosophy

cryptophilosophy

Melanie SwanPhilosophy & Economic Theory

New School for Social Research, NY [email protected]

May 24, 2016Abundance Economics 2

Melanie Swan Philosophy and Economic Theory, New School

for Social Research, NY Founder, Institute for Blockchain Studies Singularity University Instructor; Institute for Ethics and

Emerging Technology Affiliate Scholar; EDGE Essayist; FQXi Advisor (Foundational Questions Inst)

Traditional Markets Background Economic Theory Leadership

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491

Book: Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy

May 24, 2016Abundance Economics

Thesis StatementAbundance Economics

3

A new philosophy of economics is needed that is adequate to the

contemporary moment, configuring a mindset shift from 1) survival to fulfillment,

2) scarcity to abundance, and 3) centralization to decentralization


Successful societies recognize that economics is shifting to the greater production and consumption of “social goods” in complement to “material goods” Social goods such as trust, dignity, abundance, opportunity,

creative expression, fulfillment, challenge, collaboration, status, certainty, availability, contingency, willingness, cognitive surplus

Claim: societies with less income inequality have greater cohesion and trust, and are better poised to move more quickly into the abundance economics of the future Blockchain technology is a key mechanism for building new

forms of societal shared trust Modern society arrived with trust beyond kinship groups; similar

expansion now beyond hierarchical models with decentralization

Thesis StatementTrust-based Social Goods

4Source: http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/swan20151101


http://www.robotandhwang.com/attorneys/

Law Firm, San Francisco CA

Algorithmic Reality

Developing empowering

human-machine collaborations


Algorithmic Reality Proliferation of Computing

Platforms Increasing presence of technology Everything is a math problem

Drones, self-driving cars, personal home robots, quantified-self gadgets, Siri-commanded mobile phones, blockchain smart contract DACs, tradenets, deep-learning algorithms, big data clouds, brain-computer interfaces, neural hacking devices, augmented reality headsets, deep-learning, gaming worlds

6Source: Swan, M. Rethinking Authority With The Blockchain Crypto Enlightenment. Response to The Edge Question 2016: What do you consider the most interesting recent news? What makes it important? John Brockman, Ed., 2016.


Algorithmic Reality: Gridworld, Cloudworld Each technology class is a platform, network,

and app store…the implication is cloudworld Any platform can run any other

Every network is a Turing-complete general computational substrate for every other

Any technology can immediately ‘grok,’ simulate, and run any other

Cloudworld is the notion of a deep multiplicity of networks as a compositional element of new algorithmic realities

What does this mean for humans?

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Modern Relations with Technology

8

The Prosthetic Relation The Drone Relation

L’Intrus (The Intruder) – Jean-Luc Nancy Théorie du drone (Drone Theory) – Gregoire Chamayou

Impoverished relation:roving invisible Panopticon, never

safe from unseen eyes

Intimate relation: Accepting the foreign into our own body


The Data Relation Cloud, background, crunching away,

silent tracking, continuous uploading Algorithms predicting and even defining

our preferences What is our relation? Impoverished:

neither side has full mental model of the other (the very basis for conducive interaction with another) Data models humans as a sketch:

purchasing agent not aspirational being Humans have no way see, grasp or act

on big data, it acts on us (drone relation)

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Think through the problem of human-machine collaboration in one of the most vulnerable cases:

opening our brains up to big data in BCI Cloudminds (cloud-based thinking collaborations)


What is a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI)? A brain-computer interface (BCI), brain-

machine interface (BMI), or neural prosthesis is any technology linking the human brain to a computer A computational system implanted in the brain

that allows a person to control a computer using only brainwaves; for example reading the electrical signals from the brain as a person focuses on a computer screen

Used to repair human cognitive and sensory-motor function Over 219,000 worldwide cochlear implants

11Source: http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/Cochlear-Implant-Frequently-Asked-Questions/


Future Applications of BCIs 24-7 connectivity to the Internet and other minds

Pathology resolution; cognitive enhancement; platform for human-machine collaboration

The BCI functionality of typing on a keyboard with the mind suggests the possibility of having an always-on brain-Internet connection Cell phones connected every individual, BCIs connect

every brain? (cloudmind, telepathic noosphere) Ubiquitous BCIs, on-board smartphones (‘better

horse’); new possibilities like cloudminds (‘car’) Key functionality: 24-7 connectivity

Human cognitive processing continuously linked to the Internet and other minds in cloudminds via BCI, VR headset, QS wearables, smart contact lenses, etc.

12Source: http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491


BCI Governance Concerns The potential advent of brain-

computer interfaces (BCIs) that are ubiquitous and widely-adopted, where humans might be continuously connected to the Internet and other minds in cloudmind formats

Adoption risk solutions Privacy, security, reversibility, credit

assignation, and personal identity retention

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Reality (Physical & Algorithmic) is Complex Complexity is a state or

quality of being that is nonlinear, emergent, open, unpredictable and unknowable at the outset, self-organizing, and interdependent General or reductive

Examples of complex adaptive systems include an anthill or a weather system

14Source: Morin, Edgar. (2007). "Restricted complexity, general complexity." Trans. C. Gershenson. In Worldviews, Science and Us: Philosophy and Complexity, ed. C. Gershenson, D. Aerts, and B. Edmonds, 5–29. World Scientific, Singapore.


Reality is Indeterminacy: Composable Possibility Reality is complex and

exists in a “raw material” state composable per action/observation

Light: wave-particle duality Time: simultaneously

discrete and continuous

Schrödinger's cat: dead or alive?

15Source: http://phys.org/news/2015-03-particle.html, http://actu.epfl.ch/news/the-first-ever-photograph-of-light-as-both-a-parti

The bottom 'slice' of the image shows the particles. The top

image shows light as a wave.

Particle

Wave


Not all Reality is Thinkable Thinkability

Becoming aware of and coming to terms with phenomena that are “bigger” than humans

Features of the world that are outside our perceptual and experiential domains

Existing situations Quantum physics, black holes, global

warming, the Florida everglades, the biosphere, derivatives, capitalism, neuroscience, big data, blockchains

Radically-different future-tech situations Life extension, digital societies, cloudminds

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Thinking Thinkability

17Source:

Need new models for conceiving the correspondence between internal experience and the external world like radical contingency Ancestrality (Meillassoux), hyperobjects (Morton),

superjects (Hansen), object-oriented ontologies (Harman), black swans (Taleb)

Result: human existence decentered


Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)

Phenomenology of Spirit Development of individuals; continual

progression and awareness, emergence Shapes of Consciousness Self-consciousness Free Concrete Mind Absolute Knowledge

Science of Logic Philosophy of meaning, logic

Philosophy of Right Social and political philosophy

Abstract Right and Morality Ethical Life: Family, Civil Society, the State

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Hegel: FutureTech Philosophical Principles Bildung – (education, self-formation) continuous life-long

learning, always learning, growing into a new shape Humans in “adolescence” – (thinkability) we don’t know what we

don’t know until we progress; how can we know if we want life extension technologies?

Freedom expressed through bildung (Neuhauser) Progressive shape-changing

Abstract to concrete Sublation – distill useful truth kernel from previous state

and bring it along with you as you move on; helpful way of incorporating yet departing from the past

Complexity - parts-whole, emergence, beyond baseline

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Agenda: Economic Abundance in 3 Acts Current Situation and Problem: Algorithmic Reality

Complexity, Emergence, Thinkability Technological Unemployment, Income Inequality

Solution: Abundance Economic Theory

20

1.Scarcity to Availability

2.Survival to Fulfillment Centralization to Decentralization

3.


Technological Unemployment “Technological breakthroughs endanger up to 47% of

total employment in the US” – Carl Frey, Oxford, 2015 “Robots might take 50% of America's jobs” – Marshall

Brain, 2011

21Source: http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm


Next to Automate? Commercial Driving “Autonomous Driving Long-

Distance Trucks Will Be A Reality In Ten Years” – 2014

Vehicle-To-Vehicle "V2V" Communication networks

22Source: http://truckyeah.jalopnik.com/autonomous-driving-long-distance-trucks-will-be-a-reali-1603746933


Technological Unemployment (Pew study) Potential Benefits

Tech advances have been a net creator of jobs Adaptation through inventing new types of work Technology is freedom from drudgery, and defines

“work” in a more positive and socially beneficial way Potential Costs

Automation impacting white-collar and blue-collar employment

Highly-skilled workers poised to succeed; others displaced into lower paying service industry jobs or permanent unemployment

Educational system inadequate for future work preparation

23AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs, Pew Research Center, 2014http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/06/future-of-jobs/


No Shortage of Human Ingenuity

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“If people have the talent to invent new machines that put people out of work, they have the talent

to put those people back to work.”- President John F. Kennedy, 1962

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/07/world-without-work/395294/


Top 10 Jobs of the Future

1. Neuro-Implant Technician2. Urban Farmer3. Virtual Reality Experience Designer4. 3-D Printer Design Specialist5. Smart-Home Handyperson6. Remote Health Care Specialist7. End-Of-Life Planner, Senior Carer8. Professional Triber9. Freelance Professor, Coach, Tutor10. Personal Brand Coach and Manager

25http://www.fastcompany.com/3046277/the-new-rules-of-work/the-top-jobs-in-10-years-might-not-be-what-you-expect


Life of the Future

Now

Jobs of the Future

Reorientation to Jobs and Life of the Future


Life of the Future

Life of the Future – Potential Categories

Jobs of the Future/Productive Engagement

Education/Training/Learning Recreation, Teams

Exercise, Movement Community Participation

Creativity/Artistic Expression Music, Singing

Coaching/Teaching/Mentoring


Economic Shift - Success Stories Pittsburgh: from steel to “eds and meds” Baltimore: from mills to townhomes Middle East:

Dubai: oil to financial services; Abu Dhabi: Masdar energy city of the future; Saudi Arabia: KAUST

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3.


Maximum possibility is open-ended and unbounded in both structural trajectories (form) and content

emergent, complex, novel, creative

Abundance is a social good

30

BaselineMaximum possibility is recouping baseline (a pre-specified and externally-imposed ideal)

Scarcity is a social pathology: To count as flourishing requires not just alleviating suffering

and surviving (i.e.; recouping baseline), but emergent abundance

Philosophy of Abundance

Abundance

Sources: Philosophical support via Spinoza, Deleuze, Simondon


Social Goods created by Abundance Not just availability of material goods resolving the

social pathology of scarcity but that new social goods are created through abundance

Social Goods of relief, contingency reduction, peer willingness, stress-easing, and cognitive surplus Psychology of Certainty and Availability: A reliable ongoing feeling

of certainty that material survival needs will be met (unprecedented) Efficiency: much current cognitive and physical effort is tied up

in anti-scarcity measures: hoarding, manipulation, and other anti-scarcity measures; ascertaining future availability of resources

Up-leveled focus: Relief of having a whole class of cognitively-exertional activities drop off the reality of what has to be considered for basic living

31Sources: Social Goods, Social Pathology: Rousseau, Descartes, Augustin, Honneth, Neuhauser, Jaeggihttp://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491





32



3.


Rethinking Economics and Governance Recasting governance as abundance not extraction

Actualization economy focuses on (1) sustainable material survival and (2) the social goods of liberation: Self-respect, self-esteem, self-realization

Destabilize non-value-added elites, esprit of Rousseau, Rawls, Hegel: “When liberty is mentioned, we must be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated.”

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The sense of duty of the citizen to serve

the republic

Civic Duty Civic CollaborationAncient Greek Statesman Self-directed Cryptocitizen

The sense of meaning and purpose in participating in community sustainability

http://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Blueprint-New-World-Currency/dp/1491920491

Vision New Polis is the Self-sustaining Micropolis


Cryptosustainability Micropolis Example:Peer-to-peer Microgrids Transactive Grid, President

Street, Brooklyn NY (Mar 2016) Grid Singularity (Vienna

Austria), SolarCoin (MIT) Peergrid local energy

exchange Citizen-owned solar panels Blockchain-based peer-to-peer

buying and selling (Ethereum) Energy and money goes into

local economy

35Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2079334-blockchain-based-microgrid-gives-power-to-consumers-in-new-york/


Cryptosustainability Micropolis Example Neighbor.ly Self-directed Community Bonds Modern Public Finance, P2P municipal bonds $1 billion / day public finance market

Low accountability, corruption, waste, multiple layers of unnecessary transaction-fee taking without adding value

Community project funding (school, road, bridge) Self-directed investment in civic projects of affinity

Transportation, energy, schools, parks

36


Conclusion: Welcome to the New

Economy!


“Siri, could you have Amazon drone me a

beer?”


DIY Biohacker LabsExample: citizen science microbiome sequencing

39Source: Counter Culture Labs


Cafeteria of the FutureHydroponic microgreens for lunch?

40


Thesis Statement

41

A new philosophy of economics is needed that is adequate to the

contemporary moment, configuring a mindset shift from 1) survival to fulfillment,

2) scarcity to abundance, and 3) centralization to decentralization


Successful societies recognize that economics is shifting to the greater production and consumption of “social goods” in complement to “material goods” Social goods such as trust, dignity, abundance, opportunity,

creative expression, fulfillment, challenge, collaboration, status, certainty, availability, contingency, willingness, cognitive surplus

Claim: societies with less income inequality have greater cohesion and trust, and are better poised to move more quickly into the abundance economics of the future Blockchain technology is a key mechanism for building new

forms of societal shared trust Modern society arrived with trust beyond kinship groups; similar

expansion now beyond hierarchical models with decentralization

Thesis StatementTrust-based Social Goods

42Source: http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/swan20151101


Hegel inspires a new way forward

43

“The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk”

Hegel, Philosophy of Right, p. 23

Meaning: traditionally, we have only learned from events after they have happened; where the

implication is that some means of prescriptive wisdom is needed to prepare for events

Tempe AZ, May 24, 2016Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga

Melanie SwanPhilosophy & Economic Theory

New School for Social Research, NY [email protected]

A Hegelian Complexity Theory of

Abundance EconomicsPart of a Series on Cryptophilosophy

cryptophilosophyThank You! Questions?

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Abundance Economics