The Comical Ecology Of Political Economy

====THIS FILE IS ARCHIVAL. See 'diary' for newest entries Trying to get ecocomics.org up at epfarms.net, but having technical difficulties... Noticed diamonin.net as a possible Ecocomedy resource. Currently living in a Gentoo LiveCD because installing a GRUB Fighting the locked-closed MSI RS482M4-L (ms-7191) computer motherboard. The ACPI, APIC, sound and on-board ATI Xpress M200 video card. Would still like to try NetBSD as DOM0 for Xen, but will need Free Hard ware first. Trying to fix my MBR ... looked at Smart Boot Manager and then gujin.org 2005-11-18: http://www.archive.org/download/Bush_in_slightly_more_than30_seconds/Bush_in_slightly_more_than30_seconds.mov 2005-11-16: "'We'll put a boot in your ass. It's the American way. Brought to you courtesy ... of the red, white and blue. We lit up sky like the 4th of july! '" -- Corporate country radio station KBULL 2005-11-11: WorkingTV.com/vandana.html bio pirates 2005-11-10: Bought about $100 herb, cotton and stevia seed. 2005-11-06: market buy, credit thie[fv] factory 2005-10-27: Heard on KYCC.org 6.2 million dollar s paid for a radio frequency. Who receives that money? 2005-10-19: PointOfView.net claiming "Fern Gully" is about pantheism. I recently heard the god 'Pan' is the god of chaos - as in Pandemonium or Panic. dict.org says: Pantheism \Pan"the*ism\, n. [Pan- + theism.] The doctrine that the universe, taken or conceived of as a whole, is God; the doctrine that there is no God but the com bined force and natural law s which are manifested in the existing universe; cosmotheism. The doctrine denies that God is a rational personality. [1913 Webster] 2005-10-19: The "Alexander Bill" has something to do with "No Child Left Behind". 2005-10-17: A preacher on the Trinity Broadcast Net work says: "In the last day s there will be sheep nations, and their will be goat nations." He then talks about the religion of Islam, saying (I'm paraphrasing because I can't quite remember): "Islam is an apastolic teaching, not one of redemption, therefore they are able to draw from our fold" The audience gasps audibly. He then says "My message is therefore that we must take nations!". That's what he said! "we must take nations"! We should own other humans? We are more divine, more informed, superior, enlightened? 2005-10-16: About out sourcing: "'who will buy all of the products if we don't have decent job s?'" -- SourceCode.FreeSpeech.org 2005-09-26: raydium.cqfd-corp.org 2005-09-07: simile.mit.edu/piggy-bank 2005-08-26: www.cypherpunks.ca/otr Psycle.PastNoteCut.org is meant to be a "Buzz clone". They seem to be moving to a new lightweight windowing/graphics technique called "Win32GUI Generics" which builds GUI components through C++ templates. torjo.com/win32gui/index.html OSW.sf.net Open Sound World looks promising. The installer need s/tries to install tcl, but that didn't work for me. LMUSE.sf.net LMMS.sf.net Linux Multi Media System sbagen.sf.net Binaural Brain Wave Experimenter's Lab openeeg.sf.net ModPlug.sf.net 2005-07-28: Laid off today. My programming job was out sourced to India. 2005-07-22: Free-Culture.cc 2005-07-22: The Code x Alimentarius is good for the (usurists') economy. 2005-07-12: The British East India Company was created by international bankers 2005-07-12: More reality hacking: FreeStarMedia.com 2005-07-11: The etymology of the word 'lord' is "hlaf weard" or "hla-f weard" which mean s "bread guard". This is more evidence the Holy Bible's book of Genesis is an explanation of the workings of artificial scarcity based economies. "The Lord" drove Adam and Eve from the garden so they would work for their bread by the sweat of their brow instead of having a permaculture based society. Mushrooms are the phoenix of creation. see Genesis in the Holy Bible. Cordyceps, Lions Maine, Maitake, Reshi, Shiitake, Turkey Tail, truffles 2005-06-07: mysite.verizon.net/res7dhyg/slaverevolt.html Solari.com 2005-06-06: Overheard at work "'You don't have full right s over your body because it was GOD that gave it to you. It is his property.'" 2005-06-06: Question for the day: What will happen as production (of all physical 'good s') is more and more automated? Will it be good for the workers? Hmm.. There will be less to do, so maybe we can relax... But there will be less work to choose from, so we will be paid less. You may say "People will just 'retool' to new job s. That's what progress is all about." But if that's the case, does that indicate our economy "need s" problems so there is always plenty of "employment"? What would you say "our" goal s are, and who do you think is meant by the use of the word "our" here? 2005-06-06: "'Now imagine me standing in lodge with my head bowed in prayer between Brother Mohammed Bokhary and Brother Arjun Melwani. To neither of them is the Great Architect of the Universe perceived as the Holy Trinity. To Brother Bokhary He has been revealed as Allah; to Brother Melwani He is probably perceived as Vishnu. Since I believe that there is only one God, I am confronted with three possibilities: They are praying to the devil whilst I am praying to God; They are praying to nothing, as their god s do not exist; They are praying to the same God as I, yet their understanding of His natu re is partly incomplete (as indeed is mine--1 Cor 13:12) It is without hesitation that I accept the third possibility.'" -- Christopher Haffner "Workman Unashamed" 2005-06-05: www.archive.org/details/PhantomPlanet 2005-06-05: www.orindalodge.org/kadoshsamaritan.php Sacred-Texts.com/eso/sta/sta22.htm 2005-06-05: Mus��um Hermeticum Reformatum et Amplificatum www.phoenixmasonry.org/secret_teachings_of_all_ages/flowers_plants_fruits_and_trees.htm 2005-06-01: Multibranding: Comm unityism := Cooperatism, Coopracy; Permaculture Propagation Project := "Weeds for Need s", "Seeds for Need s" 2005-05-31: future letter to: Richard Stallman You say Treacherous Computing may not be reversible because of law s like the DMCA. Our 'leaders' let the "Suspension Calendar" allow the pirates to enact "Treacherous Computing" Let's build our own hard ware so we don't need to change law s. We must own, then bridle those owners with contract s that promote cooperation and protect the laborer in the same way the Copy left does. Reclaim Democracy from the power of the corporations Of the people by the flunkies for the corporations Treaties such as NAFTA subjugate the people 2005-05-25: What is the true meaning of the Holy Comm union? The word Holy comes from Helios, meaning the sun. The word Comm union is a practice of eating some thing that is the "literal flesh" of god. To me this mean s Comm union is about meeting our organic food and drug need s through permaculture. 2005-05-25: Sucralose (Splenda) is the next Aspartame (Nutrasweet) 2005-05-22: Pharmacratic-Inquisition.com This 3 hr. presentation is a bit slow, but packed with a fascinating history of how we have been fooled out of our inheritance by being led away from the only god worth worshiping. I agree with some of what they document, but think the organic and sexual messages are most about simply understanding our physical selves so our need s cannot be used against us, or as the rebel pharo Akhenaten said, "Living in the truth". Also see www.bluehoney.org/SunWorship.htm 2005-05-21: Grapes of Dionysus 2005-05-21: Aggressive Peace 2005-05-20: Free Hard ware: ndiyo.org 2005-05-19: Studying the "Emerald tablet of Thoth". More confirmation that spirituality is about a celebration of existence and natu re, and how most religions purposefully fool us out of this understanding in an effort of domination. As above, So below. 2005-05-14: Notice colors in the "Song of Solomon" Constantine claims the Chi-Rho (looks like a large letter 'P' with an 'x' drawn over the stem) "'About the time of the mid day sun, when day was just turning, he said he saw with his own eyes, up in the sky and resting over the sun, a cross-shaped trophy formed from light, and a text attached to it which said, `By this conquer' (????? ????)'" The Caduceus (snakes or vines winding up a post or body) represents health and medicine. The Ouroboros (a snake or dragon biting or swallowing its tail) represents the cyclic natu re of our existence. 2005-05-14: Gerald Massey, Jordan Maxwell "The Hindu Pantheon" truthbeknown.com/kcrucified.htm Robert Heweitt Brown 32 2005-05-13: PRS.org "The Book of Beginnings" "The Natural Genesis" "The Christ Conspiracy - The Greatest Story Ever Told" -- Acharya S "The Jesus Mysteries" "Jesus and the Lost Goddess" "That Old Time Religion" "The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors" Korsey Graves 2005-05-13: John Allegro "The Dead Sea Scrolls And The Christian Myth", "The Sacred Mushroom & the Cross" "The Apples of Apollo" 2005-05-13: ====From a friend: I have been quite busy lately so it has taken me some time to reply. Here is my negative input that you requested: - Rename comm unityism to something else - it sound s too much like comm unism, and that has such a negative connotation in people's minds that this could negatively affect the ability of people to even start to consider or accept your ideas. This may be a dumb reason to reject your ideas, but that is irrelevant. - Another serious barrier to people accepting what you are suggesting is that in a large part (not completely though), people think that that have already tried what you are proposing - it's called "being a pioneer" and people will look at your ideas about becoming self sufficient and think, "why would I want to be a pioneer again?" We have already tried that and found that life is more pleasant when we are a bit dependant upon each other - I'll keep my washing machine and special detergent that work s well instead of this lye soap I just made. Whether this is a true or false assumption made by people is not the issue, the issue is that you need to sell people on why "pioneerism" will work this time around. If there really is a difference between your plan and just returning to be a bunch of 1800's pioneers, then you need to make sure people understand the difference and the importance of that difference - and this need s to be done up front. - I think that comparing the GPL and your ideas based on the GPL to "gifting" is very wrong. A gift is a one-way transfer with absolutely no strings attached. Thing s given via the GPL (and your ideas based on the GPL) are NOT gift s; they are a two-way transfer contract. The "user" gets a product or service and you get control of their future actions. That is no more a gift than proprietary soft ware is. Public domain is gifting, for example. Even BSD is not gifting because you have to give credit, right? P.S. Endlessly giving everything to the poor that they need only weakens them and makes them more dependant. I can see how the GPL could also make people weaker and more dependant upon already written soft ware. Sure it's good to reuse, as long as you know you could write your own. Windows programmers, for example, have been considerably dumbed down because the OS takes care of so much for them that they couldn't do it for themselves. The GPL could do the same for all of the GPL code that already exists and people would just rely on it and never learn to do it for themselves. These are some of my ideas that haven't completely formed, but it all has to do with gifting and the effects of too much gifting. - Fix the website's hyperlinking of partial word s. This could prevent people from taking you seriously because the strange linking may distract or turn off your readers. Keep the linking, just fix it. ====From Patware: Thank you this is very helpful. The psychological factor is definitely more powerful than I originally realized. I agree with most of what you say, and will make those changes and let you know when they are in place. You are currently the most qualified to receive the $100 reward for PR-ifying my approach. ====From a Friend: PS: If we found out how much land it takes to be self sufficient, that much could be tax free and then amounts above that could have a geometrically increasing tax on it. This could curb hoarding (this should apply to the government too of course) while still allowing people to really own their own land. Of course, "wicked" people would subvert that by splitting up the ownership across many people, etc. but it might raise the bar. ====From Patware: Henry George's "single tax" is 'progressive' (his term) as you suggest - to penalize largest holders most. I suppose your second point could be true, though I'm not sure why the "across many individuals" people you mention would not have access to their own fair amount of finite resources ... after all, that is the whole point of writing a license = to restrict (not a gift, I agree) our own selves (the owners) from ever hoarding in the future so that there will be enough for all (within the physical limits of the planet, which we are nowhere near if we would begin acting responsibly). So if we write the license incorrectly (most likely there will be bug s), there will be workarounds (cracks). A very rough beginnings of my license at: patware.freeshell.org/Sovereign%20Resource%20License.html We really need to write a simple video game - or even board game that help s us experiment with how such thing s would play out, especially when finite resources are more truly scarce (land on an island, or water in a desert, etc.). Another note on your original email: I had already changed the colors of my website from light-grey (font) on black (background) for exactly the kind of psychological reasons you mention, but I'm very dumb about this stuff - I mean about appearing "mainstream" and approachable. I'm working on it. ====From a Friend: Well, if the tax were geometric, then it would be cheaper for 10 people to own 2 acres than it would for one person to own 20 acres. Because of this, it would seem as though people would just form group s to buy it and then make their own deals between each other, etc. Or they may come up with some other way I haven't thought of yet. By the way, we talked about this a bit the other day. In most cases I can think of, people can be self sufficient if taught - even if the hoarders remain unchanged. I have seen this happen in real life when a couple I know went to a poor area in a third world country and educated them about farming and raising rabbits, etc. and the whole village became self sufficient in less than two years. No hoarders needed to be dethroned either. Perhaps this would be a first step to solving your main problems before attempting to dethrone all hoarders. ====From Patware: Though my metamessage may not correlate, I'm trying less to dethrone hoarders, and really just trying to debug reality. I've concentrated too much on 'problems' and too little on 'solutions' over these last few years. I have finally (daft) realized people don't want to hear about problems, and (more importantly) discussing them is actually not required (just educational). I believe sustainability is a more common theme nowdays (at least it seems to me). For instance, downtownslc.org is presenting a sustainability a Sustainable Living Festival: www.centralpt.com/pageview.aspx?id=6838 "'The 2nd annual Sustainable Living Festival "'LIVE GREEN'" on May 14th from 10am-6pm in downtown Salt Lake City's unique Pierpont Street on West Temple to 200 W. The festival will teach and promote basic principles of how to be more environmentally and ecologically conscientious while promoting downtown as a sustainable comm unity. Companies involved in environmental preservation and conservation, renewable energy, health and wellness, sustainable agriculture, green design, and ecotourism will all be present.'" But be careful of wolves in sheep's clothing. The term "sustainable development" is also a UN push to privatize more finite resources such as water and land, while 'allowing' the inhabitants to live just one more step above the grave. AmericanPolicy.org These are dependency enforcing schemes with limited but measurable improvements over the current economic slavery holding most of the world by the throat. They will help stave off real change by misdirecting our efforts from the real issue of ownership. While the big rollers may loosen the reign s to increase standard-of-living slightly, there is no reason for them to do so, and big reasons for them to not go too far. They would never want true sustainability because their products would no longer be needed, and the workers would no longer work for almost nothing. Economic slavery requires worker dependence. The World Bank and IMF (International Monetary Fund) are criminals of the highest order. Trans-National Corporations use these tool s to privatize land and water access, then sell these organic right s back to the people that should already own them as a matter of human dignity. Right now Bechtel is beginning to privatize Iraq's water under the claim of improved quality. While the quality very well may improve, the brave citizens of that once sovereign nation are now owned by the whims of these corporate criminals. oops, I'm talking about problems again... ====From a friend: Permit me to spew forth some thoughts that just came to my mind regarding hoarding, etc. If we are to be true debuggers of the world, we must trace the bug s down to their source and fix them while at the same time resisting the temptation to throw band-aids on higher level symptoms. Why do people hoard? This is where my opinion starts. I believe that people generally want to feel good, happy, important, and loved. These are just a few of the many emotional need s that we have. We have physical need s too, of course, and you have addressed those very well. There is much more to life than just physical need s though - physical need s do not drive a hoarder, for example. He has already met all of his physical need s - there must be something else underneath. We must dig deeper into code. I think that at the heart of hoarding (and all "bad" behavior for that matter) is rooted in not meeting these fund amental emotional (and physical) need s (you have already talked about the physical ones). When we fail to meet these need s, we are sad, miserable, feel worthless, and feel unimportant. We must end this miserable state quickly. We can hoard thing s to feel powerful, important, or sometime s just to feel good or distracted from our misery. We can take drug s that mimic the drug s that our body naturally makes so that we can feel artificially happy for a time -but it's always temporary and usually our bodies compensate, leaving us even more miserable than we started. We can try to get someone to like us through many manipulative methods to feel loved or important. There is a whole world of emotional dysfunction lurking behind the physical dysfunction of which you speak. Our world is broken because we as people are broken. We as a world are generally failing to meet our own physical and emotional need s. On top of this, we have also opted to use artificial mean s or temporary band-aids to "fix" our problems and those band-aids are not working. I am going to call all of these band-aids "drug s" for simplicity's sake and for lack of a better term. If we take away people's "drug s", they will look elsewhere for a different "drug". If we prohibit hoarding, for example, people will find some other way to subvert the law s created to prohibit it or will turn to some other form of artificially satisfying their emotional need s. Unless we can truly fulfill these basic need s in a natural way that lasts, I do not believe we will ever be able to make enough law s and put on enough band-aids to make thing s work. Certainly, we need some band-aids at time s, but they are not the ultimate answer and they are only temporary workarounds, just like the ones we put in our code at time s. They work for a time, but end up failing in the end. I have my own beliefs on how we can overcome the fears that prevent us from satisfying these emotional need s. Satisfying these need s would then finally allow everyone to share what they have out of their own free will. Then we will be able to satisfy our physical need s too, but I will not go into it here because it enters a realm that I do not think we want to go. :) 2005-05-12: ====Answering a friend: > I hesitate to discuss this yet again, as our philosophies are quite different. > I believe that self-sufficiency and sustainable methodology is a good thing. I think it would be great if we, as a society, could share wealth and ideas and all profit therewith. But I'm pessimistic that such a thing will ever be. How long has society been around. Have we made any progress at all, in recorded history? It's hard to say, since I mostly know about my own time. Would you say world poverty is an unfortunate accident, or is there a chance it is purposefully enforced through property and tax law to concentrate the wealth of owners? Do you agree with Henry George's central claim about Poverty and Progress? > Your philosophy, as I understand it, is to fix the "system" through open source technology. No, my philosophy is to fix the "system" by enforcing Henry George's discoveries through Copy left licen sing of _all_ finite and capital resources, not just technology. > My philosophy, is to learn to do thing s better on a more personal level, and share that knowledge I have with others around me who care to learn. Such the advantage to me and them. Sharing is important, but unless we lock knowledge open, the ones that benefit from our destitution will eventually use it against us. > I don't care so much about fixing the system, because I don't see how that is possible. To do so would require converting the masses, but from what I can see the masses are more interested in a free lunch than in fixing the system. I fully agree that the 'masses' care only about themselves. That's fine. In fact, Comm unityism assumes all person s are greedy and lazy. I am unsure of is what you mean by "the system". If you are talking about the economy, I could show (my web page tries to explain) how this can be approached from the bottom (through finite resource ownership and licen sing) instead of the unacheivable goal of creating non-corporate-friendly legislation as Henry George attempted. As my original email stated "This is not a plea for help". This has nothing to do with charity. This has only to do with capitalizing on the fact that artificial scarcity based organizations (most all corporations, and obviously closed soft ware shops such as our employer) can be outdone by collaborative efforts _only_ when the continuity of this collaboration (the ability to build on the work of others) is protected. All we have ever needed to do is disallow hoarding. Henry George understood this and attempted to change the system from the top. But those already in power had too much to lose to allow this so he died a failure. But since we are _adding_ a law (instead of subtracting), this requirement may also be enforced by simply retaining ownership and offering the use of the resources in a restricted way. That is the genius of the GPL. That is why MicroSCOft hates the GPL but loves BSD licenses. It gives comm unities the power of extended collaboration which empower s people to finally dig their way out of the dependence and destitution that is an intentional part of the world economy. RMS's GPL wasn't much of any threat to such business when he wrote it (around 1985). The first few years must have been terribly unproductive and messy. Many people hearing of his scheme must have scoffed and imagined "This will never work. People only care about a free lunch". The same is currently true of my (unfinished) Sovereign Resource License. It is a pitifully untested and mostly unstarted situation. But that doesn't prove the ideas are wrong. > Which isn't to say that I don't think society could benefit, if I improve my own position through learning sustainable farming or any other such technique. I think that it would be great if I could discover a way to generate clean renewable energy, and then I would give it away to the masses. It would solve many problems. But I don't think it would fix the system. >> Will you allow me to purchase plant s for you, entering into an agreement to propogate those plant s within a specified period to another person under the same conditions? > You've mentioned this before, but I don't know what you hope to accomplish by it. There are several group s out that give away free trees, or encourage tree planting. How does your idea differ any from them? These trees you speak of are _never_ gifting. My offer applies _ONLY_ to gifting plant s. All non-gifting plant s are weeds. Offers to plant these valuless plant s misdirect us into spending time, money, water, etc. on yet more trash agriculture so our dependence on murderous corporations continues. > Also, I already get plant s for an inexpensive price, and I have given plant s away. So how is your method any different? Your charity is different from my business plan. Giving away plant s with no obligation from the receiver is akin to releasing source code to the Public Domain or under a BSD-like license. For one thing you are not protecting the future of those organism genetics (see www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/20040426_CPAORD_81_Patents_Law.pdf for another example of corporate greed feeding on the brave people of the once sovereign nation of Iraq). But more importantly, the Permaculture Propagation Project also _requires_ the plant s be propogated under these same conditions within a limited timeframe. This causes a viral situation similar to the GPL. >> How will we guarantee ownership of land in the future when job s are not guaranteed, and almost none of us actually own our homes? Will you help invest in land? > What is ownership anyways? Is it not an artificial whim of the goverment? If the government decides, they can take your land from you, for little or no compensation. It happened recently in Provo, when the government wanted to build a road through some orchard s. The owner said no, so the city just took the land. > More often, it happens through the courts. For whatever reason you can be sued. If the court rule s against you, you can easily lose your property for an unjust cause. Even if you win, you still lose property through court fees. > I'm sorry to say that your goal is worthy, but I don't believe that guaranteeing land ownership is something that can be done. If it could be done with our current government, there is no guarantee that a new government wouldn't revoke our right s to the land. Maybe guarantee was the wrong word. I agree the whole thing could come down, but even you don't think the chance is so high that you were unwilling to begin purchasing a house. Obviously we must work within whatever system we find ourselves. > What I am more interested in, is learning these techniques myself. I currently am experimenting with growing a garden, which last year yielded sub-par results. What I would like to do is to build a greenhouse which would supply an able gardening environment year-round. But to do so I would need to keep it heated. So would the cost of heating the greenhouse, be more than the benefit of growing the plant s? Also there are other such considerations. I suspect that I will never build the greenhouse anyways, since I'm not much at doing thing s that I don't understand. > I'd also like to create my own compost, but even after reading lots of articles on the subject, I'm not sure that I know how to do it. Yes, we need locked open design for such thing s, and we need access to tool s and materials _at cost_ so that when we pay a worker to build a greenhouse we are paying for materials and labor; _never_ to pad the pockets of some external owner opening checks as he lounges in the sun. It is also worth noting that sustainable technologies in general are a threat to most current business models which help s explain our excruciatingly slow progress in that direction. > When I asked how your plot of land was developing, it was not to mock that you've not done anything productive. Rather I am somewhat interested in any results that you have made. Sorry I misread that. > The open farm does sound like an interesting idea. Were you asking if you and I could do that, or if generally somebody could do it? I think that such a project would require a good leader. But if there were such a leader, then it could be made to work. Because people tend to have a psychological need for leaders, I think your claim is probably true but don't understand what such a leader would need to do. > So I don't know if I've made sense or just rambled. I'm interested more in the technologies than in the politics of your ideas. You may not have noticed (probably because of my continuous concern and references to corporatism), but my proposal requires no 'political' action. It can all be done through normal ownership and careful licen sing. 2005-05-12: Overheard: 1: You can take Dianetics, Jonestown, polygamists .. all have truth, These fringe group s have .. but if you want the real truth - [the only truth, you know]... 2: All I know is that she's in la-la land. 1: If you let yourself get into the situation where these group s can influence you... 2: yeah.. what's your source of truth? Where is the authority? 1: ...because if you desire so strongly to believe these thing s, you are going to be tricked into it. 1: If she asks "is god really this or that... [I can't think of what she says exactly]" ha ha ha. But they dwell on these mysteries that are just that: mysteries! I tell her "You know, I don't really care because it just doesn't matter. I already know what is right. There is no reason to try to disturb that with details." Sure we don't know where the rod is going to lead, but when we move beyond here we will understand when we need to know. 2005-05-11: While the concepts I've gathered are provably correct, they are difficult to comm unicate without offense because in order to understand them, we must admit that poverty was purposefully created by those who understand the leverage of dependence. It is _by design_. It is not an accident. It is an ancient business plan enforced through finite resource hoarding and improvement taxation. The book "The End of Poverty" appears to be yet another move by world-government resource hoarding owners to allow the people held under their thumbs a few gasps of breath. The term "sustainable development" is a UN push to privatize more finite resources such as water and land, while 'allowing' the inhabitants live one more step above the grave. These are dependency enforcing schemes with limited but measurable improvements over the current economic slavery holding most of the world by the throat. They will help stave off real change by misdirecting our efforts from the real issue of hoarding. While the big rollers may loosen the reign s to increase standard-of-living slightly, there is no reason for them to do so, and big reasons for them to not go too far. They would never want true sustainability because their products would no longer be needed, and the workers would no longer work for almost nothing. Economic slavery requires worker dependence. The World Bank and IMF (International Monetary Fund) are criminals of the highest order. Trans-National Corporations use these tool s to privatize land and water access, then sell these organic right s back to the people that should already own them as a matter of human dignity. Right now Bechtel is beginning to privatize Iraq's water under the claim of improved quality. While the quality very well may improve, the brave citizens of that once sovereign nation are now owned by the whims of these corporate criminals. Another example of this is: "COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY ORDER NUMBER 81" www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/20040426_CPAORD_81_Patents_Law.pdf This "Order" was penned for pigs such as Monsanto who want to create dependence by disallowing Iraqi farmers from propogating wheat varieties. This can happen because Monsanto will be shipping in their dangerous GMO shit wheat. Wheat pollen may travel miles. The law is written such that: any wheat 'infected' with this "locked closed" DNA is designated Monsanto property - and as such, cannot be propogated (the farmers can't use the offspring seeds for next year's planting) unless Monsanto is paid a licen sing fee. I understand the problem and solution are immense, and seem too large to even talk about, but why make fun of the idea of growing plant s that are beneficial to those in need? While corn may not please your eye, you (probably didn't) notice I never mentioned corn. How about some of the herbs I mentioned, or maybe just some flax? You will be growing a variety of useless little plant s. Why must we continue to enforce our own dependence on these corporate criminals? I'm sure I've gone on too long. Nobody has the patience to digest this. Good luck working within the corporate dictated game system. I'm not interested in handing money to a group that will try to stop taxation of food through protest s and pleading. We must address _ownership_ of food, drug s, clothing, shelter, etc. instead of asking for handouts that nobody has any reason to give. .... We have been fooled into believing poverty cannot be solved. We've been fooled into believing money is more important than product. Poverty and the threat of poverty are tool s which allow corporations to finally drive government policy. That is corporatism. As Benito Mussolini said: "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." The current fascists occupying the White House, and all those to come will continue to be supported by imperialistic corporations who have only to gain by enforcing poverty, dependence and unsustainable practices throughout the world. Pharmaceutical, automotive, energy, entertainment, agriculture, etc. lobbyists are sometime s so influential they actually _write_ portions of the proposed legislation. This is an extension of the Military Industrial Complex. These self-serving corporations will always be supported by you and me unless/until we create alternatives which address _our_ need s instead of padding the pockets of these (finally) murderous CEOs. I'm sorry my message doesn't make sense. Thanks for trying anyway. .... I would prefer to purchase bulk quantities (by the pound) of seed (instead of costly seedlings) for as many trees and bushes as possible, and will make the offer even better for that. Some ideas: Pinyon Pine, Walnut, Northern Almond, Northern Pecan, Peanut Jojoba, Mormon Tea, Black Pepper, Thyme, Corriander, Chamomile, Catmint, Dill, Fenugreek, Stevia, Valencia, Valerian, Cilantro, Sage, Basil, Marshmallow Root Wheat, Barley, Oats, Alfalfa, Sesame, Sunflower, Triticale, varieties of {Peas, Beans, Lentils}, Cotton, Flax, etc. If you have shaded areas we may be able to grow some types of Mushroom: Morel, Reshi, Shitake, 'button' Maybe less likely to be low-water?: Acorn, Hubbard, Pumpkin, etc. Squash, Potato, Strawberry, Grape, Elderberry, Rasberry, Blueberry, Ginger 2005-05-05: soundex Real time Ray Tracing www.openrt.de Real time Ray Tracing on FPGA graphics.cs.uni-sb.de/~jofis/SaarCOR/DynRT/DynRT.html graphics.cs.uni-sb.de/~jofis www.saarcor.de FPGA Gaming Hard ware www.fpgaarcade.com 2005-05-04: Amenhetop IV, or Akhenaten, or Akhenaton - who is possibly also Moses and Oedipus? www.dnafoundation.com/members/akh/8artic/schol.htm Created the city of Amarna, or Akhetaten. 2005-05-04: lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics 2005-05-03: www.domainofman.com/book/cover.html 2005-05-02: Processes on a computer use finite resources including CPU, memory, disk, net work. Processes also achieve goal s... produce solutions.. improve conditions(?) just as creatures do? A computer user desires these resources be used economically, but need s solutions, so is want s to utilize the resources carefully... 2005-05-02: That was a poor way of wording that. 2005-04-29: This is not a plea for help. This is an opport unity to invest in the future. This is a plan to address problems of permanence and security, while simultaneously regaining control of corporate run governments. We have the capacity to create wealth at the individual, comm unity, national, and world levels. While the ramp-up time has been much longer than I had hoped, the concepts are provably correct; this bootstrapping is just a difficult step. Thing s will become exponentially easier and more complete (as we've seen in the Free Soft ware world) until closed business models will eventually be unable to compete. Please give negative feedback, but also please try to spend some time understanding the concepts. Of all the thing s I've struggled with, a summary of these ideas seems most elusive. I've changed alot trying to make it more approachable and understandable, but there is so much to cover that I need more time (or more help) to simplify the concepts. I'm offering a $100.00 reward for the winning entry (though a winner is not guaranteed) of a one-page flyer design to comm unicate the salient point s of Comm unityism which include: How Labor may be protected via Georgist concepts, and how those concepts may be enforced through normal ownership held under careful licen sing. How tying rental of those resources to holding instead of performance will accelerate growth and disallow some forms of domination. How permaculture can supply the raw materials for almost every need. How Non-profit insurance creates comm unity permanence and a local store of wealth. How artificial scarcity is a powerful way to concentrate wealth, and how the GPL addresses that issue. How to make money under such a system by contracting with the consumers _before_ completing the work. First get some free music [ patware.freeshell.org/music.html ]. Then see if patware.freeshell.org makes any sense. Other immediate offers: The Personal Sovereignty Foundation is offering an US$10,000 Reward for the best design and implementation of a inexpensive hybrid conversion kit. We are also accepting donations to increase that reward. The Permaculture Propagation Project provides FREE landscaping resources and/or services (compensated by requiring a certain amount of propagation or allowing fruit collection for a limited number of years). We are also hiring semi-independent workers. Other important entry point s are: patware.freeshell.org/Communityism.html patware.freeshell.org/GPL%20is%20bad.html patware.freeshell.org/Ecocomics.html patware.freeshell.org/Permaculture%20Propagation%20Project.html patware.freeshell.org/project.html 2005-04-29: International Plant Name s Index www.ipni.org email to a friend: I'm closer to understanding how to make this all happen. I'm trying to complete the licenses and contract s and become incorporated (non-profit) to allow normal 'venture capital' economic investment strategies. This should aleviate much of the psychological block s by making the idea seem like just other business. I believe the revenue potential is high, but ramping up will be slow. I would love to find a way to present the notion of growing the organisms and "locking open" the machinery to supply us with our need s. I am prepared to invest $10,000 in that direction - especially to have those plant s growing on another's soil. I own a very large shop, and could house the machinery there. But the idea never seems anything but insane and misguided. Maturing over the last few years I've been moving away from discussing "problems", and have been trying to concentrate on the solutions. My website tries to avoid most of this disturbing information unless it can't be avoided. I also changed the colors back to default, so my web site is more upbeat, and hopefully even almost funny. This page [ patware.freeshell.org/Why%20The%20GPL%20Is%20Bad%20For%20The%20Economy.html ] is a tounge-in-cheek look at my goal s, and gives a fairly good summary of why I think open production and resource access will eventually overtake closed models. 2005-04-27: www.ecotecture.com/library_eco/sustainable_development/cubas_fate.html 2005-04-27: www.selfhelpcorp.com/ 2005-04-25: Overheard: "I saw this guy complaining about the taxes on his $800,000 house. I'm sitting there saying: This guy has earrings. How could you be sitting in a house just shy of a million when you're wearing earrings?" 2005-04-25: new music: "'Pond-erosa Puff (live)'" -- ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/songs/song36.ogg 2005-04-25: Sn IGNUcius writes about Bill Gate s and other comm unists 2005-04-22: This video makes me laugh/sick every time I see it. This wouldn't be so funny if he wasn't serious, but the web site ( americawestandasone.com ) seems to indicate this is not a joke. FasciCrypto ReligioPatriotism: americawestandasone.com/mov/America%20We%20Stand%20As%20One.mov www.lgodj.com/mov/America%20We%20Stand%20As%20One.mov Try mplayer if your having trouble playing it. To cleanse your pallete (Caution: maybe not work safe (word s are so scary!)): From Trey and Matt Parker (Southpark/Team America): flyingsnail.com/Dahbud/images/america2.swf If that doesn't work try: www.sporkmonkey.net Here's a remake that mixes these together: www.loveit-or-leaveit.com/flash/americafuckyeah.html www.sourceopen.org www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg02655.html ocw.mit.edu archive.org 2005-04-20: Overheard: I assume no Temple marriages for them! ... we should just sterilize them. They are always drinking and crashing - and do most of the shootings. www.insnet.org "'Inter net work for sustainability'" www.zeri.org "'Zero Emissions Research & Initiatives'" www.permakultur.net www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7903.htm www.occultmysteryschool.com ====a friend: Aside from organized religions or doctrines (that you obviously reject and that you for the most part have a good point when you talk about abuse in the name of various forms of god), your response doesn't address Kreeft's arguments - for example the first and the most simple argument "where is a creation there must be a creator" when it comes to most fund amental basics of existence. Yes, in most cases thing s can be explained by "natural law s" but when you proceed to the very origin of everything or infinitely complex matters, "chance based or natu re" based explanations don't really stand - explaining thing s by the same thing that you are trying to explain is a false and weak argument. It is like saying, "thing s appear because they appear". Other thread s in your site on that matter basically revolve around religions and how humans use or manipulate religions to their advantages. I am rather mostly focused on philosophical aspect of the question. I am not trying to preach or convert anyone to anything. ====Patware: I'm afraid I don't know the answer to "'the very origin of everything'". I agree there _may_ be a god, but how does the existence of organisms prove there is an invisible man behind the curtain? While I usually call myself an antitheist (I am against the act of believing in monotheistic god s - as the division, oppression and deceit is not worth the supposed gains), it's probably more accurate to describe me as a pantheist: "'Pantheists do not propose belief in a deity; rather, they hold natu re itself as a creative presence. Pantheism reconciles science and religion through ecology leading to strong environmental awareness. '" -- www.pantheist.net To me life is an amazing thing. Genetic information as somewhat similar to a computer program running atop inanimate matter. Organisms surround us. We are inter dependent and cannot live alone. Plant s use the sun and rotting organisms and for food. Fungi use rotting organisms for food. Animals use living organisms for food. Humans are animals. One last admission: I do believe in god. My declared god is the sun. www.occultmysteryschool.com/nontesters/occult/images/Resize%20of%20creatio5.jpg ====friend: I also didn't quite get your response on my request about a very specific example of your hoarding theory - again, you have a rental shop and I am a customer. How would your approach work so that we all would have incentives and benefit to both of us. Specific and a clear example (not general ideas) is what best represents a theory and that is what I understand and value the most in the discussion. So if you indulge me in that, I would appreciate it. ====Patware: Consumers drive innovation and production by requesting solutions. Investors buy finite resources (land, water access, energy sources, and capital needed for tool s and seeds. These owners/investors rent the finite resources and capital to workers under contract s enforcing the Sovereign Resource License to lock the tool s open and disallow rent adjustments based on improvements (rent is based on holding, not on performance). Workers contract with consumers to deliver solutions based on the cost of: land and tool rental resources consumed labor claimed Since the machinery is locked open, the consumer may always supply his own labor. Since the intellect is locked open, the worker should contract with the consumer beforehand, or call for suggestions. ----From a friend: "'Whenever you have spare time, you may want to listen to this lecture: [Proof of God.zip]'" ----patware: The first argument is approximately "'Complexity proves the existience of an imaginary being.'" My belief in Holy Polly addresses some of the other claims made. BTW: Most of those happy with the idea of God being state sponsored would be horrified if bumper stickers were "Allah bless Amerika". ----friend: "'P.S. I am still waiting for an example of your ideas on hording - construction equipment Rental Company, for example.'" ----patware: I believe we can create deep, permanent wealth through cooperation. The Permaculture Propagation Project is my first attempt at constructing such a business. Venture Comm unism is a Dmytri Kleiner's shot at implementing Henry George's discoveries through anarcho-syndicalist techniques. Venture Comm unityism is my variation on this. Think of it as "bridled Capitalism". Comm unityism attempts to bring many fields together - to be a comprehensive, holistic approach to success. The Sovereign Resource License could end the Ancient Magic of Slavery, and in turn, corporate fascism. www.sourceopen.org www.grain.org/seedling/?id=317 homepage.mac.com/aurgasm/.Public/Emiliana%20Torrini-Sunny%20Road.mp3 The power of the sun: www.solardeathray.com Overheard: "'... too many births .. should sterilize people .. kids are expensive ... need to educate them properly so they can be productive.'" Bill Gate s want s soft ware patent s to protect his profit, not the public -- www.guardian.co.uk/online/comment/story/0,12449,1387575,00.html "'The war on copy right comm unists'" Overheard "'If something isn't done internally soon, we will buy "our own" test case Database since they have not delivered on their promises.'" www.groovy.net/mailman/listinfo/vencom "'Please join us.'"-- Dmytri Kleiner www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050225223848129 Automobile computer access www.media.mit.edu/~nitin www.media.mit.edu/~saul www.media.mit.edu/~yael web.mit.edu/~tprester/www www.techknowlogia.org www.techknowlogia.org/TKL_active_pages2/TableOfContents/main.asp?IssueNumber=15 overheard: #1: ... which mean s the companies can withhold it from us. #2: That's right! [In an authoritative tone] It's within the law. #1: Despite there is finite quantity, it is still be kept from us. #3: yes, yes... From: Patrick Anderson Sent: Thu 3/10/2005 2:43 PM To: some friends Subject: File systems, OS emulation, inter operability and freedom Full NTFS read/write on GNU/Linux by hosting ntfs.sys www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive This project use s part s of ReactOS.com and linux-ntfs.sf.net to emulate enough of MicroSCOft NT to host and use ntfs.sys directly. This gives me more hope that proprietary NT drivers may one day be hosted on Free platforms - which will end the ability of M$ to enforce artificial scarcity through hard ware manufacturer partnering. For instance, ATI drivers - especially for the TV features of newer AllInWonder - are only available to M$ users. The workers beg for specifications [ gatos.sourceforge.net ] so they can solve the problem, but ATI's actions are slow and elusive. This gives users (like me for instance) no choice if they wish to fully utilize that hard ware.). Do you see the ability to inter operate as "good for the economy", or "bad for the economy"? I am not advocating law s to 'force' cooperation, but am wondering how cooperation effects those on the island - especially when artificial scarcity is enforced through property law. ----coworker So your point is that you can't get drivers for your ATI card (etc.) for Linux but you might be able to get one for windows and wrap it and use it on Linux, right? I live in that world in working in DOS where the NIC drivers are not as up-to-date as the windows ones. I don't see a problem with that since the drivers are usually free to customers anyway. Hard ware manufacturers get most of their money by selling hard ware and they give away their drivers for free to the customers so they can use the hard ware. It cost s them money to develop those drivers and so they look at their customers and see what percentage of them are on windows, Linux, dos, etc. Let's say that 90% are on windows 5% are on Linux and 5% are on "other" OS's. Let's say that each driver cost s $100,000 to make. I don't think this hard ware manufacturer is trying to pull a fast one; they're just trying to make a buck and stay in business. Do you have specific information saying that they are trying to pull a fast one or perhaps they are just trying to stay in business and make a buck? ----patware By "making a buck" are you saying "It is simply not cost effective for ATI to write Linux drivers."? With this I agree. What I don't understand is why ATI won't release documentation which would allow Linux/BSD hackers to write the driver _for free_! That could save ATI $100,000 right? I think your response will be "because they don't want to release proprietary information that could help their competition". If that is what you would say, I then ask "would such documentation necessarily expose such trade secrets?" Is it impossible to write drivers without making the hard ware design open as well? Maybe the answer is yes, and maybe that is why there are no (complete) free ATI drivers. In that case I wonder if it would be better for the islanders if such hard ware design s were also locked open (as decided by the 'owners', not mandated by law). Here is a project for a GPLed video card: icculus.org/manticore Though it is mostly just for fun right now, I wonder if the benefits of locked open design could ever be managed in such a way as to become as much of an economic threat to locked closed hard ware as locked open soft ware is becoming to proprietary soft ware shops (if you believe there is such a current threat). Here are some links that make me think we are beginning a transitionary period: "... the open source and free soft ware mod el is a threat to all commercial soft ware vendors." -- www.microsoft.com/msft/speech/FY04/Connors0225GSTech.mspx [John Connors, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer] "'The general economic environment is risk and driver No. 1, Linux and non-commercial soft ware is risk No. 2.'" -- www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=12800942 Microsoft CFO John Connors July 18, 2003 "'"The popularization of the open source movement continues to pose a significant challenge to the company's business mod el," Microsoft wrote in its recent filing. "(This is) including recent efforts by proponents of the Open Source mod el to convince governments worldwide to mandate the use of Open Source soft ware in their purchase and deployment of soft ware products."'" -- www.itworld.com/Man/2685/030205msopensource "'One of the vendor's next high-profile battles, according to sources, is DaimlerChrysler. The automaker is said to be squirming under Microsoft's annuity licen sing plan and contemplating replacing some of its Windows server infrastructure with Linux. In June, the Munich city government said it will migrate 14,000 Windows desk top s to Linux beginning in early 2004. The city decided Linux would be less expensive over time, even though Microsoft's bid was nearly $12 million less than those from IBM and SuSE Linux, which is based in Germany.'" -- www.networkworldfusion.com/news/2003/0804microsoft.html ----NB ATI wouldn't need to expose their hard ware design for the open source comm unity to write drivers for ATI cards. ATI would simply need to provide the necessary interfacing information for writing such drivers. I think it's very likely that there are some techniques/trade-secrets that would be revealed if the interface itself was published. This is the only reason I can think of that would cause ATI to not publish their interfaces. If publishing the interface wouldn't give their competition any advantage, then ATI would have a good incentive to do so because it would increase their sale s to the linux comm unity. It certainly would be better for the islanders=consumers if hard ware design s were open. Although I'd be surprised to see open hard ware grow as quickly as the open soft ware movement. The reason is that any joe-with-a-box out there can augment an open source project. The number of people who could take advantage of open hard ware is much smaller - they need'd often need manufacturing equipment in order to implement the design s and relatively few people (compa red to the soft ware comm unity) have access to fabs. Yes, that's a generalization, not everyone would need a fab (they could use PROMs, EPROMs, PGAs, etc) but then again, how many computer-savy guys do you know who even have an EPROM burner? Not many. ----patware I'm glad you mentioned manufacturing. Venture Capital is an approach commonly used to overcome this lack of capital. The problem with this typical business practice is the LOCKED CLOSED natu re of the result. While locking property closed is always the option of the owner (I would never want to take that right away - as no organism can achieve personal sovereignty without guaranteed exclusive access to a _fair amount_ of finite resources), there is another option that RMS has shown can cause big trouble for those relying on artificial scarcity. Locking property (land/buildings/tool s/intellect(as though anyone should be allowed to lock intellect closed because they happend to "get there first". What if this were applied in "cave man" day s after someone discovered a way to make fire? Should the clever ape collect fees and hire thugs to and extinguish unauthorized propogations?)) open (as I plan to eventually do) will cause a landslide of innovation and collaboration as workers are allowed to keep the _full profit s_ of their labor instead of paying an owner for the 'opport unity' to work. At first (just as with Free Soft ware) the solutions will be inferior, and even laughable, but at least they will be sovereign. Eventually the laborers = the people that should be running the island will regain control and the multitude of evils caused by finite resource hoarding will come to an end. It is in your best interest to understand what I am saying so you can help invest in a future where the fate of the bulk of the planet is no longer in the hands of a few violent criminals. ----coworker It seems to me as though... Proprietary licenses force non-sharing to make a buck. GPL licenses force sharing to conquer Micro$oft. BSD allows everything for no ulterior motive that I know of. It sound s to me like the BSD is the only type of license that should be called free (as is freedom). ----patware Yes, the terminology causes much confusion, and might even be considered deceptive. These guys agree with you www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_3/klang/index.html "The position that freedom is good may be acceptable but freedom cannot be enforced and limited in the way in which the FSF attempts to do so. Since users are controlled by the GPL and they are reliant on licenses any freedom which they may have or experience is on the whole illusory. True freedom would allow all to do as they pleased. However, Stallman shares Hardin�s view that uncontrolled freedom inevitably leads to ruin. Therefore the commons he creates is not a free one. It offers only limited freedom maintained and controlled by an elite [12]." Commons-Based Strategies and the Problems of Patent s shows why it might be worth it. The Fitehouse General Public Music License www.fitehouse.com/thebomb.html The first free NTFS read/write filesystem for GNU/Linux www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive ATAidle www.cran.org.uk/bruce/software/index.php Heirloom Toolchest is a collection of standard Uni x utilities. heirloom.sourceforge.net I know of most of these, just not enough time to categorize... "Astronomy","Celestia www.shatters.net/celestia "Bible/Christian","SWORD Project www.crosswire.org/sword/ [crosswire.org]" "CAD","TurboCad LE nct.digitalriver.com/fulfill/0002.16 [digitalriver.com]" "CAD, Libraries","CadRegister www.cadregister.com/ [cadregister.com]" "Database","MySQL www.mysql.com/ [mysql.com]" "GNU for Windows","GNUWin32 gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]" "Graphics, Convert","ImageMagick www.imagemagick.org/ [imagemagick.org]" "Graphics, Diagram/Charting","Dia www.gnome.org/projects/dia/ [gnome.org]" "Graphics, Editor/ Bitmap","GIMP www.gimp.org/ [gimp.org]" "Graphics, Editor/ Vector","InkScape www.inkscape.org/ [inkscape.org]" "Graphics, View/Manage","IrfanView www.irfanview.com/ [irfanview.com]" "Inter net, Browser","Mozilla/Firefox www.mozilla.org/ [mozilla.org]" "Inter net, HTML Editor","Mozilla/Nvu www.mozilla.org/ [mozilla.org]" "Inter net, Mail","Mozilla/Thunderbird www.mozilla.org/ [mozilla.org]" "Inter net, Newsgroup","Mozilla www.mozilla.org/ [mozilla.org]" "Inter net, Proxy/Filter","Proxomitron www.proxomitron.info/ [proxomitron.info]" "Inter net, Utility","MailWasher www.mailwasher.net/ [mailwasher.net]" "Inter net, Web Server","Apache www.apache.org/ [apache.org]" "Library Management","Greenstone Digital Library www.greenstone.org/ [greenstone.org]" "Multimedia, Audio, Create/Edit","Audacity audacity.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]" "Multimedia, CD/DVD Create","CDex cdexos.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]" "Multimedia, CD/DVD Utilities","EAC www.exactaudiocopy.de/ [exactaudiocopy.de]" "Multimedia,