The Zero Marginal Cost Society by Jeremy Rifkin

[Edward theurj Berge]

After reading the Intro and first chapter a few comments. On p. 6 he discusses how monopolies intentionally thwart competition and innovation so as to maintain their stranglehold. But he claims entrepreneurs find a way around it and end up forcing competition with their better tech and price reductions. Yet he discusses on pp. 7-9 Larry Summers 2001 paper, wherein Summers acknowledges the emerging information economy was indeed moving to near marginal cost. Summers though didn't propose something like Rifkin but instead recommended "short-term natural monopolies" (8).

Recall Summers was Obama's pick for Director of the National Economic Council. His policy suggestions were well in line with the earlier promotion of "natural monopolies," and his resume attests. And we're seeing exactly this economic philosophy at play with the FCC Chairman Wheeler's proposed pay-to-play rules, where the ISP monopolies will destroy internet neutrality. Recall that Wheeler was another Obama pick, and was a former, and will return to being, a cable and wireless lobbyist. While Obama claims to back income equality and net neutrality he appoints the likes of Summers and Wheeler who make no bones about their support of monopolies. And without net neutrality good bye to Rifkin's entire plan, which requires it to succeed.

If you haven't yet, please take action to preserve it. Here's one place and you can find several others if you but look.

[andrew]

Hey Darrell, 

I'm short on time this morning but would like to ask you if you see what you are fleshing out here as a kind of multi-dimensional quadrant view? 

Happy Mayday long weekend to you all! 

I also wanted to mention quickly that I think it's right and good to feel compassion to those in the petrochemical industries who may have to take some short term pain in the coming decades; but having said that, there are those at the top of that pyramid who are most likely not deserving of that compassion as they are willfully and consciously operating from greed and corruption in the most negative sense.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Chapter 8 on work highlights that automation, robotics and computer programs are taking over much of the workforce and replacing human labor at an accelerating pace. He gives countless examples which are all true. However I question when he dismisses that many job losses are due to relocation to cheaper labor markets like China (124). There is no question that it is valid. It's true that even China is slowly taking up the automation process, and that they will eventually replace their own cheap labor with such tech. But right now cheap human labor far outweigh it and is a direct reason for many US companies to ship manufacturing and textile jobs thereto. Most of Walmart's products come from China and why they make such huge profits.

Near the end of the chapter he talks about deep play replacing hard work, the former more concerning with social capital. He thinks this will come about when we are all empowered to be prosumers, both creating, consuming and sharing value as well as products. That may be, but in the meantime millions have lost their jobs and millions more will. We can social network all we want, and create/share intellectual/spiritual value all we want, but we might starve in the process without income. I guess that's one way to solve the current labor problem.

[Edward theurj Berge]

He also does not analyze another factor caused by both automation and shipping many jobs overseas. Big businesses like Walmart and McDonald's have driven wages down for what few existing jobs are still available. With 3 people for every job we take what we can get to feed our families, like it or not. Meanwhile those very same businesses are reaping record profits and just don't want to share the wealth. They rather see those hard-working folk have to get food stamps and other social welfare programs that cost society rather than pay them a living wage. Sure, things look rosy in Rifkin's future society but right now not so much. He doesn't deal with what we need to do now to address these problems of capitalism in the interim. I'll take Reich, Sanders, Warren and Krugman for that job.

[Edward theurj Berge]

"I'm short on time this morning but would like to ask you if you see what you are fleshing out here as a kind of multi-dimensional quadrant view?"

Perhaps not here in this thread, but he could start a thread on these ideas?

[DavidM58]

I like Rifkin's concept of the "prosumer," as he's put a name on something Permaculture has been advocating for decades, that we as individuals and communities need to become responsible producers as well as responsible consumers. Regarding the value of becoming a responsible producer, I've always liked this story, The Flaw of Western Economies. It does not necessarily involve distributive hi-tech 3D printers and the like.

Does Rifkin discuss energy costs in relation to globalization, esp. in regards to transportation of goods? When energy costs were peaking in 2008, we started to see globalization starting to go into reverse a little bit, making clear that globalization is not only dependent on cheap labor, but also cheap energy. See Energy Prices and the Decline of Globalization, or the book Why Your World Is About To Get a Whole Lot Smaller by the noted economist Jeff Rubin. I don't believe the extreme costs of energy we felt in 2008 were a fluke; they seem to be making a comeback.

[Edward theurj Berge]

As far as I've read per above, he discusses how transportation costs are greatly reduced when local individuals and collaborators are producing goods with 3-D printers. Such printers do not need the kind of raw materials like manufactured steel that requires huge factories and need to be transported over long distances. Instead they can use local materials and recycle waste. If high-grade steel is needed, for instance, since the process is additive it only uses about 1/10 of the raw material, thus greatly reducing both the cost of the material and its transportation.

He also talks a lot about transferring to renewable energies, which when produced in one's home or business reduce the costs of big energy production plants, which themselves requires lots of raw materials like oil, gas or coal and the associated transporation costs.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Chapter 9 is on the prosumer in a smart economy. A major question is how the IoT infrastructure will be financed. Should public goods be government or privately financed? Both sides agreed that public goods should maintain a natural monopoly, since competition for such services would generate waste. The US opted for the privately owned public utilities option. Now this battle is playing out over the internet, where mega-business wants to own it and everyone else wants the FCC to declare it a government owned public utility.

Rikfin argues that the internet and emerging IoT infrastructure are financed by consumers, not big business. Yes, the latter has invested large amounts in its infrastructure. But incentives like the governmental feed-in tariff, which guarantees a premium price above market value for early adopters of renewable energy production. When RE production's efficiency rivals traditional energy source the tariff will phase out. Small prosumers dominate this transfer and thus finance the majority of the transition to RE through the tariff.

Which of course is coming to challenge the notion of dominant, private public utilities. And playing out with the FCC internet debate. A new generation like Yochai Benkler are promoting the Networked Commons, a third alternative to either strict government or market control. And that is just the lead-in to Part III of the book to come on its incipient rise.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Chapter 10 starts with a historical overview of commons governance structures. They have been criticized by conservatives due to the free rider syndrome. If property is held in common for grazing, for instance, the free riders will abuse the system and bring ruin to the land because of self-interest and overgrazing. Interesting argument for a capitalist. But a history of the commons shows that self-interest was indeed the exception rather than the rule, and obeying self-governing rules for the public good was the rule.

While such historical examples are generally from the feudal era, such commons governance still exist today in some communities today. These are democratically run in local communities where public resources are managed with definitive protocols including punishments. Since the members live in the communities they are keenly aware of the natural limitations to grazing, forestation, soil degradation and the like so manage their resources sustainably. From a wide survey of such commons governance 7 key principles were held in common (see 162 for the list).

Following are other examples of application to contemporary society. The public square was considered a shared resource for meeting, celebrating, sharing and the like. This now manifests in social media sites. The commons is also now expressing through the free genetics movement, which is trying to preserve our genetic heritage from being enclosed and privatized by big biotech. And which is just another addition to the emerging P2P meme in RE, 3-D printing, education, music and so on.

Also of note is that both Clinton in the US and Blair in the UK were part of a trend started by Reagan/Thatcher to sell off the commons to the highest private bidders via deregulation (163-64). Both of the former were held to be 'integral' leaders by Kennilingam.

[Darrell R. Moneyhon]

simply depth locations in an unfolding of reality from the inmost depths to the outer surfaces of reality where we deal with material objects. My theory or strong hunch is that the mind can form staging areas for perception and enactment based on different depth locations in an actual unfolding of reality from deeper, more converged, entangled or non-dual zones or "dimensions" to less converged surface zones. The characteristics of the Integral quads would seem to conform to what a person might expect of various depths of reality's continuous unfolding or unpacking or wave collapse. Some of the more recent quantum physics theories, such as Bohm's and Hiley's seem to provide an actual depth structure which in turn suggests possible "homes" (centers, staging areas) for the major knowledge perspectives (or "ways of knowing") elucidated by Ken Wilber and his followers, in the form of the "quads." Place those quads in a quantum depth-unfolding metaphysical (which the quantum folks call "ontological" for some reason) and you can get some pretty good guesses as to why each quad "sees" what it sees. I do the guessing and then rename the integral quads as "quantum quads." 

 

{from Your Third Nature, in progress} :

Here's a summarized preview of the Integral/Quantum hybridization:

UL = A, uncollapsed* (or “packed”)                  UR = B, collapsed* (or “unpacked”)

LL = C, uncollapsing** (or “packing”)             LR = D, collapsing** (or “unpacking”)

*quantum wave function

** the quantum wave function

Simple enough in form. But some explanation is needed before the quantum-ized version of the quads can make much sense. 

{I go on to explain why I think each major perspective or "quad" might be established or located in certain depths or ranges of depth} The UL quad/perspective is thought to cover a bigger span of depth than, say, the UR which only skims the surface of overall "reality." In other words I suggest that the so-called "intuition" attributed to some forms of subjective reality is actually the result of sensing deeper realities or reality dimensions. The subjective mind seems able to dip into David Bohm's and Basil Hiley's "Implicate Order" where a quantum substratum of reality which is non-local in nature can provide "active information" about distant realities as though operating in a non-local field. This seems similar to Ruppert Sheldrake's "morphogenetic field."  Bohm and Hiley also think there is evidence of a "super-implicate order" which not only is non-local but also independent of what the physicists call "spacetime." This very deep substratum of reality is like the Vedic "causal body" realm. The intermediate quantum realm or "implicate order" seems like the Vedic subtle body realm.  And of course the "explicate order" where "classical" objects exists and obey Newtonian physics in our "physical reality" is like the Vedic "gross body" realm. 

If we can "see" (that is, if the mind can somehow connect with or tune into) from these various real depth zones or dimensions, then it seems to me that different "ways of knowing" might occur according to what depth level of relating the mind is operating from or affected by. This means that I believe the mind is capable of going in and out, deep and shallow, of a person's overal existence or being which is, structurally and dynamically speaking (involving a kind of systems veiw of a person or "self"),  akin to a flare (like solar flares)  or fountain which unfolds up and out from an unknown source of origin (like the sun). 

darrell

andrew said:

Hey Darrell, 

I'm short on time this morning but would like to ask you if you see what you are fleshing out here as a kind of multi-dimensional quadrant view? 

Happy Mayday long weekend to you all! 

I also wanted to mention quickly that I think it's right and good to feel compassion to those in the petrochemical industries who may have to take some short term pain in the coming decades; but having said that, there are those at the top of that pyramid who are most likely not deserving of that compassion as they are willfully and consciously operating from greed and corruption in the most negative sense.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Chapter 11 is on the emerging ecological worldview of global consciousness, the democratization of everything. One of its expressions was the free software and open source movements, both dedicated to making information accessible to all for minimal to no cost. It was based on the notion that everyone could share, change, mix knowledge in a collaborative endeavor where no one person or company owned it. All of which transpired in the global commons of the internet beyond blood ties, religious affiliations and national boundaries, thus enacting global consciousness.

Cultural creation though is limited by the nature of the communication medium. The print revolution, and later tv and radio, favored individual authorship and copyright protection, the enclosure and privatization of knowledge. Previously in scribe cultures knowledge was shared and authorship was from divine inspiration. The internet reincorporates the sharing but replaces the theological underpinnings with global collaborative efforts. It also replaces the notion of scarcity with abundance.

This new commons needed a unifying narrative or worldview, heretofore having to navigate within the capitalist paradigm or regress to old notions of the commons. They found their theme in the ecological sciences, where the focus was not so much on individual species but how they interacted within environments. And most importantly, how all the environmental niches interacted with the biosphere as a whole.

It replaced the capitalist invisible hand, which was itself a holdover from a theological God in control to rational, self-interested individuals in control. Lacking a systems view it replaced God with the invisible force of a marginally less superstitious autonomous Market. Backed by ecological and other scientific advances, that is being replaced with with the visible systems view of the global eco-social commons, which redefines our place within it.

PS: Note that the invisible hand of the market is still metaphysical in that it must posit some supernatural agency that operates on its own if we but focus on our self-interest, i.e. the market will take care of itself. Moving into systems science and ecological consciousness thus naturalizes this process, making previously supernatural agencies like Gods or markets 'visible' and understandable, and reconnecting us with ourselves, our peers and our environments, but in a postmetaphysical framework. This also applies to the sort of instrumental rationality inherent to 'enclosure' of disciplines of study rather than to interdisciplinary cross-sharing more indicative of Habermas' collaborative, communicative action. It is not by chance that Habermas' calls this latter form of rationality postmetaphysical.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Speaking of Habbie, he devotes a chapter to Mead in PT. See this old Gaia thread on Mead for how it relates to postmetaphysicality.

[Darrell R. Moneyhon]

When I said the being's reality flows out and "up," the "up" is only a metaphor or artifact of taking a cross-section view of the self-flare. The "up" is really only "out." This metaphorical "up" however might correspond to what we call "time" and/or "evolution." In the sense that some sort of progress or at least journey is being made as each self-flare unfolds. Growth, or at least the potential for growth which time (withing spacetime) allows. Or "stage-advance." As in "growing up." The "out," altough more literal than the flare flowing "up," might also be a metaphor of space. Although the inner, quantum-like, stuff gels or solidifies as the quantum wave function collapses into the form of a partical or a particular being, and thus appears to go out no more (unless we gain wieght), this is only physically true, in that we all have something like a circle of influence (Covey) in which we physically and/or psycho-socially affect/effect others (to either change or stay their course). To me this seems like a blend of skin-bones and quantum potential. While the space of a self is contained to his or her body and stops flowing out at the body's outer boundary the range of spacial influence goes beyond that. When we are assigned a job, for instance, we have both a workspace and a "workable" space which is pretty much ours. We are granted permision to Lord over a given space or domain. Just as Einstein's relativity acknowledged that objects bend gravitational fields and space, so too does our "job" or "role" become a means by which the object called a person "bends" the fabric of space called society, reality, or any other way of conceptualizing the contents of space. The "world" is relative to our co-creative (unfolding) flow outward. This is a figurative meaning of the self-flare flowing or unfolding "out." It also might represent the "horozontal" dimensions we have been talking about here in the form of Rifkin's "lateral power" and our oft-mentioned "P2P" culture. In Your Third Nature I suggest that quantum quad C (corresponding to Integral's LL) via its social/interpersonal interconnections (which begin to move us within -- "touch our heart's -- as though "packing" or quantum wave function "uncollapsing") creates something like a satelite dish which pulls in the signals from the deep.

A couple of examples of this involving small satelite dishes made of dyads are: 

1. I was at a 3-day workshop. On the first or second day, a fellow I met there said something that resonated with me as being "meanigful" and I actually energetically felt a shift and connection within me (not just a thought that "hmm, that's meaningful"). That night I dreamed of a hand wadding up a piece of paper and throwing it into a fire." For some reason (probably intuition) I told the man about that dream the next day. He said that was spooky because that's the way he processes bad problems or emotional hurdles/situations. He literally writes the issue onto a piece of paper, wadds it up and tosses it into a fire. It's a helpful symbolic act that he uses to cope with things. 

I had "read his mind." But this was not only a lateral or horozontal transfer of information. Had he used language to provide this information it would have been the horozontal structure of the satelite dish or relationship. But I'm assuming that to read a mind one must go deeper within the being, like navigating vertically (depth dimension when viewed from our familiar cross-section side-view of things). A horozontal relationship took me (probably "us" since it involved a transmitter as well as a reciever) vertical or deep, literally, as deeper within actual (metaphysical, or, as the quantum theorists say, "ontological") reality. 

2. My best friend "Mark" died last summer. Prior to his death, he made a pact with me to try to make contact from the other side. This particular "ghost story" is just one of about 4 or 5 times he succeeded. 

I inadvertently or incidentally (not intended to make contact) mindfully listened to some of Mark's Easy Listening or Ambient Jazz music which I inherited from him. The mindful listening to music was his favorite meditation technique, which he practiced throughout his adult life, starting as a young man. He mentored me on the technique, but I only managed to do it about twice while he was alive. Still, I accepted it as a viable meditation tool. I just had other techniques that were my "default programs" for meditating and/or contemplative experiences. But this particular day, upon hearing Mark's jazz songs, I went right into mindful listening of each note and then gradually hearing the different sounds (bass notes, etc.) come together as a whole symphony of sound. I was deep. I was in my car at the time (his music downloaded onto my ipod and plugged into the accessory mode of my car's sound system). Since I felt deeply meditative, I stopped to meditate at a local river which I had used for that purpose many times and which had collected memories of Mark and other friends. I had used the river as a "sacred space," my own personal "geomancy." I meditated there for about fifteen minutes and went home. 

About two or three hours later, as my wife was coming home from her work, she called me on the cell phone and asked how my youngest son's interview with his school's principle (his boss, since he is a teaching assistant waiting to step into a full teaching job which he went to college for). I was trying to think of the best word for my son's reason for talking with his principle/boss. The word "contact" then came to my mind for the first time. Just as I said that word out loud our cell phones "dropped" the call. Within minutes however, Becky (my wife) was home. She told me that the wierdest thing had happened. When the call terminated, her phone indicated that she was getting an incomming call. Her phone read "Mark Cowart" (my deceased friend's name) from her contact list, thus indicating that Mark was trying to call her. 

I was, of course, "blown away," since my rational mind is unaware of any technical explaination. If a name from contact list popping up is something which sometimes happens following dropped calls, why then of her list of about 40 contacts or so would it be such a synchronistic name, considering the meditative "connection" I had from meditating in Mark's way and with him in mind only a few hours earlier (something rare, not something I had done or do on a regular basis, perhaps the first time since his death)? What were the odds of it being THAT name?

Either Mark followed through with his plan again, or my deeper-centered mind happened to wave-collapse realities in a way that expressed what was on my mind. In my first book I describe a situation involving deep meditation and a tree falling on a perfectly calm day, and note how the deep thoughts and symbolism surrounding the meditation and location were such that it foretold my good friend and neighbor's untimely death by drowning only a few weeks after  the "psychoid" event of having a tree fall as I left the meditation area. Here is that account:

The Spirit of Falling Tree

During a family vacation out west, I set my mind to noticing

“experience patterns” that occurred throughout the two

week trip. I likened these experience patterns to “spirits,”

and wrote journal entries about six or seven different themes,

or spirits, that I encountered. My whole vacation became an

exercise in acting through. Many of the “spirits” that I observed,

wrote about, and interacted with, expressed themes

about authentic living and about acceptance of death. One

spirit, the Spirit of Falling Tree, was encountered in a park

called Storybook Island in Rapid City, South Dakota.

The park had many statues and displays of nursery rhyme

and other fairy tale characters. One of the displays was about

Little Boy Blue. It was also designated as a memorial to a

child who died while chasing some ducks near a local river.

He drowned in the river. This story moved me, and soon

framed my whole experience of the park on that beautiful

sunny day. I reflected about death, ego death, the life journey,

and living with authentic abandon in pursuit of beauty.

I identified closely with the boy who playfully chased the

ducks during his last moments on earth.

As we left the park, just as I was walking through the exit

turnstile, a huge Cottonwood tree crashed to the ground. This

happened on a calm day. The tree’s falling could not be attributed

to wind or any other natural force (besides, of course,

gravity). Neither was any manmade force present. Nobody

was pushing it with a bulldozer. Nobody was climbing it. A

similar tree nearby had a tree house, and children were climbing

it. But not this tree. As far as I could tell, no one was even

touching it. The tree’s time was simply up (rather, down).

An interesting parallel was the fact that a wind storm back

home had felled one of our cherished big pine trees just a

few weeks before our out west vacation—adding to the significance

of the name “Spirit of Falling Tree.”

Being there in the theme park exactly at the last moment of

the Cottonwood tree’s life was improbable enough. The fact

46 Darrell Moneyhon

that I was still emotionally and spiritually processing the powerful

story when the rare event occurred, made the event seem

even more unlikely and mysterious. To me, it was a good example

of Carl Jung’s concept of synchronicity. Mind and reality

seemed to have been in perfect harmony, synchronized. To

this day, that moment seems magical. I feel that it validates the

Spanish dictum “Life is a Dream.” Whenever I recall that sacred

moment, I once again “act through” the event; immersed

in its symbolism, like a little boy who is over his head in waters.

What is even stranger about this story (and more meaningful

to me) is that my close friend and neighbor was to die from

a freak accident within a few months of the Falling Tree event.

Bill had an enthusiastic spirit of a child who explored life. He,

like the boy memorialized by the Little Boy Blue figure, died

by drowning. He was swimming in the Atlantic Ocean while

on vacation in sunny Florida when he got caught up in a riptide.

Like the little boy chasing ducks, Bill was playing when

he died. It was as if the spirit of Falling Tree had told me in

advance of the earth-shaking trauma to come.

But considering the other signs of Mark making contact from the other side, I assume it was more him than me -- or perhaps both of us. 

Point is, our "horozontal" relationship -- friendship -- formed something like a satelite dish that made contact with a dimension (presumably deep within reality, toward its core) we call the "other side." Mark and my horozontal relationship went vertical. Incidentally, he and I occassionally focussed on how deep our visiting and communicating was during some of the last few visits before he died. We both highly valued tring to go "deep." Perhaps this paved the way for this particular neat "ghost story." 

Friendship and love moves us to a "deeper," core-felt or "heart-felt" place or zone. The relationship "satelite dish" pulls in signals from the quantum substratum and perhaps deeper yet (Bohm and Hiley's proposed "super-implicate order"). 

darrell

 

Darrell R. Moneyhon said:

simply depth locations in an unfolding of reality from the inmost depths to the outer surfaces of reality where we deal with material objects. My theory or strong hunch is that the mind can form staging areas for perception and enactment based on different depth locations in an actual unfolding of reality from deeper, more converged, entangled or non-dual zones or "dimensions" to less converged surface zones. The characteristics of the Integral quads would seem to conform to what a person might expect of various depths of reality's continuous unfolding or unpacking or wave collapse. Some of the more recent quantum physics theories, such as Bohm's and Hiley's seem to provide an actual depth structure which in turn suggests possible "homes" (centers, staging areas) for the major knowledge perspectives (or "ways of knowing") elucidated by Ken Wilber and his followers, in the form of the "quads." Place those quads in a quantum depth-unfolding metaphysical (which the quantum folks call "ontological" for some reason) and you can get some pretty good guesses as to why each quad "sees" what it sees. I do the guessing and then rename the integral quads as "quantum quads." 

 

{from Your Third Nature, in progress} :

Here's a summarized preview of the Integral/Quantum hybridization:

UL = A, uncollapsed* (or “packed”)                  UR = B, collapsed* (or “unpacked”)

LL = C, uncollapsing** (or “packing”)             LR = D, collapsing** (or “unpacking”)

*quantum wave function

** the quantum wave function

Simple enough in form. But some explanation is needed before the quantum-ized version of the quads can make much sense. 

{I go on to explain why I think each major perspective or "quad" might be established or located in certain depths or ranges of depth} The UL quad/perspective is thought to cover a bigger span of depth than, say, the UR which only skims the surface of overall "reality." In other words I suggest that the so-called "intuition" attributed to some forms of subjective reality is actually the result of sensing deeper realities or reality dimensions. The subjective mind seems able to dip into David Bohm's and Basil Hiley's "Implicate Order" where a quantum substratum of reality which is non-local in nature can provide "active information" about distant realities as though operating in a non-local field. This seems similar to Ruppert Sheldrake's "morphogenetic field."  Bohm and Hiley also think there is evidence of a "super-implicate order" which not only is non-local but also independent of what the physicists call "spacetime." This very deep substratum of reality is like the Vedic "causal body" realm. The intermediate quantum realm or "implicate order" seems like the Vedic subtle body realm.  And of course the "explicate order" where "classical" objects exists and obey Newtonian physics in our "physical reality" is like the Vedic "gross body" realm. 

If we can "see" (that is, if the mind can somehow connect with or tune into) from these various real depth zones or dimensions, then it seems to me that different "ways of knowing" might occur according to what depth level of relating the mind is operating from or affected by. This means that I believe the mind is capable of going in and out, deep and shallow, of a person's overal existence or being which is, structurally and dynamically speaking (involving a kind of systems veiw of a person or "self"),  akin to a flare (like solar flares)  or fountain which unfolds up and out from an unknown source of origin (like the sun). 

darrell

andrew said:

Hey Darrell, 

I'm short on time this morning but would like to ask you if you see what you are fleshing out here as a kind of multi-dimensional quadrant view? 

Happy Mayday long weekend to you all! 

I also wanted to mention quickly that I think it's right and good to feel compassion to those in the petrochemical industries who may have to take some short term pain in the coming decades; but having said that, there are those at the top of that pyramid who are most likely not deserving of that compassion as they are willfully and consciously operating from greed and corruption in the most negative sense.