Plutonomy: A Leaked Citibank Memo

[Doktor Howl]

Sometimes it is so damn frustrating interacting with you people.

Um, wut?   

So our human intelligence evolved as a direct result of selection on 2C scheming. Does that mean that our intelligence is bad? The same thing for religion; it evolved via group selection because it had some survival benefits and added to group cohesiveness. There are bad aspects to it, but that doesn't mean that religion in essence is bad, no more than intelligence is bad.

Can't we talk seriously about this stuff? I'm not trying to rag on you or vex, I am just frustrated, wanting to change at least my life and help the lives of those I care about.

I was being serious.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

My last comment was a serious conversation point. There are aspects of religious groups that could help them weather a storm like this. Some elements of their model might be worth adopting. Or infiltrating!

[Doktor Howl]

Leaving this thread.  I'm not getting into an argument over this.

I hope I didn't offend you, Kai.

[Kai]

Leaving this thread.  I'm not getting into an argument over this.

I hope I didn't offend you, Kai.

No, you didn't.

[Captain Utopia]

We can't possibly beat the plutonomy. There is no way I as an individual can wrench that control away, even by voting; the plutocrats have a xanatos gambit on party politics.

We can absolutely beat the plutonomy.  I expect, no less, to see it within my lifetime.  But I completely agree that we can't do so by the simple cast of a vote in a pre-rigged game.

This is where Cognitive Surplus comes in.  This is about our recent shift from a species which could only filter ideas through a one-to-many broadcast network to a species which can develop exponentially with dynamic many-to-many communication patterns.  This is about creating a fertile environment for emergence to solve what will be a trivial problem in hindsight.

It's the beginning of a revolution.  And if we aren't receptive to the new concepts it brings, then it will simply route around us as it will every other obstacle in its path.

[Triple Zero]

2. Think for yourself. Yes, as Discordians we should be doing that anyway. New situations require new techniques and new tools. And as the plutocrats want to push me into a box/herd and guide me along a path that gives them the highest payout, I should (to my benefit) limit the messages that prime my mind into their want. Not watching television, for example. So much out there is a trap. How do we avoid traps?

I dunno. Not watching TV is easy, cause it sucks so badly. The small amount of stuff worth watching, I download, so I can get entertainment [which is important] but more efficiently, and without the ads.

What's much, much harder for me is how to avoid burning my mind on the infinite firehose of information that is the Internet. Not so much the priming, I choose that myself [like avoiding articles on iPhones and iPads], but the mere volume of information I find damaging.

3.  Learn skills. How do you survive in /this/ forest? What skills will get me out of danger? And I'm not talking about how to interview or balance a checkbook, but the skills we need to manipulate the hell out of the system from day to day. And stay the hell out of trouble in the process. AND, we should be teaching these to each other.

Yes. Also because if you see the Plutonomy as supplying all the dangers in our modern jungle, you have to take care. Because if you make a self-reliant community, one that withstands the dangers, subverts and manipulates the system, you may catch the Machine's attention. And it can provide a lot more dangers if it knows where you are.

What this means is that the skills you're talking about cannot be too explicit about how to subvert the system on anything more than a rather small scale.

So, on the one part, it consists of skills that are simply accepted as common sense by the cogs of the Machine. A lot of them aren't unusually unreasonable, and you can use them just about as much as you want without drawing any attention. Balancing a checkbook is in fact a good example of this. Simple common sense education that doesn't worry the Machine too much goes a real long way.

Then there's the little "cheat codes" [I will start a thread on that in O:MF, check it], some are small and efficient, and the Machine will like because it likes efficiency, and others are a bit more subversive, and the Machine may not notice, until a lot of people start doing it. And then it gets angry, either at the cheating people, or if the behaviour is noticed too late and has "grown in", it will (somewhat randomly) lash out at something else.

I'm not entirely clear on how to balance between common sense "proper" skills and the slightly more subversive "cheating" skills that the Machine would not like if it would notice. And KYFMS works a good deal against the Machine noticing, but if you say teach it to others, it will notice that something is going on even if everybody Keeps their Fucking Mouth Shut. Roger's next chapter in "Discordian Manual" was going to touch a littlebit on that subject, IIRC.

[Cramulus]

We can't possibly beat the plutonomy. There is no way I as an individual can wrench that control away, even by voting; the plutocrats have a xanatos gambit on party politics.

We can absolutely beat the plutonomy.  I expect, no less, to see it within my lifetime.  But I completely agree that we can't do so by the simple cast of a vote in a pre-rigged game.

This is where Cognitive Surplus comes in.  This is about our recent shift from a species which could only filter ideas through a one-to-many broadcast network to a species which can develop exponentially with dynamic many-to-many communication patterns.  This is about creating a fertile environment for emergence to solve what will be a trivial problem in hindsight.

It's the beginning of a revolution.  And if we aren't receptive to the new concepts it brings, then it will simply route around us as it will every other obstacle in its path.

are we talking about the same thing?

How is cognitive surplus going to change the fact that the top 2% control the majority of the economic resources? Do you really think we can crowdsource capital out of the mega-rich's pockets and restore the middle class?

Yes. Also because if you see the Plutonomy as supplying all the dangers in our modern jungle, you have to take care. Because if you make a self-reliant community, one that withstands the dangers, subverts and manipulates the system, you may catch the Machine's attention. And it can provide a lot more dangers if it knows where you are.

This too, I'm not sure you're talking about plutonomy / plutocracy.

Plutonomy, as it's described in the OP, describes the imbalance between the mega-rich and everybody else. If you're not raking in billions per year, you're a blip on the radar, a fly on the windshield. Neither the mega-rich nor the system that created them are threatened by self reliant communities. According to plutonomy theory, the entire lower class could be nuked and it would have no bearing on the economy. Citibanks advice to its investors was "don't worry about social inequality -- 1. the data shows that only the top 2%'s choices matter, so don't sweat the lower 98%, 2. the government is in full support of us hoarding all the resources - it's the American Dream!"

I guess this does create a situation where it's good to know some community building and survival skills, but this is also true in non-plutonomy countries.




a bit more about plutonomies:

"Ajay Kapur and his associates assert that world is getting divided into two blocs, namely, the Plutonomy and the rest. The term 'Plutonomy' is derived from, Plutus, the Greek god of wealth. America, Britain and Canada are the key Plutonomies, powered mainly by the wealthy. In Plutonomies, the rich dominate the economy as they account for most of the consumption expenditures, savings, current account deficits, etc. Obviously, in the Plutonomies, economic growth is powered by the wealthy. The rest of the population does not have much of a role in the economy.

Kapur and his associates claim: "Plutonomies have occurred before in sixteenth century Spain, in seventeenth century Holland, the Gilded Ages and Roaring Twenties in the U.S." Common drivers of Plutonomy in each case have been "Disruptive technology-driven productivity gains, creative financial innovation, capitalist-friendly cooperative governments, an international dimension of immigrants and overseas conquests invigorating wealth creation, the rule of law, and patenting inventions." These conditions benefit the rich and educated of the time because only they are in a position to exploit them. Income inequality has been a prominent feature of Plutonomy. In the present day world Plutonomies are given birth to and sustained by revolution in information and communications technology, financialization, globalization and friendly governments and their policies."

[Doktor Howl]

We can't possibly beat the plutonomy. There is no way I as an individual can wrench that control away, even by voting; the plutocrats have a xanatos gambit on party politics.

We can absolutely beat the plutonomy.  I expect, no less, to see it within my lifetime.  But I completely agree that we can't do so by the simple cast of a vote in a pre-rigged game.

This is where Cognitive Surplus comes in.  This is about our recent shift from a species which could only filter ideas through a one-to-many broadcast network to a species which can develop exponentially with dynamic many-to-many communication patterns.  This is about creating a fertile environment for emergence to solve what will be a trivial problem in hindsight.

It's the beginning of a revolution.  And if we aren't receptive to the new concepts it brings, then it will simply route around us as it will every other obstacle in its path.

Wait.

The age of Aquarius is going to dawn, and we'll all shit rainbows until the plutocrats self-reform?

[Captain Utopia]

Kapur and his associates claim: "Plutonomies have occurred before in sixteenth century Spain, in seventeenth century Holland, the Gilded Ages and Roaring Twenties in the U.S." Common drivers of Plutonomy in each case have been "Disruptive technology-driven productivity gains...

Remember when computer technology had its widespread introduction into the workplace?  Claims abound that the increase in productivity would mean we'd all need work only one day per week!  Of course, we worked the same amount of time at this higher rate of productivity and created exponentially more shit to fill our homes with.  We used the broadcast network spiders to instill new reasons to consume more, and this worked quite well for a while.

During this time those at the top needed to do very little, but acquire other successful enterprises, as their wealth naturally increased with the exponential rise in production.  For every 10 people making $1,000,000 in 1970, by 1980 you'd have 1 person making $10,000,000 (multiplied by the consumption increase).  And so on.

Where we are now, I think, is the place where the acceleration of our consumption has leveled off.  We still have more shit than we need, but we haven't really started looking at how to reduce.  Each household is a separate state of duplication, maintained by a lack of community/a limitation of the available communication technology.

Where is the plutonomy vulnerable?  In the blind assumption that its short-term financial success is indicative of long-term survival due to intrinsic qualities.  In other words, that bottom 98% is more agile than the top 2% which believes its own intelligence is unassailable and will stubbornly continue to believe the lies it has created to explain its own short term success.

We can't possibly beat the plutonomy. There is no way I as an individual can wrench that control away, even by voting; the plutocrats have a xanatos gambit on party politics.

We can absolutely beat the plutonomy.  I expect, no less, to see it within my lifetime.  But I completely agree that we can't do so by the simple cast of a vote in a pre-rigged game.

This is where Cognitive Surplus comes in.  This is about our recent shift from a species which could only filter ideas through a one-to-many broadcast network to a species which can develop exponentially with dynamic many-to-many communication patterns.  This is about creating a fertile environment for emergence to solve what will be a trivial problem in hindsight.

It's the beginning of a revolution.  And if we aren't receptive to the new concepts it brings, then it will simply route around us as it will every other obstacle in its path.

are we talking about the same thing?

How is cognitive surplus going to change the fact that the top 2% control the majority of the economic resources? Do you really think we can crowdsource capital out of the mega-rich's pockets and restore the middle class?

Crowdsourcing is probably the simplest possible application of having a Cognitive Surplus.  In the same way that an integrated circuit can do so much more than create increasingly sophisticated digital watches.  Crowdsourcing is a reflection of the one-to-many pattern - it still relies on a common hub.  There aren't yet many ready examples of individual groups working towards the same goals in a many-to-many pattern.  I think this is due to a technical limitation that without a central resource, connections are ad-hoc, and for now ad-hoc means temporary - forgotten when a server goes down or a thread is pruned.

I often think that there's probably some skeptics forum out there which shares 70% or so of our discussion topics and style.  They're probably further ahead than us in some respects, and undoubtedly there are some things we could teach them too.  There is an undeniable benefit to stepping out of our comfort zones and experience new approaches to existing issues.  Isn't this the singular genius of the safari concept?  Right now we have to forge and maintain these connections manually.  We're moving rapidly towards a future where the job of finding the needle in the hay can be automated.

We have all the data we need in order to make better decisions - those informed by our personal preferences and desires - but while accessing it remains a burden, it may as well not be there at all.  Imagine replacing the hard-drive in your computer with a tape-drive and you'll see what I mean.

Remember that iPhone app which caused a stir because it was able to perform a marvelous feat like recognise a song playing in the background and automatically enable you to purchase it?  Okay - now imagine an Open Source app which, when you point your camera-phone at a can of beans in the supermarket will tell you of all the horrors of the Heinz corporation, and advise you to pick the store brand instead.  Or if you care more about the environment than child-labour abuses, then you indicate that in your personal settings, and your dollars will go towards corporations which support your goals.  The corporations which try to game it will be discovered, and the third most virulent offenders will be black-listed.  There'll even be a little "facebook app" which tracks how many dollars (or percentages for the modest) of your purchases go towards particular causes.  It'll fuck farmville in the face.  Corporations can then look at the data and see quite clearly the impact that their particular business decisions has on revenue.

Hey, there's a local bakery who decide to donate a percentage of their profits towards the local library system - I fuckin' love libraries - would that bread taste even better because of that?  You can bet it would.  I'll just take a quick shot of the QR Code printed on my receipt, and I've both updated my stats and enabled any of my friends who love libraries to check out that store, too.

Even that example is just an extension of one-to-many crowd-sourcing.  Would moving it to a many-to-many model improve things?  What would that even look like?  Greenpeace and other groups ducking it out to provide an authority on environmental issues?  What if you recurse the selection process, and make it such that the individual gets to vote who they want as an authority on particular issues?  They could cast their environmental vote for Greenpeace, or it could be BP, or it could be my friend Sue who reads all the blogs attends all the rallies and seems to really give a shit about this stuff - more than I do, anyway.  But they could change it any time and as frequently as they wanted.

This, actually, is the basis for the Votorola method of proxy voting:

The Cognitive Surplus, when applied to civic matters - perhaps in this way, perhaps in another - will change the rules of the game.  It will enable us to take apart the system, piece by piece, or just change the motivational structures such that The Machine^tm isn't such a dick any more.

Wait.

The age of Aquarius is going to dawn, and we'll all shit rainbows until the plutocrats self-reform?

No.  We will follow the money, and make that data accessible in a way that is easily integrated into our daily routines, and in of itself, provides a motivation for individuals to participate.  We will wean large corporations away from large profits, and support businesses which actually live up to their responsibilities.  We will force accountability into a system which was able to act with near anonymity with the old one-to-many communication technologies.

We will take advantage of the latent anger which bubbles under the surface of a society which for too long has been fucked over, with no way to do anything about it.

Because we will have tools more powerful than guns, lies, and riot police.

Anyone who thinks the current status quo will simply fizzle away without any form of violence is UTTERLY INSANE and historically unaware.  But mostly the former.

Yeah maybe.  But I'm willing to work towards an alternative on the off-chance that you are wrong, and the future we're entering is unlike anything we can fully imagine at this moment in time.

[Doktor Howl]

No.  We will follow the money, and make that data accessible in a way that is easily integrated into our daily routines, and in of itself, provides a motivation for individuals to participate.  We will wean large corporations away from large profits, and support businesses which actually live up to their responsibilities.  We will force accountability into a system which was able to act with near anonymity with the old one-to-many communication technologies.

How? 

[Captain Utopia]

I detail that in the tl;dr above your comment 

[Doktor Howl]

I detail that in the tl;dr above your comment 

So you're going to attempt to network an apathetic public and do...what, exactly?  Perhaps I am simply too stupid to understand it as written.

[Cramulus]

I suspect that even all made the "right" consumer choices, it still wouldn't decrease financial inequality.

I think this can be illustrated by the green movement --

1. There was a lot of buzz about how the environment was going to shit.
2. This created a demand for "green" products and industry
3. Companies redesigned themselves and "went green" in order to maximize profits


I guess the trick would be to start or participate in advocacy groups that attack the building blocks of plutonomy - like outsourcing. I can see "made in the USA" products as having a competitive advantage if outsourced goods were branded the right way.

Still, we'd have to all be on the same page for this to work. We'd have to get most americans to buy Local Brand instead of Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic... being that mega-corporations have done a great job of mixing branding with identity politics (ie "What kind of computer is for individuals? What brands of shoes do athletes wear?"), and being that outsourced products tend to be cheaper, it's going to be a giant struggle.

[Doktor Howl]

Wait.  I think I understand.

Everyone's going to start acting rationally at the same time?

[Cramulus]

I think what he's saying is that everybody will be hooked into these "many : many" communication services which will create structures to encourage good consumer choices.


for example, when you're walking around at the supermarket, your iPhone will tell you what products to buy based on what causes you support. If you hate breast cancer, it'll tell you which products donate to breast cancer foundations. And that by doing this, you'll earn some kind of score you can use to compete with others.

--is that right, captain?