On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 2:55 PM, Crosbie Fitch
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From: Devon Loffreto
>I agree with your intent.
Not so much intent as my reckoning of what is required for VRM
technologically (ultimately).
>But you must connect these dots to a practical strategy that has the
slightest chance of succeeding.
I think it's still useful to talk in terms of 'should' even if it is
extremely unlikely that what should happen will happen because there is a
consensus that it should. For example, copyright should be abolished, but it
is unlikely to be abolished because everyone has taken time to understand
the principles that give rise to the 'should'. It will be abolished because
its costs outweigh its benefits, and its abolition is therefore advanced as
advances are made in facilities that enable intellectual workers to exchange
their work for the money of the people who want the work to occur.
Agreed... with your description of how "should" progresses in a real world context rather than an intellectual one... ie, in practical terms, a law isnt law if it isnt followed and/or enforced... we can transcend feeble constructs with more empowered facilities.
Understanding what 'should happen' in a broader sense is useful in
understanding how facilities should work and should be designed to work.
Agreed.
We don't have to change the law or people in order to develop VRM
facilities, but we should recognise the limits of law (natural and
unnatural) and people, and so understand what can or cannot be relied upon
as a sound foundation for VRM facilities.
True in the first part... we dont need to change the law to develop VRM facilities.
But, VRM facilities need people empowered by default as socio-economic participants in order to maximize the leverage afforded by the structural shift that VRM facilities propose. The ROI formula requires VRM facilities to function in a ubiquitously available ecosystem. The construct of participation that we have today feeds the need for VRM facilities, but it is disabling to actualization. We have a binary construct defining participation in the marketplace...you may operate as either OWNER or NON-OWNER. Every part of our administrative management system is configured to deal with each definition. There is complexity baked into those definitions that make them extremely opaque...ie OWNERS can exist in a myriad of structures, each with their own points of leverage and advantage within the s-e system... and NON-OWNERS can exist in various capacities as well. But in each category of participation you will find the rules that drive the implications/outcomes of the structure. The top 1% OWN. The bottom 1% do NOT-OWN.
This matters for VRM as a philosophy because in our current system, ownership leverages non-ownership and manages scarcity of opportunity to enforce power. VRM proposes a new paradigm. To create participatory equality as the baseline default, ownership must be a ubiquitous state. This world will NEVER go backwards to non-ownership without blowing itself up in a mass-armageddon event...so the only practical path is to universally distribute private ownership of the marketplace itself... of participation itself... and in so doing, eliminate the idea that OWNERS can create false scarcity of opportunity to enforce their power over NON-OWNERS.
This comes back to the law in the end because by taking this default structural approach, VRM facilities empower people to leverage the present system against itself...and OWNERS are unable to shift the ownership model to their exclusive benefit when their structure is ubiquitously available by default to all participants in the s-e system. This process yields transparency within our present system... as efforts to shift and move the leverage of power will lead to a crumbling of the system itself, whereby new Institutional leadership, laws and participatory processes with VRM roots can emerge as the new default construct of power.
>Abolish the W2 first. Make it impossible for corporate shells to employ
PEOPLE.
>Our priority must be strategically possible. This is the possible path
because
>it puts power in the hands of Individuals. You can choose your structure.
You
>do not have to be structured as a wage-slave.
If an alternative is provided that is more effective then the tradition will
be abandoned. One doesn't have to lobby for changes to the law. If the
people abandon corporate employment then one doesn't need to make it
impossible.
Yes, exactly.
The alternative exists today. You can choose it for yourself. You can negotiate it for yourself. And it can be given a simple and streamlined structure for the masses to access via an automated opt-in process. I have been doing this for years. This has global implications.
We have examples to point to. On Twitter I made the comment that
"Irony in a name:Steve Jobs worked for $1 because he owned himself.There is no more profound message to personal power than 1 man's life #vrm" This speaks to the nature of law. Employment law dictates that you pay employees, ie people who have their work details,locations, schedules controlled as a matter of employment...
a reasonable wage. This law affects payroll taxes/rates, social security expenditures, medicare funding...ie all the things the government cares about. So how does someone like Steve Jobs get away with paying himself a $1 salary? Does the law make exceptions? All the time. Is that good law? Perhaps/Perhaps not. What I know is that Steve Jobs was all about disrupting the status quo... and his capacity as an OWNER defined his participation as a wage-slave.
We, the People... should use this example not to scream foul against SJ... but to look at our own structure and ask ourselves if we own ourselves structurally. Do you own your occupation as a function of contract? How does not owning your occupation affect your work? What would change if you structured your work within a contract that maintained personal responsibility/accountability for the measurables of your owned labor?
Systemically... everything changes. W2's (NON-OWNERS) pay the government tax revenues before they pay themselves. K1's (one example of OWNERS) pay the government after they pay themselves. This is a profoundly simple fact that drives operational integrity. Its easy to fight endless wars and pay for things you can not afford when you have guaranteed and controlled receivables. It is an absolutely irresponsible structure for government financing, unless of course, government financing is a tool that is leveraged in the favor of OWNERS against the interests of NON-OWNERS. Thus...its a sick cycle. And W2 wage-slaves are creating the problem by willingly participating in the formula.
>In order to balance the power equation, we need to eliminate the unfair
>advantage that is created by the binary structure of OWNER/NON-OWNER.
> Own your ID.
> Own your data graph.
> Own your money.
> Own your education.
> Own your occupation.
> Own your government.
> Own your vote.
> Own this planet.
It's important to recognise the difference between ownership of natural
property (physical objects or spaces, physically possessed or inhabited) and
figurative, abstract concepts that are more truths than property. For
example, I only own my identity in the sense that no-one else can truthfully
claim it, but simply because one can be said to own something, such as one's
shadow, that doesn't make it property or alienable.
Yes, important. There is a distinction. We can agree to that.
But "participation" is an abstract concept which may be owned. Identity exists on many levels. I am only interested in the administrative identity that is used to manage your participation in the socio-economic system at every point of transaction. I believe in anonymity. More importantly, I believe in subsistence. These are personal choices and should be protected as 1st Rights. But the choice to participate is mine. We the people did not give it to me. I am born with it as a Human.
Owning yourself is about owning your participation in every socio-economic instance. You do that by owning your administrative construct. You do that by structuring your Identity in such a way as to define participation.
I can today operate as an OWNER_ID.
I today am denied the inherent structure of SOVEREIGN_ID.
I think we can start with the former and work backward to the latter...far more important... Human default.
When VRM facilities can transact ubiquitously between OWNER_ID participants... we have a new socio-economic system. And I believe there is an operating model that drives the whole process. When the operating model is exposed, VRM facilities can be written to it and we will have a ubiquitous user-driven experience.
Devon Loffreto