Disqus - Latest Comments for Openworld

Re: My Journey from Free Market Ideologue to Strong Towns Advocate, Part 7: The Nature of Markets

Openworld — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 12:01:25 -0000

Chuck, agree with your case. Here are transition paths with left/right appeal towards relocalizing systems – https://is.gd/seedingrecovery and https://is.gd/NewHanseaticL... . Will welcome your thoughts.

Re: Is the American Economy Underperforming or Not? | AIER

Openworld — Sun, 17 Mar 2019 10:38:16 -0000

The way to preserve market capitalism may be to encourage decentralization and a shift to maximizing land rents.

If these steps are taken, moves to end political favor-giving are rewarded with far higher land values. Hong Kong and Singapore have taken this path, reaping huge land value gains by maintaining free markets.

A summary of how it works...

>>Hong Kong and Singapore are both densely populated cities. Land is a scarce resource and land and property prices are high even when compared to prices in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries (with the exception of Japan). "Speculating" or "investing" in the property market in both cities is indeed a favorite pastime of risk-loving locals and foreigners alike. The two cities are well known for being free traders as well as international financial centers with few restrictions on trade and capital flows, which are many times their GDP.

>>However, what is less well known is the fact that the state owns all land in the case of Hong Kong, and four-fifths of the land in the case of Singapore. There is no hint of Henry George's distinctive methodology if one examines the technical procedures for deriving revenue from real estate in Hong Kong and Singapore. This is especially true in that no attempt is made to separate site-value from the improvements on land. The assessment systems in both cities are derived from the British rating system and are basically annual value systems. Even though Singapore and Hong Kong depart from the method of land-value taxation that George advocated, they have accomplished to a significant degree the capture of land values for the public, along with the reduction of tax burdens upon industry--which together constitute George's key policy proposal.

>>Hong Kong and Singapore capture economic rent primarily by nationalizing land and leasing it out. In Progress and Poverty (Book VIII, chapter ii), Henry George contends that this approach is "perfectly feasible," and that it satisfies the "laws of justice" and "meets all economic requirements." However, he goes on to say that there is a "simpler, easier and quieter way," namely, to leave land in private hands while using the tax mechanism to appropriate its economic rent for public purposes...

>>While the state is the largest landowner in Singapore and the only landowner in Hong Kong, the inefficiencies that could have resulted from state ownership have been minimized through the creation of markets for state land and property leases. Unlike the socialist city where the absence of land markets had very negative impacts on efficiency, productivity, and environmental quality, [1] property markets are active in Hong Kong and Singapore and transmit important information to both users and urban planners. Also, the public leasehold system, where the government plays a major role in land use planning and resource allocation, works in Hong Kong and Singapore because the public sector institutions in both cities are efficient and non-corrupt.

-- Phang, Sock-Yong, “Hong Kong and Singapore” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Volume59, Issue5, November 2000, Pages 337-352

A global strategy to spread this is described at https://is.gd/NewHanseaticL... .

Re: How to write a video script in 60 minutes! - Video Making and Marketing Blog

Openworld — Sat, 17 Mar 2018 16:56:07 -0000

Arvind,

Thanks for the wonderful insights!

Is there any way Animaker could offer a chatbot to help scriptwriters along?

For example, it might include a Q&A to serve up characters and scene settings related to a scriptwriter's keywords or responses.

Also, a way to read emotion tags in the scripts would be helpful. Plotagon ( http://www.plotagon.com) can parse script dialogs to pick out the emotion tags inserted as parantheses (e.g. 'happy' 'surprised' 'agitated') for each speaker, and automatically apply these to the visible baseline expression of the speaker.

It would be amazing if Animaker also had this capability in a script->animation tool.

In any event, congratulations on what looks to be an outstanding tool for creation!

Best,

Mark Frazier
Openworld

Re: Perspectives on Blockchains and Cryptocurrencies

Openworld — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 03:08:50 -0000

Art, Synereo has created ways for the Blockchain to overcome earlier constraints – http://bitcoinist.net/syner....

How viable do you think these solutions will be?

Re: sxsw-panelpicker-logo PanelPicker®

Openworld — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 12:14:05 -0000

I love seeing the emergence of "value sharing" in memespace, Chelsea – many thanks!

Re: The adjacent possible

Openworld — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 10:31:04 -0000

Beautifully said. Along with mapping the attractors, I'd like to see tensors/aversions in the system mapped as well. Then a move to an adjacent possible stands a better chance of creating a state change that will last. (Related ideas at http://is.gd/nfractals )

Re: 10 Logical Reasons Why Free-Marketeers Don’t Understand the Invisible Hand

Openworld — Mon, 12 Oct 2015 11:06:39 -0000

A thoughtful critique... yet it misses the ways in which entrepreneurially-developed communities are using contracts to deal with negative externalities, in the interest of maximizing land values.

More than 300,000 homeowner associations – up from fewer than 1000, five decades ago – today rely on deed-based agreements (created by profit-maximizing developers) to keep owners from acting in ways that impinge upon their neighbors. They also create formulas for automatically sharing the cost of infrastructure and services, without recourse to taxation.

Land values act as a hedonic index, reflecting the net of positive and negative externalities. As Joseph Stiglitz has noted, a polis has rent-maximizing incentives to ensure that negative externalities are kept in check. The invisible hand of rent maximizing can work with states, such as Singapore and Hong Kong, that fund operations through social ownership of land, as well as entrepreneurial developers of private communities (e.g. Freeport in the Bahamas, Zonamerica in Uruguay, and Songdo in South Korea).

"Geoist" approaches along these lines offer a proven, replicable path to overcoming state and market failures. Local outcroppings of the new system can be encouraged through community land trusts and contractual self-help groups in a range of settings, as outlined in http://is.gd/seedingrecovery.

Re: Fractals in organisational sense-making - part one

Openworld — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 13:26:15 -0000

Enjoyed your OSU Medical School keynote. I was struck by its insights relating to an appreciation of narratives and exaptive evolution.

This Quora thread on "narrative fractals" converges on both points – quora.com/What-are-narrativ... .

Re: 11 Tiny House Villages Leading the Movement in the US

Openworld — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 16:41:04 -0000

Cat, great article with a huge omission – http://thevillageofwildflow... in North Carolina !

Re: The Rise Of Rōnin and The Liquid Economy

Openworld — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 11:13:23 -0000

Stowe,

Enjoyed your post.

A more or less overlooked aspect of the Ronin economy is the downdraft on labor costs that will ensue as hundreds of millions of individuals flood into online markets for telework.

Many of these markets operate on a reverse auction basis – meaning that people essentially give away their services in order to win the crucial first projects that help them build feedback-based reputation.

I believe this creates an opportunity to engage near-free labor in reputation-building projects for a global commons. Some early ideas on this are at http://upliftacademy.org/wi... .

Look forward to your thoughts!

Best,

Mark Frazier
@Openworld

Re: Reconsidering Gift Economies

Openworld — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 21:07:45 -0000

Greg,

What if you could, in a user profile, show what kinds of quests would be most meaningful to you?

Let's say the Maslow level for someone in your trustnet showed that his or her business venture(s) was at risk of soon entering into a survival mode.

It's highly likely that your giving in this case would be in the form offering trails with (unexpected) opportunities for access to refined goods.

If one has a good eye for spotting trails laden with such bounty, the gift of the breadcrumb trail becomes becomes tangibly valuable to the recipient.

And if the giver hopes for "repayment" of such a gift in the form of opportunities to receive breadcrumb trails that have a high chance of prompting surprising spiritual (for example) insights, don't we have an emergent foundation for a gift economy?

Best,

Mark

Re: Reconsidering Gift Economies

Openworld — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 09:22:54 -0000

Terry,

I'm glad indeed to see your response - you've framed the concept in a deep way, yet one that offers opportunities for practical initiatives.

Until reading your response, I hadn't seen a connection between gift-giving and two other elements of social network related issues that I've been working on.

1) User profiles

User profiles might defined in terms of each individual's vision of an achievable (?) ideality - a "dream community" vision of where, and how, they'd most like to live in an alive and whole way.

Knowing the dreamed-of destination can prompt gifts of bread crumb trails that hint at surprising paths of discovery for getting there.

If the giver feels that the person's dream may be a way-station in a yet-to-be discovered, more fulfilling quest, his or her gift can take the form of something that sparks interest in a larger epic.

This would be especially powerful if the format of our user profiles also lets disclose who or what we value in our civic,
personal, and business frames of reference – the "extended self" that we represent in our quests.

A way of creating and sharing such user profiles is outlined http://is.gd/soctets . It could include a Maslow-inspired schema for showing (via colors?) whether aspects of a person's life were at survival, comfort, or generative levels of being.

2) Vision-centered accounting

Several years ago, Tom Munnecke of UpliftAcademy.org introduced me to a wonderful notion – that that accounting systems might work backwards from future idealities.

In the business world, one such gap-closing system accounting is already being applied successfully applied – http://is.gd/newaccounting .

I'd love to see how a similar system might help each of us in our journeys to the places and ways of living that we deem and dream to be our future best.

At the heart of such a gap-closing system to measure progress, I think we'll need a patterned way to describe the trails we embark, whether as individuals or with others. Early thoughts on such patterns are at http://is.gd/nfractals and http://is.gd/scenius .

If patterns of this kind do have enduring value, they may help us in framing points of challenge and tension in the context of opportunities – including opportunities for gift giving that can lead to good surprises for the recipient.

What do you think?

Best,

Mark

Re: Reconsidering Gift Economies

Openworld — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 08:18:44 -0000

Greg,

Interesting!

We seem to be hardwired with a thirst for finding patterns in unpredictable (yet non-random) environments.

When gifts start arriving on a predictable basis, in terms of frequency of giving or in a legible case:rule:result pattern, we lose the element of joy inherent in pattern discovery.

It follows then that surprising gifts with portents of unfolding discovery are the kinds of gifts to give.

Can gift economies succeed in a sustained way through reciprocally giving breadcrumb trails for surprise-filled quests?

Best,

Mark

Re: The Never-Ending Story | design mind

Openworld — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 10:49:24 -0000

Here are related ideas on creating nestable storylines (narrative fractals) - http://is.gd/nfractals

Re: Entrepreneurs: It’s a War Out There!

Openworld — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 11:28:08 -0000

Have you seen the "open venture" framework (a revenue-sharing approach) to rewarding wiki contributors? John Robb is going to apply in a new photo wiki on Resilient Communities - http://MiiU.org

Re: Escaping the Attention Economy, Flirting, and Escalation

Openworld — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 23:24:53 -0000

Greg,

On a first pass, this rings true --

>>individuals and fluid groups will be significantly more effective than
rigid groups. By 'fluid'/'rigid' I mean to contrast groups that are
loosely defined and can easily change direction with those groups that
are strictly defined and organized for a distinct purpose.

Yet firmly-held visions can be enablers of, instead of obstacles, to fluidity in organizations.

Vinay Gupta has explored ths in posts on "Vision-Centered Adaptation" versus resiliency. As I read it, he argues that an evolutionary advantage flows to groups that can define and hold fast to an envisaged ideal (a desired state change along with a good conduct code to build trust), while remaining fluid on the optimal means to reach these ends.

This approach is being profitably applied in business organizations. Business 2.0 profiled an enterprise run by Gamal Aziz, the entrepreneur behind the MGM Grant resort in Nevada, that uses ideal-centered visions to navigate in highly agile ways. Some highlights --

"Aziz's secret is a counterintuitive management practice -- nicknamed 'working backward' -- that he invented on his arrival at the Grant. The strategy breaks down an operation into constituent parts, then calculates the maximum potential revenue that each business or space could generate in a perfect world -- that is, if every customer spent the most the market could bear and if traffic reached its physical limits. Aziz then subtracts actual sales from that hypothetical number and calls the difference a loss, even if the the venue is making money. ...That's 180 degrees from the way most US companies do things."

It seems to me that a vision-centered system of "accounting" might work in a similar way within each of the value quadrants you've mapped -- for each of the frames of reference (business, civic, and personal) that I've described.

But perhaps a vision-centered approach can similarly be used to map idealities that would concurrently enrich us across multiple frames of reference?

As I see it, the ultimate value navigation system would help individuals and groups define and update idealities (as best they could express them at any point) that could generate synergies across multiple frames of reference.

A social venture or a profit-making might use this to practically define the forms that ideal, enduring relationship would take with its customers/clients, with its investors/backers, with its employees, with its suppliers, and with the local and global community.

Then, a synergy-sensitive value mapping system could run simulations - and acceptance tests -- on a range of proposed gap-closing strategies. And your four quadrants would provide a rigorous way for the system to remain fluid in exploring a full gamut of strategies toward the envisioned end.

The same system of mapping idealiities and "working backward" could also be applied in an ongoing way by each of the participants - and prospective participants - in the relationships mentioned above.

A multinode system of this kind would give each participant in the network a means of mapping ideal relationships and opportunities/gaps to close.

Participants would (presumably) agree on entering into the relationships to share this information and provide each other with first-option opportunities to respond to changes in the idealities and gaps in relationship-preserving ways.

In this way, I think it's possible for future accounting and value-mapping systems to push beyond the borders of any (habit-inclined) core group, and to engage in fluid initiatives that create synergies and trust relationships with suppliers, employees, and other stakeholders.

What do you think?

Best,

Mark

Re: Escaping the Attention Economy, Flirting, and Escalation

Openworld — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:51:06 -0000

Greg,

Thanks - I see these quadrants as very useful in filtering opportunities that then can move to a synergy-oriented level of analysis.

To refine an understanding of how the Rader matrix can be used in such cases, let's test it out on a potentially sil0-transcending scenario.

Paul Romer has been scouring for sites upon which to build a new generations of Hong Kongs and Singapores. Suppose he decides to launch a for-profit company to develop Charter Cities, as a followon to his current nonprofit (chartercities.org).

It gets leasehold rights for a "green field" development site in areas where incumbent institutions are failing. The new area obtains reforms similar to those applied in Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Songdo and Singapore.

Such a venture would light up each of my frames of reference: civic, business, and personal.

In terms of its civic impact, his new venture could provide a practical means for high-trust, transparent new institutions to emerge in areas that have lacked them - a Commons of great value.

As a business venture, the new venture could reward investors with via 10-50 fold rise in land values, based on the experiences of experimental zones in Shenzhen (China) and Zonamerica (Uruguay).

On a personal basis, the venture would be of intrinsic value to me - a chance to see memes spread that I cherish (level playing fields for free, self-organizing people, and Build-Operate Transfer agreements that vest good causes as stakeholders in asset gains).

In its present form, your matrix helps me see – within each of my respective frame of references – a different, optimal way to proceed with the prospective Charter Cities venture.

Yet it seems unable to map synergies. In a time when we face increasingly "branchy" choices in our lives, my guess is that more of us will be drawn to navigation systems that enable us to find the (rarer) cross-cutting paths that can concurrently enrich us in many ways.

What do you think?

Best,

Mark

Re: Escaping the Attention Economy, Flirting, and Escalation

Openworld — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 10:20:40 -0000

Greg,

I like the valuing matrix, but see these limitations:

1) It overlooks business, civic, and personal frames of reference.

Each of us has parallel frames of reference that we may use when valuing:

- Our business frame scans for financial opportunities/threats.

- Our civic frame monitors opportunities/challenges relating to the Commons (for me, definable as "fields of emergence").

- Our personal frame sizes up opportunities/threats to what we value intrinsically (kindred qualities of spirit, memes, etc).

These frames can be _concurrently_ active when we engage in the process of valuing an item, person, or setting. And the thing we have in view may simultaneously fall into different sections of the Rader matrix as we are valuing it within the concurrent frames.

Your matrix would be more useful, I think, if it showed a way to express consilience - the "golden thread" of synergy - that defines metavalue across frames.

Ideas on how this might be visually shown are at:

http://junto.cc/talk/commen...

2) It omits the perspective of emerging (extended) selves

Opportunities to map value exchange to "holons" (networked individuals or connectives) came up in a recent thread at Eli's blog:

http://www.webisteme.com/bl...

If Arthur Koestler is right about holons (each thing can be simultaneously valued a part of an emergent system, and a whole in its own right), then the matrix for valuing should be sensitive to both perspectives.

I don't see yet how this can be depicted in an intuitive way - though perhaps the "Fluid Context" interface innovation at http://j.mp/nM5CU2 could be applied in some way to a future version of your matrix?

Best,

Mark

Re: The Intention Economy and the Evolution of Relationship Management

Openworld — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 09:23:48 -0000

I think this comment about the evolution of a "customer" to a seller as well shows a way out of the VRM/CRM silos.

All participants in a peer to peer system – at least potentially – have selling as well as buying opportunities in their business (monetary exchange) frame of reference.

Equally, everyone in a P2P system has:

- a personal frame of reference (of give/receive opportunities that are based on intrinsic value rather than expectation of return), and

- civic frame (of give and take to protect the commons, which I define as protecting "fields of emergence.")

User profiles in a P2P network might show two-way 'asks & offers' relating to each of these frames. Early ideas on how user profiles could do so are at http://is.gd/userprofiles .

Moreover, a standard visual framework for user profiles along the lines above also speed the creation of extended "higher" selves, as individuals move to nest their profiles within trustnets or holons of their choosing.

These holons, in turn, could concatonate the constituent business, civic, and personal profiles, and map synergies, and create their own profiles for complex two-way exchanges (at their own higher peer level) that generate flows of value to their constituent parts.

What do you think? Look forward to comments and any ideas on improvement.

Best,

Mark (@openworld)

Re: The Intention Economy and the Evolution of Relationship Management

Openworld — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 23:26:28 -0000

Greg and Gideon,

Have you looked at the "reverse Groupon" approach of http://www.loopt.com and http://www.whooda.com?

They're big steps toward a system where buyers as a group can express their intent and define triggers for group purchase decisions.

If such a system were linked to individual user profiles that reveal other standing "offers/asks" (related to each member's visible personal, business, and civic frames of reference), then vendors - and their bots - not only might come up with responses to the buyer group, but identify ways to build whole-person relationships with the group's individual members.

Best,

Mark
@openworld

Re: 8 Principles For Disruptive Learning Environments

Openworld — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 07:57:12 -0000

Greg,

I'm with you except for the final point, where I see things differently on goals and causes.

The X Prize Foundation, Innocentive.com, and "Results-Only Work environments" offer rewards for team and/or individual breakthroughs.

Tangible challenges on these lines (and their associated rewards) tend to nourish, as I see it, the other learning styles that you've identified.

What do you think?

Best,

Mark
@openworld

Re: Free Cities: Development for the 21st century

Openworld — Thu, 19 May 2011 08:26:34 -0000

Zachary,

Glad to see your post.

You'll find ideas on seeding free cities here:

- http://www.openworld.com

- http://www.slideshare.net/o...

Look forward to your thoughts!

Best,

Mark Frazier
@openworld @peerlearning

Re: Reconciling Attention Scarcity with Cognitive Surplus

Openworld — Fri, 13 May 2011 10:14:22 -0000

I can see individual "core curricula" emerging and evolving in peer learning networks.

It could be started quite easily. Admired bloggers and tribe members might begin by including pointers, in their blogs or social network user profiles, to a small number ( 5-10?) resources that have most inspired or otherwise shaped their thinking.

Creators of such lists might also note any intriguing (to them) open questions relating to each of the resources.

Identifying such core materials and issues might prompt others to engage with them as well, leading to co-evolution of core material lists and areas of inquiry.

As personal currencies – convertible to attention – emerge in parallel, creators of such resource lists might endow anyone making a first contact with a gift of their (attention preference) currency, based on the core overlaps.

As far as I can see, this approach would encourage individuals on the edges of many tribes to engage more frequently on a deep rather than ephemeral level, and help to spread mutually-enriching insights.

What do you think?

Best,

Mark
@openworld

Re: Rising Income Inequality & Shifting Identities – The Specialist & The Omnivore

Openworld — Fri, 13 May 2011 07:05:58 -0000

Brilliant (again!!!) insights, Greg ...

And if the drivers you've described are working to set a zero price for bits and atoms, in what ways will rising income disparities continue to matter in the future?

Best,

Mark

Re: Reconciling Attention Scarcity with Cognitive Surplus

Openworld — Sun, 08 May 2011 07:39:29 -0000

An original, brilliant and (almost) beautifully-conceived post. I agree all of the points in it except for this --

>>how could it be that the best way to “
discover oneself
” is to follow a standardized curriculum prescribed for thousands of students

The aim of a core curriculum – a distribution requirement in courses – is to introduce (purpose-searching) individuals at a formative time to the highlights of what others across a range of domains have found worthwhile.

With such encounters, a learner may more readily find paths that resonate with her or his sense of personal destiny. The experience of such a classically liberal education may also help individuals to adapt and change course during their life without becoming overly "silo-ed," to find and appreciate patterns across domains, and more easily to communicate with other explorers who engage in differing quests.

I'm inclined to believe that such a balanced, "whole person" foundation also can emerge in new, post-bubble systems of learning. It's likely to happen more quickly if the value of a standard curriculum - or tests that confirm understanding of what comprises a liberal education - are appreciated by those working on disruptive alternatives to higher education.

Best,

Mark

@openworld @peerlearning