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I would recommend looking to nature for patterns. Large networks of loosely interdependent organisms work best. Once one species (e.g. humans) become too domina

I would recommend looking to nature for patterns. Large networks of loosely interdependent organisms work best. Once one species (e.g. humans) become too dominant the whole system begins to fall apart. There is no central planning in nature. It could be argued that central planning is an unnatural state. A far more robust solution would be to focus on having an economy made up of many small/medium size organizations and individual makers. Currently our economy with our "too big to fail" institutions is very fragile, as single points of failure can have catastrophic global effects. It would be much more healthy to eliminate the possibility of devastating single points of failure.

digi_owl 11y ago
I could have sworn the old idea was that factories would shift from working for the executive suite to working for the workers. That is, make the workers the shareholders and board.
- rorykoehler 11y ago
  That idea (at least in the form you mention) becomes redundant when the factories are full of robots.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
I'm not sure about appeal to nature here; biology seems rather centralized in a lot of aspects. An organism may be made of many cells, but each of those cells have a specific function. Kidney cells do not compute, and brain cells do not contract to pump blood. When a cell starts doing whatever is best for it locally, we call that "cancer". Centralized management arises naturally whenever there's a need for efficiency. So while there's a lot of distribution going on, I wouldn't say centralization is unnatural. It seems common enough on many different scales.
- rorykoehler 11y ago
  The body as you have described it is one node (an organization in my example) in the wider network. For that node to function it needs to have all of its components working in unison but if the node fails other nodes can adapt and the system keeps on chugging.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    This layering of central and distributed seems common on all levels. If you go up from your example, you have an ecosystem that needs to work in unison. But if it fails, there are always other planets...
    - rorykoehler 11y ago
      Yes this occurred to me too. Very interesting. At what layer is the economy at naturally?

digi_owl 11y ago

I could have sworn the old idea was that factories would shift from working for the executive suite to working for the workers. That is, make the workers the shareholders and board.

rorykoehler 11y ago
That idea (at least in the form you mention) becomes redundant when the factories are full of robots.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

I'm not sure about appeal to nature here; biology seems rather centralized in a lot of aspects. An organism may be made of many cells, but each of those cells have a specific function. Kidney cells do not compute, and brain cells do not contract to pump blood. When a cell starts doing whatever is best for it locally, we call that "cancer". Centralized management arises naturally whenever there's a need for efficiency. So while there's a lot of distribution going on, I wouldn't say centralization is unnatural. It seems common enough on many different scales.

rorykoehler 11y ago
The body as you have described it is one node (an organization in my example) in the wider network. For that node to function it needs to have all of its components working in unison but if the node fails other nodes can adapt and the system keeps on chugging.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  This layering of central and distributed seems common on all levels. If you go up from your example, you have an ecosystem that needs to work in unison. But if it fails, there are always other planets...
  - rorykoehler 11y ago
    Yes this occurred to me too. Very interesting. At what layer is the economy at naturally?