A Way to Dismantle Nuclear Weapons Now

Only once before in the history of mankind has there been an opportunity to get rid of all nuclear weapons.  We now have another chance.  This chance appears to us now primarily for two reasons: 

1. Communication Technology and  2. World Travel. 

The first opportunity presented itself in the short period following WWII when the United States was the only country with atomic weapons.  Truman’s generals realized that we had a window of many months to stop the Soviet Union before they too developed nuclear weapon capabilities.  Some generals suggested a preventive war to knock out any potential threats in the Soviet Union but Truman found that idea morally repugnant.  This second and new opportunity will not appear like the first confluence of events, but in the long run it may be a more effective method.    

First we must look at the tools of language, the metaphors and mental models that we use to construct our thoughts and communicate these thoughts to others.  Metaphors help to build stories in the minds of people with shared experiences. 

They help create a believable story, a reason for action or changing direction.  Metaphors such as “head” of state or the “long arm” of the law help us think about some situation more clearly, but it must have some connection to reality. 

Three metaphors have been especially powerful in constructing stories about war and nuclear weapons (NW).  “Scorpions in a Bottle” was an early and vivid metaphor used by Robert Oppenheimer to describe the stance each nation must take when dealing with the extremely high explosive energy of nuclear weapons.   No one saw an easy way out.  The acronym MAD for “Mutually Assured Destruction” became both a description and a justification for their continued existence. 

During the Vietnam War, the “Domino Effect” was commonly used by government officials at all levels to warn against the systematic takeover of southeast Asia by communism.  It created a certain mental image in the mind of everyone who had been mesmerized by a line of falling dominoes, conveying an unstoppable force.

A third metaphor is that of two gun fighters like the ones seen in western movies.  This image is sometimes used to justify and perpetuate the Nuclear Arms race.  Gunfighters, of course, cannot lay down their weapons for fear that the other person will lie and take advantage of the situation.    

Metaphors can mislead or be incomplete however.  In the movies, the camera point of view supports the idea that there are only two fighters.  This implies that neither of them can risk laying down their weapon.  In real life these two gunfighters would be surrounded by a crowd of onlookers, some of whom would have guns themselves and be in a position to demand that the gunfighters put down their weapons – or they will not make it out.     

This enlarged metaphor shows a pathway out of the NW dilemma.  Because there are more people in the crowd and in scattered positions, there is no need for the gunfighters to mirror each other’s behavior as the weapons are laid down.  It does not require the coordination of endless negotiations.  Each can do it alone, now.

We might refer to the people with guns in the crowd as “Escorts” and the gunfighters as “Guests”, those people with their finger on the Nuclear Button.  Escorts may invite Guests to DINNER (DIsmantle Nuclear Now because of Existential Risks].  Along with the Invitation to DINNER is a Promissory Note that states  “IF – and only IF – any Nuclear Weapon is detonated as a weapon of war, anywhere in the world, we will take you out.  We will take out you, your family, and your friends.”  The feedback and invitation only needs to be to the people with their finger on the button and those around them.  It must be believable to those Guests.  So it must be both personal and public.  Names of the Guests and some, but not all, of the Escorts can be published in any mainstream or social media. 

The goal of The DINNER Plan is to push leaders and those around them to engage in discussions and action to dismantle nuclear weapons.  The silence on this issue, one of the most important issues of our time, is not natural, unless they have already pondered it and simply do not see a way out.  We need our leaders and those around them to think, talk, and then dismantle all the Nuclear Weapons.  If they do not, then we must push them to engage.  With the DINNER plan in place there is no need to wait for other countries to dismantle their nuclear weapons. 

Escorts and Escort Groups might send an Invitation to any civilian, military, or industry leader in any country who has agency and influence.  Escorts will work in self-organized Escort Groups, from a few people up to dozens or even larger.  They will be autonomous and may cross national boundaries.  It is not a social club however, and they may spend minimal time communicating with each other.  

Who are these Escorts?  These are the fishermen who rescued Allied soldiers at Dunkirk.  These are the people who participated in the French Resistance and modern day freedom fighters in Hong Kong.  They are nurses, teachers, active duty soldiers or business people.  Escorts can be other politicians too.  Leaders will always be surrounded by potential Escorts.

How bad could it be, these nuclear weapons?  Modern day nuclear weapons are up to 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.  One modern nuclear weapon could kill everyone in a city of 10 million people, either instantly or over a period of weeks.  Worldwide there are more than 10, 000 nuclear weapons, enough to destroy all life on earth several times over. 

The “nuclear club”, those nations who have acquired or planning on building nuclear weapons, is growing.  This increases the risk of nuclear war by accident, by misjudgment, by miscommunication, or ignorance of the power of these weapons.

Daniel Ellsberg studied risk associated with nuclear weapons for the RAND Corporation before he became famous for release of the Pentagon Papers.  In his recent book “The Doomsday Machine”, he discusses his conversations with commanders in the field and others who had their finger on the button.  What he found was a “chain of command” more loosely defined by these people than the rest of us on the outside could ever imagine. 

Ellsberg also cites studies done that projected a “nuclear winter” should there be an all-out nuclear war.   Exact numbers are an estimate of course, but it is thought that the ash and smoke thrown into the upper atmosphere would block 70% of sunlight for years, causing starvation of most humans and animals.

How does one know whether or not this is true?  How does anyone know?  Politicians themselves may not know, and it is unlikely that anyone from the nuclear arms industry would be honest on this question.  If you really want to know, you must find people who have the same concerns and form a small group to find out.  Only after a series of questions with further searching for answers can a better picture emerge. 

Though expanding metaphors can sometimes be helpful, language that does not reflect the real situation can lead us astray.  The use of the term “tactical” nuclear weapons now circulates among leaders in the military.  But there is no such thing as a “tactical” nuclear weapon.  The first nuclear weapon, whether or not it is called “tactical”, will be responded by 10 more nuclear weapons, and those 10 will be again responded with 10 each to make 100 and it will quickly be out of control.  That is the logic of deterrence.  

Then there will be no morning prayers.  Then there will be no goodnight kisses or children playing.  There will be no national anthem in any language, no starships exploring the galaxy, and there will be no more music.  It will all be over. 

Kissinger has said that everything beyond the first nuclear weapon becomes unpredictable.  One can predict however, that democracy will disappear with the first nuclear weapon, without argument. 

Clergy and leaders of any religion, those humble people who spend a lot of time pondering how to get others to look and think beyond themselves, play an important role here, depending on whether they give a thumbs up or down.  This may test their own belief about whether a God, or spirit of God, exists in humanity.   For unbelievers and atheists, any day is as good as any other for the world to end.  For believers who view themselves as the caretakers of God’s Creation however, the thought of it all ending is unbearable, an unforgiveable sin. 

Nuclear weapons have put us on a steep mountain and we are all tied together.  The only way down may be to go back the way we came.  That might mean an increase in the use of conventional warfare until we can get to a safer place. 

Looking back on the first opportunity after WWII, Truman did have at least one other option.  He could have made a public announcement to invite – to coerce – the Soviet Union to agree to an International Inspection Group, or IIG, that would have the power to go anywhere, to see any building or lab, and take cameras for all to see.  This would be backed up by sanctions and conventional warfare if needed, though that part would be carried out by other independent organizations.  There will be nations and dictators who try to take advantage of this.  They will try to bully others, but they cannot succeed.   Look around.  You will not escape.

This first opportunity to get rid of NW was highly asymmetrical because of a nuclear monopoly on the part of the US.  Even with the much more symmetrical situation today however, it would still be possible to start an IIG and do it completely separate from the United Nations.  Without an IIG and a DINNER Plan, nations will back off at the very suggestion of nuclear weapons as seen recently in the threat of their use by Russia in the invasion of Ukraine.  China too could threaten nuclear weapon use as a cover for invasion of Taiwan.   A DINNER plan gives an advantage to those nations who prepare ahead and are willing to use conventional weapons.  In the end, it may benefit all parties by giving more time.  

Peacemakers, the people who refuse to fight under any circumstances, should not view themselves as being closer to God than people who choose to fight for survival.   Fighters, on the other hand, should not view themselves as more patriotic.  Each has a role. The billions of dollars spent on NW could be much better spent on dealing with climate change, the other existential threat of modern life that, although slower, will be relentless if we continue on our present course.  Both of these existential issues must be addressed.  We can struggle for decades and consume many resources to deal with the climate issue, but if the NW issue is not addressed, it will all be lost, gone in an afternoon. 

To paraphrase Old Testament writers, there is a time to build, and a time to tear down.  This is the time to dismantle nuclear weapons.

JOS

March 2022

Concepts covered:  Power; Useful Information; Feedback; Group Structures; Privacy; Division of Labor; Focus Many on a Few; Pushing Others Uphill;  Building our own information filters with a GIG-type process.   (GIG = Group Information Gathering, a.k.a. Striker’s Game or Information Game)

 “Strikers Game by josuter”  (  https://youtu.be/6EPX8Jp-9Mc    ) is a simple Youtube video that covers some of these concepts.

One must talk about power.  Where does it come from?  Who has it?  How can power be used more creatively to address current situations?  The founding fathers of the US were not trying to empower the average citizen but rather looking for a way to prevent power from concentrating in another monarchy.

People with power don’t just give it up.  It was not surprising that the Icelandic Parliament did not agree to a new constitution drawn up by a body of citizens.  The United Nations seems to lack effectiveness in some areas because they have not considered their source of power.  Unlike the sovereigns they represent, they do not have the force of arms.  The power of the UN is rather in getting people together to talk and move ideas.

Having useful information or the ability to find useful information can be a great source of power.  This includes the concept of feedback, just like the thermostat that regulates the temperature of a room.  Feedback is another kind of information and the thermostat must be carefully constructed to give accurate information.   An important task of citizenship in a democracy is to give balanced feedback to leaders. 

Social structures and physical structures influence the flow of useful information.  The difficulty of moving useful information up a political power hierarchy is, in large part, due to the flow of power down from the top through a political power hierarchy.  Only people with money or those who represent a large organization can get ten minutes with their legislator.  This warps the feedback and tends to make the legislators more ignorant on those issues when they should be leading. 

Useful information does not have to parallel the flow of political power, but it may require some new social structures and maybe competition.  Nature, in many ways, is about competition.  We need to learn how to use it positively.

I agree with your idea that diversity is important, not simply to be fair to those who have traditionally been left out, but to bring new ideas and points of view.  This is especially true with the external environment seems to be changing.  Diversity increases the variety of feedback.  Feedback can also be a two-way street, with politicians challenging specific groups of citizens on specific questions and then follow-up at a later date. 

Privacy at some points of the conversation should be part of the process, even when the process itself is transparent.  It is essential for people to say what they feel without fear of repercussion.  Private meetings are common in government and industry.  They represent real power and citizens must design a process to make use of that power.  The process of being “open” all the time will not work.

The lottery system of the Greeks was a smart use of resources since it created a random sample.   Random samples will, on the average, be close to any other random sample, so the lottery is more about efficiency and division of labor than about fairness. 

How does one organize with no one in charge?  One can do an ad hoc division of labor and organize by birth day and month.  Use a Group Information Gathering (GIG) process or game with a starter Discussion Question and offer a prize – if needed.  Judging is done by people from the same pool so the process can be self-contained.  This can be used to find and filter Useful Information for ourselves or for other groups of people, pushing them up the hill.   Often there is no right answer, yet the right process will lead to similar outcomes.  We must challenge people to do real problem solving, not simply sell pre-packaged stuff. 

GIG allows for the discovery and development of better questions.  Public speakers often use rhetorical questions and even allow time for questions at the end of their presentation, but are these the best questions?  Do they facilitate a learning process, followed by action and then re-evaluation?   GIG can be efficient and self-sustaining.  Results can be reproduced and be useful to those who can create a balanced process.  It’s like baseball, a game once started by a few young people, now be played worldwide by any kid on any playground. 

In a “grand debate” the loudest voices control the agenda and results are more easily controlled by those in power.  On the other hand, a series of small debates that each build on the result of previous debates can be as accurate and useful, especially if participants can talk to others between each round of the game. 

The Global Citizen’s Assembly at COP26 will be ignored unless they can create an ad hoc division of labor, focus on a few issues, and push it toward a few chosen, key delegates. The process to do this can be started by anyone using a GIG game and a starter Discussion Question.  

We must re-establish the local, geographic community as the basis for morality because that is where our Maslow needs of food and shelter must be met.  This is opposed to an online community that can be very useful when searching for ideas and information, but the online community can also be dissolved at the click of a button. 

We citizens can build our own information filters.   We can control the structure of the feedback and GIG groups to tune up the integrity of the feedback process.

Updates from climate scientists always seem to bring worse news than the previous announcements.   They don’t want to be the bearer of bad news.  Scientists are generally reticent people who wait for someone in the media to give them a microphone.  Many of them are not able to think creatively about their own potential power.  They don’t look at the problem of finding and moving useful information as a research project in itself.

Focusing many on a few can be done by starting with a group of 100 or so, and together challenge a much smaller group, maybe a dozen people from one local community.  The small group is divided into several smaller teams, including a panel of judges, and given a starter Discussion Question (DQ).  This uses our love of games and competition to bring ideas to mind and engage in real problem-solving.  If there is no interest in the target community, then the prize money raised by the group of 100 can increase and/or move to another community as a matter of fact and without fanfare. 

Grass roots citizens can exercise this power, first by working apart from the established political power hierarchy.  One project could be creating low carbon communities (LCC).  Any result deemed invalid by officials or by opponents can be run by anyone through another one or more GIG processes.  Again, the process must be transparent even though there is some privacy and deniability for individual players. 

Would decision making on the Titanic have been better with a democratic process?  It depends on their ability to find useful information and have an efficient way of evaluating the risk.  If they find the risk too high and the captain still disagrees, they would have to force the captain to slow down and take a different course.  This scenario may seem far-fetched, but it is close to our situation in the climate crisis on a slightly different time scale.

At the moment, it seems democracy is struggling to find its feet.  People in Syria are grudgingly going back to Assad’s side because it seems more stable and predictable. 

Mass surveillance in a place like China is a power-play by a leader‘s Circle of Advisors and The Bureaucrats.  It may be that the Chinese leader Xi may not trust his own judgment.   Maybe he has lost confidence in himself because he has lost touch with grass roots citizens. 

So GIG offers a structure to Find, Filter, and Move Useful information.  It alternates periods of privacy in team meetings with public presentations and judging is done by people picked from the same pool of participants.  Still, experts and sponsors have input into the process.  GIG can be a tool for whistle blowers or dealing with Tyranny of the Majority.

Do we create processes that cause people to engage in the challenges ahead, or evade, like tax dodgers?  Playing games to push other people uphill can be played by anyone, no matter where they come from politically. 

  by John Suter

Disruption

A young Asian woman onstage at a local high school play stands with long jet black hair that gently moves with the air.  She could be Korean.  She is good at her role, engaged with the music and with the moment.  She is fortunate.  K-Girl seems such a contrast from the lives of Comfort Women, those Korean young women who might have looked and acted just like this student.  But Comfort Women lived during a time of war.  They lost much of their lives under brutal treatment, required to provide sex and comfort for Japanese soldiers on the war front.  

Recent articles by historians argue over whether or not the Comfort Women gave themselves voluntarily or were forced into a kind of slavery.  Whether or not they signed a contract may be a point of argument, but legalism falls short and cannot cover the extent of experiences that comfort women may have had.  It does not describe an imagined last kiss to a young soldier who, on the following morning, fought bravely until his body was riddled with bullets.  He too was conscripted and forced to fight.  

History cannot always find an answer.  The Old Testament provides a story of two women brought to King Solomon, each claiming to be the mother of a newborn.  Solomon came up with a plan that would force the women to make a decision, a quick decision, and thereby he could know what was in their hearts. Their decision would tell him who would make the best mother.  But neither he nor we will ever know the biological mother.  A similar situation in today’s courts would find each woman with a lawyer who does all the talking.  The question at hand would be resolved with a simple DNA test, yet we would still be unskilled at reading the heart.  

Abuse and selling of children into slavery has been around a long time.   We know another story from the Old Testament, the story of Joseph who was sold into slavery by his brothers.   Stories and songs make up a culture with spoken or unspoken expectations. The stories themselves may or may not be true, but they may convey some truth about a hidden personal strength or about the necessity of making connections.  Such a truth is found in a song by Peter, Paul, and Mary who sang about a young woman dressed like a man so she could follow her lover to battle.  

History

One recent article on the Comfort Women controversy brings in many names of other apparently well-known historians who may themselves have doubts about the authority of any writer who disputes previously established facts.  The article does not discuss the history of Japan and Korea leading up to WWII. A brief look at online sources such as Wikipedia reference the control of Korea by Japan for 35 years prior to WWII and previous control by China.  Korea was, fortunately or unfortunately, a passageway for both trade and fighting between Japan and China.  This history may have some bearing on the attitude of Japanese toward the Koreans, treating them as if they were property.   

In cultures that revere parents, it may also be true that fewer questions were asked.  Deals may have been made under the table by parents who needed the money.  So the issue of contracts v. no contracts for indentured servitude does not clear everything up.  It may be expecting too much to say that the cultural story and history of indentured servitude with abuse of women would have no bearing on the situation during the following period of WWII.

The extent of the #MeToo movement should not have been a surprise had we been paying attention.  Women do have power if they act together however.  Women could have ended our involvement in Vietnam if they gave their boyfriends and husbands an ultimatum: “if you leave to fight, I will not be here when you return.” One can imagine this leading to beatings or worse, but it would have ended the war.    

Privilege of the elites has kept them away from the battlefield.   It is privilege and the power of the sword that leads to treatment of those below them as commodities and women as property.  Hubris, pride, lack of information, lack of imagination, fear. These tend towards moral paralysis and war.  When the Pentagon Papers first became known to top advisors they should have resigned, at the very least.  But they all seemed to be waiting in the wings, waiting to be tapped for some higher position. 

Justice

Justice is not enough.  Black Lives Matter should ask for more.  They should ask for more leadership training, even with the leadership skills that already exist.  They should ask for better schools.  They should ask for drug treatment and ways to deal with crime in their neighborhoods. Local people must take the lead in finding ways to get it done and not depend only on the police. 

With social media one can never lose, but never win either.  So it is a tool, but by itself social media will not solve problems.  Many good people join the online virtual battle to get justice for Comfort Women, but they remain unconnected to the real world and limited in power.  They will give up power to people who can organize and create divisions of labor to get things done. 

Sensitivity training is good.  Boys need to learn how to treat women with respect.  Girls, on the other hand, may need toughness training.  Shahid Buttar, the only democrat in many years to seriously challenge Pelosi for her seat in Congress, was accused of sexism.  So Cancel Culture came out of the woodwork on social media to kill his chances of succeeding – ever.  Was his accuser planted by the opposition?  We may never know, but if so, it was a judo maneuver by the Pelosi campaign, using the power available to those on the Left to turn and defeat themselves.   As a practical matter, if women are to be leaders, they must learn how to keep eye contact with anyone long enough to read faces and emotions but yet be tough enough to deflect and discourage unwanted behavior.  This is toughness training. 

Pain

In the case of Comfort Women, their case may be heard by an international tribunal who may find their story to be correct.  But a court decision cannot give meaning and purpose to one’s life.  When it is all over, the lawyers and their supporters will leave, and in the morning the comfort women will still remember the pain.  What gives meaning to this pain? 

One can use pain as a source of energy to work with others on outside issues to give meaning and purpose. One might suggest two outside issues for these comfort women to work on, though they cannot do it alone.  The first of these is human trafficking, a current and ongoing problem.  Human trafficking is something that is happening today, not 75 years ago.  The goal would be to find out where and how trafficking happens, put a foot in the door, and make it stop.

The other issue is the reduction of nuclear weapons to zero.  With more countries developing weapons, the chance of thermonuclear war approaches certainty.  According to Henry Kissinger, everything becomes unpredictable after the first weapon is dropped.   Then no one will care about women or children anymore.  

This seems like David against Goliath, but if citizens don’t take the lead, who will?  Not politicians.  Not people in the military.  Probably not most religious leaders or people in the media, for reasons stated above.   

Joining with others to make progress on some issue can help to lessen the pain. Korean women could work with Japanese women on nuclear disarmament, something with which the Japanese are well acquainted.  It should be some outside issue not too close to one’s own suffering.  It is also how lasting change comes about.   And it can use non-violence.  Non-violent methods bring change that can last longer than military solutions.  Comfort women would know that. 

Even if we believe that we cannot force an opponent to dismantle, it is still possible for our side to get rid of all our nuclear missiles.  This may be the only way to end the nuclear arms race.  And we must go to zero.  If one believes that decreasing from 10K missiles to 5K missiles is progress, one does not understand the power of each missile.  Only a handful of missiles can end modern civilization as we know it.  One can argue that the role of the military is to hold the background stable while we citizens solve problems.  The purpose of the military then should not be to destroy human life on earth like a body’s immune system run amuck.  

Process

Why even consider the efforts of the seemingly powerless and victimized?  Why consider non-violent methods?  Courts don’t understand non-violence as a source of power since the courts themselves depend on force.  This is what maintains the current social hierarchy.  Force pervades any top-down organization that uses courts and contracts as the primary way to hold people accountable.  Our monetary system requires force of arms to maintain the integrity of the money supply and prevent counterfeit money.  So force is not all bad, right?  Yet the same social dynamics is what drives us to create nuclear weapons. By itself, force of arms will not get us to the next level.   

Hierarchies that depend primarily on force have difficulty finding and moving useful information, especially moving up to the next level up or giving feedback to the boss. 

It was no surprise that Donald Trump had nothing good to say about Greta Thunberg.  It was a surprise however, that she had already been in the news for many months before he was ever aware of her.   Obviously there was no discussion of Greta by his circle of advisors in the White House.  This is how dictators fall.  Those who are close and afraid to speak up make their leader ignorant, a cycle maintained by a social hierarchy based on the force of arms.  

Social Hierarchies create layers of power and layers of resistance to the movement of useful information and ideas.   It can be difficult to get information up the ladder.  The current pandemic is just one example.  We got off to a very slow start because of resistance to the movement of useful information.  With Ebola too, we were months behind before the US decided to help fight the spread.  This makes one wonder not only whatleaders talk about, but howthey talk.  What processes do they use to find and move useful information?  

Even media companies follow the bias of the owner.  This bias is easy for outsiders to see but obscure to those within.  A chilling effect can come from the outside due to threats, or from various social dynamics inside the organization.  It will continue if people at or near the top are not aware of what is happening.  They must create neutral pathways or a process to find better information.   Of course we want to find people who will speak truth to power, but real truth can only be seen in retrospect.  We are all playing a guessing game when we look at what tomorrow will bring.  

For Comfort Women we can provide opportunity and have expectations.  They cannot do it alone. But they are not alone.  Finding the right process will give us an opportunity to find new ideas from unexpected people in unexpected places.  We must know how to look.  It is not simply a matter of listening but rather doing, pushing a bit, and anticipation.   

Games Develop Survival Skills   

  by josuter                 

In a recent interview, Michael Brandon Daugherty (My Father Gave Me Ireland) drew a stark contrast between the wealth of Westchester County in NY and the poverty of nearby Orange County, a contrast repeated many times over in other parts of modern America.  Whether political leaders are aware of the problem and able to make course corrections is still a question.  A universal basic income may be a temporary bridge but long term health of our society will require thinking that is both creative and yet reflect fundamental values. 

Meanwhile, children in both counties are out playing games.  Soccer, baseball, basketball, skip rope, whatever.  Adults in these recession-worn areas will stay indoors, pull down the shades and not talk to neighbors when instead they could be learning something from what their children do naturally.  In many parts of the world games actually help develop survival skills.  In Kenya, distance running to catch food has made them into great runners.  Alaskans can operate a sled-dog team probably better than people from Kenya.  In many coastal regions of the world, swimming is a survival skill made into a sport.  Games tune our skills, focus attention, and just as important, get us to interact with others in a relatively low-risk environment.  We play games both for ourselves and for survival of the group.  

One thing missing during this contemporary period of re-adjustment is the ability to organize.   A business can easily organize because the lines of authority and salary are clear. But if the money stops, that business will collapse like a Marionette doll.  Games can also benefit from money spent up front, but once started they can be played over and over again just for the fun and challenge.   

For businesses that produce products to ship overseas, localisglobal, but games too can happen on an international level.  How?  Pick a country, maybe any country in the path of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Using games as a tool to find and move useful information, focus many people on that target country to push those people into becoming self-sufficient.  Then they won’t need help from China.  Throw a wrench in the China expansion machine.  This can be done without occupation of that country.  The game process can be a hybrid of online and face-to-face.  A loose mapping of one town in the US with one town in the target country will provide a division of labor. 

Goals for each game can revolve around some aspect of stability starting with the most basic needs, pushing ideas and information to make the target country self-sustaining.  Local organizers in the US may want to create a prize to start the process and attract a wider pool of players.  The game must provide real competition to engage the players and create their own panel of judges for a sense of fairness.  Moderators and sponsors can provide a general direction by helping to formulate of a series of discussion questions but some games may start on their own.  Having a time limit helps make the process become more efficient.

Communication technology and social media may play a part for widening rifts among natural allies, but so do special interest groups that are close to government.   With games we can use the power of connectivity for problem solving in the real world.  Put boomers and millennials on the same team to extract wisdom from the boomers and new ideas from the millennials.  Start a game using players from the US, then mix in players from the target country later on.  Leadership-to-leadership level initiatives are often too slow and tend to create openings for corruption.  Aim instead at creating a few small teams from a cross section of society.  

Finding a good starting question may seem like a challenge but in practice is not that hard.  Public speakers often pose big questions, to which, of course, they always have an answer.  This is the format for new authors on book tours and is a good way to sell books, but it is not necessarily a learning structure.  If the question is too big, break it down into smaller ones.  Questions of the right size will tend to lead to action.   Games can help to formulate or discover questions of the right size. 

Why would anyone play a game with the object of pushing others up the hill to improve their lot? For the fun and challenge.  Games can start in conservative towns or left wing localities if people are able to imagine themselves as players.  Playing to show solutions to other people in some other location can bring back ideas that benefit one’s own community.  Games can be played for underperforming schools, healthcare, community projects, or transportation, wherever there are basic problems to solve. 

The Indonesian tsunami in 2004 killed more than 220,000 people but at least one village survived because they had a story that said “when the water goes rapidly out to sea, you must immediately run to the hills.”   One does not have to understand the story to make use of it, though in this case the reason immediately becomes clear.   

More often the wisdom must be teased out.  As a social group reacting to the current pandemic, we look pretty slow.  Just as with cigarettes and lung disease, few people pay attention to necessary details unless a friend or family member is involved. This makes response to slow moving changes such as pandemics a product of group intelligence as much as individual intelligence.  

Knowledge of past pandemics is contained within stories of history. It may be useful to periodically take a story off the shelf, dust it off and take it for a test drive.  Does the story mask a fear or have a hidden agenda?  Is it still relevant or does it need modification?  Extracting the wisdom of stories is a group exercise since these stories must be separated from alternative stories.  Sometimes competition and games may be the only way to help us find the strong and weak points.   

If democracy is just another way to divide the spoils, then we have no larger mission and must simply wait in line.   But if we can re-learn the impatience of children, then we may see opportunities to play, creating games that can be used to push others and ourselves uphill toward a more sustainable future.  

A Common Sense Economy to Stabilize the National Debt

  By John Suter, March 2021

There are two types of money.  Money that does Not have to be paid back (N) and money that must be Paid back (P).  If you do not know the difference maybe it can be more clearly explained by someone from the Mafia.  Even a Mafia hit man, however, may donate money to the church and not expect repayment.  A lot of money is given away with no expectation of repayment – gifts, grants, allowance, and philanthropy – and so too with Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) which has yet to gain wide acceptance.  Here we offer a different way of thinking about MMT and the economy.    

Money is not quite the same as currency, a point repeatedly made by Mike Maloney, writer and producer of Hidden Secrets of Money.  Money has value in itself and retains it over the years, even during fluctuations in the exchange rates.  Money touches reality and real things like “real” estate or gold or even a loaf of bread which helps sustain life. 

Currency is an agreement among many people, written in digital form or on paper, about the value of some item today.  It is actually a promissory note.  Currency may be more powerful than money in helping to create more interaction and transactions resulting in sales of goods and services.  Currency can be transfer across the world in an instant. It also requires more control to prevent others from printing counterfeit currency.  

As long as currencies can be exchanged they will tend to stabilize each other since traders will trade to avoid the collapsing currency.  At least one of these currencies must be real money such as gold or that loaf of bread, and so all of the currencies in some way touch reality. Casino coins, on the other hand, might run in the billions inside the casino, but outside the walls of the casino they may be worth nothing.  

Money and currencies need each other and can only work if they are mixed together with the same representation of paper or digital symbols.  Even the words “money” and “currency” are used interchangeably.  We need both money and currency in order to grow an economy, money because it touches reality, and currency because it can be spread faster in order to create jobs. 

Whether or not we are talking money or currency, the questions still arises: “What is the optimum ratio of N to P?”  How much money can just be “given away”?  The Old Testament suggests that we give away 1/10 of our wealth.  This would be real money.  Could this ratio go higher?  What is the optimum ratio to get people out of bed (GOOB) to produce goods and services? Henry Ford paid his workers a good wage so they would have money to buy his cars.  By paying them more than other business owners he also injected extra currency into the local economy, allowing other businesses to grow as well. 

Sovereign governments can print N-currency and give it away.  Both private banks and governments however can create P-currency for individuals or businesses who want to increase their wealth since P-currency can be borrowed, invested, and paid back.  

The two major concerns are 1) Inflation and  2) Spending on the Right Stuff (SRS).

Inflation

For everyone who measures their wealth in currency, inflation eats away at their wealth by requiring more currency to purchase an item this month than last month. Milton Friedman described inflation as “too much money chasing too few goods and services”.  This could be amended to say “too much money in circulation chasing too few goods and services”.  Giving lots of money to large banks does not cause much inflation for this reason.  Whether or not it creates jobs is another question, but the Inflation Expression is still valid.  Money is in the numerator.  Goods and services in the denominator. 

If I have a bike to sell for $100 and then, all of a sudden, my neighbors have extra cash, they may bid my bike up to $200 or even $300.  The numerator of money in circulation has gone up, resulting in higher inflation.  The true value of the bike is unchanged but the spending power of each dollar is shrinking.  Not wanting to be left behind, neighbors and other business people will increase the price of their goods to whatever the market will bear.  Inflation may take off and become difficult to control.  For this reason, even supporters of Modern Monetary Theory don’t want to get rid of all taxes, even though theoretically the federal government could print enough N-currency to pay all taxes.  By the same token, the federal government could pay all its bills with N-Currency too.  

Group Currency (GC) – Who creates value? 

Henry Ford built factories and brought in steel, but the real added value (most of the value of an auto) was created by workers, craftsmen and designers.  An economy grows when there is an increase in the number of people who get out of bed to create Goods and Services. 

You may have seen pictures or heard stories of the Amish who can construct a house within a few days.  They have the skills and communicate well with each other. The labor cost to build a house might run a hundred thousand dollars.  So as a unit of currency, One “Amish” could be quite valuable. 

Another unit of group currency could be the “Maloney”.  Mike Maloney got a degree in electrical engineering and has designed some award winning stereo systems.  When it comes to house building one Amish might be equal to a hundred Maloneys, maybe more.  But when it comes to building stereo systems, one Maloney might be the equivalent of a hundred Amish.   So Group Currencies (GC) are task dependent.  Any group that is able to organize to get things done, however, can create wealth or something of value.  

Individuals and Corporations keep their books closed for good reason.  Group Currencies, on the other hand, will do better with open books.  One group might have 3 Amish and 5 Maloneys that can be traded on a Group Currency Exchange (GroupEx) where they can also be exchanged for other currencies. Traders with good knowledge about the value of these Group Currencies might facilitate the trade and help to make connections.  

Flexible Basic Income (FBI)

One thing which can be very helpful in growing an economy without inflation is the Flexible Basic Income (FBI), a monthly amount paid directly from the federal government to individual accounts.  In contrast to Universal Basic Income (UBI), FBI is not universal but regional.  Being flexible means that it can also increase or decrease.  The amount given out each month depends on whether people in a given region can keep their regional Consumer Price Index (CPI) at the same level or lower.   To keep the CPI stable under the pressure of N-Currency grants, they must avoid bidding wars over existing goods and services.  Instead they must attempt to increase the denominator of the Inflation Expression by creating more, or creating a wider variety of goods and services. 

The measurement of CPI itself must be upgraded, reflecting true cost-of-living expenses in a timely manner on a weekly or monthly basis.  An App could be developed, allowing citizens in a region to see, almost in real time, whether costs are going up and in what sector. This is price discovery and is part of what makes capitalism run.  

Group Spending (GS) – Spending on the Right Stuff (SRS) 

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has said that we can print as much money as we need. The real question is how we set up a system which assures that real resources are created.  If climate scientists are correct, we have a lot of work to do and we have to spend it on the right stuff (SRS).  No more investment in coal and oil.  

Groups can also be used to make decisions about spending, especially at the local level. As an example, an N-Currency Grant of $1 million might add to the inflation if the money is spent to buy everyone a bike.  But if the money is spent to start a bike manufacturing company, it is less likely to cause inflation.  Some of the parameters can be written into the grant themselves, i.e. who will decide where the money will be spent?  Participants of the group spending decision might be those with a January birthday.  Those born in February might offer feedback or even nix the project unless it is modified so as not to stimulate inflation in that area.  It becomes critical to Balance the Bias. 

Significant sectors of advanced economies rely on gathering and organizing information. Like group currencies, useful information is not easy to quantify but still has value. Like the value of goods and services, we can also look at the value of Useful Information (UI) as something that can be gathered and organized by groups of people.  It beomes a factor in the denominator of the Inflation Expression and can be used not only to create value, but to provide downward pressure on inflation.  In this sense, inflation can be viewed as a measure of efficiency or inefficiency.  

In the search for Useful Information (UI) it is the receiver of the info who determines whether or not it is useful.  Does the info help complete a task or change behavior?  

Some UI can be found by cooperation among people who know and agree with each other, but for other more difficult issues, UI will not be discovered without the use of team competition and games with a Balanced Bias structure.  

N-Currency grants can be used for these information games as well, increasing the UI factor in the denominator and leading to decreased inflation.  Even low income neighborhoods can create value by finding and organizing useful information.  This information is not the secrets of intelligence agencies, but practical and useful information, such as finding the best ways to teach a 3^rdgrader how to read.  This can be done primarily for their own neighborhood but if found to be useful, it can be shared or sold to other neighborhoods.  Democracy demands interaction of its citizens and cannot function without a substantial amount of direct interaction.  Authoritarian governments discourage and even fear this type of interaction. 

Stabilizing the National Debt

How do we handle trillions of national debt but still produce useful stuff – without inflation?  It can be done with a combination of N-Currency Grants from a sovereign government plus the Flexible Basic Income that is inversely dependent on the CPI for each region. People will take an active part in controlling inflation and in making group decisions about where to spend the N-currency grants because they each have something personal to gain or lose.  If inflation is kept under control by a FBI-CPI mechanism, then sovereign governments can pay off Treasury Bills with N-Currency as the bills come due. 

A stable US Dollar will help to stabilize other currencies as well.  We want a stable dollar and a functional government that has enough power and resources to do what they are elected to do.  Stability and predictability encourage investment in new business.  If the stimulus checks currently being printed end up stimulating the economy too much and lead to inflation, then that stimulus money could instead be injected as N-Currency into the economy via group spending with an FBI-CPI mechanism.  

In the absence of N-Currency, Group Currency can make some of the connections to Group Spending and finding Useful Information that will move the economy forward. For example, people at the local level can help to find were we are wasting energy. Find houses that could use solar panels or houses that could benefit from more insulation. Group currency is not limited to climate issues but could be applied very broadly.  

An economy can also be viewed as a network of gradients created by wants and needs.  With the right structures in place, it becomes a dynamic economy and money is simply a tool to facilitate the trading, the pushing and pulling of goods and services to where they need to be.  But how much gradient is needed to drive an economy?  If people are struggling at the Maslow level with insufficient food or shelter, it is difficult to build a healthy economy, especially with jobs going overseas or going to robots.  We can create new reasons to get out of bed, even for those who may not fit the forty hour work week.  At the same time, we must engage people at the local level to think about inflation and help to control inflation by their individual and group spending choices. 

Summary:

The two goals of 1) creating a growing economy without inflation and 2) investing wisely can be done with N-Currency grants through an FBI-CPI mechanism. This involves both local groups and individuals at a regional level.  Local groups that make decisions about where to spend N-C Grants must be balanced.  Group Currency and Group Spending can both help in this endeavor but the accounting books for both of these must be open for anyone to examine.  The FBI-CPI structure also allows the federal government to stabilize and manage the national debt. 

    By Jo Suter

In his Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, John Perry Barlow noted that Cyberspace would not be run by elected leaders.  He seemed uncertain about this however and did not really indicate how cyberspace should be organized. 

Unless Cyber Citizens have similar goals with other online users, they are not very good at organizing.  Yet organization is essential for solving complex problems.  The power of business and government emerges because of their ability to organize large numbers of people to make goods and services.  Less trustworthy is their ability to provide useful information to those outside their own company.  This may be related to the fact that their power to organize comes from the top.

Useful information can be of great value.  Other information may be just noise or a distraction. Bad Actors get in and it’s not always easy to tell who that might be, especially since they may not think of themselves as being bad.  (“On the Internet, they don’t know you are a dog.” – P. Steiner).  In the January 6 Capitol Riots a few individuals had bad intentions.  Most had bad information.  They actually thought that Trump won the election.  This is a problem, not only for those involved, but for democracy itself. 

Democracy is a process for use by large groups of people.   It’s a power play, not for the faint of heart.  Witness Myanmar and Hong Kong. The process we call democracy may not work quite the same at the local level however. Too much personal conflict.  Too many loud mouths.  Too many back biters, moles and spies.  Too much belief in unreal things that give believers some power or feeling of power.  

Democracy at the local level is not simply a miniature version of national politics.  The local level has a different function.  Part of that function is to find, filter, and give useful feedback to leaders and to other citizens at any level.  There must be a way to process all the information, even without a formal division of labor.  

How can one organize at the local level to filter information from the bottom up?  Create a game structure, an Information Game, with competition between small local teams, and with local judges that are mixed and re-mixed.  Balance the bias. Rather than sell promises or things that will always be suspect, challenge people at the local level to use a game process as an information filter.  Keep control at the local level.  Push target communities to make decisions by showing them alternative pathways and alternative processes.  

It may seem easier and more efficient to contact local leaders in order to get the game started, but it’s better to start with a cross section of the community, picking players and judges randomly, even for the first round, maybe by birth month. 

This process can start outside the target group. Subsequent rounds may mix local people onto each team.  Even if a target group refuses to accept results, players can still win a round in the game and collect a prize.  

Games can be played online or face-to-face.  The process itself must be transparent even if not completely public.  Some privacy of the team meetings is required.  In that way, better and more useful information may come to the surface. 

It is the end users who are the ones to determine the value of information by their action or inaction. Will the information be used to achieve some goal or task?  Is it misinformation?  Or is it simply noise? 

Power brings organization. Conversely, organization brings power because people will look to organized people for solutions.  Useful information brings organization too, if there is some task, some problem to be solved, and a good information filter.    The power of Cyberspace and Cyber Citizens then lies in bringing both useful information and an information filtering process to people at some local level where there is a problem to be solved. 

We must use the right tool for the right job, of course.  But what job? Arguments about capitalism vs. communism don’t always answer that question.  On the issue of police brutality, people at the top don’t spend much time thinking about it.  They may put someone in charge and throw a few million that direction, then go off to play golf.  It is really up to the local communities to deal with any police problems.  Local communities have much more power than they realize if they use an information game process to find better solutions. They must eventually include a few individual police as players on the teams if they want to find good solutions.   

Here is where Cyber Citizens can help even more than the federal government by creating information games, first among themselves, sending their winning ideas to the target community, then also challenging that community to set up their own information filter.  This may not happen spontaneously and so prize money may be needed to get the process started. Once started however, the value of useful information will pull it forward.  

There have been many recent discussions on the issues of Privacy vs. Transparency, Free Speech vs. Accuracy. Both technology and legislation can help, but these alone will not be sufficient, especially when trust in the media has fallen below 50%.  We must create information filters and push end users to create their own.  Bad information will never go away. That’s part of life and part of nature.  Without useful information filters, people will live in a smaller and smaller worlds controlled more and more by algorithms and by people at the top.

Strikers Game (SG)  – for a Transition Toward a Low Carbon Economy 

It is essential for grassroots citizens to get involved in the climate struggle and the transition to clean energy.  We cannot be passive onlookers.  Strikers Game is a friendly but competitive game to find balanced and useful information and ideas. 

These games start with about a dozen people and can be distant from the place where they are trying to effect change.  A series of games and evolving Discussion Questions can lead to action, or lead to further questions, or challenge other groups to run their own game.  

The structure of the game gives integrity to the results.  The Discussion Question gives direction.   A Gradient, or a prize in this case, gives a reason to engage, even for people who may not think much about climate issues.  

Good leaders should look ahead, think about potential threats and find alternate pathways.  But many of them are busy enough with day-to-day pressures and surround themselves with people who will not challenge them.   So they follow the crowd.  If citizens don’t talk about an issue, leaders won’t talk about it either.  

Recipe for a Strikers Game

Take about a dozen participants and randomly form 3 teams of 3 players each, plus a panel of 3 judges. Give a Discussion Question.   Teams take a short period of time to talk and create their own position, followed by presentation to the judges who will choose the winning team.  Prize money is paid out and the process is repeated and developed.  It’s moved forward with the next Discussion question.  This process can be continued until there is an opportunity for action or engagement with others, pushing the process ahead so that others can use it too.  

Strikers Game is a type of dynamic polling.  Follow-up questions depend on the answer to the previous question.  Teams and judges can be re-mixed as often as needed by drawing straws or other random method.  Family and friends can be used to start the game but to have full effect, players and judges should not be self-selecting.  They should be chosen in a way to balance the bias.  

One simple way to do this is by choosing them according to the day and month of a person’s birthday. For example, the 10^thof June or the 25^thof March.  This automatically balances factors of Race, Gender, and Age. 

In a Striker’s Game the prize creates a tension, a gradient that keeps people engaged. Gradients push uphill or pull downhill in a general direction.  Electrical gradients help a TV or computer tune in lots of information – but only if plugged in – and only if it has the right internal structure. A toaster can be plugged in but because of its internal structure, it won’t tune in the local radio station.  It will only produce, well . . . toast.   

We must find the right structure of social groups that can filter and produce useful information. Attempts to bring different people and different ideas together is admirable and sometimes useful, but if it’s not plugged, if there is no competition,  then it’s not reaching their potential for finding useful information. 

The question of where to get the prize money can be a Discussion Question itself.  Even small donations, if added together, can create sufficient pull to engage a few people to search and work for the money.  Finding an escrow, a trusted keeper of the money, will be important so that the players know it’s there. 

Discussion Questions can be Issue Question, addressing specific issue, or it can be a Process Question, thinking about the process itself and how to improve it.  So the question of finding an escrow or in some way to insure donations will be a Process Question.  

Business and government also have the advantage of doing things on a large scale.  By contrast, games can work on a small scale by creating reliable feedback for the system.  One can turn a ship around with reliable feedback. 

What if the results of a Striker’s Game are ignored or rejected?   Then re-mix or choose different players.  Maybe change the Discussion Question, increase the prize, or find another place.  In any case, it’s important to push the process itself so the players in another town can use it to find better information for themselves.  

Gathering and filtering information for your own place (T1) can be considered to be a first order game.  Then expanding the game and challenging players from another town (T2) is a second order game.  Players from both towns can be mixed together on the same team.    

In a third order game, one town (T1) challenges players in the second town (T2) to start the game in a third town (T3).  In this case, the prize money is for players of the second town but only if they can teach the third town to collect their own prize money and run a successful Striker’s Game.  An increase in the prize may be needed but at some point there will be enough leverage to make it happen.  It’s like planting a seed and watering it.  

Most money in politics is spent broadcasting messages from one political campaign.  Moving even a small fraction of that money to the receiving end of the information with a Strikers-type of game will be a filter and be more valuable to more people.  Players and supporters of the Game are essentially paying each other to find ideas and filter the information.  

With prize money as an incentive, one does not have to be a salesman or rely only on gaining trust. Simply invite a dozen people and challenge them to a game, but give them the tools.  Even for people who think they have no time, Striker’s Games can be very efficient, one hour from start to finish for most Discussion Questions.   Longer games for more complex issues might be needed if the players are to make a wider search for information. 

Goals of the Game:

One goal can be to push a target town (T2) to become Sustainable on Low Carbon.  What would that look like for that town?  Depending on the local geography, each town may use a different source of energy – Wind, Water, Waves, Solar, or Thermal.  

Discussion Questions can even reach across national borders.  An example might be the question of how a Central American farmer can raise crops when their climate has recently become more arid.  Farmers in the Middle East have had to figure this out and will likely have useful information.  The first few rounds of the game is on the Issue Question of what crops to raise. Subsequent rounds might become the Process Question:  “How do we contact farmers in Central American to move this information?”   

Since the farmers have knowledge of their own local conditions, there might be more games required with farmers to figure out what might work best for their area.  There must be better solutions than subsistence living simply because farmers don’t have the necessary information in a changing environment.

Why do we need games?

Many people in leadership positions have known for more than 40 years that too much carbon in the atmosphere would be a problem and yet nothing was done.  In fact, there are still carbon subsidies for fossil fuel companies.  

This is a failure of leadership.  They may not see a path to a clean energy economy that does not have them and their friends at the top.   Maybe they are afraid of what others might think, or a fear of making the first move.

In the Tobacco Wars, courts played a key role in but according to surveys done by the tobacco companies themselves, most smokers wanted to quit.  The same is not true of fossil fuel.  We all love our hot baths, our cars, our homes warmed in the winter and air conditioned in the summer.  We love our stuff and jet travel too.  The inertia of daily life is immense.  All of these take energy and most of it comes from fossil fuel. 

Solutions will have to be creative and yet address our individual need for meaning in what we do. Courts, governments, and business can make significant dents, but they cannot do it alone.  If we rely only on policies and laws, then individuals and companies will wiggle out, they will drag their feet, and they will hire legions of lawyers to look for loopholes.  We need engagement, not simply coercion.  

The internet and social media seem to have the potential to reach millions, but the numbers for environmental groups are still small and, of course, politicians only listen to large groups.  Yet we can find ways to change the system, ways to create new divisions of labor, and find Useful Information for better Feedback.   

Many Games can be focused simultaneously but independently on one place, like a magnifying glass in the sun. It will be an intense few days or weeks for that town, but an exciting period of gathering ideas, information, and useful feedback for moving more certainly down the path toward a low carbon economy.

There are likely some employees of coal and oil companies who would like to find another job.  Using a Strikers Game can help them do that. This should not be done out of anger or revenge.  We must start with people where they are, with their understanding of the issue, but continue to push forward.  We are all climbing a steep mountain and must point out footholds for each other. 

Why would anyone interact with other people in some distant place?  For one, it can be easier to give honest feedback to others outside than to one’s own group.   But do it for the fun, the challenge, or the money.  Play a Strikers Game for the social interaction and to be able to talk to people who will listen – because they are on your team.  Play to get your ideas heard.  

Questions-

-Can we learn from each other? 

-Do we trust the information received?

-Can we use it? 

More Ways to use SG’s:  

1. Find points of resistance to the flow of Useful Information.  

      Change it or do a workaround?   

2. Stop Fossil Fuel support by governments.  

3. Find and use other kinds of gradients.   (Dinner for 3?   Or 4?)

4. Raise $ for prizes? 

5. Are big business and finance helping to make changes 

        – commensurate with their size – or are they just talking? 

6. How to build solar panels. 

7. How to add insulation. Which homes would benefit the most? 

8. What is the difference between temperature and heat? 

        – and why is that important? 

9. Where are we (they) wasting Energy?!?!

10. Where should we start? What place?  What group?  What DQ?

Go!   Go!!  Go!!! – Remy

Democratic Feedback Loops            

After an Islamic terrorist killed several people in France, President Macron stands up to defend freedom of the press in a case that upset Islamic people in many countries.

Macron is between a rock and a hard place.  This could be an opportunity for the silent middle majority to speak with their wallets. If a terrorist from either side commits a crime, then the people who want to fight for fundamental rights can offer monetary support and grants to the side opposite politically from the terrorist.  In the example above, the terrorist is Muslim so grants go to Israel or some group sympathetic to Israel.  If the aggressor seems to be Israeli or friend of Israel, then the silent majority could give donations and grants to the Muslim side.   In so doing the silent majority are saying “you must carry your burden of hatred on your own shoulders.  More aggression will benefit your enemy.”  This is a partial solution that cannot be legislated but could be powerful.    

MODERN MONEY

Gradients

Everything goes down.  Downhill.  Life is a flow of high energy in the sun, radiating to the earth, creating all the plants and animals as it continues to flow down.   Electrons want to go to ground too, or at least to a lower energy level.  With the right structures we can use that drop in electron energy to do work, just like with batteries.  Atoms get comfortable with other atoms to create molecules.  Some atoms, like kids going down a slide, get impatient and take another path down, combining with new elements on the way to create complex forms of life.    

Gradients are necessary to move anything.  These physical force such as gravity, electrical forces,  or money and wealth can all be forces that get things done.   A young scientist may point out that energy does not always seem to go downhill.  Refrigerators, air conditioners and heat pumps seem to be moving energy uphill in a sense that does not happen naturally.  A closer look shows that these systems are not closed but actually receive energy from the outside and that they are receiving more energy than what they seem to be saving or expending.  There is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine, and in the natural world, there is no free lunch.  

Some energy works to create organization rather than create heat or motion.  As water freezes it gives up heat energy, but at the freezing point some energy goes into organizing ice crystals instead of a change in temperature.  This energy of organization is real energy that can be measured. 

Capitalism is a kind of engine that uses the downhill movement of money to create goods and services.  Business becomes a way to create organization for people making those things.  Toward this end our metaphors seem to become real and populate the discussions of social life with phrases like “head of state” or the “long arm of the law”.  Pushing these metaphors further, a dollar bill is a lot like a red blood cell (RBC), carrying value – in this case oxygen – from the lungs to the tissue.  This is not far from reality.  When the sprinter crosses the finish line, he or she is in “oxygen debt”, a term used by physiologists to describe a lack of oxygen and that must be replaced.   

Metaphors and mental models can lead to useful ways of thinking about the world around us, but sometimes they lead us off course, actually preventing us from seeing more clearly.  Many people would have a better understanding of climate change if they understood the concepts of “temperature” and “heat”.  How much heat (energy) is required to melt an iceberg or raise the average temperature of the atmosphere by one degree Celsius?  A lot.  

Another example: Some people have the idea that people work in order to pay taxes.  They do not.  People work to have money and wealth for themselves and their family.   Since people do work and do pay taxes it may look as if they are working to pay taxes.  Running a movie backwards does not make time go backwards.  It is important to have clear mental images about the reasons we pay taxes.  We humans are sentient and sensible beings, not robots.  

Economists worry about the ability of a nation to pay its debts and wonder how we can borrow all this money.  In fact, however, sovereign states do not need to “borrow” any money since they can print as much as they need, a point made by proponents of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).  In testimony before Congress, Alan Greenspan stated that theoretically, there is no limit on the amount of money that can be printed.  He added that the challenge was in creating a system that produces real assets.  Modern Monetary Theory should really be called Modern Monetary Theory and Practice, since it is already being practiced on a large scale with Quantitative Easing (QE) now being done by central banks, plus the Paycheck Protection Program passed by Congress.  It is not money that is “borrowed” but rather “granted” since most of this money being pushed out the door will never be paid back.   

So we must think about how we use language and metaphors carefully if we are to find solutions.  This will have an effect on actions too, such as figuring out where to inject money into the system.  

The site of injection currently is the big banks and the money is essentially pulled from thin air.  The Fed buys a Treasury Bill printed and created by the bank.  That money can then be loaned out to bank customers such as municipalities or other large institutions who can borrow and pay back with interest.   So that money in reality is created out of nothing.  The money is a gift for the first person in line.  All others down river must do real work.  

Modern Monetary Theory proposes that governments make use of this extraordinary power to print money, but only by sovereign governments, since they are the only ones who can legally do it. Local and State governments must still balance the books.  Sovereign governments can simply find an entry point to inject money into the economy. Max Weber (1864-1920), a German social and political scientist, described the nation-state as that entity which has a monopoly on the use of coercive force.  This is what we call the sovereign state, the highest legal power, and mostly supported by people who live within the boundaries of the country as long as they are treated reasonably well.  The sovereign state then, is also the entity that decides on fiscal policy and prints the currency.   Max was not a bad guy or a dictator.  He simply made this observation, but this “Weber Power” pervades much more of our mental models than we might think.  

Money as Metaphor

If language is made up of words that indicate whatwe want, then money indicates how much we want it.  Money is a key element for building human social hierarchies.  Without money, we humans would live in small, isolated groups.  Definitions of money include money being a symbol of value and a method of accounting.  Plus it’s portable, divisible, durable, and fungible.  Less quantifiable, but equally significant, is money as a symbol of the integrity of the agreement between two parties.   

It’s impossible to know exactly when money first came into existence but one can imagine a farmer and a herdsman, maybe 10,000 years ago.  The farmer wants to trade 3 baskets of apples for a goat owned by a herdsman.  The only problem is that the apples will not yet be ripe until the next moon.  What to do?  It may be that the farmer gave a stick with 3 notches to the herdsman as an IOU to collect on the apples.  Someone in the area with a knack for business might have started a local trading system, an exchange between farmers and herdsmen using the stick method.  But woe to him who created a counterfeit stick to steal the apples!  

The stick was a symbol of value but not valuable in itself.  The farmer and the herdsman knew that.  This money, in the form of an IOU, was a symbol for value, adding another dimension to the barter system.   When gold and silver coins came into existence there was value in the coin itself since it was a precious metal that could not be created or destroyed and there was a limited supply.  This was replaced by paper money of a variety of denominations.  So money had returned to becoming a symbol for value rather than having value itself.     

What about digital money and where does it come from?  It’s origin is certainly more obscure and relies on trusting someone that lives too far away for a handshake.   A hundred years ago, when a bank robber stole coins of real value from a bank, everyone knew that when the money was gone, it was gone.  Stealing paper currency was almost as good for the bank robber who had access to a money laundering operation and paid a bit extra for someone to change the bills.  Cost of doing business.  The bank notes could easily be replaced, and so not such a great loss for the banker either.  In an era of digital currency what is a bank robber to say, “Give me all your 1’s and 0’s ?”   

The return to symbolic money (currency) requires Weber Power to guarantee that counterfeiting is kept to a minimum.  Gold and silver do not require Weber Power, though a bodyguard might be advised.  Currency must be part of a common and larger story if it is to have value. When I accept a dollar from you, I know that I can use that dollar to buy something in the next town.  The same is not true of play money or of foreign currency.  The value of those currencies cannot be guaranteed. 

When we measure RBC’s, we don’t really keep track of the total number in the body, but rather the concentration.  These RBC’s must be readily available to the tissue when needed and the body has mechanisms for keeping the concentration of RBC’s within certain healthy boundaries. Living at high altitudes where the air is thin makes the concentration go up.  Concentration of RBC’s is not quite the same as liquidity in the financial system however.  Liquidity describes the ease with which an established institution can get a loan, and most of us are not institutions. 

What should the government want?  What should we want?  A smooth economy.  A growing economy.  We want money to be something that Gets people Out Of Bed (GOOB) in the morning to do their job or task.  If we give too much money away as grants, where will be the incentive to work and create new things?  Without a system like capitalism would we ever have heard of the Steves, Jobs and Wozniak?  

Debt and Free Money

Why buy debt anyhow?  It seems crazy.  Buying a car or boat would certainly be more fun.  The debt instrument is worthless without the power of the state to coerce the borrower to pay up or go bankrupt, or go to jail.  Owning the debt allows one to use the court system and contracts to force the other party to pay.  Holding debt can be a stream of income for the owner of the debt, but of course, it uses Weber power. 

There is a general and well-founded fear that if we just print money and give it away, then people will not show up for work.  The policeman will not protect us, the fireman will not put out fires, the nurse and doctor will not be there when we need them, and the taxi or Uber driver will not stop to pick us up.  This is a fear of everybody, not just those in power, but especially at the neighborhood level where people work with each other every day. 

Questions, Risks, and Decisions

If we are going to print more money, at least two questions follow:  “Will it cause inflation?”  and  “Who will have this power to decide where that money goes?”.   A third and related question is “Will they buy the right stuff?”  This last question is, of course, related to the questions about who will make those decisions and where to inject the money.  The current beneficiaries of monetary injections are big banks.  They may decide to loan the money to fossil fuel companies or loan to tobacco companies if they think their obligation to shareholders is simply to maximize profit. 

Inflation is the destroyer of fiat currency.  Inflation of only a few percent leads to a currency that has half the buying power in not too many years.  Milton Friedman believed that control of the money supply could decrease this risk and made the statement that inflation is the result of too much money chasing too few goods.  This makes sense.  I have a bicycle for sale for $100 but now with extra printed money and my neighbors flush with cash, I can raise the price to $200.  It is people like me, Joe Citizen, and those who run a business, who decide whether or not there will be inflation – or not – sometimes despite measures taken by the Fed.   

If inflation is too much money chasing too few goods, it can be viewed as a ratio of money to goods. If the money supply goes up, inflation goes up.  But we must look at the denominator too.  If I am selling strawberries at $2 per box and customers with extra money show up willing to pay $3 per box, we have created inflation again.  Rather than increasing the price of strawberries however, I can add other product such as peaches or blackberries.  The price of strawberries may stabilize and not go up if people have other things on which to spend their money.  This increases the complexity and the number of goods in the local economy.  The numerator may get larger, but the denominator can also get larger so that the ratio remains the same.  This is one method of creating Resistance To Inflation (RTI).  

The first two questions about inflation and where to inject the money can – and probably must – be answered at several levels: Individual, Small Group, and Large Group.  Each of these levels has its own mechanism to provide Resistance To Inflation (RTI).  On an individual level, both the question about the site of injection of money and resistance to inflation can be done with a Tax-Grant-Account (TGA) or what might be called an IRS Shuttle. Draw a line on the paper with “Government” at one end and “Public” at the other end.  This line represents the flow of money between the two ends.  Tax money going from the individual to the government will tend to cause deflation.  Grant money going from the government to the individual account owner at the other end will tend to cause inflation.  Only the IRS and the individual owner (or family) have access to that account.  At any time, the individual owner can remove money and put into another private account.  It is up to the government to decide how much to deposit.  This requires good feedback and information on a broad sampling of local prices.   

Sensors that gather local economy information and local price levels must be at least as good as the Consumer Price Index.  This will help determine whether the economy is headed toward inflation or deflation.  It can be done on a month-by-month basis and could be different for each state.   For example, if Ohio sees an inflation rate that is creeping up, then money will move toward the government and TGA’s for people living in Ohio will have less spending money in their account.   If Michigan sees their inflation rate dropping, then the government can deposit more money into those TGA accounts in an effort to stimulate their local economy.  

The new ingredient here is communication and it is facilitated by the right structure and a goal or a question.  People will talk if they feel that, as far as TGA accounts are concerned, they are on the same side.  For that reason TGA grants should be flat, the same amount going into each account for all people in that state.  This granted money (G-money) can do real work as it flows downhill.  It can buy groceries, a haircut, clothes for school, and much more.  This velocity of money is called M1 by economists and a large M1 is said to play a key role in economic recovery. 

An example for Small Groups (SG of 10-12 people) is the continuing debate about health care.  United States has fairly good health care for the majority but we seem not to be getting our money’s worth.  Do we need a common socialized medical care system for everyone?  Not necessarily.  Better information for the purchasers of insurance may allow a hybrid system.  If ten people in a group (TG) are able to look at a variety of private health insurance plans and all ten agree on which one they will buy, then they should be allowed to purchase that policy, but as individual subscribers.  Those who cannot or will not join a TG Insurance plan will be covered with Medicare.  This hybrid system requires that consumers actually talk to one another, discuss among themselves what questions need to be answered, and then proceed.  It creates an information filter that can only help the quality of medicine while containing cost.  

Structures, Information, and Tension (Gradients) 

Systems that thrive have good sources of information and feedback. Economies with adequate feedback will make adjustments but not collapse.  Sensors placed in strategic locations and able to give accurate and timely information are a good way to set up the feedback loops.  Feedback loops are everywhere, but a common example is the thermostat for helping to regulate heating and cooling in homes.  It is important to place them in the right locations.  Placed in the garage, a thermostat will take too long to sense the heat and will therefor, will cause extreme cycles.  Acting in a feedback loop, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) may not be able to sense the changes needed to keep the economy on course.  CPI does not include many costs seen by consumers, including the cost of local and state taxes.  How accurate can that be?  

Money not only represents the value of Goods and Services but Information also (GSI).  This information is not simply the dirt that political hacks throw at each other.  It is education and communication.  Information is the answer to “How did you do that?” 

The value of goods and services is relatively easy to quantify and evaluate. The value of information may take more work since it may be anything from very valuable, as Snowden and the NSA showed us, or simply a distraction.  Even worse, it may be misinformation.  The ultimate judge of its value is the listener, the person or corporation on the receiving end, but it may also require time and effort in the search.  Useful information for citizens can sometimes only be found by running it through a filter and adding tension such as competition or a game.  This can be done either in real time or at a later date.

A farmer in Central America despairs because he lost all his coffee crop and blames it on climate change.  Without adequate rain he cannot grow coffee beans.  He says there is no other crop to grow but coffee, but that is not true.  In the Middle East there are farmers who have learned to use drip irrigation with only a small fraction of the water.  This is useful information that the Central American farmer may never hear.  He may not even know of other arid places but useful information is out there if only he or someone from his community can search and share such information.  The farmer certainly has local knowledge but information from outside can help.  

A system can be corrupt without any ‘bad’ people if there is a loss of communication or loss of feedback.  This is not uncommon when institutions become too large and complex.  The Queen’s Question about the 2008 recession was about “complacency” and did the Financial Services Authority have the teeth?  There were economists who saw the warning signs and wrote about it, trying to warn others.  This too was a problem of finding information and running it through a filter, a structure that can use tension or competition to help encourage a real search for information followed by decision-making and balanced recommendations. 

Can we learn from another’s mistakes?  With Covid, the answer seems to be yes.  With Climate Change it will be too late if we wait to see the worst of what might happen to others.  We must not follow others blindly but rather set up structures that can find and filter information efficiently. 

Transition to a Mixed Economy

The government could do some test cases with a Capitalism-MMT hybrid, but relying on the Federal government will not be enough.  We need input at all levels.  Tax Grant Accounts can increase or decrease every month according to whether or not there is inflation or deflation in that state.   Blue and Green Bonds have been started within the financial system, but those will not be enough by themselves either.  The Economist reports that there are not enough buyers to make a significant dent in the Fossil Fuel economy.  

A hybrid Modern Money and Capitalism MMC economy can have a gradient and yet have two levels with different goals.  The Maslow Level insures that everyone has adequate money to survive.  That might be up to $20K for each person.  Above $20K is the Profit Level for people who are motivated by profit.  The gradient between zero and $100K is the same gradient as that from $20K to $120K. Moving everyone up the same amount is called bias.  This can be done with a flat TGA.    

Those in the profit level can borrow money from private banks and pay it back with interest.   The profit motive is important for some to GOOB and create some organization.   A hybrid structure combines capitalism and modern money in a way that does not force everyone to be at the same level.  It will be important to start slowly with small amounts and check the inflation sensors to see if the system will absorb more money in circulation.  Keep it simple.  Avoid obfuscation.  Avoid wasting the time and resources in general.  Ask questions “Do we really need that?  Now?”

Houses are not built from the top.  They need solid foundations.  Maslow needs must be met – food, water, clothing, shelter.  Work toward a Maslow Plus that includes health care and education.   A case can also be made for no federal taxes on essential workers like the food, healthcare, police, and firefighters who are pulling us through the pandemic, but this too should be phased in slowly.  

Testing Information

Is a piece of information trustworthy?  Small Groups (or T-Groups, TG) can become information filters.  If a local economy decides to use bread loaves for their currency (even without the actual loaves), then TG-a might decide that TG-b and TG-d are trustworthy and above board in the Bread Loaves (BL) trade.  TG-c might be judged (by TG-a) to be untrustworthy and so trade with that group is discouraged.  In this way TG’s can help to maintain the integrity of the agreements among the local businesses.  

Bread loaves (BL), like gold, hold true value that has been relatively constant over the centuries.  Bread sustains life.  One cannot eat more than one or two loaves per day and, of course, bread that is more than a week old tends to become stale and lose its value, but it can be replaced and still used as currency.  One could actually exchange 100 loaves of bread for a bicycle.  Maybe 200 for a really nice bike.   Real bread for a real bike is a barter, but the number of bread loaves could be used as a price level, even if not exchanging real bread. Listing the number of BL’s for price would work if, at any time, the paper BL could be exchanged for real bread.  Of course someone in the group must be assigned to keep track of it or write an app to keep track.  Some transparency will be needed to establish such a system. 

Digital currencies, like most of the US dollars sent via wire, remain hidden in their origins.  People will still use them, however, if they seem to function like currency. Facebook’s Libra, another digital currency, does not need blockchain verification since it is a closed system. Each Libra can be tagged and accounted for.  If the system seems to be consistent (no counterfeit or stealing), then Libras can be traded for dollars just like a foreign currency exchange.  Neighborhoods can use local currencies to challenge other neighborhoods to be self-sustaining and use low fossil fuel.   This type of structure can be used to start other MMC systems.  

T-Groups (a small group of 10-12 people) can apply for grant money that could be spent in their local community.  Maybe they want to build a swimming pool.  There application for a grant could be stopped by two other TG’s who point out that members of the first TG are related to a swimming pool contractor. The government grantor may tell them to re-mix their groups and come up with some better plans and also ask how they will evaluate the job.   

The next priority is spending it on the right stuff.  Lobbyists would take it all, and governments that seek no counsel with its citizens on how to spend that money will not do much better. Individuals, small groups (TG’s), and larger groups must all think about where we need to spend our money.  Neighborhoods and small towns can push each other using information games to become self-sustaining and move toward low fossil fuel consumption.   

A common accusation of central planning is that they build bridges to nowhere.  It does provide jobs but in the end, if no one uses the bridge to expand trade, then people, resources, and time have been wasted.  This is another cause of inflation since extra money must be spent to make up for it.  Finding waste is a second point of Resistance To Inflation.  

There are weakness of central governments and the Capitalist system, but there are strengths too and we should use those.  Lobbyists and Bond Vigilantes will resist.  They cannot imagine another way ahead.   A hybrid MM-Capitalist system can help to create a higher tax base for local and state governments.  Once the free grant money is in circulation and can get others to GOOB to do their job, then it is real money.  It can get people to do real work.  Creating a currency is not enough.  There must be an application for the currency, a reason to GOOB and do one’ s task.  A Green New Deal (GND) cannot succeed unless the jobs actually do something that take us toward a greener environment.  Painting things green does not count.  Central sovereign governments can provide the money but most of the work and feedback must be at a local level.  

One can make the argument that climate change will not be overcome without the use of Modern Money.  A group of ten homeowners want to insulate their home to save energy costs.  In a purely capitalist system, the wealthiest among them might have already insulated his or her home.  The poorest may never get around to insulating if he or she cannot find a job.  In a Modern Money system with a Small Group Grant, the homeowners can decide to insulate the worst one first, thereby saving more on energy costs up front and optimizing their expenditures.  

What if there is no Organization?  Can one create a gradient of some kind?  If a gradient is pointed in the right direction, but not too steep, then organization will often follow as people start to talk to one another.  Gradient, Groups, and Organization tend to support each other.  Providing any two of the three will enhance the creation of the third.              

If the US is unable to institute Modern Money, then trials in the developing world can be helpful in getting it going and could be started with private funds.  It is important to approach a cross section of other societies, not simply their local leaders, as this approach soon gets diluted.  This has been a mistake of many NGO’s.  Henry Ford’s dictum that higher wages will allow auto workers to buy his products is an idea that can be applied here.  Giving money to start a Modern Money system can come back in a positive way to support its use by larger nations.  It will become important to push developing countries to think about what money means and how to organize transactions in a more creative way. America’s greatness may find expression in pushing others up the hill – but push we must.  

Feedback on RIP’ing (Re-Imagine Policing) on WHYY

Keeping the momentum going on race issues will require a division of labor to get things done.  That’s not easy to do without money to hire and assign jobs, but there may be other ways.  One of them is an Information Gathering Tool (IGT) to find, filter and move useful information.  It’s a pretty simple game but it can be used to challenge people in ways that are more effective than simply selling a point of view.  Real social learning requires a series of attempts followed by feedback and re-adjustment, but the feedback must be balanced and useful.   In the long run, good feedback may be more important than funding because groups with good feedback systems have the potential to learn.  One must assume that useful ideas and information are out there.  We simply need to create ways to find those ideas.  IGT’s can be fun and challenging and give many people a reason to get out of bed in the morning.  Pick some neighborhood to focus on for a few weeks.  See what can be done with a variety of competitive games for finding useful ideas and information.  The division of labor issue will sort itself out once the games have started.  

You may be familiar with what Gandhi did to get the British out of India.  One of his tactics was to have people walk to the sea and make their own salt.  Up until that time, salt making had been a monopoly of the British.  (As seen in the movie “Gandhi”).  A similar tactic could be used in Philadelphia for neighborhoods that pay for garbage collection but don’t get the service. Give the city 48 hours to collect and if they don’t, then bag the trash and deliver it to city hall. It is important to help other neighborhoods with their trash collection too in order to gain outside support.  

City council may be too fearful of change or fear of imagined reactions of their own constituents.  They may need help to show them how to change.  Nonviolent confrontation and actions can force change or force actions that lay bare their real intent.  In the case of Gandhi, he wanted the British out of India and the British were too proud and stubborn to let it go.  In Philadelphia I’m not sure we want all the police out, but certainly a change in the way police interact and do their job. 

If racism is structural, then looking at other structures might also be helpful in finding solutions, even on the issue of guns.  On the drug issue, it is probably naïve to think that drug use can simply be ignored.  Maybe each neighborhood can have a safehouse where police are not allowed to go but people who have a drug habit can take care of their habit at that place.  All other places are fair game for arrest.  In the long run, we must push to get harmful drugs out of the community for our children’s sake.   

Recent reports about Chicago’s high homicide rate included descriptions of assailants who were mostly shooting from cars.   We might try looking at one neighborhood where no cars are allowed except for people who live there and the police.  This is a structural change but could make safer streets. It is also something that can be enforced by local people if they put their minds together.  

IGT is a structural change in how we talk and gather information. A big step can be taken when average people invite a policeman or woman over for a meal.  Get to know them.  Act as if you have power. This too is a temporary structural change but it can change the conversation.    

IGT can be applied to education to improve the schools.  Don’t wait for an expert to give statistics on an “average” student.  Pick a real student who might be underperforming and use an IGT to ask teams of teachers to make suggestions to get that specific student (or that type of student) more engaged and involved in their own education.  Parents who have similar children will be interested and pass those ideas on to their child’s teacher. Initial rounds of IGT’s might be teachers only, but then add students and parents for later rounds. Follow-up with an IGT process.