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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (96666)	1/25/2005 8:10:39 AM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793681

You are guilty of manipulating minds by manipulating language. You aren't talking about a market. You are talking about exactly the opposite - super managed economy. Statists come to their conclusions from many angles. That depends on the implementation. I would assign transaction info (almost like genes) to every monetary transaction. Anyone that interacts with you monetarily inherits some fraction of your actions. So your monetary legacy in not simply your heirs. Tinkering with the interaction rates would be like tinkering with gains in a control system. Lots of analysis required.

To: neolib who wrote (96666)	1/25/2005 9:10:39 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793681

Why roll over and play dead? I'm not rolling over and playing dead. I do my bit. What I'm suggesting is a sense of proportion and a deep breath. Anyone that interacts with you monetarily inherits some fraction of your actions. So, you're talking about financial transactions? How is a financial transaction a proxy for good or bad global warming karma? If I hire a plummer to install a new faucet in my kitchen, you're going to record that transaction and add to or subtract some number of points from each of our accounts for the environmental impact of the transaction? Same thing when I buy lunch at my local kabob joint or socks at Walmart? Oh, the questions! How in the world would you come up with a table of values for each transaction? Would they be different if the socks were cotton or nylon? If I had bought the socks from LL Bean rather than Walmart? If the socks were manufactured in the US or in China? If I already had a drawer full of socks or if all my old socks were too full of holes to mend? Of if I had given my old socks to the Salvation Army or disposed of them in a landfill? Is it only individuals whose accounts get credited or debited? If I buy my socks at Walmart, does Walmart have a corporate account or does each employee of Walmart get a credit or debit for my socks? Why only financial transactions? If I drain the oil from my car into a sewer, I'm having a greater impact on the environment than if I buy socks. Shouldn't the transactions covered by your system be the transactions that have environmental impact, not those that are easy to capture? Lots of analysis required. LOL. No kidding! It ties behaviour to consequences. So, we get to the feedback part and the compensation part. Is the feedback that we each get a report card on our accounts so we know if we are accruing a surplus or have a deficit? And this is supposed to change our behavior? Or are the socks labeled with not only price but accounting information so we would voluntarily steer away from transactions that would debit our accounts? And if we didn't do so voluntarily, there would be some compensation? We give or get a dollar each year based on our accumulated credits or debits? Or do we get the equivalent of frequent flyer miles where we cash in our credits when we need to pay the orthodontist? Is this how we save the coral reefs? We are dissuaded from doing things harmful to them because we will be assessed points for which we must pay? I can understand how facing penalties could theoretically reduce global warming. But what about the compensation side? Who benefits? You originally started out with the Canadians, who benefit from global warming, compensating the Mexicans, who don't. That's a damage-claim model. What you're talking about now with your financial transaction accounting system is a behavior engineering model. What are you going to do with the money you collect? If you give it to the people who have credits in their accounts, you are rewarding them for their good behavior, not compensating victims. What happened to the damage claims? The notion of damage compensation has gotten lost. The financial-transaction system is not about victims, only perps and citizens. Instead of using the money to reward those with account credits, you could use the money to compensate victims, but then you'd need another system to identify victims and you'd weaken your pollution prevention reward. I am struck by how ambitious this project is. We haven't yet been able to come up with a comprehensive criminal justice system or medical record system, each of which is a snap compared to this. Plus I've yet to see how this saves the coral reefs. Interesting, but not ready for prime time.