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Musings Report #45 11-7-15 A Seven-Year Odyssey
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For those who are new to the Musings reports: they are basically a glimpse into my notebook, the unfiltered swamp where I organize future themes, sort through the dozens of stories and links submitted by readers, refine my own research and start connecting dots which appear later in the blog or in my books. As always, I hope the Musings spark new appraisals and insights. Thank you for supporting the site and for inviting me into your circle of correspondents.
My New Book: Signed Print Edition Offer
Last week I offered 50% off the Kindle version of my new book A Radically Beneficial World: Automation, Technology and Creating Jobs for All: The Future Belongs to Work That Is Meaningful.
I rarely sign and send books any more, as the pressure of higher priority work has pushed this into the "when I have more time" category.
This week, I'm offering a signed print edition of my new book to the Musings Inner Circle for $20, including postage/shipping via USPO Media Mail. This is a 33% discount from what I will offer (briefly) to the general public ($30 for a signed copy). Those who want a signed copy (for themselves or as a gift) can send me a check (P.O. Box 4727, Berkeley CA 94704) or send the $20 via PayPal or Dwolla. (For orders from outside the U.S., I will have to add the applicable postage fees.)
The print edition is not yet listed on Amazon, though I expect that to happen any day now. I have ordered my first copies and expect delivery mid-month.
As noted last week, my book addresses this question: What if we could hit the reset button on the way we create money, work, commerce and community? I think you'll find it a challenging and inspiring read.
You can read the Introduction and first chapter as a free PDF:
A Seven-Year Odyssey
Long-time readers know I tend to avoid personal accounts, for two reasons: 1) I don't see the value proposition in my own hum-drum life, and 2) I find the cultural obsession with "sharing" pointless/nauseating details of one's life repellent.
I'm breaking my taboo this week to describe the 7-year intellectual Odyssey that led to my new book, A Radically Beneficial World. While the actual work of writing/rewriting is uninteresting in the extreme, the process of reaching "a-ha!" milestones may be of more general interest.
An entertaining and informative From Left Field link below calls these Holy S**t Moments: the flashes of insight that change our understanding of the fundamental workings of our world.
(I too had a telnet HSM--perhaps everyone who's used telnet had such a moment: you mean I can *print a document in a distant office remotely*? Yowza!)
My Odyssey began with my 2008 book, Weblogs and New Media: Marketing in Crisis, which explored the role of the Internet in an era of intersecting disruptions--an era I now call Degrowth.
The entirely unexpected expansion of Oftwominds.com had impressed the power of the Web on me, and for the first time I started thinking systemically about the Web's role in the crisis years ahead.
The Survival+ books (Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation and the Primer) were my attempt to organize an integrated critique of the Status Quo and explain why it was not sustainable, and combine this with personal strategies for prospering during this Great Transformation.
Writing Survival+ was difficult due to the enormity of the subject matter, but reaching for an integrated understanding forced me to link all the threads that bind resources, finance, socio-economics, history and human nature into one system.
Some readers felt Survival+ was a bit light on practical advice, and so my next book An Unconventional Guide to Investing in Troubled Times, sought to flesh out specific strategies for navigating the intersecting crises that would emerge as the Status Quo unraveled.
Focusing solely on economic matters of income and wealth preservation didn't address the strategies we'd need to navigate the social and political landscape of the Great Transformation, and so I followed Investing in Troubled Times with Resistance, Revolution, Liberation: A Model for Positive Change, which explored liberation in an era of rising repression and failed centralized states and banks.
Having written three books on related topics, I felt a simplified version would be helpful to readers who wanted the key narratives in one relatively short book. This was Why Things Are Falling Apart and What We Can Do About It.
After spending years pondering the top levels of the economy/society, I wanted to show how a specific system--in this case, higher education--could be reworked from the ground up to be more effective while reducing costs by 90%.
This is how technology typically disrupts existing cartels and ways of doing things: it cuts costs by 90+% while revolutionizing production and productivity. This led to The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy: The Revolution in Higher Education.
To understand what higher education needed to become, I first had to have a better grasp of the new Economy, or what I call the emerging economy--the economy that will not just survive in Degrowth but expand, while the Status Quo crumbles and implodes.
This led rather naturally to a practical guide for those wishing to work in the emerging economy: Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy.
These eight books left me with a big unanswered question: what sort of system would not just survive Degrowth, but alleviate poverty and address the wholesale destruction of paid work by automation?
As I explored conventional solutions--guaranteed income, taxing robots, etc.--I realized these were completely inadequate. Ultimately, all such solutions are simply extensions of Status Quo systems that are imploding beneath the uneasy surface of normalcy.
We need a new system, one designed from scratch, not cobbled together from extensions of failing systems.
What really struck me as I wrote and rewrote three drafts of A Radically Beneficial World was the vast gulf between conventional economics, which lauds individual leisure, consumption and wealth as the highest goods, and human nature, which requires shared effort toward shared goals, sacrifice, purpose and work.
When I looked at those who had no work (i.e. plenty of leisure) and sufficient means to live (i.e. welfare), rather than the delights of art and happiness economics predicted, we find instead horrendously dysfunctional societies that generate an abundance of despair, unhappiness and destructive perversity.
Clearly, conventional economics is clueless about human nature, and socio-economics is clueless about what is needed to provide the essentials of human life: work, purpose, pride, positive social roles, security and income.
I could not have assembled an integrated solution without having worked through the eight books I've written since 2008, and I couldn't have written these nine books without your ideas, critiques and experiences.
Descriptions and samples of all my books are here.
Summary of the Blog This Past Week
Technology, Competition and the 'Crapification' of Jobs 11/6/15
When Collapse Is Cheaper and More Effective Than Reform 11/5/15
The Most Important Chart You've Never Seen: Tax Receipts Top-Tick the Stock Market 11/4/15
The Global Test Most Will Fail: Surviving the Bust That Inevitably Follows a Boom 11/2/15
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Camping in Red Rock Canyon Park (Calif.), in the high desert at the southern end of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. (This is not to be confused with Red Rocks in Colorado or Red Rock parks in Nevada and Arizona.)
After one warm day and evening, the weather turned windy and cold, and rain showers tested our ability to cook a decent meal outdoors as dusk chilled the air. We savoured our onion-salmon-goat-cheese omelet inside the tent... first rule of camping: come prepared for all weather...
Market Musings: Volatility Is Looking Like August
It's hard not to notice the similarity between the VIX Volatility Index in August, just before the market crashed, and its current trading in a tight range bound by the 200-day moving average (16) above and 13 below.
More consequentially, perhaps, is the ominous tightening of the Bollinger Bands, which almost always presages a major move up or down. Given that the VIX is already below its 200-day MA, there isn't much room for a big move down.
That leaves the likeliest move a sharp spike above 16, which would mirror an equally sharp move down in stocks.
From Left Field
The Way We Live: Drowning in Stuff -- a few years old but worth re-reading...
The Invention of Pad Thai -- cultural power of food....
Why We Work (2:54) it ain't just for the money, as so many assume...
Middle-Aged White Americans Are Dying of Despair -- do unrealistic expectations in an era of Degrowth play a role?...
Welcome home, Jaco -- new documentary on widely admired bassist Jaco Pastorius
This Is What The Coming "Helicopter Money" Will Look Like -- important summary of last-ditch efforts to save the imploding status quo...
Holy S**t Moments: I showed up late to drones...
Truffles, Caviar, and Cristal: A Tale from the Mythic Days of Magazine Expense Accounts (via Maoxian) -- days long-gone--media monopolies funded by adverts,..
Is China the Next Mexico? The Chinese Communist Party Is Looking to Russia for Lessons on How to Retain Power. It's the Wrong Example
China’s Great Game: Road to a new empire -- another overblown-by-pundits example of doing what's obvious--boost trade to central Asia...not as guaranteed to work as many seem to think...
Data Mining Reveals the Extent of China’s Ghost Cities -- and people still think China's problems are minor?
China's Money Exodus: Here’s how the Chinese send billions abroad to buy homes (via Maoxian)
50 Smartest Companies 2015 -- not sure how these were picked--take with a grain of salt...
"The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution." Hannah Arendt
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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