Socionomics

[wicherink]

There's a new science called socionomics.

This science claims that people's social mood define trends in society that is reflected in music, clothing but also stockmaket prices. The believe that history's hidden engine is a wave pattern based on the Fibonacci ratio's.

The basic wave pattern exists of 5 waves creating a wave pattern that recurrs as a fractal in stock markets, the so called Elliot waves. I believe there may be a relation between socionomics and the Auric Time Scale since both are based on a Golden Mean.

http://www.socionomics.net/films/history/default.aspx

http://www.socionomics.net/films/history/stream/wmp/default.aspx?code=1&speed=high

Regards
Jan

[soup]

Something about this reminds me of "the invisible hand" theory, postulated by Adam Smith - a hand as having five digits which roots in phi along with the idea that there is some invisible influence which subconsciously influences behavior...

okay - so this could get into the idea of higher density beings directing organizational creations using lower density beings as building blocks - that idea that creative endeavors make use of equal to or lower densities within their creations, in more cases than not (i.e. mutations excluded.)

http://plus.maths.org/issue14/features/smith/

[jeremy6d]

Something about this reminds me of "the invisible hand" theory, postulated by Adam Smith - a hand as having five digits which roots in phi along with the idea that there is some invisible influence which subconsciously influences behavior...

That is a misapprehension of the idea of an "invisible hand". Adam Smith's idea was not that an invisible hand influences people, subconsciously or otherwise. Rather, he stated that the market allocates goods and services according to demand as if pushed by some invisible hand. The invisble hand is, in fact, a metaphor for the way in which the aggregated actions of all market actors acting in their self interest provides information to which other actors continually adapt and adjust.

This socionomics idea sounds neat, though... could their be mass mind undercurrents capable of empirical study? I don't know...

[soup]

In my dabbles of market study, I resolved that the markets swing largely by emotional influences, i.e. the emotions of optimism and fear, pleasure and pain. For many people fear can also come in the form of "being wrong" which tends to keep people in bad trades as they fail to exit appropriately. When one can uplevel themselves to observe their emotional swings, then it seems they may have a psychological edge because they can more realistically observe their market positions as they vary over time.

Emotional market influence seems to tie in with the idea that the emotional body is intermediary between the mental, physical bodies and the spiritual body. In this sense my impression is that this "invisible hand" has potential to either massage our "emotional body" in comfortable ways, or uncomfortable ways.

Another aspect to this seems one of magic and manipulation, i.e. the idea that big money can directly convey turningpoint triggers into the market price behavior unseen by the majority of small traders. This can be seen by observing the net trader positions at points in time of market crashes, the big money is rarely positioned on the wrong side. My impression is that these sorts of manipulations could be examples of the type of work that higher density negatives do.

[jeremy6d]

I agree with much of what you're saying, Soup; I was just mentioning a point of information about what "invisible hand" refers to.

[soup]

Possibly the "invisible hand" resides beyond metaphor to the realms of spritiual reality. I'd argue that most of the people out there get bullied
in some vibrational way which encourages them to act in a certain manner.
Furthermore I'd argue that most of the people out there being afflicted
in such ways don't have the words to describe what's happening to them nor the skills to know how to cope with such episodes...

[jeremy6d]

Possibly the "invisible hand" resides beyond metaphor to the realms of spritiual reality.

I don't even necessarily reject that kind of speculation. There definitely seems to be an aspect to these complex adaptive systems that hints towards a form of systemic intelligence. The invisible hand, IOW, is the collective intelligence of the market, where the interests of every individual actor is held in balance with every other actor.

This directly dovetails with the conversation (http://www.divinecosmos.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8970) we're having with buke80, where the distinction between the individual and the greater intelligence of the collective is one without a difference, really, except at which "level" of identity you choose to view the system.

I'd argue that most of the people out there get bullied in some vibrational way which encourages them to act in a certain manner.

Another point of information: keep in mind that Adam Smith was just as opposed to mercantilistic manipulation of markets as he was to the abolition of markets. We do not currently live in a "free market" economy - not by any means. Markets, after all, are just a tool to transmit information over a group of actors, and they can serve the interests of oppression and deception when the "rules" are bent to the favor of some elite. However, that's not a problem with the market - it's a problem with the rules.

Now it would not surprise me at all if certain market actors were knowledgable of this greater collective intelligence, could read it, and react advantageously to it. But this really isn't in and of itself exploitative, since if it's occurring in a free market everybody benefits from the information that these actions communicate through the system. Profit in a free market is the result of allocating resources more efficiently than the competition.

The problem is not their profit-maximizing actions, but their gaming of the system through privilege: special rules that tilt bargaining power in their direction. I firmly believe that the crux of their exploitative power comes from the laws that govern the market, not the market itself. We need to move to a system where this collective intelligence is given more power, rather than being channeled into advantageous directions for connected elites.

[eyez4096]

Keep in mind that beyond even "rules" there is the factor of differential human capacity. No one is a perfect agent in the market because no one has perfect knoledge of the system; and some are more knowledgable than others.

Add a little game theory to this and realize that, when resources are involved -- renewable or otherwise -- so long as the resource is in some way finite (finite rates of renewal) the more competitors in the free market, the less there is for everyone. The "fishery" model exemplifies this point. Now take into account that persons are not perfect agents and this gets exponentially worsened and it takes very little for the system to become dramatically unstable.

Tell me though: so long as people ae not perfect agents,and so long as someone is willing to cheat to win, how can a perfect or even well working economy function? Here I define well working to be where an economy fairy distributes reward to contribution while also being sustainable and upwardly-mobile?

-Charles

[jeremy6d]

Keep in mind that beyond even "rules" there is the factor of differential human capacity. No one is a perfect agent in the market because no one has perfect knoledge of the system; and some are more knowledgable than others.

That's true, but it does not necessarily mean the game is unfair. People who have more knowledge are able to identify price discrepancies and move them back towards equilibrium. They make money doing this, but we all benefit from the adjusted prices.

Add a little game theory to this and realize that, when resources are involved -- renewable or otherwise -- so long as the resource is in some way finite (finite rates of renewal) the more competitors in the free market, the less there is for everyone. The "fishery" model exemplifies this point.

Which is precisely why we need a profit motive to entice suppliers to respond to demand. And in the case of non-reproducible or long-term reproducible resources, we need to set the prices sufficiently high so that the market clears (meaning we achieve the price where the supply can be completely and sustainably sold). That's not a disservice, though - that's the responsible allocation of scarce resources. The market works best when this behavior is incentivized.

Keep in mind that the reason this market system works is because we all have insufficient information to allocate resources manually. As we approach social memory, of course this changes, because fraud and deception become impossible to conceal. Until then, we need prices to tell suppliers when to ramp up production and when to hold off.

Now take into account that persons are not perfect agents and this gets exponentially worsened and it takes very little for the system to become dramatically unstable.

Sure; but what's the alternative? Markets are the best, most decentralized and democratic system we have for resource allocation. They are not perfect. My only point was that it's better for nobody to be in control than to have a 2 ton gorilla "regulating" the market to some elite's advantage.

Tell me though: so long as people ae not perfect agents,and so long as someone is willing to cheat to win, how can a perfect or even well working economy function?

It can function quite well, though imperfectly. Hell, even in the Soviet Union, one of the most oppressive regimes in history, you still had black markets in blue jeans and stuff like that.

Markets work better when they are free to develop their own fraud-minimizing institutions, rather than having cartelizing regulatory bodies doing the job. Who here really thinks the SCC or FTA really regulates the financial markets on *our* behalf? The corporations actually like regulation because the costs of complying with regulations serve as a barrier to entry for competitors. Plus, nobody sits on those regulatory commissions without being either paid off or a long-time industry insider, anyway. If you can control the entry of competitors into your industry, you have much more freedom to act fraudulently, because your reputation is irrelevant if your customers don't have many other choices to turn to.

Here I define well working to be where an economy fairy distributes reward to contribution while also being sustainable and upwardly-mobile?

The rules matter quite a bit if you care about meritocratic distribution.

I think we currently have a market that is artificially distorted towards capital-intensive production, which naturally results in labor not receiving the full return on its effort. This artificial centralization of industry, brought about by subsidized transportation, manipulated money and favored banking interests, and socialized security spending leads industry to act in non-sustainable ways (because they can dump environmental costs on the society at large rather than having to price it like everything else).

Think about it: if oil companies had to pay the full cost of supplying oil to the world - the wars to maintain access and compliant governments, the environmental damage, etc. - alternative energy sources would be quite competitive. But since they are subsidized at every step of the way, of course oil is cheaper than any alternative. But that by definition isn't a free market, is it?

As far as upward-mobility, well, I don't think the class-based society we have is a natural phenomenon. I'll leave it at that since it's mere speculation.

[soup]

...We need to move to a system where this collective intelligence is given more power, rather than being channeled into advantageous directions for connected elites...

There may be some universal principles at play which by metaphor may help people integrate hurdles of disparity and bear the burdens of wisdom. One such principle may be "everyone's a trader". One cannot live without trading in some form or another.

Another such principle may be related to comparing apples to apples, that a fair trade is one apple for another apple, which seems pointless. So this leads to the idea that even with attitudes of "Win-Win" and agreement between buyers and selllers: "almost every trade contains a trade disparity."

It seems common that people fall into circumstance of exploitation, as if they feel trapped "to choose" to trade, a certain way. Is this breaching free will?

How does collective intelligence of society uplevel itself to a higher state of being? One way may be to ask a simple question: "Where is the trade disparity?" From the awareness of those answers can come a basis for better decision making within the mindframes of the traders.

[jeremy6d]

To me, it's pretty obvious that economics is an energetic system. Humans make useful things or provide useful services out of raw materials and otherwise unoccupied time. They find that if they specialize in what they're good at, everybody else can do the same and trade surpluses. This is a way of maximizing utility - IOW creating as much potential for work being done as possible - and then trading among ourselves to ensure all our disparate needs are met.

Well, in energetic systems, the energy is always flowing towards equilibrium. In a unencumbered market, there is a balance to be found. But there can't be any artificial breaks in the flow - it's important that everybody have maximum incentives to not only create value but not cause harm to others. A lot of the laws on our books today allow certain entities to not bear the full costs of their economic actions. The costs don't disappear, of course - they are simply offset onto other, innocent people. Pollution is a great example of "socializing" the costs of industry onto society at large. Lefty types are often accused of not having any economic sense, but it's the artificial banishment of environmental costs from the balance sheet of the corporation - an entirely arbitrary and a-economic act, I might add - that requires people to apply fuzzy concepts like "environmental footprint", "stakeholders", and "sustainability". In a free market, all those factors are part of every economic decision. Only in an unfree market are the responsibilities of being a human - the same responsibilities we all hold - somehow withheld from certain entities called "corporations". It's ridiculous, and it's not balanced.

If those ideas are interesting, read Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce. He's absolutely right - industry pollutes and wastes because it is the most cost effective way to operate, but we have to ask: why is waste cost-effective? Isn't the whole idea of economics that the most efficient businesses succeed? Hawken's argument is that we must restore the full balance sheet and make business pay for waste - in other words, restore the unencumbered free market.

t seems common that people fall into circumstance of exploitation, as if they feel trapped "to choose" to trade, a certain way. Is this breaching free will?

In many cases, yes. However, governments are designed to breach free will. That's their purpose - to use force to advance policy. If the aim of governments were so benign, they wouldn't need police or armies, by definition. Their use of compulsion via the enforcement of arbitrary laws is proof that they are not in line with the society they purport to rule.

How does collective intelligence of society uplevel itself to a higher state of being? One way may be to ask a simple question: "Where is the trade disparity?" From the awareness of those answers can come a basis for better decision making within the mindframes of the traders.

People need to reach a point where they can see the full "balance sheets" of their actions and beliefs. We are encouraged in this society to think in black and white terms and not analyze deeply the structure of our society. I fully agree that there are metaphorical "trade disparities" and I think there are a variety of analyses one can perform to arrive at an explanation. For me, it seems so clear that whatever flaws the market has are exacerbated, not tempered, by State intervention. That leads me to believe that, indeed, we can pretty much take care of ourselves. If we had the ability to, as the law of free will says, withdraw when we feel we can no longer be of service, the political and economic order would be far more efficient. I'm talking, of course, of political secession.

But we don't live in an ideal world.

[eyez4096]

From brainstorming with a fairly negatively polarized "friend" of mine (who I lost contact with some 3 years ago, after many years of "friendship") we conceived of an "economy" which may be more reasonable than what is available today. I mention the STS friend in this matter because my point is to illustrate how the system accommodates BOTH polarizations adequately. The unrealistic part is how to get such a system in place because it is dramatically different from what we see today.

Our idea centralizes its focus on two things: mentorship and mastery. The social structuring is set up to promote persons to excel at their specific trade by offering indirect incentives for doing so.

Consider that each person in a given trade does one or two things in addition to performing their trade: they are mentored by those who have more experience in their trade, and they are mentoring those who are less experienced. Simultaneously they are working their field of interest and producing goods/services for society. The idea is that a person who has more experience or skill will be worth more to those who seek to learn, who will in turn be worth more to others who seek to learn from them. This setup is entirely upwardly-mobile in so far as the benefits of becoming more skilled are worth achieving compared to standing still in a trade, provided one possesses enough potential to succeed.

It has small elements of "pyramid scheme" characteristics, especially for those most skilled and least skilled, which would keep it attractive to STS persons, while emphasizing learning and mastery and helping others for appeal to STO. Centralized corporations would be obsolete in this system, hindering its effectiveness. Centralized educational systems would also be less appealing because a more "grass roots" style of mentor-ship would be sustainable. Advertising one's abilities and word-of-mouth ability to popularize one's name in a given field would eliminate the need for institutionally awarded certificates and corporate sponsorship.

I invite people to think about this, and would recommend that if they have concerns about specific areas to ASK before trying to make argumentative points because the bit that I have presented is VERY briefly over viewing the concept.

-Charles

[soup]

I think there are a variety of analyses one can perform to arrive at an explanation...

Let's take "sales tax" as an example. Let's say a single dollar bill worth one hundred pennies is traded one hundred times in a year. In California, that is taxed roughly 8% every transaction, which adds up to eight hundred pennies or $8 - made from that single dollar - who pays the extra $7? Is there some disparity here?

I'd propose a "traceable" dollar of finite taxable lifetime, that is, that single dollar cannot be taxed more than it is worth in a single year...

I think that a dollar's worth would then vary depending upon how much tax was left on it for the year - that and the history of where it was traded - because the money would lose value as sitting in some fat bank account or traded by some less than ethical traders.

This type of complexity could be accomodated by computers...

[jeremy6d]

Taxes are an arbitrarily imposed cost, not an economic one. I consider all of them abject theft since they are not voluntary.

To answer both of you, I would say that instead of us trying to come up with the perfect system, we simply let the free market work it out. We'll never be able to come up with something as nuanced and responsive as the market, so why try?

Let go and let the market / collective intelligence / God / whatever.

[eyez4096]

Let's take "sales tax" as an example. Let's say a single dollar bill worth one hundred pennies is traded one hundred times in a year. In California, that is taxed roughly 8% every transaction, which adds up to eight hundred pennies or $8 - made from that single dollar - who pays the extra $7? Is there some disparity here?


I like this explanation because it caused me to think a moment about WHY it was an unreasonable/misleading framing.

When a single dollar is traded, the tax on that dollar is taken from another dollar. That is: 8% tax is not removed from part of the dollar bill but is taken from an additional dollar bill; you do not pay $1 and have $.08 OF that $1 go to the government.. you pay $1.08 and the 8 cents is sent separately to the government. So as for who pays that $7 in your example, each person who trades that bill pays a portion of said money and the amount is removed from their pool of other money. Were someone to have only $1 and wish to trade it, they would necessarily only trade 92.6 cents (100/108) and realize that the extra portion of said dollar would be taken as taxes. As such, were only a single dollar traded, after N trades, the remaining portion of the dollar in non-governmental hands would be (100/108)^(N).

Let me justify that statement.

To figure out how much can be spent at some rate (8% here) of taxation to equal your one dollar: (1+.08)*X = 1 -> (108/100)*X = 1 -> X = (100/108)

So after one trade, there is 100/108 of your 1 dollar remaining to be spent again. Reproducing this to figure out what amount Y may be traded next to be equal to this after taxes: (108/100)*Y = (100/108) -> Y = (100/108)^2

Call X0 = 1 and then X1 = X0 * (100/108) and X2 = X1*(100/108) = (100/108)^2. It follows form induction that XN = (100/108)^N (can be proven).

This thing does take forever to become zero; you can keep trading the original dollar forever and have SOME portion of value remaining... but after about 100 trades, the amount of the original dollar remaining is (100/108)^100 = ~ .000454 according to windows' calculator. This is so small a value that after a much smaller number of trades, effectively all of the dollar is in the hands of the government (to be spent again, perhaps). In fact it takes exactly ln(2/100)/ln(100/108) trades (between 50 and 51 -- I entered this one correctly for sure) to have only 2 cents left (the smallest amount for which the dollar can still be separated into multiple allotments of pennies).

My point? In a very rough manner, the system you describe is already in place; there are a finite amount of trades possible before a dollar is basically valueless.

-Charles

[soup]

Thank you Charles, that was a much better explanation then I could have ever figured out. I think the solution to finite trades is simple, just print more dollar bills, up to infinite. Dollar bills are not secured by any gold standard. The system works simply upon the cooperation of the traders.

My impression is that if one is trading for gasoline, then there seems an even greater dent to the dollar. For one, the petroleum industry gets taxed higher than others, like 39%. So they raise the price to compensate and then there's extra taxes in there for the buyer. Beyond the sales tax fiasco is an additional gasoline tax fiasco.

It seem no wonder the government moves to occupy Iraq, it seems a major business interest in regards to the government's income, i.e. to have a hand in the middle east may help secure its livelihood somehow.

[jeremy6d]

Good point, Charles. That's a great example of how taxes impact saving, which of course is the lifeblood of a capitalist system. We can't have funds for improvements in business, personal assets, emergency funds, etc. if government keeps siphoning off money for its arbitrary, whimsical endeavors and corporate welfare schemes.

A friend of mine recently wrote a blog post on how deficit spending by the government constitutes corporate welfare to a much larger extent than any possible welfare for those suffering from poverty:

http://the-bell-tower.blogspot.com/2007/05/whos-at-wheel.html

[eyez4096]

Thank you Charles, that was a much better explanation then I could have ever figured out. I think the solution to finite trades is simple, just print more dollar bills, up to infinite. Dollar bills are not secured by any gold standard. The system works simply upon the cooperation of the traders.


First I'm inclined to mention that it is a technical impossibility to print infinite dollar bills. It takes time to print a bill, and the concept of infinity implies that for every fixed number N there exists a number N+1 (since we're working with integer numbers of bills). Therefor not only can we never have infinite bills, but it would also take an infinite amount of time to produce such a supply. This is beside the point, but as a mathematician I'm inclined to defend the concept of the infinite. :)

The fact that dollar bills (and other nations' currencies) are not secured by a standard, is concerning. One solution is to have a relative standard; which I believe is very much like what we have in place today. But with a relative standard (aka, your currency has value in relation to another nation's currency which all ultimately have value relative to the amount of trade between countries) there is a great deal of opportunity for corruption and sleight of hand to the detriment of a greater populace.

Somewhere in the world there needs to be a finite (FIXED) standard against which money can be valued. There needs to be a FIXED value which can be infinitely (by concept) separated into portions. The fact that such a reference could be infinitely divided has to do with the way in which the real numbers work (aka the ones you use every day with decimals and fractions and such). But most importantly, this fact would mean that your money will ALWAYS have value, and there will always be a way to justify its EXACT value as a portion of the total division of the whole FIXED reference.

Until we have such a system in place, there will be HUGE opportunity for corruption which is effectively beyond recovering. Even an inflationary standard, like the gold standard, is acceptable so long as everyone uses it (while a gold standard is technically only finitely divisible because eventually one must distinguish between individual atoms -- the same argument that the sands on all the beaches of the world, while seemingly innumerable, are still finite).

The sad truth, however, is that the system in place today is a toy system which allows for unbelievable amounts of corruption by those who make the arbitrary rules (which can be changed at any time by those who arbitrarily are in positions to do so, and are similarly at the mercy of their own greed). Even more sad is that moving away from such a system is SO challenging that nothing shy of a MASSIVE shakeup will be sufficient to catalyze its change (I state this without proof since "massive" is totally undefined except to suggest that it would be very difficult).

-Charles

[soup]

There needs to be a FIXED value which can be infinitely (by concept) separated into portions.

This gets back to the idea that there seems intrinsic disparity in any trade just as there seems inequity in people's trading skills.

A simple FIXED value seems time. We all share the same hours in the day, why not the same hourly rate? Is there a disparity intrinsic to our innate physical/mental/spiritual differences, or is an hour of life energy simply that?

People trade their hourly rate as they do anything else, there's many markets for specialists that can demand rates higher than markets for mundane work.

The concept of free will enters into peoples choice of trade, hence there seems an everconstant inhomogeneity within the human experience.

As people grow in consciousness and awareness they may become more empathetic traders, looking for Win-Win in their trades as opposed to capitalizing upon the misfortune(s) of others.

[jeremy6d]

I'm not so interested in backing currency up with something of fixed value. That's kind of a misnomer, anyway. Very, very little is naturally "fixed" in value because value derives from utility, supply, demand, and other fluid, changing dynamics.

To me, the issue would be not so much to come up with THE one currency that works, but to open up a free market in currencies rather than having a government monopoly. That way, anytime somebody tries to manipulate one currency, you can convert to competing currencies, or start a competitor currency!

This is very much in line with the real world. During the Great Depression, rural communities developed complex barter systems to make sure everybody could get what they needed, since the money was practically useless and unavailable anyway. All the basics for life existed in the community, but nobody wanted to pay with dollars for them, nor did they want to accept them. These organic exchange networks were co-opted by the Roosevelt Administration and summarily drifted out of relevance.

However, if we got rid of the monopoly on banking, you could have "mutual banks" where people pledged property to the bank and got bank notes backed by their property. Basically, the bank is not "loaning" any money - all it's doing is liquifying your assets. So communities can have these mutual banks where, in order to participate you agree to accept bank notes from other members. That's a way for communities to have their own economies insulated from the larger macroeconomy.

More info here: http://mutualist.org

[soup]

...rural communities developed complex barter systems...

I think there is complex barter system within spiritual communities, related to how people's "value system" as those that reside within this very forum.
For example, free offerings of writings can pose opportunity of energetic exchange beyond any monetary trade.

In my personal life, I have had the priveledge of making monetary offerings to psychic healers and coaches in just this way, i.e. offering money and writings in exchange for simply a ressonance of energy.

What a concept, i mean if everyone put this high on their list of "things to do" as daily practice, people could grow within a greater cohesive spritual community than they may otherwise experience, i.e. by trading those dollars in other more mundane ways.

I think part of the mechanism at play is a symbolic psychic linking, inherent within words shared of benevolent intents.