No Money

Did you know that there was a country without currency not so long ago? A place where money was abolished? A country without banks? Hard to image but true. Under the power of the Khmer Rouge for some five years Cambodia was a country without money. From 1975 till 1980 money did not exist. Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, abolished money, markets, and private property, blowing up the Central Bank to underscore his point. Apparently, not only was there no money, but as there was no property, there was also no trade. Even for extremists this is extreme. This insane regime has brought a lot of suffering and certainly nobody will look at this as a role model. Still I found it interesting that there was one (very flawed and failed) attempt to eliminate money in modern history. A sad historical curiosity. Here is an article looking at the economic, political aspects of being without money in this historic context: The Riel Value of Money.

Crisis of Capitalism

This just in from the Royal Society of Arts (RSA): Crisis of Capitalism. If you have a lot of time and interest available to go deeper into the subject you can "read" Marx's Capital jointly with David Harvey. He made his lecture available as an online series of videos. The lecture series is entitled "Reading Marx's Capital with David Harvey". After viewing the lecture you can join the discussion forum of Marx's Capital.

The RSA

The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) is a British institution dating back 250 years. According to their web site www.theRSA.org they want to be a cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress. Their approach is multi-disciplinary, politically independent and combines cutting edge research and policy development with practical action.

They provide one of the biggest free events programmes in the UK, enabling leading thinkers and new voices to share ideas on key contemporary issues. They are like a British counterpart to TED. The RSA is a great source for free videos of talks of well known scientists and thinkers. Their web site and YouTube channel provide to the public a huge pool of presentations on a variety of interesting subjects. An excellent place to go to for the curious or for the ones who seek food for the mind.

Some examples: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us, The secret powers of time, The empathic civilization, Superfreakonomics.

Oil in Rain

The BP oil disaster has such proportions and such impact that the only event in the world's history to which a comparison can be drawn is Chernobyl. The BP oil disaster might be a lot worse than Chernobyl.

As always language, i.e. words, are used to spin the situation. In this case we have the term "spill". Webster defines it as "2 : to cause or allow especially accidentally or unintentionally to fall, flow, or run out so as to be lost or wasted". So, media is using the term as to indicate an accident (instead of negligence and overly risky enterprise with a high risk of failure) and to imply a small amount (instead of an ongoing leak that daily pours millions of gallons of oil into the ocean without a stop in sight). Instead of "spill" they should be saying "massive oil leak caused by negligence". Here is a real-time counter showing the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that leaked so far.

It has started to rain oil in Louisiana (video also here). And with the oil drifting into the Atlantic it will rain toxic crude oil in far away places as Western Europe, the East Coast of the US, Central America, and eastern countries of South America. The soil will be polluted with the toxic crude oil. There is no protection and it is irreversible. The carcinogenic oil in the soil will go into our food chain (first crops, veggies, then animals) and finally we humans will consume it, by the millions in small doses causing cancer and other diseases.

Instead of Bon Appetit we will have to say Bon Pollution. Our liberty to select and buy healthy food will be crushed.

Generation M

This article entitled Generation Monsanto is so to the point that no extra commentary word is needed. Absolutely true.

Smile or Die

This is a cool 11-minute video about mandatory optimism in our society today and how it can be used for social control. It brings up a few good points. A longer video that not only includes the presentation by Barbara Ehrenreich but also a question and answer session is here. In the workplace context and the political arena it seems very convincing. Critical voices are disliked and pushed into the background or fired. Whistle blowers are poorly perceived by society in general.

In the private sphere it is not so obvious. Let's take patients with an illness. Are they more likely to recover if they have a positive attitude, i.e. hope, even if false hope?

Just as the author argues, realism should come first. If something is rotten, it should be outed. With realism solidly in place, optimism could fill the voids to give us a positive outlook whenever we have little information to go on. In other words: how about being optimistic by default until realism contradicts are positive assumptions at which point realism overrules positivism.

Happiness Defined

Found this definition of happiness by Chip Conley on TED in this video (10:49).

                         wanting what you have
Happiness =  ----------------------------------
                         having what you want

Ponder it.

Addicted to Plastic

"Addicted to Plastic" is a 2009 Canadian documentary film highlighting the issues around plastics, from manufacturing, recycling or lack of recycling and the pollution it causes. It has been on TV in several European countries and on screens around the world. It is a good first introduction on the problematics of microplastics. Various trailer and the film can also be found on YouTube.

A related 95-min documentary film which I haven't seen yet but is on my to-watch list is Plastic Planet which is from an Austrian production, also released in 2009. Both seem to be documentaries on the same topic. It will be interesting to compare the conclusions drawn from these two independent films. Here is the YouTube channel of Plastic Planet (in German).

Vote "No" on GM

The European Commission has just allowed genetically engineered crops into Europe, ignoring safety concerns of the public interest. There is a new EU citizen initiative with Greenpeace, Avaaz and Friends of the Earth - calling for a moratorium on GE and GM crops in the EU. The target is to collect 1 million online signature from EU citizens. If this goal is reached these non-profit organizations can submit an official legal request to the European Commission. If you are a EU citizen please sign. It is easy and only takes 60 seconds. It is crucial to keep GM foods out of the EU. More than 600,000 votes have been collected so far.

You can read more and sign the petition here: http://www.greenpeace.org/GEpetition. Please vote.

Intellectual Property Rights

The discussion on IP rights is quite hot. Material property rights seem to be easy. If you own a house and can prove it, it is yours. But the intellectual property is complicated. The in-favor-of-IP camp argues that any person who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof has a moral property right to it. The same camp argues that patents and IP rights create innovation by protecting R&D or other kind of intellectual investment. The contra-IP camp argues that unlike the material domain there are no moral rights on property in the intellectual domain. Furthermore they argue the IP right protection and patents stifle innovation as they prevent follow-up inventions and faster market absorption. In addition, preventing vital information and inventions to reach the market for the good of the common is unethical, immoral and speaks against IP rights. Imagine this example: Someone invents a cure for cancer, patents it and does not license it. Later a different person through independent means invents the same cure for cancer and wants to donate his invention to mankind. He is prevented. The second inventor has been robed of his freedom to donate his invention. The cancer patients are the ones to suffer the consequences. Another example would be big multinational oil companies buying up patents regarding non-gasoline powered vehicles and hiding these patents in a drawer. Such behavior is against the good of the common. And of course there are camps in between these extremes, camps that argue that some IP protection is beneficial for some type of IP.

How far can we go? How far have we gone? The IP rights are constantly expanded. First in time (now 20 years), then in scope. Genes can be patented. Whole plants are protected (see Monsanto and its generically modified seeds) already. Now corporations are trying to claim property rights on animals (e.g. Monsanto wants to patent the pig). What's next? Human body parts? Eye color genes?

This was in the news last week: "If the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) gets its way, the file-sharing company LimeWire will get blasted out of existence with a billion dollar fine. Meanwhile, British Petroleum, with its oil spill, that's on its way to the ecology disaster level of a Chernobyl, is liable for up to $75-million under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. What's wrong with this picture?" (Source: www.itworld.com) LimeWire provided means to share files, i.e. to enable IP infringement. BP polluted and continues to pollute the world's ocean and air. Does current legislation seem just?

UC Berkeley has a site with several high quality papers on IP. Not that I agree with all the conclusions but these publications offer a good discussion of the topic. "A World Without Intellectual Property? Boldrin and Levine, Against Intellectual Monopoly" by Richard Gilbert, "The Justification of Intellectual Property: Contemporary Philosophical Disputes" by Kenneth Himma, and "Monopoly, Mercantilism, and Intellectual Property" by Thomas Nachbar. Each paper has a button "Similar Items" to show related scientific publications.

Bitcoin

As a Top-10 open source application I ran across Bitcoin, a digital currency. I studied it and found this currency very intriguing. There is no central point (such as an issuing central bank or issuing corporation) and there is nothing (no material goods such as gold) that backs it up. Here are some key links to inform yourself about the working and principles of Bitcoin: home page, Wikipedia, a blog entry on mises.org, and a summary blog on The Monetary Future.

Pros:

• Since there is no central point it is less likely to be manipulated and control is outside the sphere of one powerful organization (like the FED, a central bank, or a corporation).
• There is no inflation, the Bitcoin currency is limited to 21,000,000 units, i.e. BTCs, brought into existence slowly over time.
• It cuts out the middleman (i.e. banks) as individuals can trade directly with each other without the need to go through a banking system or a clearing house. That makes it more efficient, cheaper and reduces dependencies, i.e. risks.
• It is more libertarian as transactions are not monitored by governmental agencies and can be done with anonymity. However, if such a currency were to become popular, it is nearly certain that legislation would be put in place to require individuals to report on such transactions. It would be treated like off-shore banking by governmental agencies.

Cons:

• As a weak point I see stability. Clearly the interchange value to other currencies will fluctuate. That's fine. But what will give it intrinsic stability? Apparently intrinsic stability comes from trust into the currency, but as we know trust levels can fluctuate and even be manipulated (e.g. through the media).
• It is electronic money requiring some sort of electronic device to carry the currency with you. Today this is a laptop. In the future this could be your cell phone and you could carry that to the local store to buy a loaf of bread and pay through a transaction initiated by yourself on your cell phone at the checkout.

Bitcoin can be part of a competing multi-currency infrastructure providing a solution to our monetary problems.

Percy Schmeiser

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting Percy Schmeiser and his wife in person on his European tour. He is a soft-spoken person with a simple and direct personality; he is about 77 years old, a life-long farmer, with several kids all working in agro-related areas. This year, due to age and time constraints, he is giving up farming. If you have seen any documentaries on Monsanto it is nearly certain that you have seen some video snippets of Percy Schmeiser. He is the Canadian farmer -- his grandma was from Austria hence his interesting name -- that was sued for years by Monsanto after Monsanto had found patented genetically modified (GM) crop on his field that grew from seeds that the wind had blown in. In short, his fields got contaminated and polluted by foreign Monsanto GM crop and then he got sued for not paying patent licenses to Monsanto. Percy took up the fight and took the topic to the Canadian Supreme Court. There were 3 law suits in total Percy told me over a glass of white wine in a chat. He further explained that even though it is illegal in Canada to patent plants, it is legal to patent genes and the court ruled that if the genes are in plants then the right to the whole plant goes to the gene patent holder. Through this backdoor it became possible to practically patent plants in Canada against their legislation. If I understood him correctly the final outcome of the lawsuits were that it was declared that he infringed on the rights of Monsanto but he was freed from any punitive actions and any punitive payments. This backdoor for patenting plant life was also recognized by the Canadian courts that there are efforts underway to create new legislation to close it, but it will take years before it becomes reality.

Other countries, like the EU and in particular Austria, have learned a lesson from this legal case and this epic struggle of a single farmer against a giant corporation that controls about 80 percent of all the seeds on all the farmlands of all of North America. E.g. Austria has put a rule in place in 2005 prohibiting law suits where patented seeds are accidentally distributed onto fields such that the patent owner cannot request licenses for such seed contamination.

To opposite, the farmer suffering the contamination cannot defend himself or sue anyone. Imagine you are an organic farmer and through wind GM crop seeds are polluting your fields. Suddenly you are no longer an organic farmer and lose your license and farm. Who is to blame? The GM seed manufacturer, i.e. Monsanto, clearly says we are not liable for that, we just hold the patent on the seed. Can't sue the wind. The person responsible is the neighbor planting GM crop, but since no farmer can put an air-tight glass dome over his fields and no truck carrying crop can be wrapped in a giant condom, such gen pollution is virtually certain to happen. The neighboring farmer does not have to resources to prevent it.

Since this GM pollution into organic farms is happening already, regulatory bodies already had to tweak the definition of "organic". According to EU laws, organic food allows up to 0.9% of GM crop. In short, if organic food contains 0.9% GM food it will still receive the "organic" or "bio" label. I am afraid this is just the beginning, as GM pollution increases who prevents that this bar is silently raised from 0.9% to 2 or 3%? In any case, GM producers literally have taken away from us the right to eat 100%-GM-free food, it cannot be found anymore in regular supermarkets, especially if you not only take into account the GM pollution on the fields but also the ingredients like monoglyceride, diglyceride, lecithine, glutamat, E620 – ER625, in prepared food that do not require labeling. Furthermore vitamins B, C and E are frequently manufactured through GM microorganisms.

Since GM pollution is certain to happen and has happened already, and since it is irreversible we should be extra careful. Monsanto knows how to put a new gene into a plant, but they do not know how to take the plant out of circulation. There is no fail-safe behavior. You find a pesticide to be toxic, you can outlaw it and no longer use it. You find a GM crop to be harmful, you can no longer stop it. It will propagate itself, spread itself, mutate itself, ... it is a plant and it has a life of its own.

With Percy Schmeiser in town there is another event tonight highlighting his presence. The 65-minute documentary film "David versus Monsanto" will be screened publicly. It was produced 2009 by a German team. The film is also available here as well as a talk he did at UC Berkeley. Here is a short trailer.

I realized how annoying he must have become for the public relations campaigns of Monsanto when I found a long page dedicated to Percy Schmeiser on the Monsanto public web site. Have a look at this: http://www.monsanto.com/.../percy_schmeiser. The same is on their international sites like the Spanish one.

Monsanto regularly wins prizes: Monsanto won the 2009 Award for Worst Corporate Climate Lobbyist (by Angry Mermaid), Monsanto won the Least Ethical Company In The World Award (by Covalence, out of 581), ... (in Spanish).

Watch the film on this oh so ethical corporation Monsanto and the next time you are in the supermarket reach for the organic product (it is at least 99.1% GM-free according to EU regulation).