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Proposal For A New Constitutional Amendment: A Separation of Corporation and State

by Nova Spivack
July 28, 2004
http://www.mindingtheplanet.net
Permission granted to distribute or reproduce freely.

Should there be a Separation of Corporation and State?

Today our American democracy faces a new threat to its integrity, a threat even greater than terrorism in the long-term. This threat is the corporation. In this essay I propose that it may be time to introduce a new principle into our democracy and a new amendment to our Constitution - a formal "Separation of Corporation and State."

To illustrate this point, consider an earlier "separation" that has been essential to our democracy -- the Separation of Church and State. What would America be like if the Constitution did not provide for the separation of Church and State? Would it be a nation that protects and celebrates freedom, equality and pluralism? Or would it be a nation, not so unlike those presently under the sway of fundamentalism, run by religious lobbies, religious police, and fanatical extremists?

I have nothing against religion - in fact I am religious myself - but I don't think religion should have anything to do with government, or vice-versa. This is in fact one of the key ideas in our Constitution. Many of our Founding Fathers were deeply religious, but they recognized the need to make a clear distinction between their religious ideals and their political ideals. Thus over time a Constitutional separation of Church and State was formed -- a separation that would not only protect the integrity and objectivity of government, but also that of religious institutions.

However, although they were well-aware of the risks of mixing politics and religion, our nation's early Constitutional scholars were not as concerned with the risks of mixing politics and business. And why should they have been? At the time corporations were not nearly as independent or influential as monarchies and the Church. They were not considered threats. It would not be until the much later advent of the Industrial Age that corporations became a serious political force to reckon with. But one might well wonder whether our Constitution would have included protections against corporate influence had corporations been more of a force at the time it was devised.

Today corporations are becoming the single most powerful forces shaping our societies and governments. While corporations have great potential to benefit society and even governments, they are entirely selfish entities - they have no accountability to the public, and no responsibility to ensure the public good. A government that is influenced by corporations can easily become a government that caters to corporations, a government that is effectively run by corporations. Such a government is not representative of its people anymore. It is therefore not a democracy.

Corporate influence on government, if not carefully regulated, is a threat to democracy. It is a threat to the American way of life. This threat to democracy may not be as dramatic as terrorism, but in the long-term it may be far more damaging to society. In fact this threat was foreseen by some of our most visionary leaders:

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. ... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong it's reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." -- Abraham Lincoln

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Because this threat was impossible to envision at the time our nation was formed, our Constitution was not designed with specific countermeasures and as a result our leaders, our government, our democracy, and our citizens, are presently without protection from political influence and manipulation by corporate interests. The danger of this is that our government may be run by corporations, or at least key decisions may be based on commercial interests. But is it democratic for national decisions to be driven by corporations that are only responsible to their shareholders? Are We The People represented by the corporate decision-makers and politicians they fund?

Are we living in a true democracy when many of our highest elected officials continue to receive salaries and bonuses and hold stock in, large corporations they formerly worked for? Are we living in a true democracy when our leaders are able to award lucrative no-bid contracts to their former employers? Are we living in a true democracy when public policy is influenced by corporate-backed political lobbies that spend millions of dollars to influence key decisions? Are we living in a true democracy when the same people who start our wars benefit financially from weapons sales and reconstruction contracts? Is this ethical? Is this what our Founding Fathers intended? Is our Shining City on the Hill starting to get a bit tarnished?

I ask you then: Is it time to modify the Constitution to specifically provide for a formal "Separation of Corporation and State" in our democracy? And if we don't take action, can our American democracy survive?

An Interesting Visualization of Word Frequencies

This animated visualizer lets you enter a word (in the little search box on the bottom left) and then shows the word situated next to other words that are used with similar frequency in English. It's cool -- you can discover some interesting things. Read the about page for more on that. This system would be really good if it used the concepts from my paper on A Physics of Ideas. What they should do is show the words next to other words with similar present momentum. That would be much more informative and useful than simply visualizing words as if all mentions happened at once. The fact that mentions occur over time (and space) is what is really important. It is much more interesting than the mere total number of mentions since time began. I would love to see a visualization of meme momentums as I have proposed in my article above. If you feel like making one, please let me know!

A Scary Article Explaining Imminent Rapid Climate Change

Just read an interesting article about the coming end of the world, in which the author traces the recent history of rapid climate change, government cover ups, and secret preparations for the polar ice-cap melting which now seems pretty much inevitable. Fascinating read. I think it's definitely time to go watch Waterworld again (yes, it was a bad movie, but it featured a really cool trimaran!). I wouldn't mind living on a boat actually -- except for the problem of bad weather. Too bad we can't just live off world (yet). Anyway, it is too late to prevent global inundation -- at this point there is about a 30 year delay, so even if we were to change our policies (not gonna happen under present administration) it wouldn't make a difference for about 30 years. But by then it is likely, according to the article, that every coastal city will be flooded or underwater. So, I guess on the bright side we will all have waterfront property!

Microsoft Adds Super-Fast Search to Outlook For Free

FINALLY!!!! Microsoft wakes up and does the obvious.They bought Lookout and have released their product for free as an add-on for Outlook. Download it here. Thank you, Bill. Now, the next thing you need to do is make Outlook Open-Source. You can keep Exchange closed-source if you want. Then you will still make money, not that you need it.

US Army Food... Just Add Urine

The US Army has developed a new way to enable soldiers to carry less water. They have created rehydratable food rations that come in a wrapping that is actually a sophisticated semi-permeable membrane. So to rehydrate the food, soldiers can simply pee on it, or even pour dirty water on it if that's all that is around. The membrane filters out 99% of the bad stuff so that only clean water gets into the food. Sounds appetizing.

Are We Brain Damaged?

This just in from Jack Park at SRI...

Get this: a macaque got really sick, darn near died, and when it was all over, the monkey started walking upright like a human. Doctors think it was brain damage. Maybe all upright walking humanoids are similarly "brain damaged?" Go figure...

Here is the article and picture of the monkey walking upright . It is a very strange picture.

Transforming Ordinary Houseplants Into Audio Speakers

A Japanese inventor has figured out how to vibrate the leaves and stems of ordinary houseplants so that they can be used as audio speakers. The basic idea is that you can hear music coming directly from the plant itself. Weird. It would be a fun prank though -- you could make a remotely operated talking plant. Or a burning bush that talks, for that matter. Hmm.. Kinda makes ya wonder. Maybe God is a deranged Japanese inventor? That would explain a lot.

NYC Covered Up High Asbestos Levels After 911

A report has come out that the levels of asbestos in lower Manhattan were (are?) at least twice what is considered safe for humans by the FDA, and possibly worse. Levels were so high after 911 that they overloaded the tests. However, this data was purposely concealed from the public following 911.

Soylent Green is Made of PEOPLE....!!!!

A Russian scientist proposes turning all that wasted blood out there into yogurt, milk, cheese, etc. To quote the film, "Soylent Green is Made of People....!!!" Thanks, but I'm not hungry.

Mars Orbiter Detects Probable Signs of Life

Traces of ammonia have been detected in Mars' atmosphere. This is a probable sign of life. Read more here

Bluetooth Earrings

I was having lunch with my aunt today and she complained that her earrings were always getting in the way of her cell phone. I suddenly said, "hey, wouldn't it be cool if your earrings were your cellphone!" The basic idea would be to make earrings that had bluetooth, a speaker and a mic in them. We could call them "hearrings." They would be better than an earbud or an annoying wired earphone. Of course it would only really work for women (ok, and some men who have their ears pierced I supposed).

Off to Brainstorm

I'm off to Fortune Magazine's annual Brainstorm conference again. Glad they invited me back; it's one of the better events of the year in my opinion. If you're going to be there, come say hi!

Skycar

A consumer-grade VTOL Skycar is almost ready for mass production. I want one.

This Just In: The Race for Magnetic Power

I just received the following internal release from a company that starts alternative energy companies (Magnetic Power, Inc., which I am an investor in). MPI has a number of interesting alternative energy devices under development. My investment was in their superconducting project (ROOTS) -- which focuses on room temperature superconducing polymers. But anyway, the article below is about research on magnetic motors -- specifically it is news about one of their competitors, Perendev Power, who are now rumored to have a working magnetic motor nearing production. I am not an investor in Perendev Power. Please note that I am not endorsing Perendev Power by posting this -- in fact I would caution any investor to be extremely careful when investing in the fringes of alternative energy R&D. I am blogging this release here with permission from MPI. The purpose is to point out that magnetic motor technology seems to be getting ready for "prime time." Is it perpetual motion? No, it is not based on any violation of the Second Law -- it is instead an extremely clever use of magnets to make amazingly efficient motors.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Magnetic Power Inc. - MPI

A fuel-free magnetic motor is invented in South Africa

Michael J. Brady, head of Perendev Power Developments Pty. (Ltd.), a South African firm, after 5 years of experimentation, claims to have developed a 20 Kw magnetic motor driven generator set, requiring no input of any kind. Continental European and Russian market rights have recently been licensed to an undisclosed German firm.

Brady states that a prototype was delivered to Germany in March, and is now undergoing safety tests of the type performed in the U.S. by Underwriter’s Laboratories. Production is slated to begin within 60 days. According to Brady, no external power is required to start the motor, and tests indicate no reduction of magnet strength. Brady alleges that one prototype has run for two months.

Brady’s website is Perendev Power. The site includes a recent rotating prototype, as well as computer simulations of the device.

Magnetic Power Inc. has been following Brady’s work with interest, since similar fuel-free, magnetic devices, are under development in our laboratories. However, unlike Brady’s heavier prototype, several of MPI’s generators are lighter and more compact, having no moving parts, thus more easily adaptable to power homes and vehicles.

While in the past, Brady’s posted production schedule has been overly optimistic, if his current test results are correct, he has proven a principle, and made a major contribution to solving the world’s energy problems with a fuel-free, renewable, alternative.

© 2004 Magnetic Power Inc. All rights reserved.

301A North Main St. P.O. Box 880 Sebastopol CA 95473
office 707 829-9391 cellular 707 280-8210 e-mail [email protected]

Facetop -- Cool New Videoconferencing Idea

Check out Facetop, a really smart way to do collaboration and videoconferencing at the same time. See the picture in the link above. (from Josh

A Physics of Ideas: Measuring The Physical Properties of Memes

by Nova Spivack
http://www.mindingtheplanet.net

Original: July 8, 2004
Revised: February 5, 2005


(Permission to reprint or share this article is granted, with a citation to this Web Page: http://www.mindingtheplanet.net)

This paper provides an overview of a new approach to measuring the physical properties of ideas as they move in real-time through information spaces and populations such as the Internet. It has applications to information retrieval and search, information filtering, personalization, ad targeting, knowledge discovery and text-mining, knowledge management, user-interface design, market research, trend analysis, intelligence gathering, machine learning, organizational behavior and social and cultural studies.

Introduction

In this article I propose the beginning of what might be called a physics of ideas. My approach is based on applying basic concepts from classical physics to the measurement of ideas -- or what are often called memes -- as they move through information spaces over time.

Ideas are perhaps the single most powerful hidden forces shaping our lives and our world. Human events are really just the results of the complex interactions of myriad ideas across time, space and human minds. To the extent that we can measure ideas as they form and interact, we can gain a deeper understanding of the underlying dynamics of our organizations, markets, communities, nations, and even of ourselves. But the problem is, we are still remarkably primitive when it comes to measuring ideas. We simply don't have the tools yet and so this layer of our world still remains hidden from us.

However, it is becoming increasingly urgent that we develop these tools. With the evolution of computers and the Internet ideas have recently become more influential and powerful than ever before in human history. Not only are they easier to create and consume, but they can now move around the world and interact more quickly, widely and freely. The result of this evolutionary leap is that our information is increasingly out of control and difficult to cope with, resulting in the growing problem of information overload.

There are many approaches to combating information overload, most of which are still quite primitive and place too much burden on humans.  In order to truly solve information overload, I believe that what is ultimately needed is a new physics of ideas -- a new micro-level science that will enable us to empirically detect, measure and track ideas as they develop, interact and change over time and space in real-time, in the real-world.

In the past various thinkers have proposed methods for applying concepts from epidemiology and population biology to the study of how memes spread and evolve across human societies. We might label those past attempts as "macro-memetics" because they are chiefly focused on gaining a macroscopic understanding of how ideas move and evolve. In contrast, the science of ideas that I am proposing in this paper is focused on the micro-scale dynamics of ideas within particular individuals or groups, or within discrete information spaces such as computer desktops and online services and so we might label this new physics of ideas as a form of "micro-memetics."

To begin developing the physics of ideas I believe that we should start by mapping existing methods in classical physics to the realm of ideas. If we can treat ideas as ideal particles in a Newtonian universe then it becomes possible to directly map the wealth of techniques that physicists have developed for analyzing the dynamics of particle systems to the dynamics of idea systems as they operate within and between individuals and groups.

The key to my approach is to empirically measure the meme momentum of each meme that is active in the world. Using these meme momenta we can then compute the document momentum of any document that contain those memes. The momentum of a meme is a measure of the force of that meme within a given space, time period, and set of human minds (a "context"). The momentum of a document is the force of that document within a given context.

Once we are able to measure meme momenta and document momenta we can then filter and compare individual memes or collections of memes, as well as documents or collections of documents, according to their relative importance or "timeliness" in any context.

Using these techniques we can empirically detect the early signs of soon-to-be-important topics, trends or issues; we can measure ideas or documents to determine how important they are at any given time for any given audience; we can track and graph ideas and documents as their relative importances change over time in various contexts; we can even begin to chart the impact that the dynamics of various ideas have on real-world events. These capabilities can be utilized in next-generation systems for knowledge discovery, search and information retrieval, knowledge management, intelligence gathering and analysis, social and cultural research, and many other purposes.

The rest of this paper describes how we might attempt to do this, some applications of these techniques, and a number of further questions for research.

Superdistribution is the Solution to Digital Piracy and Marketing -- and a Venture Opportunity too!

Forget about DRM and legal action to prevent piracy -- there is a better way: Superdistribution harnesses basic human drives to save money and make money. It's more powerful than copy protection, more powerful than ethical arguments, and more powerful even than fear of legal prosecution.

A recent article points out that in 2003 around one third of all installed software on PC's was pirated. Probably an even higher percentage of digital music was pirated.

Piracy comes about because people like to get things as cheaply as possible. When calculating the "cost" of getting something, we need to consider not just the pricetag but also the rest of the transaction-cost -- for example the cost in time to locate something, download it, potentially pirate and crack it, etc. To combat piracy, we need to bring the total cost (including all transaction costs) of paying for digital products down to roughly equal or less than than the total cost of pirating those same items. One way to accomplish this is too keep lowering prices of goods. But there are price-points below which sellers lose their margins and thus cannot pass. The problem arises when the total transaction cost of piracy is still less than the lowest commercially-viable total transaction cost to purchase a digital product legitimately. In such a situation piracy flourishes because sellers simply cannot compete by lowering prices any further. So what is a seller to do in that case?

Fortunately there is a solution: Sellers can effectively lower the total transaction cost of purchasing versus pirating by using superdistribution. Superdistribution enables "peer-to-peer" marketing and selling. The concept is simple. I buy a product from Seller X and pay price Y for it. But I can then promote it to my friends and if one of them buys it, I get a commission that reduces my price Y for my copy. If they then further distribute the product to their friends and so on down the line to some number of levels, I get further comissions (fractional by social distance of each purchaser from me). This is sometimes called "network marketing" and is fully legal in the USA so long as no up-front fees are charged to parties before they can become resellers and start earning commissions (at least this was the law last time I checked -- but do your own research to be safe if you are planning to go into business doing this!). In other words, you don't have to buy a product before you can resell it to others and earn commissions -- you can resell it and earn commissions even if you yourself don't own it.

In any case, legal subtleties aside, the concept is what matters here. Superdistribution reduces the buyer's total transaction cost, and even enables them to potentially get their product for free or even make a profit if enough downline sales result from their referrals. The catch is that it only works in cases where the product is easily superdistributable, and the customer has good enough connections to easily find downline buyers. Finally, it only makes sense in cases where the market is not already saturated -- where there are still lots of potential buyers who haven't bought the product yet.

Superdistribution, if done properly, will virtually eliminate piracy. The reason is simple. If you buy a product wouldn't you rather get a lower price or get it free or even make money, if you could? Because superdistributing a product has this potential, but giving it away for free does not, parties who buy products are more likely to then superdistribute them than they are to simply give them away for free to their friends. Now what about the case where a party does not buy a product? Superdistribution wins there too because even non-buyers can act as resellers -- in other words, they can make even greater profits than buyers because they didn't even spend anything. So in short, if a suitable superdistribution mechanism is provided, people will use it to resell digital products they download and/or buy rather than giving them away to others for free. This is really the solution to the music industry's woes -- it is far more effective than any form of digital rights management or legal action. By enabling non-pirates to benefit financially compared to pirates, non-piracy can naturally be brought about for the majority of cases.

Another Crazy Idea: Pattern-Matching The Cosmos

Has anyone ever done a computer analysis of all known stars seen from Earth, to detect if there are any groups of stars that are identical (or linearly transformed) in different parts of the sky? For example, have they looked for identical sets, mirror image sets of stars, flipped image sets, slightly drifted but nearly equivalent sets of stars, etc.? The idea is that if we located two sets of identical, or linearly transformed, star groups then we might conclude that they are in fact the same star system viewed from different directions on curved space-time from our perspective. In other words, it might be possible to see the same set of stars from two directions at once. This could indicate something about the topology of space-time. It would be an interesting journey in "wild speculation" -- but who knows, it could yield unexpected results. It shouldn't be so difficult to do an exhaustive search using a supercomputer of all sets of up to n stars in the known universe. Where it might get subtle and complex however is if we want to account for all angles, gravitational lensing effects in various directions from a given star, and for variations in stellar spectral lines and position over long periods of time. We would probably need to start with a simple search -- looking for nearly identical patterns in different places -- such as "same stars, same relative positions to each other," or "same stars, slightly different relative positions," or "slightly different stars, same relative positions," or "slightly different stars, slightly different relative positions." Getting more exotic would require more computational power -- for example, if we broaden the range of variations we would consider in the positions of the stars relative to one another, or the range of spectral changes that we would consider for each star (for example in billions of years, for a given star X, given what we know about it today, how would it appear to us?).

Can Messages Be Sent Backwards in Time?

Is it possible to send messages backwards in time? This may actually be a testable hypothesis today. Here is a possible way to test it. Let's assume this is possible and that at some point in time in the future, humans on earth develop this technology. We can test whether or not this actually will happen in the future by constructing a suitable receiving device now, and making its presence known in the global digital landscape such that it becomes part of the historical record. In the future, if and when suitable technology is developed, the inventors at that time may discover the existence of our device in their past and then may attempt to send a message back in time to our device. Of course, if they are smart they will send us instructions to make a better receiver, and possibly even a transmitter. That would get interesting! Similar ideas to this have been proposed by others, including Jack Sarfatti. My approach is as follows:

1. Construct the receiver device. This device needs to be designed such that it could be receptive to potential messages from the future. For example, it could be a highly ordered crystal lattice, or a sensitive measuring device that could detect any changes to a local region of space (such as the temperature of something or the local physical constants or topology of a small area). The challenge is to construct a system that can do this. It would take a lot of thought to come up with the right type of receiver.

2. We then publicize the location of the Receiver in digital online media and the press. This is to ensure that it becomes part of the historical record, so that in the future, anyone searching for "faster than light communication" or "communicating backwards in time" will find our information and learn enough about the receiver to send us a message.

3. Then we just wait and see what happens. If we are lucky, we might receive a message right away. Maybe it will take a while. If we never receive a message we can conclude that either (a) Humans destroyed themselves in our future and there is nobody left to send the message, (b) Humans (or some form of suitably intelligent lie) exist in the future but never develop the technology for sending messages backwards in time, (c) Intelligent beings exist and do develop such technology in the future, but our physics was wrong and they can't communicate without our Receiver, (d) Suitably intelligent beings do exist in our future and they do have the technology but for some reason they cannot or will not send us a message (perhaps safety, or the Prime Directive, or fear of changing their own past in uncontrolled ways).

Now the physics of this proposal could be changed -- for example, perhaps there is a better way to construct a receiver. For example, use a satellite and enable it to receive optical messages from some location nearbye for example, or from Earth. But in any case, the basic design of this project could work. But only if widely publicized -- otherwise what is the chance that a future civilization will find out about it and try to make contact?

Russia's Best Kept Secret

Here is a fantastic article on the futuristic physics of Dr. Nikolai A. Kozyrev, the Tesla of Russia. Kozyrev's theories are only now beginning to be understood. He made fundamental proposals related to zero-point energy (the energy of the quantum vacuum) as well as gravity and "anti-gravity" propulsion, as well as hidden reasons for various similarities in nature. It's a fascinating must-read; a gold-mine kind of article that connects with many other projects and ideas I am working on, not the least of which is my interest in ZPE (and my secret investment in a stealth ZPE venture). One caveat, this article is definitely "fringe" and subsequent chapters veer off into territory that is interesting but is increasingly speculative. I have an open mind so I'll consider anything, but I don't necessarily agree with all of the points therein. My main intent is to point out the article on Kozyrev, a thinker I was not aware of previously but who seems quite important to know about.

Should Corporations be Democracies?

I just saw an interesting film, The Corporation, that suggests that many corporations (which legally have the same status as "persons" in the USA) could be clinically diagnosed as psychopaths. While I felt the film was a bit heavy-handed, there were many points that were quite thought-provoking. For example, one point the film made was that many corporations are now global, but governments are national, and thus many corporations are out of the jurisdiction of any governing body. Furthermore, the film makes the point that because corporations are motivated only to maximize shareholder value, they have no incentive to be "responsible persons" in society, and in fact, they have every incentive to try to "externalize" costs by cutting corners, offloading problems and waste onto the public, and cheating if they can get away with it. So rather than obeying laws and being good citizens out of some sense of morality or ethics, they do so only if and when the risk of getting caught is greater than the chance of getting away with it. There are also some interesting stories in the film about some organizations and how they are attempting to change to become more sustainable. In any case, I think this film is worth seeing -- it certainly informs the debate and is highly thought-provoking.

Seeing this film reminded me of a blog posting I wrote last year, On the Separation of Corporation and State. Perhaps this concept should be proposed as a new Constitutional Amendment? The question is how could it be structured so as to be effective and not merely symbolic? Another question I've been thinking about: Is there a way to add feedback to corporate revenues such that they benefit or suffer due to additional factors such as their environmental impact, social impact, etc.? For example, could corporations be rewarded or penalized financially by an independent body for various good or bad behaviors? To some extent governments have attempted to do this with various taxes and tax-credits. But for the most part, I'm not sure the effect has been pronounced enough. Ultimately it has to be a strong enough effect that investors will start to worry about these factors and consider them when making investment decisions. They should think "Is this company good to the environment?" not just because it's a warm fuzzy thought but because it could really impact the value of the company's stock in the future! The problem is how to administer such a penalty-reward system, and also all the potential legal challenges that might arise? It may simply be impractical.

Still, there is a problem that everyone recognizes -- large multinational corporations answer to nobody yet affect everybody. They are not democracies -- neither their employees nor the people in the communities and biospheres they impact have significant voting power over their behavior. Even their shareholders don't have equal voting power -- only the large shareholders really have impact on decision-making. It's strange that America is both the champion of Democracy and Capitalism -- because while these two systems support one another, corporations are anything but democratic in structure! That may have been tolerable in earlier times when corporate influence was much smaller. But today, corporations are perhaps more powerful than democratic governments. Is it time to take another look at this issue?

Democracy and capitalism are both in the process of breaking. Democracy is breaking because it was not designed to handle such large populations (in other words the Electoral College system, and much of the rest of our present form of Democracy, are obsolete in the face of larger populations -- the effect that an individual can have is less than before in my opinion when it was practical for everyone to speak directly with their Representatives), and because it was not designed to withstand corporate influences (modern day independent capitalist corporations with legal status as "persons" did not exist when our republic was designed). Capitalism is broken because it lacks checks and balances such that it will destroy the marketplace if left unchained. We can already see this taking place, for example in the drastic depletion of global fisheries due to unrestrained over-fishing. This will happen not just with fish, but with every natural resource, given enough time. Capitalism is simply not designed to be sustainable -- that was never considered to be a risk when capitalism was originally conceived of -- back then the world seemed to be a very big place with virtually unlimited resources. Today as the world becomes smaller and populations become larger, resource constraints are an increasingly important issue.

While individual corporations may realize their livelihoods depend on certain resources and may control their behavior accordingly, they cannot control what other corporations, perhaps in entirely different industries with different goals, do. Thus corporation A may need resource X and take care to preserve it, but that may not stop corporation B from destroying or damaging resource X in the process of working with resource Y. Since corporation B is only interested in resource Y, it has no incentive to preserve resource X, and in fact, if destroying resource X makes it able to leverage resource Y more cost-effectively it will do so. This is a fundamental "bug" in the way capitalist systems are designed presently. It really needs to be fixed.

There does not seem to be an effective feedback loop -- there is nothing to really balance these organizations anymore, yet they are increasingly powerful. The simplistic hope that "the market will sort it out" has not led to a solution and doesn't show any sign of doing so -- in fact we just see Tragedy of the Commons taking place on a global scale. Of course we could get rid of the Tragedy of the Commons by simply making everything into private property -- but I wouldn't want to live in such a world. Rather than take such drastic measures, why not find a way to moderate the behavior of corporations instead? Then we can have a Commons, something which I think is essential to a free society.

Given that governments are becoming weaker than global corporations, we have two choices. One would be to somehow try to restore the balance of power between governments and corporations (with what, a world government? And who would be its citizens -- corporations, nations, or individuals, or all of the above? And if so, who would have the voting power in such a structure?); the other option would be to acknowledge that a fundamental shift has taken place -- maybe corporations ARE the new governments?

New Super-Thin Electronic-Ink E-Book Unveiled

Very nice looking electronic-ink based "book" unveiled by Sony and E-Ink. Looks cool -- Like an iPod but for printed materials.

Pocket Holographic Video Projector Demonstrated

This is totally brilliant -- read the description of how it works all the way to end. I am especially impressed with how they are able to make computer generated holograms 1 million times faster than previous methods, and how they figured out how to do it by interviewing people. It's pure genius -- I can't wait for this technology to get to market.