Knowledge and Planning

by Puck T. Smith on Sunday, December 26, 2010 at 11:41am

There are resources that exist right now that are not recognized as resources therefore they are not taken into account when calculating the availability and allocation of resources.

In the 19th century the main sources of artificial light was whale oil(1). Had some central planning supercomputer been available at that time then its calculations on the problem artificial light would have been confined to maximizing the production of whale oil. The resources required to discover other sources of light would not have been made available because they would have been misallocated to other uses based on incomplete information.

Centralized planning would only work if the knowledge of initial inputs were complete. That is impossible. It is for this reason that weather forecasting, for all the computing power being thrown at it, is impossible beyond a few days. In order to extend forecasts further than that would require knowledge of the temperature, barometric pressure and humidity of every single point on Earth. Again, that is impossible.

The same dynamical system principles apply to all forms of predictive calculation: only if you have complete knowledge of initial inputs can you extrapolate future behavior. Such complete knowledge does not exist. It becomes even more problematic when some of the inputs are not even recognized as inputs in the first place, e.g., if you don't know about kerosene it could not be factored into the artificial light problem.

This process was first quantified by Edward Norton Lorenz(2), though others, such as Friedrich Hayek(3), had already approached it prior to Lorenz. Lorenz demonstrated the impossibility of accurate future calculation using a relatively simple system comprising only three variable. Considering that there are far more than three variables involved in the dynamical system we call society--some of which variables have not been identified let alone quantified--to think it is possible to accurately predict the future and calculate resource allocation based on those predictions is the height of hubris.

Such calculation can only be made when the allocation decisions are distributed to those with the most complete knowledge of the inputs, those who are most affected by the consequences of the decision making process. Even then the calculations are at best approximations. When errors are made in a distributed system the effects are minimized and local. When those decisions are centralized and enforced by coercion the consequences of error are maximized and global.

References:
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_oil

2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_N._Lorenz#Work
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_attractor

4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek#Work
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Use_of_Knowledge_in_Society
http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html

OK, Ron, here's your chance

Rep. Ron Paul, Chairman, Domestic Monetary Policy Subcommittee

Jurisdiction: Domestic monetary policy, currency, precious metals, valuation of the dollar, economic stabilization, defense production, commodity prices, financial aid to commerce and industry.

http://republicans.financialservices.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1458&Itemid=43

Crash JP Morgan! Buy Silver IV

To everyone who is like I was till today, a virgin, believe me, it feels wonderful the first time...

Crash JP Morgan! Buy Silver III

Widespread Silver Bar Shortages

As of today, there are no longer any regular wholesale supplies of the 1 ounce through 100 ounce silver rounds and bars available for immediate delivery. It may be possible to locate incidental quantities of some product, but most wholesalers are now promising two to four weeks delivery to allow time for the silver to be fabricated.

More...

Crash JP Morgan, Buy Silver II

US Mint record sales due to Crash JP Morgan, Buy Silver Viral Campaign? | USA Live Headlines
www.usaliveheadlines.com
In what seems to be quite a surprise to many watching the US Mint is reporting record sales numbers of 2010 American Eagle Silver Bullion coins this November. The last record was set in May of 2010 with a sales number of 3,636,500. This November the United States Mint under the authority of the U.S.

Crash JP Morgan, Buy Silver.

I am now the proud owner of 20 of these...
...and 20 of these.

I bought the buffaloes about a week and a half ago. I bought the others today. I wanted more buffaloes, but they were sold out. After I bought the others today they started advertising them as sold out as well,\.

I wonder is this or this might have something to do with it.

Oh, and if the Tea Party people had any understanding of economics they would be all over this. Progressives, too. You want to reign in Wall Street? Word is if 1/3 third of the adults in this country bought a single one once silver coin, going for about $30.00 today, JP Morgan would be forced into bankruptcy.

It's more fun than voting.

Definitions are everything

And herein is always the rub. We can only discuss god if you define god. I can't define "notness" (though the kabbalists sure as heck tried), I don't need to since you're who's saying what isn't obvious is. Define this god phenomenon and we can talk about if what you defines does, or even can, exist.

From A Friend on Facebook re: Tom Woods

"Obviously, I am dedicated primarily to freedom. I'm interested in privacy, freedom, human decency, free speech, freedom of expression, and I'm against war, bullying, bigotry, and the rape of small children. In these things I am apparently different from Poor Tom, who contributes financially to the Catholic Church in full and certain knowledge that the Catholic Church as a matter of policy encourages priests to rape small children and as a matter of policy covers up investigations, going to such lengths as recently invoking a treaty between Belgium and Vatican City for the purpose. As a gleeful Roman Catholic, Poor Tom presumably supports and endorses the Church's pogroms against Jews, crusades against the Albigensians, crusades in the Holy Land, Reconquista of Spain, invasion of the New World and wholesale rape, pillage, mass murder, and plunder of those places, burning of libraries, and ongoing violent brutality. Poor Tom must be assumed to support and endorse the Church's Holy Inquisition and its burning at the stake of Giordano Bruno, for which the Church has never apologised. I surmise that Poor Tom believes all these things because he is very publicly Roman Catholic. Wikipedia notes, "He was associate editor of The Latin Mass Magazine, which advocates traditional Catholicism, for eleven years."

Galatians 5:15

An Argument for the Inviolability of Property

This is an excerpt from a longer exposition on economics and politics which I'm still outlining.

In a Robinson Crusoe situation where it takes one day's labor to procure one day's resources one may be willing to do without for a day in order to improve one's method of procurement. If one is subsisting on fruit with either a thick stem or heavy rind one may decide to do without food one day and use the time not spent gathering and consuming fruit to fabricate a sharp stone tool which would enable the procurement of one day's food in half a day. One deems the present sacrifice acceptable for future gain. From that one period of time expended every subsequent day produces half the value of that single day. In two days one would have recovered all one had given and every day after one gains half as much again.

Given now the surplus time, one could choose to work all day to procure twice as much food in anticipation of future need or use that time for leisure or further utilization of resources and time to increase productivity, comfort and surplus time. In this way one has alone converted time, energy and resources, each exclusively controlled, into items of subjective material value to oneself. In this way one has created wealth to which no other can have claim as no other contributed to its production and accumulation. Wealth so acquired can scarcely be considered other than inviolable. Its disposition is subject to none but the owner.

A Brief Meditation on the Tea Party

Electoral politics are immoral or at least futile. I have no illusions that the net effect of the recent elections will ultimately produce anything more than some wonderful entertainment for my inner cynic. However, I do think the Tea Party is articulating something important. The middle class, what's left of it, is losing faith in the state and the state has run out of options for pacifying them. It is in its death throes. I think people sense it on an intuitive level, but they haven't realized it consciously, yet. The Tea Party is that intuition grappling with uncertainty. The next few years are going to be the process of the intuition and impulse evolving into understanding.