I've been doing a lot of thinking on this subject, including a few posts here and there over the past few days that some people seem to be affronted by, or to dismiss as gobbledegook.

I started having a look around to see what work is being done, because it seems such an obvious approach, given our understanding of dynamical systems generally.

Well, there's actually a lot of work being done, but you, like me would never have come across it.

Here are a few links

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/eventssummary/event_11-12-2012-13-34-29

"Based on current research, it would appear that a mathematical model for predicting the future behaviour of very large groups, akin to the fictional science psychohistory in Isaac Asimov's books, may not be too far-fetched."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Econophysics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoeconomics

"Thermoeconomics is based on the proposition that the role of energy in biological evolution should be defined and understood through the second law of thermodynamics but in terms of such economic criteria as productivity, efficiency, and especially the costs and benefits (or profitability) of the various mechanisms for capturing and utilizing available energy to build biomass and do work.[6][7]"

I am encouraged that serious minds are working on what is not a simple problem.

This was posted this morning, but I think that GY missed it and only put it up a couple of hours ago, so I've bumped it.

I'll also add another link

http://escholarship.org/uc/item/5w49c6wt#page-8

That's a free access journal on a field called cliodynamics, which is

"a transdisciplinary area of research integrating historical macrosociology, economic history/cliometrics, mathematical modeling of long-term social processes, and the construction and analysis of historical databases."

I think these various investigations are going to yield a general set of mathematical relationships that describe and predict human social interactions.

Antiseptic,

Not necessarily on your subject, but you might like to try and hunt down Arthur Koestler's "The Ghost in the Machine".....which speaks of systems and seeks to compare biological systems and social systems (linguistic - many systems) and hierarchy. Also speaks of human adaptation and evolution being the bringing together of things seemingly unrelated to achieve breakthroughs in understanding.

I've quoted a bit from Koestler on this page, so I'll leave it with you as over here in the West it's time to get dinner : )

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=14128&page=23

Thanks Poirot, I've read a little of Koestler's stuff, it's interesting.

The main thing, I think, is to try to describe how people and societies are related to each other, with cognisance of individual interactions as being both influenced by and influencing groupings on all scales.

If we can come up with descriptions that are general and not reliant on knowing the particular ideologies or political stances, then we can work on ways to make particular social arrangements that are stable and productive and give everyone a satisfactory role with some confidence that we know what we're doing, instead of playing like a kid with a chemistry set, mostly making bad smells and sludge.

Dear Antiseptic,

I'm not sure if these books will help but
you can check them out for yourself on
Google Book Search:

"The human past: World Prehistory (and) the
Development of human societies." by Christopher Scarre.

"The Complete World of Human Evolution" by
Chris Stringer and Peter Andrews.

Poirot I just had a look at your Koestler discussion linked to above and I must say I found it compelling.

I was silly enough to comment earlier before I checked your link.

I'm noticing more and more ways that things emerge from earlier matrices of knowledge that are obvious when examined, but short-cut the sidesteps that had already been taken.

It's obvious that there has to be some integrated probabilistic model of human interaction. There are only so many ways to be human. We've had an understanding of some forms of dynamical systems for a long time, but we've tried to avoid the idea that we're as predictable en masse as any other large population with quantifiable properties. We hate the idea that our free will can be averaged. But it obviously can, it's just a matter of working out how.

I'll put The Ghost In The Machine on my reading list.

Anti,

I hope you can get a hold of it. I came upon mine years ago second-hand. It covers so much it's impossible to represent it properly here.

Something else you may enjoy watching is the DVD of the "The Human Planet"...BBC, I think. There's no way you can come away from it with impression that the way we live is the only way. A fascinating insight into the different ways humans exist on this earth to this day from the jungles of South America to New Guinea, East Africa - all over the planet in the 21st century - so many different ways of living.

Interesting discussion. One of the puzzles is the idea of determinism vs free will.

Is human activity (societies or individuals) determined by intransigent factors such as biology, psychology, DNA, environment etc or is there room for free will. If one accepts that free will is a human construct, how much is really of our making that is not already programmed. Is it a merely changes to environment and a lucky combining of certain factors that create change for example. Will human societies always choose the same behaviours, make the same decisions. History suggests this is the case, albeit within different contexts.

From Wikipedia: "Determinism is a metaphysical philosophical position stating that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given those conditions, nothing else could happen. "There are many determinisms, depending upon what pre-conditions are considered to be determinative of an event."[1] Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have sprung from diverse motives and considerations, some of which overlap. Some forms of determinism can be tested empirically with ideas stemming from physics and the philosophy of physics. The opposite of determinism is some kind of indeterminism (otherwise called nondeterminism). Determinism is often contrasted with free will."

The idea that a person or a group of people will always repeat the same behaviours or come to decisions based on those pre-conditions as described in the Wikipedia definition. Is there room for free will in that mix or is is free will a figment of our imagination and a product of human psychological factors.

I tend to think there is but this view might be foolish. Certainly a complex puzzle which makes me think that we might never know the answers to human behaviours other than a perspective that might be described as incomplete.

'Certainly a complex puzzle which makes me think that we might never know the answers to human behaviours'

I think it's impossible. The very fact of analyzing ourselves, relies on ourselves, so it's not a static experiment, the variables are elastic.

The analysing part is moving the goalposts as we analyse.

Its like a hand with a pencil trying to draw a picture of itself.

http://fora.tv/2012/04/20/Edward_O_Wilson_The_Social_Conquest_of_Earth directs you to a talk by E. O. Wilson on his book. You may find it interesting.

I find it astonishing that so many subscribe to a socialized version of chemistry and physics.

Is there not something a little more sane and productive we can turn our minds to?

spindoc,

If you don't wish to "turn your mind" to this thread, why did you bother coming here and commenting at all?

Perhaps the best advice I can give is for you to toddle off somewhere else and find a subject more conducive to your sensibilities.

Houlley
The pencil analogy is apt. It is easier to accept we won't and can't know everything. There is a kind of peace in that and perhaps simplicity, rather than over-analysis, is the first step to contentment (or whatever name you want to put on it).

Dear Anti,

The following book may be worth looking at:

"Human Societies," by Gerhard Lenski and Patrick Nolan.
10th updated Rev. Edition.
Paradigm Publishers. ISBN 1594511438. 480 pages.
(Paperback.)

David, what a fascinating talk from EO WIlson. The eusociality idea is one I've been trying to get my head around in my own poor way and he put it together beautifully. Society isn't arranged in a hierarchy from the top down, it's from the inside out, literally. The goal at every level is to give women a chance to have their babies in well protected, well fed, well cared-for conditions. For our society as a whole, wealth and power grade toward the centre so there is a common drive to acquire them to get closer to the centre which aligns with the goal above, to get women into the centre of a protective structure.

It all emerges from Dawkins' extended phenotype and selfish genes, so that our social behaviours emerge from our genetic programming and enhance the propagation of our genes. Kinship is only one way to do that, because we're all ultimately assembled from the same genes, so in a large population, if everyone assists everyone, the population genes as a whole do well. In a small population, the local variation is greater, so family loyalty wins out in any competition.

Thanks for putting it up, I'll be watching other talks on that site.

Lexi, I'll see if I can find them.

Houellie, we can understand the mechanisms and the motivations, we don't have to understand the rationalisations.

Pelican, free will is not incompatible, it's just that a random exercise of free will is amenable to probabilistic analysis. What an individual does is important to the individual and those who interact with that individual, but in most cases it's able to be represented as one of a few types of behaviour.

Determinism is detailed, chaotic and subject to big non-linear outcomes, while stochastics are not, within a given set of conditions.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what's made of it all.

Anti
You are most probably right about free will - I hope so. People react differently to various stimuli and I pondered whether those behaviours are already set. It would be scary to think that everything we do is beyond our 'control' and that we are ever designed to repeat the pattern of our DNA in response to those stimuli.

There is an implication in that it suggests there is no room for change. It could be argued that the ability, will or potential for change and reform is also inherent in that patterned response.

It is way too complex for me. :)

No, there's plenty of room for change. The system's components are constantly changing and deterministic events can have big implications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_and_agency

It's fascinating stuff.

In my opinion there are only a few ways for people to arrange themselves, which are scale dependent and emerge as conditions change, only a few ways to act and only a few reasons for them to want to act at all. They interact to produce the complex behaviours that humans engage in, with individuals driven to form groups at every level and being both influenced by and influential on their groups. The whole lot is undepineed by a eusociality that manifests as a culture.

It's chaotic, but with underlying order that should be amenable to being understood mathematically as a dynamical process.

I don't have the maths to do it, though obviously some do. It's only a matter of time.

Anti
Certainly there are many choices humans have in response to various situations. Why we choose one over a myriad of choices is interesting. What factors are at play, both internal and external, that lead to that outcome? What aspects have the strongest influence.

Pelican, I think that the illusion of great choice is just that. In reality most of us have little genuine choice in what we do because we are tied into obligations and commitments that override many of our possible responses.

I have little in the way of such commitments, other than to the welfare of my chidren, which is itself largely limited to financial aspects because my teen children prefer their mother's laissez faire attitude to my own approach which is somewhat more prescriptive and proscriptive. It's hard for a kid to understand that it's not in their interest to play computer games all day and not go to school if Mum is telling them it's fine. I don't have a mortgage, I don't owe any money I couldn't repay on the dole (or austudy, more relevantly), I don't have any contractual obligations that bind me.

As a result I can choose to leave work and take up full-time study largely on a whim, which most of those posting here would not. They could ditch the commitment (sell the house, etc), but few will.

However, my own lack of such ties also limits my options in other ways and imposes its own set of burdens. In either case, mine or theirs, our underlying motivations are pretty similar, but the behaviours that emerge because of interaction with social structures are very different.

It's a matter of being able to usefully characterise the drives and to arrive at an understanding of the factors that make people behave in one way rather than another. I give it 5 years for a crude set of models with poor resolution and no more than 15 for a comprehensive set that is able to resolve down to groups of similar demographics, perhaps even to the individual scale.

It will all fall into place when the right variables are chosen to describe the states that define people's relative susceptibility to specific motivations, just as thermodynamics required the development of equations of state to make it a useful predictive tool.

It is rare these days to see a thread that is a discussion rather than a patriotic political or religious rant.

I don’t pretend to have the intellect or the knowledge to comment with any authority on many aspects of this discussion. I do agree with concept that we as a society tend to over analyse stuff. This is done I believe in some cases to the detriment of analysis itself.

I am of the view that we have the instincts of a hunter gatherer society without the restrictions of that society. Those restrictions put simply were if you did not hunt or gather you did not eat. If you did not produce clothing or shelter you were naked and exposed. With few exceptions it was classless and the whole society was exposed equally to circumstance. If things were good it was good for everyone and vice versa.

This simple society has over time evolved to the modern one we have today. Its financial system allows some to manipulate productivity (what was hunted and gathered) to serve their own ends without producing anything themselves. Machines have been invented that allow one individual to produce the volume of many, but we also have machines that allow an individual to wield vast power and destroy so much. We have hungry, homeless in a society of wealth and waste. I could go on, but I think you get my drift.

We have arrived at a point that analysis and mathematical models tells us that we are literally destroying the planet as we know it and if we continue the planet will survive but we as a species will not. In the name of holy dollar and growth we continue toward the abyss.

We no longer have natural individual restriction of our hunter gatherer ancestors. My theory is if we do not put some simple artificial global restriction on today’s human society that mimics that of our ancestors the abyss cannot be avoided.

For me the meaning of life is to find personal meaning and fulfilment in the things I do; and to make those in my life more at peace and comfortable wherever possible.

Hi Producer, don't you enjoy dodging all the axes being ground?

I thought your comments were interesting and I agree with you that we need to work on reducing population.

The problem is that a declining population is not something that our economic and cultural models are able to deal with very well, especially the consumerist model that drove the corporate support for feminism. In fact, that support was predicated on a projected decline in consumption as the baby-boomers reached middle age and a severe decline when they started to retire. Now we've mobilised the whole population into paid work or receipt of government handouts what do we do?

I'm afraid I have no answer to that question, because it will require smarter and better-informed minds than mine to come up with a completely new model that doesn't require the continual growth that laissez faire capitalism or even regulated capital demands.

It will be interesting to see what the human responses are as well, when there are houses standing empty and business is facing a future of steadily declining revenue. Another thing I'll have to have a good think about.

Sheesh, it's Saturday night, it should be against the law to make a man think when it's drinking time.

Dear Antiseptic,

Human behaviour is largely shaped by the group to
which people belong and by the social interaction
that takes place within those groups. We are who we are
and we
behave the way we do because we happen to live in
particular societies at particular points
in space and time. If we had been born a Chinese
peasant, or an African pygmy, or an ancient Greek,
or a feudal aristocrat, our personality, our
options in life, and our social experience would be
utterly different. We tend to take our social world
for granted in many ways, accepting our society
and its customs often as unquestioningly as we do the
physical world that surrounds us.

It's very rare to see our society not as something to
be taken for granted as "natural" but as a temporary
social product, created by human beings and therefore
capable of being changed by them as well.

We usually see the world through our limited experience
in a small orbit of family, relatives, friends, and fellow
workers. This viewpoint places blinkers on our views of
the wider society. But it does more than that. It also
narrows our views of our own personal worlds, for they
are shaped by broader social forces than can easily pass
unrecognised.

If we could escape from this cramped personal vision -
to stand apart mentally from our own place in society
and see with clarity the link between private and
social events then perhaps we would be able to trace
the intricate connection between the patterns and events
of our own lives and the patterns and events of our
society. Study and education is the key that
would open up our eyes.

But enough said. This is all too difficult.
I'll now go and have that glass of Red.

Cheers Anti, and I really admire your going back to uni.

Antiseptic & Lexi I have often thought that perhaps looking for a complex solution to a complex question is not the way to go. We are a diverse species with back grounds, abilities, wants and needs that would have to be addressed by any solution. Bring in location, climate, politics and religion and not to forget self-interest and greed perhaps there is no answer?

A hunter gatherer society would not spend any more time hunting and gathering than what was required to survive, what would be the point. Sometime would have to be spent on clothing and shelter, but once those needs were met an individual would have been free to pursue more pleasurable activities. For the exercise I have left out plundering the neighbours and destructive pagan and religious rituals.

The question I believe we should be asking is how do we as a global society restrict the modern day equivalent of hunter gathering (Production) to what we need rather than what we want?

Dear producer,

You wrote 'destructive pagan and religious rituals' referring to hunter gatherer societies.

Considering the Wars of the Reformation, the Inquisition, the Muslim conquests, the Holocaust with a background of centuries of religious hatred, the Crusades, Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim conflict at the breakup of Yugoslavia, Protestant and Catholic hatred in Northern Ireland, murderous Jihad, Israel/Palestine etc. I doubt that the 'destructive pagan and religious rituals' of hunter gatherer societies have come anywhere close to the destructive religious hatreds in post-hunter-gatherer and post-pagan societies. It might be a kinder and more loving world had monotheism not been invented.

Producer, we are hardwired to be acquisitive. Our ancestors survived long ice ages because they had a drive to acquire the means to do so. We have a problem in our society with obesity for the same reason.

Additionally, our species has been pretty low density for all but the last 500 years. We started increasing our population exponentially, but with a small exponent and to settle into permanent communities only about 10000 years ago and kept roughly that same rate of population growth right up until around Columbus's time, when we really started to take off as trade and slavery enabled us to increase our access to resources massively and then accelerated still faster with the discovery of vaccination and industrialisation.

At the core though, we're still a species of chimpanzee with a drive to acquire stuff, whether useful or merely shiny and curious and to make more of us.

It's our nature and so we have to learn how to produce a social arrangement that makes a shrinking population possible while satisfying that inner chimp.

David, all religions and other cultural structures are essentially the same. Only the details vary and they depend on the people/person who is the messiah for the particular example, modified by the environment it exists in.

Lexi, I couldn't agree more. The problems with so much of the work of social constructionalists have derived from both their untested assumptions, which are frequently derived from their moral judgements and from a narrow and simplistic focus on picking winners and losers based on that morality, which often requires such constructions to be forcibly imposed (feminism is a clear example) and conflictual.

I think it is possible to come up with a generic approach that is amoral and is derived from satisfying basic human needs without conflict - in other words, ethical. Of course, that's easy to say...

I'm not sure if there's work being done on that or related topics in any Australian faculties. I'll have to make some enquiries.

Thanks for the kind words, Lexi, I'm feeling pretty humble at the moment, but don't worry, it can't last.

Antiseptic wrote: "David, all religions and other cultural structures are essentially the same. Only the details vary and they depend on the people/person who is the messiah for the particular example, modified by the environment it exists in."

Dear Antiseptic,

In what way are all religions and other cultural structures essentially the same?

All religions do not have either a messiah or a god. Buddhism is an example of one that has neither. Mohammed is regarded as a prophet not a messiah. We tend to see structures that we are unfamiliar with as analogous to structures with which we are familiar. Often they are not.

I went back to university in my sixties and think I learned a bit. I hope you also will.

Dear Antiseptic,

Our societies face many problems, economic imbalances caused
by rapid change, unprecedented shortages of water,
energy, land, living space, and dilemmas of global
interdependence in an overpopulated world where,
despite the affluence of a handful of technologically
advanced societies, billions of people are desperately
poor. We are ultimately dependent on two delicate
systems: the biological life-supports of the planetary
eco-system and the network of international political
and economic co-operation.

In any serious global disruption - caused by either natural
disasters, nuclear war, or economic collapse simple
societies (hunters and gatherers) might be able to continue
to feed themselves and be unaffected. But what would become of
societies where most people are trained to produce neither
food nor goods, nor little else besides the ultimate
inedible knowledge? I'm not implying that all our modern
societies are necessarily doomed. But I do feel that we're
more fragile than we think.

We can't know what form our society will take in the decades
ahead, because the future will be influenced by technological
and other developments that we can't yet forsee.
We inhabit a society that is among other things a sociological
laboratory, a place where experiments are being made that
may shape the human future.

Another question that I have is whether a society like China
which attempts to control infromation can become a successful
and creative society without making major changes in its
political institution?

Dear Lexi,

You wrote: "Another question that I have is whether a society like China which attempts to control infromation can become a successful and creative society without making major changes in its political institution?"

Neither Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia allowed free discussion, democratic forms nor questioning. Both tightly controlled information. However, both were quite successful at creating powerful war machines and impressive technological development.

It took the resources of a great coalition to defeat Germany, but Russia was allowed to implode because Gorbachev refused to reinstate the controls that had kept it together.

Both societies were immensely creative scientifically and technologically. One need not be creative in the humanities or have an open society to be dominant. It's been going on a long while. Greece was culturally superior to the Romans who conquered them, and Rome was culturally superior to those who conquered them. However, China may be both culturally and technologically superior to us while controlling information.

In its long history, as far as I know, China has never been democratic or had an open society. Think of the Britons who were painting themselves blue and worshiping trees two millennia ago.

Think of early China where coinage was introduced in the ninth century BCE, crop rotation was introduced in the sixth century BCE, revolving windows were devised in the fifth century BCE, crossbows with bronze triggers were made in the fourth century BCE, the distinction between arterial and venous blood was noted in the second century BCE, winnowing machines were invented in the first century BCE, astronomical clocks were devised in the first century BCE, nfolding chairs were made in the third century CE – the list goes on and on, ranging far more widely than the ‘gunpowder, magnetic compass and printing’ trilogy usually cited as examples of early Chinese discoveries. They did all that under rigid and undemocratic rule.

David, I was perhaps unclear. Religions exist as part of the culture and culture emerges from our eusociality and helps to form a sense of cohesion within a disparate group.

The actual form of the religion or the details of the belief structure are obviously very varied, but the social role is the same and to the extent that I am interested in finding a general model of social interactions they are largely interchangeable.

Is that clearer?

I'm sure I'll learn a great deal David. I wouldn't be doing it otherwise. I'm not feeling sufficiently humble to deny that I also think I have something to contribute. Time will tell.

Lexi, I suspect that we can tell exactly what form our society will take and it will look a lot like this one, with detail vaiations, like a new model of Mercedes compared to the one from 5 years ago.

The devil is in the detail, of course.

I reckon China may be well ahead of the West in its understanding of social interactions and they control information to reduce the degrees of freedom each individual has to create deterministic non-linearity in the stochastics.

They seem to have a pretty good handle on it, by all accounts, although I'd personally not be happy with a model that required such a minimal set of variables.

I musty see what psycho-sociological dynamics stuff is coming out of China. Thanks for jogging my elbow.

David, I missed your last post because I was composing my own, but I think you're quite right.

It would be nice to be able to integrate some of that social understanding into a more complex model with more variables and a larger set of societal structures.

I'll bet they've already done it.

Dear Antiseptic,

Wow!

Who'd have thought that you were this intelligent,
awesome man. Sorry, I don't mean to offend,
but from the Anti who used to be - you've evolved
into something - Wow!

I'm impressed.
Please keep it up.

Same Anti, Lexi, different time.I do appreciate your compliment and I take no offence at all. It's a fair observation.

The last 14 years have been the most stressful of my life, both financially and emotionally and I have had to devote myself to dealing with those problems, as well as trying to make sense of why it all happened.

I had a very low reserve of tolerance for the sort of silly rubbish that was so often the response whenever I tried to have a serious discussion, so I set out to drive them off. It wasn't pretty, but it worked and it gave me a distraction. I did a lot of self-medicating with beer and pot. I became a rather nasty person online, really. Poor GrahamY copped it flush on the chin a couple of times.

In 2010 I finally fought the CSA back into its hole and I no longer have to concern myself with them. In November 2011 I closed my business after over 7 years, pretty much burnt out and busted and I got a job driving a crane truck.

After 2 years I'm finally starting to get back into my groove. Unfortunately, nobody who has met me in the last 13 years would know what a shadow I was, but that was all then, this is now. I'm back to well less than a carton of beer a week and I haven't had a pipe for a month. It's amazing how much they suppress. They served their purpose though. I'm very grateful that they don't seem to have done any permanent damage - to my brain anyway. I've got to try to drop about 15kg, which as I'll be riding my pushbike to uni, should be easy.

It's also great to see a group of people on here who can actually think and discuss. It stimulates my own thinking no end, for which I'm very grateful.

Dear Antiseptic,

We can never know what demons people are faced
with in life. The fact remains you've come
through it. Hopefully stronger. And the Anti we see now is
quite amazing. It's we who should be thanking
you. You've lifted the bar on this forum with
what you've brought to it and I for one am grateful
to you for that. I look forward to many, many discussions
with you, and learning from you. You've got so much
to offer. And it will be even more interesting once your
studies resume. There'll be no stopping you. I just trust
that I'll be able to keep up. ;-)

Take care.
All The Best.

With all due respect it is my opinion that you are all falling for complex scenario solution. I would like to present a simple theory and I would like you to pull it to pieces.

You would have to agree that hunter gatherer society survive on what they hunt and gather. They also would be required to build shelter and make clothing. There would be a degree of cooperation, sharing and caring because without this there would be no point in having a society. The individuals that hunted and gathered would get the pick of the produce as they were to ones that produced it. The balanced would be shared as it would not be in the interest of the society to lose a member. When times are tough a greater effort would have to be made to survive and the whole society would be affected.

In our modern global society what is produced is represented by money and has the effect of removing the limitations of only producing what you need. The positive aspect of money is that it enables individuals to specialise in non-productive activities that benefit society such as education, medicine, science as well as many other positive activities. Unlike hunter gatherer society money also enables individuals accrue a disproportionate share. Money has created an incentive to produce more than we need the ability to rage war, the rich, the poor all of which are undesirable. It is the cause of capitalism, communism, fascism, slavery, class, debt and so much more.

The solution (very condensed version) – Personal income per annum (from all sources including fringe benefits) should be limited to a range from not only a minimum, but also to maximum linked to sustainable production. Income goes up goes up and down with productivity. We share the pain and the wealth.

Assuming such a (when pigs fly) solution was put in place, I would like anybody to point out the negative effect on global society if such a limitation was introduced

Dear Producer,

You wrote: "The individuals that hunted and gathered would get the pick of the produce as they were to ones that produced it."

Hunter-gatherer societies vary. In some those who hunt do get the pick of the produce. In others they must allow others first pick. In others all members of the tribe share equally. If a hunter was to try to take first pick in a tribe that doesn't operate that way he would lose status. Losing status has bad consequences in not finding a mate for your kids, in not getting the mate you want, in being kicked out of the men's hut (if that tribe has such a thing etc. Hunter-gatherer societies vary. Some like the Kwakiutl are extremely acquisitive. Some like the Onondagas are communist with very little personal property. Marx made the mistake of assuming that all early tribal people were communist because he was influenced by Morgan who studied the Onondagas.

Tribal attitudes in the same tribe can vary as circumstances change. Colin Turnbull (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Turnbull) studied the Ik of Uganda. They were a very sharing group when they lived in a lush area. After they were forced off their land they become very acquisitive and individualistic.

Most tribal people have developed some concept of money. They will take an item and ascribe value to it as our society does to the bits of paper and metal we call money. One material that serves the purpose of money for many tribal people is the shell. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_money) Tribal societies may differ more from one another than the US differed from the USSR.

One must be cautious in making generalisations about tribal societies. It is safest to limit one's generalisations in that area to that which can be substantiated by observation

david f clearly you are more knowledgeable than I as to the diverse nature of hunter gatherer societies and I appreciate your post. The context I was using simplified hunter gatherer example was to illustrate metaphorically the restrictive nature of their way of life. In all cases to survive there is direct a requirement to produce the means to survive. Once hunter gatherers move to a monetary system they by nature cease in part being an exclusive hunter gather society and are on the slippery slope of becoming one of the many variations that exists on this planet today.

Do you have an opinion on “the solution”?

Dear Producer,

Of course I don't have a "solution". One of the problems with having a "solution" is that the next step is to try to enforce it on everyone else. This is the basic problem with "solutions" as many of those who lived in the Marxist and Fascist societies have found out. Trying to enforce "solutions" leads to tyranny.

That doesn't mean we cannot try to remedy social ills - merely that we don't assume that there is a grand solution for all of them.

I favour what Popper called 'piecemeal social engineering'. If one is aware of something wrong try to fix it. If your fix works try to go on from there. If it doesn't work try something else.

As far as producing only what we need I don't think it is a good idea. A hunter-gatherer may produce all a hunter-gatherer needs to survive in 17 hours a week. Anthropological studies of hunter-gatherers have shown 17 hours are usually all it takes. However, like all of us a hunter-gatherer wants more than just to survive. My son is an anthropologist who has studied the Xikrin and the Canela, two Brazilian tribal peoples. What they do when they have taken care of their survival gives their lives meaning. I am sitting at a computer which I can do without listening to mbs which I could do without writing to Producer who I do not need to know. However, I feel my life would be poorer if computers, classical music, radio and Producer did not exist. Once we have managed to survive it is good to do more than that.

We shoud be mindful that our modern way of life encourages us to "specialise" - so that most of us can only carry our a limited set of tasks compared to our forebears a few hundred years ago. I have a little piece somewhere, which I'll look up, where it goes into all the things that country peasants used "produce" for themselves in the evenings (instead of sitting passively and watching TV) - it's interesting.

The other thing is that more primitive societies imbibe things that us modern's wouldn't even notice. I remember reading of reindeer herders on the tundra who used to get up in the morning and sit quietly surveying the familiar landscape for any changes during the night - reading the news, so to speak.

It's very hard for us to judge the things which would fascinate and enthrall people who live differently to us.

David f – I struggle with some the assumptions you draw with regard to limiting the share of what is, more equitably and within the limits of what there is. Introducing a degree of equity and proportionality does not demand that anything be done or not done by anyone. However if less is done, there won’t be as much and all should share this loss and vice versa. The concept does recognize that there is a massive imbalance between effort and reward. It does recognize that makers deserve more than takers.

There was no caveat of 17 hours on producing what we need. Globally we produce a lot of useless stuff that consumes valuable time and precious resources. I feel my life would be the richer if I had more time to enjoy musical performance, writing, family and verbal jousting. It is all very well for us to survive but I wish that and more for my grandchildren. I suppose that’s the more I would like to do.

What can I do; I’m just a simple primary producer.

Hi Producer, you're expressing a kind of utopian agrarian communalism such as underlay the hippy movement and continues to inform some multiple-occupancy communities such as may be found around Nimbin. Have you read Thoreau? Perhaps you should.

The problem is that such communities are not and cannot be self-sufficient and that means they need to have some means of exchanging what they make or can do for others into things they need. They also need a way to store perishable goods or to convert them to some non-perishable form that preserves their value for later exchange with others.

Money may not be the perfect way to do that, but I can't think of a better one, can you?

The problem that you perceive is not one that arises from excess capacity, since hierarchies evolve in every social structure. They are an instinctive part of being human, a non-delete option.

What you're seeking is a way to stop them from intruding, which I think is only achievable with a properly comprehensive general model of the way people interact. If it were to prove to be also simple, so much the better.

Dear producer,

17 hours is the average amount an individual in a hunter-gatherer society has to work. We don’t live in such a society so it doesn’t apply to us.

Takers may get much more than makers. A baby may produce a lot later in the life, but in the first few years a baby does nothing but take. I retired years ago and am now 87. I am taking much more than I am making. However, during my life I have produced a lot.

Should we decide for others what is valuable and what is not? As far as I concerned there is absolutely no need for the Australian government to finance athletic training for elite athletes or compete in the Olympics or other games. However, others feel differently. My taxes go for something I consider absolutely pointless. However, my taxes also go for the libraries and the police department. I appreciate both facilities. Some people pay for the library and never use it.

‘From each according to his ability. To each according to his needs.’ is the socialist motto. It’s not a bad one. Producing is something one can take a joy in. I used to be a design engineer. When I designed something that worked well I felt very good. Unfortunately lot of work is just drudgery. Life isn’t fair. Those whose work is drudgery generally don’t get well paid. Those whose work is a joy may get big bucks. It would be fairer if those whose work is a burden would get big bucks and those whose work is a joy would get subsistence pay.

I wrote a piece of fiction which was published. When I saw a copy of it I found that the publisher had the support of the Australian Council of the Arts and the Victorian Council of the Arts. Taxpayers who probably got nothing for it paid me for my writing and gave me an ego trip. Life is unfair.

Antiseptic & david f – You are both missing the point.

It is nothing to do with systems, welfare, recreation, taxation and so many other things. All this stuff clouds, confuses and distracts.

It is all about degree and proportionality and it relates only to sustainable productivity.

There are so many out there that do not receive their fair share and there a many that receive a disproportionate share.

Put simply, all I am proposing is a system that recognizes this and controls degree and proportionality but at the same time not ignoring the fact that we are all different with a diverse range of wants and needs.

Dear producer,

You wrote: "It is all about degree and proportionality and it relates only to sustainable productivity.

There are so many out there that do not receive their fair share and there a many that receive a disproportionate share.

Put simply, all I am proposing is a system that recognizes this and controls degree and proportionality but at the same time not ignoring the fact that we are all different with a diverse range of wants and needs."

It sounds as though you're proposing a fair system. I don't think you can get it.

Dear producer,

I did answer you. I don't think you can get a fair system. If you try to organise everything it will result in tyranny. That is why I think piecemeal social engineering is the way to go rather than try to change the entire system as Marx recommended. Attack problems and fix them as best you can rather than trying to create a complete new system. When you do that people will look for stability and bring back features of the old system. That happened in the Soviet Union. Lenin was simply the new czar.

David f – It may be an exercise of pissing into the wind, but without a target there is nothing to shoot at.

There is so much chatter out there and every one grinding their own axe. I think there is a need for a simple universal concept focused on one thing.

To address issues in a piecemeal manner is another way of dividing to conquer. It’s been attempted since time began and has not worked yet.

I am not proposing that any system be changed, merely introducing degree and proportionality and it relates only to sustainable productivity.

If this was achieved I am sure changes for the better, in many different forms would follow.

Producer, despite your insistence on a simplistic set of assumptions, what you want is a very complex problem to solve. It has elements of behavioural, cognitive and social psychology and also economics.

The problem, more than anything else is that humans hoard. We just do, in every culture, every environment. I don't see how that instinctual drive can be reconciled with what you suggest other than by limiting individual freedom to accumulate "stuff", which would make the whole thing unworkable in that mode

We didn't make it through half a dozen ice ages for no good reason.

What you're saying is essentially the same as my Dad's favourite platitude whenever he told me I couldn't have something I felt should have: "moderation in all things". I don't disagree, but I just can't see how you can base a society on it without force.

If things start out even they won't end that way afte a fairly short period. some people are naturally profligate, some frugal, some have little regard for personal possessions, some a great deal. The idea is to try to make it possible for them all to have as much as their own nature requires without having to do bad things to others to get it. That needs a complex model, especially if compulsion is minimised.

David, I think you're quite wrong about the piecemeal approach. It is a dog constantly chasing its tail. Marx and the rest of the utopian visionaries all the way to Jim Jones or David Koresh have substituted rigid policing of people's behaviours and a limited set of second-order control measures designed to limit deterministic effects and hence non-linearity, for an understanding of motivational drives and an integrated approach to working with them.

What we have available to us today with iterative computational methods is what I suspect will enable such an integrated approach to be implemented with a complex set of behavioural, cognitive and structural variables that can be readily managed with due recognition of the deterministic nature of individual responses and the non-linearity that implies.

Antiseptic – With all due respect I am not assuming the outcome of anything and yes the concept is simple. Any solution must be able to be understood by all or it will create suspicion and division.

By saying your annual income will be limited by production is simple, economically sound and can be understood by everyone. To receive a share some meaningful participation is required. Saying the share you will receive will depend on how you participate is easily quantifiable. If sustainable productivity is at the higher end of reward production is encouraged although not guaranteed.

The concept is not even, an individual can still be wealthy, frugal or wasteful. Apart from the limitation to annual income described above there are no other limitations.

Give me one (singular, not multiple) example where you believe the above would be detrimental to society and why?

Apart from anything else, how do you define proportionality between work of different types?

That is reasonably easy to define.

The key revolves around sustainable productivity. Productive work attracts more reward than the parasite activity.
The farmer would make more than the lawyer takes.

The logic is, a world of lawyers is not possible as a parasite requires a host to survive. A world full of farmers will survive and flourish, parasites permitting.

This is a simplistic explanation and in reality where is complex nuances that would have to be considered but the concept is the same.

Yes, it is complex. I understand your sense that there are non-productive "parasites" doing far better than they have a right to, but as you acknowledge, how to arrange things so that doesn't happen, while maintaining social and economic freedom of choice isn't a trivial problem.