Those who change the world

Those who change the world

It dawned on me at one point in a philosophy class that all those who change the world generally fit into one of four categories, and those four categories neatly fell into a matrix.

Now, the names probably aren't the best (just the best I could come up with), so allow me to elaborate.

The Cardinal Directions
Movements vs Individual Actions

Changes come in two forms: People making a change by getting many other people to make the change with them, or those who have a single action that alters the world significantly in some way. 

Modifiers vs Creators

Actions come in two flavors, those that are new, and those that start something new. Modifiers are those which change something already in existence, and Creators are those which bring in something new that wasn't there before.

On good or bad, on world changers & normal people

A few things I feel should be noted. Being part of any of the world changer groups doesn't necessarily makes the person "good" or "bad." It's merely a label for the type of change they made. As such, I will endeavor to include both good and bad people in my explanations of each quadrant.
 

Further, not everyone will really fit into the four quadrants: some people just don't have much impact on the world. The Quadrants of world changes is more a tool to show what a person needs to do to change the world. It should also be noted that different personality types lend themselves more to different quadrants. Someone who is more introverted would likely be more inclined to be an inventor than a leader; someone who is more idealistic might do better as a teacher than an eliminator, and so forth.

It should also be pointed out that just because someone who changes the world in one way doesn't mean they won't change the world in another. A leader can legislate something out of existance (turning them into an eliminator as well); a teacher can become a leader if their teachings are found to support an organization; an inventor may become a teacher as they help people understand new ways of doing things with whatever they invented. The possibilities go on and on.

The Quadrants

Teachers are those who start movements. Although normal teachers (those in schools) often fall into the category of teachers, not all do. Anyone who takes the role of sharing new ideas with others is a teacher. Some good examples of teachers include Rosa Parks, the confederate veterans who started the KKK, Ghandi, the Beatles, and Julian Assange. Basically all who share information with people that they hadn't previously shared. The strength of a teacher comes from their ability to start movements. They create movements that weren't there to begin with, see what other people have missed and share it with them. 

Inventors are those who bring new things in the world that weren't there before that the world then has to adapt to. Of course inventors such as Edison, huo yao who invented gunpowder, Richard Gatling who created the Gatling gun, and those invented the smart phone and the internet fit into this category. However, there are inventions beyond just the creation of new physical objects. There's also Nakamoto inventing the bitcoin, the Greeks inventing democracy, and the ancient Egyptians inventing the scientific method. There's also the "inventions" of architects such as a bridge which allows travel and trade to happen that could before or someone who sets up a new set of communication lines to a town that didn't have them before. Inventors are any who make something new.

Leaders are those who modify existing movements. Martin Luther King Jr., Leaders of countries, Presidents of companys, and anyone else who can take a group of people or organization already gathered for a cause and modify it in some way. They may make the movement more focused and better to achieve its goals when it wasn't effective before; a leader may also take a group and alter it towards different ends, such as Hitler who took a socialist movement and twisted into a fascist movement.

Eliminators are those who remove things from the world that people once expected. Like any category, they can be both good or bad. For example. Abraham Lincoln with the emancipation proclamation effectively eliminated slavery from America, but on the other hand, there's also the Unabomber who removed a building (and many lives) in Oklahoma City. Both terrorists and soldiers fall into this category, as do assassins and freedom fighters; those who destroy weapon stashes, bridges, leaders, buildings and more to which society must then adapt to the sudden change.

Raise the minimum wage to $1000/sec!

LET'S RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE TO $1000/sec!!!!

Amusingly, I sat down and decided to really analyze it once when someone sarcastically said, "If it's so great to raise the minimum wage to $18 or $22 an hour, why not $30, $40, or $50?" So I really sat down and thought it over... and the picture was a lot less dire than they seemed to think it would be.

Although I'm not necessarily advocating it, here's what it'd look like if we raised the minimum... let's go crazy here... to $1000 dollars per second. On top of that, let's tie that number to inflation, so if inflation goes up, so does the number, so there's no "inflating until it acts just like things do now just with more following zeroes."

Well, first off, Big business will collapse under that strain. Not even they could take that. Sure, a few could hire people for awhile, and there's a few that could make it that are really profitable per man-hour worked (I'm looking at you, Mojang and professional sports!) Now, that said... corporations collapse. No dodging that one. (Side note, this also means no more corporate lobbying, very limited corporate propaganda, etc.) Effectively, there's some rich shareholders, but their start losing money fast if they try to hold on to their power, which they won't because they like their money, which means all stockholders cash out post haste. This results in a completely crashed stock market from which there is no recovery. Those who have money try to flee the country to salvage their finances... but guess what? The airlines aren't able to afford their people and their pilots to their private jets will make out like bandits (enough for those pilots to buy their own planes... keep that in mind, this is where it starts to get fun).

The outflux from the major corporations and their shareholders as they scramble to leave would dump decades worth of wages in a matter of minutes. All of a sudden these pilots can buy their own private jet, and instead of making decent wages, all of a sudden can be self employed with no loans. At first, these pilots are going to really be able to live it up. (There will be lots of other jobs that will get a similar situation.)

And yes... the small mom & pop places with a dozen employees will collapse. Poof, they're gone too.... or are they?
Their employees are gone, yes... but the mom & pop? They're still around. They own the place. It'd be silly for them to try and pay themselves. They do have to shrink the store a bit though. Maybe cut back to a tenth of what it was. But... all of a sudden... they have customers. Why? Because who else are people going to buy from? The corporation that doesn't exist anymore? So, husband and wife, no more employees, are all of a sudden having more customers than they can handle because literally 100% of the population is coming to them instead of Wal-Mart. They can charge hand over fist for their food... until one of their previous employees is sitting there thinking, "Hey, I know all the steps on how to run that... I'm going to start my own food place." Sure, he'll never grow to having employees, but D#$* he gets more bang for his effort than he used too.

And this would be mirrored everywhere. Every business becomes a sole proprietorship without employees. Nobody's becoming billionaires or even millionaires at this point (except for those who are really good at automating everything).. but, everyone gets to work the hours they want, every mom & pop is getting enough customers to keep itself afloat, everyone's their own boss, and how much money you make is purely dependent on your own smarts and dedication.

At this point, laws are no longer being lobbied to benefit the rich and the powerful. In fact, it goes back that instead of being poor compared to the lobbyists and corporate leaders, the wealthiest position is politician.... and the only way to get there now is pleasing the greatest number of people, not kissing up to corporations (there are no corporations to kiss up to anymore, remember?) So all of a sudden, politicians have to work for the people. There goes about half of the glut in the government right there (subsidies to corporations? What corporations?) The economy flip-flops from a top-down system ruled by wall-street and the megacorp but into a bottom-up system ruled by the average person who's pulling his own weight.

This also leads to another thing... so many different intellectual properties are owned by corporations. Whatever doesn't get sold in the wake of the collapse, all of a sudden becomes public domain. GE, BP, and many other companies had been buying up competing technologies and never making them. It's actually been a pretty standard tactic in corporations for some time now... they don't want to have rework their system to handle new ideas, but they don't want someone else disrupting their market. They have the patents to extremely efficient cars, so with them gone, and the patents entering public domain, that means that car enthusiasts can start putting together and building those cars.... oh, and by the way, remember when I mentioned automation? Those factories will still be sitting there. Some of the richer people will buy those factories at bottom dollar. They can't hire employees, but they can automate at least parts of the process. Maybe not the entire process, but enough to be able to sell some larger parts. Then, before dealers, a new business will spring up... those who buy car sections from various sellers, and complete the task of putting it together, then they sell the car to the dealer (See what happened? All of a sudden the "grunt" factory worker is his own business, making respectable income for his work... getting profit from each car made). All of a sudden, you're seeing cars hitting pavement that are getting 80 miles to the gallon without any corporate stupidity blocking it, not to mention high efficiency electric cars that have been previously blocked.

So, to answer... raise minimum wage to $1000/second.... and, surprisingly, the world doesn't look worse in many regards, just different.

Finding Love - Technical Nerdy Edition

School teaches lots of subjects you need for life.
Mathmatics, Arts, Phys. Ed, History, etc.

However, there are also topics that aren't taught that people desperately need, and that's how to find and maintain romantic relationships. For a number of people, going through life flailing and failing until they stumble on love strikes them as "good enough." But, as is often said, "Nerds do it better." So this article is going to delve into the nitty gritty of finding love in life. As a geek/nerd who has found love, I would like to share the lessons I've learned with the world.

First off, we're going to break a number of preconceptions of the "don't"s before we get into the "do"s.

DON'TS

1. The traditional methods of finding love don't work, so don't use them.
40% - 50% of marriages end in divorce in the U.S.[1] This means that half of the time that after going through everyone they could date, meeting everyone, picking and choosing, after they finally think they've found "the one" they're completely and utterly wrong. With so many people looking for love and putting so much time, effort, and money into it and coming out horribly wrong bespeaks of lousy methods. Any scientist with only 50% success rate on his hypothesis after all tests are run would declare the hypothesis a horrible failure. After all the work, it's literally a coin flip. And that's not good enough, so don't accept it. Further, half of our dating/romance culture is based off of lies told to us by people who want to sell movies. Real life love doesn't work how it does in the movies. The movies, the stories, and all the rest are pretty much lies made to sell stuff. It's how people wish love worked.

2. Dating doesn't work
Seriously, it doesn't. Dating doesn't work. Sure there's successes, but failures outnumber the successes. Dating (especially when you tack on the word dating) makes an artificial atmosphere with artificial expectations. It's not "normal behavior" on a date, but if you're trying to build a relationship to find if the person matches with you, both of you acting how you normally don't act doesn't help either of you. Now, if going out and watching movies and eating out at fancy restaurants and such is what you normally do when you're alone or with a group of friends, that's a different matter. But don't go out of your way doing things you don't normally do. It hurts both parties.

3. Don't turn down friends when you're looking
So, a friend may have asked you out. You're tempted to turn them down because they're a friend and you "don't want to hurt the relationship." Stop right there. That is a horrible reason to turn down a date. Why, you may ask? Two reasons.
a. You obviously like being around them enough for them to be your friend, this is two-thirds of a successful romance relationship right there (one third their personality and one third their social interaction with you, the remaining third being interest in their body).
b. Turning down a friend who is asking you out will hurt your relationship more than saying yes. Give them at least a couple dates to see if sparks fly. If sparks don't fly, point it out to them, and at least both parties will known any relationship with each-other is a dead end rather than being left with an awkward tension for the entirety of the friendship. It's easier to look at eachother and laugh and say, "Yea, we tried it, not going to work" a week later than spending the next two years constantly drifting apart because neither actually knows for sure, and causing resentment for not even giving a chance.

Also note, some may think this is advice for just girls who "friendzone" guys, but no. It's both ways. Many girls who are "one of the guys" have tried to get their guy friends to go out with them, but guys turn them down because it'd "be like dating one of the guys" or "it'd be like dating a sister." That's B.S. and anyone turning down a friend purely because they're a friend is a bad friend.

4. Don't ask them out just because they're hot
You've heard the phrase, "beauty is only skin deep." Well, it's true on multiple levels. How they look IS important. How they look will affect how much you're drawn to them physically, and sexual attraction is important for a healthy romantic relationship.  That said though, it's not the only trait that they have. No matter who you get into a relationship with, their appearance will not improve in the long run. Pretty much everyone is going to end up a wrinkly old prune someday, and you probably want to get together with someone you'll be happy with even then; that means looking past the skin.

5. Don't try to fill the hole in your life or find the person who completes you
Seriously, this is a mistake a lot of people make. If you have a feeling that something in your life is missing, that something isn't quite right, that you have a longing in your chest. Don't look for love. You're not ready for it. Despite all the B.S. that Hollywood throws your way, that feeling of longing and need and emptiness isn't due to a lack of love in your life. It's because of depression or a lack of fulfillment in your life. Sex and romance will give you a short boost due to the associated endorphin rush, but like many drugs, it's a high that quickly goes away. If you have this feeling, love won't fix it in the long run. You need to address this problem in your life first before you look for love. Because any person who looks at you will quickly find you're a downer and they won't want to be around you. See a counselor/psychiatrist/mental health doctor/etc. and see if you're suffering from depression and/or start making changes in your life to get you closer to being the kind of person you want to be.

DO'S

Step 1. Make a list
 Like shopping at a grocery store, the world is full of people who are different options for romance. And, again, like grocery shopping, if you go into the store hungry, you're going to buy a lot of foods you don't need and walk out with something besides what you wanted.
So, make a list of everything you're looking for in a person. Include everything you can think of. Hair color, gender, looks, number (who knows, maybe you'd be happier dating a couple instead of a single person?), hobbies, skills, ambitions, willingness/unlikeliness to move, religion (or lack thereof), philosophical viewpoints, prudishness/sexual-creativity, etc. Now, it's important to know it's very unlikely you'll find someone who matches the entire list. Seriously, other people aren't made to order. So the second part of this step is just as important as making the list...
Prioritize the list.
When you've gotten down everything that you're looking for, list them from most to least important. Thing is, you're unlikely to get the whole list with pretty much anyone you meet, so you have to know what you're willing to sacrifice to get something more important to you. If you get 8 out of the top ten on your list, you're doing quite well for yourself, and you may have just found the person you're looking for.

Step 2. Research the archetype you're looking for.
Say the top of your list is you're looking for someone blonde. Look at demographics and find out where the highest density of people of Northern European descent live nearest you. If you're looking for geek girls, find out about conventions that they might attend. If you're looking for someone who looks good in swimwear, find good beaches or pools nearby. If you're looking for someone who can cook, flirt with people at food compititions. Find out where the people on your list are most likely to be.

Step 3. Research the type of person your archetype would be interested in.
Blogs are great for this. If you're looking for a cook, find the blog of a cook and read about their personal life and tweets. Pay attention to their romantic encounters. Do it for a lot of cooks. Find out what they like, what they dislike as a group.

Step 4. Change yourself.
You've likely heard the saying "Don't change for anybody." This is a lie. We change for people all the time. Just as you wouldn't treat a five year old stranger the same as you would a cop pulling you over for speeding, the person we are is constantly in a state of flux and change based on who we're around. Now, there are some parts of you that you might say, "This is me," that they're core values to who you are and you would never change them. That's fine, don't change those.  On the flip side, learning a new hobby that you might enjoy, losing some weight, changing up some of your clothing choices, developing a taste for some exotic foods you haven't tried before, or learning an instrument is a different matter entirely. Once you've found out what the typical person of your ideal type may like or dislike, change the parts of yourself that don't matter to you. Move yourself closer to that someone your ideal type of person could fall in love with. Further, try to improve yourself overall. Not only is self improvement good for you, it makes almost anyone significantly more attractive.

Step 5. Be the right person in the right place
Knowing what the potential person you're looking for is looking for, and being in the place they'd be is a key to getting someone. Once there, make yourself stand out. Put your shoulders back, stick out your chest, don't hang around the edges but stand in the center, etc. Don't get pushy on people, but be receptive to those who approach you. Don't just look for people to be romantic with, find friends while you're at it. If nothing else, you'll be able to network with people like them. Keep it up, and you'll meet all kinds of people, network, and make all kinds of friends in addition to finding the person for you.

Step 6.  Be active in changing others
A well known truth is that people change. A big hint though, is that people change largely based on the other people they hang out with. Look through your list. See which things are easy to change in someone. Appearance and body are easiest to change, with hobbies being a bit more difficult, and core personality traits being even harder. If one of the tops on your list is that the person you're wanting to be in a relationship with is skinny or in good shape with a tight butt, keep in mind that losing ten pounds a month is quite reasonable, and so a hundred and twenty pounds in a year is fairly easy. If you're willing to be patient, someone who matches a good portion of the top of your list can relatively quickly match the rest. Now, I'm not saying force this one someone, but be willing to give them a chance and work with them. Further, you have to be willing to go through the work with them to get them to that point. Given a year, a "fat slob with a nice personality", if you constantly get them to come with you for walks, cook them healthy (and slimming) food, take them out dancing, and go out for other physical activities, will become a trim babe/hunk with a nice personality who is used to you being in their life (granted, in this scenario, people will be more likely to flirt with them as you progress, but the scales are tipped in your favor, already being in a relationship with them.)

Addendum: Although the next step should make it clear, I should emphasize at this step, this is not about being sneaky. Be honest with them that there are things you think could be better about them and that you're willing to help them get better. Similarly, you'll want to balance it out by asking them what you could get better at, and both sets of improvement could become bonding time for both of you. For example, you may like them to be thinner so you go on regular walks with them, and they may want someone with red hair so you have a monthly trip to the salon that you go together to get your hair dyed.

Step 6. Be honest with them.
Seriously, I can't overstate how important this is. Any bit of dishonesty will compound over time. Tell them you love their cooking when it's only so-so? You're going to deal with it a loooong time. Tell them a dress is hot when it makes them look like a horse? You're going to have to deal with them trying to turn you on with it. Every time you tell them the truth or lie to them, you're either helping them learn about your or get it wrong respectively. Each lie is a chance to be found out and later be blamed of betrayal. It's just not worth it. Now, granted, there's a difference between honesty and rudeness. Telling someone "Those shorts make your butt look like a walrus giving birth" vs "Maybe you should try a different pair of shorts instead" both get the message across but one has more care for their feelings (although some will like the humor that comes with the former, learn how they respond.) That includes being honest if they ask why you developed the hobbies they found interesting about you. If you built them up just for them to find interesting, let them know (although wording is important. Saying "I did it to catch the eye of a geek" won't go well. Saying, "I did it because I knew someday someone like you would appreciate it" is a winner. People do things for mixed reasons often, and in romance, it's almost always just as much about them as it is about you. Share that.

Step 7. Have built in contingencyTalk this out with your romantic partner ahead of time. Early on in the relationship once you reach a point of being "a thing." Tell them what you expect of them, find out what they expect of you. About how committed you should each be, if it's an open dating relationship or closed, etc. At this step, having been honest previously really helps, because with you having that history of honesty with them, they'll likely be honest with you at this step. Further, assume ahead of time that the relationship won't be perfect. People make mistakes, and they'll break your heart sometimes and vice-versa. Talk ahead of time, while you have cool heads, about what to do when that happens. If they cheat on you (or vice-versa) maybe instead of instant break-up, maybe they just get cut off from sex for a month so you can have two tests for STDs (one beginning to catch some types, and one after a month to see if any that take awhile to develop crop up.) Setting clear ideas about expected behavior, but also including a straightforward and simple solution that can be agreed on when that behavior is failed will do much better for your relationship than just blind expectation.

---

[1] Divorce Rates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_in_the_United_States#Rates_of_divorce


[[Warning: Article includes anecdotal evidence and advice. Further, it is based on a western world perspective with a white male bias. Information may not be fully applicable to other demographics]]

GMO's... why you should be active, but don't take a side.

Transgenics, or GMOS...

I've been looking into this for awhile. As someone who was studying bioinformatics (computer simulations in regard to biological systems) this is a topic that actually although not exactly was in my field, was close enough to where I easily understand the conversations and the scientific papers.

As I see it, this is by no means, nor will it ever be, a black and white issue. If you're pro-transgenics, you're ignorant. If you're anti-GMO, you're ignorant. Not ignorant in the common vernacular of "You're a dummy" (although that may or may not be true) but the proper meaning: ignorant as in "You don't have all the information."

So, here's my quick primer on situations...

1. Not all transgenic/GMO products are created equal.
2. The environmental damage and benefits cannot be measured purely by the organism itself, but also how it's used.
3. The damage and benefits to society cannot be measured purely by crop yields and increased vitamins, but approaching corporate dependency needs to be accounted for and anti-competitive practices must be attended to.
4. No negatives/positives confirmed is not the same as no negatives/positives.
5. As food is central in daily life, the social impacts cannot be ignored.

Into deeper detail:
--- Points to consider ---
* To be proven reasonably safe, many researchers will agree that a three generational rat study should be conducted. This is because a three generational rat study not only observes immediate effects, but also its effects on births, and any effects on genetics (which, if a recessive gene, would not show up until the third generation).
* Any food product that passes a three-generational rat study is very reliably to be as safe as anything else you're going to eat. There's no reasonable reason to avoid these foods on your plate.
* To date, less than a fourth of transgenic/GMO products have undergone a three generational rat study.
* The FDA does not generally require a three-generational rat study. In the few times it does, if it doesn't pass a three-generational rat study, the "no pass" can be cleared by a 90 day single-generation rat study (which is a lot less intensive). This means even if the three-generational rat study proves there's a problem, it can still get a pass by the FDA by passing a weaker test. (This would be akin to trying to taking the ACT to get into college, and when you don't pass the mark, letting you take a middle school math test, and then letting you in if you pass the middle school math test.)
* Almost every three-generational rat test on GMO corn has deemed the corn safe.
* Almost every three-generational rat test on GMO soy has show problems (although the FDA still let it past after the 90-day study).
* The current head of the FDA was a Monsanto employee and hypothetically will be re-hired by Monsanto once his time there ends. This is an obvious conflict of interest.
* GMO crops get patented. Monsanto has abused the courts on this, suing small farmers whom their crops invaded for "infringing on intellectual property" and are, however, protected from those same farmers from suing Monsanto for their invasive plants getting into their farmland. [11]
* Many Monsanto GMO crops don't produce seeds. This means the farmers have to buy from Monsanto again, and again, and again, a ridiculous financial burden on smaller farms. [4]
* The built-in pesticide aspects of a number of the plants are reducing the number of bugs and pests in communities.
* Many of Monsanto's GMO products are made to be used in tandem with Monsanto pesticides. These pesticides are killing bees, which is threatening environmental collapse. [1][2][3]
* Transgenic products, like Golden Rice, can get lots of nutrition to underfed regions of the world, helping increase the quality of life.
* Plants can be engineered with multiple benefits allowing greater yields which can address hunger problems (IF the distribution problem is also addressed.)
* Engineering plants could have many benefits, such as creating high-fiberous plants that could put an end to deforestation.[10]
* Plants could be engineered to produce medicines, allowing for medical needs to be met significantly cheaper and in greater quantity. [9]
* Plants could be engineered to generate clean-burning fuels, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and helping clean our environment. [7]
* Monsanto is, for the most part, not focusing on helpful transgenic products, but profitable ones (stuff made to work alongside their pesticides) that provides no real overall benefit to humanity. - Crop yields are already past what humanity needs to survive, and with that as the primary benefit, it's effectively no benefit. [6]
* Monsanto and associated agricorps have been steadily squeezing out more and more family-owned farms. This means fewer jobs and an upward distribution of wealth. [8]
* Monsanto GMOs built to withstand stronger chemical treatment, encourage farmers to use more chemical treatment. These chemicals are produced at a high cost to the environment in chemical factories.[5]

All said an done, here's my general stance...
I'm for GMOs as long as they don't encourage pesticides, go through a three-generational rat study, don't hurt bees, and provide some benefit to society other than crop yields.

---

[1]Pesticides and bees:
http://pollinatorstewardship.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Protecting-Honey-Bees-Florida.pdf
[2] Negative effects of bee loss
http://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/abstract/S0169-5347%2810%2900036-4?_returnURL=http%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0169534710000364%3Fshowall%3Dtrue?_returnURL=http%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0169534710000364%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
[3]More about bee loss
http://www.bulletinofinsectology.org/pdfarticles/vol67-2014-125-130lu.pdf
[4] Monsanto Terminator Seeds
http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/02/19/2212256/monsantos-terminator-seeds-set-to-make-a-comeback
[5] Herbicide resistant crops and increased use
http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/agri_biotechnology/breeding_aims/146.herbicide_resistant_crops.html
[6] What Monsanto makes GMOs for
http://www.monsanto.com/products/pages/monsanto-agricultural-seeds.aspx
[7] GMO Fuel
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/519791/genetically-modified-bacteria-produce-50-percent-more-fuel/
[8] GMO vs family farms
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/section002.groupv/small_farms_and_gmos
[9] GMO Medicine
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/897705/genetically-modified-organism-GMO/279978/GMOs-in-medicine-and-research
[10] GMO Paper vs deforestation
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/04/04/genetically-modified-trees-clean-paper-industry/#.U3v0jyhLpRU
[11] Mosanto sues farmers
http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/why-does-monsanto-sue-farmers-who-save-seeds.aspx

Article is written from past studying and memory, and many points are covered in various literature. I am attempting fill in some sources for additional reading to allow for easier studying by those reading it. However, bias should be noted as I wrote the article first, and then then looked for articles I remembered (or at least similar ones).

Become a skilled economist with this one easy lesson!

In all seriousness, he is a better economist than

 most congressmen; you'll soon find out why.

[See TL;DR at the bottom if you want the fast summary. Your understanding won't be nearly as deep, and you won't understand WHY, but you'll get the basic gist.]

This post is meant to clear up a lot of confusion about economics. People often will go back and forth debating fiscal policies and economics. It happens at all levels of society. When the quinessential hill-billy pulls out his shotgun, chews on a piece of straw, lowers the brim of his ten-gallon hat, and says, "I won't stand for no commies" he's just engaged in the wide-spread field of economics. Now, that doesn't say he's good at it, but he's participated.

As much as people may get up in arms over it, as much as people may hate it, and claim they hate talking about it. However, in my experience, many people who claim they hate economics will start conversations on economics and literally talk your ears for hours on the topic without realizing it. From "I won't stand for no commies" to "Look at this new dress I just bought" to "My boss wont' give me a raise."

People have been told economics is an annoying or hard topic, so they often don't talk about the meat of the subject, just skirting around the edges. Ironically, this puts them more in touch with the complex harder parts of economics rather than the more simple and easy-to understand core of it.

One thing to understand is that money is merely a symbol. Inflation goes up and it goes down, what money means changes from day to day. One day a dollar may mean a sandwich, another day in the past it may mean a full course meal, and a day in the future it may mean just the slice of cheese. Looking at money is very distracting, gets very complicated, and means practically nothing.

Now, you may be sitting here, asking, "lil Joshu, how can you say that the economy has nothing to do with money? That's all the economy is!" If you're one of those asking that, you have been one of those wrangled into what I call "the big lie." Money is no more needed for the economy than your stereo is for your car. It may be nice, it may make it more enjoyable, but in the end, you could remove it and it'd still run. And so, I remind you of...

The Barter System
It's inconvenient, it's slow, and it's economy at its most pure. It's the horseless carriage of economic systems, and it's the economic system upon which all other economic systems are built.  So, when it comes to understanding the core of economics, we look at the barter system. A system without money.

Now, we have two cavemen. Grug and Tok live in the same village. Grug has a stick. Tok has a rock. Grug and Tok trade their stick and rock. Yay! Economy! But is it a healthy economy? If that's all there is, then... no. As far as the village is concerned, there is still one guy with a stick and one guy with a rock. In essence, nothing's really changed. The net benefit to the economy is zero. In reality, neither Grug nor Tok had any reason to trade, and they just spend their time staring and their rock or stick. They spend their time passing the rock and stick back and forth looking like little more than a couple of silly apes.

Now, lets make it a bit more complicated. Let's say that caveman generation goes by and nothing really happens. Grog and Tuk are the kids. They're a different story than their parents; they each got tired of losing their stick or rock to get the other, so they went out and got more. Grog went out collecting sticks and discovered a valley with trees. He now has 3 sticks. Tuk, on the other hand, went out collecting rocks and found a cave where he can find them, and has 3 rocks. The gathering of raw resources has started. Unlike their parents who just spent time trading a single rock and stick back and forth, Grog and Tuk have gotten surplus and both think, "Life would be so much better if I had a rock AND a stick."
Eventually, they learn from their parents, they trade. But instead of trading everything, they just trade from their surplus. Grog and Tuk trade a rock and a stick, each keeping two in reserve. Now Grog has 2 sticks and a rock, and Tuk has 2 rocks and a stick. Sure, the village may, as a whole, still have only 3 rocks and 3 sticks, but instead of having 1 member with rocks and 1 member with sticks, it has 2 members with rocks AND sticks. And thus, we start to get value being created. Our caveman village has just experienced it's first boost of economy.

Now, in the next generation, Grog and Tuk have become village elders and their kids have taken over the trading. Grig and Tak. Having grown up with both rocks and sticks, they experimented. Grig learned how to make a stone club by tying two rocks to the end of a stick. Tak, on the other hand, learned how to make a bow and arrow, using one stick for bow with hair for the string, and a rock tied to a small stick for an arrow. So Grig and Tak trade their rocks and sticks. It ends with Grig having four rocks and two sticks, and Tak having four sticks and two rocks. The village has only six sticks and six rocks, that's true. But value was created by them trading, and now, even more value will be created as Grig and Tak embark on industry. Grig and Tak turn their rocks and sticks into two axes and two bow/arrow sets. Now the village is all out of rocks and sticks, but it has something it likes better. Axes, bows, arrows. Grig and Tak each trade. Now instead of two guys, one with a pile of sticks and one with a pile of rocks, the village now has two cavemen with an axe and bow each. Both of their lives are better, and the economy of the village as a whole is significantly better.

A generation goes by, and Grig and Tak are known throughout the valleys. The legend of the axe and bow people grows, and other people come. The village grows. But nobody has anything Grig and Tak will trade their axes and bows for. So, Grig and Tak eventually die and pass on their axe and bow to their kids, Greg and Tek. However, in the middle of the night, a tiger attacks and kills a couple villagers while Greg and Tek are sleeping. Now something unprecedented in our stone age economy up until now. Then Greg and Tek take take their two axes and two bows. However, instead of trading for them, they just give them away, putting them by the campfire in the center of the village. They belong to the village as a whole. They say that anyone (especially a warrior) in the village can come get the axe and bow and arrow when they need them to fight off any tigers or other creatures that attack the village. Now, in this case, the value that Greg and Tek have went down. They both just lost something, but they realized something very important. Their economy was benefited by making sure everyone had access to something. The village's economy effectively went from two men armed with axe and bow to everyone being armed with axe and bow. And Greg and Tek can sleep feeling a lot safer.

All the examples point to they core ideas of economy. The strength of an economy comes not from money or who has the most of it. In fact, economy can exist and grow without any money at all. What does cause economy to grow is what individuals and society gain from the trades occurring and what those trades allow people to do and have. Now I could bore you with a million more caveman examples, comparing trading food (a perishable) for milk cows (a production source), for shiny rocks (a vanity commodity), or for hours of guard duty (services); or food trades during harvest season vs food during winter (changing scarcity); and much more, but that's getting into nit-picky details. For now, we got the basics covered. I merely mention them to give you something to think about later.

So, trades are the core of an economy. Now, something it should be noted, usually people trade when they think they're getting something worthwhile in return (a stick for a rock, a bow and axe for peace of mind, etc.) If our cavemen tried to trade one stick for a million rocks, they'd never agree. For trades to happen, both people have to feel they're getting benefit. When society gets more complicated and people can get stuff from multiple sources, this usually means that the difference between the value of what people get vs what they traded away is very close. In fact, we can end up treating almost any trade as equal; it doesn't matter if it's a loaf of bread for a used shirt or a million dollars for a rare diamond. The benefit of every trade is about the same since it exists in that grey area between what one person views what difference between two items being worth vs what the other person views the two items as worth.

This leads to big core idea (and scarily, a secret) of economics... one of the two pillars of the health of an economy is Trade Density. Trade density is how many trades are happening compared with how many people there are. In short, how fast is value being created.

Or, as one simple question:

How often are trades happening per person?

And if you want a good number for an answer, the answer would be calculated by:

The Trade Density equals the number of trades over a set amount of time divided by the number of people in society

or, for short...

Trade Density = (# Trades/Time)/People

or, if you want to go really full on mathmatician...

Td = (Tr/Ti)/P

So, that's Pillar one: Trade Density.

Now comes the second pillar (and why some very powerful people try confuse economics for the average people...)

Almost, paradoxically, the goal of an economy is, in essence, to end the economy. With each trade, items of value trade hands. They get into hands that can make them into better things, which in turn add value to the economy. The idea is that things are always moving to where they have more value, and where people are more satisfied. In short, economy is about bringing happiness, peace of mind, contentment, needs being met, etc. to the people in that economy. That's the whole point of any trade, is that people are more content with what they have than they were before. Needs and wants are being sated. Ideally, the goal of the economy is to sate everyone's needs and wants. At this point, economy would grind to a halt because noone would need or want to trade. Now, obviously that won't completely happen (people need to eat and food gets consumed, so that constantly needs replaced, and there's a few other items that will always need traded) but by and large, an economy can slow down (and it's a positive thing) because people are generally happy with what they have.

And this is the big secret that noone wants you to know, why ancient cavemen were better economists than congressmen in modern times, and more. There are always some people who will want more no matter how much they have. To them, the value isn't in having what they need, but in having more than everyone else. Kings who have taxed peasants for gold beyond what's needed, the Koch brothers who push for old dirty technologies they have the resources to profit off of instead of supporting moves to cleaner technologies, countries invading other countries, and more. Some people are, by their nature or upbringing, unsatable. And they know that if the economy slows down, their growing position compared to everyone else will eventually stop. They aren't stupid, they know what they want, and how to protect their interests. Kings would start wars as excuses to tax more, the Kochs have paid colleges to let them control who their economics professors are so the next generations of economists only believe what the Kochs want them to believe, tyrants talk about spreading their particular flavor of monetary trade and collective ownership system (communism vs capitalism) to fund their wars to spread their influence. And many, many rich people and organizations lobby congressmen every day, presenting them with complex numbers and graphs trying to persuade them to support one issue or another. They convince the congressmen it's good for the economy with smoke and mirrors, ignoring the one simple question of "Are people happy?"

But when you realize, that, like most human creations, economy exists merely for the goal of making people happy and sated, a lot of the bigger and more complex issues fall away, laid bare and naked for what they really are. And that's the second pillar of economics is:

How happy are those in the economy?

Now, unlike Trade Density which as a purely subjective value, this value (Approval Rating) is purely subjective. To find it, you would need to poll, interview, and survey. But in short...

Approval Rating = Percentage of people who find themselves benefiting from the economy divided by the percentage of people who find themselves being hurt by the economy.

or, for short:

Approval Rating = % Benefiting / % Distressed

or, if you want to go all mathematician again...

Ar = B/D

So the two fundamental equations by which to measure an economy are

Td = (Tr/Ti)/P 
and
Ar = B/D 

or, in layman's terms: The health of economy can be found by asking two questions:

How many trades are happening?
Are people becoming happy?

TL;DR: The health of an economy is based off of two things, and two things only - these are the most important things in any looking specifically at economics: the first is Trade Desnity (# of trades per time / # people) and the other is satisfaction rate (people's approval % of economy / people's disapproval % of economy).
If you keep those two things in mind, no politician, no slogan, no smoke & mirrors with numbers will be able to distract you from what's actually going on.

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Sources:
There are no direct sources for this article. Many economy books deal with a lot of monetary theories that actually avoid the topics mentioned here. This post is a distillation of information I have pieced together over the years. For the most part, it is not built from previous sources, but trying to tear away the layers of the onion that is economics.

However, that's not to say that various books haven't helped me learn what I shared here. For delving more into the concepts that helped me reach this point, I recommend two books:

1. "For Us, The Living" by Robert Heinlein.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Us,_The_Living:_A_Comedy_of_Customs
you get it here:
http://www.amazon.com/For-Us-The-Living-Customs/dp/0743491548
He was the first economist I read that talked about analyzing economy without using money, and in learning to do so, economy quickly became much much clearer and many things much more obvious. I strongly suggest reading it, as he delves into the math of various economic systems, and their strengths and weaknesses (he wrote this back before world war II and predicted many of the economic ups and downs the U.S. has seen, and also created, using that information, predicted how it will eventually collapse, and offers an alternative economic system that contains a positive feedback loop to encourage it to always keep moving strong.) It's written as a novel but the (badly written) plot is merely a vehicle for the economic ideas.


2. "The Story of B" by Daniel Quinn
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_B
you can get it here:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Story-B-Daniel-Quinn-ebook/dp/B00338075Y/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1
Although "The Story of B" is not about economics in any way, it is about decompiling ideas back to their ancient human origins (The Story of B specifically decompiles religion) and is an inspiration for this article in thought processes. It's the second in a trilogy, but you really don't need to read the first to understand the majority of The Story of B. Like "For Us, The Living," "The Story of B" has a plot that is merely a vehicle for it's more complex ideas and concepts and social analysis of history that it's trying to share.

Live Free

I've been watching for awhile now, trying to figure out how to live more efficiently and frugally.

Although I didn't think about it, this search could only end when efficiency was maximized, and cost equals zero.

After reading this article, I realized it.  It is fast approaching, and the economic world as we know it will soon be gone. The economic world is still up in a stir, not aware that it's demise is approaching.

A literally free world. Sure, there's some setup cost, but after you get going, there's no stopping it.

Here are some hints at how to live free, forever (most hints are in no particular order):

Get a 3D printer
A good starter one is this one: https://store.makibox.com/
However, you'll want to expand as your saved funds grow. The makibox only prints small objects in plastic, (and molds you can use for metal) however. As your repertoire of 3D printers expands, you'll be able to print more things you need. They can build in everything from glass to food. They can build everything from small household items to cars to sometime soon: houses. One large payment will quite often be cheaper than many small payments. Not to mention if you organize your printer purchases right, you may be able to print of later ones for free.

Here is a good site to get downloads that the 3D printer can build: http://www.thingiverse.com/

In fact, if you're willing to build your 3d printer from parts, after you get your first printer, you can print most of the parts necessary to build a larger printer, eventually getting a much larger printer, capable of handling bigger jobs.

Not to mention the free open source 3d graphics program blender or the free version of Google's sketchup can help you make anything you need and that isn't available for download.

Get Extruders
  Although often cheaper than buying the printed materials (although more expensive in some cases), the cost of printing material quickly racks up. A good plastic filament extruder/grinder is the Filabot as it does many types of plastic. However, if you're willing to grind by hand, and you're just getting started with a makibox and not a more complicated plastic extruder, you can make one from 3d printer parts and a few store bought parts and some elbow grease. Combined with a 3d printer, as a result of this, a visit to the local dump or recycling center can net you many times more home items than many many trips to the store.

Grow food
This may sound obvious but inaccessible but hold on... farming has been around forever, but the techniques are still advancing. Recently, a new milestone was broken when over a million pounds of organic food was grown on only 3 acres of land (that's more than has been grown nonorganic!) Not to mention there are tools to compost your food at home to grow those plants. In fact, even if you're stuck in a small apartment is no longer an excuse, as a creative technique allows you to grow over 100 pounds of potatoes in only 4 square feet. (That'll fit on your apartment complex porch!)

Free Energy
Solar power, wind power, hydro energy, and more can make your home not only cheaper to run; it will make it even profitable, and green. Further, you can build easily repairable rechargeable battery packs from collections of smaller batteries.

Metal Smelter
Some items aren't able to be 3d printed (yet) so a good "old-fashioned" smelter is still useful. 

Chemistry
This part requires you to be careful, but day-to-day functions will often require various chemicals. Many of these can be made at home following simple directions you can find online (hint, wikipedia is your friend) if you have a basic chemistry set. (which doesn't even need to be bought if you've already gotten a glass 3d printer). You may even be able to make your own batteries in a pinch. Further, using chemistry, you can create your own medicines that otherwise would be much more expensive (again, wikipedia is your friend, as is patent searches. Many medicines that have had their patents expire can have their patents looked at and be legally made... and sold.) 

Home
So, you may be thinking this is all fine and dandy, but living will still require a house and that means payments and taxes and... well, you're not completely right. If you live in a houseboat and anchor in international waters (20 miles from shore), that isn't an issue. Add on a barge-like structure to grow your food on, put your power generation on, etc. and use your solar power for an electric outboard motor and be willing to take the time to move around, and you can literally live fine. You may need to pull in to dock on occasion for repairs, but if you build your houseboat yourself you'll know it well enough to be able to do all the expensive stuff yourself. And if you build an extra couple boats for the express purpose of being able to hoist up other houseboats (including eachother), then you've got everything covered. Plus, you can easily go fishing.


So power, food, medicine, home, and pretty much everything else.

Corporate/Employee vs Customer/Corporate Role Reverals

This is a minor post about musings if you will, about critiquing current business practices and how much we as employees and as consumers put up with. Because when you look at the basics of it, the basics of a both relationships is almost identical.

A corporation pays an employee for goods and/or services.
A customer pays a corporation for goods and/or services.

You'd think with those two descriptions, the relationships would be treated almost identically, but this is far from the case as we all know. As such, I'm going to throw out some role reversals, switching corporation for customer and employee for corporation, and vice versa, so we can get a feel for how ridiculous things actually are...



Cell phone contracts
Hello, boss... before you employ me, you'll have to sign this contract. This contract guarantees that you'll hire me for a whole 2 years. In the event that you decide to fire me, you will have to pay three months worth of wages by default

Employment non-compete clause

Hello. Oh, my gosh that is a cute purse. I so want it, it'd go so well with my shoes, and help me catch the attention of that director so I can get that acting job. Oh, but you might sell other pairs of those shoes to other girls who will be trying out. As such, I'm going to need you to sign this non-compete clause for me to buy it. It's not a big deal, just says you can't sell purses to any other girls that come in here. Don't worry, you can still sell those purses to boys. Oh, after I get the part, for two years after you won't be able to sell purses to girls either.

Software License Terminatibility clause
Hello boss... great day, isn't it? You know that front desk that me and the other construction workers are building in the front office? Yea... just so you know, you have to follow the rules we've laid out for you to use it. In the event that you break any of the rules, we can take the desk back. Don't worry, it won't likely happen, you'll obey the rules, right?

Externally created Intellectual Property Employment Clause
Yes, I'm paying for the new XBOX Live! Well, just so you, Microsoft, as part of me paying you, I'm going to need for you to agree to an IP agreement. Oh, don't worry, it just means that while you're providing me service, any IP you create is counted as available to me as well. Now, anything you make BEFORE now is exempt, and anytime AFTER I give up my live subscription is exempt as well. See? Aren't I nice? Oh, it won't get exercised much, don't worry. It's just a little safety thing, you know, to prevent risk of me accidentally infringing on any patents you fail to inform me of. Oh, by the way, when are you planning on making another version of windows or a new phone...?

Release from Liability license clause
Dear ExxonMobil... upon employment, you agree to hold me free from any legal liability available to release me from in the state where I work for you. You agree not to sue, and in the event you are not pleased with the work I do for you, you agree to use a mediator of my choosing. (Two weeks later after an exploded gas station) Hello ExxonMobil, I would like you to meet my mediator, this is Chelsey, and she's a volunteer with Greenpeace...

Lobbying to keep down minimum wage
Hello BP. Nice day we're having, isn't it? What's that? Gas is still 89 cents a gallon? That's so nice and good for the economy. Oh, you want to charge more? That's so sad, but we lobbied congress, and sorry, we're not raising the gas prices. That doesn't pay the costs to manufacture it and get it over here? What, you want pay your corporation can survive on? You're so greedy. You're not American enough. You're just not motivated enough, you're so lazy. Maybe we should lobby to cut oil subsidies, would that motivate you to make more money? Your company could survive then, couldn't it?

This is a novelty
Hello boss. My work is not to be taken seriously. You employ me at your own risk. Do not expect me to do any actual work, my work is for joke purposes only.

Have you ever been convicted of a crime
Hello Disney. Yes, yes, you want me to buy your movies. Huh... apparently there's negligence on your record... oh my... you inadvertently killed someone? Multiple times in your theme parks? Accident... right....
Well, I wish you luck trying to get people to watch your movies, but sorry, we can't take the risk of letting you influence our children. You understand, right? Who knows if your movie will "inadvertently" kill them "through negligence" too?

Do not Reverse Engineer / Warrenty voided if opened
 Hello, Sir? Yes, yes, you know that program I wrote for you a few years back? Yes, the one that your company relies on? Yea, even though I've moved on to other things, don't try to modify it. It doesn't match your current inventory? So sad, but you can't open it or modify it. You'll get in trouble if you do. You'll just have to buy something new from scratch.

We'll need your credit history
Yes, yes, Wal-Mart, I'm sure you think your prices are low. But I'm going to need your full credit history before I can shop here. Yes, I know what you pay your employees is a closely guarded secret, don't worry, I won't tell anyone anything. You know, just to know if you're responsible and to get an idea of how you're managing your finances. It's really important to know if I should buy that toenail clipper from you afterall.

The Free Market is the Ideal Market

"The Free Market is the ideal market."

You have likely heard the phrase before. Economists use it to talk about economic equations. The ideal market.*

Economists then talk to people with Business degrees. It should be pointed out that Economists and Business majors are two very different creatures. To the average joe, they look about the same, but to eachother, they're about as much the same as icecream is to butter. Or, more accurately, it's like the difference between a physicist and an astronaut.

"Why's it rumble when we do that?"
"Because it makes me look dramatic."
"... you sure we shouldn't make sure the screws are all tight?"
"DRAMATIC!"

You see, the focus of their studies are extremely different. In our astronaut vs physicist example, the business person plays the role of the astronaut. Their goal is to figure out how to survive in the tricky world of economics. The economist's goal, on the other hand, is to understand the tricky world of economics. Just because you're an astronaut doesn't mean you have a full understanding of a blue star's coronal mass ejections, and just because you're a physicist doesn't mean you know how to pilot a T-35.



Similarly, a person with a business degree and a person with an economics degree are two very different people. Going back to our Physics/Astronaut example; in Physics, they have what they call "The Ideal Environment." It is the perfect place for doing physics. If you heard someone mention working in "the Ideal Environment" you might imagine a cushy office overlooking a beautiful park with trees and birds chirping while a beautiful secretary of the appropriate gender for your tastes massages your feet while you watch a ticker of your invested stocks climb slowly higher and higher.

You might then turn to such a a person and ask them to please get you into the ideal environment.

If they're sufficiently sadistic and have enough funding, you'll shortly be dead with your wish granted.

A weightless frictionless airless environment... sounds pleasant, right?

You see, when a physicist talks about an ideal environment, they're talking a weightless, frictionless, airless environment. Basically, it's a place where physics math is easy. It's not ideal to your survival, it's a place where physicists can make predictions and the results happen almost always exactly as predicted. An astronaut does NOT want to be in this environment. They like breathing too much to be airless. This is why they wear space suits, because the "ideal physics" environment would kill them, and they need to take along a bit of their normal environment.

Again, the relation between physicists and astronauts is similar to economists and businessmen. Economists (at least good ones) are quite good at predicting the economy as a whole. And their ideal environment is an environment that makes their math easy. Looking through things, it seems this misunderstanding is where businessmen got the idea that a free market is somehow some kind of holy grail. That they heard an economist at some point say "The ideal market is the Free Market." What this hypothetical economist probably meant was, "Using the free market makes my math really easy and I can predict things!" but what the businessman thought he meant was, "People will make lots of profits in a free market and businessmen can retire years earlier and get a few extra yachts and everybody will be rich." In reality, a Free Market doesn't mean easy money. It means a market free of external influence. That doesn't even mean more customers (in fact, it means less, because you've gotten rid of the government as a customer).

"But, I want to get a government grant to make my cookies and feed people..."
"Sorry, only sticks. How many sticks is your cookie worth? I've got plenty of sticks!"

That wasn't the only thing that got misunderstood. There's the phrase "distort the free market." Economists use this phrase a fair amount. It means anything that gets away from their perfect ideal math situation. Literally, it distorts the math of their system free of outside influence. It makes economists frustrated because it makes their jobs harder. And businessmen get frustrated of it because... they see it makes economists frustrated and assume that's a bad thing for business... and "distorting" something "free" sounds soooooo bad, so it must be bad.. right? Well... remember, fricitonless airless space without gravity is ideal to physicists, that doesn't mean you want to raise a family in it.

So, what's that mean for a free market? Pretty much everything. A free market doesn't mean everybody makes money. A free market doesn't mean its guaranteed to succeed. A free market doesn't mean everyone's going to get the food they need, that everyone will get wealth, or that children will go singing in the streets or even that people (or even the world) will be able to survive. It merely means an environment in which the outcome is easy to predict.

Which is one reason the misunderstanding as perpetuated so much. Stockbrokers LOVE predictability.

"Thanks, it means the world to me."
"... if I convinced this person to tell you to give me your pants and lovely wife too, would you do it?"
"Yes... why do you ask?"

A stockbroker makes money by the buy and sell of stocks and predicting what they'll do next, trading based off the difference in prices between now and later, and skimming off the top. Taking a route that makes them more predictable is VERY enticing to a stockbroker, because it changes things from making just a little money to making boatloads of it... that would otherwise go to people who invested in the business because they, you know, believed in it. And they like that. They like it a LOT. Not so good for other people, but good for them.

So, if there's a myth going around that's causing people to make things easy for you and give you things for free, and your focus in life was making money, would you try to correct them or help perpetuate the myth?

I'll leave you be for awhile you figure out the answer to that. Take your time.

...

Okay, done? Great.

So, a society with a Free Market doesn't mean it's a good society, just a predictable society. If your full goal in life is to "accurately predict money flow based on market forces" that may be a good thing, but for everybody else, it can spell disaster. We'll start off with an extreme example and go into subtleties after you've grasped the basics....


Imagine you're in a warzone. If your goal is to survive and win, you might want to build weaponry, train an army, build bunkers, research tactics, etc. If your goal is to "accurately predict money flow based on market forces" then the best route is to simply not defend and watch what happens with morgues.

"But won't people die?"
"Yea, but those who survive will make a proportionate killing investing in burial plot ventures."
"What if nobody survives?"
"Well, according to the math, that's infinite profit. You could even say 'everlasting rewards'."

 Okay, now we'll break it down to a little bit closer to home that's almost the exact same thing. People starving to death. Sure, food stamps distort the free market. Investing in preparation of people starving won't be as profitable. But you know what? Less people will starve. Police that protect CEOs from being assassinated and robbed every minute? That's a distortion of the free market. Building roads that make transportation easier, reducing transportation costs? That's also a distortion of the free market.

Also, there's another source of government influence on the free market that most businessmen fail to remember. The government prints money. There have only been two major times that economies didn't run on government-printed money. One is in older eras where they traded precious metals (known to economists as their "medium of exchange") and in the U.S.'s westward expansion, businesses often printed their own money (often that could only be spent at the company store. And that's all they would pay their employees with. This effectively resulted in a barter system between different currencies. It was a mess for most people involved, and that's why the U.S. passed a law saying to only use its currency.)

The problem with gold and other precious metals were that they were a limited commodity. Sure, that's useful if you're banker or an investor, but it's not so great for actually spending and here's why:
The strength of an economy has little to do with the value of the money. People are going to trade for things they need and trade away things they don't need as much. It's the number of trades that actually make an economy's strength. And people keep making, trading, and reselling. In a system of gold, where gold is limited, the value of gold will constantly go up. This is because as the economy gets stronger but the gold supply stays the same, gold becomes proportionately more rare. This is what's known as a deflation economy. The best thing to do in a system like this is just to sit on your money forever and never spend it. The problem with this is that then noone wants to spend their money if they can avoid it. It hurts innovation. That's one reason the dark ages moved so slowly. It was more profitable to steal someone else's gold than it was to invent something new, and then sit on that gold till the end of time.

Both these points makes it clear... for a healthy economy, government (or something similar, which would for all intents and purposes be the government in the system: such as a bitcoin algorithm that controls the bitcoin economy) needs to be a system for making a recognized currency.  And that's government in economy. And THAT means a market that isn't a true free market.

Literally, a thriving free market is an economist's fantasy world to make math easier. It is not possible to truly exist. You'll either end up with uninovating dark ages where the market is struggling or a paper barter system.


TL;DR: Police stopping you from being shot is a distortion of the coffin free market.

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* Note, no references for this particular article. This article is written based on me looking up definitions of words and just listening to people being people, and looking at context used when people talk about things. As a result, I have no good articles to point to for this article. It's just my own observations and an attempt to explain what people usually mean when they say things and to clear up a common misunderstanding that arises.