Prose | Kamiel Choi

Tractatus Logico-Economicus

0. The economy revolves around things. 0.1. Things are products, services, and consumers. 0.1.1. Products depend on finite natural resources. 0.1.2. Services depend on finite time. 0.1.3. An economy with a value-function based on products and services needs endless progress. 0.1.4. Endless progress combined with finite resources results in devaluation. 0.1.5. The value of products ...

One Human Nature?

Prize question: What is more harmful, the assumption that there is one human nature, or the idea that there are many? History suggests several answers. We can argue that the assumption of human beings as "economic agents" interested only in maximizing their own profit, leads to the current neoliberal system with all its destructive tendencies. ...

Mixed revolutionary ramblings

Every day now I become more averse to the system. I observe how my own mind struggles, and how it always shouts the word "local" in both my ears as the key to a solution. A local community is larger than a Greek oikos (etymological origin of the word economy) or household, but smaller than ...

Monsanto Creates Plant That Grows Money

Creve Coeur (MI), April 13th, 2011. Biotech giant Monsanto (NYSE: MON) has reported that they have for the first time created an organism capable of growing money. The plant, MON1971$, and the undisclosed technologies involved in creating it, have been patented in the US. Technically, the invention is based on the insertion of a gene ...

Healthy competition

One assumption most people accept is that competition is always a good thing. When we talk about competition, we assume a scarcity of resources that can't be shared and are fought over by individuals or groups. In this sense, competition is the natural state of organisms, from which they can only evolve if there is ...

Permaculture (2 little ideas)

We hope to buy our own small piece of land, so we can start permaculture in modest proportions. We want to experiment with herb spirals, greenhouses, keyhole beds, guilds of crops, sheet mulching, low-till, swales, gravity irrigation, drip irrigation, natural pest control, reuse of greywater, rainwater catchment, and so on. I've been studying the system ...

It is what it is?

Working relations are about power. You sell your labor (remuneration is essentially the primary reason for working) or else... Or else you could be reprimanded, suspended, or even - fired. That infernal metaphor is a powerful aid in the manufacturing of the worker's worry, that are designed to last until all productivity has been sucked ...

Ecobook Introduction (Draft)

Below is a draft of the introduction to a collaborative e-book (e.co.book) that I instigated on Facebook. This needs work, but I shared it here for the purpose of inviting constructive criticism. Over the last few years, many of us have been active on the Internet sharing information about the damage that the current system ...

Code Is Not Poetry

Much of the Internet, including these words, "runs on" a piece of software called Wordpress. It has become the most popular blogging platform because of smart architecture, passionate contributors, and a healthy bit of good luck. You are likely to know Wordpress, and also its slogan "Code is Poetry" might sound familiar. I write code ...