Romer has always been a sort of prophet of “cognitive capitalism.”

His model of “economic growth” and increased GDP in a post-scarcity economy is utter nonsense, unless the game is rigged by proprietary content and design owners.

The normal tendency for post-scarcity innovation to *destroy* GDP. The reason is that GDP reflects the cost of production inputs. Any innovation that reduces the capital outlays and overhead, labor time, and resources consumed to produce a given level of consumption will cause a portion of GDP to implode. The Romer (and Bill Gates, and Richard Florida, and William McDonough) model of “cognitive capitalism” depends on allowing a rentier class of “intellectual property” owners to live off the capitalized value of production cost savings, instead of passing them on to the consumer.

Opinions may differ there. A PhD is not guarantee of sanity; not even close. Nor is attention any proof against totally delusional thinking.

“So, let the idea get out there and be tested – what’s wrong with that?”

Two words: corn ethanol. Your exact argument has been given for years to justify building yet another ethanol plant; and diverting more crop to fuel.

And yet- it was known by many to be a stinker of an idea, at the outset. So. Let’s say $100 billion “invested” in ethanol from maize so far. Not really including time spent researching, lives spent studying- a certified dead end. And don’t bother mentioning the increased load on those at the very bottom of the heap. But hey- ‘give it a chance!” oh, and- a subsidy.

What do you suppose might have been done with that money- instead? Pick anything- it would be an improvement.

Bad ideas- are a waste of resources we no longer have to spare. They need to have a stake driven through their heart as soon as possible.

Between that obvious flaw and the notion that somehow light pollution visible from space represents everything humans should strive to achieve, I am somewhat glad that this man’s grand plans aren’t likely to be implemented. Thanks for the laughs, Rob!

It also seems particularly relevant with the ongoing debate about health care reform. There is so much speculation out there as to the best solution and that is because no one person really knows. Why not have a charter state as a testbed for OBama’s plan (or any other alternative), beginning with say Massachusettes. If it works, implement it in a few other states. If it doesn’t, well try something else. In either case we tested the ideas and they can inform us to change. Otherwise changing the entire national health care system requires a huge amount of public will, which only lasts for small windows of time, and are infrequent.

Overall, though naive as the presenter was on details, a very interesting and stimulating point to discuss; would definitely like to read more on the topic in a more concrete fashion. Especially an elaboration on the ‘rules(1)’, such as a states current constitution, and ‘rules(2)’ as to how to transition from old rules to new rules.

Furthermore, it did seem naive to think that a city should be started from scratch, especially in a region with scarce natural resources. Alternatively, it is probably more practical to select cities, that due to certain criteria (which must be elaborated upon), are good candidates for creating the specified changes.

A title that I think would be apt for a more elaborated form of this kind of talk would be
‘Strategies for economic and political change for a transitioning government’. It has a ‘fundamental, principled’ ring to it.

The general idea a bunch of people who don’t get much forgein Xchange, etc, poor and not many prospects, hop up and get after it is a issue worth far more study then it gets.

Ahhh, Like intrinsic motovation. Every high school teacher just can’t believe the high school students are more interested in Guitar hero scores then the 6 really important things about Iceland some middle manager decided to force them to grok.

I think though the Charter cities etc is th ethin edge of the wedge for many open issue questions in how people pay and play out their life stories in a competitive world.

My perception was, its polite to say “new rules”, but we all know he means almost without exception: “Far fewer rules”. This is what I think is (one of) the secret thing your just supposed to know.

Is that not right? Absolutely no idiot in the galaxy would (in general) want to emulate the United States at this point. Am I missing the general idea really? Its just the wild west as a plan, not as an accident, with a little embellishment here and there like land deeds and so on… Maybe some doodling like fixed min and max wages and specific currency considerations, but a broad swath of stupid baggage logic removed? No? Yes? what?

Its interesting to plan for less planning. Its like a systematic goal to apply a little anarchy… Or a day of worship for aethists.

I mean, Panama (regions of), Hong Kong, Israel and Tibet, Lousiana (about 1/4 of the contential USA in actuality), all have had some 3rd party mix/match of pay and take creation acts.

Of course, if you go back indefinitely, all human settlements at some time in the indefinite past had somebody move form someplace, with a relative absence of ability ot move the jurisdictions as fast as the move itself.

I gather the essence of this idea is that is applies, narrowly, to the relative immediate time frame, within ones of decades form now. NOt nessessarily when earth has 10 billion people (for instance), or in the aftermath of the next world war, to name two disruptive eventualities.

Is there are candidate place at this moment really on the book for this? Some mix of rules rollback anfd land reform, some razor wire, a little concrete, etc… A heap of scheming people with a little excitement in their systems, etc??

If you don’t know the answer, or think its some kind of Rock, Watt or fluid, you might as well relieve yourself of the burden of reading this material.

The central premise is: Bad ideas inside people stop things. Bahrain is prosperous, Japan has no hard good resources. Manhattan is a terrible site for millions of daily commutes.

It does matter. People stand on ocean floors in breathing apparatus breathing unnatural mixes of gases at weird pressures.

They do it, because when they get off the ocean floor, somebody pays them a lot. AND nobody stops them from spending it.

For crying out loud, your siezing on a single example. This is a general premise here…

Anyway, I think the problem is insufficent access to trickery. Ahhh one last site you might consider is Las Vegas. You have an urban planner who likes that placement, not Boloxie, Indiana.

Ahhhh a libral (non)-framework of non-law enabled it. If you can pay for it, somebody someplace will go without and sell you water… or Watts, etc.

You notice there is an oversurplus of oil, and following it is a crisis in oversupply of natural gas? Mining? No shortages there either.

Its about the big guy who says “no to you”, ,thats what this is about.

Or perhaps he hasn’t even thought about such trivial matters as food and water for these huge population centres and their factories. Mere details!

A quarter of a gram of any matter knocks a city flat; (Hiroshima).

The problem in schemes involving people, is always people. Specifically the instantaneous contents of there brains; (or lack thereof).

Next! This ingenuity / resource gap has a long vintage. Romans 650 BC wrote up how any idiot could see the end is near. The teenagers are lazier then we were, The forests are depleted, the water is polluted. It’s over… Also always, "too many people". The end is always near. Add a little geometry and you get Malthus in there 1800 years later. Add some spreadsheets now, and you get: now. Same thing.

I was impressed by the charter city 'idea' and then was horrified (as another writer wrote-up-too) a little of this is based on the USA generally, and even worse, California. (Charter cities is in the grab bag of California political experimentation, you see). Charter cities there are little attempts to evade California tort law and some of the worse government outside of (you pick) Zimbabwe or Haiti, plus Wolfgang Puck food at retail. Trying to repel bad ideas + lawyers with idea, in California is a hopeless situation. Blech.

Oh.. Anyway I was really smitten for a few hours with the Charter Idea, but it’s not sound, but its not completely unsound, either.

I think all the areas need complete status as errors of history so all the participants need a vague feeling they tripped into a good thing, and can screw over everybody else with speculation.
When you write it up as a plan, its no longer a secret plan. There are lots of planned cities in the world, Most of them slightly better then plopped by the sea by history ones.
But not incredibly so. As mentioned, I think it might be worth doing. But that is a different open issue then fixer-of-all-things class ideas; (which might not exist, as we all suspect I am sure).

I think it’s pretty obvious any project like this needs a historically credible sad story to 'go with it'… the British stink, the Ibo tribe are naturally lousy managers, whatever. Doesn't matter what the belief is, as long as it has a long throw into the past and is interesting.
The place needs borders, (for jumping over). So islands are best. Nothing like a good "no trespassing" sign to increase foot traffic.

The I.M.F. has tried this endless "best practices" transplant Idea, and they inflict it on any country desperate enough to be forced to listen to them.

Maybe the charter cities idea is similar in scope. Most good intentions + organization generate tragic results anyway.

regards to all,
Dan K