STEMI Compression

Here's a highly theoretical construct I believe is useful for the analysis (h/t John Smart) of rapidly evolving systems. Hopefully, you find it useful too.
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In the evolution of technology, the next generation of a particular device/program often follows a well known pattern in the marketplace: its design makes it MUCH cheaper, faster, and more capable. This allows it to crowd out the former technology and eventually dominate the market (i.e. transistors replacing vacuum tubes in computation). A formalization of this developmental process is known as STEMI compression:

• Space. Less volume/area used.
  
• Time. Faster.
  
• Energy. Less energy. Higher efficiency.
  
• Mass. Less waste.
  
• Information. Higher efficiency. Less management overhead.

So, the viability of a proposed new generation of a particular technology can often be evaluated based on whether it offers a substantial improvement in the compression of all aspects of STEMI without a major loss in system complexity or capability. This process of analysis also gives us an "arrow" of development that can be traced over the life of a given technology.

Broader Applicability?
STEMI compression may also be useful in analyzing the development path for other types of systems (i.e. biology, economics, etc. although the work to fully demonstrate that has yet to be done). The question I asked myself, given the ongoing failure of the global system and my work on Resilient Communities, is:

Do Resilient Communities offer the promise of a generational improvement over the existing global system or not?

In other words: is the Resilient Community concept (as envisioned here) a viable self-organizing system that can rapidly and virally crowd out existing structures due to its systemic improvements? Using STEMI compression as a measure, there is reason to believe it is:

• Space. Localization (or hyperlocalization) radically reduces the space needed to support any given unit of human activity. Turns useless space (residential, etc.) into productive space.
  
• Time. Wasted time in global transport is washed away. JIT (just in time production) and place.
  
• Energy. Wasted energy for global transport is eliminated. Energy production is tied to locality of use. More efficient use of solar energy (the only true exogenous energy input to our global system).
  
• Mass. Less systemic wastage. Made to order vs. made for market.
  
• Information. Radical simplification. Replaces hideously complex global management overhead with simple local management systems.

The above indicates that Resilient Communities do offer what appears to be a generational improvement in system design. However, one final requirement must be met. Does this generational improvement conserve or replicate the computational complexity of the previous system? Can it continue to process, innovate, and respond as quickly as the previous system? I believe the answer is yes. If Resilient Communities remain globally connected via Internet networks, there's reason to believe that re-localization is possible without losing any of the previous computational complexity of the system. Further, as the new self organizing system replaces the old one, new forms of organizational innovation (open source, for example) may radically outpace the progress seen in the previous system.

NOTE: There's two long trends in technology that may cement this switch. The first is the radical increase of information density in any and all production process. The majority of almost all processes in almost every industry segment is now a form of information manipulation rather than a manipulation of matter. To wit: how easy it is for most knowledge workers today to work at home.

Second is a switch to bio-processing. In short, growing your computer or product rather than manufacturing it. The development of this technology might get us out of the only centralization trap left: fabrication facilities using exotic materials to make computer chips. Both of these trends may make decentralization nearly costless to the computational complexity of the system.

NOTE2: The availability of a self-organizing and superior alternative to the (now failing) legacy system implies that its implied collapse might be historically brief. It also means that its collapse isn't necessarily a bad thing since its replacement puts us, collectively, on a growth path to radically faster wealth creation (and nsulates us against growing excesses, dislocations, and failures of the existing systems function). More simply, will you accept vastly lower living standards and much higher risks to work/live within the existing system or will you opt out with a Resilient Community?

Comments

[Will]

Great conceptual framework.

Reminds me of R. Buckminster Fuller: more-and-more-from-less-and-less was his mantra.

When asked to comment on almost anything, including a city, he first question: how much does it weigh?

[Nick]

I am betting my future on resilent communities. In fact feel free to watch my open source efforts to develop the resilent community technologies that are needed.

http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Steam_Engine_Construction_Set

My first order of buisness is a solar steam engine with optional thermal energy storage and backup biomass boiler. My goal is 3kW for $3000. This simple accomplishement would quickly change the economics of electrical energy production.

The open source ecology team I will be working with also has two other key technologies that will emerge in the next 4 months going mainstream. A high performing Compressed Earth Brick (CEB) press for $1500 and a soon to be low cost replicable CNC maching set, including mill, lathe, xyz cutting table ect. The idea is produce a core group of simple technologies, which when combined can make a global village construction set, then give people access to this information so it can be duplicated worldwide. Hopefully it spreads like a virus.
Check out this presentation for more info.

http://openfarmtech.org/OSE_Presentation_UM.pdf

[Ricardo Proença]

1."Second is a switch to bio-processing. In short, growing your computer or product rather than manufacturing it."

Is this a reference to Fab Labs, i.e. small scale workshops with the tools to make almost anything (including technology-enabled products generally perceived as limited to mass production)?

The best references about the concept are here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fab_lab
http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/faq/

2. When will you expect to finish your book about Resilient Communities?

[Nick]

A great taste of how resilent technologies can piggback off of computerized machining, computer networking and the centralized industry methods to create a hyper innovative, efficient engineering cycle can be found here.... http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=416#more-416

[S]

Kunstler has an interesting post up on farming and food prodcution closer to home akin to the resiliancy expounded on here.
http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/

John,

A somewhat interesting comparison of the financial ruin to the nation state is the expansion of the fed's balance sheet. Indeed as the financial system crumbles the standard meme is that the fed and the government (think Keynesian claptrap) are required to step in and fill the gap. indeed the Fed has balloned the balance sheet almost 3x in ma matter of months. I would expect nothign less from the government as they see sovereignty loosening.

Consider the following:
1. the hypernational US by virtue of dollar hegemony will move to protect this advanatage as it is the power that fuels the model.

2. The global financial coordination and garble by Gordon brown about a coordinated global soultion - a new kind osf supra national entity regulatory scheme

3. The socialist/left push for world institutions courts etc.

The incumbant powers have too much to lose in a RC like structure. Not saying it will not happen but look for the bankers and or financial interests to move the model along a path that makes defacto greater control not less control the fait accompli. Think US govt' sucking in massive capital and then moving to foster its survivial with a devaluation, move to another currency anbd or mass inflation. How this goes who knows, but it is the only option. The system will eventually blow apart I agree disequlibirum by definition can;t last forever especially when those empowering it are looking askance.

On the topic of US and financial crissi. one thing that is amazing is that the US is moving to protect itself at the expense of the rest of the system. The rest of the system has heretofore silently complied thinking or perhaps hoping that the past is prologue to the future. We know that is not the case. The US is functionally insolvant as is the banking system. it is living off of flawed confidence and that is seen in treasyury issuance and central bank buying as in today's auctions. But as the rest of the "capitalists" who bought into the system realize that the system was nothing more than an extortiona and looting operation, they will withdraw (note the drop in trade flows globally). I dob't Putin or the Russian people for that matter are not itching to fight after watching the US pollute the entire system and then pawn it off on everyone else with crys of we need to get us going to power the rest. The global outrage will grow and that means all the talk of the G20 and the shrill US cries for keeping markets open will be for naught.

I contend that perhaps the final blow apart will indeed come from the very nation states that are trying to assert their importance.

[Chris]

I think there's a sixth element in addition to S.T.E.M.I. -- let's call it reproduction. In living systems, an organism which creates hundreds of offspring will soon crowd out one which, though otherwise identical, only creates dozens. This applies to non-living systems too. Improving the ability to reproduce (or manufacture) something, even if no change is made in STEMI, magnifies its impact.

[Rich]

Wow, just found this web-blog today, very interesting and thought provoking discussions! Look forward to more like this.

I'm becoming active locally, and want to help spread awareness of solutions such as local resilience and permaculture. For more on this, check out my friend Zach's great blogspot where he's gathered some good info: http://infopatriots.blogspot.com/

If any have seen the documentary "Zeitgeist Addendum" I'd be curious to hear your reactions. If you haven't seen it, I'm sure you'll find it thought provoking. Shows the fallacy and unsustainability of the current debt/profit driven system, which exposes the US economy's role on the world stage as the confidence scheme it really is.

I see this film as a great jumping in point for dialogues on "reverse engineering the future" how we might like it to be.

[lewy14]

"If Resilient Communities remain globally connected via Internet networks"

Aye. There's the rub.

"The development of this technology might get us out of the only centralization trap left: fabrication facilities using exotic materials to make computer chips."

_centralization trap_ - brilliant. Finally, a tag for the idea I've been harping on.

That you use such a term is evidence that you understand that the near term success of the RC model relies on a "goldilocks collapse" - hard enough to hollow out the state, but not so hard as to destroy the infrastructure of the internet and its maintenance.

Local scale nano-scale fabrication (LSNSF?) is some time constant away - say t0. The system seems to be collapsing at a different timescale - say t1. Thing is, t0 > t1, maybe even t0 >> t1. So you'd better hope the near term collapse ends up at a plateau that keeps Intel and Cisco and Applied Materials and Comcast and Verizon _et al_ as going concerns.

Otherwise we will be drinking from the Tiber.

Those few thousands dwelling among the ruins of the Campus Martius in medieval times found those waters rather less appealing than those of the aqueducts, which, sadly, were no longer flowing...

...John, I'd humbly suggest you focus some more attention on this "centralization trap". I harp on this not because I'm a troll disparaging your ideas, but because I like them, and want to see them evolve.

[lewy14]

"If Resilient Communities remain globally connected via Internet networks"

Aye. There's the rub.

"The development of this technology might get us out of the only centralization trap left: fabrication facilities using exotic materials to make computer chips."

_centralization trap_ - brilliant. Finally, a tag for the idea I've been harping on.

That you use such a term is evidence that you understand that the near term success of the RC model relies on a "goldilocks collapse" - hard enough to hollow out the state, but not so hard as to destroy the infrastructure of the internet and its maintenance.

Local scale nano-scale fabrication (LSNSF?) is some time constant away - say t0. The system seems to be collapsing at a different timescale - say t1. Thing is, t0 > t1, maybe even t0 >> t1. So you'd better hope the near term collapse ends up at a plateau that keeps Intel and Cisco and Applied Materials and Comcast and Verizon _et al_ as going concerns.

Otherwise we will be drinking from the Tiber.

Those few thousands dwelling among the ruins of the Campus Martius in medieval times found those waters rather less appealing than those of the aqueducts, which, sadly, were no longer flowing...

...John, I'd humbly suggest you focus some more attention on this "centralization trap". I harp on this not because I'm a troll disparaging your ideas, but because I like them, and want to see them evolve.

[mike]

If this theory holds true, the Chevy Volt could be a colossal failure, by failing to be "MUCH cheaper, faster, and more capable".

[dryki]

I'm nervous about pinning so much hope on information processing and bio-engineering - which is a form of information processing - or even on the survival of the internet. Odum tells us that information processing is the highest transformity emergy. And while the internet itself might seem to use only a little energy, the energy it embodies is enormous. Likewise, intellectual property, law and the society in which they are embedded are of very high transformity. Both of those must change for the internet to survive, let alone in a useful form.

One would like to believe that the internet could survive any major economic downturn, and that it would serve as a global interchange of ideas helping to cope with that downturn. I hope that is not only wishful thinking. For short of 5 9s uptime, the internet will be markedly less useful - remember, it's 5 9s times the 30 hops and the congestion caused by routing around outages. If businesses are not selling and advertising, the economic support for the internet largely goes away. People need "surplus" to afford putting information online. Then there are the resources required to build laptops, routers and datacenters. And all the other cultural and economic context.

As for the content online, our society's way of looking at intellectual property rights is going to have to change. It's hard to imagine how that would work, but Free Software and Creative Commons are a couple of good examples of a possible path. Code must open up, not lock down. We need to rethink fundamentals - default copyright, for example, has to be public not private. My saying it "must" doesn't mean it will, only that for internet to survive in a useful way, it "must".

I put a Kill-a-watt meter on my laptop. It takes as much power as my refrigerator. [I found that hard to believe and need to do it again.] If I don't have a job in IT, but am spending much more time in the garden, how am I going to justify buying a stream of new laptops as they die? And if the grid is not always up, then what? The internet was supposed to survive a nuclear attack. Forget about the EMP and think about economics; it 's not that robust. The current internet requires not only "surplus" but a certain culture. What if I need approval from the authorities and a license to get that laptop, etc...?

Perhaps it can be scaled back. Systems designed for intermittent connections like UUCP or P2P filesharing suggest it can. But still, how am I going to replace my laptop and the half dozen machines I have in a nearby data center when most every business website I service goes bust?

The internet is not a library; it is transient. A book, OTOH, is a static, durable packet. Both depend on a certain "energy regime" and it's not obvious to me that the internet can exist in a regime at a lower energy level.

Whether or not the internet can exist in a different energy regime is not at all clear.

[lewy14]

dryski: bingo.