Reflecting on 2-years with iontom.com!

Firstly, April 4th marks the anniversary of the second year I’ve been running this blog. It’s not much of an accomplishment, but it’s fun to look back. Sadly, a few months ago I had to move out of the house in Ballard, and was forced to abandon my awesome garden. Although truthfully, long hours at work, neglectful weekends, a nightshade incursion, and an army of insects got the better of me. And of course my trip to the Great Sand Dunes National Monument to hike… Was exhausting and exhilerating at the same time, it felt like visiting Mars!

Pushing to Create a Simulation Social Platform

Now, if you’ve read any of my previous work, I described back in 2012 my overview of how I would build the “perfect strategy game.” Or at least I described what the game mechanisms might look like. The “how” is actually a much more complex scenario, as I discovered in getting the /r/Simulate projects started. Aaron Santos created the MetaSim web API for use in our Github group, where the “WebHexPlanet” was our most impressive repository hosting the backbone of the API framework. (Inspired by the HexPlanet demo by Vicki Joel) Unfortunately, Heroku started charging $30 monthly to keep our demo running, so I had to pull it down for the time being while I find a cheaper hosting option.

After several months in early 2013 trying to keep up with the MetaSim project, I stopped trying to compensate for lack of webdev skills. I focused instead in characterizing the need to have a holistic simulation architecture. I pushed so deep into this research, that I had to split my post into two segments, the “State of the Simulated Universe” Part I and Part II. I really should refactor those posts into some type of PDF version with images instead of videos.

I really tried to encapsulate all the relevant technologies, which is a huge volume of subjects to try and fit into one post. To compensate for this, I experimented with creating a second website, rSimulate.com, which I might try to revive at a later time. Something about the theme and the format of the posts just doesn’t vibe right. I think if I can redesign it and get a more exciting top level domain for it, I could potentially make something with it. The goal was to make it more of a syndicated new source for all sorts of related projects in the simulation space.  Essentially a hobby/niche geek site like Ars Technica or Gawker Media, but focused on all things simulation.

Efforts Toward a Gaming Experience to Teach Science & History

In the summer of 2013, I spent a few weeks converting my old gaming rig into an Ubuntu server and then managing the development environment for my friends in the rSimulate group. We cloned the Asterank project in the hopes of integrating elements of it to function with WebGL planet viewer we had already started with WebHexPlanet. Of course this would require either migration of the native Python in Asterank into the pure JavaScript of WebHexPlanet.

The goal was to create some type of caveman to space colonization experience, like depicted in the Caveman2Cosmos mod for Civ4, but based on a new distributed web platform. The problem with C2C is mainly that the Civ4 engine isn’t multi-threaded and the turn system forces you to wait for a complete cycle before you can make strategic decisions. Especially in the late game, the slowdown time for turns is such that you might be waiting 3-5 minutes for a turn cycle to resolve. Also, the content overload almost detracts from the believability of the experience, and the engine itself is very poor at modeling cultural organizations prior to the invention of nationalism. Soon I will post a more comprehensive assessment of how to model societies for games in a more Guns, Germs & Steel approach.

However, while working on the Asterank modification, I came up with this concept for smaller title. It would focus merely on the the space colonization and building automated infrastructure with a distributed fuel network. It could utilize orbital planning like that depicted in Kerbal Space Program, but have an easier interface for planning automated trajectories. Rather than requiring expert piloting by the player, the system would instead create chooseable destinations based on a series of calculations involving the required energy, either potential or kinetic. You could then create game phase paradigms as follows:

• Detection Phase: Finding Near Earth Asteroids using the same methods currently in use with sources such as the SDSS. We would replicate this search using simulated images from Arkyd-class space telescopes. Players create detection rules using basic shapes and a small logical UI.
• Near Earth Capture Phase: This would simulate launch from the Earth of craft capable of rendezvous with near earth objects (NEOs) or the moon. Players would either start building lunar launch infrastructure, or else attempt to catch up with NEOs with probes to study or convert into liquid hydrogen fuel if possible.
• Infrastructure Production Phase: This phase would be after establishing a moon base, rerouting NEOs into lunar orbit, and possibly constructing a lunar space elevator. This phase would be the longest of the game, it would revolve around the transition from Earth’s gravity well into that of the sun. Building infrastructure across the solar system, colonizing Mars, Ceres, and creating large habitats in space, as well as a fuel transportation network.
• Victory Conditions: Players would continue to work on building infrastructure.
  • Science Win: Exploration of new places and experiments to detect life would increase science points. Hitting a certain threshold of points wins.
  • Colonization Win: Put as many people as you can into space colonies. First to hit some milestone, 10k or 100k, wins.
  • Interstellar Mission: One approach to win could be to harvest anti-matter from the Van Allen radiation belt or other belts near planets with a magnetic core. Mainly Jupiter. After acquiring enough fuel and building an “Ark” ship, the player embarks to Alpha Centauri or some exoplanet. Victory occurs from either an unmanned ship reaching Alpha Centauri or a colony ship of 1000 people leaves heliopause.

Now, I only spent a few weeks on this last summer before dire financial circumstances forced me to abandon everything. I never published outside of Reddit, I was too vested in figuring out the technology, and hadn’t shared the design concepts which I only had on a sketchpad. My recent employment situation might give me the ability to pursue this project. However, by posting the preliminary concept on here, I’m hoping to hedge the bet that someone might create this project at some time, and at least give a nod to me after the fact. The important thing is that eventually, a game like this exists to teach the orbital mechanics and space science in a creative way. Since the platform would be WebGL, such a project would have the reach of a social-casual game but gameplay more compelling than some desktop titles.

Fighting for a Technical Solution to Structural Poverty

Then, for Labor Day 2013, I wrote a statement called the Nucleus Proposal, which was an extension of the sentiments being debated in /r/Futurology, revolving around the looming specter of technological unemployment and the case for a basic income to supplement the transition to a labor-free society. Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) has been mentioned in that sub-reddit for about a year-to-date. Many people are proponents, some feel that the concept is over-discussed and is non-pertinent to the topic of Futurology. My stance is that if it’s a predictive post it is Futurology, if it merely describes UBI. So an if-then statement is futurology, as is any mention of a future date explicitly.

I of course support the notion, but am potentially biased. I have a desire to create educational simulations, but there is no interest in financially supporting the projects in question because the value in the technology behind them would be open source and not directly monetizable. Our society is focused on commercializing every object and interaction possible, not in promoting free information. Aaron Swartz and Edward Snowden are martyrs instead of heroes.

Being pro-establishment means you support moneyed interest in a fixed finance economy instead, rather than supporting the unpatriotic notion that ideas should be as free as the people that possess them. Cracked humorously declared this path into the future to be known as Forced Artificial Scarcity (FArtS). It’s supposed to be funny, but really it’s just sad. Just like the consensus among congress that climate change isn’t real. I sincerely hope that Neil deGrasse Tyson can evangelize trust in the process of science.

Now if you want to know what Nucleus was supposed to be, you should just read the proposal. The short overview however, is that it would be a mechanism for individuals to quickly find opportunities to contribute to projects, either open source or proprietary. A built in attribution model would allow for a marginal revenue percentage to be gifted to open source coders and artists with the most commits and the highest social karma.

The goal of the project was to envision a digital mechanism to continue technological progress after the labor market dies off from automation, and traditional wage-economics can no longer support public at large. The hope was to build an actor system like Palantir, but self-directed instead of built for mass surveillance. Plus it would be geared towards allowing people to self-employ at a massive scale and integrate new projects into the  broader utility of an iterative self improving simulation.

Of course, the project failed to start at all. I learned the hard way that too broad a scope, and too few volunteers, with no incentive to complete the project… Leads nowhere. The frustration was that we wanted to create something for a post-capital society, but didn’t have the capital or spare time to pursue the project on our own. Like it or not, our society will be a slave to money until the robot army of the bourgeoisie mows us all down with machine gun fire.

The Nucleus idea itself was created in September of 2013, at time during which browser applications were just starting to flourish across the web and responsive designs were just picking up. Now just 7 months later, Nucleus is just another small-minded idea to create a project management mega-app. Plus, now it seems like half the web is using responsive content and a richly authored content tool chain, it’s impossible to keep up. Our backend goal was that if we created common data definitions within a networked of federated API’s, you might have services which communicate to each other without a centralized application server.

You could then launch Nucleus nodes to manage individual projects, but if you choose to publish your work, you could have a visual representation of all the interacting projects that make up the web. I’m not sure how we’d visualize this, maybe a “map of the internet” that constantly updates. It might have functioned as an open source standard for communication business objects, contracted individuals, automated services, and other pre-defined web agents. The concept is what is referred to as the Distributed Autonomous Corporation. You don’t need management, you just need good ideas and willing people to manage the infrastructure and an avenue of automated income to anybody who contributes. It could be code, content, or marketing on social sites, any action with impact would generate a cascade of value distribution… Decentralized distribution based on rules of automata.

The Hidden Promise in Cryptocurrency

What I didn’t see coming until October was the rise and fall of Bitcoin and an explosion of alternate cryptocurrencies. However, I did posit in the Nucleus Proposal that a cryptocurrency, engineered to have the right parameters for determining supply and distribution, could function as a wealth optimization mechanism for increasing wealth based on democratically decided values (like energy efficiency) rather than the cryptic decisions by the board members of the Federal Reserve Bank. However, I’m not an economist, I won’t try to engineer a model that works, I just wanted to break the ice that an open source algorithmic approach might benefit parts of society that are currently overlooked.

Then, in December, something crazy happened. A Developer in Portland, OR and a marketeer from Sydney got together and created Dogecoin, a currency based on a meme. I made the joke, “Welcome to Meme-nomics, the Shibularity is Near!” Which was correct, Dogecoin exploded into the world, its value shot through the roof, long before the block chain reward halving even occurred. Which lead me to consider the idea, that a reputation economy could exist if every person had a cryptocurrency associated to their name.

It’s a very anarcho-capitalist idea, just let everyone have a currency, then convince other people to mine or buy your currency. The socialist-mutualist part is where the person being mined gets half of the reward of every block mined. It’s almost like a share in someone’s reputation, if you think someone has a lucrative career ahead of them, buy early, that person gets financial support in their early career when they need it most, and then later on you can sell that person’s reputation points for more than you initially put in. It’s not a micro-loan, it’s micro-investment for individuals with no stakes for person involved other than create cool things and find an audience to support them.

Anyway, that got shot down by my friend who knows the ins and outs of the SEC. Again though, I was trying to speculate on a way to create a form of labor-agnostic income that would benefit people just working on their own projects with a social support network behind them. However, I see projects springing up like Ethereum, Mastercoin, and Auroracoin, and I am hopeful that either a crypto-currency or a block-chain API stands a chance at patching the holes our congressional representatives are tearing into the fabric of our social support infrastructure.

A Modest Proposal

Now, rather than allowing all of our human capital to just rot away in their parents’ basements, or squander the next 20 years working entry level corporate service jobs without benefits… We could start a human rental service. To qualify, you must be under 40, capable of turning off any cognitive reasoning skills, and performing meaningless tasks bid to you by the angry baby-boomers who managed to acquire enough wealth to purchase a second home or some other large line of credit.

To participate in this venture, young people should report to the nearest medical processing center and forfeit any remaining financial assets to pay for the procedure. The process will be quick and simple. A device, inserted into the back of the skull, will connect to all the essential nerve bundles at the root of the brain stem. Now, rather than to use this tool to create a new universe of socially liberating new art-forms, instead it will allow for an unparalleled commercialization service. Body borrowing! Now, the sagging forms of top level executives will need to sag no longer!

For simple hourly fee, a sexually attractive body may be rented and worn about for the day. The youthful generation wasn’t doing anything important anyway! Now, what should we do with all of the bodies which aren’t currently employed by an approved funding agency or corporate municipality? Well let’s just keep them in a warehouse! We can administer a slow drip feed supply optimized to keep the bodies well nourished, and then have a state of the art exercise and production facility, where idle bodies can be put to work manufacturing merchandise to sell back to the network of the reasonable employed. It will be amazing! Think of the revenue! No one will be unemployed!

Alright, that was my terrible April Fools gamble. Hope it wasn’t too terrible! Thanks for reading!

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