Re: LETS, Ecology and Debt.

What is exponential about a falling object at its 
terminal velocity?
--------------------

Actually, drag is an example of exponential 
*negative* feedback.  The drag is proportional to the 
square of the falling object's velocity.  When first 
dropped, the object is accelerating toward the ground 
with the square of time.  But the drag is increasing 
with the square of the object's velocity.  The two 
curves converge at the terminal velocity which is 
constant not exponential.
--

The point the "debt virus" money cranks miss is that 
social systems are social systems, not physical 
systems obeying the physical laws of the universe.  
Social systems have their own rules.

Interest is a type of feedback but it is 
informational feedback from consumers that informs 
entrepreneurs, managers and financiers whether they 
have been successful in their attempt to satisfy 
consumer demand in the market.  Interest is merely 
the name given to that portion of profit shared with 
financiers.  In the ultimate sense that includes many 
of us through pension, insurance and mutual funds.  
The feedback is *positive* if your actions have 
increased your profit.  The feedback is *negative* if 
your actions have decreased your profit.  So in the 
informational feedback sense it can be either 
positive or negative.  Neither is inherently 
cascading.  You try to adapt your behavior with the 
intent to increase your profit.

So interest is not feedback in the sense that there 
is feedback in an electrical or electronic system.

But even there it isn't inherently exponential, as I 
have demonstrated.




[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bill Ryan) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> The first link is no confirmation that it is the same 
> person that wrote the nutty piece that you first 
> cited.  If he did it would be a black mark on what 
> would otherwise appear to be a distinguished career.
> 
> The second link merely refers to the "exponential 
> growth" in links to websites so is irrelevant to this 
> discussion.  Exponential means nothing more than 
> acceleration or deceleration in respect to time.
> 
> The third link profoundly concludes, "If an 
> organization is nurturing the positive feedbacks (and 
> neutralizing the limiting effects of balancing 
> feedbacks), it will see exponential growth."  So it 
> too is irrelevant to this discussion.
> 
> I cam only repeat, there is nothing inherently 
> exponential about positive feedback.  It depends on 
> how you use it and whether or not you intend for it 
> to be there and for what purpose.
> 
> What is exponential about the triode oscillator at 
> saturation?
> 
> What is exponential about the clock escapement which 
> feeds energy into the pendulum with each tick of the 
> clock?
> 
> What is exponential about a falling object at its 
> terminal velocity?
> 
> You can indeed construct positive feedback systems 
> that are accelerating exponentially.
> 
> You can also construct negative feedback systems that 
> are decelerating exponentially.
> 
> So what?  The point is there is nothing *inherently* 
> exponential about either.
> 
> <**>By obvious, I mean if you attended a scientific 
> meeting and said that positive feedback was not an 
> exponential formula, you would be like someone who 
> attended a mechanics meeting and stated that the 
> carburetor should be attached to the top of the 
> radiator.  The concept is that obvious.<**>
> -------------------
> 
> Obvious to a poorly read, uneducated crank.  Positive 
> feedback is not an exponential formula.  The 
> exponential formula is the exponential formula.  It 
> is meaningless when applied to something that is not 
> inherently exponential, like systems with positive 
> feedback that are not exponential or systems with 
> negative feedback that are not exponential.  It has 
> meaning when applied to something that is exponential 
> if that exponentiality is caused by positive feedback 
> or whatever else that is the cause of that 
> exponentiality.  Would you like me to demonstrate 
> systems with *negative* feedback that are exponential 
> due to the negative feedback?  I will do so in a 
> subsequent post.
> --
> 
> <**>Negative feedback can stop the positive feedback 
> from being exponential, so that the overall effect is 
> not exponential.<**>
> --------------------
> 
> Where is the negative feedback in the triode 
> oscillator?  There is only positive feedback.  Where 
> is the negative in the clock escapement?
> --
> 
> <**>For example, the exponential formula of compound 
> interest can be alleviated by bankruptcies, which 
> inject interest-free/debt-free money into the economy 
> (albeit in an unpleasant way).<**>
> --------------------
> 
> First, interest is not an example of positive 
> feedback, so the feedback argument in respect to 
> interest is irrelevant.
> 
> Second, every contract calling for the payment of 
> compound interest translates into a simple rate of 
> interest.  That translation is required in most 
> consumer contracts as a matter of law.  The two 
> numbers mean exactly the same thing as a matter of 
> pure mathematics and reflect in the same stream of 
> total payments, but the compounding number makes the 
> rate of interest seem deceptively low.  There is no 
> "dynamic" difference between the two.  It takes a 
> crank to see something that isn't there.  The term 
> "compounding interest" is rapidly becoming illegal as 
> a matter of law.  Its only value is to cranks like 
> yourself, or con men
> 
> Third, bankruptcy injects nothing into the economy.



[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Crash) wrote in message
 news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...