[Pointrel-discuss] A technical need for cloud database design that flows out of a social design about scarcity?

[Paul D. F. <pdf...@ku...>]

Consider:

"GemStone Systems » We Solve the Hardest Problems - java caching, 
distributed caching and event processing"
   http://www.gemstone.com/hardest-problems
"In addition to these prior art approaches by Web 2.0 vendors, 
GemStone’s perspective on distributed system design is further 
illuminated by 25 years of experience with customers in the world of 
high finance. Here, in stark contrast to Web user-oriented applications, 
financial applications are highly transactional, automated, and 
consistency of data is paramount. Eventually consistent solutions are 
frequently not an option. Business rules do not permit relaxed 
consistency, so invariants like account trading balances must be 
enforced by strong transactional consistency semantics. In application 
terms, the cost of an apology[8] makes rollback too expensive, so many 
high-speed financial applications must limit workflow exposure 
traditionally by relying on OLTP systems with ACID guarantees."

This desire for all of Consistency, Availability, and Partionability 
(CAP) mentioned in the link (saying all real systems are tradeoffs 
between those), especially to manage financial data, perhaps flows out 
of a scarcity paradigm for our society? You can't just accept having a 
peer-to-peer gift economy in our dominant culture right now -- you need 
accurate accounting that relates to "ownership" of resources perceived 
as scarce.

Ironically, fiat dollars that are just blips in computer memory and 
could be arbitrary amounts -- fiat dollars are artificially scarce by 
design, and these systems built on abundant computing are being designed 
to enforce that artificial scarcity.

So, here we see a technical need for database architecture driven by a 
social paradigm of scarcity and "ownership" and a desire for a high 
degree of globe spanning control. So, here is a crossover between my 
thinking about the Pointrel system and notions of abundance.

See also:
   "The Mythology of Wealth"
   http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
====
The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies 
of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity.