T4P Caravan

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conjured from Hilbert Space

Institutional Wealth

Let's start our GST analysis with the economics of an individual.  

Are babies born into property?  I'm thinking they'd have to reach their majority before their inheritance kicked in.  Some call it law, others call it anthropology (me more in the latter camp).  Some babies show up inside wealthy families and are slated to own the farm, if lucky enough live that long.

OK, but to what extent does a civilization provide high living standards to its hobos and vagabonds?  The question is designed to give one pause, as, given stereotypes, the nomad has a hard life, that of a drifter. Nomadic tribes, such as gypsies, show up in fairy tales as shunned.  Rock bands, with their roadies, like traveling circuses and carnivals, are sometimes romanticized, but just as often derided by the genres. 

What I'm suggesting, however, is that the lifestyle of the wandering pilgrim could be a new normal. Not owning much property could become a satisfactory option for many. 

The issue now though is that, if you drift, you'll probably have no mailing address for snail mail and probably can't interest a local bank in your business, or subscribe to healthcare programs. A smartphone and/or a laptop are not enough, to plug in to most infrastructure.  Even if you have a room at the Hilton.  

You'll be on a tourist visa or maybe a student visa.  Somewhere, there needs to be a home where you're rooted.  That's the expectation.  But need it be?  Snail mail could be delivered to your box through hotel services.

There's no reason in principle that an individual would have to own a lot of stuff, in order to get around, staying groomed and clean, well dressed and well fed, attending meetings, classes, sometimes teaching or instructing, other times learning or taking instruction.  

Life in a global university need not entail amassing a garage full of stuff, shelves full of books, knickknacks and souvenirs.  Or even if such cubby holes do exist, filled with items of personal value, their contents are appropriately storable and/or recyclable.

A fallacy associated with such speculations is the knee-jerk fear that a proposal is being floated that "everyone would have to live this way".  The alarm goes out, warning that "private property" has been targeted for abolition.

Clearly, some lifestyles are all about serving in custodial capacities, vs-a-vs specific buildings, ships, other infrastructure.  That's one kind of ownership, connected with stewardship.  Mostly though, "owning" implies "an ability to sell". Yet many properties have value-adding capabilities unrelated to their salability or transferability.

In suggesting a life without title to real estate, need not be a life bereft of entitlements, we're simply stating the obvious:  that having one's health and freedom, along with the means to stay out of harm's way, is in principle sufficiently satisfying to many people.  

Consider those in religious orders who feel welcome to partake of the order's shared assets and facilities.  

Are such people living in poverty necessarily?  

Of course not, although their wealth might be more institutional than personal, one might say.

But is the mere existence of such a lifestyle option a threat to those enjoying home ownership?  The implication oft seems to be those of high net worth, as conventionally accounted, are inevitably subsidizing those "of no means" (again, as conventionally assessed).  

But we're saying a global student-teacher nomad could have work-study access privileges vs-a-vs luxurious apartments and/or rustic situations without any specific ownership relationship to these programs and/or  accommodations.

How might we crew a business mobile, an exploratory vehicle for the Trucker Exchange (T4P), without having extravagant wealth?  

The vehicle is an institutional property, one in a fleet, and is enjoyed and operated by its crew without being owned by it.  

Some crew members might be holders of properties, here and there in the world.  Others might not be engaged in those language games, and yet they still have access to healthcare.

T4P Studies

I'm reminded of my road trips in Bhutan.  T4P or Truckers for Peace is about giving people in trucking more opportunities to share gigs and learn about different cultures for credit.

First Person: From the Fleet

I sometimes watch first person chronicles shared by truck drivers.  Part of my T4P work, and of course anticipating more Bizmo action.

Notes from Bizmo World

Wow, they're not kidding at Steemit, when they say keep track of your own damn password. A lotta geeks dismiss that one, knowing reset with verification is a possibility, meaning you can just reset the password once you have the victim's cell phone.  Not so with this blockchainer.  You don't have the password in memory, which is too long to remember, and you don't get to reset it if you forget it.  You'll never access your account again, another waste of a great moniker.

I was pdx4d.  They generate the passwords for you.  They look like bitcoin addresses.  You're getting warmer.  I did find where I'd backed up the Steemit address, having followed protocol.

Steemit is but one of many social media the next geek generation has cooked up.  You weren't expecting the world to stop with Facebook were you?

I'm using Facebook, as it's not either/or, but as a columnist in Bizmo World, I'm expected to keep pushing to a next horizon.  Have you signed on to Meat yet?  Just kidding.

Lets make it real here and talk about malls.  Sears Discount is suffering from low attendance, another reason to go in, great customer service.  They had their two models of microwave ovens at really low prices, but with a Walmart right next door (next store), that wasn't saying much.

I came in like a robot, checked the LG, had my measuring tape, ended up with the Oster, about the same price but more swoopy or something.  Walmart had some other things I needed.  Then Fubonn, the Asian supermarket complex.  More ramen.  Kimchi.  Couldn't find the soy sauce, will solve it next time.

Portland's 82nd Avenue, an Oregon State road, is our homage to freeway gentrification everywhere, except it's not the freeway, but the business route running north-south parallel to I-205, itself the business route branch-off of I-5, that goes through the center, branching to I-405 to the super-center.

By "freeway gentrification" I mean the strip mall culture of one-story restaurant franchises and assortment of big and little box stores, supplied by truck, the premier vehicle of the I-net, from a layer of warehouses around any hub city, especially those with ports.  Portland has humble freight traffic, and that keeps us connected in a global economy.

You may be wondering what bizmo rig I'm driving through all these parking lots and you'd be right to be wondering, since a bizmo log or chronicle typically features such a vehicle, with its quirks and problems.

Instead, I'm in a four-door Nissan from the late 1900s.  Long time readers of these blogs may remember Razz, a Subaru, and Robin Blue even before that.  Cars get proper names much as we give variable names to other features in a program, including actors, agents, whatever observables.  Mars has a name.

The archetypal bizmo shimmers in the archetypal landscape, between the lines, as we're still busy constructing the lifestyle.  T4P only came along recently.  For now, I'm just blending in as one more noodle lover.  The Oster is working great, and sensed by itself when the baked potato had released sufficient humidity.  There's some real science going on in that appliance.  No Instapot yet, thinking about it.

Fubonn is on 82nd, like the two Walmarts I saw (the one I went into is further south, in Clackamas, whereas the second came after the Entering Portland sign, me coming north).  I go there more often, as it's closer and Walmart - Amazon might be my online supplier of delivered goods, where I'm not the one in the fossil fuel business.

Speaking of which, I have a work sponsor ready to heat more of my building so we've got a truck on the way on Monday.  I'm not a new customer, having been at my current location since 1995 or thereabouts.  Newly married with child.  We used to call Montag but their customer list was acquired by another company.

The microwave just decided to blow one day, kinda like mom's knee (though the latter had more of an excuse). The Magic Chef gave up the magic, after over a decade of service I'm reckoning.  My range is a Magic Chef too, avocado green like from the 1960s, came with the house. 

The antique stove fits with my overall decor, which is likewise vintage, lots of vinyl paneling.  We had the wood paneling in the living room removed, along with the shag rug.  Pine floors.  Looks like a ski lodge where the wood takes some punishment.

A skilled repair person could likely have identified a fried wire in the Costco-bought Magic Chef and made it good as new.  Our consumer culture encourages us to replace, not repair, these small appliances, though there's more of an aftermarket for the bigger ones, like washers and dryers.

I'm not the expert.  I'm the consumer, and some consuming I did.  Thanks to my knowing how to teach Python, I'm able to afford a building with replaceable and irreplaceable gadgets and doodads.  Python and Martian Math as a combo.  That's another popular dish.  We're like a food cart, in a town of food pods (lots of competition).

Bizmos Meet T4P

Some of you may have realized that a fleet of bizmos (business mobiles) and a fleet of trucks, might serve in complementary capacities.  The bizmos need to pave the way for our citizen diplomats by visiting truck stops and talking up the program.

Soon:  drivers and their apprentices will be coming through here, from faraway lands.  Some will be homesick.  We're not trying to make them suffer unnecessarily.  Perhaps we have movies in their native language?

Remember, the standard bizmo comes with an ability to download an image from the cloud, your image, such that, as a driver or crew, you get to pick up where you left off, with customization.  Your favorite music, language tapes, even screen savers, are all on tap.  A lot of trucks work the same way.

Sometimes we'll be using bizmos to transport drivers from one route to another.  You've finished your segment from that Chinese city to Pakistan.  Now we'll let your relax and talk with others while we take you to a next assignment.  Yes, like a taxi, but sometimes we need more bells and whistles.

As a bizmo fleet training supervisor, I might help orient new crews to their vehicles, in the process of sketching the program.  We could train up and down I-5, or I-95, before sending more seasoned crews to more challenging assignments in Asia or Africa.  Likewise, we're receiving drivers from those faraway locations and want to show them the lay of the land.

Orientation is the name of the game in a lot of contexts.  Do that right, and you have happy campers, up to the challenge.  Skip that step, or do it incorrectly, and you're inviting a lot of frustration, on the part of the insufficiently oriented.

I've enjoyed committing to the "boot track" for this program i.e. crafting some blueprints.

T4P == Truckers for Peace.  You can read more about that in my blogs and on Medium.  Or visit a truck stop near you.  Look for us.