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the joules project

massive wiki style contributor database for describing energy costs of ALL human activities
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industrial chemical commercial mining agricultural transportation. etc.... making products, brining them to market making houses having a police man DO a specific task

a huge database of the specific estimates of the amount of energy used for a generic process and for specific instances ( companies) own report on their own energy inputs into the outputted finished products.

the concept might be thought 'irrelevant' to many people because the money price for goods and services provides a distilled statistic providing the information above.

but this is NOT the case. money is a very imperfect measure of the actual energy used to make something happen.

frequently the biggest problem with money is simply the many people that need to be bribed or 'paid off' through one purposeless tax or another to make something happen .

now , im not saying the joules project would be a perfect description of the world. there are of course many intangibles that are worth the price we pay for them that cannot be counted in joules, because they represent behavioral stop- gaps of societal game theory. for example the monetary cost of 'law and order' allows for many other things to happen in society, and thus a not so easy or meaningful energy estimate is not a sign that these efforts are not worth the costs.

the goal of the project would be to find energetic arbitrage by way of subsittution of behaviors from high energy to low energy given a same or acceptably similar outcome.

of course, there might even be some bonus results where extremely wasteful energetic projects can be identified and eliminated by substituting something else, or simply shutting it down.

teslaberry, Apr 07 2014

positional goods http://www.economis...oods-coach-edition/
[pertinax, Apr 08 2014]

[link]






       Does not free will allow us to joule anything our heart desires even purely inefficient things? It would be nice to know if my joules used when driving is below, equivalent or above the average, although data measurement would need to loose a few factor dimensions to get any sensible data .
wjt, Apr 07 2014
  

       An engineer friend of mine once proposed a thermodynamic model of economics, but I don't think he persuaded anyone to take it up.   

       I suspect that much of the price information which is poorly correlated with energy cost is related to "positional goods", and I suspect that positional goods become a more prominent feature of the world economy as the planet becomes more crowded.
pertinax, Apr 08 2014
  

       How would you fact check this when it comes to industrial and commercial secrets? Say it takes my factory 5 joules to make a jellybean, but my competitor reports 10. I might just be tempted to report 10 joules as well, so I don't inadvertently divulge that I have a much more efficient process.   

       //man DO a specific task//   

       So your shift key does function!!
the porpoise, Apr 08 2014
  

       I read only the first sentence. Sorry.   

       But if you want to open a WIKI, just open one. MediaWiki lets you open a free wiki on ANY subject. Its the simplest thing in the world to do.   

       (I have one on the Hebrew language and the evolution of human language and writing)
pashute, Apr 08 2014
  

       I read only the first sentence. Sorry.   

       But if you want to open a WIKI, just open one. MediaWiki lets you open a free wiki on ANY subject. Its the simplest thing in the world to do.   

       (I have one on the Hebrew language and the evolution of human language and writing)
pashute, Apr 08 2014
  

       i think people are misunderstanding my intent. it is simple, pachute.   

       positional goods, amongst other obvious realities of the human condition including love, greed fear , inability to cooperate, loyalty, religion, gluttony   

       etc....   

       these are the things that determine prices. not thermodynamics. not joules.   

       i'm just interested in the joules aspect for the b2b implications. as a way of finding unwitting 'substitute' services and goods that could be used to switch in a 'pinch' in case of emergency or other unusual circumstance.
teslaberry, Apr 08 2014
  

       Um, you're the one who said you wanted to compile a joule catalog for "ALL human activities".   

       You want joule users and joule producers to do this voluntarily, so you can shop in a joule-cognizant manner, aka, wouldn't it be nice if....
the porpoise, Apr 08 2014
  

       //i think people are misunderstanding my intent. it is simple, pachute. //   

       There are many smart people here (and I do not include myself in that number, modest soul that I am). If everyone has misunderhended you, it indicates that the idea needs explaining better.   

       Many people here also get irritated by people just dumping their ideas out directly into "Other: [general]" - it's a bit like visiting someone's house and leaving stuff lying around for the host to pick up. Just saying.
MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 08 2014
  

       //        I read only the first sentence. Sorry.    //   

       I don't think you should be sorry at all, [pash]. In fact, you should be proud of yourself for getting all the way through it. It's a long slog before you get to the first correctly used period, down there at the end of the second paragraph.
Alterother, Apr 08 2014
  

       Just read. Please lay off the family joules!
FamilyJoules, Mar 20 2015
  

       Well, at least it's in other:general.
normzone, Mar 20 2015
  
      
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