Run your own business?

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That could actually be a big advantage for you, if your interests are perceived to be of value by a sufficient number of people. (By "sufficient number of people," I mean enough people to make for an economically viable business.) I think many entrepreneurs fit into this category. I once did, though over time I've become somewhat better at and comfortable with the marketing and managing parts as well. (I still don't like them as much... but I can do them when needed.)

If you don't mind my asking, what is your area of interest?

That's the sixty four thousand dollar question. Or in my case, the hundred trillion dollar question. The stakes really are that high, and that's why I find it hard to concentrate on anything else. The problem is that the topic is so big, so revolutionary, that it is hard for anyone to tell the difference between me and a raving lunatic.

My gut feeling is that I should just work on it constantly, even if it means I have to clean toilets for a living (I've done that before). Because if there is even a thousandth of one percent chance that I am right, then it would be madness to do anything else.



Thanks for asking! I would happily talk about it constantly.

In a nutshell, it is land rent as a replacement for taxation.

This is not my idea: Adam Smith taught it, Winston Churchill campaigned for it, and it is supported by everyone from Mark Twain to Henry Ford and more Nobel prize winning economists than you can shake a stick at. But land owners don't like it so it never happens. My contribution is to show why even land owners will profit from it, and also to show that the idea is much more powerful than any of it supporters realize. This is because it has implications for our relationship with government, resulting in better government, which benefits everything.

The bones of the theory are explained on my web site:
http://answersanswers.com
The site still needs work. I will work on it some more tomorrow.

I called this a hundred trillion dollar idea because the idea, if presented properly, is inevitable, so it will eventually spread round the world: it begins as simply a more efficient way to make money. (The basic concept is that taxing work makes marginal work unprofitable: by taxing an inelastic resource like land, more work is profitable, so more work is done, both ending unemployment and increasing efficiency at every level.)

As the idea spreads round the world it will increase the size of the global economy by at least ten percent (actually far more, due to compound growth). After a few years the profit from the idea is measured in the hundreds of trillions of dollars and keeps growing.

But how to get the money to eat while I carry on my research? It's not the sort of thing you put on Kickstarter: "Needed: $5000. Potential profit: $100,000,000,000,000. Not sure how to collect the money though."

If I can develop this idea into a form that political think tanks can use, then I have a job for life. But it's such a big idea that simply describing it makes me sound like a madman. Everything about the land rent principle goes against what people are used to. Even the words have been devalued: "rent" has come to mean unearned wealth, and "land tax" has come to include tax on buildings. Meanwhile "land values" are ridiculously undervalued in order to hide the gains made by landowners. The whole system is an illogical mess from top to bottom. Why? Partly because nobody has ever worked out an economic theory from first principles (i.e. from metaphysics), so economics is literally built on logical fallacies (such as appeal to tradition, appeal to the majority, appeal to authority, etc.). But mainly because every day, politicians says "yes, economically X is better but we could never get it past voting group Y". All of these bad decisions multiply over the centuries to make the unholy tangled mess we have now. I am asking people to forget all their assumptions, all their definitions, and go back to the basic abstract stories described by Adam Smith.

How does one share a concept when the language of economics is corrupted and every entrenched position pushed the opposite way? How does one monetize a multi trillion dollar idea that does not sell anything? I welcome suggestions. I don't see any way that I can convince people until I put in years of extra work on presentation, and in the meantime I must eat.

In general I find it best not to bring it up. People will know your are different by being around but they will just assume you are just different like a social disaster genius type. But if you bring into the mix a "mental syndrome" then people get the wrong idea because they often as not just do not understand. I find people begin treating me like I am stupid if they find out about aspergers. I rather be seen as the socially inept geek as it works more in my favor.

Interesting idea that I mostly agree with. Such change will be almost impossible to implement because of the loss aversion bias from everyone involved. The part I don't understand is how you personally can make a living with this idea - unless you're somehow going to write a best selling book.

Yes, that is the greatest challenge, and why all previous attempts have failed. I have three tasks:
1. Show a strategy whereby every person benefits at every point.
2. Make it simple enough for sound bytes.
3. Make it watertight in every possible circumstance.
Yeah, that's all.
This is where it gets frustrating: these steps should not be necessary. The bottom line is not in doubt: greater compound growth, year on year, means that no matter the cost, every opponent can be bought off, either sooner or later. How we do that is merely details. But the devil is in those details.



Me neither. I think the only way I would profit out of it is by publicity and good will: if enough people take the idea seriously then they are more likely to buy my other work. E.g. "buy this cheap product and save the world."

I have the exact same problem. I'd love to start a software start-up (ie. a business that sells a product, as opposed to consulting), but I'm notoriously bad at determining what will sell and what won't. Eg. I just can't get why Twitter is as popular as it is, but I thought Google Wave was awesome and would really take off.

For someone who doesn't like communicating, I'd say that was very well explained.

I guess the devil is in the detail, but as a concise summary that sells the idea as a whole, I really like it.

Certainly as a Director myself, I'd say one of the biggest disincentives against running a business is the seemingly deliberate complexity of the various taxation systems, and the lack of synergy between them. Anything that simplifies the system whilst still bringing in the same revenue, and without disadvataging anyone, has got to be a good thing.

I suggest the biggest reason this concept isn't adopted is actually resistance from the civil servants who gain permanent employment from the complexities of the present system, and who also carry out much of the policy creation for the politicians who are theoretically in charge of them on our behalf. If politicans are only given a limited set of choices by civil service advisors, all geared around making or retaining civil service jobs, that's your problem right there. There IS an important, decision-making group who WOULD be disadvantaged by any such change.

It's much like inefficient companies who try to streamline by introducing efficiency drives at middle management level. The one defining feature of such schemes is that while many things are changed or cut, the number of middle managers hardly ever decreases. Funny, that.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmOvEwtDycs&feature=relmfu[/youtube]

Excellent point. This is why I like economics so much: incentives explain everything. And you have pointed out an important area I have neglected. Thanks.

Most new businesses fail.

It's hard to be respected if you work from home. Try pitching to major companies if you don't have a "real" office-- most laugh you off.

It's a bad economy with tons of freelancers out there.

Pricing is important.

Portfolios are even more important.

Networking, connections, and marketing are vital.

Customers won't just show up (usually). You'll have to have connections, meet people, make presentations, do proposals, and attend all sorts of networking events. Even then, you end up doing a lot of work for free to try to lure potential customers who may or may not hire you.

Freelancing and self-employment is a tough field.

Oh, and look into the tax and liability considerations upfront.

Large clients tend to prefer "Company, LLC" instead of "Your name."

Have you considered talking to some games developers?

MMORPG's have to spend a fair amount of time trying to run a balanced economy, many employ economists to do just that and some of them have enough participants that they would be classed a small countries in real life, World of Warcraft has 10 million subscribers and there are loads with 100,000+, sufficient numbers to play economics with at least.



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Ideally, you should partner up with someone who can do the sales and marketing bit for you. I've read all 3 pages of this thread and I have very little information about what exactly it is you do. From what I gathered, you can take a game from idea to finished product by yourself, which screams either "lead designer" or one of the people that come from the outside to check up on the progress being made in a game design situation.