Zemerge Project

It’s time I give a progress update with the latest developments with the Alpha Zemerge project since the last update several months ago. I have concentrated on several key areas of the project which include, getting the user interface concept in basic working condition, working on UML sequence diagrams that will plan the execution logic order of the simulation, and creating an input method that will describe the initial population and the wealth distribution.

User Interface

The current state of the UI is a basic concept of how the simulation will display the various elements. Currently the elements include houses, businesses, a bank, a government, and resources. The simulation is set to randomly transfer wealth between the house units and the businesses units to show how this process will look like. When the transfers are complete the house/business elements are resized accordingly to show the overall inequality difference.

Here you can find the input page and the simulation/flash page:

Alpha Zemerge Simulation

UML Sequence Diagrams

In order to get a grasp and plan for the logic on the simulation the best way is to create UML sequence diagrams that visually show the order of execution describing the actions taken on various elements at each step of the simulation from a high level approach. The following image describes the current state of the simulation which is very basic at this point and will continue to expand and evolve over time.

Initial Population Wealth Distribution

In order to start a simulation run the user will have the ability to set initial parameters of the simulation, there will be countless of parameters that will describe the state of the simulation. The first set of parameters I wanted to tackle is describing the inequality of the population, or household inequality. The best way describing inequality from a numerical value is using the gini coefficient. At first I wanted to have an input for population size and input of the gini coefficient, but this pursuit become more complex then I originally conceived. I ended up having the user have more control by having the ability to specify five quantiles of income and population size for each quantile. Household income was not the only thing describing household wealth, after all overall household wealth is the defining factor of household inequality. For current simplicity I added a factor value for wealth, so if a population quantile is making 60K a year and its wealth factor is of 5X then this population has the average overall wealth of 5 x 60 = 300K on average.

Here is the original sandbox area where the population creation can be tested out with:

Household Inequality Population Generator (Zemerge Project Sandbox Area)

Here is a graph representing the population of 1000 households with equal quantiles with income averages of 20K/40K/60K/80K/100K.

Here is the same population with wealth representations of income/wealth factors of 1X/2X/3X/4X/5X, notice the steep curves at each end with a small minority having great wealth and small minority with lots of debt, with playing out of different values all sorts of different scenarios can be generated.

More about income inequality in the United States can be found here.
Also, a list of indexes describing the income inequality of various countries around the world can be found here.

The next steps over the next while is to continue to expand the complexity of the simulation to have at least a basic working model of a small scale economy. Having the user the ability to play around with various parameters is the key, thus the input of the initial state of the simulation will also be expanded, users will have the ability to describe a state of population from a wide variety of different scenarios and then have the ability to play out the simulation to their desired execution rules and values – including scenarios that mirror The Venus Project concepts! As always I am open to suggestions, collaboration and feedback so please don’t be shy.

If you are not familiar to what the Alpha Zemerge project will be about please read the project proposition post. The project is coming along slowly with the front end presentation being developed. As discussed in the earlier post the project at first will visually display how wealth in our current monetary system paradigm gets transferred between parties and how wealth creation and inequality develops, and most importantly how unsustainable the whole setup in the long term.

Further specs of the project

One cycle of the simulation will last one second which will represent one hour in simulated time. Thus 24 seconds will represent a day, and 2.5hrs of simulated time will represent a year. If someone will be brave enough to run the simulation for about 11 days (and assuming the simulation doesn’t crash the flash environment) then they will simulate in retrospect a 100 years of economic activity giving an interesting long term outcome of the simulation.

The user interface (UI) will comprise of 8 elements which include:

• The households represented by icons of a home
• The employers represented by icons of a business building
• The bank represented by an official building with the label bank on it
• The government represented by an official building with the label government on it
• The physical resources represented by a series of crates
• An information section on the current status of the simulation
• Some sort of gauge of how the environment is doing, ie. if the background is more green it is healthier and if its more grey/brown it is in trouble.
• User input section where the user can alter simulation settings during the simulation

As the simulation will be running lines will be drawn between the home/employer/bank/government icons representing transfer of wealth, the thicker the lines the more transfer they will represent. All of these icons will shrink/grow according to the inequality developing from their starting conditions, thus if all the icons are the same size it could mean they are all wealthy or all poor since it is the inequality they are measuring. As employers produce products/services for the population they will be using resources, hence the resources icons and lines connecting them to the employers will represent an usage of resources. There will be various resources represented, ones which are renewable and ones which are not, for simplicity a set of dozen or so will be chosen with different parameters and used through out the simulation. The user will be able to set government and bank policies as well as population and employer behaviors to alter economic conditions through out the simulation.

Some of these settings currently in the works include:

• Government taxation
• Government public spending on services, infrastructure, health, education, security, etc.
• Government incentives
• Bank interest rates
• Bank wealth creation, loan, risk adverse settings
• Household spending habits
• Employer efficiency
• Employer employment rates
• Employer competition habits
• Employer advertising habits
• Investment rates
• Loans and debt rates
• Currency inflation
• Bankruptcy rates
• Corruption rates
• Infrastructure inefficiency
• Population wellness/satisfaction/approval rates
• Population pensions/unemployment/social security or public safety nets
• Discrimination/False ideologies rates that disturb and affect the model
• Demand and supply rates
• Natural and artificial disasters that affect the model
• Pollution and degradation of the environment effects

Screenshot of the latest UI can be seen here:

Stayed tuned for next monthly update on the project.

I’m happy to announce initial plans for the first interactive simulator to come out of the Zemerge Project. This simulator will be called Alpha Zemerge which will have the purpose to recreate our current economic system in a visually polished and interactive environment using adobe flash.

The simulator will represent a simplified closed monetary system comprising of the following elements:

• Multiple Households (the population)
• Multiple Employers (providing employment as well as goods and services to the population)
• Bank (financial facilitator based on the current fractional reserve fiat currency)
• Government (providing governance and social services)
• Physical Resources (the resources that this society consumes)
• Natural Environment (the life sustaining environment that the population lives in)

Extensive planning and research will be made to implement and model the simulation as close to the current policies and rules which govern our outdated monetary economic system paradigm, so why model the present and not the future? Because people need to be aware how our current system works from a bird’s eye perspective, they will be able to see how the flow of capital happens in real time through all the elements at work and how inequality develops, and most importantly how unsustainable this whole setup really is. The next step is adding extra interactivity for the user to be able to tweak the rules and values which govern this closed system. The user will eventually be able to choose mix and match the rules of their liking and witness the resulting simulation unfold before their eyes. Rules like changing government policies, changing banking practices, and how about getting rid of both all together and seeing how that unfolds!

This simulator will of course be an oversimplification of the real system at work – but that’s why its called Alpha Zemerge, the plan is over time this project will inspire multiple groups around the globe to recreate this concept and perpetually improve upon it.

Later phase of the project will be to take all the successful rules and values that correlated to higher sustainability and well being of the population and apply genetic algorithms to yield model optimality, this will truly be a milestone for the Zemerge Project and a great proof of concept for future endeavours!

If anyone wants to participate in planning, implementation, or even contributing to the graphics/art-work please contact me.
I also welcome any suggestions and feedback, stayed tuned for more specifics on the project and timelines.