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replied 478d
Gold standard is already hammered out of existence by the LBMA mafia.
This is a fundamental flaw in commodity standards - they get owned by the richest psychopaths.
replied 478d
Are you saying direct gold ownership is broken? I suppose writing notes based on gold is a messy business, I can write an infinite number of notes based on the same piece of gold.
replied 477d
Yes - and people do double-sell, but not too often.
Paper currencies written on gold already exist in places around the world.
with serious credibility issues. And always Mafia owned.
replied 477d
I just find that gold still is tangible. The "work for 1 hour" seems even easier to twist and turn into something it is not. For gold I should be able to demand to have my gold.
replied 477d
Yes - tangible goods command premium price.
Which how I came to this.
Originally I thought we could do it with crypto but crypto can be problematic.
Goods in hand are demonstrable.
replied 476d
Btw, there are of course people who have discussed ideas along similar lines before. Info can be found in philosophy of Counter-Economics and Agorism (both have dedicated Memo topics).
replied 476d
Thanks for the idea.
I searched long and hard over the years but such discussions I never found.
Another round is in order.
replied 475d
Maybe I shouldn't have said that though. All I know is that there are these communities, and they "probably have thought of similar things, maybe not". I don't even believe Agorism...
replied 475d
works well in the real world (except perhaps in very small communities). If it doesn't, the ones pushing it cannot be perfect philosophers, and may send you down a wrong track.
replied 475d
I specialize in discovering all the ways of being wrong at least once a day,
according to family. 😉
replied 477d
And the idea of a "1 hour" voucher is still an "in hand" Value which can be negotiated.
There can be a lot of wiggle room for both parties when negotiating for a "1 hour" Value.
replied 477d
And in theory the gold is in the vault, they cannot say "it's temporarily gone". Work for one hour? "No, this is a busy time for me, and I'm injured, come back next week".
replied 477d
And in the space of a few minutes their credibility is gone,
and thereafter,
the only people who will trade with them will require goods up front..
The cost of credibility is brutal.
replied 477d
Well, yes, though it could be that they are actually injured, and actually have a crazy week where they are pushed so hard that their extra work would be useless. But only that week.
replied 477d
Hopefully the free market can smell the difference between an circumstance and habit.
There are rough edges that cannot be dealt with by rule-making but will involve learning-curves.
replied 477d
The point is not "this guy is reliable/unreliable", it is "this note is unreliable". It could also be that this week is the time that noteholder actually needs some work done.
replied 476d
... in which case the issuer will negotiate for equivalent trade for that Value.
The concept is about trading negotiated Values rather than bartering for a specific item or service.
replied 475d
So a peasant from quite far away is in town to sell his cow. It is worth ~100 hours of work. The buyer has 25 notes of 1 hour work, 1 promise of a painting, 15 goat pelts, ... .
replied 475d
Each hour work note is from a distinct person. The peasant must then go to each of them, and find out what kind of work they can do, negotiate some other compensation, all the while
replied 475d
having to know what all these things are worth, and how good quality goods he can get from this particular note-promise-giver. Then he has to calculate the overall value.
replied 475d
I originally thought to peg Value to cryptocurrency,
but if the internet goes away that possibility vanishes.
The lowest common denominator available to anyone anywhere is Time.
replied 475d
And the lowest common denominator of Time is attendance.
That is, not performing work of any sort but simply escorting people for a period of time.
That can be an asset of some Value.
replied 475d
In the same way the market discovers a Value on the price of anything,
populations can be expected to 'discover' a Value on attendance.
This would be exciting fun to observe.
replied 474d
What I think you don't get is that something like gold, which cannot reasonably be considered to lose value, and has real value, is ideal. This is a very useful property for money.
replied 474d
I have for years understood that.
It is ideal until people need food, fuel, and shelter.
When a loaf of bread, pack of tobacco, and bottle of whiskey is worth more than a gram of gold.
replied 474d
Yea, but it *still works as a measuring rod*. If you need to pay a bar of gold for a loaf of bread, fine, then maybe 2 bars for really good bread. *Now we know the difference in cost*.
replied 474d
Most other things, like attendance-time has a very flimsy value. Does a baby have the attendance value as a reliable, skilled worker? Of course not, baby can have negative such value.
replied 474d
So now you have the problem of deciding the attendance-time value of each person, cause it really does vary. Very useful people do have higher attendance value than slobs.
replied 474d
Very useful people do not barter their own time - they prefer to barter other people's time.
replied 474d
Such things btw has been tried in history. If you tie value to i.e. potatoes, then people will start growing potatoes that are barely edible, cause they are cheaper to grow.
replied 474d
"Such things btw has been tried in history." ...by predators running government scams.
It is a also a tradition with some religious communities, but it fails within cults.
replied 474d
I.e. it sets the wrong incentives. Same with man attendance. Also, if you do find such a standard, it would still be best to just use that standard. I.e. if Gold is chosen, then...
replied 474d
normally you use either gold directly or promises for gold. Not man-hours and the like, because then people need to calculate the difference, know the exchange rate and so on.
replied 474d
For man-hours, I would have to know the reliability of each worker in order to decide gold exchange-rate. It's better to call those "contracts", and have trained economists trade them
replied 474d
For man-hours, anyone would already know the credibility of whoever inked the note.
It has zero relevance to the issuers muscle or skill or time. It is all about his credibility.
replied 474d
OK, I think this is the time for me to stop. I find the problems I bring up to make your setup into a mess, one which I would not like, and you don't seem to care. I suppose I should
replied 474d
kind of take your advice here, and judge the credibility of something based on experience. I judge your payment-system not to be credible based on our conversation.
replied 473d
Thank you for your critique
replied 473d
Usually what I am told is "Why are you always so negative?". This is definitely an improvement. :)
replied 474d
... if you still feel the need to have them as an option for "payment". I.e. normal people will then not have to speculate on such values, but those who want to can.
replied 475d
I mean, some of them may be away when he visits or whatever, this can take a lot of time to sort out. Compare that with getting a stack of cash in his hand, and being on his way home.
replied 475d
Those notes are exactly that - a "a stack of cash in hand" when they are from individuals who have proven themselves with a previous history.
There will be lists of names to trust.
replied 477d
Gold in a vault, it must be there at all times, or that should be the demand from the public. There should not be a "the gold does not feel good" day. However, now I think about it...
replied 477d
Thieves can steal from the vault, it is not 100% impenetrable. Vault-owners may seek to maintain the "illusion" it is by replacing the gold, but gold may not be there some days.
replied 476d
This is why notes are signed by individuals and not in the name of "entities".
Business Entities are the disguises that malevolents use to prey upon individuals.
replied 475d
Hm, I was thinking more along the lines of "illusion in a good way", as in thieves stole the gold of a customer, let's replace it for him, cause it was our fault it got lost.
replied 475d
You are quite right that the trust that this helps building will be abused sooner or later, but my point was more that at least short term, "gold" is more reliable than "workhours"
replied 475d
One ounce of gold of purity x replaces another similar ounce, and when you got it in your hand you got it in your hand. Workhours depends a lot on who works, and so on.
replied 475d
I mentioned earlier, an "1 Hour" voucher will probably evolve to not be a work hour.
It is just intended to be a valuation of someone being present.
This has another usage: security.
replied 477d
I have to think a bit more about this, but still it seems to me "gold not stolen from vault" is far more reliable than "human being being able to do work of type x" both at given time.
replied 476d
Understand that the Value staked is never actually redeemed except in default.
Issuers would redeem the voucher for some equivalent to "1 hour" job.
They may prefer to give gold, or ?
replied 478d
In theory a bank could make sure this does not happen, and its reputation would be reason to trust it (more so than that of one person), but this too only works temporarily as we know.
replied 477d
My idea is for everyone to replace banks with their own offerings.
No more banks. just honest folk with their own "promissory note currencies".
Banksters may be scarce when 2024 ends.
replied 477d
There are many reasons to not want to be your own bank. And for not wanting a "promissory note" currency. I struggle to see the masses wanting this enough to overcome such things.
replied 477d
I sincerely hope it never comes to that.
Unfortunately,
collision between hope and current reality trajectories would involve kinetic energies
sufficiently powerful to erase doubts.
replied 477d
Yea, we will definitely have to see what happens. Barter is better than nothing, that's for sure. Your system may enhance barter a bit.