We can’t ignore groups’ systems which systematically and coercively deprive other groups of the opportunity to devise their own systems.
Slavery, for example, is a type of system devised by a group that prevents members of enslaved groups from devising their own systems.
That problem of groups devising systems to coerce other groups is the problem you’re proposing to solve.
I said that the solution to coercion is systems which are devised by and work for the participants. It is not at all clear to me how strictly voluntary participation leads to coercion. If it does, then people are doing it wrong.
Nobody is ever prevented from devising their own systems. There are risks inherent in using any system - even if it is voluntary. Unfortunately, people who are being coerced need to do some risk assessment and choose. But a party who unjustly subjects one to dire consequences for acting outside of its system is in no way preventing. Prevention occurs prior to a potential action, whereas consequences are after. Prevention would be an act of self-censorship, rather than oppression. Another problem is that conceding to oppressors for one’s hopes of safety actively strengthens them. Compliance equals actively investing in injustice.
The alternative is that of having no formal basis for social interaction, which could result most likely in stultified, atomized, solipsistic existence. If you have no social systems, some will be forced upon you. There is your coercion. It doesn’t need to be money or commerce, but it needs to be something.
Yes, too often that’s what happens.
I totally subscribe to your newsletter, but the problem with your ideas is that you seem to assume an average intelligence that’s about two standard deviations above the actual norm.
The greatest difficulty in enacting justice is in making a mob of idiots somehow see sense.
Where’s the solidarity?
I don’t think the problem is that our friends and neighbors aren’t smart. I think their circumstances make them risk averse and dependent … just like us.
And if I end up convincing even one other person to trust me enough to accept my advice, then I need to deliver for them. Otherwise, it’s better they don’t listen to me.
Speaking as an ex-scientist: no it ain’t.
Smart does not imply ethical.
To expand slightly, on the theme of “smart and ethical are orthogonal”.
In ethics, intelligence can lead you in two sharply contrasting directions:
“I want to live in a world that isn’t dominated by arseholes; therefore, the obvious first step is don’t be an arsehole.”
“My observation of the world reinforces the truth of the good guys come last meme. Therefore, altruism is a game for suckers.”
We could invalidate all of the dollars effective immediately and replace them with something else, call them foggles, and it wouldn’t matter beyond a generation or two. We’d just end up with 0.1% in control of most of the foggles. This will be a problem as long as we treat abundant resources as though they were still scarce, and use that to oppress people under the one-sided belief that they owe a debt to society but society owes them nothing. We have to change our attitudes, which may be a lot more difficult than changing a symbolic system.
No, it is not. Money is simply a way of abstracting barter. It represents something you have that other people might want, be it a physical object, or the application of your skills to a task, or just a period of your manual labor.
Imagine you have grown a whole plantation of bananas. You can’t live on bananas alone, so you have to trade some to the dairy and the goatherd and the baker and the brewer, in order to feed yourself. You have to trade them to the company that made your solar panels and the companies that built your computer components. And that’s assuming all those entities want bananas at the same time you have them ripe for trade.
If you need some plumbing done and all you have to exchange is bananas and the plumber doesn’t want any bananas, then you have to find someone who has something he does want – let’s say suspenders – who also wants bananas, trade your bananas for her suspenders, then trade those suspenders for the plumbing work. That’s just two degrees of barter. How are you supposed to tend to your banana plantation when all your time is spent navigating these labyrinthine networks of trade? And how would you even begin to barter with collectives and corporations? You can see how it gets ridiculous in a hurry, like immediately.
As much as cash does get fetishized, the concept itself isn’t based on some shared tulip madness delusion. Money’s value doesn’t come from everyone irrationally lusting after pieces of paper printed with engravings of deceased eminences, it comes from a common agreement that a particular currency serves as a portable, fungible, abstract representation of value. Until we reach the post-scarcity free energy epoch, that’s the best we can do.
All of the above is true. And it’s plenty complicated already,
Now, add to the equation the fact that many of the players in this market are not honest brokers, and would happily scam the world if it provided them with short-term profits.
I believe the proper term, albeit somewhat archaic and obscure, would be the “1 per mille”, meaning one in a thousand. “Per mille” is represented by the ‰ sign (or ‰).
Smart may not be a sufficient condition, but it’s necessary, to even give a shit about such matters. Popo broadcasts on a wavelength few can grok, but his ideas rely on a certain critical mass of sympathisers.
I believe the proper term, albeit somewhat archaic and obscure, would be the “1 per mille”, meaning one in a thousand.
Thanks, but again, not as catchy and thus not as effective as the One Percent.
Is there any way to make money nonlinear? So that the more you have the less each piece is worth? A probably bad analogy (but the only one I can think of) is a progressive income tax. I imagine there are a lot of things wrong with this idea.
It’s already that way. If you’re broke, two bucks is the difference between a dinner from McDonald’s Dollar Menu and going to bed hungry. If you’re a billionaire it’s not even worth your time to stop to pick up two dollars you find on the street.
If [Neil deGrasse] Tyson was walking down the street and saw a penny, he wouldn’t bother picking it up. If he saw a quarter, however, he would pick it up. He views that as a useful amount of money. Same probably goes for you as well, right?
If Gates was walking down the street and saw a quarter, he (in theory) would definitely not pick it up. In order to have the relatively same amount of money on the street that it would be worthwhile to him, Bill Gates would have to stumble across $45,000 on the ground. That’s the equivalent of a quarter ($0.25) to you and me.
The ideas resonate. At a minimum, a proposal is also necessary for prospective sympathizers. Otherwise it’s a lot of talk.
Sympathy only exchanges one cult of personality for another. A suggestion that people negotiate their way through life directly with the people around them is not a specific “proposal”, that is the whole point. I think that this is confusing protocol with content. People’s content can never work if they are using a protocol which is intended to be effective for only certain people. The paradox of pointing this out is like that of reminding people that they should think for themselves. The trick is to not give an answer which has them simply doing what you suggest, instead.
Conversely, I think it is also mere talk when people talk about governments, currencies, etc when they have no direct say in how they operate. Sure, it may be a system, but it is not your system. It’s a socially meaningful as spectator sports, completely vicarious.
Sympathy for a person’s ideas still IMO comes dangerously close to the old status quo that “some people are more/less special than others.” Test various ways of organizing society, and decide what works best.
Thanks. Good talk. 
Being persuaded is the last thing that you need - but don’t take my word for it!
Persuaded of what exactly? It feels like we’re in a dorm room. A fun dorm room, but … what’s the issue again? 
