One thing I learned from cryptocurrency and now social-fi platforms like Farcaster is that money is completely fake and bears no necessary relation to labor as most people had assumed and continue to believe. Its possible to literally generate money out of thin air using clever tricks and obfuscations. Of course people in finance already knew this years ago and the knowledge has simply become a bit more democratized.

Writer, podcaster, and commentator on foreign affairs and politics. Runs /dropglobalnews

Clanker Broadcasting Service /cbs

Adding: I liked the “ascent of money“ for a historical perspective. Especially where it develops on countries abilities to take on debt as decisive element in history, e.g. Netherlands vs Spain. Although Spain had huge precious metals inflows (“hard currency”) from their colonies, the Dutch were more credible, ultimately allowing them to raise funds and win their war for independence 👍

You both should check out some of the debt theories of money.

Money is basically credit, and any historical instance where a culture generated a hard physical money, they quickly generated an expanding and contracting credit system, because any civilized society needs swaps of time and risk. Even the ancient Mesopotamians had credit, to help stabilize farming risks and cashflows.

"The Price of Time" is a good book on this.

word by word, this is exactly the same thought / line of thinking i ended up on this year

also who can shitpost in the most spartan fashion about being in stables

I still believe that it does, otherwise it becomes a pure pvp game. Who can get out first.

Impact

Shower Thoughts

Fall down this rabbit hole with me....

Consider the economy the cost of establishing trust. We rely on currencies managed by banks to allow trade to power industry, while paying for security (police, military) to enforce settlement. This is how we establish trust; as long as everyone follows the rules, we can thrive.

If you've made the jump with me that the cost of trust is the efficiency of the economy, then if a radically transparent system of currency (cryptography) with baked in enforcement (blockchains) can establish equal to, or more trust, trade can continue to power industry and we can thrive, for less cost.

Transparency = Efficiency

(no wonder people value honesty!)

Money is just a construct created to control trade. Human beings are inherently social, but social interaction requires building trust. The current economic structure is designed to provide people with the ability to trust each other enough to engage in 'free markets', by simply trusting the centralized authorities that control the money to enforce the rules around our industry.

The more we democratize knowledge, the less we have to rely on authorities to make decisions on how to allocate resources for us.

We can make money reward labor more effectively, but we have to take control of curating the /impact of each other's actions.

Money is just a construct created to control trade. Human beings are inherently social, but social interaction requires building trust. The current economic structure is designed to provide people with the ability to trust each other enough to engage in 'free markets', by simply trusting the centralized authorities that control the money to enforce the rules around our industry.

The more we democratize knowledge, the less we have to rely on authorities to make decisions on how to allocate resources for us.

We can make money reward labor more effectively, but we have to take control of curating the /impact of each other's actions.

https://warpcast.com/trigs/0x8048a9bd

So many people on this protocol will nod along to this and in the next breath proclaim with absolute conviction that we live in a meritocracy.

if i get alzheimers and forget my children's names, i will still remember @jacek and $degen

they showed me that a social token could work, and that distribution and consensus really are all you need

same vibe
https://warpcast.com/zoo/0x9ea5a7c9

money = debt, and the biggest debt we all have are taxes. so tax obligations create money. simple MMT. tax obligations are created by law & decree, so in a sense out of thin air—by fiat, but the consequences for not paying them are very real. so money creation is easy...enforcement is difficult. it's easy to create a token, like a stablecoin, it's not easy to enforce its value...see Terra/Luna, OHM, all memecoins, etc...

great debate btw:

Software Engineer @ Cadence Design Systems. B4: Stanford EE / Illinois ECE

If you haven't read David Graeber's Debt, the 5000 years, I really advise you to have a look at it.

money = debt, and the biggest debt we all have are taxes. so tax obligations create money. simple MMT. tax obligations are created by law & decree, so in a sense out of thin air—by fiat, but the consequences for not paying them are very real. so money creation is easy...enforcement is difficult. it's easy to create a token, like a stablecoin, it's not easy to enforce its value...see Terra/Luna, OHM, all memecoins, etc...

great debate btw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUTLCDBONok

time for a debt jubilee methinks. maybe it can happen peacefully from the bottom-up if we have the right tech and memes?

That's why states telling they have to reduce their debt are totally wrong. No one has to repay debt unless they are in physical danger if not. Nations debt is a game where the first to repay loses. Debt just created more money. Money is trust in power to increase debt.

Money's value is artificial, not directly tied to labor. Finance has long exploited this, now more people realize its arbitrary nature

Money is a technology. Some tech is better than others.

nihilist feels from money printer go brrr. Both gov and web3 printers that is. in the long run, it tethers to labor production or God help us all.

same with APY in 2021
finance is just being the least illiterate and first to realize what others expect.