[p2p-research] discussing money on ning

[Stan Rhodes]

Since I have a little knowledge, I'll throw out a few comments.
Regarding the "big names," or players, many of them have in the past,
and continue to talk to one another in the present, on occasion.  They
"run into" one another on the internet and at actual functions.  Most
are aware of each other, the internet is not such a vast place.  Some
keep tabs.  Many are quite busy.

A few harsh realities to consider:

1. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  I may not see a
lot of action on some front, but that doesn't mean there isn't any, it
just means I don't see it.  In a financial crisis of this magnitude,
money and monetary policy are getting much more attention than
"normal," both by the mainstream and the fringe.  The less we know
about the players, the more we should consider that we wouldn't be
seeing the action.

2. Confirmation bias.  People tend to think they are right and others
are wrong, even when they are very open-minded and go to significant
effort not to be biased.

3. They may identify different needs based on philosophical
differences, therefore they're not likely to agree on the common
infrastructure.  This isn't necessarily bad, because innovations are
less likely when you put all of your eggs in one basket.  I don't
think any of the baskets so far have been seen as egg-worthy by
everyone else.  LETS is the closest, but it's been around quite a
while.  And to follow with that line of thought...

4. Maybe technology isn't the problem.  Maybe lack of adoption of
certain methods in certain areas is the result of other forces,
including flaws in the methods that aren't obvious.  Therefore, maybe
technology isn't the solution, either.  Many in this list are very
technology-focused, so we all need to check ourselves regularly for
this mistake.

4. According to Dee Hock's telling, what became VISA assembled because
all the banks were in deep, deep shit.  They all had a very vested
interest in saving their collective asses, and a lot at stake.  This
may seem comparable to the current concept of "the world is at stake,"
but I'd argue it's not, because individually, these people don't have
so much at stake.  The pressure to agree is little, and the personal
pressure to stick to their ideology and solution set is much greater.

5. I think an OpenVISA-style project is cart-before-the-horse if it
doesn't evolve with point-of-sale and other exchange systems.  Michael
Linton has attempted inroads here in several places, including this
very town, with the help of a fellow named Alan Rosenblith, and that
seems to have been abandoned at this point.  Only a month or two ago,
another person from this very area contacted the list about a similar
project, and he had been in contact with Linton, too.  People have
been trying things, all over the place, and continue to do so.

6. Psychologically, money is a very anxiety-ridden subject, and that's
not going to change any time soon.  In anxiety-ridden subjects, and
ones entangled with hardened belief systems, pushing hard doesn't get
you anywhere.  Even though people that see themselves as
money-enlightened think they can liberate others with knowledge,
they're preaching to the choir only.  "If only they saw the truth,
they'd change" is a very common misconception.  It's also very easy to
agree on a perceived problem, but have completely at-odds solutions.
It's the norm.

Particularly on the psychology mentioned in the last one, the Unmoney
Convergence I went to last year spun me around a bit and had me
questioning my assumptions about motivation and change.  The
psychologist in me knew, scientifically, some assumptions needed to be
questioned, but another part of me was also the common "if only they
saw the truth!"

Forgive me for this binary exploration, but I want to really highlight
a distinction.  People change behavior, and social systems, in two
situations: crisis, and play.  The first is usually uncomfortable and
anxiety-ridden, and leads to hasty, extreme choices, and disastrous
results.  The second is far more comfortable, gentle, and fun, leads
to smaller evolutionary steps with more feedback in between, and
results in more progressive changes.  We are much more aware of change
exploding from crisis than gradual increments of change through play.
Culture generally favors the crisis narrative, and it's not surprising
human become more alert to the importance of crisis than play.

The difference between the two is really the amount of anxiety and
pressure on the person to change, and how their behavior and beliefs
are affected. If we want reason to help guide change, we must operate
on the periphery of belief.  That periphery is best explored through
play, and is impossible to explore with crisis.

The implication of this distinction: most everyone, including experts,
are wrong about how to bring about effective, progressive change.  I
reserve the right to waffle a bit on this, but I think this challenge
is worth considering precisely because this belief in crisis-driven
change is so common and culturally-embedded.

To bring this about full-circle to the original topic, I think there
are plenty of example of play-driven change we may need to take a
fresh look at with a different perspective.  One is Facebook.  Another
is the QQ Coin:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117519670114653518-FR_svDHxRtxkvNmGwwpouq_hl2g_20080329.html

Something to consider.  Also, thanks to whoever rescued the research
list, I missed that development.

-- Stan

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:34 PM, Kevin Carson
<free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/16/09, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I've been saying the same thing for a while, and one of my dreams with p2p-f
>> is to host a global conference where open money architects can discuss their
>> similarities and differencies, and agree on the common infrastructure that
>> all of them need ...
>>
>> Is there any way to pull this of?
>
> My suggestion, as an outsider who knows almost nothing about the
> construction of such systems or even what the major ones are, is
> simply to find out who the big names are and try to get them talking
> to each other.  Even if only a couple of them agree on common
> standards, it will create a critical mass around which the rest of
> them are more likely to coalesce.
>
> --
> Kevin Carson
> Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
> Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com
> Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
> http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
> Anarchist Organization Theory Project
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html
>
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