[p2p-research] Metacurrency

Fri Oct 16 03:09:05 CEST 2009

Thanks Arthur, Gerry,

I have actually downloaded the flowplace release and tried to
familiarize myself with it

My criticism was not that you don't follow a bittorrent model per se.
My messages about this originated with me proposing on p2presearch
list that myself and others might create a draft of an open standard
for a distributed digital currency.  People immediately replied and
suggested that I look at flowplace and metacurrency.org. I did take a
look at both, and I think your concepts are sound, and I support the
direction you are going with your software. But the thing that I guess
was "missing" for me was an actual open standard for distributed
digital currency. And/or a recipe for combining open standards that is
easily replicable.

My criticism could be wrong. It could be that you actually *do* have
this, and that I somehow missed it.

If you don't, it doesn't really diminish the value of either
flowplace, nor the metacurrency.org vision. Yet, it still leaves me at
square one with what I am interested in doing, which is more along the
lines of something like http://opencoin.org/front-page than in
creating a suite of tools for managing alternative currency. I may
very well just go ahead and work with opencoin, and extend it, since
it is closest to what I am thinking about

The reason *why* I'm interested in open coin is that I am looking for
something that I can adapt to existing web applications, sites, online
communities, etc. Something that is more agnostic to the platform that
you are using.

I could not see a similar portable metadata protocol in
flowplace/metacurrency. Please do correct me if I am off track here.
Hopefully this helps to clear up what I've been communicating in these
various channels in response to people suggesting that I connect with
metacurrency project

All of that being said I definitely applaud and support metacurrency
project, and it's goals, etc.

On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 7:29 AM, Gerry Gleason <gerryg at inbox.com> wrote:
>
> That's what I get for not responding to Sam's reply sooner.  I had only
> skimmed it initially and had not noticed that you had forwarded it to a
> list.  It's good that someone forwarded it to Arthur as well.
>
> I guess there must be a basic communication issue still not resolved,
> because the way I see it, the metacurrency protocol is designed to address
> precisely the types of situation that he describes and more.  As Art says
> there are things we need to do for this to work on all the levels it needs
> to work on, the protocol design has to support all of this working on many
> languages and platform, but none of that precludes people and groups from
> deploying simple protocols that are "compatible".  Take a look at Geoff
> Cheshire's work on http://regenerosity.com, while it doesn't look to the
> most recent MCP work, Geoff has been working on this software for years now
> and could not wait for a protocol to emerge before starting work.  I'm sure
> Sam has done the same, and I hope he will keep looking at what we produce
> under the Meta-Currency banner to see what we have to offer one another, my
> sense it that there are great synergies here and possibility to be expressed
> in collaborations.
>
> I am happy to work towards alignment on shared intentions, please let me
> know how I can help with this. The whole point of this work with currencies
> is to acknowledge the wealth we create together, and central to that is the
> value we see in each others work that leads us to deeper collaborations.  We
> know instinctively that the wealth creation power of making more of that,
> more collaborative work built on deepening personal relationships of trust
> and care is ultimately explosive, but not in a destructive way.  Not a
> bubble economy that always  pops leaving us worse off, but a container that
> expands in its living capacities and diversities to fill the available
> spaces and flows with life.
>
> Gerry
>
>
> On 10/14/09 11:42 PM, Arthur Brock wrote:
>>
>> Dante,
>> I'll readily accept the criticism that metacurrency seems to complicated.
>> Anybody trying to make sense of what we're doing while coming from a money
>> as currency perspective could think we're jumping through way too many
>> hoops.
>> However, we are jumping through those very hoops because we are making
>> currency so much more flexible than money so that it can be bits, hours, or
>> grams, or ratings, or certifications, or strikes/balls/runs/innings/games or
>> whatever.  The medium and type of activity totally dictates the currency.
>>  That's exactly why were doing something so "complicated."
>> I believe our biggest failure is that Sam has tried looking into the
>> metacurrency and was left thinking it didn't meet the bit torrent example
>> and was just complicated.
>> We're actually keeping the larger philosophical conversations about
>> "currency" away from the metacurrency web site because we don't want people
>> to get bogged down in a lot of theoretical discussion rather than jumping in
>> to help build tools. For more of the actual philosophy and approach behind
>> metacurrency, Sam should explore http://NewCurrencyFrontiers.com and
>> http://blog.NewCurrencyFrontiers.com.
>> Thanks for sending this by me. :)
>> -art
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:* Dante-Gabryell Monson [mailto:dante.monson at gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, October 14, 2009 10:18 AM
>> *To:* Bernard Lietaer; artbrock at geekgene.com
>> *Cc:* opencc at googlegroups.com
>> *Subject:* Fwd: [p2p-research] Metacurrency
>>
>> fyi ... message forwarded below,  from Sam Rose on the p2pr list
>>
>>
>> excerpt :
>>
>> << I also see something missing from metacurrency.org
>> <http://metacurrency.org>, and that is that
>> "currency" can depend on the ecology/medium. This is different than
>> traditional currency, and allows "money" to be tied to what is being
>> exchanged within the system.
>>
>> I talked with Paul Hartzog in Ann Arbor about something similar recently:
>>
>> The idea that the medium of activity dictates the "currency". >>
>>
>>
>> Forwarded conversation
>> Subject: *[p2p-research] Metacurrency*
>> ------------------------
>>
>> From: *Samuel Rose* <samuel.rose at gmail.com <mailto:samuel.rose at gmail.com>>
>> Date: Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 2:59 PM
>> To: Gerry Gleason <gerryg at inbox.com <mailto:gerryg at inbox.com>>
>> Cc: Peer-To-Peer Research List <p2presearch at listcultures.org
>> <mailto:p2presearch at listcultures.org>>
>>
>>
>> Gerry, I am interested in the metacurrency event. My own interest lies
>> in creating a set of simple open standards around alternative
>> currencies. My interest is that these simple standards be adoptable
>> across many different web applications.
>>
>> Everyone keeps pointing me to the metacurrency project, and I keep
>> repeating that metacurrency project does not have any published simple
>> standard that I can adopt. They do have examples, but they are not
>> complete, and do not constitute a replicable body of work. Plus, in my
>> opinion, metacurrency approach is overly complicated.
>>
>> I also see something missing from metacurrency.org
>> <http://metacurrency.org>, and that is that
>> "currency" can depend on the ecology/medium. This is different than
>> traditional currency, and allows "money" to be tied to what is being
>> exchanged within the system.
>>
>> I talked with Paul Hartzog in Ann Arbor about something similar recently:
>>
>> The idea that the medium of activity dictates the "currency". Paul
>> uses the example of bittorrent: For users of bittorrent, the currency
>> of exchange is literally the "bit". You have to upload to download,
>> and you can upload more now, which will let you download more later
>> (thus creating a surplus within the whole system). These types of
>> exchanges are not "market" exchanges, like buying and selling. They
>> are commons-based exchanges, where participants have feedback about
>> how they are taking from and contributing to the common-pool resource
>> of bandwidth in the bittorrent system... Read More
>>
>> There are also similar commons-based webs of exchanges between people
>> and natural systems that can follow a "code", and the "code" need not
>> be like a script on a computer.
>>
>> Instead it can be more like an agent based model, where you follow
>> simple rules about how you act within a system. Achievement of
>> creating a balance between yourself and the system will usually
>> consist of what you take from system, and what you put back in.
>>
>> The argument that Paul and I make is that you can also look at your
>> yourself as a fractal micro-cosm of the larger system you are a part
>> of. You can look at where you are getting inputs from, and where your
>> outputs go to. What you take in can be from the "waste" of someone
>> else ("waste equals food"), what you output could be the basis of raw
>> ... Read Morematerial for other's "input". These are the simple rules,
>> the "code" for what I call a "wealth generating ecology" (wealth =
>> other kinds of wealth beyond just money) a system that can generate
>> surplus consistently even for one person, and can exponentially
>> generate surplus as more people enter the system. The catch is that
>> most of the resources end up being voluntarily or systematically
>> co-managed as a "commons": a resource that everyone who uses
>> recognizes as something that no one user fully owns, and so must be
>> co-governed somehow by users. (resource is not just physical object,
>> can be the combined time and attention of people, etc)
>>
>> (Gerry: copied this to p2p research list, I feel that people there
>> would be interested in this exchange. I clipped off your personal
>> notes to me)
>>
>>
>> --
>> --
>> Sam Rose
>> Social Synergy
>> Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
>> Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
>> skype: samuelrose
>> email: samuel.rose at gmail.com <mailto:samuel.rose at gmail.com>
>> http://socialsynergyweb.com
>> http://socialsynergyweb.org/culturing
>> http://flowsbook.panarchy.com/
>> http://socialmediaclassroom.com
>> http://localfoodsystems.org
>> http://notanemployee.net
>> http://communitywiki.org
>>
>> "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
>> ambition." - Carl Sagan
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> p2presearch mailing list
>> p2presearch at listcultures.org <mailto:p2presearch at listcultures.org>
>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>
>> ----------
>> From: *Nathan Cravens* <knuggy at gmail.com <mailto:knuggy at gmail.com>>
>> Date: Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 12:34 AM
>> To: Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com <mailto:samuel.rose at gmail.com>>
>> Cc: Peer-To-Peer Research List <p2presearch at listcultures.org
>> <mailto:p2presearch at listcultures.org>>
>>
>>
>> Hi Sam,
>>
>> This is excellent:
>> You are describing how to manage a free use commons once a financial
>> commons is no longer required?
>>
>> A financial commons is introduced when a society clearly cannot care for
>> themselves based on a work requirement to participate in a market previously
>> generated by financial capital. Japan most severely needs to adopt this
>> approach to prevent further the exclusionary tactics such as racial and
>> national superiority. I look forward to working with Dante and his Japanese
>> friend in addressing Japan's issues, as they seem to need the approaches
>> Paul Fernhout and I describe more than any other industrialized nation at
>> the moment.
>>
>> Will you write a detailed description with Paul Hartzog of this
>> monetary/materials system for the p2p blog? We can then discuss it in more
>> detail in November. What you describe to me sounds more like a
>> "sub-currency" than "meta," but that may just be an issue of semantics. I
>> view what you describe as a way to preserve a free use commons from
>> reverting to a financial commons, or worse, financial capital.
>>
>>
>> Nathan
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> p2presearch mailing list
>> p2presearch at listcultures.org <mailto:p2presearch at listcultures.org>
>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>
>>
>> ----------
>> From: *Samuel Rose* <samuel.rose at gmail.com <mailto:samuel.rose at gmail.com>>
>> Date: Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 1:15 AM
>> To: Nathan Cravens <knuggy at gmail.com <mailto:knuggy at gmail.com>>
>> Cc: Peer-To-Peer Research List <p2presearch at listcultures.org
>> <mailto:p2presearch at listcultures.org>>
>>
>>
>> This model is applicable now. Over time, you may reach a point where a
>> financial commons is no longer required. In some parts of human
>> problem solving,  a financial commons is not required even now.
>> There are more issues than just economic/financial in relation to
>> commons. First and foremost, commons must be recognized as such by
>> humans who are connected with it. If people cannot recognize a
>> resource as a commons, then they will tend to manage it in a way that
>> is different from those methods of commons governance recognized by
>> Elinor Ostrum and others doing similar work.
>>
>> People may simply lack the literacy of what a commons is, or may be
>> operating with a worldview that is opposed to participating in the
>> management of resources in commons-based ways. or, in some cases (like
>> land for instance) there is a legal enforcement that prevents it from
>> being recognized as a commons
>>
>> Land may be one of the last resources to widely transition away from
>> being widely enclosed.
>>
>>
>> I think the starting place, the place to begin (to transition towards
>> tranformation) is where we are at now. Marshall McLuhan knew this:
>>
>>
>> "Persons grouped around a fire or candle for warmth or light are less
>> able to pursue independent thoughts, or even tasks, than people
>> supplied with electric light. In the same way, the social and
>> educational patterns latent in automation are those of self-employment
>> and artistic autonomy. "
>>
>> If we can help people (anywhere in the world) meet basic survival
>> needs in commons and P2P ways, then we can create a pathway for more
>> advanced evolution.
>> --
>> --
>>
>>
>
>

-- 
-- 
Sam Rose
Social Synergy
Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
skype: samuelrose
email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
http://socialsynergyweb.com
http://socialsynergyweb.org/culturing
http://flowsbook.panarchy.com/
http://socialmediaclassroom.com
http://localfoodsystems.org
http://notanemployee.net
http://communitywiki.org

"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
ambition." - Carl Sagan