[p2p-research] Part 2. How Often Have Sovereign Countries Defaulted in the Past?

[Ryan Lanham]

No one has ever been able to explain to me why some computer code is "good"
and some is "bad."  I think that is the basis of a currency.  Any time you
can identify value, symbolize it, and then trade the symbols, you have a
great prospect of a working currency.

I could imagine an AI system designed to evaluate code...or music.  This is
good...this is original...this is valuable...and one that would, in turn,
exchange a value token for the work.  Variable transactions are
harder...that is, if speculation is involved.  It nearly always is...as when
someone is paid a salary...which is really a series of forward contracts.

The hardest part of value is that someone else must decide it with you.  It
is like sex.  You can do it alone, but the real intrigue is achieving it
with someone else and both parties need to be freely willing to agree.
Money is wonderful because value is standardized into small units.  Currency
must standardize value, but how?  It can only be through limited supply
(e.g. a commodity) or through common agreement to a standard (1 hour of
expert coding = 10 units).  The trouble with all labour theories of value is
that they are not standardized.  It made sense when shoveling coal was
relatively standardized, but one hour of my time in coding is not worth one
hour of an expert's.

Value is, in large part, tied to use.  Money works extremely well for
use-based systems.  Volume = revenue.  Currency doesn't have to work he same
way, but if it doesn't, it needs to make sense to be adopted.  I find the
open source free system called R profoundly powerful and wonderful.  I would
like to reward those who share it.  Short of giving them money, I know of no
obvious way to bank something for them that they'd want.  Giving them money
seems to subvert the whole idea of free...but I am willing to do it.

On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 7:31 PM, magius <gmagius at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 2010/7/11 Alex Rollin <alex.rollin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > 1.  our conversations on this list re-visit the topic of currency
> regularly.
> >
> > 2.  the 'creation' of a currency system between peers is one of the
> > most beautiful learning experiences in the world.
> >
> > 3.  the management of currency systems between peers is one of, if not
> > the most, (potentially) complex tasks imaginable.
>
> The next step for the FLOSS Movement is to invent a GNU currency. I
> mean not simply a free currency management system (as could be the
> opencoin.org project) but something similar of what the GNU/GPL
> licence was for software. Imho we need to design a liberatory currency
> for a post-scarcity economy. To do that we need more economists than
> coders.
>
> magius
>
> PS On 2003 in Italy we tried to invent a system to connect togheter
> the liberatory power of basic income with a not-scarce currency based
> on Gesell's economic theory. Unfortunately our book is in italian.
>
> _______________________________________________
> p2presearch mailing list
> p2presearch at listcultures.org
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>



-- 
Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
P.O. Box 633
Grand Cayman, KY1-1303
Cayman Islands
(345) 916-1712
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20100710/5cd2464b/attachment.html>