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I think the best way to think about this is to consider time credits a supplemental currency that incentivizes actions that benefit the community. Yes, your tim

I think the best way to think about this is to consider time credits a supplemental currency that incentivizes actions that benefit the community. Yes, your time could be worth more when working with traditional currency, but by that logic why would anybody volunteer? Finding a way to benefit volunteers and people that are involved in the community, while also supporting local businesses, seems like a great way to keep money moving without relying on large businesses to generate income.

bryanrasmussen 6y ago
> Yes, your time could be worth more when working with traditional currency, but by that logic why would anybody volunteer? Yeah but lots of people's times are theoretically worth more with this than with traditional currency was what I was getting at - anybody whose job is undervalued by companies but who can turn their skills to the benefit of others can earn more valuable time credits than they could earn money. For example a janitor might have the handyman skills to build some IKEA furniture for you and earn more in the way of time credits than they would in money from their normal employment, without having to go through all the work they would have to become a handyman as a job or small business.
- antasvara 6y ago
  I totally agree with you on that; I was more responding to the last piece of your comment which indicated that some people's time would be discredited under the system. I liked your idea about the low barrier to entry for starting a business; working with an unregulated currency would make things much easier for someone from a legal perspective (at least I'd assume it would).
vorpalhex 6y ago
When it comes to volunteer work, you actually don't want to offer cash rewards because it decreases the motivation of people to volunteer - and yes, I realize what I just said sounds exactly backwards from what we'd assume the case to be. When you start offering a reward, the human brain starts playing a comparative game. Instead of "I'm helping someone because I think it's the right thing to do" your brain starts doing the "I'm helping someone because I want a $25 gift card" etc. Wikipedia lists this as the Overjustificatioon effect[^1] To be fair to the original article, I think the intent wasn't to reward volunteers but to instead create a local closed market that might help an economically depressed area. [^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

> Yes, your time could be worth more when working with traditional currency, but by that logic why would anybody volunteer? Yeah but lots of people's times are theoretically worth more with this than with traditional currency was what I was getting at - anybody whose job is undervalued by companies but who can turn their skills to the benefit of others can earn more valuable time credits than they could earn money. For example a janitor might have the handyman skills to build some IKEA furniture for you and earn more in the way of time credits than they would in money from their normal employment, without having to go through all the work they would have to become a handyman as a job or small business.

antasvara 6y ago
I totally agree with you on that; I was more responding to the last piece of your comment which indicated that some people's time would be discredited under the system. I liked your idea about the low barrier to entry for starting a business; working with an unregulated currency would make things much easier for someone from a legal perspective (at least I'd assume it would).

vorpalhex 6y ago

When it comes to volunteer work, you actually don't want to offer cash rewards because it decreases the motivation of people to volunteer - and yes, I realize what I just said sounds exactly backwards from what we'd assume the case to be. When you start offering a reward, the human brain starts playing a comparative game. Instead of "I'm helping someone because I think it's the right thing to do" your brain starts doing the "I'm helping someone because I want a $25 gift card" etc. Wikipedia lists this as the Overjustificatioon effect[^1] To be fair to the original article, I think the intent wasn't to reward volunteers but to instead create a local closed market that might help an economically depressed area. [^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect