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> Let's say we have an economy where, in order to determine who owns what, people literally just make and publish a list of who owns what. As an interesting as
by pcthrowaway 4y ago
> Let's say we have an economy where, in order to determine who owns what, people literally just make and publish a list of who owns what.
As an interesting aside, this is essentially how the economy of the Yap islands in Micronesia worked until the 20th century, with large stones from another island changing 'ownership', while being left in place (because it was too hard to move them)[1].
Except it was an oral history instead of a published list!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones
- pyinstallwoes 4y agoOral history seems particularly robust in its ability to maintain consistency over time. There is an inherent weakness to publishing where authorship is corruptible and short circuits the durability of time spread across regions that maintain a consistent oral history. It reminds me of the technique to remembering a book where you read one word at a time and repeat it out loud, repeating each segment + 1 in a loop. It’s quite trivial to remember every single word when doing that.