3 ms·

That's the perspective that our current systems are based on. And back when the majority of the problems that people were up against had to do with there being

That's the perspective that our current systems are based on. And back when the majority of the problems that people were up against had to do with there being not enough of something to go around--when it took half of us working in the fields just to feed the rest of us--then the system worked relatively well. 9 times out of 10, when somebody got a loan (which is the event that injects dollars into the system) it had something to do with alleviating the not-enough-stuff problems that we faced. The quickest route to profitability had something to do with solving problems in ways that--by happenstance--let them stay solved. This is relevant since profitability is how banks decide whether to grant a loan, and loans are what cause USD to enter the system. Previously, we mostly had good reason to want people's ventures to succeed. But nowadays, most loans are for zero-sum ventures that have more to do with capturing a share of some fixed resource (attention/influence mostly), or building something that helps some of us at the expense of others (missiles, datacenters, planned obsolescence, surveillance, etc). It's no longer clear whether we're better off with the success or failure of a randomly chosen business venture. Maybe that venture seeks to harm us. The quickest route to profitability has changed. Now it's about making things worse for the many while benefiting the few (since it's the few who have all the money). Yet we're still treating dollars as valuable despite the fact that they're issued on the basis of profitability, a property that no longer has much to do with making our lives better. So I think we need a system that understands consent. When I accept some abstraction from my employer in exchange for my labor I need to be able to look at it and decide whether accpepting it helps people who are helping me, or whether it helps people who want to poison my drinking water for their mining endeavor. Dollars don't carry enough information to enable me to make that decision, and so far neither does crypto. We don't have to banish scarcity entirely before building monetary systems that are not based on it. Once we figure out the better way, it'll likely be crypto-shaped, except it won't ask you to buy it, it'll just ask you to use it. It'll be a rejection of the old ideas about value.

win311fwg 4mo ago
> When I accept some abstraction from my employer in exchange for my labor That abstraction is simple debt. Your employer is, in exchange for what you've given them, promising to return to you something of value (food, shelter, entertainment, etc.) in the future. Money is the account of the promise made. The alternative is to forgo the debt and trade something of equal value at the time of the transaction. However, any negative externalities associated with you choosing what item of value you want to trade for exists whether you demand it immediately or defer acceptance until some time in the future. Trying to find a new way to practice accounting isn't going to change anything.
- __MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
  Simple debt isn't cutting it anymore. The "Debt to whom, and what outcomes does that person value?" question is important. Ignoring it and continuing to buy and sell simple debt traps people in situations where their economic way forward involves contributing to outcomes that makes their material situation worse. It's time bomb, each generation has diminishing incentives to participate. > alternative is to forgo the debt and trade something of equal value "equal value" is only a well defined concept when we have shared interests. But when half of us are trying to go to Mars and the other half is trying to prevent the first half from going to Mars so we can instead dedicate those resources to healthcare... when we're fighting over the steering wheel rather than fighting against a common enemy... then we can't usefully coordinate around a single untyped notion of "value". We're just running in circles negating each other's efforts. Our current economy is mostly waste. New ways of accounting that don't obfuscate conflicts of interest the way that simple debt does will indeed change things.
  - win311fwg 4mo ago
    > The "Debt to whom, and what outcomes does that person value?" question is important. It may be, but it is one you, the employer, can easily ask during the interview. If a prospective employee doesn't align with your values, you don't have to hire them, and thus won't have to make them any promises to deliver anything that you don't feel comfortable with. This isn't only theoretical. "Cultural fit" is considered by a large swath of employers to be one of the most important aspects of hiring. I know the typical HN account loves to over-engineer solutions to mundane things, but you really don't have to invent some new type of accounting for this. All you have to do is talk to the people in your life.
    - __MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
      If the debts were spread around evenly, I'd agree with you. But the vast majority of debt is not peer to peer, but instead goes through a bank. If you're going to restrict a bank from using your mortgage to enable loans for endeavors that will hurt you (or selling the debt to somebody who will do this), I think you do need a new kind of accounting.
neutronicus 4mo ago
I don't really agree with your framing. Something like Amazon is a partnership between the capital class and, to zeroth-order, everybody else, to screw over a small slice of the proletariat (their own employees and retail / warehouse workers) and the bourgeoisie (brick-and-mortar store owners). It sucks when the capitalist Eye of Sauron focuses on however you make your living as a thing-to-make-more-efficient but when it lands on how someone else makes their living shit gets cheaper.
- fragmede 4mo ago
  I mean, the Amish make very high quality furniture but I'll just go pick up something from Ikea. It's not my job to feed their kids. It's my job to feed mine. Which is a very "fuck you, I've got mine" way to live, but I don't know how to change the system other than to treat others as best I can within the system.
mech998877 4mo ago
>But nowadays, most loans are for zero-sum ventures... That's an enormous claim and I really doubt it.
- __MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
  All I can say is that I've been trying and trying to find work that actually solves a problem, and each time I become familiar with a business it seems like we're actually causing most of the problems we solve. The exceptions to this pattern that I've come across don't have enough money to be hiring people. Maybe I've just been unlucky.
  - EliRivers 4mo ago
    each time I become familiar with a business it seems like we're actually causing most of the problems we solve. Do you mean, in general, as a society/culture, or are you just having an incredible run of jobs where each time that business is the problem?
    - __MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
      Well I'm personally having a run where I realize, typically after several years of working somewhere, that deep down it's some kind of fraud or scam and the majority of us would be better without it. So I've been taking classes with the idea that maybe I'll change careers, an I talk with people in the new industry, and I'm learning that they feel the same way about their jobs. And I ask all of my friends and family about it and either they're true believers in something that it's clear to the rest of us is a problem, or they're clear-eyed about the fact that deep down their employer is quite shady. There doesn't appear to be any money in anything that people actually want to happen. All of the investment appears to be in places that common folk are uncomfortable with (weapons, propaganda, financial abstraction, etc). Of course this perception is colored by my personal experiences, I can't exactly step outside of them. So to answer your question: it's both. It can't always have been this way. There are so many good things left over from the past economy. It's like we were once speeding along towards a place we all wanted to go and then somewhere around the time I entered the workforce (2005) we realized that the steering wheel doesn't work and the car we're in isn't actually going where we want it to go. Record highs in the stock market, but to what end? Who cares about a car that goes very fast if it just takes you to an arbitrary place in the distance which has nothing to do with your needs?
jchanimal 4mo ago
Thanks for sharing your perspective. It’s reminding me of how I was feeling about crypto in the early days. I begin specifying a project on those lines way back when and the ideas behind it are still interesting. Maybe you’ll enjoy: https://www.wired.com/2014/07/document-coin/ https://www.wired.com/2014/07/document-coin/
- __MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
  Wow yeah, the wired description of it really rings a lot of bells in my head. I've got a lot of design work in a very similar direction. Did you ever get a chance to turn it into something worth sharing? I'd be interested in an account along the lines of: "here are the decisions I made at the time, and now, with a decade of hindsight here's the ones I like and the ones I'd change if I were to try again." I found this: https://www.infoq.com/presentations/document-coin/ https://www.infoq.com/presentations/document-coin/ which I guess addresses the first part of my curiosity.

win311fwg 4mo ago

> When I accept some abstraction from my employer in exchange for my labor That abstraction is simple debt. Your employer is, in exchange for what you've given them, promising to return to you something of value (food, shelter, entertainment, etc.) in the future. Money is the account of the promise made. The alternative is to forgo the debt and trade something of equal value at the time of the transaction. However, any negative externalities associated with you choosing what item of value you want to trade for exists whether you demand it immediately or defer acceptance until some time in the future. Trying to find a new way to practice accounting isn't going to change anything.

__MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
Simple debt isn't cutting it anymore. The "Debt to whom, and what outcomes does that person value?" question is important. Ignoring it and continuing to buy and sell simple debt traps people in situations where their economic way forward involves contributing to outcomes that makes their material situation worse. It's time bomb, each generation has diminishing incentives to participate. > alternative is to forgo the debt and trade something of equal value "equal value" is only a well defined concept when we have shared interests. But when half of us are trying to go to Mars and the other half is trying to prevent the first half from going to Mars so we can instead dedicate those resources to healthcare... when we're fighting over the steering wheel rather than fighting against a common enemy... then we can't usefully coordinate around a single untyped notion of "value". We're just running in circles negating each other's efforts. Our current economy is mostly waste. New ways of accounting that don't obfuscate conflicts of interest the way that simple debt does will indeed change things.
- win311fwg 4mo ago
  > The "Debt to whom, and what outcomes does that person value?" question is important. It may be, but it is one you, the employer, can easily ask during the interview. If a prospective employee doesn't align with your values, you don't have to hire them, and thus won't have to make them any promises to deliver anything that you don't feel comfortable with. This isn't only theoretical. "Cultural fit" is considered by a large swath of employers to be one of the most important aspects of hiring. I know the typical HN account loves to over-engineer solutions to mundane things, but you really don't have to invent some new type of accounting for this. All you have to do is talk to the people in your life.
  - __MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
    If the debts were spread around evenly, I'd agree with you. But the vast majority of debt is not peer to peer, but instead goes through a bank. If you're going to restrict a bank from using your mortgage to enable loans for endeavors that will hurt you (or selling the debt to somebody who will do this), I think you do need a new kind of accounting.

neutronicus 4mo ago

I don't really agree with your framing. Something like Amazon is a partnership between the capital class and, to zeroth-order, everybody else, to screw over a small slice of the proletariat (their own employees and retail / warehouse workers) and the bourgeoisie (brick-and-mortar store owners). It sucks when the capitalist Eye of Sauron focuses on however you make your living as a thing-to-make-more-efficient but when it lands on how someone else makes their living shit gets cheaper.

fragmede 4mo ago
I mean, the Amish make very high quality furniture but I'll just go pick up something from Ikea. It's not my job to feed their kids. It's my job to feed mine. Which is a very "fuck you, I've got mine" way to live, but I don't know how to change the system other than to treat others as best I can within the system.

mech998877 4mo ago

>But nowadays, most loans are for zero-sum ventures... That's an enormous claim and I really doubt it.

__MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
All I can say is that I've been trying and trying to find work that actually solves a problem, and each time I become familiar with a business it seems like we're actually causing most of the problems we solve. The exceptions to this pattern that I've come across don't have enough money to be hiring people. Maybe I've just been unlucky.
- EliRivers 4mo ago
  each time I become familiar with a business it seems like we're actually causing most of the problems we solve. Do you mean, in general, as a society/culture, or are you just having an incredible run of jobs where each time that business is the problem?
  - __MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
    Well I'm personally having a run where I realize, typically after several years of working somewhere, that deep down it's some kind of fraud or scam and the majority of us would be better without it. So I've been taking classes with the idea that maybe I'll change careers, an I talk with people in the new industry, and I'm learning that they feel the same way about their jobs. And I ask all of my friends and family about it and either they're true believers in something that it's clear to the rest of us is a problem, or they're clear-eyed about the fact that deep down their employer is quite shady. There doesn't appear to be any money in anything that people actually want to happen. All of the investment appears to be in places that common folk are uncomfortable with (weapons, propaganda, financial abstraction, etc). Of course this perception is colored by my personal experiences, I can't exactly step outside of them. So to answer your question: it's both. It can't always have been this way. There are so many good things left over from the past economy. It's like we were once speeding along towards a place we all wanted to go and then somewhere around the time I entered the workforce (2005) we realized that the steering wheel doesn't work and the car we're in isn't actually going where we want it to go. Record highs in the stock market, but to what end? Who cares about a car that goes very fast if it just takes you to an arbitrary place in the distance which has nothing to do with your needs?

jchanimal 4mo ago

Thanks for sharing your perspective. It’s reminding me of how I was feeling about crypto in the early days. I begin specifying a project on those lines way back when and the ideas behind it are still interesting. Maybe you’ll enjoy: https://www.wired.com/2014/07/document-coin/ https://www.wired.com/2014/07/document-coin/

__MatrixMan__ 4mo ago
Wow yeah, the wired description of it really rings a lot of bells in my head. I've got a lot of design work in a very similar direction. Did you ever get a chance to turn it into something worth sharing? I'd be interested in an account along the lines of: "here are the decisions I made at the time, and now, with a decade of hindsight here's the ones I like and the ones I'd change if I were to try again." I found this: https://www.infoq.com/presentations/document-coin/ https://www.infoq.com/presentations/document-coin/ which I guess addresses the first part of my curiosity.