If you were to picture abundance, how would it be? In the biblical sense, where in the garden of Eden Adam and Eve had anything they wanted in abundance, except the forbidden fruit?
A world where anyone can afford to buy the basic necessities? That's inclusive, but minimalist, and it doesn't say anything about having access to products to buy, even if you can afford them. We were once in this situation here in Romania. Having money to buy but little to buy in stores. I can testify that's not abundance at all.
A world where anyone has access to buy anything, but not everyone has enough to buy with? Hmm, that sounds like capitalism. And it's not abundant across the spectrum either.
A world where anyone has access to buy anything, and anyone has enough money to buy at least the basic necessities. That's better. Maybe that's a combination capitalism + crypto (+ UBI?).
But here are other facets that have nothing to do with money.
Abundance of Information
We have already had a major leap forward during the last two decades with the creation and rise of the internet and then the smart phones. It's not seldom this comparison is made that anyone with a modern smart phone has access to more information than the president of the United States pre-internet age.
But with the abundance of information shared in a centralized manner through a few mediums, the temptation to use it to create or destroy trends, censor and manipulate was so high and we are currently seeing it used in plain sight and without fear of repercussions.
We won't truly be able to feel the benefits of the abundance of information until such practices cannot be imposed at system level, when governance in decentralized systems is given control.
I listened this morning to a recent video of taskmaster about the importance of financial education.
At some point in the video he said something like: "this is why I spend so much time on Leofinance" [because there are things he doesn't know that he learns this way]. I commented this:
It's incredible how much one can learn on LeoFinance (and not only, but your post is about financial education) at no cost but time, and even more, get paid to do it. For various training modules, corporations tie young employees for years to pay them back. This is another facet of the world of abundance.
This is actually the comment which expanded into this post.
Abundance of Software Development
Corporations develop closed source software. Even if they don't want to, they usually don't put enough trust in license protection to open their code up to the world.
At the same time, open source coding grew immensely in the last decade. It is almost a norm in the crypto-verse.
If we talk about the defi space, there are thousands of clones of the successful platforms out there. I actually saw Uniswap is trying to protect itself from cloning the new version by using a different type of licensing. I'm curious how that will work.
If we think of these cases, why would the platforms that first introduce novelty to the market make it open source, if they'll immediately be cloned?
The reason stands in synergy. At one time one platform develop something and it will be incorporated by others, next another will find something else and will improve all and so on. They all grow faster this way.
Plus, there are better chances of bug tracking and fixing in open source software. And there are more contributors, some likely doing it without expecting anything in return.
Abundance at Decision Level
Decentralized systems have a sort of abundance at their decision level, unlike centralized systems. They are generally slower to reach decision (consensus) than centralized systems, but they are safer. And any rotten apple which doesn't follow consensus is eliminated from decision, and can be voted out at any time by stakeholders in POS systems, without waiting for the next term of elections.
If we take Hive for example, compared to political elections and terms. Governance on Hive is assured by the top 20 witnesses (block producers), to which at every round 1 backup witness is added at random.
Every owner of powered up Hive has the right to vote for the governance of the chain. Every account has the possibility to choose up to 30 witnesses to vote for. Maybe a bit too many, but much better than one candidate, as you vote in political elections. Plus you can change your vote at any time, what you can't do in politics once you see they trash it.
Of course, in politics it's almost customary that they'll promise many things and forget all of them once they're elected.
On Hive that's unlikely. It can be tried and I believe it has been, but someone in the end catches you and that means bye-bye your witness position (or your proposal funding, if you were approved).
Conclusion
These are only three different aspects of abundance, other than money. But there are others. We just have to keep an open mind and, probably, leave some old models behind.
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You hit upon the biggest piece to the puzzle. Abundance is about a lot more than money. That is just a tool, mostly for collaboration. Like the old adage, being a millionaire in the desert while in need of water makes one no better than the next person who is without money.
Both are dying of thirst and money wont change that.
It all comes down to distribution. The present system is awful at distributing resources. For example, we have enough money to feed the world. However, there are still a lot of people starving to death and even more malnourished.
All that you cited is a distribution problem. Hopefully, in addition to monetary resources, we do a lot better with spreading things out. Technologies such as 3D printing and climate controlled farming hold great promise because they can bring needed items (and food) to where they are needed.
This will open up access.
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That's a great way to look at money.
Exactly, and a change from within is unlikely. Even if the present system will reform at some point to improve distribution, that only comes because it is being forced to.
I believe mass 3D printing will have un impact which many don't even begin to imagine.
Forms of more or less rudimentary climate controlled farming already exists for enough time. They do produce effects (although eating fresh tomatoes in the winter seems strange, for example), but it is important to balance quality and quantity. High volumes of low quality products won't help us get too far.
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I think there is many types of abundance and Financial abundance is probably one of the ones we have been thought to think of as the most important, but abundance in health I feel would be more important.
Currently no matter how financially abundant you are it will never be able to keep you alive longer than your time although it could be used to pay for treatments and with advances in technology such as the 3D Bioprinting of human tissue and organs etc this could soon change, but your financial abundance cannot guarantee you will live indefinitely once your time is up.
It is probably best to strive for Abundance is all things obtainable to your personal situation Wealth, Health, Family and knowledge but again this is easier said than done by most.
Unfortunately we are all delt a different hand of cards and must play them according to what is best to our personal situation.
I personally try to put them in order of importance to me, which would be Family, Health, Financial and Knowledge, but that is just my preferred choice, others may think differently of course and many still choose finance above all else.
Hopefully the incoming technological advances combined with crypto and the blockchain will open the door for all to have equal abundance and equity in all things important to sustain life, That would be a nice though...
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Very important domains you've touched on, and I haven't, in my post: family & health. Abundance of information does not guarantee knowledge, but it offers access to it. The rest is up to you, I guess.
I'm not sure how we would define abundance at the family level. Quality time spent with our family instead of chasing gains or working ourselves to death?
Interestingly, these lockdowns offered the majority of people on Earth the possibility to spend more time with their families. From what I heard and read that didn't turn out well, because of the stress induced by the restrictions, the prospect of getting sick or losing the job etc. made things worse.
Health is indeed paramount and the age of abundance in this field already started to show its results. While being wealthy can offer you the chance to better treatments and extend your life for a longer period of time, living as a sick person can sometimes be worse than death itself.
Ah, equal abundance, depends what that entails. If that means everyone HAS equal abundance for doing nothing, I'm not sure we can cope with that as a species. Or if it's possible. We still need some motivation to improve, otherwise most of us will end up being vegetables.
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Yeah it's a tricky subject I guess what one might see as abundance others may see as a necessity and then you will always have some that are not happy and want more than just abundance.
For me personally Abundance in all things is when I have enough of each type of abundance to keep me healthy, happy, fed, watered, wise and with family by my side, finance and knowledge are an important part of making this happen and unfortunately not all can seek equal abundance in the current situation we are in, as those with the wealth to remain out of harms way without needing to work to survive will inevitably do much better off.
I guess each persons Idea of Abundance may also differ as some may not have family, health, wealth or even food and water and this is were cryptocurrencies and the blockchain are starting to make some real headway for people around the globe giving people an opportunity to create some kind of financial abundance through the abundance of knowledge available for those willing to put in the effort and use it.
I love reading these types of articles, they really get you thinking outside the box and questioning your own surroundings and motives for doing what it is that you do.
Thanks for the share, plus I really enjoyed the communication on this, I will look forward to reading more engaging posts like this in the future.
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That was very interesting to me as well. Turns out many people, including here on LeoFinance, are looking at money as just means to improve their lives. Which is the best thing one can hope for, in my opinion.
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Yes Leofinance has opened doors for many people to use their time constructively to earn much needed money and that is great to see and be a part of even if only at the smallest level.
I think most on here have had a rough year some more than others and it is great to see that we can all come together in the hope of improving our lives.
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I wonder what's that thing Taskmaster doesn't know.
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I know! Coding! Lol. But he can't find that on LeoFinance, so there must be something else too.
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Not sure what you are referring to.
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That. I'd say that we're learning from you and not vice versa
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As he said, nobody knows everything. So everybody keeps learning. Even experts in their domain of expertise (or maybe especially them).
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True, there are many ways to measure abundance.
And here in Venezuela it is the same, there is a lot of money to buy things but everything costs much more than what anyone can have, or also in the past there was a lot of money but there was no money to buy, a really disastrous situation.
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It's often when people encounter extreme examples such as Venezuela when they realize how important abundance is. And how important it is to reach all corners of the world and the society.
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It is because politician does not speak for freedom. There are capitalists that promote the politician. After election, the politician should pay the charges for being elected. His promises to the public will be sweet story of retorical campaigns but bitter story for the mass.
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I agree and that's obviously a flaw in the system.
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So True. Abundance in Free time is the best.
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I would agree, except if AI and robots will keep this trend, we will probably have more free time than we want.
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