I always love your attitude. Now that technology and culture have advanced to the point where perpetual abundance is possible (though not distributed very well), it makes sense that people who want to opt out of competition should be able to.
I agree with almost everything you say. I'm not sure about crypto being able to benefit everyone fairly though. It has certainly benefited many people and has the potential to help some more, but as with all trade-able commodities, it is easily hoarded by those with the resources to accumulate it. Those who get on board before the big guys will be able to achieve impressive levels of wealth but those who are late to the game, not so much. The idea of not needing any trust is also problematic. Lack of trust is one of the root causes of most problems in the world.
These new ideas about allowing anyone to create their own currency, that sounds much more exciting to me than what exists now, although it is bound to be a bit messy. If we can create currencies that reflect trust in people, organizations and ideas that deserve our trust, we might be able to really fix this world.
Have you read Debt: The first 5000 years by David Graeber? I think you'd like it a lot. It's a long tiring read though. It's an anthropological study of the history of money. I learned so much and I only got 30% through it (will get around to finishing it one day). The first thing I learned from it was that a bartering economy never existed, bartering DID happen of course but it wasn't systematically the main form dealing with resources, it was usually reserved specifically for strangers and people outside the community. Inside the community a kind of "reputation economy" was pretty much widespread, there were also many tribes where everything belonged to everybody....but a society where barter was central never existed, it was made up by Adam Smith in his attempt to explain why money is necessary.
We should go back to that system where everything belongs to everybody. It brings about an economy that incentives people to take care of everything and everyone.
A lot of people call that communist or socialist which is kind of ridiculous cause look at those tribes, there was no state. You could call it anarchism but sometimes it's better to be able to think beyond isms.
It's important to recognize that currency only has power when we collectively decide to give it power and think trust and decency make for much more natural , comfortable, and just currencies.
I do agree that we should move in that general direction but without a significant change in culture, this would lead to a whole bunch of new problems. I don't believe a drastic systematic change is possible and the complete destruction of the current system would lead to chaos and eventually another system. I think the only road forward is to start building things outside the system and allowing them to grow while the system kind of falls apart. Eventually leaving the system will be more appealing and at that point there were already be strong, healthy communities outside of the system. The only thing we need to do is to protect our right to opt out of the system. So the system only needs to change in this one way, to allow us to exist outside of the system. Once we establish that, there won't be any need to fight anything, we just need to build a new world, and I think for many it will look a lot like peaceful tribes.
Good points. I"ll expand more on a lot of the point you raised.
I've began reading David's book but never finished it if I remember correctly.
Awesome, looking forward to it. ;-)