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When I intendfirst wrote this, the shutdown was still on, and I didn't see how it would ever end, and then it did. On the other hand, maybe this is as urgent as ever, so that we have ready solutions to addressprotect thosepotential whovictims of harm.
When you understand what money is,andyou will see how it can be created just from trust. When we have shifted to currencies grounded on compassion and generosity vs. fear and greed, a small group of us would be able to respond to Trump's blackmail and directly create the necessary liquidity to bridge the crisis. We all know that, in the end, the government will have to pay their bills and we shouldn't have to force them.
Once we have shifted this way in our relationship with money and productivity, it would be hard to imagine how the current situation could arise. The new money system would not hold anyone hostage to the possibility of a negative balance. It will frictionlessly create credit as needed to pay for things. Some of us will leave with a positive balance and some with a negative, and who will care. The dimension of value represented by money today is not how we value a lifetime of relationships and the memories that remain with us.
TheHad middlethe of a crisis iscontinued, noI'm timenot tosure bean designingemergency andresponse buildingwould newhave systems,been possible, but I suspect, that if given a couple of months, athe right handful of innovative blockchain companies could create a system that can do exactly that. If any of them think we can do it now in the middle of things, contact me, I'd love to try with you. People with blockchain assets could put them up as security/capital and government workers could get credit at low/no interest to cover their lost wages and pay it back when they are paid, and we would make sure they are paid. In the end, any fees or points could be covered by donations, and all of the tokens redeemed and assets returned would balance the books.
Many advocates of blockchain talk about how the technology can create trust in low-trust contexts, but the real power of blockchain is how it creates permanent relationships. The blockchain allows you to trust the data, that you and everyone you know that everyone has the same data on their chains at some point. There can be real-time differences as chains update locally at different times, but very soon all of these pass into the shared history. Whether the chain entries are transaciions in our government employee shutdown credit system, movements of production components in a supply chain or the voices and votes in a peer to peer governance system; they each produce a trace of data on a blockchain that reflect relationships in the real world systems related to the chain.
In our emergency credit system, we would extend credit within blockchain currencies, and someone taking advantage of this offer would then use exchanges if they needed to convert to dollars to pay their bills since very few of their bills can be paid on chains. On the other hand, all this new flow through crypto-currencies might suggest ways more businesses could get involved by taking the currencies created for the shutdown workers. All of this will be reflected in the data, and after the emergency, the gratitude can be made more tangible and maybe expand what was just data into human relationships. Thin financial motives do not drive systems like this; those who would fund such a currency would not be motivated by big returns. This is something we owe to our employees even if the governing institutions are dysfunctional and the whole nation will honor them, and the employees can accept it without shame. It is a sin that our financial system cannot on its own initiative make allowances for this situation.
When you understand what money is,
Once we have shifted this way in our relationship with money and productivity, it would be hard to imagine how the current situation could arise. The new money system would not hold anyone hostage to the possibility of a negative balance. It will frictionlessly create credit as needed to pay for things. Some of us will leave with a positive balance and some with a negative, and who will care. The dimension of value represented by money today is not how we value a lifetime of relationships and the memories that remain with us.
Many advocates of blockchain talk about how the technology can create trust in low-trust contexts, but the real power of blockchain is how it creates permanent relationships. The blockchain allows you to trust the data, that you and everyone you know that everyone has the same data on their chains at some point. There can be real-time differences as chains update locally at different times, but very soon all of these pass into the shared history. Whether the chain entries are transaciions in our government employee shutdown credit system, movements of production components in a supply chain or the voices and votes in a peer to peer governance system; they each produce a trace of data on a blockchain that reflect relationships in the real world systems related to the chain.
In our emergency credit system, we would extend credit within blockchain currencies, and someone taking advantage of this offer would then use exchanges if they needed to convert to dollars to pay their bills since very few of their bills can be paid on chains. On the other hand, all this new flow through crypto-currencies might suggest ways more businesses could get involved by taking the currencies created for the shutdown workers. All of this will be reflected in the data, and after the emergency, the gratitude can be made more tangible and maybe expand what was just data into human relationships. Thin financial motives do not drive systems like this; those who would fund such a currency would not be motivated by big returns. This is something we owe to our employees even if the governing institutions are dysfunctional and the whole nation will honor them, and the employees can accept it without shame. It is a sin that our financial system cannot on its own initiative make allowances for this situation.