Came across this interview of an ATM machine in Antartica http://www.needcoffee.com/2010/01/12/antarctica-atm-interview/ Here is a snippet of the Q&A session from the interview: " DP: You know, that is a very good question, and you're right it is challenging--certainly makes for a long commute for our servicers. I'm kidding thereb&tongue-in-cheekb& No, actually, what we do--first of all, the cash on the ice is recycled. So McMurdo Station (which is the scientists' station there on Antarctica)... any sort of venue, the cash is all recycled, and so there's no cash vendor that has to go down all the time to a regular ATM to replenish the cash volume. W: Rightb&there's only so many places one can run with cash down there, I assume. " That brings us to the obvious question, why not use something like a debit card hooked to a central network? Why does hard currency have to flow? Will not the time and effort be far lesser, in case of the former? Thanks, Sarad.

At 06:46 AM 10/18/2010 -0700, Sarad AV wrote:

That brings us to the obvious question, why not use something like a debit card hooked to a central network? Why does hard currency have to flow?>

What part of untraceable bearer instruments don't you understand? Don't you think they have a growhouse? Stop trolling. ---------------- David Honig (714) 544 9727 36 Laurelwood Dr. Irvine, CA 92620

On 20/10/2010 04:36, Morlock Elloi wrote:

Antartica can function without external cash flow only if it's zero-sum inside, ie. no value created, which is true for any collection of, ehm, scientists.

Growing, however, creates real value that would need to be balanced with external cash inflow (a very useful indicator of how much is being grown, BTW.)

I disagree. While the total value of the system compared to the external world can indeed grow (and be balanced by an outflow of some saleable resource, either physical or not) the amount of needed in-circulation cash is going to be pretty close to constant, if you can disregard inflation. you still need a bank - people will need to exchange the non-physical value of their wages for physical tokens (cash) and will spend those at retail for food, clothing etc. a certain amount will remain in the bank (as savings) or be transferred electronically for mail order goods) however, all money spent at retail will be in the cash registers of the retailers who will invariably then take at least some of it to the bank, to be credited to their account. This account will then be used to pay wages (for their own workers) and buy in fresh supplies of resources (electronically). Some will no doubt skip this step, and issue wages from receipts and buy some materiel in cash (so freshly caught raw meat, etc) but that doesn't cause the cash to leave the system - its new owners will either spend it at retail or bank it, thus recycling the tokens they have. no matter how you look at it, the amount in people's wallets won't vary that much, and once spent, will either be placed in other people's wallets, or in the bank (where it can be re-issued to the people who spent it in the first place). The only reasons you can need new physical tokens in the system are inflation (items are costing more, so the amount of in-wallet cash you need to carry is larger), physical tokens are leaving the system - so, raw materiel bought in cash from outside the system, people leaving Antarctica and taking cash with them - or if the number of people in the system is increasing, which of course is possible.

Interestingly, I have a friend who did a year at antarctica (at a station roughly 300 miles from McMurdo). Cash moeny isn't even available :-( Pity. As for "growth", or "increase in value", these are concepts not totally out of place in the vaccum of what amounts to self-imposed isolation for your *own* research goals. The closest thing to money down there is time, which is traded much as we trade the tokens of bills and coin. And time is fixed in quantity: everyone has the same fraction of the total to start with, the total cannot grow or shrink, but it can (and does) rise in value as the distance from the start of the "shift" gets longer. //Alif On Sun, 24 Oct 2010, Morlock Elloi wrote:

Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2010 21:27:55 -0700 (PDT) From: Morlock Elloi To: cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net Subject: Re: Money in a closed ecosystem

I think that the term "growing" was misunderstood - it refers to a certain floral activity, and I'll bet that there's not export, it's all consumed internally.

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Growing, however, creates real value that would need to be balanced with external cash inflow (a very useful indicator of how much is being grown, BTW.)

I disagree. While the total value of the system compared to the external world can indeed grow (and be balanced by an outflow of some saleable resource, either physical or not) the amount of needed in-circulation cash is going to be pretty close to constant, if you can disregard inflation.

//Alif -- "Never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty." Joseph Pulitzer, 1907 Speech