Fwd: [p2p-research] Metacurrency

[R.A. Hettinga]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Rayservers <rayservers at gmail.com>
> Date: October 12, 2009 10:30:46 AM GMT-04:00
> To: Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org>
> Cc: tt at postbiota.org, info at postbiota.org, cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net
> Subject: Re: [p2p-research] Metacurrency
>
> Hi,
>
> We are working on this. See: http://www.global-settlement.org/
>
> The software contemplated is distributed. We are working on a Lisp  
> based core
> with a blackboard based approach with GBBOpen (you can happily do  
> agent based
> programming), and ties in to any other project such as Voucher Safe  
> in Java (not
> yet released), Loom (see https://loom.cc/) in Perl, etc. Bandwidth  
> as a currency
> is a natural outcome.
>
> There is no need to invent imaginary currencies such as the USD to  
> run an
> economy. Such currencies are rooted in fraud and the current  
> entrapment of the
> "debtors" and together with them all the nation states is unfolding.  
> More on the
> Rayservers blog. http://www.rayservers.com/blog
>
> Any lisp programmers who are interested can contact me.
>
> Cheers,
>
> ---Venkat.
>
> On 10/12/09 11:58, Eugen Leitl wrote:
>> ----- Forwarded message from Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com>  
>> -----
>>
>> From: Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com>
>> Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:59:01 -0400
>> To: Gerry Gleason <gerryg at inbox.com>
>> Cc: Peer-To-Peer Research List <p2presearch at listcultures.org>
>> Subject: [p2p-research] Metacurrency
>>
>> Gerry, I am interested in the metacurrency event. My own interest  
>> lies
>> in creating a set of simple open standards around alternative
>> currencies. My interest is that these simple standards be adoptable
>> across many different web applications.
>>
>> Everyone keeps pointing me to the metacurrency project, and I keep
>> repeating that metacurrency project does not have any published  
>> simple
>> standard that I can adopt. They do have examples, but they are not
>> complete, and do not constitute a replicable body of work. Plus, in  
>> my
>> opinion, metacurrency approach is overly complicated.
>>
>> I also see something missing from metacurrency.org, and that is that
>> "currency" can depend on the ecology/medium. This is different than
>> traditional currency, and allows "money" to be tied to what is being
>> exchanged within the system.
>>
>> I talked with Paul Hartzog in Ann Arbor about something similar  
>> recently:
>>
>> The idea that the medium of activity dictates the "currency". Paul
>> uses the example of bittorrent: For users of bittorrent, the currency
>> of exchange is literally the "bit". You have to upload to download,
>> and you can upload more now, which will let you download more later
>> (thus creating a surplus within the whole system). These types of
>> exchanges are not "market" exchanges, like buying and selling. They
>> are commons-based exchanges, where participants have feedback about
>> how they are taking from and contributing to the common-pool resource
>> of bandwidth in the bittorrent system... Read More
>>
>> There are also similar commons-based webs of exchanges between people
>> and natural systems that can follow a "code", and the "code" need not
>> be like a script on a computer.
>>
>> Instead it can be more like an agent based model, where you follow
>> simple rules about how you act within a system. Achievement of
>> creating a balance between yourself and the system will usually
>> consist of what you take from system, and what you put back in.
>>
>> The argument that Paul and I make is that you can also look at your
>> yourself as a fractal micro-cosm of the larger system you are a part
>> of. You can look at where you are getting inputs from, and where your
>> outputs go to. What you take in can be from the "waste" of someone
>> else ("waste equals food"), what you output could be the basis of raw
>> ... Read Morematerial for other's "input". These are the simple  
>> rules,
>> the "code" for what I call a "wealth generating ecology" (wealth =
>> other kinds of wealth beyond just money) a system that can generate
>> surplus consistently even for one person, and can exponentially
>> generate surplus as more people enter the system. The catch is that
>> most of the resources end up being voluntarily or systematically
>> co-managed as a "commons": a resource that everyone who uses
>> recognizes as something that no one user fully owns, and so must be
>> co-governed somehow by users. (resource is not just physical object,
>> can be the combined time and attention of people, etc)
>>
>> (Gerry: copied this to p2p research list, I feel that people there
>> would be interested in this exchange. I clipped off your personal
>> notes to me)