[ExI] Bottom-up currencies

[Emlyn]

On 12 March 2011 03:07, Richard Loosemore <rpwl at lightlink.com> wrote:
>
> Money is a concept that *emerges* from a complex system.  It is a
> combination of:
>
> (a) What most people believe it is, and
>
> (b) What various powerful actors (i.e. governments and market speculators)
> force it to be.
>
> The mistake, I think, is for people to get confused about the second of
> these, and to think that if governments all decide to, say, adopt the gold
> standard, that therefore that IS what money is.
>
> In truth, the second factor (governments + market speculators) is really
> only a particularly big and heavy group of "people", who happen to believe a
> particular thing.
>
> Conclusion:  trying to argue about what money "really" is, or what it
> "really ought to be" is somewhat nonsensical, since it emerges as a result
> of beliefs and interactions of a complex nature.
>
> Richard Loosemore

I totally agree with you Richard.

However, you can affect group belief, and a good way to do this is to
introduce cultural constructs, complex idea frameworks, which help
people to think about it in different ways. I'm not a believer in
Sapir-Whorf at the individual level, but I do believe that at a
cultural level we mainly only work with pre-existing concepts. New
conceptual elements are hugely useful, and can especially get foothold
in times when the existing constructs have been found wanting, and we
collectively are groping for the next idea but can't think of it in
aggregate because of a lack of framework.

-- 
Emlyn

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