Quote from: jdbtracker on November 30, 2016, 01:22:52 PM

There is a lot we can do... I want to hear your suggestions Hugo... Where do we start?

Here is the problem: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/dec/05/mark-carney-isolation-globalisation-bank-of-england
And again: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4003756/Robots-steal-15m-jobs-says-bank-chief-Doom-laden-Carney-warns-middle-classes-hollowed-new-technology.html

From the DM article: "Mr Carney claimed that 'up to 15million of the current jobs in Britain' almost half of the 31.8million workforce could be replaced by robots over the coming years as livelihoods were 'mercilessly destroyed' by the technological revolution."

That's coming from the Governor of the Bank of England of all people. I've said this before and I will say it again: the social consequences of the coming revolution will not be solved by the blockchain or cryptography or by decentralising monetary systems. The 'smart' revolution challenges the very concept of money itself, i.e. as something that needs to be 'earned' in any conventional sense of the term. Who will pay for the millions that will be made jobless over the next couple of decades? How will they live? It is a social problem, not a technological one.

What we need is a new sociology of money. Once we accept that the 'smart' revolution is the revolution (i.e. that the jobs it eliminates will not be replaced and in fact do not need to be replaced) then we have to look for a monetary solution that is equally radical. A revolution of this magnitude requires a completely new economic paradigm. We need to abandon everything we think we know and acknowledge that existing concepts (based on economic theories that are centuries old) have zero utility in a scenario where people simply can't earn because jobs are no longer available.

We have to change the 'polarity' of money, from a negative charge to a positive charge. It is pointless to pretend that money needs to be earned through labour or that computers need to 'earn' money for us. I'm currently working on my own solution (different from the white paper I posted elsewhere on this board) but it's not based on the blockchain and I'm not prepared to make it public. What I will say is this:

1. A new currency requires an internal market to get started. M-Pesa is a success because it is built on an existing internal market (for mobile phone services) within existing internal markets (the Kenyan and Tanzanian economies). Consider loyalty cards for example, the kind operated by major supermarkets. They're basically closed-loop credit cards, and if you build up enough points then you can pay for a trolley full of goods in 'points' rather than money. They work because they have an internal market, i.e. the supermarket itself. I used to design these systems, and in the UK some of the biggest schemes have five times more subscribers than Bitcoin is estimated to have worldwide. The closest thing Bitcoin has to an internal market is the dark web.

2. Having an internal market removes all obstacles to the acceptance of a new currency in the early stages, i.e. everyone entering into the market does so freely, knowing that there is a single accepted unit of currency. This means there is no one to break the chain so to speak. No one can refuse to accept the currency or deny that it has 'value' without leaving the market itself.

3. Once an internal market has reached a certain size it is far more likely that an attempt to extend the currency's use beyond its own boundaries will be successful.

Ultimately though, the solution is for the human race to grow up and to stop dashing around after bits of paper and electromagnetic charges. This may sound like madness to some right now, but it will become increasingly easier to accept once jobs begin to disappear and it becomes harder and harder to actually dash around after bits of paper and electromagnetic charges.

HS