Sorry not to have replied to your earlier comment on the legal problem. I did read that AI convo and it was good to see that the AI suggested more than one avenue of action.
It is of course obvious, as I've said before, that the way we think about and do "money" does not serve us well, and instead serves those who would lord it over us. Even if some of us can begin to see this clearly, I do not see it as an easy matter to change it... It seems we have to come up with ways of "starving the dragon" as Mark puts it, because directly confronting it will only cause it to breathe fire, even if in we may get some minor victories.
Anyway I will look at the new links you've provided when I can.
The thing that even Graeber did not hit upon or articulate is that the 'math of money' is illiterate. So shifting the focus to this takes us out of the moral and power dynamics wrangling and into an arena of simple systems science dynamics.
Will you support a full objective evaluation of the “money system” from a strict system dynamics perspective?
Please take this into consideration:
1) The money system is a mere component of the economy whose dynamic status can be determined to be either stable (passive or active), unstable (active).
2) Being a purely human construct “money" requires a formal objectively evaluable ontological definition. Yet there is no consensus on what money is.
3) “Money" has been iterated ad hoc over informally assumed notions of it, taken by rote in spite of being ontologically undecidable.
4) How, in the event of constituting an unstable component of the economy, the "money system" produces economic imperatives that destabilise economic components that assume them as requirements.
5) Financial/economic units ($, €, etc..) also lack any formal (decidable) definitions rendering indeterminate any calculations in terms of these units vis-à-vis the “real” economy.
I think such an inquiry is long overdue as it seems evident that money imperatives seem to override most if not all other concerns; and not having independent existence of humans, “money" needs to be fully defined and specified like any other technological device applied to the real world.
Unfortunately, because everyone's survival and hope for individual prosperity as members of society are intertwined with money, when it comes to evaluating it as a mere technology all reason seems to be abandoned by most. Hopefully this will not prove to be the case with your organisation.
Marc Gauvin and all the international members/MSTA
What sense is there in whining about 'the bad guys' without eliminating the system that is producing them?
From another conversation on a different page, the question of 'how to get there is addressed like this by Rubén Arranz Glez:
" There is an inspiring book by Ken Alder on this subject. It describes, among other things, the difficulties in moving from anthropometric measurement systems to a technological standard. It may be interesting for you. In any case, those of us who have been following the problem for years are convinced of the magnitude and future repercussions of this discovery, which defines a new economic paradigm under a common theoretical framework. If I have to make a bet on the future, I would bet that this discovery deserves not so much the so-called Nobel Prize in Economics as the official Nobel Peace Prize. I find the discovery so beautiful that I cannot help being optimistic." https://www.simonandschuster.com/.../Ken-Alder/9780743216760
As regular readers will be aware, I am the world’s leading proponent of the theory that David Graeber was assassinated.
I am happy to report that the theory seems to be gaining traction. Today, I was pleased to log in to Substack and find https://substack.com/profile/82254804-tobin-owl speculating about this very topic.
I read, but didn't watch the debate, and would say that Derrick Jensen won with Graeber a close second. I'm not a Hedges fan. Is it in my Muskrat Love article where I call him the Eeyore of smug, supercilious preachers?
I'm with you, Tobin and Crow, it seems counterproductive (I'm resisting the word silly) to first decide on your tactics and then have the group figure out your objectives. The word an-archy means rule by rules, not by rulers. I bet that you couldn't have found two people at OWS in full agreement on what they wanted. And I don't agree with Graeber on UBI, free education and debt forgiveness--it doesn't go far enough and leaves the power at the top.
It's not clear to me what Occupy Wall Street was aiming for or why it eventually dispersed. It seems to me it would be necessary to define some objectives before one could evaluate whether strategic actions of whatever stripe could be effective in achieving that objective. Otherwise it seems aimless…
Ding ding ding, that's where I'm going with this... that discussion about tactics is meaningless without a strategy... and OWS didn't have a coherent strategy, meaning that the entire debate missed the point entirely.
It's too bad that Chris Hedges and B. Traven didn't debate demands - that would have been more interesting!
Just found an amazing article about David Graeber which includes the most detailed account of his last days that I’ve found:
Pandemic life in London had been a challenge for Graeber: He was constitutionally averse to quarantine. “It was tough for David to abide by the rules of isolation, not go to t…
In physical slavery the doing of the slave does not accrue to the credit account of the slave but is stolen by the master. In a healthy social order the doing of the individual is not stolen by another, but neither is it individually hoarded. You see, no individual has the wherewithal to b…
The thing that even Graeber did not hit upon or articulate is that the 'math of money' is illiterate. So shifting the focus to this takes us out of the moral and power dynamics wrangling and into an arena of simple systems science dynamics.”
“Money” seems to be a subjective concept. It’s diverse history shows this is so. IOUs recorded on cuniform tablets…commodities like shells, jewlry, grain, salt, cloth, cows even women… coins, cloth or paper money… backed or unbacked (fiat)… digits in a computer.
How do you dismantle a system of debt imposed by central banks by simply complaining about “money” being undefined? Isn’t it just semantics?
Better to reject the system of taxes, usury, fiat, imposed debt and the whole lot of statutory, mercantile law that goes along with it and start something new. What we need is not just to redefine money: we need a whole new way of relating to the earth and one another. If people can see just how bad the current money system is, and what it has really done then maybe there’s a possibility for us to change it… to change it ALL.
I've been mulling these aspects over and did quite a bit of reading on bibocurrency.com, including Gauvin's short book and still come to no clear conclusion.
It seems to me that we need something that can begin to eat away at the established systems, and do so quickly and effectively. In that regard, I've recently come across a very interesting project:
If you look at the UCT Treaty, you will find mention of the abolishing of all systems of usury and the establishment of credit systems. So far I've been unable to ascertain what they are actually doing in this regard, but the Treaty and the federation themselves seem like a good start.
I decided to publish a series of articles on money, and given that I suspect my readership is diverse and I haven't focused on money specifically before, I am including articles that analyse the gravity of the situation and how we got here. If, afterwards, I feel I have clarity on how we can get out of this situation, I will by all means present it.
I think providing links is better than copy/paste for long, detailed analysis.
The AI convo was very helpful, and it is clear that a passive system of bounded values would be far superior to what we have today. (Were you the one posing the questions?)
But I also think the challenges to implementation are important to reckon with, especially:
"Legal and Regulatory Adaptation: Existing laws and regulations built around current monetary systems would need to be overhauled.
International Coordination: Implementing such a system globally would require unprecedented levels of international cooperation."
IMO, we really do need to overhaul society from the ground up. I think this is where the Universal Community Trust, or something like it that relies on Natural Law (rather than on bureaucracy, statutory/commercial law, etc.) would allow for the implementation of just such systems, and is even able to exist and demonstrate viability and resilience within and in counterposition to present systems.
Yes, the legal system is itself built inside of the present illiteracy. AS a way to get the focus onto the core question of money itself we have proposed that any/every jurisdiction can take up the MSTA Resolutions. https://www.moneytransparency.com/msta-resolutions
Marc Gauvin is the guy posing the questions in that AI convo.
and to continue the thread about First Order Logic Applied To Money there is this:
What if most all that we wring our hands about can be attributed to the seemingly appropriate responses that people give to the imperatives of money as presently conceived? What if that very conception is wrong?
I am writing to ask if you can take a moment to use your systems analysis capabilities and, hopefully, find that our conceptual base for money itself needs to be corrected if we are going to stop all that it produces. And So Many Mental Health Issues are products of our delusions about money!!
I am hoping that this conversation between Marc Gauvin and the Perplexity AI will give some clarity to the subject:
In physical slavery the doing of the slave does not accrue to the credit account of the slave but is stolen by the master. In a healthy social order the doing of the individual is not stolen by another, but neither is it individually hoarded. You see, no individual has the wherewithal to be completely self reliant. From birth to death people are, by their very nature, interdependent on each other. Feudal systems that subvert this interdependency such that the benefits of individual effort accrue to the benefit of a few are an all too common aberration in the natural history of humans. However, the correction when extracting A People from feudalism is not individualism to the point of anarchy, as this is a very juvenile and self centered and anarchistic version of feudalism itself. What has been an unfortunate result of the recent conquest time period of the feudal and neo-feudal age is that in wide geographic areas fully functioning social orders based on mutual interdependency have all been killed off leaving the conquerors and their descendants without the benefit of knowing how interdependent social orders function, without the philosophical and moral and psychological guide posts on how to really get the notion that “it takes a village to raise a child.”
The book on debt was already out, the damage was done. The history books would have been cause for revolution.
Thanks Mark,
Sorry not to have replied to your earlier comment on the legal problem. I did read that AI convo and it was good to see that the AI suggested more than one avenue of action.
It is of course obvious, as I've said before, that the way we think about and do "money" does not serve us well, and instead serves those who would lord it over us. Even if some of us can begin to see this clearly, I do not see it as an easy matter to change it... It seems we have to come up with ways of "starving the dragon" as Mark puts it, because directly confronting it will only cause it to breathe fire, even if in we may get some minor victories.
Anyway I will look at the new links you've provided when I can.
Cheers,
Tobin
The thing that even Graeber did not hit upon or articulate is that the 'math of money' is illiterate. So shifting the focus to this takes us out of the moral and power dynamics wrangling and into an arena of simple systems science dynamics.
Will you support a full objective evaluation of the “money system” from a strict system dynamics perspective?
Please take this into consideration:
1) The money system is a mere component of the economy whose dynamic status can be determined to be either stable (passive or active), unstable (active).
2) Being a purely human construct “money" requires a formal objectively evaluable ontological definition. Yet there is no consensus on what money is.
3) “Money" has been iterated ad hoc over informally assumed notions of it, taken by rote in spite of being ontologically undecidable.
4) How, in the event of constituting an unstable component of the economy, the "money system" produces economic imperatives that destabilise economic components that assume them as requirements.
5) Financial/economic units ($, €, etc..) also lack any formal (decidable) definitions rendering indeterminate any calculations in terms of these units vis-à-vis the “real” economy.
I think such an inquiry is long overdue as it seems evident that money imperatives seem to override most if not all other concerns; and not having independent existence of humans, “money" needs to be fully defined and specified like any other technological device applied to the real world.
Unfortunately, because everyone's survival and hope for individual prosperity as members of society are intertwined with money, when it comes to evaluating it as a mere technology all reason seems to be abandoned by most. Hopefully this will not prove to be the case with your organisation.
You Have Been Served
https://bibocurrency.com/index.php/downloads-2/19-english-root/learn/300-you-have-been-served
Marc Gauvin and all the international members/MSTA
What sense is there in whining about 'the bad guys' without eliminating the system that is producing them?
From another conversation on a different page, the question of 'how to get there is addressed like this by Rubén Arranz Glez:
" There is an inspiring book by Ken Alder on this subject. It describes, among other things, the difficulties in moving from anthropometric measurement systems to a technological standard. It may be interesting for you. In any case, those of us who have been following the problem for years are convinced of the magnitude and future repercussions of this discovery, which defines a new economic paradigm under a common theoretical framework. If I have to make a bet on the future, I would bet that this discovery deserves not so much the so-called Nobel Prize in Economics as the official Nobel Peace Prize. I find the discovery so beautiful that I cannot help being optimistic." https://www.simonandschuster.com/.../Ken-Alder/9780743216760
https://www.bibocurrency.com/index.php/downloads-2/19-english-root/learn/299-stop-wwiii
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https://substack.com/@nevermorefrancais? mentioned you in a note4h
Hey Folks,
As regular readers will be aware, I am the world’s leading proponent of the theory that David Graeber was assassinated.
I am happy to report that the theory seems to be gaining traction. Today, I was pleased to log in to Substack and find https://substack.com/profile/82254804-tobin-owl speculating about this very topic.
So, I’ve decided…
See more...
https://nevermoremedia.substack.com/
The Assassination of David Graeber
5
1
2
https://substack.com/@freedc2022?, https://substack.com/@lizthompson? and 6 others liked your post https://totheroot.substack.com/p/debts-are-to-be-paid8h
Debts Are To Be Paid
Follow
https://substack.com/@thirdparadigm? replied to your comment on https://nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/chris-hedges-vs-david-graeber17h
I read, but didn't watch the debate, and would say that Derrick Jensen won with Graeber a close second. I'm not a Hedges fan. Is it in my Muskrat Love article where I call him the Eeyore of smug, supercilious preachers?
I'm with you, Tobin and Crow, it seems counterproductive (I'm resisting the word silly) to first decide on your tactics and then have the group figure out your objectives. The word an-archy means rule by rules, not by rulers. I bet that you couldn't have found two people at OWS in full agreement on what they wanted. And I don't agree with Graeber on UBI, free education and debt forgiveness--it doesn't go far enough and leaves the power at the top.
2
1
1
https://substack.com/@thirdparadigm? and https://substack.com/@nevermorefrancais? liked your comment on https://nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/chris-hedges-vs-david-graeber17h
It's not clear to me what Occupy Wall Street was aiming for or why it eventually dispersed. It seems to me it would be necessary to define some objectives before one could evaluate whether strategic actions of whatever stripe could be effective in achieving that objective. Otherwise it seems aimless…
https://substack.com/@goodthinking99?, https://substack.com/@dianen502583? and 1 other subscribed to https://nevermoremedia.substack.com/18h
https://substack.com/@nevermorefrancais? mentioned you in a note18h
This article is the second that I’ve wrote about the classic debate between Chris Hedges and the influential Crimethinc collective.
In the first, I asked a very simple question: who won the debate?
This debate has proven fruitful so far, so I’m continuing with it.
I’m going to reproduce https://substack.com/profile/2166502-chris-hedges’s notorious T…
See more...
https://nevermoremedia.substack.com/
CHRIS HEDGES VS. DAVID GRAEBER
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https://substack.com/@nevermorefrancais? replied to your comment on https://nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/chris-hedges-vs-david-graeber18h
Ding ding ding, that's where I'm going with this... that discussion about tactics is meaningless without a strategy... and OWS didn't have a coherent strategy, meaning that the entire debate missed the point entirely.
It's too bad that Chris Hedges and B. Traven didn't debate demands - that would have been more interesting!
1
1
1
https://substack.com/@nevermorefrancais? mentioned you in a note18h
Just found an amazing article about David Graeber which includes the most detailed account of his last days that I’ve found:
Pandemic life in London had been a challenge for Graeber: He was constitutionally averse to quarantine. “It was tough for David to abide by the rules of isolation, not go to t…
See more...
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/11/david-graeber-dawn-of-everything.html
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/11/david-graeber-dawn-of-everything.html
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https://substack.com/@markheffernan? replied to a comment on https://totheroot.substack.com/p/debts-are-to-be-paid21h
Yes, Rob!
In physical slavery the doing of the slave does not accrue to the credit account of the slave but is stolen by the master. In a healthy social order the doing of the individual is not stolen by another, but neither is it individually hoarded. You see, no individual has the wherewithal to b…
See more...
2
1
1
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https://substack.com/@robc137? replied to a comment on https://totheroot.substack.com/p/debts-are-to-be-paid1d
Yeah, they keep the rules loose in order to game the system.
That's why we have huge inflation. There's a lot of middlemen and protection money rackets in the middle getting paid for non productive work.
Hmmm if they only could link money to actual work. 😂
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https://substack.com/@markheffernan? commented on your post https://totheroot.substack.com/p/debts-are-to-be-paid1d
The thing that even Graeber did not hit upon or articulate is that the 'math of money' is illiterate. So shifting the focus to this takes us out of the moral and power dynamics wrangling and into an arena of simple systems science dynamics.”
“Money” seems to be a subjective concept. It’s diverse history shows this is so. IOUs recorded on cuniform tablets…commodities like shells, jewlry, grain, salt, cloth, cows even women… coins, cloth or paper money… backed or unbacked (fiat)… digits in a computer.
How do you dismantle a system of debt imposed by central banks by simply complaining about “money” being undefined? Isn’t it just semantics?
Better to reject the system of taxes, usury, fiat, imposed debt and the whole lot of statutory, mercantile law that goes along with it and start something new. What we need is not just to redefine money: we need a whole new way of relating to the earth and one another. If people can see just how bad the current money system is, and what it has really done then maybe there’s a possibility for us to change it… to change it ALL.
Hello Mark,
Thanks for your input.
I've been mulling these aspects over and did quite a bit of reading on bibocurrency.com, including Gauvin's short book and still come to no clear conclusion.
It seems to me that we need something that can begin to eat away at the established systems, and do so quickly and effectively. In that regard, I've recently come across a very interesting project:
https://www.universal-community-trust.org/
If you look at the UCT Treaty, you will find mention of the abolishing of all systems of usury and the establishment of credit systems. So far I've been unable to ascertain what they are actually doing in this regard, but the Treaty and the federation themselves seem like a good start.
I decided to publish a series of articles on money, and given that I suspect my readership is diverse and I haven't focused on money specifically before, I am including articles that analyse the gravity of the situation and how we got here. If, afterwards, I feel I have clarity on how we can get out of this situation, I will by all means present it.
Hello Tobin.
Maybe this conversation with the AI at 'Perplexity' will be helpful:
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/are-the-requirements-for-valid-aKI04VRmRkGwIXsols_4qA
I tried to post the full thing here, but it is too long for the limits of this format.
Thanks again, Mark.
I think providing links is better than copy/paste for long, detailed analysis.
The AI convo was very helpful, and it is clear that a passive system of bounded values would be far superior to what we have today. (Were you the one posing the questions?)
But I also think the challenges to implementation are important to reckon with, especially:
"Legal and Regulatory Adaptation: Existing laws and regulations built around current monetary systems would need to be overhauled.
International Coordination: Implementing such a system globally would require unprecedented levels of international cooperation."
IMO, we really do need to overhaul society from the ground up. I think this is where the Universal Community Trust, or something like it that relies on Natural Law (rather than on bureaucracy, statutory/commercial law, etc.) would allow for the implementation of just such systems, and is even able to exist and demonstrate viability and resilience within and in counterposition to present systems.
https://www.universal-community-trust.org/case-studies/
https://universalcommunitytrust.substack.com/
Hi Tobin.
Yes, the legal system is itself built inside of the present illiteracy. AS a way to get the focus onto the core question of money itself we have proposed that any/every jurisdiction can take up the MSTA Resolutions. https://www.moneytransparency.com/msta-resolutions
Marc Gauvin is the guy posing the questions in that AI convo.
Hey Tobin,
here is another convo with the Perplexity AI that Marc has had and that addresses the legal system question you pointed to.
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/please-evaluate-the-following-PSWw9unbRry_aHO84zA3vg
Cheers!
Hey Tobin...thought of you when I found this:
https://www.ciis.edu/news/david-graeber-memorial-lectures
and to continue the thread about First Order Logic Applied To Money there is this:
What if most all that we wring our hands about can be attributed to the seemingly appropriate responses that people give to the imperatives of money as presently conceived? What if that very conception is wrong?
I am writing to ask if you can take a moment to use your systems analysis capabilities and, hopefully, find that our conceptual base for money itself needs to be corrected if we are going to stop all that it produces. And So Many Mental Health Issues are products of our delusions about money!!
I am hoping that this conversation between Marc Gauvin and the Perplexity AI will give some clarity to the subject:
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/please-evaluate-the-following-GUmV49ufS8S.8TxEXTJfgQ#locale=en-US
By the way, the Simon and Schuster link comes up blank.
Yeah, they keep the rules loose in order to game the system.
That's why we have huge inflation. There's a lot of middlemen and protection money rackets in the middle getting paid for non productive work.
Hmmm if they only could link money to actual work. 😂
Yes, Rob!
In physical slavery the doing of the slave does not accrue to the credit account of the slave but is stolen by the master. In a healthy social order the doing of the individual is not stolen by another, but neither is it individually hoarded. You see, no individual has the wherewithal to be completely self reliant. From birth to death people are, by their very nature, interdependent on each other. Feudal systems that subvert this interdependency such that the benefits of individual effort accrue to the benefit of a few are an all too common aberration in the natural history of humans. However, the correction when extracting A People from feudalism is not individualism to the point of anarchy, as this is a very juvenile and self centered and anarchistic version of feudalism itself. What has been an unfortunate result of the recent conquest time period of the feudal and neo-feudal age is that in wide geographic areas fully functioning social orders based on mutual interdependency have all been killed off leaving the conquerors and their descendants without the benefit of knowing how interdependent social orders function, without the philosophical and moral and psychological guide posts on how to really get the notion that “it takes a village to raise a child.”