[PLUG-TALK] What is money? (was Fair Use, etc.)

Dylan Reinhardt dylan at dylanreinhardt.com
Fri Mar 29 18:17:18 UTC 2002


>> In point of fact, money is far less real now than when Carneige put pen
>> to paper... and we're all vastly better off for it.

> I take special exception to such value statements.  It may be true that
> the transition was inevitable and part of the natural course of events,
> but better?  That is a cosmic question.

Perhaps it's a cosmic question in the sense that there's any such thing
as an absolute, objective standard of "better."  But I would still assert
that we are better off than people of 100 years ago by almost any criteria
you wish to choose.  I believe that to be particularly true in the economic
arena, which would be the most obvious way to examine the effects of a shift
to paper money.

>> seen the US grow from an largely agrarian plutocracy to a far
>> more egalitarian society ... world's largest industrial
>> power.

> This seems to be like many things that benefit the early adopters -
> like oxygen breathing organisms.  Is it a better ecosystem?  Well,
> it's certainly different, and the first on board certainly have an
> advantage.

If I follow you, you seem to be arguing that both social equality and material
wealth are cultural artifacts which only seem advantageous in light of the
fact that they are what we developed?  Certainly the desire for material
prosperity vastly pre-dates the founding of the US.  As for political and
social leveling, you may have a point.  A classless society was relatively
unheard of in the Western world 300 years ago.  Perhaps my cultural imprint
is showing here, but I still think it's a pretty nifty idea.

> This implies that the value of tokens is truly a less biased
> measure of true value.  I'm not sure this is any more true than
> the idea that the current price of a corporation's stock represents
> its long-term viability.

I really didn't follow you here.  Where does the issue of bias come in?

The value of the token is measured by the consumability of the token or
the opinion that others have about the token.  If it's a bushel of wheat,
its true value is however much bread you could make if you decided to eat
it.  If it's a gold coin, I don't see where there is any such thing as a
"true value" to measure.


> I agree with that paragraph except for the word "yet".
> There is no final state of "perfect optimization"

Probably not.  All I meant to indicate was my belief that change is ongoing
and that we are not at anything that could be described as a terminal state.
 I think we're in agreement on this point.

> Whether the stock market is on the rise or decline is based on the
> chosen geographical scope and starting and ending times of measure.
> Progress or regress of personal freedom and political clout are much
> the same, though more difficult to quantify

An interesting point, to be sure.  Perhaps social progress is sort of a
Schroedinger's Cat puzzle... you can't judge ongoing changes as positive
or negative until after the change has been accepted or rejected, at which
point the perspective of history will bias you to regard rejected changes
as negative and accepted changes as positive.  Is that something like what
you're saying?

If that's so, it makes sense to withhold value judgements about history...
but surely it makes sense to assign value judgments to the unresolved issues
that face us today, yes?  If it does, it would be a difficult task to fully
segregate one's feelings about current issues from any feelings about how
such issues were resolved in the past.

And as this discussion has made clear, there are many people who look dimly
upon decisions that were made decades or even centuries ago.  How can one
engage in a discussion of past decisions without being able to assess the
merits of what resulted from those decisions?

I think I see part of your point, but I'm not sure I'm getting the whole
thing.

Dylan






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