Re: The Economy Of Plenty

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Tue, 16 Sep 1997 12:57:11 -0500


Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>
> "Money" is nothing more than an agreement among individuals to abstract
> some valuable for convenience of trade. Those who oppose the idea are
> just being stubbornly anti-social.

Anybody who wants to continue using 'money' could do so under my new system,
which is a superset of the old. More possibilities, not less. Complex barter
doesn't have to be mandatory, just possible. The situation for holdouts would
be loosely analogous to someone in our current society refusing to use money.
Holdouts will lose (money)/(resources) until they give up and join in.

I'm not saying that complex barter is necessary for the common good, although
it is. I'm saying that complex barter is as much an improvement over money,
as money is over simple barter.

-- 
         sentience@pobox.com      Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
          http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/singularity.html
           http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/algernon.html
Disclaimer:  Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.