Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
h a l f b a k e r y
If you can read this you are not following too closely.

idea: add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, random

meta: news, help, about, links, report a problem

account: browse anonymously, or get an account and write.

user:
pass:
register,


                                                                               

Multidimensional money

The problem with money is that it is only along one dimension that goes left and right, so the nuance of its creation and its causality and effects are limited. Multidimensional money turns money and prices into a game of multidimensional chess or top trumps where good effects must be caused for you to afford something.
  (-1)
(-1)
  [vote for,
against]

A single number collapses so many different things into one information, it loses so much information. Money is compression of people, skills, shelter, cars, roads, work done, buildings, ideas, components, services, things said, data into a single piece of information. It's kind of lossy compression like a JPEG and money is FUNGIBLE!

My green rating is higher than the one of the thing you're seeling, so I win on that dimension.

One person's toil for £10 or $10 might be significant compared to the other person's marginal few minutes. One person cannot afford a loaf of bread but the other can.

We can have money that is actually a point in space that is beyond 3 dimensions, it is MULTI DIMENSIONAL!

ChatGPT has billions of parameters in their models. Why can't money?

Rather than charging tax or charging carbon taxes, subsidies or welfare through the charging of a percentage or money above cutoff these are too static and not very good instruments for deciding how much things should truly cost.

We can just add additional dimensions to money!

Interest rates are the blunt instrument that central banks use to control the velocity and supply of money but it struggles to solve social or market problems. Can multidimensional money solve the problems that interest rates and the supply of money?

Another problem that I w ant to solve is this: The baker needs to sell so many loaves of bread and all the bakery's employees need to afford to buy houses or pay for shelter. The taxi driver person going to the baker needs to afford the loaf of bread which pays for the baker's wheat and the baker's employee's shelter. The taxi driver customer needs to pay a fare that pays for the taxi driver's shelter, the loaf of bread and the baker's wheat and bakery's employees. Repeat for everyone else. How can anybody afford houses if everyone is paying for eachother's houses?

With this scheme it would take days to learn the price of things, so we use computers.

chronological, Jun 27 2023

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism Your second problem, about affording houses, was solved 150 years ago [pocmloc, Jun 28 2023]

The Spanish Empire, Silver, & Runaway Inflation https://www.khanaca...rld-history-25-beta
[Voice, Jul 03 2023]


Please log in.
If you're not logged in, you can see what this page looks like, but you will not be able to add anything.



Annotation:







       We're trying to uninvent fungibility, apparently.
pertinax, Jun 27 2023
  

       Problem Summary:   

       1. Money can currently be spent on anything.   

       2. Some things are bad; people make bad choices and spend money on bad things - either because of obvious vices, such as greed or power- hunger or, more often, because of indifference, ignorance, lack of imagination or over- confidence in their own judgement.   

       3. Money should be spent on things that are good.   

       Proposed solution:   

       A. Modulate the value of money, depending on what it's to be spent on.   

       B. Delegate implementation details to computers.   

       Possible objection:   

       The computers are human artefacts. See point #2, above.
pertinax, Jun 27 2023
  

       Christ, I thought this was [beany].   

       Wait...
whatrock, Jun 28 2023
  

       I would just like to go on record as having guessed the author of this posting from the title alone.   

       Also... The problem is not money per say, it is middle-men. They want to ensure that no transaction can be made where value for value exists without some ever increasing percentage of that transaction getting diverted to them for contributing absolutely nothing to the exchange.   

       They are going the way of the dinosaur... and not soon enough in my opinion.   

       Gold standard. None of this printable shit.   

       Which reminds me, how much will any of you pay for my grandfather-in-law's $1,000,000 confederate bill?   

       If I can pull it off I intend to be the guy with the loaves of bread a wheelbarrow full of scrap paper can't buy.
Bring me copper, silver, gold and equitable trades.
The middle-men out there can find real work I guess and we'll see how that suits them.
  

       If they continue to push it, they will get to experience the piece-work environment which is all I've ever known until recently.   

       A man gets paid by what he accomplishes... not what he can legislate to allow him to skim off the sweat of those who actually work.   

       Sorry, but I am SO sick of that bullshit.   

       Mountains of bread can be, and are, produced by a small number of people with a lot of land and a some machinery. In a bread- based economy, everybody else is redundant. It doesn't matter whether they are, personally, lazy or industrious; their labour is just not needed any more.
pertinax, Jun 28 2023
  

       Tell it to Gates.   

       As more and more of the jobs get automated and more and more of the greedy see their opportunity to capitalize on this scenario, as we all shift to communism...
...being able to produce on a local scale will become more and more important. Trading value for value without middle-men will become more and more important.
  

       Defending it will become paramount.   

       I'm just trying to head this shit off at the pass is all.   

       Not actively trying to bankrupt us while keeping us in the dark would be a good start....
...otherwise, we the-people, are done with with propagandevideandconquerisms.
  

       Fuck that noise.   

       Pardon my French.   

       The army of the useless has certain built- in advantages over the army of the productive, namely,
1. Numbers
2. The keen motivation to avoid starvation
3. Nothing better to do
  

       In modern times, their conflict of interest first reached crisis point in the 1930s. Three solutions were tried.   

       A. Socialism: the government arms the urban masses and sends them to the country to rob and murder the farmers until the food is handed over.   

       B. Capitalism: the government does nothing. The banks send men with guns and pick handles to drive small farmers off their land, which then passes into the possession of fewer, better- capitalised farmers, who have a friendlier relationship with the banks.   

       C. National Socialism: again, the government arms the urban masses but, instead of sending them to rob and murder their own farmers, sends them to rob and murder other people, deemed not part of the nation.   

       None of these was good but, measuring by body count, Capitalism was the least bad.   

       After the war, other variations of Socialism were tried, including Mao's (send the useless urbanites to the farms so that they learn the value of honest work) and Pol Pot's (the honest farmers pre- empt the corrupt middlemen by marching on the cities and murdering everyone). Neither turned out well.   

       More relevantly, in The West, Social Democracy was tried. This is the most relevant, since it is approximately what we are living with today.   

       It is very unsatisfactory, in that a large part of its economic product is bullshit, and its cultural product adds insult to injury. However, in its defence, it has so far involved a lot less murder and starvation than the other options.
pertinax, Jun 28 2023
  

       Great summary of world history there Pertinax.   

       One minor quibble - your last sentence, the words //so far// are doing a lot of work. I think the murder and starvation has merely been deferred for a generation or two until the resources start to decline.
pocmloc, Jun 28 2023
  

       OK I think this idea is excellent, I think it is excellent because
1. it is very stupid
2. It is not so easy to understand or explain why
To me these are the things that can make a Halfbakery idea truly great. (I said "can" not "do")
  

       How I understand this is that money is at root just a number, it is a means of accounting. The genius of money as a Human invention is that it uses a single number-line to account for everything whether slave trading, bread baking, interest on loans, or acquiring gold and silver.   

       To my mind the idea of extra "dimensions" is that they are orthogonal and non-convertible. If we think of the east-west line, we can discuss things that happen further east and west. but if we then add the concept of up and down, this gives us more things to play with but it doesn't matter how high or low you go, it doesn't change your east-west position.   

       So an extra dimension of money would be a second number line orthogonal to the current number line of money.   

       It could be argued then that if we define money as the number line of value, that this new dimension is not actually money, in the same way that a measurement of how high you are is not an Easting.   

       And I think to be a genuinely new dimension this new number line has to be non-convertible. If in any way you can convert from the current money number-line to the new number-line, then it is by definition not a new dimension.   

       So let us present a new "dimension" of money, let us call it the "Hhlogal" after its inventor, and its symbol can be Hh.   

       The Bank of Pocm will offer you the facility to open an account denimonated in Hh, and will issue you with a chequebook and a monthly statement. The Bank of Pocm does not offer accounts denominated in £ or $ or € or anything else, only Hh.   

       You go to the bakers, you want to buy a loaf of bread. "certainly sir" says the baker, "white or brown"? "white" you say in an ironic strike against anti-racsim and health fads. "That will be £1.45 plus Hh15 please" says the baker.   

       You reply "I am still waiting for the Bank of Pocm to send out my chequebook, can I just give you £1.50 cash and call it quits?" and the baker replies "Yes sure, I don't understand this Hh shite anyway. Enjoy your bread, see you tomorrow!"   

       Meanwhile your Aunt Fluruegtildanap, being a canny early investor, has a stash of Hh25,000 but seeing as how none of the local traders seem interested in accepting it she is looking to offload it. She goes to the local Wide Boy and asks if she can convert Hh into £. "I know that it is an orthogonal dimension and so it is meaningless to talk about relationships between these two things, but how much will you give me for Hh25,000?" she asks. The Wide Boy rummages in his cash box and then says "I can give you £220 in used banknotes, take it or leave it". "Deal" replies Fluruegtildanap, who writes Wide Boy a cheque and leaves the shop with a fistful of banknotes.
pocmloc, Jun 28 2023
  

       //the words //so far// are doing a lot of work//   

       Then perhaps, come the revolution, their lives may be spared. I'm pretty sure their author is a goner.
pertinax, Jun 28 2023
  

       I thought the revolution targeted the useful workers first?
pocmloc, Jun 28 2023
  

       Yes, but not by design.
pertinax, Jun 28 2023
  

       When I'm paying for something I'm not interested in paying more just because the poor sap who made it didn't know what he was doing. In fact that makes me want to pay less. And I'm not interested in integrating charity or social value into my spending, as long as the company isn't actually evil. It's more efficient to get the best value for my money and then spend my money on efficient charities, if I choose.
Voice, Jun 28 2023
  

       //crisis point in the 1930s. Three solutions were tried.   

       A. Socialism:
B. Capitalism:
C. National Socialism:
  

       None of these was good but, measuring by body count, Capitalism was the least bad.   

       After the war, other variations of Socialism were tried   

       More relevantly, in The West, Social Democracy was tried. This is the most relevant, since it is approximately what we are living with today.   

       It is very unsatisfactory, in that a large part of its economic product is bullshit, and its cultural product adds insult to injury. However, in its defence, it has so far involved a lot less murder and starvation than the other options.//   

       The option of Minarchy has never been tried.
I believe that Government should be restricted to the absolute minimum influence in people's lives.
It should protect the borders, protect the infrastructure, protect the ability to excel regardless of background, protect our constitutional rights, protect the poor...
  

       ...then help others put on their oxygen masks.   

       Basically just serve your public, protect the public, and then get the hell out of the way with the ever increasing bureaucracy and taxes to pay for more and more middle-men who contribute nothing but hurdles.   

       No representation, no taxation.   

       //Great summary of world history there Pertinax.   

       One minor quibble - your last sentence, the words //so far// are doing a lot of work. I think the murder and starvation has merely been deferred for a generation or two until the resources start to decline.//   

       Agreed. On both counts.
We are in for, as the Irish would toast against living through, interesting times.
  

       //And I think to be a genuinely new dimension this new number line has to be non-convertible. If in any way you can convert from the current money number-line to the new number-line, then it is by definition not a new dimension. //   

       Yes.
Gold. Platinum. Silver. Nickle. Copper. Trade.
No more paper currency from those inclined to be inflationary and regulatory wastes of space.
  

       // And I'm not interested in integrating charity or social value into my spending, as long as the company isn't actually evil. It's more efficient to get the best value for my money and then spend my money on efficient charities, if I choose.//   

       That's a tricky one. I would think it falls somewhere between 'protecting the infrastructure' and 'protecting the poor'.   

       I think Zach Galifianakis said it best when approached by Nike to endorse their footwear.   

       "Do you guys still have seven year olds making your shoes?"   

       Hey lets talk about lithium production! That'll be fun.   

       [annotate]   

       // Minarchy has never been tried //   

       Well, it has been, but it never survived long.   

       You might want to contemplate the fate of the Green Army in the Russian Civil War.   

       They were mostly small farmers, whose ideology was limited to "kindly leave us the fuck alone". I think you would have liked them. But they didn't win.
pertinax, Jun 30 2023
  

       Surely the minarchists just argue endlessly about what is and is not essential? i.e. what is the absolute minimum?
pocmloc, Jun 30 2023
  

       //Well, it has been, but it never survived long.   

       You might want to contemplate the fate of the Green Army in the Russian Civil War.   

       They were mostly small farmers, whose ideology was limited to "kindly leave us the fuck alone". I think you would have liked them. But they didn't win.//   

       The green army was not a government, they were fighting a corrupt government.   

         

       //Try Ouray, Colorado - one of several “home rule municipalities” in Colorado.//   

       A municipality government, while technically a branch of government, is not Federal.
Minarchism is the only form of government never tried on a large scale.
  

       //Surely the minarchists just argue endlessly about what is and is not essential? i.e. what is the absolute minimum?//   

       Oh we could all agree on a few things, like carbon taxes are not essential, censorship in any form is not essential, invoking emergency acts against peacefully protesting citizens and freezing their bank accounts in not essential, giving billions of dollars to other countries is not essential.   

       We are done with our government pretending to be democratic while acting as a dictatorship.   

       In other words, I think we are edging past the "fuck-around" stage and getting firmly into the "find-out" stage.   

       I think that Canada would be a fine choice for the first Minarchy on a large scale.
All races creeds and colours get along just fine here when left to our own devices. It is only our government driving wedges between us which causes any friction.
  

       I'm pretty sure that "we", includes our army.
We don't pay our taxes to support a dictatorship.
You understand that we can all just stop paying federal income tax right?
There is no law against it, and 'they' don't want to draw attention to that fact by legislating what everybody seems to have forgotten.
There are currently several hundred thousand Canadians refusing to pay income tax and not one of them are in jail.
  

       But to answer your question seriously, you saw how we all decided to take a little road trip down to the capital and have a party?
Well picture that happening again but this time every trucker, farmer, rig-pig, and working-hand descending en masse and armed to the teeth.
  

       We all know how to hunt.   

       We are the army, and we are done with their shit.   

       //Send a postcard when you storm the capitol//   

       We won't need to get as far as the Capital for the rest of the world to see that our democracy is rigged.   

       // Convictions result in fines and sometime prison time.//   

       Not true. When you sign your first TD1 form you volunteer to pay federal income tax in order to fund WW2.
If you opt out of their system and keep a joint bank account with a stranger then they can't touch the money.
  

       Look deeper.   

       Nothing to do with low income... just no income tax for lower Ontario and Quebec to illegally divide between themselves.   

       // The green army was not a government //   

       Well, that's sort- of the point; they didn't get far enough to become a government.   

       There are other examples from elsewhere in history with a similar story. And what that pattern suggests is that "kindly leave us the fuck alone", while very relatable, is in some way not enough.
pertinax, Jul 01 2023
  

       //kindly leave us the fuck alone", while very relatable, is in some way not enough.//   

       We are well aware of this fact.   

       //blocking traffic, waving signs, and tax evasion. That’ll show ‘em//   

         

       ...was the 'kindly' part.   

       When I say "not enough", I don't mean you'll need to bring guns; I mean you'll need to bring some sort of social contract that everyone can live with. Because if you don't bring that and you do bring guns, what you've got is a new government founded on fire-power. How long do you think that is going to stay minarchical?
pertinax, Jul 03 2023
  

       // I don't mean you'll need to bring guns; I mean you'll need to bring some sort of social contract that everyone can live with.//   

       I hear you. Don't get me wrong, I'm not leading a revolution or anything, I just get vibes off of people and am relaying those vibes.
I would like to head the crap I see coming off at the pass, because I get the impression that purposefully creating internal conflict is the root cause of our current democratic breakdown by those who wield enough power to manipulate governments and I am not down with that. I didn't attend the first party and I doubt I'll get to attend any future festivities unless they grace my doorstep. I'm too busy trying to build a buffer against what I see coming.
  

       ...but it's coming nonetheless.
Canada is resource rich and militarily poor with the longest unprotected border on the planet.
We are ripe pickins, and the only thing standing between our sovereignty or being annexed to China or Saudi Arabia is our big bad bully buddy to the south.
  

       Big bad bully buddy's got the same issues, so does the UK. Come to think of it anywhere once considered colonial seems to be experiencing the same external fuckery.   

       Almost like there's a pattern or something...   

       So I guess I'm just reiterating my old slogan of; "You don't want to be chasing a Canadian or Australian boy through their back country", except that unlike the Ausies we refused to register our guns through three separate amnesties and are currently refusing to hand over any fucking thing we are told to.   

       Come.
Spend a winter in the mountains or the prairies with us.
  

       //am relaying those vibes//   

       I appreciate that. And I'm not trying to be just a naysayer, pouring cold water on everything - it's just that, this is a really hard problem, and people have tried to solve it before and made it worse.   

       Elsewhere on this site, we have sometimes talked about trying to make a vacuum balloon. And it turns that, if the balloon is strong enough to avoid collapsing into the vacuum, then it's too heavy to fly. Well, it seems that minarchy is a bit like a sort of vacuum-of-power balloon. I don't say it's an absolute impossibility, but there are strong reasons why it's never worked yet.
pertinax, Jul 03 2023
  

       I used to know a Green Anarchist, who would hand out pamphlets promoting a utopian ideal of Armed Autonomous Villages. I used to ask him how this system could survive a ruthless warlord and he never really knew. He was a very odd man but I liked him.   

       I think part of this issue is all to do with Complexity, and from that point of view [chronological]'s original proposal fits nicely, in that it is over-complex (it falls flat on its face in the mud for other reasons as discussed above). The entire fossil-fuelled "civilisation" of the past couple of centuries basically consists of constructing ever more complex structures - be those structures financial, engineering, or social.   

       Think how complex the built environment is now compared to 200 years ago - the complexity embedded in our computers, phones, houses, cars, domestic appliances, factory production lines, everything around us that is made by Humans. Insane complexity, and still people work to make it more complex.   

       I think the financial system is similarly growing in complexity for the same reasons. It is naive in the extreme to imagine that the money system of 200 years ago could support the physical infrastructure of today.   

       And so too the social and governance structure.   

       If we understand the universe as a dissipative system then any free energy will be used to generate complexity until the energy runs out. The Earth's ecosystem for millions of years (including humans up to a couple of centuries ago) has evolved ever more ingenious ways to dissipate the energy input of the sun. For the past couple of centuries the fossil fuels have given a super concentrated energy source for us to dissipate as fast and as spectacularly as we can (note that it is not simple to burn all the fossil carbon, in the same way that it is actually quite hard to spend a billion pounds, but we are doing our best to get hold of and burn as much as we can as quick as we can).   

       So, the useless middlemen, the arcane complexity of governance and organisational structures across the world can be seen as part of this - ways to dissipate more energy. There's nothing anyone can do about it, you may as well try to get seagulls to stop scavenging for food.
pocmloc, Jul 03 2023
  

       //I used to ask him how this system could survive a ruthless warlord and he never really knew.// Study ancient Greece and the Mongols campaigns. Also the American indians fight against their conquerors tldr: they can't, but they can make it time-consuming and expensive
Voice, Jul 03 2023
  

       //it seems that minarchy is a bit like a sort of vacuum-of-power balloon. I don't say it's an absolute impossibility, but there are strong reasons why it's never worked yet.//   

       It requires a monarch strong enough to eschew the allure of power in favour of empowering their people.
Isn't something similar happening in the Netherlands where the monarch is elected yet walks the streets without fear of reprisal from his or her citizens?
Seems to work for them.
Some well thought out checks and balances on abuse of power and you get functional minarchism.
  

       //It is naive in the extreme to imagine that the money system of 200 years ago could support the physical infrastructure of today.//   

       Is it?
Are you trying to tell me that gold and other precious metals could not have remained in circulation and inflated in value just like paper currency?
Except unlike paper currency precious metals do not suddenly become worthless at the whim of money-lenders.
  

       I find that extremely naive.   

       Now y'all want to go with digital currency... and think it won't explode in our faces?...   

       ...   

       [This way to the Egress! ==>]   

       What's the thing about gold and silver? They remain in circulation, there are no legal restrictions on buying selling or owning as far as I know. They basically trade on currency exchanges as free-floating currencies, alongside all the government issued currencies. You can keep your savings in gold and /or silver, if you wish you can calculate your prices in your local currency based on a price in gold or silver (can't use both since they float against each other). Its no harder to work out a spot conversion rate from gold to US Dollars than from silver to Euros or from Yuan to Canadian Dollars.   

       Here in the UK, gold is treated as money, UK minted gold coins are considered "legal tender" and there is no VAT on purchase or Capital Gains Tax on sale. Silver is treated more as a commodity and you have to pay VAT when you buy it which makes it behave less like money.   

       Basically anything can be money, whatever people want. If I want to pay you for your labour in cigarettes or whisky, and if you are happy to accept that as payment, then the deal is on and those commodities become money for the purposes of that transaction.   

       This is the deadly flaw in [chron]'s idea. If anything can be money, if anything can be exchanged on a currency exchange for anything else, then "money" is no more and no less than the number line. An orthogonal number line of money into a second dimension is as meaningless as a second dimension of temperature. Multidimensional temperature.
pocmloc, Jul 04 2023
  

       //They basically trade on currency exchanges as free-floating currencies, alongside all the government issued currencies. You can keep your savings in gold and /or silver, if you wish you can calculate your prices in your local currency based on a price in gold or silver//

I heard told of a man who had an enormous amount of money in silver against a rainy day. But when the rain fell he couldn't find anyone willing to purchase it for more than half of the listed price. He lost his house rather than reward that behavior. So if you plan to keep your money in the form of precious metals I suggest asking around in the form of "I have x amount of silver, how much will you give me for it?"
Voice, Jul 04 2023
  

       Ooh, multidimensional temperature... one dimension for enthalpy and one for entropy...   

       If you interfere infrared waves in 2 planes I presume you could create hot spots in a regular chessboard pattern. Could be interesting as a curiosity.
RayfordSteele, Jul 04 2023
  

       //What's the thing about gold and silver?//   

       Money lending institutions in North America, until fairly recently geologically speaking, were required to keep ninety percent of moneys lent out in reserve as gold in response as a counter measure to what they saw the money-lenders in the countries the left doing.   

       Well those North American money-lenders bought enough politicians to legislate that only ten percent of what is lent out needs to remain in trust... and now there is is no more gold or silver to back the increasingly printed dollars in circulation which will soon become valueless because every bit of interest is fictional currency...   

       ...again   

       ...almost like it is a premeditated cycle designed by sociopathic asswipes.   

       How much do any of you want to bet me that this particular sociopathic cycle won't follow the premeditated plan?   

       I already know what I'm betting.   

       I think you might be confusing several different things there, [2 fries]; fractional reserve banking is one thing, the gold standard is another thing, and the broader deregulation of banks is another thing. And then, economic cycles are another thing again.
pertinax, Jul 08 2023
  

       Quite possibly.   

       All I know is that things are cyclic, and that the peons, (myself included), are being backed into a corner and that the cycle always seems to end, historically speaking, with instigators getting their heads cut off.   

       You'd think that instigators would be most willing to break that particular cycle...   

       ...Yet here we are with myself, apparently as vox populi, once again warning folks about what's to come and being silenced for my effort just like every single other time the cycle has repeated.   

       I can do no more than warn others while protecting my own.   

       Canada will be a hard pill to swallow.
You've been warned.
  

       In fact you've been warned several times now.   

       ...   

       I think I'm done talking.   

       Enjoy.   

       Boring. Get some rest.
minoradjustments, Jul 09 2023
  


 

back: main index

business  computer  culture  fashion  food  halfbakery  home  other  product  public  science  sport  vehicle