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  • You might be interested to learn some history of societies without state-issued currency. The book "Debt: The First 5000 years" by David Graeber has lots to say about pre-modern systems of account. I'm aware there are some criticisms of the book so I don't want present it as absolute truth - but it is an interesting on read, and it cites lots of anthropological studies.

    One of the points of the book - and I see there are also other anthropologists who take this view - is there is no evidence that there has ever been a barter economy. Economics curriculum typically talks about prehistoric barter as an introduction; but it looks like the barter story may have been made up by Adam Smith. Smith's "Wealth of Nations" is highly insightful, and even predicts problems with capitalism that we currently face. But he probably didn't have the anthropological background to write authoritatively about economies of prehistoric societies.

    Graeber does claim that there have been times when barter has been a stop-gap when there is a problem with money supply. So that's a case where something like your app might come in,

    When barter has appeared, it wasn’t as part of a purely barter economy, and money didn’t emerge from it—rather, it emerged from money. After Rome fell, for instance, Europeans used barter as a substitute for the Roman currency people had gotten used to. “In most of the cases we know about, [barter] takes place between people who are familiar with the use of money, but for one reason or another, don’t have a lot of it around.

    These were temporary situations. The fall of Rome probably seemed like the end of the world to some people at the time. But new societal structures and currencies filled the gaps.

  • We lost track of what money was supposed to be for... a representation of the resources and services in circulation. In which it was supposed to facilitate trade by creating tokens to facilitate transactions without the requirement of trust in the absence of a good, like when a farmer would need a tool from a blacksmith but the goods that the farmer has are only available when harvested in which the tool that the blacksmith has is required to retrieve them. In the presence of trust, the blacksmith was going to still trade and expect the goods when time was due. In the absence of trust, like in relation to a stranger, this trade wouldn't go forward. Money as a representational token solved this sort of common issue. And this became a necessity when tribes went above the Dunbar's number.

    Cut to now...

    What the hell is an economy even supposed to represent anymore? It is certainly not a representation of the resources and services in circulation, that's for sure. 6 out of 9 planetary boundaries already breached all to ensure the survival of this abstraction. Some even call it Moloch as a reference to the pagan god which required human sacrifice. I thinks it's worse, as it requires the sacrifice of everything, not just humans. But it is certainly a clever nod to something that was only real because people believed it to be.

    Back to your project. A FOSS Barter Facilitator. There's nothing I don't like about this. Just make sure the protocols remain open to federation of future FOSS Barter Facilitators and you have a slice of Utopia to challenge the dystopian hell we're in.

    You have something here that can alleviate people's lives in times of great need. Resource collapse is imminent now. If that is not at least partially avoided, that makes the collapse of the global economic system inevitable. What happens after that is a fool's errand to even attempt to guess. We only know it's not gonna be peaceful and nice given the stupidity in human nature. Scarcity always leads to the forming of new predation systems. That is how predation was formed in Nature. The incapacity for self-regulation led to animals to reproduce and consume more than the regenerative availability of their setting allowed, leading them to predate on each other. This is how violence emerged in Nature and still does to this day. When we lose track of self regulation we return to the scavenger's rule of the wild.

    But this helps in giving people access to trade without the requirement of capital tokens. Huge spikes in inflation, unemployment and mass migrations are only going to increase in volume and in rate as resources continue to collapse worldwide. We're in a feedback loop and war and A.I. will only accelerate the velocity of it.

    Or, you know, we could have more ideas like yours and reduce resource intake, increase individual resiliency and in doing so, lessening the panic in the common struggles.

    So...

    I'm certainly saving this post and link and share it with anyone who is inclined to listen.

    I'm not a coder, so I thank you for such a wonderful contribution to the world.

  • Wow, it's disheartening to see some people here think everything will always be based on trades/transactions and seem to not be able to imagine a sharing future. Sad.

    • The 1st thing is not exactly that sad and it opens up opportunities that everyone can enter and I can imagine a sharing future.

    • I think that can work well on the scale of a small village or something, where everyone knows each other. But I think it falls apart once you get above a certain number of people, maybe around 300.

      After that I feel like inevitably enough people just stop caring if they are taking more than they should, or not contributing more than they should. And there are too many people for everyone to keep track of. Plus, it's easier for leadership to be corrupted at this stage.

      And it's even more complicated if say like... you can go work in the capitalist village and make a ton of money and get treated lavishly, then retire to your home sharing commune where you can benefit from the system without having had to contribute to it. (for example, working in the US and then retiring in any country with public healthcare). I think part of the justification for the Berlin Wall was to prevent "brain drain". So it seems plausible that "sharing societies" also kind of tend to be "you are not allowed to leave" societies, and that is often not good.

      That being said, if we ever get unlimited cheap power (fusion? fission seems like it is "close" but falls short for other reasons), and some sort of Star Trek food replicator technology, or at least fully automated farms that only need the nearly free power, then maybe we'll have such abundance that we will be able to give away essential supplies like food for free. Water is already somewhat free (public drinking fountains). If we can ever get some cheap and effective mass transit, then maybe we'll have abundant housing too?

      • I think it isn't necessary to grow beyond that size though. We can live in smaller communities without growing past a certain size. We don't all have to live together, that's what I think a lot of people miss.

        Eh, why would there need to be capitalist villages if everybody had what they needed? I don't buy that there couldn't be luxury either, we have the ability and technology for that now in any scenario or economic system, I'm not a marxist or believe the idea that each according to their need etc but someone who sees the potential for maximum luxury , comfort, connection etc in the scenarios I envision. I would happily do the work if it meant living in a world without hierarchy, money, enforced trade or barter etc and I think many others would too.

        No, it really doesn't require some dream technology, just a mental shift, besides renewables are all that's needed. We shouldn't be relying on fission nor fusion, both are costly to build in myriad ways and one seems a huge pipe dream which we don't need.

        Edit: There already is abundant housing, it's just in the hands of a few who have been convinced by the system that holding on to it and keeping others out of it is the best thing to do.

        Completely agree about mass transit between cities, but honestly I just think we need walkable cities that are also accessible to wheelchairs etc. Something like the ideas the venus project came up with, or arcologies.

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