Monday, September 14, 2015

Basis for money

Moral: Wherein we consider a new basis for money.

We have written about money here, quite a bit (here and at truth engineering). Too, we have looked at the inequities that are not natural which come about since there is no way to model or to think about these issues except from a very unstable, abstract basis.

There is much to discuss, but without further ado, we want to propose water as the standard for money. This can mean many things. For one, yes, its use would be analogous to having gold as the standard. We would not need Fort Knox or equivalent.

The thing would be more closely tied to what we have seen with bitcoin. But, it would be more rational.

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Some of the discussion will be on Quora: What-would-happen-if-the-entire-world-got-rid-of-money.

My suggestion, very briefly:
    I would like to propose water as the basis for a monetary system for a number of reasons. Money ought to flow. Its use can cause growth and cleanliness. Too much can lead to rot and decay (have we not seen a whole lot of that?). Then, banking would be like plumbing. The gaming, now called investing, would be such that we would have a clear pool - and, it would be for fun, not of any consequence. Now, we don't know how much water there is. What is the upper limit? Well, you see, at least we would have some physical notions behind the modeling. What water? Would that in the clouds count, too? Yes, nice to think about? As, who does not like water?

    For the technical, I am proposing that water be used like we did gold. However, it would be more a modeling scheme, better than bitcoin. Along with this would be a change in the viewpoints to account for flow, usage, etc. Even, storage. What we would not see would be gigantic accumulations and the like.
The difference between this and gold is that the latter has a long history related to avarice. Water is essential to life, as is money.

Remarks:  Modified: 10/01/2015

09/14/2015 -- Henry Ford thought that energy could be a basis for money.

10/01/2015 -- For awhile, I have pondered on what elements might be a good basis for money. Gold and silver were a default since they were used for currency (loose meaning) due to their intrinsic value (socially determined). Some have proposed an approach based upon nature, such as thermodynamics. We could have number of elements proposed. Now, water? That gets us to two, both of which are important to life. The systematic methods for doing this type of basis needs some attention. Needless to say, bitcoin, as said, offers an example of a non-traditional approach.