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3 karma · joined March 30, 2014

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spaceapple··on Strangecoin: a proposal for a nonlinear currency
I think it's a brilliant idea, but I don't think people will be motivated to move forward with it without a clearer picture of what they would be creating in the real world.

We are strongly conditioned to try to "capture" value. You are attempting to redefine value in such a way that it is no longer advantageous to "capture" it at the expense of the overall system. But what would it look like in the real world?

It is a genuine challenge to envision real world transactions and a society based on Strangecoin, and even more difficult to come up with a profit motive to create it in the first place. Does a barista "couple" herself to a cafe when she gets a job that pays in Strangecoin? What are the effects of this vs employment as we know it? How does she fare as a result when compared to someone working for dollars with an employment contract?

Money serves many purposes, and one is to create incentives. Often these incentives are coercive. They don't have to be, but there are philosophical as well as technical challenges to overcome. When everyone is acting according to one set of rules, it is difficult to create a competing set of rules without some clearly defined advantage for doing so.

spaceapple··on Strangecoin: a proposal for a nonlinear currency
I think you might ultimately have to explain and defend these ideas together. Bitcoin proved that a purely digital currency could have value alongside government-issued currencies.

To create a viable Strangecoin network, you'll need to demonstrate how a more cooperative economy can come into being and retain value within a more predatory, zero-sum society, where corrupting your network and exploiting it may yield rewards in US dollars.