Signalling

Future Articulation Product

In his book - The Future Of Money - Bernard Lietaer reports how a pensioner living in an American suburb spent years introducing a local time based currency to his community. After a few years of opposition, the community adopted it widely - and loved it. But then something surprising happened: the abandoned it. They did so not because they stopped believing in the currency, they did so, because they did not need it anymore to trust in the reciprocity of support and sharing within the community.

They had re-invented the gift economy in which the members of the community trust that "what goes around comes around". The signalling capacity of money - in any form - had been replaced by a deeply human form of signalling: communication, collaboration and trust. While this works very well on a local level, but what about the regional and global level?

Let's imagine.

When a child is born, so is her digital companion. Her companion learns everything about her as she grows - her preferences, her skills, about her health and body, etc - everything. And while she is busy living her live in the community, her companion is on the lookout for opportunities to give to others and to receive from others. Her companion connects with other companions in a massive global market where any kind of good or service can be traded.

She can ask her companion to go and look for something specific, her companion may also make suggestions if it stumbles upon something useful or if she could offer her support to another human being somewhere on the planet.

To take the first step into learning how to build this dream, i will invite world-leading experts on the following questions:

• What properties of currency design support building trust and collaboration between people?

• What other forms of information flow can be thought of to replace money in larger contexts where the social fabric breaks down?
  

For all of these question i have at least one person in mind who i will invite into a in depth conversation on the topic. If you want to suggest someone, please do so in the comments, in Roam (if you have access) or on the Discord channel. I have decided, it is time to invite all of us into the possibility for an ongoing conversation as me move towards the more concrete and actionable parts of this journey. So, please join here: https://discord.gg/s3ezU33362

Photo by Asep Abdulrahman from Pexels