Evolution of Freedom
Part III : Positive Liberty - Chapter 25
Life Force
The purpose of this book is to articulate a new cooperative logic that can solve our existential problems and produce long-term well-being for humanity and planet Earth.
We have now created an incentive system that rewards us for creating well-being for our community. In evolutionary terms, we have improved the all-important selection criteria we use in our society. Much of our cultural evolution takes place within the market economy, where the things we pay money for will be replicated. By finally integrating our value system into the marketplace, we have taken charge of our own cultural evolution and consciously steered the algorithm to favor pro-social outcomes.
Our next task is to reinvent what money is, how it is created and for whom. In addition to money being our means of exchange, the essential lubricant we use to facilitate trade, it is also a store for value. In sufficient quantities, the information we create can be as valuable as a meal, a car or even a house. These items are made of energy/matter and thus have a use value in the physical world. And while in the marketplace we can imbue the exact same value to money as these items, we can’t eat money, drive money or use it as a dwelling.
Money is merely human-created information–but a very special kind of information. As a society, we are willing to exchange almost anything of real value for it. In its ability to create well-being, money is perhaps our most effective tool. You could even go so far as to say that money equals positive liberty, and positive liberty is invariably used to attain at least a basic level of well-being. This could be summed up in a three-sided equation:
We have now created an incentive system that rewards us for creating well-being for our community. In evolutionary terms, we have improved the all-important selection criteria we use in our society. Much of our cultural evolution takes place within the market economy, where the things we pay money for will be replicated. By finally integrating our value system into the marketplace, we have taken charge of our own cultural evolution and consciously steered the algorithm to favor pro-social outcomes.
Our next task is to reinvent what money is, how it is created and for whom. In addition to money being our means of exchange, the essential lubricant we use to facilitate trade, it is also a store for value. In sufficient quantities, the information we create can be as valuable as a meal, a car or even a house. These items are made of energy/matter and thus have a use value in the physical world. And while in the marketplace we can imbue the exact same value to money as these items, we can’t eat money, drive money or use it as a dwelling.
Money is merely human-created information–but a very special kind of information. As a society, we are willing to exchange almost anything of real value for it. In its ability to create well-being, money is perhaps our most effective tool. You could even go so far as to say that money equals positive liberty, and positive liberty is invariably used to attain at least a basic level of well-being. This could be summed up in a three-sided equation:
MONEY = POSITIVE LIBERTY = WELL-BEING
If we look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we can easily see that money can take care of the two most important categories of needs at the base of the pyramid, our physiological and safety needs. These two basic needs represent physical well-being, such as access to food and shelter.
The three needs above–love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization–in turn represent social and psychological well-being, which are mostly immaterial in nature. But even with the top three needs, money can help improve one’s well-being. In the case of all five categories of our basic human needs, money has an outsized ability to fulfill them and create well-being.
This insight leads to the obvious conclusion that to maximize human well-being, everybody needs a guaranteed basic income with which to take care of their fundamental needs. To do this, all we have to do is to share the benefits of money creation equally within the population. This also creates the even playing field on which a genuinely free and fair economy can be built. In the next chapters, I will demonstrate that in our society money represents our life force and that we all have a natural right to it.
Since the new digital currency we are about to design sets energy/matter in motion, it functions as a form of energy/matter in our ecosystem. But since it is really just information, we arrive at our tenth hypothesis:
The three needs above–love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization–in turn represent social and psychological well-being, which are mostly immaterial in nature. But even with the top three needs, money can help improve one’s well-being. In the case of all five categories of our basic human needs, money has an outsized ability to fulfill them and create well-being.
This insight leads to the obvious conclusion that to maximize human well-being, everybody needs a guaranteed basic income with which to take care of their fundamental needs. To do this, all we have to do is to share the benefits of money creation equally within the population. This also creates the even playing field on which a genuinely free and fair economy can be built. In the next chapters, I will demonstrate that in our society money represents our life force and that we all have a natural right to it.
Since the new digital currency we are about to design sets energy/matter in motion, it functions as a form of energy/matter in our ecosystem. But since it is really just information, we arrive at our tenth hypothesis:
10. In order not to produce negative externalities in our ecosystem, the digital currency we create needs to simulate certain properties of energy/matter so as not to contradict or interfere with the laws of thermodynamics.
Simulating these properties was impossible with analog money, but with a digital currency, this is entirely possible. To understand the properties our cryptocurrency should have, we have to first understand how our economy functions from a physics perspective. Like all living organisms, our society is built on a constant flow of energy/matter and information. To understand our economy and our markets from the perspective of physics, we need to study them as metabolic phenomena.
Once we understand how these metabolic processes function, we are capable of imbuing our cryptocurrency with the necessary properties that are compatible with the laws of thermodynamics. This allows us to control the energy/matter around us in a way that causes as few negative externalities as possible. I use the next chapters to identify the principles on which a better monetary system should be based.
To do this, we again need to start from the very beginning–from first principles. In the first two parts of the book, we sought to understand the fundamental nature of cooperation and incentives, and to do so, we started with evolution and the birth of life some 3.8 billion years ago. To design the best possible monetary system, we have to go even further back. We have to go back 13.8 billion years to the Big Bang and the birth of our universe. If we want to understand energy, matter and the metabolic processes that are at the heart of our economy, this is where we have to start.
Once we understand how these metabolic processes function, we are capable of imbuing our cryptocurrency with the necessary properties that are compatible with the laws of thermodynamics. This allows us to control the energy/matter around us in a way that causes as few negative externalities as possible. I use the next chapters to identify the principles on which a better monetary system should be based.
To do this, we again need to start from the very beginning–from first principles. In the first two parts of the book, we sought to understand the fundamental nature of cooperation and incentives, and to do so, we started with evolution and the birth of life some 3.8 billion years ago. To design the best possible monetary system, we have to go even further back. We have to go back 13.8 billion years to the Big Bang and the birth of our universe. If we want to understand energy, matter and the metabolic processes that are at the heart of our economy, this is where we have to start.