Enabling opportunity and choice where there are none

Transcript

no no they get they get they are getting frustrated because when people bring the computer it means that they will dream from their computer no no that's what she's explained yeah

Wow it's very bright I feel like I'm being investigated for something yeah

so hi everyone final day if CC we're all incredibly tired but also I hope we have learned a lot and shared a lot of very interesting conversations I am going to so in the schedule we had enabling opportunity interests where there are none I wanted to kind of loop with this little conversation in here because from the talks that I've been having with people there's a lot of things that a lot of people don't know about the current monetary system that we're in and and all of the the reasons why it doesn't work and maybe what different models may help us fix what is kind of very very broken

and I think by proxy that very much enables that opportunity and choice that diversity of access to resources that right now we just do not have and I think you know that's one of the reasons why we started this whole thing to maybe make things better so this you know this topic and and it's correlation to nature I'm gonna kind of set the scene a little bit and then we can delve into into the weeds but this is a lot of these things are based on the work of Bernard Latia if you're familiar with his work I've kind of taken a lot of those concepts

and applied them to what we are doing here today with with crypto and with web 3 so what is money it's if you look at the textbook definition it's very much about unit of account and media of make of exchanges story value but those are actually the things that it does the actual definition is and we tend to keep forgetting this it's just an unconscious agreement we all kind of agreed that this the money that we have today has the value that it has it isn't enforced by anything more than that it isn't enforced by a contract you are not you know signed contractually obligated to believe in its value and it

is something that is standardized within a community and used as a medium of exchange but again something that a lot of people forget or or maybe are not aware of I think us here a little bit more more aware than others but all the money that we deal with today is created by debt created by banks and that's something that again we forget and a lot of people assume that the national currencies are you know created by the government's they are not they are created by private institutions the banks which means that like all private institutions they operate for profit right not for you know the benefit of

the people so here's another reality that again we don't really talk about and we don't know the IMF which is the International Monetary Fund runs a report every year and in the past 40 odd years we have had these beautiful stats that we see here which roughly equate to about ten crises a year any other product or service that would give you this level of crashes think of a car you would pull off the market to maybe rethink redesign improve but we keep writing in it we literally keep getting

and persisting with this model and going oh I hope it's gonna you know the results are gonna be different but they are not we keep doing the same thing we're gonna get the same results keep doing the same thing getting the same results and they are all interconnected all of these things we keep thinking oh it's the 2007 2008 crisis that was so big yes it was a big one but it was not the only one there's all of these are happening all the time so clearly something is not right and that is our monetary monoculture we keep putting all of our eggs into one basket and that is how the

monetary system has been designed a lot of people don't know this and when I mentioned this it comes as a surprise and it was to me when I discovered this but actually the euro was never supposed to be the single currency the euro was supposed to operate in parallel with the national currencies of the Member States was supposed to be a complementary currency right because having one is not a good this this concept of putting all your eggs in one basket is not a sound decision or model so why do I bring nature into this and why it's maybe

important to have a little return to nature and look at you know how it's been working for a good few millions of years much longer than we've been doing things and a key concept is low diversity means low resilience high diversity equals high resilience going from and again this monetary monoculture is obviously low diversity right what does low diversity mean low diversity means that you are essentially much more open to risks and much less able to to handle them to fight them if you look at

the two difference the differences in these two types of forests one of them has lines of trees with a lot of space in between them with a lot of air if I light a match in there it's probably you know going to go up in flames there's not much to stop it there's a lot of oxygen it's gonna you know burn pretty soundly if you look at the other one that's a deep jungle that is high diversity it has all sorts of species also of different elements of that ecosystem that do a much better job at protecting it from risks and from danger high resilience variety gives us resilience

so this is a concept by Robert Allen ovitch the the idea is that if you look at complex flow networks the same principles apply regardless of what makes up that system so we have a set of rules that govern any complex flow network and a the same way as a jungle is a complex flow network so is the monetary system they are both defined by the same characteristics and the complex

flow networks become sustainable through a balance between efficiency and resilience you have to have a balance in order for that ecosystem to thrive if the balance is skewed either in way to high diversity or way to high efficiency it doesn't work it fails because it doesn't have that balance so the two structural variables of any ecosystem our diversity and interconnectivity that's how they exist you have the in in nature you have the flora working with the fauna you have everything is interconnected and serving each other

the same thing would be an economical system and if you see there any kind of flow Network biomass in an ecosystem electrons in in an electrical circuit and money in an economy all of these are ingredients that should maintain that ecosystem and make it thrive but when you mess with it and when you mess with our balance you get into trouble and the ecosystem suffers and this is what I mean so with the the the two ends of the spectrum you have resilience which is this diversity and interconnectivity and then you have efficiency which is streamlined streamlined streamlined one

monetary monoculture single currency and all of that extreme efficiency but the piece in the middle that balance is this thing called a window of viability it's the optimum balance because excess resilience means stagnation nothing happens excess efficiency means collapse that window of viability natural ecosystems get back into naturally they do it by themselves after a certain period of time of course but they are the the tendency in nature is to always go back to the middle even if you've

been at either Pole because of whatever factors but what we do is as soon as we get into high diversity and in too much interconnectivity we always rush to extreme efficiency we always rush to stream the hell out of whatever it is that we're doing which means austerity you know how we're always like austerity after there's a crash no we must like streamlined streamlined remove remove remove we must tighten the belt we must do this when in fact if we were to do with the natural recovery route we would

go slowly towards that window of viability straight back what we are doing and this is why those crises repeat is we go straight into efficiency straight into the other pole and we collapse again rather than again going naturally so potentially what we could do right now in the situation that we're in is go the natural route and with the effect of some complementary currencies potentially enabled by crypto we could get back to that window of viability to that natural balance and mimic the natural ecosystem again

because obviously there are many problems with the current system and unfortunately I was reading the study done by the French you know the Ministry of Health or mints I don't and one French farmer you know unfortunately commits suicide because they get into financial struggles this perpetuation of debt and all because all the money that we move around is debt really does have incredible incredibly negative effects on us as a society as a global ecosystem it's terrible and that is because the

conventional money is created by these banks to serve profits because they are private institutions and they must work for profit also what happens is conventional money moves very quickly out of circulation if you look at buying things in a supermarket let's say Carrefour here that money is going to go out of this community or or the the small arrondissement that I bought it in very quickly it's not going to stay in that area it's going to move away go into a global pool of international money what if you would have a complementary community currency that

serves that particular region that particular community and doesn't just benefit the the private institutions are created it and again conventional money is created hierarchic mam and conditionally so everything again is very very conditioned and dependent on on making a profit this is potentially a solution these complementary currencies like I mentioned the euro earlier that was intended to be this complementary currency why might that be important because if let's say I was in France and

I had francs but I also had euros if I ran out of francs I had a back-up plan if I ran out of euros I had a back-up plan being able to have that choice between the two just means that you are not in all eggs in one basket situation and if that basket breaks the whole situation is is dire having a backup is incredibly important for the resilience of the system that you are in for the economy that you are in because being able to have that alternative means that

you can better prepare if anything were to happen think of Greece maybe if Greece at the time we had both currencies operating at the same time maybe it wouldn't have been as dire a situation potentially we don't know but it might have been prevented or certainly diminished in terms of of effect and these are some of the things that that obviously we would make sense right we would have community or user created currencies and this is something that we have talked about these past three days or people creating tokens for

themselves or you know to to work with the sell their time and so on and so what happens with that is that potentially the money also remains in the ecosystem and in that community a lot longer and could potentially benefit that that ecosystem a lot better and then this governance and again such a hot topic in our ecosystem the the government situation but to govern a currency as a commons Elinor Ostrom actually is a wonderful women and if you get a transfer to research won a Nobel Prize as well but she has these eight principles to govern the comments and

actually they are very very applicable to a lot of the things we talked about in crypto to a lot of the things that we talked about in web three but would also apply very very nicely to a complimentary currency model so that again remember money is just an agreement that we all support the same way we could apply it to these regional or local or maybe even redo the national currencies and and have this diverse system of resources this diverse selection of tools in our toolbox

because actually later also says if you don't have a variety of brushes in your toolbox or in your in your I don't know artists toolbox you are almost you know just picking randomly and and painting with a screwdriver right because that's the only thing that you have but you keep doing it and hoping that somehow you're gonna create some sort of masterpiece right so these are very interesting and again I will I would argue to two to have a look at at these in a little bit more more depth and now for some examples because it's always

good to show verses tell and and again to give you these examples of these things happening already these are new things these aren't unheard of things we all know of certain currencies that exist but this is a very important one not many people know and again this is based on a lot of conversations that I've had that Switzerland operates with two currencies they have the Swiss franc and they have the we're the we're was created by 16 businesspeople a very long time ago their idea was this I want to with or between these 16 businesses we want to continue trading amongst

ourselves using this currency that we can essentially keep operating and keep using even if we run out of Swiss francs or something happens and we don't have such an abundant stash of Swiss francs and of course in time it has gone has been going for almost 90 years more and more and more and more businesses and more people joined to the point where now they have a back that works and we are and they agreed one we're is one Swiss franc and people always ask me but how how do they maintain it again remember money is but an agreement that

we perpetuate that was agreed that's what we maintain and that's as simple as it is a lot of studies and again go out check it out for yourselves a lot of them credit this dual monetary system with the balance and the equilibrium that Switzerland has maintained for so long and the abundance that it benefits one very interesting another one the Swiss you can maybe you'll say oh but the Swiss you know but actually there's more these guys in Ghent in Belgium it's a neighborhood in Ghent and they have this

Turkish and the Turkish you can actually earn by doing things in your community like maintaining a local garden or you know contributing somehow to your community cleaning it up doing all sorts of little tasks and you earn this community token and then on the web page of course it's like paper money but very very good case for crypto here and then you can redeem it in the local shops cinema they have a some cafes and bars and again if I do not have euros but I live in this neighborhood I have Turkish it means

that I could still go to the cinema it means I could still buy food it means I could still potentially you know do something that I could continue continue ously earn it very beneficial and again they agree that one tariqa is equivalent to send 10 cents 10 euro cents simple agreement within the community and using those 8 principles that I showed you you can maintain this and make sure that people are involved in the running of this currency and in its benefiting their own community very interesting so coming back to nature and showing you all of these diverse systems and the

diversity of resources really does make a lot of difference if we want to move away from the crazy you know monetary situation that we find ourselves in that is clearly not working and to perpetuate it is to blindly get into a car that we know will crash and just cross our fingers and hope it doesn't happen again but we know it well because at this point again it's systemic it will keep happening the diversity creating multiple currencies being able to access diverse resources means we become much more resilient and the two examples of

the cute furry animals is very simple the Panda only eats one type of bamboo one how long is the Panda being on the extinction list for a very long time the grey squirrel on the other hand eats anything yes in fact like almost decimated the red squirrel population whenever he's gone because it eats anything oh that particular nut isn't available no problem I'll have some pizza but it survives and it drives and it's so successful at driving because it's of its diverse diet that is too much right we're going into too much diversity and

then maybe in time what will probably happen is there'll be some sort of disease that affects the group gray squirrel and the balance will be restored by nature naturally but these are very very interesting parallels that I think hopefully are easy to understand why something like complementary and diverse currencies or money could be a solution and the solution that we that we are looking for and also with the technology that we are all interested in and involve involved in or become involved in web 3 and crypto currencies this is actually much more doable more doable than ever ever before we haven't

been in this situation for a very long time that we could you know do the things that the guys the 16 business guys in Switzerland did in 1934 so that's kind of what what drew me to this I think it's incredibly incredibly relevant I think it also does enable that opportunity and choice again choice is very important we have painted ourselves into this corner where we haven't left very many options for ourselves and it's time to get back out of that and it's time to you know try and redesign these models and it's up to us it's up to this community to

hopefully figure out the right way to do that so yes there we go I don't know if there are any questions thank you oh yes thank you oh yeah so check those things out like again the weird that's easily google-able you can find it very easily the same with the Torah cos and I think there's a couple of other examples of these community currencies doing working very very well thank you any questions we have time for questions

No okay Thank You Simona okay so next talk is at two fifty-five thank you everyone you have a break you can take coffee