The most valuable part was the discussion in the purpose of money as either:
A. Physical 
, aka QTM model (quantity theory of money)
OR
B. Social - aka money as credit, IOU, bookkeeping methodpic.twitter.com/cjbmwZAihd
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FUCKKKKK THIS IS SOOO GOOD @davidgraeber’s analysis of the practical limits of mainstream economics as it is taught in schools today https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/12/05/against-economics/ …
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Obvs money functions as both & which one it leans towards more depends on the phase of history as
@davidgraeber in his book Debt - but it’s even more interesting to have a discussion about this in context of cryptocurrency.Show this thread -
How do diff forms of distributed ledger change the direction or the pendulum? ESP as it mixes with current fiat systems & as mainstream economic institutions & enterprises are becoming serious players in the ecosystem?
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To even answer this question abt cryptocurrency in the context of QTM or social
, i just fucking realized a key input is this historical analysis by @davidgraeber on how the concept of
in 16th/17th century shifted from an abstraction (social ) to QTM (physical money )pic.twitter.com/z1RRnyuKPZ
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It’s
@davidgraeber’s connection to how 1.) periods colonization/violence/mass terror/slavery CORRESPOND to perception of money as physical(aka QTM)
2.) QTM assumes inflation is matter of supply & demandpic.twitter.com/q4YIih05J5
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3.) QTM assumed sudden increase in money from colonization of all the gold from Perú & Mexico was the cause of inflation 4.) but
@davidgraeber is saying that all that gold the Spaniards stole from Perú& Mexico didn’t end up in Europe!!!! RIGHT so...
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5.) it ended up in the Silk Road of
& 
- if you think abt the merchants were trying to maximize value & derisk as they were going back to Europe
6.) therefore the gold was NEVER directly coined as 
!Show this thread -
7.) inflationary effects on money in Europe is really more attributed to speculation of bonds So essentially a bunch of guys (who r now the modern banks of Europe) were financing asset acquisition & movement of colonialism (slaves, gold) said let’s figure out how make more
!!Show this thread -
8.) and that’s why
@davidgraeber is saying it’s hard to isolate the causal variable of inflation to be A. supply driving prices (QTM) OR B. the other way around
9.) @davidgraeber says based on colonization e.g. - QTM is wrong as overall economic fixer cuz SPENDING matters moreShow this thread -
10.) and the amazing part is when
@davidgraeber connects our imagination of how money shifts between physical vs social to the long standing debate between
A. exogenous vs
B. endogenous theories of economic growthShow this thread -
11.) my POV is that modern history of how the West has tried to “develop” “modernize” all previously colonized parts of the world is mostly based on EXOGENOUS theories, meaning just invest in infrastructure & magic will happen! Economies will modernize! People will have roads!
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12. BUT EXOGENOUS theories applied in a universal, non-customized, top down, at times forced, Western-centric ways don’t fucking work in reality!! Roads & buildings alone don’t cut it - you need LOCAL people to use and operate it
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13.) this is why I’m obsessed with
@paulmromer’s work as an economist who has built robust endogenous models for growth integrated with tech -
Essentially- you gotta invest in humans for that is the key to technology innovation
, aka #humancapital matters a lot!Show this thread -
14.) So going back to
@davidgraeber article - he’s saying that -the QTM (physical) reflects exogenous econ growth model
-the social model reflects endogenous Econ growth model
-modern Macro-econ overly & at times singularly focused on QTMShow this thread -
15. &
@davidgraeber says QTM is broken Can’t just increase supply of without thinking through the distribution of it (concentrated in hands of few?) which is why we have to look at spending - aka social aka endogenous econ growth theories that develop human capitalpic.twitter.com/bFbe8Tdsm0
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16. so bringing it back to the future of money
, i wonder how further diversifying of financial assets into cryptocurrency will affect
-how institutions invest in either exogenous or endogenous growth
-how we IMAGINE as more physical or socialShow this thread -
17. -Will crypto
“boons” be parallel to colonization gold “boons”?
-What ripple affects will it have on existing & new bond instruments?
-Will the “boons” be concentrated in hands of a few like in colonialism?
-will crypto be more suitable for certain kinds of transactionsShow this thread -
18. -Will we continue misconflating open, decentralized, P2P tech w/ open equal societies? Just like we did (& continue to do) with the Internet? Eg open protocol means open information
-which forms of crypto will be more suitable for diff imaginations of money?Show this thread -
19. -how does perception of money change as cryptocurrency gets built into mobile wallets? -who are the architects of these new distributed ledger systems? Will it mirror the power structure of colonization?
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20. -Will cryptocurrency produce the new
@LloydsBank of our times? HISTORY: Lloyd, like many Euro banks were the cutting edge financial architects of their times, making new financial risk products. Lloyd created insurance for slave trade as they also financed traders themselvesShow this thread -
21. -will we enter into new forms/levels of inequality as it relates to who can or can’t participate in this new system of money? We already see this so clearly in bitcoin - Early miners & developers centralization of power Open-source doesn’t make things inherently more fair
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22. Right now main focus in crypto space is we just need to solve tech issues” BUT the biggest questions we face (Eg the few i listed in this thread) aren’t just about the hardware, it’s also about our socialware. Tech, however open it is, lives inside a dynamic social context
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23. I’ve come to realize that to understand equality & power, It’s critical to analyze -how diff forms of distributed ledger from permissioned (private) to permissionless (public) evolve -who designs these systems -who are target users -movement of fiat & crypto
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24. In what ways to narratives on “openess” of distributed ledger mirror narratives of colonialism? As Andrew Russel brilliantly argued - open protocol is an ideology that promotes economic colonialism, replacing territorial colonialism - MUST READ BOOK! https://www.amazon.com/Open-Standards-Digital-Age-Enterprise/dp/1107612047 …
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25. How do tech platforms (whether it has blockchain in stack or not) create new divides? Eg All the Weworks & Airbnb’s create new divide of owners vs renters MUST READ - Lewis Hyde’s book on enclosure movement in industrial revolution in England http://www.lewishyde.com/publications/common-as-air …
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26. In Hyde’s book, he asks “what social structures do use rights embody?” So i wonder how historically diff models for managing important resources (Eg commons vs enclosured land) offer a parallel for us to study what social structures do various blockchain structures embody?
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27. And at the crux of all these socialware questions is DATA - we need a new language & set of tools to talk abt data that goes beyond issues of privacy to actually addressing issues of PERSONHOOD which is about the agency of an individual or community
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28. OUR PERSONHOOD IS AT RISK, NOT JUST OUR PRIVACY! Privacy is a subset of personhood. privacy = rights, norms & rules around personally identifiable info personhood = ability for indiv & communities to have agency over one’s life & livelihood - abt our digital humanity!
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29. Arguments over whether we have more or less privacy are anachronistic & playing small when IT’s NOT FRAMED IN THE CONTEX OF PERSONHOOD. Now that we’re implicated in data arbitrage enacted by social media companies, our PII (personally identifiable info) is out there
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30. In economics - arbitrage is abt info asymmetry - when one side takes advantage of the lack of understanding of other to extract more value. It’s not illegal in the “pure” sense as that is how markets function, i.e. stock market But there are restrictions like insider trading
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