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I realise that most of the following is pretty far up the idealism curve / probably not actually relevant because nobody who matters is going to ask my opinion on it, but these are the things churning around in my head that I'm trying to research / figure out at the moment.
These are mostly notes to myself, but I would appreciate input on any of them too (especially if it is in the form of 'you should read X' rather than 'that is completely stupid why are you even thinking about it?').
Most important as it's actually a clear and present demand of many people:
* 'Ban Lobbying' potentially impacts a lot of 'good' charities / think-tanks / individuals who are dedicated to a cause. How do we distinguish between 'constituent who has a legitimate interest in an issue', 'genuine advice from experts' and 'paid-for lobbying'?
Things I want to prove / disprove in general, and ideally write a clear and simple explanation of, because I keep getting into arguments over them and am ill-informed:
* Returning to a gold standard / gold or some other solid actually useful commodity as a store of value - what terrible things does that do to the world economy?
* Debt-backed money - is it actually untenable or can appropriate regulations to avoid obfuscation of debt values save it? (If so, what are these?)
* Alternative bases for money - what are the characteristics of the 'forex standard'? what about People-Backed Money (somewhat similar to the Equal Money guys' idea, but with actual exchange rather than a system where prices can't be market-set because you don't actually receive anything - so why ask for money at all when you could earn more social capital by gifting it?) what money-sink tricks can you use to get around the 'inflation is bad, it steals my savings' bleating while still maintaining an incentive to keep the economy running rather than letting money stagnate?
* Why social capital / 'whuffie' only schemes are a Bad Plan (or are they?)
* What are the downsides of 'socialise basic needs, capitalism for luxuries'? How does that work in practice? What are the awkward edge effects which need to be controlled for? How do you do it without authoritarian measures / what level of authoritarian measures are acceptable?
* Is it possible to have a government without going down the icky routes of 'monopoly on force' or 'serious brainwashing program'?
* 'banking', up to and including credit default swaps and CDOs, is an inevitable evolution of the desire to trade - discuss
* What kind of things constitute 'artificial scarcity', and how can we remove these barriers to progress in the easiest fashion - or are they in fact doing a good thing even though they have undesirable side effects? (Related: how do we manage the transition between 'full employment everyone needs to do as much work as they can to produce mostly physical stuff' and 'technological unemployment, most people are out-competed by machines and need to find something else to do', especially the tricky middle stages where we still need some compulsory work?)
* Is it possible to have a government without going down the icky routes of 'monopoly on force' or 'serious brainwashing program'?
* What are the alternative modern government forms to 'representative democracy', how would you implement them and what are their pros and cons?
These are mostly notes to myself, but I would appreciate input on any of them too (especially if it is in the form of 'you should read X' rather than 'that is completely stupid why are you even thinking about it?').
Most important as it's actually a clear and present demand of many people:
* 'Ban Lobbying' potentially impacts a lot of 'good' charities / think-tanks / individuals who are dedicated to a cause. How do we distinguish between 'constituent who has a legitimate interest in an issue', 'genuine advice from experts' and 'paid-for lobbying'?
Things I want to prove / disprove in general, and ideally write a clear and simple explanation of, because I keep getting into arguments over them and am ill-informed:
* Returning to a gold standard / gold or some other solid actually useful commodity as a store of value - what terrible things does that do to the world economy?
* Debt-backed money - is it actually untenable or can appropriate regulations to avoid obfuscation of debt values save it? (If so, what are these?)
* Alternative bases for money - what are the characteristics of the 'forex standard'? what about People-Backed Money (somewhat similar to the Equal Money guys' idea, but with actual exchange rather than a system where prices can't be market-set because you don't actually receive anything - so why ask for money at all when you could earn more social capital by gifting it?) what money-sink tricks can you use to get around the 'inflation is bad, it steals my savings' bleating while still maintaining an incentive to keep the economy running rather than letting money stagnate?
* Why social capital / 'whuffie' only schemes are a Bad Plan (or are they?)
* What are the downsides of 'socialise basic needs, capitalism for luxuries'? How does that work in practice? What are the awkward edge effects which need to be controlled for? How do you do it without authoritarian measures / what level of authoritarian measures are acceptable?
* Is it possible to have a government without going down the icky routes of 'monopoly on force' or 'serious brainwashing program'?
* 'banking', up to and including credit default swaps and CDOs, is an inevitable evolution of the desire to trade - discuss
* What kind of things constitute 'artificial scarcity', and how can we remove these barriers to progress in the easiest fashion - or are they in fact doing a good thing even though they have undesirable side effects? (Related: how do we manage the transition between 'full employment everyone needs to do as much work as they can to produce mostly physical stuff' and 'technological unemployment, most people are out-competed by machines and need to find something else to do', especially the tricky middle stages where we still need some compulsory work?)
* Is it possible to have a government without going down the icky routes of 'monopoly on force' or 'serious brainwashing program'?
* What are the alternative modern government forms to 'representative democracy', how would you implement them and what are their pros and cons?
