Today is one of those days I cannot silence my mind. I keep feeling the need to write, and write more.
All of us here using a platform that is heavily built around blockchains and cryptocurrency are very familiar with the concept of currencies being backed by something.
Traditionally precious metals have been a go to backer.
Bitcoin is backed by WORK from solving complex equations.
I've begun think what if the only currency we needed was our time?
What if you accumulated currency as your time passes in your life?
What if you could exchange representations of that time with anyone else for whatever reason you chose and you could negotiate voluntarily on costs?
Wouldn't that currency be backed by something?
Your time.
That could be broken down into smaller units of time as needed for exchange. It would be something you can't really counterfeit.
Some people would accumulate more currency in exchange if people found their services particularly valuable. Yet ultimately people would have equal time.
How they choose to spend it is where it would differ.
Would we need to protect people from disadvantage? If you wish to spend your own time to do that you could. Yet you could not force others to give up their time to do so.
It must be voluntary.
That's it. Compared to others today. This is a short one.
EDIT: Also how do you know they are disadvantaged if you don't know how long they will live? They will have time accumulating just like you and I. If they make poor decisions on how they spend that time that is on them. Some people may be born with difficulties but that is the nature of reality. Other people should not be punished, penalized, or robbed of their time if reality has dealt someone else a bad hand.
Similar to In Time, but maybe in a different perspective.
Like all things that people think has value, some will take advantage of it and other resort to killing as well. But I like these kind of ideas, alternate means of living.
If the currency ceased to exist upon death then that would make killing for it less enticing to criminals. Once you pay someone for something and transfer some of your currency it becomes theirs so it would not disappear. Yet what you have at the time of death could disappear. I know some people may not like that idea because they cannot pass it onto their children. However, for it to truly work each person must only have their own currency and what was given to them in voluntary trade by another.
When you die your currency income ceases. Thus, if you promise future currency there is no future currency beyond your death. Again that actually might discourage killing.
EDIT: Unlike "In Time" I am proposing that currency be the same for anyone. It is accumulated as time passes. You cannot collect for time that has not yet passed. If you die suddenly then your currency stops then as well.
It would be very different from what we are used to. Yet that doesn't mean it might not be feasible.
That's an understandable solution as well, is this like UBI? or does each person also need to "work" to activate it?
You should write novel about this as it is interesting, also normal people like it better in that format for wider reach.
I don't have a formal definition. This post was simply a seed of an idea.
I think it would be essentially like UBI because it is YOUR TIME that it is based upon.
However, if you don't contribute any way then you'll just have your time. To get more time and potentially do more things you need to exchange a service and actually do something.
Who is going to clean a persons house? Grow their food? Fix their plumbing?
You'd have to exchange currency for those services.
If all you do is nothing but collect your currency then so what? That means you end up giving it to others to do the things for you. They in turn then have more to spend how they like.
The thing is there should be no more currency than has entered the system through the time someone was alive.
You could accumulate a lot of it by providing services to people. Yet what you have will not go with you after you are gone. I'd say you should be able to pass your property on after your death but your currency would be gone.
Right now in our day UBI is poof printed out of thin air. It causes inflation that impacts everyone. It is backed by nothing.
I see, it's like a living money.
But does that accumulate overtime? Like if my great grandfather had amassed a value equivalent to 2M people (lifetime) during his lifetime and "given" a portion of it to me and I then compounded it by doing business, does it work like that?
Having many children can make more "money" into the circulation, but having less will let the heirs accumulate more of it.
No clue. I am making it all up. I would assume it should disappear when a person that owns it dies. However, once you transfer it to someone else you no longer own it. Thus, whatever you gave to someone else for trade or whatever reason would become theirs. Could a person thus amass a bunch of it? Sure. If they are not spending it and/or they have something they offer that a lot of people want to exchange for.
Your heirs won't get your money when you die. They only get what you give them before you die. It is important that it not accumulate by being passed down. You could however purchase property and pass that down to your heirs. I'd see heirs as owning more STUFF rather than money.
Time is not all you need.
To make something, you need skill, time and materials.
And the "something" is really what you are after.
In a very simple world, you would trade your something for something-else.
And that trade would be even.
Just trading time, or some voucher for time does not get you the "something"
There is more to it than that.
And time vouchers can be horribly abused.
Like, you could own someone's time for the rest of their lives.
Or slavery.
I indicated voluntary trading. You can negotiate the value of things. If the other party agrees then it is acceptable.
As to future pay. That too would be voluntary. It also might be wise to have an escape clause from a contract you agree to.
If someone voluntarily enters into it without coercion or force then it wouldn't be slavery. It might still be unwise, but each person should be responsible for their own choices.
Reality is some people would make bad choices.
Time is the only currency we all have. And have the same amount of. Time is not taxable. Time of current, the current moment, of time. Some time currencies and banks have worked. However only on a small scale. Maybe such time is meant to be shared in smaller groups. Yet exchangeable with other smaller groups to maintain simplicity and avoid too much complexity. Deep dive for sure.