This is no joke! by Stefan Weckbach

Stefan,

The point I try making is that we lose sight of the basis of this money and just treat it as a commodity to be collected, which then requires more to be produced in order for commerce to function. Then those with the large collections have leverage over the economy.

The problem with 'fiat' money is not that it is based on public debt, but that we forget this foundation means its value is directly tied to the health, wealth and productivity of said community. If we recognize that it serves as a contract between the community and its members, then it is no longer simply a commodity to be collected at will, but a contract that has to be respected by both parties.

Money functions as an economic medium. Effectively it is like a road system. We own our cars, businesses, houses, etc, but not the roads connecting them and no one cries socialism over that. Like blood in the body, in order to function is has to be able to flow freely and any clots, unused collections, excess pressure, etc, are extremely unhealthy. Now if we were to view it primarily as a contract between the community and its members, for one thing, there would have to be sufficient leeway for emergencies, etc, because that would seriously reduce the need and function of trying to store excessive amounts. Conversely anyone trying to abuse the system, including storing excessive amounts, would have those stores penalized. This would create the tendency to treat other aspects of life, from social relations to a healthy environment, as stores of value and not just as sources to be mined to create notational wealth. If people really understood and respected the fact that those little numbers on the bank account are not just a pile of coins in a safe deposit box, but a contract with the vast web of society and that its value is dependent on the health of that society, they might be a little less selfish, with regards to the rest of society. They might also appreciate other, more organic forms of exchange and reciprocity. Especially since those currently controlling this system systematically use it to tax any and every possible form of exchange denominated in these notes. That even the ones where people seem to profit, are more come ons, to entice further and deeper participation. This is not to say there shouldn't be a vibrant and healthy economy, based on capital as a medium of exchange, just not one prone to the cancers, tumors and high blood pressures of this version.

So we can respect fiat currencies, but we need to first understand them.

Regards,

John

Dear both,

Currently, essays are on top which claim serving the world. I wonder if you don't agree with them and will vote accordingly ;). I was not heard when I objected that common sense tends to use the expression "save the world" with an ironic undertone. The question is: save from what?

Karl Marx observed cyclic economic crises and envisioned a general one because in capitalism goods are jointly produced but privately appropriated. The Latin word privare means to steal. Well, inequality might be unfair to some extent. However, is mankind and its basis the Earth really fundamentally endangered by economic bubbles and social inequality?

Or should we follow Shirazi and fight against political ponerology?

Or will loving-kindness save us from all evil?

Or should we accept our fate?

I think the name FQXi reminds us to strive for revealing more foundational questions. What might be wrong in our ideals of humanity and responsibility?

Some essays are dealing with growth of population as "alarming". Kadin's good essay didn't get much support because it collides with old doctrines. I agree with him: The logical contradiction between continuing forever growth and limited basics suggest a taboo question: how many people does humanity need?

My essay tries to reveal a related likewise unwelcome necessity: We all must outlaw nationalism and aggressive religions in order to save global peace.

Eckard Blumschein

Dear Eckard,

you raise many important questions. One of the less important ones is my voting. I am not fully through the essays and prefer to vote when i am done.

I am with John that money is treated as a commodity rather than a social contract. honestly i think that money rules almost all areas of human affairs today. Money talks and i consider this talk as the most aggressive religion on the planet. This does not mean that i want to abolish it, but to think about its destructive dynamics in worldwide society.

My essay's concern does not exclude other relevant suggestions to obvious problems, like Shirazi, Kadin or many others presented. I think one very important point here is to look at the interdependencies of the many problem-fields presented here on FQXI. This could complete the big picture.

I am with Sabine Hossenfelder that analyzing the problems isn't enough. The results need to be made public in a language most people can understand. The analyzing and publication is a task for the leaders of the scientific community. I really would wish that FQXI would carefully analyze the essay's results - via experts of the corresponding fields - and those who can subscribe it should do so. After this it could be published to the worldwide public.

Otherwise all our suggestions will be only of theoretical nature. Science has its responsibilities. It has high recommendation among most people. It should compile its knowledge concerning our present global problems and the validated solutions and take position. I know that most scientists fear the intervention with politics. But publishing a baseline study that has been subscribed by our most honored scientists should not be a crime or an intellectual betrayal. Shouldn't it?

Best wishes in the contest,

Stefan

Eckard,

Population certainly is a legitimate issue, but the question is how to deal with it. There are three examples. One is simply to kill off enormous numbers of people, as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. did. The problem is this really doesn't accomplish the overall purpose of saving the planet, given the levels of destruction, not only of the environment, but of any social cohesion which would be necessary to work together to solve these problems.

Another would be to do as the Chinese have done and limit the number of children as a government policy. It will be a while to really see the long term effect of this, but given the shape of the environment in China, it doesn't seem part of an adequate program.

The other is how western countries have managed to do it and make large families economically less viable and socially unfavored. Given this was not an intentional policy, it seems that the issue of population might be something approached indirectly, as a matter of incentives, rather than by force or direct prescription.

As for aggressive nationalism and religions, there is no way to not have people band together in like minded groupings and aggression is a simplistically effective policy. What people need to understand is that on broader scales and long term views, these tactics can backfire, but like many of the proposals here, that might be well in the future. People do naturally gravitate into groups and since the largest tend to form around the most basic common denominators and the oldest around concepts that were first relevant millennia ago, sometimes it's a matter of waiting for those systems to break down in the face of problems they are not able to deal with, before real change can be effected.

Stefan,

Politics permeates science as well. The best you can do is put the ideas out there and hope they take root. If it's going to happen, eventually it will happen, but sometimes it takes a lot of persistence to make it happen.

Regards,

John

Dear Mr. Weckbach,

I thought that you put a great deal of effort into the writing of your essay. When a bank makes a loan of say $1 million, it creates an additional credit of $1 million for its own use. The debit and the credit balance. Interest is charged to fool people into believing that that is the way the bank makes money.

regards,

Joe Fisher

Stefan,

I support of your position that suggestions that are "utopia-like aren't helpful." I get your point on "fiat money" and its impacts on the 1% and the 90%.

The confusion I have is on what you see as the remedy.

Are you proposing that the 1% do MORE philanthropy like investing in "energetical infrastructure"?

Also, is my solution here a practical one, for you?

Thanks,

- Ajay

Dear Stefan,

Very important and actual problem for Humanity and your suggestions. I think that this no joke problem associated with the modern scientific picture of the world in which too large "bubbles" and too many speculative "foam". Physicists have to "dig" deeper meanings , and the economists change then look at the problems of global economic. " Freiheit ist Einsicht in die Notwendigkeit" (Hegel ). For realizing this, we must enter the teaching of "Philosophy" in the school and for future physicists - in more depth to give "The Philosophy of Physics" and "The Philosophy of Mathematics". Nature confirms to us that the Philosophy - "the rigorous Science" (E.Husserl ), so it is important to better to economists listen the Voice of the Earth. Earth has long been crying from the economy of existential chaos. I also liked your responses to comments. You are absolutely correct emphasis on "openness" and "closeness". You are absolutely right that "Science has its responsibilities". New Generation tells us: "We start the path ". High score.

I invite you to read and evaluate my essay .

I wish you good luck!

All the Best,

Vladimir

Stefan,

Bizarrely I read and noted I'd commented on your essay a week ago and certainly rated it (highly) but now can't find the comment. Perhaps it's the quantum spooks! Did I mention the hierarchy of truth function logic (TFL) I generalised in my 2012 essay? I also loved your comment; ""Only via finding logical contradictions it is possible to leave ad absurdium the claim of pre-determinism" and most issues being due to wrong analysis.

But anyway, I've just noticed your additional question on my own blog, viz;

~

"You wrote

"A timed pair experiment with rotating analysers will falsify the hypothesis."

Just to make it clear for myself - of what hypothesis do you speak here? I ask you for explaining the hypothesis to understand what you mean in this context. Please also explain how that hypothesis is falsified.

You wrote

"The classical experiment in the end notes has been reproduced and can be again, by anybody."

What does the mentioned experiment say about the ontological status of your main theme, namely entanglement in QM? How is this saying then justified in physical terms?"

~

My hypothesis is that there are no real 'singlet state particles', or even 'collapse to' such states. That assumption is replaced by "the handed spin 'found' is reversed by reversal of the detector EM field and it's electrons (the opposite photomultiplyer then clicks)." The trajectory may not be 'real' but may be a wavefront, sum over paths, with the Non Linear Schrodinger equation and density description, but is none the less helicity. I show it simplified to a sphere, which then as BOTH spins (N/S poles) so which hemisphere spin is 'found' depends on orientation.

ENTANGLEMENT Is then simply the propagation axes being on the spin axis. The spin or 'equatorial' planes are then also the same. The setting angles are then subtended from that plane, the points on the surface giving the local latitude 'circumference' so speed, and speed change with latitude is a cosine curve. (measurement is then transfer of OAM anywhere on that circumference).

Essentially the states found are detector dependent, but always remain random up/down. The Experiment must use individual pairs to prove that. So called 'weak measurement' is blind to it. Does any of that NOT seem to make sense?

Best wishes

Peter

John Adams letter toThomas Jefferson : "All the perplexities, confusion and distresses in America arise not from defects in the constitution or confederation, nor from want of honour or virtue, as much from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation."

The Federal Reserve Bank is privately owned.

It first creates fiat money out of nothing and then loans it to governments and multinational corporations etc ~ mostly to finance wars which have been and continue to be, entered into without the consent of the governed ~ and then the Reserve requires repayment WITH INTEREST in the real blood, sweat and tears of the populace via taxation.

There was no income tax before about 1920.

If that wasn't bad enough the US hasn't been operating under its real constitution since 1871~ when with the Act of 1871 some European bankers set up the District of Columbia as a corporation in order to "manage" their new debt relationship with the newly incorporated UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

The real constitution made provision for Congress to issue currency. JFK was assassinated because he was about to bypass the Federal Reserve Bank and issue some truly legal tender. These "JFK" notes are already printed, still exist, stored and merely have to be cut and issued !!!!!!!!!

This double barrelled "corporate//private banking" strangle hold on the US has gone viral right across the entire planet.

I for one am EXTREMELY GLAD Stefan has opened this ghastly, ghastly ghastly can of monsters.

Humanity will not make any progress until we rid ourselves of "corporations" and the big private banks who now control the world's wealth and via taxation have turned humanity into debt slaves ~ even our unborn children.

If you didn't already know, corporations are by their very constitution EVIL due to the fact that they cannot be sued for failure to perform as stipulated.

Although I am Australian I have been following humanities gradual awakening to this most heinous of evils ~ the global bankers ~ as it unfolds across the planet.

Thank you again Stefan for broaching this subject.

Stefan, thank you for writing your essay. A really upsetting best-selling book could be written combining fiat money with concepts in The Coming Generational Storm and "The Crash Course: The Unsustainable Future Of Our Economy, Energy, And Environment". US National Debt 73% of annual GDP, Taxes 34% of annual GDP, Underfunded Social Security, Underfunded Pension Funds, Rising cost of Medicare as percentage of GDP, Rising cost of energy, rising cost of dealing with global warming.

Thank you for insightful physics comments on a different essay.

Brent

Dear Stefan Weckbach,

I enjoyed your essay quite a lot. In general I agree with your view of fiat money, although I do not agree with your zero-sum idea of the free market economy. In general the most productive end up with more of the pie, but the pie tends to get larger, in my opinion. This does not apply to inherited wealth or non-productive rent-seeking behavior, which are both problems.

I found most interesting your proposal that "those 10% of the worlds population should not furthermore invest their money in further money (it's senseless), but in things that are really needed..." The key of course is to design a system where this will work.

Your point about the thermodynamic gradient is very well taken, but I believe you incorrectly tie this to "investing in contracts that promise the highest depository rates." I believe the thermodynamic gradient to be a law of nature, whereas the "money chasing more money" is the result of a system which requires redesign. I hope we can redesign it. It will not entail getting rid of "thermodynamic gradients". For a different take on thermodynamics as a tool, please read and comment on my essay.

My best regards to you,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Stefan,

As you note, there is the problem of redesign, and then the (hard) problem of installing the new system. I am not optimistic that such can happen without first experiencing a system crash of terrible proportions.

Like you, I do not see why a nation must pay interest to private banks.

Although I have not put enough time into this contest, I have noted that John Merryman seems to be the best informed in general on money topics. Have you communicated with him?

Best,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Stefan Weckbach

This year you changed a topic from consciousness and quantum physics to economy.

It is a real problem, because money is so virtual, so dependent from psychology of people and from their greediness. But at the other side is a synonym for energy. Your proposals seem OK, but we people need to search new proposals still more.

I think that we people have enough brains that electric cars should already exist in majority, but they are not. I am afraid that your proposals for investment in green technology will stopped somewhere or that money will disappear. But, I hope that I am wrong.

My essay

Best regards

Janko Kokosar