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Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!

1993-10-19 - backing?

Header Data

From: Alexander Reynolds <chrome@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
To: Ray <rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu>
Message Hash: ba28653142c0fd42d4f5ed54b9656f87106edbbc81ae835efa78b0e329ee3144
Message ID: <Pine.3.05.9310182227.B12737-a100000@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
Reply To: <9310190159.AA24469@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
UTC Datetime: 1993-10-19 02:27:19 UTC
Raw Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 19:27:19 PDT

Raw message

From: Alexander Reynolds <chrome@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 19:27:19 PDT
To: Ray <rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: backing?
In-Reply-To: <9310190159.AA24469@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.3.05.9310182227.B12737-a100000@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> Alexander Reynolds () writes:
> > My first message ended something like this:  "how about multiple forms of
> > digital cash?  This removes a centralized monopolized bank as a form of
> > electronic power, i.e. the bank president could refuse digi-loans to those
> > elements of society he figured would usurp his(her?) bank's power."
> 
>    Sounds good but money isn't fiction. If there's nothing of value backing
> these "multiple forms of digital cash" you will still need to go to the
> evil nasty bank president. Otherwise, it's just monopoly money.
> 
>    That's what the bank of the internet proposes to do (provide
> digicash with backing). I doubt real banks would bother with digicash

	So what would back digicash?  A promise to pay?  That is all I can
see at the moment, other than the physical force of a government, which
would give digicash its worth, and somehow, human nature being what it is,
I doubt that would be a strong foundation for a digital economy.

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