Salut Andrius, Janet, Fred, John  and all,
 
I have been dreaming out loud in writing for several years now.  I once defined
my dream spontaniously during a chat with Andrius and several others, by
writing:
 
As an individual who is a son, a brother, a spouse, a father, a grand-father, a
neighbour and a citizen of a greatly blessed land and people, I pray to arrive
where and when sovereignty becomes... "...the ability to make decisions in
serene maturity and knowledge, equiped with the capacity to implement these
decisions with complete wisdom and responsability". As a result of such arrival,
I dream of seeing the opening of a local-global Reconciliation Centre, radiating
from within my own family into the social fabric by the Presnce of God, growing
into the Eternal's Covenant in Christ-Jesus to feed the healing of human essence
of being-having-doing......amen to God's Yes in us all..."
 
And so, to bring this dream to reality, I have sought to establish Spirit-led
and driven contacts and relationships to help define the trajectory, the moves
and steps called for and ordained by God. 
On Oct 14, I reported about being involved in such a conversation, which is
moving in that direction:
 
The Minciu Sodas group of Loving God is led by God.  
Our conversation is arriving to a fairly simple description of my personal
view, in the approach of being led by God individually and communionly. 
 
So for a general reminder of the conversation's context, we are trying to
identify an approach to Canadian unity, facilitating the healing of history in
the contact between the Aboriginal people, the English and the French as a basis
to all other nationalities.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lovingGod/message/695 
 
The last entry I received suggested to approach the Grand Chief with a reaseach
project to identify Spirit-led businesses and communities, as he is Chancellor
of a university. 
 
Here's my last entry, which I offer in my report  to the Economy of Dreams, of
my journey along with the many others, in our progression from dream to reality,
and serving as well to define further my approach to renew the "economy?"
and "work?" to come into balance with the ecology of well being...
-----------         ----------          ------------
 
Dear ..., 
 
Approaching the Grand Chief with a research project for Spirit-led entities
seems to be the second step needed.
 
Why not approach him with the offer to research the partnership for an
immediate construction project and of its promotion, which will serve to draw
the Spirit-Led businesses and communities to join in Building the Recovery Road
from self-destruction to self-control and community self-government with The
Ministry of Reconciliation?
 
The primary research needed is what we are doing now, while the aim of this
research, is to find out how God assembles and fits us together, to serve His
needs of the moment with the gifts and talents that He freely distributes to
each individually. 
Our research is to be found and drawn by the Spirit's groove and how we are to
go on following up to be found in His plan, drive and grace.

 
Our conversation serves to identify if and how He wants His assembly of
us to move in His animation.  Your being from the UK and my being from Canada
ties us in a historic size possibility to emerge with God in His work of
...cleansing our vision of the Crown... 
 

Once ignited from coast to coast to coast, Canada is, but a pilot project of how
God moves to take people out of darkness and to bring us into the light of His
beloved Son's Kingdom.
 

With ...cleansing our vision of the Crown... the view of life becomes rooted in
the experience of the Perpetual Celebration of Easter upon The Land of
Immanuel!  
 
We are then offered to follow the lead of Christ-Jesus by  His Spirit, from
personal to communal, in the unfolding details from the micro to the macro
emergence of justice, peace and joy, cultivated to maturity in the unity of the
Father's glory from local to global!
 
Such is the primary find needed to be researched, giving way to the partnership
for which I am being worked on by The Spirit, to be delivered to the Grand Chief
and to his people, in God's restoration of historical blunders made in His name.
 
From our sacred pilot light in Canada, I look forward to watch the Lord's
personal manifestation of His Crown amongst all peoples of the earth...Amen to
God's Yes in us all...  
 
...may all blessings be with us all...
Benoit Couture,
Edmonton, Canada 


       __________________________________________________________________
Ask a question on any topic and get answers from real people. Go to Yahoo!
Answers and share what you know at http://ca.answers.yahoo.com

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Great song!  Leon.



From: cyfranogi@yahoogroups.com [mailto:cyfranogi@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
Benoit Couture
Sent: 25 November 2009 1:43 PM
To: cyfranogi@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [cyfranogi] How do we define "economy"? and "work"?





In 1995 I wrote a song about Canada's potential to lead such a way.  In that 
song, there are these 2 verses in it that agree very much with you Leon:

"Maybe we haven’t understood that prosperity only comes to us
from who we are together and not from what we do to each other.

We have all it takes to become heaven on earth;
we have been blessed with wealth, now let’s lead wealth to prosperity."

Benoit

--- On Wed, 11/25/09, Leon Benjamin <lb@...
<mailto:lb%40touch22.demon.co.uk> > wrote:

From: Leon Benjamin <lb@... <mailto:lb%40touch22.demon.co.uk> >
Subject: RE: [cyfranogi] How do we define "economy"? and "work"?
To: cyfranogi@yahoogroups.com <mailto:cyfranogi%40yahoogroups.com> ,
virmantas.galdikas@... <mailto:virmantas.galdikas%40gmail.com>
Cc: "'Anna Pollock'" <annapollock@... <mailto:annapollock%40me.com> >
Received: Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 5:22 AM



Interesting thread. A thought provoking article emerged recently that's
very relevant here (originally written in the 60's and 70's);

For a long time, according to Guattari, the crisis has no longer been a
transitory phase destined to lead to a miraculous "recovery," but the sign
of a radical malfunction in the mechanisms managing production and wealth
flows: "Even the most narrow-minded economists are discovering with
amazement a sort of madness to these systems and feel the urgency of
alternative solutions." (p. 131)

<http://www.truthout .org/1124097> http://www.truthout .org/1124097

If we don't re-examine the role, form, and meaning of work in our lives, the
future looks bleak. My personal view is that;

1. The future is about less - doing better with less

2. We have to find a way of prospering in a zero growth economy - we
know that biologically this is already possible (a state called
homeostasis) . It can be achieved socially and economically.

3. We need to re-define the meaning of prosperity because humanity's
progress is going to have to be on the side of 'being' rather than 'having'.

a. "I am, because we are"

Leon.

From: cyfranogi@yahoogrou ps.com [mailto:cyfranogi@yahoogrou ps.com] On Behalf
Of Andrius Kulikauskas
Sent: 24 November 2009 6:37 PM
To: cyfranogi@yahoogrou ps.com; virmantas.galdikas@ gmail.com
Subject: Re: [cyfranogi] How do we define "economy"? and "work"?

Virmantas Galdikas, welcome to Cyfranogi! and I share your letter. I
note your work in Lithuania to take a fresh look at economic terms and
make sense of them. Andrius Kulikauskas, ms@... <mailto:ms%40ms.lt> 
<mailto:ms%40ms. lt> ,
http://www.ms. lt
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------

Hi everyone,

This is a spontaneous response to the letter, but I think it might be
useful for all of us.

In John Rogers's article there are many things I agree 100 precent with.
Intuitively he is trying to explain relationships between ecology and
economy, e.g comparing two parts of our world. One is the ecology which
is mostly created by the nature, and the other economy entirely created
by the human beings. (Please don't try to argue regarding the terms. I
try to simplify things in order to explain very deeply hidden reasons of
human economic and ecologic behavior.)

Desire for money and an impact to the environment are the two outputs
compared, but not the reason cause analysis was made of the processes
going on. I have went through this, too. And now I can prove that the
only reason for all these economic and ecologic problems is the Human
Being by itself, and especially his mentality. All other things are
outcomes of this true reason.

Let's see, the human being is made of material body and mental creation
- ability to think, dream and desire. So we have two worlds (to parts,
to areas of activities) of the human being.

I would like to ask you at this point to open your minds, to free them
from all the dogmas you know and have. Please don't say for yourself -
it is not true, it does not work, I don't believe. Please just read and
think what is said openly, even if the idea will look against your
believes and knowledge. This is an innovative approach and it should
break something what was protecting our minds from the possibility to go
further and solve the problems we try to solve for hundreds of years
already.

So lets go step by step towards the true reasons of the problems we are
discussing here.

The human being as I mentioned above has to parts of his activities and
perceptions. One is mental and the other - physiological.

It is very easy to fulfill the physiological needs of the human being -
just feed it, worm it and let him play and took a rest, and of course -
sex.

The rest of the human being activities are connected to his mental work
- dreams, thoughts, desires. Mental activity I would simplify and call
it by a single term - creativity.

Who can tell me the limits of the creativity of the single person or the
whole society? I think that creativity it is unlimited, but the
implementation is limited to many factors.

So then we speak about the economy we mean that the whole process is
created by the humans (it is product of the creativity of the human
being). Then we speak about the ecology we speak also about the
creativity of the human being and the nature. The facts that humans
destroy forests, changes the living conditions of the other parts of the
nature which was not created by the human beings, and etc., to fulfill
the needs of the human creativity, proves that we have found one common
area where all problems are interrelated. That is the mental part of the
human being. So, we are not talking any more about the material side of
the issue. We analise only that is intangible and we have to look for
reasons inside the mental activity of the human being. In a way that
questioning like why, how, where, when are just in time.

I would like to start with the basic reason of all problems human beings
create - this is personal egoism, which also serves as a basic security
feeling for survival. The human beings are also societal beings, they
need a partner to fulfill the mission given by the nature - to
supply the new generations of the new human beings. This task provides
a need to practice sharing between the two and more human beings. This
task is constantly ongoing process due to constant change in number of
the humans living on the Earth.

The egoism force us take as much as possible for ourselves or also the
closest relatives (depends on education and culture). That is why during
the process of sharing the humans try to get as much as possible for
themselves. The same happens in economy and ecology. At this point it is
very popular to cheat each other by any mean available.

The second reason of the problem is that humans mix material and
intangible things within their creativity. That is that humans gives
some material look to the intangible things and wise versa. Lets see the
things which we call money. This is a clear mix of material and
intangible things. The question is to which extend intangible things
within money influence the human behavior comparing to the material side
of the issue?

John Rogers's citation from bellow:
"Our confusion comes from the brainwashing of our 'economy' that work
> is only what you get paid money for. Because we depend on money for
> survival. When we re-frame 'work' to include every effort that makes
> us human and interdependent - including volunteering, community
> work, ecological restoration, voting, activism etc. - then we can
> start to choose where we want to simply be moved by compassion to
> give and where we would like other rewards in exchange for our effort.
>
> This frame allows us to locate community currencies exactly halfway
> along a spectrum between compassion (self-giving love) and money.
> The metric of community currency gives us more choices."

Bilions of people think in the same way - "Because we depend on money
for survival."

At this point I would like to ask you. Why we depend on money for
survival? Why we depend on money at all? Are you saying that we depend
on our creation? How that can be?

I know for sure that my life depends on the Sun, the Moon, The Earth,
the Nature, many other material things that humans didn't create. But
saying that my life depends on the painting of the famous artist at
least sounds too strange for me. Yes, to the certain extent within the
society my life depends on money, but even then it is not a true. Within
the society my life depends on decisions and actions that other members
of the society makes. So, let me ask you. There are the money here, on
which depends my life? The answer is nowhere. This is a first and the
main mistake made by the human beings in the way of thinking that we do
about the processes going on around us on the Earth, and especially, if
we speak about the economy.

Money is not a problem. Money is not the reason. Money is only the mean
of exchange to facilitate the exchange of goods and services within the
society. Money were created by the humans so they serve them and not
wise versa.
Humans can easily to change the impact of money or economy to the
ecology just by changing the way of thinking.

First of all humans shall separate things whose were created by them and
whose not. Things created by the nature are essential for survival, and
the rest can be easily changed if they destroy the nature without the
real need and true understanding of the human activity.

Second, humans shall change the way of thinking from the Money Value
Oriented Model or in other words 'Cheat the Close Friends of Yours' to
the 'SHARING with Others' Model (or to change from giving priority to
human created value to natural values given to us by the nature and
sharing our creativity).

So, we need to learn how to use our creativity to develop the society
there each of us has more concern about the positive impact of our
creativity than survival. Humans need to work not more than 10 percent
of time for survival. The rest of their efforts is used for creative
issues: some of them are going to make more money, others to destroy
competitors, third to destroy forests, forth - to fight against the
others who makes money, destroy competitors, forests, nature, etc. I
mean that we all are fighting within the creativity field, because
nobody needs to fight for survival. It is easy to survive without money
and other stuff created by the humans. All nature does that, so the
humans are not different in this sense.

Please think about it how we the human beings can change the situation
easily without even investing a single penny into the solution of the
conflict situation between economy and ecology (both are human
creations) just by changing our way of thinking from the Fake Money
Value Oriented Model to the Sharing with Others Model.

If it is difficult to understand for you, just let me know and I will
explain wider. Also please read more thoughts about the issue on my knol
page below.

Best regards,
Virmantas

--

Virmantas Galdikas

tel. +370-698-49023
virmantas.galdikas@ gmail.com <mailto:virmantas. galdikas% 40gmail.com>
http://knol. google.com/ k/virmantas- galdikas/ -/1rerd3v3i3lg/ 0#knols
http://knol. google.com/ k/virmantas- galdikas/ financial- crisis-or-
the-beginnin
g-of/1rerd3v3i3lg/ 1#
<http://knol. google.com/ k/virmantas- galdikas/ financial- crisis-or-
the-beginni
ng-of/1rerd3v3i3lg/ 1>

Robert Mostyn wrote: Hi everyone,

On John's point "One of the great challenges of our time is to restore
the link between economic activity and ecology. "

This is the central theme of the myEcoCost technology I have been
working on for the last several years. I hope to have some funding
news to share with you in a ew months time. Once I get this funding,
there will be some very relevant discussions to have here on this theme.

Cheers,
Robert

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

__________________________________________________________
Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr!

http://www.flickr.com/gift/

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In 1995 I wrote a song about Canada's potential to lead such a way.  In that 
song, there are these 2 verses in it that agree very much with you Leon:
 
"Maybe we haven’t understood that prosperity only comes to us
from who we are together and not from what we do to each other.

We have all it takes to become heaven on earth;
we have been blessed with wealth, now let’s lead wealth to prosperity."
 
Benoit


--- On Wed, 11/25/09, Leon Benjamin <lb@...> wrote:


From: Leon Benjamin <lb@...>
Subject: RE: [cyfranogi] How do we define "economy"? and "work"?
To: cyfranogi@yahoogroups.com, virmantas.galdikas@...
Cc: "'Anna Pollock'" <annapollock@...>
Received: Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 5:22 AM


 



Interesting thread. A thought provoking article emerged recently that's
very relevant here (originally written in the 60's and 70's);

For a long time, according to Guattari, the crisis has no longer been a
transitory phase destined to lead to a miraculous "recovery," but the sign
of a radical malfunction in the mechanisms managing production and wealth
flows: "Even the most narrow-minded economists are discovering with
amazement a sort of madness to these systems and feel the urgency of
alternative solutions." (p. 131)

<http://www.truthout .org/1124097> http://www.truthout .org/1124097

If we don't re-examine the role, form, and meaning of work in our lives, the
future looks bleak. My personal view is that;

1. The future is about less - doing better with less

2. We have to find a way of prospering in a zero growth economy - we
know that biologically this is already possible (a state called
homeostasis) . It can be achieved socially and economically.

3. We need to re-define the meaning of prosperity because humanity's
progress is going to have to be on the side of 'being' rather than 'having'.

a. "I am, because we are"

Leon.

From: cyfranogi@yahoogrou ps.com [mailto:cyfranogi@yahoogrou ps.com] On Behalf
Of Andrius Kulikauskas
Sent: 24 November 2009 6:37 PM
To: cyfranogi@yahoogrou ps.com; virmantas.galdikas@ gmail.com
Subject: Re: [cyfranogi] How do we define "economy"? and "work"?

Virmantas Galdikas, welcome to Cyfranogi! and I share your letter. I
note your work in Lithuania to take a fresh look at economic terms and
make sense of them. Andrius Kulikauskas, ms@... <mailto:ms%40ms. lt> ,
http://www.ms. lt
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------

Hi everyone,

This is a spontaneous response to the letter, but I think it might be
useful for all of us.

In John Rogers's article there are many things I agree 100 precent with.
Intuitively he is trying to explain relationships between ecology and
economy, e.g comparing two parts of our world. One is the ecology which
is mostly created by the nature, and the other economy entirely created
by the human beings. (Please don't try to argue regarding the terms. I
try to simplify things in order to explain very deeply hidden reasons of
human economic and ecologic behavior.)

Desire for money and an impact to the environment are the two outputs
compared, but not the reason cause analysis was made of the processes
going on. I have went through this, too. And now I can prove that the
only reason for all these economic and ecologic problems is the Human
Being by itself, and especially his mentality. All other things are
outcomes of this true reason.

Let's see, the human being is made of material body and mental creation
- ability to think, dream and desire. So we have two worlds (to parts,
to areas of activities) of the human being.

I would like to ask you at this point to open your minds, to free them
from all the dogmas you know and have. Please don't say for yourself -
it is not true, it does not work, I don't believe. Please just read and
think what is said openly, even if the idea will look against your
believes and knowledge. This is an innovative approach and it should
break something what was protecting our minds from the possibility to go
further and solve the problems we try to solve for hundreds of years
already.

So lets go step by step towards the true reasons of the problems we are
discussing here.

The human being as I mentioned above has to parts of his activities and
perceptions. One is mental and the other - physiological.

It is very easy to fulfill the physiological needs of the human being -
just feed it, worm it and let him play and took a rest, and of course -
sex.

The rest of the human being activities are connected to his mental work
- dreams, thoughts, desires. Mental activity I would simplify and call
it by a single term - creativity.

Who can tell me the limits of the creativity of the single person or the
whole society? I think that creativity it is unlimited, but the
implementation is limited to many factors.

So then we speak about the economy we mean that the whole process is
created by the humans (it is product of the creativity of the human
being). Then we speak about the ecology we speak also about the
creativity of the human being and the nature. The facts that humans
destroy forests, changes the living conditions of the other parts of the
nature which was not created by the human beings, and etc., to fulfill
the needs of the human creativity, proves that we have found one common
area where all problems are interrelated. That is the mental part of the
human being. So, we are not talking any more about the material side of
the issue. We analise only that is intangible and we have to look for
reasons inside the mental activity of the human being. In a way that
questioning like why, how, where, when are just in time.

I would like to start with the basic reason of all problems human beings
create - this is personal egoism, which also serves as a basic security
feeling for survival. The human beings are also societal beings, they
need a partner to fulfill the mission given by the nature - to
supply the new generations of the new human beings. This task provides
a need to practice sharing between the two and more human beings. This
task is constantly ongoing process due to constant change in number of
the humans living on the Earth.

The egoism force us take as much as possible for ourselves or also the
closest relatives (depends on education and culture). That is why during
the process of sharing the humans try to get as much as possible for
themselves. The same happens in economy and ecology. At this point it is
very popular to cheat each other by any mean available.

The second reason of the problem is that humans mix material and
intangible things within their creativity. That is that humans gives
some material look to the intangible things and wise versa. Lets see the
things which we call money. This is a clear mix of material and
intangible things. The question is to which extend intangible things
within money influence the human behavior comparing to the material side
of the issue?

John Rogers's citation from bellow:
"Our confusion comes from the brainwashing of our 'economy' that work
> is only what you get paid money for. Because we depend on money for
> survival. When we re-frame 'work' to include every effort that makes
> us human and interdependent - including volunteering, community
> work, ecological restoration, voting, activism etc. - then we can
> start to choose where we want to simply be moved by compassion to
> give and where we would like other rewards in exchange for our effort.
>
> This frame allows us to locate community currencies exactly halfway
> along a spectrum between compassion (self-giving love) and money.
> The metric of community currency gives us more choices."

Bilions of people think in the same way - "Because we depend on money
for survival."

At this point I would like to ask you. Why we depend on money for
survival? Why we depend on money at all? Are you saying that we depend
on our creation? How that can be?

I know for sure that my life depends on the Sun, the Moon, The Earth,
the Nature, many other material things that humans didn't create. But
saying that my life depends on the painting of the famous artist at
least sounds too strange for me. Yes, to the certain extent within the
society my life depends on money, but even then it is not a true. Within
the society my life depends on decisions and actions that other members
of the society makes. So, let me ask you. There are the money here, on
which depends my life? The answer is nowhere. This is a first and the
main mistake made by the human beings in the way of thinking that we do
about the processes going on around us on the Earth, and especially, if
we speak about the economy.

Money is not a problem. Money is not the reason. Money is only the mean
of exchange to facilitate the exchange of goods and services within the
society. Money were created by the humans so they serve them and not
wise versa.
Humans can easily to change the impact of money or economy to the
ecology just by changing the way of thinking.

First of all humans shall separate things whose were created by them and
whose not. Things created by the nature are essential for survival, and
the rest can be easily changed if they destroy the nature without the
real need and true understanding of the human activity.

Second, humans shall change the way of thinking from the Money Value
Oriented Model or in other words 'Cheat the Close Friends of Yours' to
the 'SHARING with Others' Model (or to change from giving priority to
human created value to natural values given to us by the nature and
sharing our creativity).

So, we need to learn how to use our creativity to develop the society
there each of us has more concern about the positive impact of our
creativity than survival. Humans need to work not more than 10 percent
of time for survival. The rest of their efforts is used for creative
issues: some of them are going to make more money, others to destroy
competitors, third to destroy forests, forth - to fight against the
others who makes money, destroy competitors, forests, nature, etc. I
mean that we all are fighting within the creativity field, because
nobody needs to fight for survival. It is easy to survive without money
and other stuff created by the humans. All nature does that, so the
humans are not different in this sense.

Please think about it how we the human beings can change the situation
easily without even investing a single penny into the solution of the
conflict situation between economy and ecology (both are human
creations) just by changing our way of thinking from the Fake Money
Value Oriented Model to the Sharing with Others Model.

If it is difficult to understand for you, just let me know and I will
explain wider. Also please read more thoughts about the issue on my knol
page below.

Best regards,
Virmantas

--

Virmantas Galdikas

tel. +370-698-49023
virmantas.galdikas@ gmail.com <mailto:virmantas. galdikas% 40gmail.com>
http://knol. google.com/ k/virmantas- galdikas/ -/1rerd3v3i3lg/ 0#knols
http://knol. google.com/ k/virmantas- galdikas/ financial- crisis-or-
the-beginnin
g-of/1rerd3v3i3lg/ 1#
<http://knol. google.com/ k/virmantas- galdikas/ financial- crisis-or-
the-beginni
ng-of/1rerd3v3i3lg/ 1>

Robert Mostyn wrote: Hi everyone,

On John's point "One of the great challenges of our time is to restore
the link between economic activity and ecology. "

This is the central theme of the myEcoCost technology I have been
working on for the last several years. I hope to have some funding
news to share with you in a ew months time. Once I get this funding,
there will be some very relevant discussions to have here on this theme.

Cheers,
Robert

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]









       __________________________________________________________________
Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr!

http://www.flickr.com/gift/

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Interesting thread.  A thought provoking article emerged recently that's
very relevant here (originally written in the 60's and 70's);



For a long time, according to Guattari, the crisis has no longer been a
transitory phase destined to lead to a miraculous "recovery," but the sign
of a radical malfunction in the mechanisms managing production and wealth
flows: "Even the most narrow-minded economists are discovering with
amazement a sort of madness to these systems and feel the urgency of
alternative solutions." (p. 131)

  <http://www.truthout.org/1124097> http://www.truthout.org/1124097



If we don't re-examine the role, form, and meaning of work in our lives, the
future looks bleak. My personal view is that;



1.        The future is about less - doing better with less

2.       We have to find a way of prospering in a zero growth economy - we
know that biologically this is already possible (a state called
homeostasis).  It can be achieved socially and economically.

3.       We need to re-define the meaning of prosperity because humanity's
progress is going to have to be on the side of 'being' rather than 'having'.

a.       "I am, because we are"



Leon.



From: cyfranogi@yahoogroups.com [mailto:cyfranogi@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Andrius Kulikauskas
Sent: 24 November 2009 6:37 PM
To: cyfranogi@yahoogroups.com; virmantas.galdikas@...
Subject: Re: [cyfranogi] How do we define "economy"? and "work"?





Virmantas Galdikas, welcome to Cyfranogi! and I share your letter. I
note your work in Lithuania to take a fresh look at economic terms and
make sense of them. Andrius Kulikauskas, ms@... <mailto:ms%40ms.lt> ,
http://www.ms.lt
-----------------------------------------------

Hi everyone,

This is a spontaneous response to the letter, but I think it might be
useful for all of us.

In John Rogers's article there are many things I agree 100 precent with.
Intuitively he is trying to explain relationships between ecology and
economy, e.g comparing two parts of our world. One is the ecology which
is mostly created by the nature, and the other economy entirely created
by the human beings. (Please don't try to argue regarding the terms. I
try to simplify things in order to explain very deeply hidden reasons of
human economic and ecologic behavior.)

Desire for money and an impact to the environment are the two outputs
compared, but not the reason cause analysis was made of the processes
going on. I have went through this, too. And now I can prove that the
only reason for all these economic and ecologic problems is the Human
Being by itself, and especially his mentality. All other things are
outcomes of this true reason.

Let's see, the human being is made of material body and mental creation
- ability to think, dream and desire. So we have two worlds (to parts,
to areas of activities) of the human being.

I would like to ask you at this point to open your minds, to free them
from all the dogmas you know and have. Please don't say for yourself -
it is not true, it does not work, I don't believe. Please just read and
think what is said openly, even if the idea will look against your
believes and knowledge. This is an innovative approach and it should
break something what was protecting our minds from the possibility to go
further and solve the problems we try to solve for hundreds of years
already.

So lets go step by step towards the true reasons of the problems we are
discussing here.

The human being as I mentioned above has to parts of his activities and
perceptions. One is mental and the other - physiological.

It is very easy to fulfill the physiological needs of the human being -
just feed it, worm it and let him play and took a rest, and of course -
sex.

The rest of the human being activities are connected to his mental work
- dreams, thoughts, desires. Mental activity I would simplify and call
it by a single term - creativity.

Who can tell me the limits of the creativity of the single person or the
whole society? I think that creativity it is unlimited, but the
implementation is limited to many factors.

So then we speak about the economy we mean that the whole process is
created by the humans (it is product of the creativity of the human
being). Then we speak about the ecology we speak also about the
creativity of the human being and the nature. The facts that humans
destroy forests, changes the living conditions of the other parts of the
nature which was not created by the human beings, and etc., to fulfill
the needs of the human creativity, proves that we have found one common
area where all problems are interrelated. That is the mental part of the
human being. So, we are not talking any more about the material side of
the issue. We analise only that is intangible and we have to look for
reasons inside the mental activity of the human being. In a way that
questioning like why, how, where, when are just in time.

I would like to start with the basic reason of all problems human beings
create - this is personal egoism, which also serves as a basic security
feeling for survival. The human beings are also societal beings, they
need a partner to fulfill the mission given by the nature - to
supply the new generations of the new human beings. This task provides
a need to practice sharing between the two and more human beings. This
task is constantly ongoing process due to constant change in number of
the humans living on the Earth.

The egoism force us take as much as possible for ourselves or also the
closest relatives (depends on education and culture). That is why during
the process of sharing the humans try to get as much as possible for
themselves. The same happens in economy and ecology. At this point it is
very popular to cheat each other by any mean available.

The second reason of the problem is that humans mix material and
intangible things within their creativity. That is that humans gives
some material look to the intangible things and wise versa. Lets see the
things which we call money. This is a clear mix of material and
intangible things. The question is to which extend intangible things
within money influence the human behavior comparing to the material side
of the issue?

John Rogers's citation from bellow:
"Our confusion comes from the brainwashing of our 'economy' that work
> is only what you get paid money for. Because we depend on money for
> survival. When we re-frame 'work' to include every effort that makes
> us human and interdependent - including volunteering, community
> work, ecological restoration, voting, activism etc. - then we can
> start to choose where we want to simply be moved by compassion to
> give and where we would like other rewards in exchange for our effort.
>
> This frame allows us to locate community currencies exactly halfway
> along a spectrum between compassion (self-giving love) and money.
> The metric of community currency gives us more choices."

Bilions of people think in the same way - "Because we depend on money
for survival."

At this point I would like to ask you. Why we depend on money for
survival? Why we depend on money at all? Are you saying that we depend
on our creation? How that can be?

I know for sure that my life depends on the Sun, the Moon, The Earth,
the Nature, many other material things that humans didn't create. But
saying that my life depends on the painting of the famous artist at
least sounds too strange for me. Yes, to the certain extent within the
society my life depends on money, but even then it is not a true. Within
the society my life depends on decisions and actions that other members
of the society makes. So, let me ask you. There are the money here, on
which depends my life? The answer is nowhere. This is a first and the
main mistake made by the human beings in the way of thinking that we do
about the processes going on around us on the Earth, and especially, if
we speak about the economy.

Money is not a problem. Money is not the reason. Money is only the mean
of exchange to facilitate the exchange of goods and services within the
society. Money were created by the humans so they serve them and not
wise versa.
Humans can easily to change the impact of money or economy to the
ecology just by changing the way of thinking.

First of all humans shall separate things whose were created by them and
whose not. Things created by the nature are essential for survival, and
the rest can be easily changed if they destroy the nature without the
real need and true understanding of the human activity.

Second, humans shall change the way of thinking from the Money Value
Oriented Model or in other words 'Cheat the Close Friends of Yours' to
the 'SHARING with Others' Model (or to change from giving priority to
human created value to natural values given to us by the nature and
sharing our creativity).

So, we need to learn how to use our creativity to develop the society
there each of us has more concern about the positive impact of our
creativity than survival. Humans need to work not more than 10 percent
of time for survival. The rest of their efforts is used for creative
issues: some of them are going to make more money, others to destroy
competitors, third to destroy forests, forth - to fight against the
others who makes money, destroy competitors, forests, nature, etc. I
mean that we all are fighting within the creativity field, because
nobody needs to fight for survival. It is easy to survive without money
and other stuff created by the humans. All nature does that, so the
humans are not different in this sense.

Please think about it how we the human beings can change the situation
easily without even investing a single penny into the solution of the
conflict situation between economy and ecology (both are human
creations) just by changing our way of thinking from the Fake Money
Value Oriented Model to the Sharing with Others Model.

If it is difficult to understand for you, just let me know and I will
explain wider. Also please read more thoughts about the issue on my knol
page below.

Best regards,
Virmantas

--

Virmantas Galdikas

tel. +370-698-49023
virmantas.galdikas@... <mailto:virmantas.galdikas%40gmail.com>
http://knol.google.com/k/virmantas-galdikas/-/1rerd3v3i3lg/0#knols
http://knol.google.com/k/virmantas-galdikas/financial-crisis-or-the-beginnin
g-of/1rerd3v3i3lg/1#
<http://knol.google.com/k/virmantas-galdikas/financial-crisis-or-the-beginni
ng-of/1rerd3v3i3lg/1>

Robert Mostyn wrote: Hi everyone,

On John's point "One of the great challenges of our time is to restore
the link between economic activity and ecology. "

This is the central theme of the myEcoCost technology I have been
working on for the last several years. I hope to have some funding
news to share with you in a ew months time. Once I get this funding,
there will be some very relevant discussions to have here on this theme.

Cheers,
Robert





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Virmantas Galdikas, welcome to Cyfranogi! and I share your letter. I
note your work in Lithuania to take a fresh look at economic terms and
make sense of them.  Andrius Kulikauskas, ms@..., http://www.ms.lt
-----------------------------------------------

Hi everyone,

This is a spontaneous response to the letter, but I think it might be
useful for all of us.

In John Rogers's article there are many things I agree 100 precent with.
Intuitively he is trying to explain relationships between ecology and
economy, e.g comparing two parts of our world. One is the ecology which
is mostly created by the nature, and the other economy entirely created
by the human beings. (Please don't try to argue regarding the terms. I
try to simplify things in order to explain very deeply hidden reasons of
human economic and ecologic behavior.)

Desire for money and an impact to the environment are the two outputs
compared, but not the reason cause analysis was made of the processes
going on. I have went through this, too. And now I can prove that the
only reason for all these economic and ecologic problems is the Human
Being by itself, and especially his mentality. All other things are
outcomes of this true reason.

Let's see, the human being is made of material body and mental creation
- ability to think, dream and desire. So we have two worlds (to parts,
to areas of activities) of the human being.

I would like to ask you at this point to open your minds, to free them
from all the dogmas you know and have. Please don't say for yourself -
it is not true, it does not work, I don't believe. Please just read and
think what is said openly, even if the idea will look against your
believes and knowledge. This is an innovative approach and it should
break something what was protecting our minds from the possibility to go
further and solve the problems we try to solve for hundreds of years
already.

So lets go step by step towards the true reasons of the problems we are
discussing here.

The human being as I mentioned above has to parts of his activities and
perceptions. One is mental and the other - physiological.

It is very easy to fulfill the physiological needs of the human being -
just feed it, worm it and let him play and took a rest, and of course -
sex.

The rest of the human being activities are connected to his  mental work
- dreams, thoughts, desires. Mental activity I would simplify and call
it by a single term - creativity.

Who can tell me the limits of the creativity of the single person or the
whole society? I think that creativity it is unlimited, but the
implementation is limited to many factors.

So then we speak about the economy we mean that the whole process is
created by the humans (it is product of the creativity of the human
being). Then we speak about the ecology we speak also about the
creativity of the human being and the nature. The facts that humans
destroy forests, changes the living conditions of the other parts of the
nature which was not created by the human beings, and etc., to fulfill
the needs of the human creativity, proves that we have found one common
area where all problems are interrelated. That is the mental part of the
human being. So, we are not talking any more about the material side of
the issue. We analise only that is intangible and we have to look for
reasons inside the mental activity of the human being. In a way that
questioning like why, how, where, when are just in time.

I would like to start with the basic reason of all problems human beings
create - this is personal egoism, which also serves as a basic security
feeling for survival. The human beings are also societal  beings, they
need  a partner to  fulfill the  mission given by the nature - to
supply the new generations of  the new human beings. This task provides
a need to practice sharing between the two and more human beings. This
task is constantly ongoing process due to constant change in number of
the humans living on the Earth.

The egoism force us take as much as possible for ourselves or also the
closest relatives (depends on education and culture). That is why during
the process of sharing the humans try to get as much as possible for
themselves. The same happens in economy and ecology. At this point it is
very popular to cheat each other by any mean available.

The second reason of the problem is that humans mix material and
intangible things within their creativity. That is that humans gives
some material look to the intangible things and wise versa. Lets see the
things which we call money. This is a clear mix of material and
intangible things. The question is to which extend intangible things
within money influence the human behavior comparing to the material side
of the issue?

John Rogers's citation from bellow:
"Our confusion comes from the brainwashing of our 'economy' that work
  > is only what you get paid money for. Because we depend on money for
  > survival. When we re-frame 'work' to include every effort that makes
  > us human and interdependent - including volunteering, community
  > work, ecological restoration, voting, activism etc. - then we can
  > start to choose where we want to simply be moved by compassion to
  > give and where we would like other rewards in exchange for our effort.
  >
  > This frame allows us to locate community currencies exactly halfway
  > along a spectrum between compassion (self-giving love) and money.
  > The metric of community currency gives us more choices."

Bilions of people think in the same way - "Because we depend on money
for survival."

At this point I would like to ask you. Why we depend on money for
survival? Why we depend on money at all? Are you saying that we depend
on our creation? How that can be?

I know for sure that my life depends on the Sun, the Moon, The Earth,
the Nature, many other material things that humans didn't create. But
saying that my life depends on the painting of the famous artist at
least sounds too strange for me. Yes, to the certain extent within the
society my life depends on money, but even then it is not a true. Within
the society my life depends on decisions and actions that other members
of the society makes. So, let me ask you. There are the money here, on
which depends my life? The answer is nowhere. This is a first and the
main mistake made by the human beings in the way of thinking that we do
about the processes going on around us on the Earth, and especially, if
we speak about the economy.

Money is not a problem. Money is not the reason. Money is only the mean
of exchange to facilitate the exchange of goods and services within the
society. Money were created by the humans so they serve them and not
wise versa.
Humans can easily to change the impact of money or economy to the
ecology just by changing the way of thinking.

First of all humans shall separate things whose were created by them and
whose not. Things created by the nature are essential for survival, and
the rest can be easily changed if they destroy the nature without the
real need and true understanding of the human activity.

Second, humans shall change the way of thinking from the Money Value
Oriented Model or in other words 'Cheat the Close Friends of  Yours' to
the 'SHARING with Others'  Model (or to change from giving priority to
human created value to  natural values given to us by the nature and
sharing our creativity).

So, we need to learn how to use our creativity to develop the society
there each of us has more concern about the positive impact of our
creativity than survival. Humans need to work not more than 10 percent
of time for survival. The rest of their efforts is used for creative
issues: some of them are going to make more money, others to destroy
competitors, third to destroy forests, forth - to fight against the
others who makes money, destroy competitors, forests, nature, etc. I
mean that we all are fighting within the creativity field, because
nobody needs to fight for survival. It is easy to survive without money
and other stuff created by the humans. All nature does that, so the
humans are not different in this sense.

Please think about it how we the human beings can change the situation
easily without even investing a single penny into the solution of the
conflict situation between economy and ecology (both are human
creations) just by changing our way of thinking from the Fake Money
Value Oriented Model to the Sharing with Others Model.

If it is difficult to understand for you, just let me know and I will
explain wider. Also please read more thoughts about the issue on my knol
page below.

Best regards,
Virmantas

--

Virmantas Galdikas

tel. +370-698-49023
virmantas.galdikas@...
http://knol.google.com/k/virmantas-galdikas/-/1rerd3v3i3lg/0#knols
http://knol.google.com/k/virmantas-galdikas/financial-crisis-or-the-beginning-of\
/1rerd3v3i3lg/1#



   Robert Mostyn wrote: Hi everyone,

On John's point "One of the great challenges of our time is to restore
the link between economic activity and ecology. "

This is the central theme of the myEcoCost technology I have been
working on for the last several years. I hope to have some funding
news to share with you in a ew months time. Once I get this funding,
there will be some very relevant discussions to have here on this theme.

Cheers,
Robert

I wrote this letter to members of COMMUNIA http://www.communia-project.eu
the European Union's thematic network for the Public Domain. Do we know
who in Vienna, Austria or elsewhere might be interested in doing with us
such an art show of our dreams-in-life, as I describe below?  Andrius
-----------------

I share news about my recent work in the arts.  I ask if other COMMUNIA
members might like to work together?  Might we do that in a COMMUNIA
context?

My laboratory, Minciu Sodas, is a business working in the Public Domain.
We encourage our participants to work for free, openly, in the Public
Domain, on their own projects, and we provide them with free service.  We
help each other, get to know each other and then organize global teams for
paid work.  Most recently we worked for a London advertising agency, The
Law Firm, on behalf of Mornflake cereal.

I want to develop an "economy of dreams", an internal economy where we
help each other.  What are our dreams in life?  Can we support each other
directly, instead of through money?  Art is a helpful way of expressing
our dreams and integrating them.  The Public Domain makes such integration
possible.

December is Human Rights Month.  UNESCO is funding the Human Rights
Monitoring Institute (in Vilnius, Lithuania) to organize a series of
events.  I'm leading one such event, an art project "May I dream?" at the
fourth floor of the shopping center at Gedimino 9, which recently was
dedicated as a "co-working hub".  November 30 is the opening and for about
three weeks we'll be collecting people's dreams and creating artwork to
express them and integrate them.  This includes life-size paintings of
"dreamers" flying about and participating in various scenarios.  These
"dreamers" can be moved about and reorganized.  Their faces can be removed
so people can show their own faces and make photographs.  Adults and
children can add their own drawings.  All the works will be stamped "My
creative work is everybody's treasure".  Here are photos of the space and
some sketches:
http://www.ms.lt/lt/wiki.cgi?SvajonÄ—s

We're already discussing how to extend and expand this exhibit.  One
political party is interested to support this and I imagine that
businesses and other institutions might likewise.  January 17-28 I and
others will be traveling to Vienna, Austria to participate in Franz
Nahrada's Grundtvig workshop on the use of video communications in the
rural areas, including the creation of content in the Public Domain.  I'm
hoping that we might find a partner there with whom we might show part of
our exhibit and build it further and perhaps leave it there to travel
onwards.

I invite COMMUNIA partners to consider, Would you like to join us?

Also, might the Istanbul or Torino meeting organizers like to include such
an art exhibit or link us with partners who might like to organize one
together?

If there are other COMMUNIA partners who are interested, then perhaps we
could work through one of the working groups such as the Public Sector
working group (is it active?) or the Business working group (because of
the role that art can play in organizing an "economy of dreams" where we
help each other achieve our dreams directly).

Given interest, it would be great to organize a working group meeting in
Austria or Lithuania or elsewhere.  One related output could be thinking
through (and illustrating) the various values that are relevant for a
thriving Public Domain, such as sharing, openness, sensitivity, good
judgment, respect, acknowledgment.

I'm writing from an EU Grundtvig (adult education) partnership meeting in
Tallinn, Estonia.  Our group is working on a learning partnership proposal
on this topic "Adult Learning Starts With Dreaming" and it's going well,
so I'm encouraged.  The Public Domain is key as we'll be organizing such
art exhibits in each of our countries and sharing works so that they
integrate, reintegrate and travel further.  This is for all kinds of
creative people, whether "professionally trained artist" or "naive artist"
or child or adult.

I am very excited if others might be interested to work together!

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...
+370 699 30003

Monday I spoke with Tiffany Von Emmel of Dreamfish.  I've joined the
Dreamfish group
http://groups.google.com/group/dreamfish/
and also signed up Tiffany for Janet Feldman's working group Holistic
Helping
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/holistichelping/
Thank you to Peter Kaminski, Mark Roest, Sasha Mrkailo and Franz Nahrada
for encouraging us!  Thank you also to Edward Cherlin for linking me
with Bill Daul, also in Silicon Valley and in the Dreamfish group.

In 1998, I founded Minciu Sodas http://www.ms.lt  an online laboratory
for independent thinkers around the world.  I also lead Worknets
http://www.worknets.org  a culture of independent thinkers.  We have
some people in common with Dreamfish, and also many values and dreams.
See, for example, the Dreamfish Humanifesto:
http://dreamfish.com/about/dreamfish-humanifesto/
and the Worknets charter
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Charter

I'm looking forward to our networks working together.  Dreamfish is
strong in Silicon Valley, which is the center of the world of our
future.  I live in Lithuania and Minciu Sodas is strong there and also
Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda; the UK and Austria; and participants in Serbia,
the US, India and other countries.

We both have a culture of working for free on our own projects and
organizing teams for paid work.   I appreciate working together to
expand these opportunities.

We're both active in organizing online infrastructure.  Minciu Sodas has
about 20 mildly active working groups (email lists, see:
http://www.ms.lt), a mildly active wiki (http://www.worknets.org ) and
mildy active chat room (http://www.worknets.org/chat/
http://www.worknets.org/archive/ )

Recent achievements / clients include:
* http://www.pyramidofpeace.net  organizing 100 peacemaker on-the-ground
and 100 online assistants to avert genocide in Kenya
* http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?MornflakeOutreach 6,000 GBP of work
to create a directory of 500 UK online communities and engage about 70
of them on behalf of Leon Benjamin http://www.winningbysharing.net and
Mornflake cereal's video contest http://www.mornflakecompetition.com
* http://www.myfoodstory.info  We collected 2,000 food stories for Greg
Wolff of Unamesa Association
* http://www.includer.org I won a $15,000 Knight News Challenge Award to
blog about a proposed device (the Includer) for Africans with marginal
Internet access, but see Ricardo's work
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Ricardo for our real achievements

We organize ourselves in terms of people and their answers to questions
(here are Tiffany's):
* Do you have a deepest value in life which includes all of your other
values?  "Connection, healing the fragmentation that exists on all
levels, shifting from control to participation"   (See answers from 500
people at http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Values )
* What is a question that you don't know the answer to, but wish to
answer?  "Who can work as a partner with me? act as Dreamfish's
operation leader?"
* What would you like to achieve?  (Dreamfish? see our
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Endeavors )
* What is your dream in life? "Our earth and all its people practice
love moment by moment. Facilitating the practice of love and how we are
together. Help <http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Help> people in a state
of transition follow their aliveness and realize what they are becoming.
That needs to happen in the gap between what we know and what is
emerging. I'm really good at helping people practice that and helping
people come to their dreams." http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Dreams

If you share your answers, then I will post them at our wiki!  and
you're welcome to create pages there.

Minciu Sodas / Worknets venues are explicitly in the Public Domain by
default.  That means that the current Dreamfish wiki's "sharealike"
license clashes with ours and prohibits us from including ("building
on") your work.  I hope you might also work in the Public Domain as it
allows for sharing most freely and encourages "using your own best
judgement".  That would allow me to invest myself in the Dreamfish wiki,
the Dreamfish venues and encourage others likewise.

Tiffany and I look forward to discovering endeavors and tasks where it's
natural for us to work together.  Here are some:
* Currently, I'm organizing an "economy of dreams" so that we might
learn to support each other's dreams directly and rely less on money.
We can collect our dreams and look for connections:
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Dreams
* I'm trying to staff an online help room http://www.worknets.org/chat/
where people can get response, get help on any matter at any time.
(Dreamfish has a nice chat room!)  I'm looking for a new technology
(because ARSC is open source but no longer maintained) that would
include a web based client but also link with IRC clients, Yahoo, Skype,
etc. and that we could enhance (code what we need such as an archive and
integration with our websites).
* We need tasks that our online assistants like Fred Kayiwa in Uganda
could help with.  $200 per month is enough for Fred's studies and
living, but most of all, we need meaningful online tasks that I can
teach him to do for us and he can train others.  See:
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Tasks
* We would gladly host a chat on a Dreamfish topic.  Friday, November
13, 5:00 am California time (too early!) we'll be chatting with Josephat
Ndibalema about publishing e-books in Kiswahili for small farmers to
view on DVD players, mobile phones, digital cameras.
* In Lithuania, we're part of a national idea movement, and some of
those include economic literacy.
* Franz Nahrada in Austria is a leader in the global villages movement,
including developing the use of video bridges, as with Alan Lundell in
the Santa Cruz area.
* Edward Cherlin leads our work to create open source textbooks, and I'm
interested to create lessons in ethics (of our new culture) and
mathematical thinking (which I'll try to link to ethics).
* I've become active as an artist
http://www.flickr.com/photos/50525222@N00/ and next spring we're
organizing an art project "Land of Dreamers" where we'll collect
people's dreams around the world, and creatively express them together,
and try to integrate them all.  We're active in the Uzhupis Republic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzupis
* Zenonas Anusauskas leads an Internet television station
http://www.internetinetv.lt  I live with his family.  With his
encouragement, I created my first philosophical video "I Wish to Know"
http://ms.lt/IWishToKnow about my lifelong quest to know everything and
apply that knowledge usefully.
* I look forward to delving into Tiffany's philosophical thinking:
http://www.socialtext.net/vonemmel/index.cgi?papers_book_chapters_and_presentati\
ons

I look forward to learning to work together!  Our success and our
discoveries would be a great encouragement to many other networks:
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?CivilizationNetworks

Thank you to all who are connecting us!

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...

Bill Daul wrote:
> Hello Andrius...thanks Ed for the introduction...a little to late in
> the night for a coherent response but wanted to at least say hello!
>
> I look forward to hearing about Minciu Sodas.
>
>
> --bill
>
> On Nov 4, 2009, at 12:31 PM, Edward Cherlin wrote:
>
>> You two should know about each other's work. You both collect active
>> thinkers in Next Now and Minciu Sodas.
>>
>> --
>> Edward Mokurai
(默雷/धर�ममेघशब�दगर�ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر
ج) Cherlin
>> Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
>> The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
>> http://www.earthtreasury.org/
>
> --
>
> *Bill Daul*
>
> Chief Collaboration Officer
> *NextNow Collaboratory*:  a synergistic web of relationships focused
> on transforming the present
>
> http://www.human-landscaping.com/nextnow
> http://www.nextnow.net <http://www.nextnow.net/>  -- NN Network Blog
> http://www.nextnow.org <http://www.nextnow.org/>  -- NN Collaboratory Blog
>
> ==================================
>
> "Play with boundaries, not within."
>

Dear members,
  You can find a link to a numismatic photo gallery here;
http://www.moneta-coins.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=25 .
 
At the moment,there are mainly photos of postal orders,but I will eventually get
some banknote,coin,postal order,& traders' currency token photos on there.
 
Please let me know what you think on there as well as on here.
 
Yours in numismatics,
Aidan Work.
 
Dominion of New Zealand.




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Josephat Ndibalema (Tanzania) and I invite us all to chat this Friday,
November 13, 2009 at November 13, 13.00 London time GMT, 14.00 Nigerian
time, 16.00 Kenyan time http://www.worknets.org/chat/   We're chatting
about creating e-books in Kiswahili for farmers.  Ricardo has worked
through how to publish text as images for viewing on DVD players,
digital cameras and mobile phones.  There are Kiswahili texts at
http://sw.wikipedia.org and http://swahili.food-security.info  Josephat
curates our own Kiswahili worknets wiki at http://www.worknets.org/sw/
where we can prepare our texts.  I can create a script to then convert
them for publication, including locally in Africa, because the resulting
image files are large.  As we get started, we can also devote some
resources to translating materials.

This is a straightforward project where we might all contribute our
talents, further our dreams, build shared momentum and share credit for
our achievements.  It would be great if Dadamac and Earth Treasury might
participate somehow.  Samwel Kongere is organizing a fish pond.  Graham
Knight has DIY Solar.  Tom Ochuka has built a water cart.  Ananya S Guha
is writing children's poems.  These are examples where Kiswahili
materials could spread ideas.

I also ask for help for our chat room as the center of a "help room".
This is key in my efforts so that Minciu Sodas and Worknets are viable,
can respond helpfully to everybody, can organize global teams for paid
work, and can further an "economy of dreams" where we work together to
advance the dreams of each and every one of us.

Fred Kayiwa has been coming often to our chat room
http://www.worknets.org where I have been training him how to help
online with various tasks http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Tasks such as
at our wiki.  Thank you also to Sasha Mrkailo and Kestutis Urba for
visiting often, too.  It's a great help if you can just log in and say
hi whenever you are online.  Maybe you can greet somebody.  And we'll
greet you and think how we can help you.  We're practicing how to help.
Please train now if you'd like to be part of our Minciu Sodas team for
paid work when I find more.

Fred Kayiwa has shown a lot of initiative and I have sent him 100 USD to
help this month.  He is studying accounting in college at Kampala and
that costs him 1200 USD per year.  He also has living expenses of about
50 USD per month and Internet expenses of 50 USD per month.  So his
costs are 200 USD per month and he has to study but he does quite a lot
for us part-time.  Most importantly, he's been most helpful.

Fred has to make his next payment of 300 USD for his studies and he asks
for help.

I'm inclined to support Fred and certainly I would send him another 100
USD per month to continue helping as we build momentum for our help
room.  But I truly should ask more of us for help.  And so I am!  My
purpose is to nurture a culture, and so I need a community.  Yes, we
could share the costs of Fred as an online assistant, and if you've ever
benefited from Minciu Sodas or would like to benefit, which might
include options on Fred's availability in the future, this is a very
helpful cause to dedicate money to.

But more importantly, I need people for our help room (and Fred) to
help.   So by simply coming to our chat room and learning how to be
helped, you'll be doing us a great help, even if we're working for your
for free.  In doing so, we're building assets in the Public Domain for
us and all to use.

Please do respond!

I will send Fred at least 100 USD but more if others show interest and
participate in our help room.

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...

kayiwa fred wrote:
> Hi Andrius and all,
> Although my budget  may be big this year, i have the urgent budget
> which needs to be covered this month and thats my balance of Tution
> which is $300
> i feel i can slowly look for the rest of the costs up to December if
> this $300 is covered because by the end of this month we start exams
> and no one does without completing the tuition
> I think this makes sense to ,you friends
> i feel this is the most Urgent one and i love doing urgent and very
> important things first
> Thanks a lot
> Fred

Hi Tiffany!

Yes, it would be great to talk.  Dreamfish keeps coming up and I'm glad
that Peter Kaminski, Mark Roest, Franz Nahrada and Sasha Mrkailo have
encouraged us to work with you and all at Dreamfish.  http://dreamfish.com

I note in particular your Dreamfish Humanifesto
http://dreamfish.com/about/dreamfish-humanifesto/
which resonates with our own values at Minciu Sodas and Worknets.  I
invite your thoughts on the Worknets Charter which I am likewise
drafting for a culture of independent thinkers:
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Charter
I'm trying to express the minimum expectations for all to work together.

I'm also currently jumpstarting an "Economy of Dreams"
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Dreams
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Endeavors
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Values
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?Tasks
a key part of which is staffing a "help room"
http://www.worknets.org/chat/
http://www.worknets.org/archive/
around the clock where people can get help on any matter, learn how to
use online tools, think and work out loud, help each other for free and
for pay, respond to emergencies, and join or organize global teams for
paid work.

I imagine there's many ways we might work together including:
* collecting and sharing our values, questions, endeavors, dreams, tasks,
* identifying strategic endeavors that benefit all of our endeavors,
* look for related prospects and approach them,
* organizing teams to do paid work,

We can "jam" on our differences and note what prevents us from working
together as we'd like to.  For example, your "humanifesto" is under a
"share alike" license which is incompatible with the Public Domain.
This means that we can't even upload a copy to our Public Domain venues
because that would be "building upon" your work and we'd have to use
your license.  I believe that we can work towards a shared culture, in
which case we have the chance to engage many other networks:
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?CivilizationNetworks

I look forward to talking!

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...
+370 699 30003
skype: minciusodas


Tiffany Von Emmel wrote:
> Hi Andrius!
>
> I am writing to connect. I know of you through Peter Kaminski, whom I
> work with in Dreamfish, and recently through Mark Roest.
>
> I would enjoy a conversation with you. Would you like to chat by Skype
> this week?
>
> In peace,
>
> Tiff
>
> --
> Tiffany von Emmel
> skype: vonemmel
> twitter: @tiffanyvonemmel
> blog: http://vonemmel.com
>
> Dreamfish - We are a global work cooperative. We are building a
> thriving world of work for all. Entrepreneurs, change agents,
> independents, mentors, all are welcome. Swim with us.
> http://dreamfish.com   share @love2dreamfish:
> http://twitter.com/love2dreamfish
>

Thank you, Virmantas, for your letter! Virmantas Galdikas in Lithuania
is taking a fresh look at our economy, the terms we use, and what does
it take for us to change our thinking so that we might all live
together? Andrius
---------------------

Hi everyone,

This is a spontaneous response to the letter, but I think it might be
useful for all of us.

In John Rogers's article there are many things I agree 100 precent with.
Intuitively he is trying to explain relationships between ecology and
economy, e.g comparing two parts of our world. One is the ecology which
is mostly created by the nature, and the other economy entirely created
by the human beings. (Please don't try to argue regarding the terms. I
try to simplify things in order to explain very deeply hidden reasons of
human economic and ecologic behavior.)

Desire for money and an impact to the environment are the two outputs
compared, but not the reason cause analysis was made of the processes
going on. I have went through this, too. And now I can prove that the
only reason for all these economic and ecologic problems is the Human
Being by itself, and especially his mentality. All other things are
outcomes of this true reason.

Let's see, the human being is made of material body and mental creation
- ability to think, dream and desire. So we have two worlds (to parts,
to areas of activities) of the human being.

I would like to ask you at this point to open your minds, to free them
from all the dogmas you know and have. Please don't say for yourself -
it is not true, it does not work, I don't believe. Please just read and
think what is said openly, even if the idea will look against your
believes and knowledge. This is an innovative approach and it should
break something what was protecting our minds from the possibility to go
further and solve the problems we try to solve for hundreds of years
already.

So lets go step by step towards the true reasons of the problems we are
discussing here.

The human being as I mentioned above has to parts of his activities and
perceptions. One is mental and the other - physiological.

It is very easy to fulfill the physiological needs of the human being -
just feed it, worm it and let him play and took a rest, and of course - sex.

The rest of the human being activities are connected to his mental work
- dreams, thoughts, desires. Mental activity I would simplify and call
it by a single term - creativity.

Who can tell me the limits of the creativity of the single person or the
whole society? I think that creativity it is unlimited, but the
implementation is limited to many factors.

So then we speak about the economy we mean that the whole process is
created by the humans (it is product of the creativity of the human
being). Then we speak about the ecology we speak also about the
creativity of the human being and the nature. The facts that humans
destroy forests, changes the living conditions of the other parts of the
nature which was not created by the human beings, and etc., to fulfill
the needs of the human creativity, proves that we have found one common
area where all problems are interrelated. That is the mental part of the
human being. So, we are not talking any more about the material side of
the issue. We analise only that is intangible and we have to look for
reasons inside the mental activity of the human being. In a way that
questioning like why, how, where, when are just in time.

I would like to start with the basic reason of all problems human beings
create - this is personal egoism, which also serves as a basic security
feeling for survival. The human beings are also societal beings, they
need a partner to fulfill the mission given by the nature - to supply
the new generations of the new human beings. This task provides a need
to practice sharing between the two and more human beings. This task is
constantly ongoing process due to constant change in number of the
humans living on the Earth.

The egoism force us take as much as possible for ourselves or also the
closest relatives (depends on education and culture). That is why during
the process of sharing the humans try to get as much as possible for
themselves. The same happens in economy and ecology. At this point it is
very popular to cheat each other by any mean available.

The second reason of the problem is that humans mix material and
intangible things within their creativity. That is that humans gives
some material look to the intangible things and wise versa. Lets see the
things which we call money. This is a clear mix of material and
intangible things. The question is to which extend intangible things
within money influence the human behavior comparing to the material side
of the issue?

John Rogers's citation from bellow:
"Our confusion comes from the brainwashing of our 'economy' that work
  > is only what you get paid money for. Because we depend on money for
  > survival. When we re-frame 'work' to include every effort that makes
  > us human and interdependent - including volunteering, community
  > work, ecological restoration, voting, activism etc. - then we can
  > start to choose where we want to simply be moved by compassion to
  > give and where we would like other rewards in exchange for our effort.
  >
  > This frame allows us to locate community currencies exactly halfway
  > along a spectrum between compassion (self-giving love) and money.
  > The metric of community currency gives us more choices."

Bilions of people think in the same way - "Because we depend on money
for survival."

At this point I would like to ask you. Why we depend on money for
survival? Why we depend on money at all? Are you saying that we depend
on our creation? How that can be?

I know for sure that my life depends on the Sun, the Moon, The Earth,
the Nature, many other material things that humans didn't create. But
saying that my life depends on the painting of the famous artist at
least sounds too strange for me. Yes, to the certain extent within the
society my life depends on money, but even then it is not a true. Within
the society my life depends on decisions and actions that other members
of the society makes. So, let me ask you. There are the money here, on
which depends my life? The answer is nowhere. This is a first and the
main mistake made by the human beings in the way of thinking that we do
about the processes going on around us on the Earth, and especially, if
we speak about the economy.

Money is not a problem. Money is not the reason. Money is only the mean
of exchange to facilitate the exchange of goods and services within the
society. Money were created by the humans so they serve them and not
wise versa.
Humans can easily to change the impact of money or economy to the
ecology just by changing the way of thinking.

First of all humans shall separate things whose were created by them and
whose not. Things created by the nature are essential for survival, and
the rest can be easily changed if they destroy the nature without the
real need and true understanding of the human activity.

Second, humans shall change the way of thinking from the Money Value
Oriented Model or in other words 'Cheat the Close Friends of Yours' to
the 'SHARING with Others' Model (or to change from giving priority to
human created value to natural values given to us by the nature and
sharing our creativity).

So, we need to learn how to use our creativity to develop the society
there each of us has more concern about the positive impact of our
creativity than survival. Humans need to work not more than 10 percent
of time for survival. The rest of their efforts is used for creative
issues: some of them are going to make more money, others to destroy
competitors, third to destroy forests, forth - to fight against the
others who makes money, destroy competitors, forests, nature, etc. I
mean that we all are fighting within the creativity field, because
nobody needs to fight for survival. It is easy to survive without money
and other stuff created by the humans. All nature does that, so the
humans are not different in this sense.

Please think about it how we the human beings can change the situation
easily without even investing a single penny into the solution of the
conflict situation between economy and ecology (both are human
creations) just by changing our way of thinking from the Fake Money
Value Oriented Model to the Sharing with Others Model.

If it is difficult to understand for you, just let me know and I will
explain wider. Also please read more thoughts about the issue on my knol
page below.

Best regards,
Virmantas

--

Virmantas Galdikas

tel. +370-698-49023
virmantas.galdikas@...
http://knol.google.com/k/virmantas-galdikas/-/1rerd3v3i3lg/0#knols
http://knol.google.com/k/virmantas-galdikas/financial-crisis-or-the-beginning-of\
/1rerd3v3i3lg/1#



Robert Mostyn wrote:
  >
  >
  > Hi everyone,
  >
  > On John's point "One of the great challenges of our time is to restore
  > the link between economic activity and ecology. "
  >
  > This is the central theme of the myEcoCost technology I have been
  > working on for the last several years. I hope to have some funding
  > news to share with you in a ew months time. Once I get this funding,
  > there will be some very relevant discussions to have here on this theme.
  >
  > Cheers,
  > Robert
  >
  > On Wed4 Nov 2009, at 11:28, John Rogers wrote:
  >
  > > Hi Andrius
  > >
  > > Whole libraries are full of tedious discussions about economy and
  > > work so I'll try not to add to that!
  > >
  > > For the ancient Greeks 'economy' meant 'rules of the household' ie
  > > balancing what comes in with what goes out. The sense of "manage the
  > > resources of a country" (short for political economy) is from 1651.
  > >
  > > The word 'ecology' is related. It was first coined in 1873 by German
  > > zoologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) as Okologie, from the Greek
  > > oikos "house, dwelling place, habitation" + -logia "study of."
  > >
  > > So there is an intimate link between ecology - a study of our
  > > planetary home - and economy - a study of the individual household,
  > > then scaled up to the 'national household'.
  > >
  > > One of the great challenges of our time is to restore the link
  > > between economic activity and ecology.
  > >
  > > The International
  > > Energy Agency just produced the first big study of the impact of the
  > > recession on climate change and found that CO 2 emissions from
  > > burning fossil fuels had
  > > undergone 'a significant decline' this year - further than in any
  > > year in the past 40. The fall will exceed the drop in the 1981
  > > recession that followed the oil crisis. So when
  > > economic activity goes down - ie making money - then we do less
  > > damage to the ecology.
  > >
  > > So if humans are to learn to live sustainably on planet earth, any
  > > definition of economy has to include ecological impact. That means
  > > developing accurate measuring tools for that impact followed by
  > > economic tools that allow us to minimise the impact. Which throws up
  > > myriad political issues about distribution of resources, access to
  > > opportunities etc.
  > >
  > > Getting more concrete, your struggle to define work as "a key hurdle
  > > in defining a community currency" is an important issue.
  > >
  > > Think about your day. You helped a relative, friend or stranger out
  > > of sheer loving kindness, because you felt interdependent with them
  > > and moved by compassion. You maybe did a favour for someone else
  > > because you hope they will help you in the future - mutual survival.
  > > For someone else you worked for money in the marketplace - money is
  > > your tool for survival so that you can buy goods and services from
  > > strangers. Which of these is work? Aren't they all? Our bodies and
  > > minds are working even while we sleep.
  > >
  > > Our confusion comes from the brainwashing of our 'economy' that work
  > > is only what you get paid money for. Because we depend on money for
  > > survival. When we re-frame 'work' to include every effort that makes
  > > us human and interdependent - including volunteering, community
  > > work, ecological restoration, voting, activism etc. - then we can
  > > start to choose where we want to simply be moved by compassion to
  > > give and where we would like other rewards in exchange for our effort.
  > >
  > > This frame allows us to locate community currencies exactly halfway
  > > along a spectrum between compassion (self-giving love) and money.
  > > The metric of community currency gives us more choices.
  > >
  > > This is the theory. The practical challenge right now is to learn
  > > from the thousands of experiments with community currencies around
  > > the world that have failed ie not sustained themselves over time or
  > > collapsed leaving disillusioned users. We need to design more robust
  > > systems with clear goals, good cost-recovery mechanisms, governance
  > > and management systems.
  > >
  > > The 'tribe' will adopt this innovation when they see clear benefits
  > > over costs of participation.
  > >
  > > Otherwise we should just participate in the market as it is and help
  > > each other without reward where we can.
  > >
  > > John Rogers
  > >
  > > ________________________________
  > > From: Andrius Kulikauskas <ms@...>
  > > To: cyfranogi@yahoogroups.com; globalvillages@yahoogroups.com;
voiceful@yahoogroups.com
  > > Sent: Wed, 4 November, 2009 8:46:45
  > > Subject: [cyfranogi] How do we define "economy"? and "work"?
  > >
  > > Dave Gray is a leader in visual thinking. http://www.davegray info.com
  > > It would be great to work for him.
  > >
  > > I'm following his tweets through our Minciu Sodas website
  > > http://www.ms. lt/?source= TW (If you're tweeting, letting me know and
  > > we'll follow you, too!)
  > >
  > > Dave tweets "What is an economy? I need a concise definition.
  > > #nightshift ... Seriously, a Google search for definitions of economy
  > > offer surprisingly lame and unhelpful answers #nightshift "
  > > http://twitter. com/davegray/ statuses/ 5414243489
  > >
  > > I define economy as "a redistribution of resources to satisfy
  > > desires".
  > >
  > > An economy is healthy if the desires are genuine. People know what
  > > they
  > > want and they are supported and nourished.
  > >
  > > An economy is sick if the desires are contrived. People want whatever
  > > "the market" wants and they themselves are diminished.
  > >
  > > If desires aren't satisfied, then it's not an economy.
  > >
  > > How do we define "economy"?
  > >
  > > A related question which came up today in our Lithuanian group is
  > > how do
  > > we define "work"? This seems to be a key hurdle in defining a
  > > community
  > > currency, at least for me. How do we decide what is work?
  > >
  > > I add some recent letters by Lawrence Kincheloe and Ralf Schlatterback
  > > at Global Villages http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/globalvill ages/
  > >
  > > Andrius
  > >
  > > Andrius Kulikauskas
  > > Minciu Sodas
  > > http://www.ms. lt
  > > ms@...
  > >
  > > Franz, thank you.
  > >
  > > I've lost the FeF weblog as a forum to speak upon since I left, but
  > > there are a few topics I would like to discuss which would have made
  > > the
  > > original essay a bit broader in scope than I would have liked.
  > >
  > > Its frustrating Franz that you agree with me, because it's hard to
  > > respond without sounding like I'm patting myself on the back.
  > >
  > > So here it goes.
  > >
  > > I agree completely about the direction that online tools need to
  > > improve
  > > in to be more useful for these kinds of projects. Not every project is
  > > going to need the same sort of tools, and developing ways to make
  > > projects more modular would be very useful as well.
  > >
  > > To do this and to reduce complexity I would allow a framework for
  > > different projects to be broken up into modules and derivations. That
  > > way, for large tasks, like designing a tractor, you could choose the
  > > technology modules that made the most sense for what you have on
  > > hand. A
  > > tractor based on steam engines, doesn't do you any good if you have a
  > > crate full of diesel motors. So in essence, if there is a table design
  > > you like, you could make a sub project that links to a laser cutting
  > > project where you design a build strategy for making said table
  > > project
  > > by using said laser cutting project.
  > >
  > > With regards to developing a business, I must confess that this was
  > > probably the weakest part of the essay, because I came to the
  > > conclusion
  > > that a lifestyle change would be the only possible way to remain
  > > competitive with companies that could specialize you out of business.
  > > The solution is to be impossible to put out of business because your
  > > operating expenses are so low that you could incubate for long periods
  > > of time between product releases. For example, if someone makes your
  > > widget better than you can, you could hunker down and make widgets as
  > > your competition eats away at your shares and either get into another
  > > field, innovate your way out, or increase your production
  > > facilities. It
  > > would be a near perfect free market. However, at the moment, the tools
  > > to drop the cost of living that low don't exist. Thats part of what
  > > Marcin at FeF is doing, and why there is currently a need for spaces
  > > where these things can take place. Unfortunately, until that happens,
  > > all such pursu
  > > its will have to be donation and service based, with short bursts of
  > > funding from innovative products.
  > >
  > > I have an interesting notion of money that I also want to talk about.
  > > Money has a bad rap for being the source of societal ills, when in
  > > reality its just an abstraction of value that is divorced from the
  > > original product. This is a good thing because it means that you can
  > > exchange the value of your product for another product of roughly the
  > > same value.
  > >
  > > One problem with this notion however is that someone has to regulate
  > > all
  > > those tokens. It also means that starting out in the system can be
  > > difficult. There isn't a mechanism for a producer of googly eyes, to
  > > exchange them for cabbage from a farmer, if for some reason neither
  > > party has any tokens. Both parties are reliant on some mediator to
  > > furnish them with tokens to make transactions. Thats a lot of control
  > > for a mediator to have.
  > >
  > > The idea that I've been kicking around but can't get to work is a
  > > way of
  > > giving every individual person the power to create Fiat money, which
  > > is
  > > similar to the idea of credit money. Its similar to how markets work
  > > now
  > > on the large scale. In theory computers could manage transactions and
  > > help evaluate the value of a persons credit. Money would fluctuate
  > > wildly but it would have a direct impact on the individual so
  > > hopefully
  > > would be self correcting.
  > >
  > > It is an interesting idea but I don't think it would work.
  > >
  > > Here's to starting a discussion.
  > >
  > > Lawrence
  > >
  > > ------------ --------- --------- --------- ------
  > >
  > > On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 08:12:58AM +0100, Franz Nahrada wrote:
  > > + Lawrence wrote:
  > > >> > >With regards to developing a business, I must confess that
  > > this was
  > > >> > >probably the weakest part of the essay, because I came to the
  > > >> > >conclusion that a lifestyle change would be the only possible
  > > way to
  > > >> > >remain competitive with companies that could specialize you
  > > out of
  > > >> > >business. The solution is to be impossible to put out of
  > > business
  > > >> > >because your operating expenses are so low that you could
  > > incubate
  > > >> > >for long periods of time between product releases. For
  > > example, if
  > > >> > >someone makes your widget better than you can, you could
  > > hunker down
  > > >> > >and make widgets as your competition eats away at your shares
  > > and
  > > >> > >either get into another field, innovate your way out, or
  > > increase
  > > >> > >your production facilities. It would be a near perfect free
  > > market.
  > > >> > >However, at the moment, the tools to drop the cost of living
  > > that low
  > > >> > >don't exist. Thats part of what Marcin at FeF is doing, and
  > > why there
  > > >> > >is currently a need for spaces where these things can take
  > > place.
  > > >> > >Unfortunately, until that happens, all such pursuits will have
  > > to be
  > > >> > >donation and service based, with short bursts of funding from
  > > >> > >innovative products.
  > >
  > > Yes, your analysis sounded a little too pessimistic. ..
  > > I think for open source software we already have sound business models
  > > built on services -- you might want to read Bruce Perens' essay "The
  > > Emerging Economic Paradigm of Open Source"
  > > http://perens. com/Articles/ Economic. html which is a classic on the
  > > topic (Bruce Perens is co-founder of the open source initiative and
  > > was
  > > part of starting the Debian Linux distribution) .
  > >
  > > So I think there is more to this analysis:
  > > - you didn't examine how services for open source hardware could look
  > > like
  > > - I think a strong point is that people are more likely to buy from
  > > the
  > > designer of an open source hardware product than from some cloner even
  > > if it's a litte more expensive. Arduino is an example of that.
  > > - maybe there can be design services for OS hardware, so that you
  > > design
  > > something for a company (maybe something that is part of a larger
  > > product) that becomes open source
  > >
  > > I've also answered your comment on my Ronja article in my blog:
  > > http://blog. runtux.com/ 2009/10/27/ 142/
  > >
  > > > >
  > > > > We should not limit our imagination.
  > > So I fully agree with Franz here :-)
  > >
  > > >> > >I have an interesting notion of money that I also want to talk
  > > about.
  > > >> > >Money has a bad rap for being the source of societal ills,
  > > when in
  > > >> > >reality its just an abstraction of value that is divorced from
  > > the
  > > >> > >original product. This is a good thing because it means that
  > > you can
  > > >> > >exchange the value of your product for another product of
  > > roughly the
  > > >> > >same value.
  > >
  > > I agree here with you although some of the points Franz is making
  > > are to
  > > be considered. I've found Thomas Greco's book "The End of Money and
  > > the
  > > Future of Civilisation" very helpful because he gets a very systematic
  > > view of the issues surrounding money (and he doesn't really argue for
  > > an end of money but for a more democratic form of it)
  > > http://beyondmoney. net/the-end- of-money- and-the-future- of-
  > > civilization/
  > > For me the central point here is that currently credit is
  > > monopolized by
  > > (privately-owned! ) banks for issuing money. They take the credit of
  > > the
  > > people and lend it back to them *at interest*.
  > >
  > > > > Thats not a good idea. First, if you base all social relations
  > > on the
  > > > > immediate exchange of value, you systematically disfavor all
  > > those who
  > > > > have currently no value to offer. They might in future, but
  > > thats not
  > > > > sure. In the old moral economies, there used to be a "book of
  > > exchanges"
  > > > > or an accounting system that allowed actors to free their
  > > immediate
  > > > > economic actions from that constraint. There was a moral
  > > obligation
  > > not to
  > > > > demand interest for that.
  > >
  > > That's exactly the point Greco is making in his book: If people do
  > > credit clearing on their own (without a bank) they can give each other
  > > credit *without interest*. Something like a insurance against defaults
  > > is probably need (a pool to be payed by all participating in a credit
  > > clearing circle).
  > >
  > > > > Secondly the exchange of value does not reflect the benefit of a
  > > service.
  > > > > Caring for elders does not reflect in economic value. There are
  > > lots of
  > > > > interactions that are non-symmetrical, as with children, sick and
  > > > > disabled, old people.
  > >
  > > I think that something like a social contract is still needed. So this
  > > -- in my opinion -- isn't something that depends on money or no money.
  > >
  > > > > Third, the very attempt to measure value produces a social cancer.
  > > Money
  > > > > is in a privileged position to be the value that other
  > > commodities only
  > > > > claim to be. That was the argument of Proudhonists, and it is
  > > right.
  > >
  > > There needs something *besides* money to measure value. And I don't
  > > think that measuring value (a *subjective* measure for everybody doing
  > > it) produces a social cancer as you describe it.
  > >
  > > Money -- according to Greco but I think this is shared by other
  > > thinkers
  > > today -- currently consists of three functions that need to be
  > > separated:
  > > - Money as something that facilitates exchange
  > > - Money as "store" of value
  > > - Money as measurement of value
  > >
  > > For measurement Greco proposes a commodity basket but other things
  > > (like
  > > energy, labor time etc) have been proposed, too.
  > >
  > > > > They just forgot that money is only in that position because you
  > > > > cannot measure value directly. And value is an irrational
  > > relation: if
  > > > > you manage to produce two torch tables in the same time, their
  > > > > relative value drops to half. (given that every rise in
  > > productivity
  > > > > becomes general). So a rise in labor productivity diminuishes
  > > value.
  > > > > Thats at the very core of our economic crisis.
  > >
  > > I'm not sure that this is correct but acknowledge that our current
  > > system favors companies who try to extend the usable span where they
  > > can
  > > charge for something no longer new.
  > > - patents
  > > - bad products (design for breakage)
  > > Remember that the patent system was meant to encourage inventors to
  > > make
  > > their invention public -- as a common good -- in return for a
  > > temporary
  > > privilege. This is currently abused, read a patent claim and try to
  > > understand what it means and you understand that this is not about
  > > publishing an invention for everybody (skilled in the field) to
  > > understand.
  > >
  > > I don't think this is a problem inherent in money, though. The problem
  > > is in the monopoly position we allow for some companies.
  > >
  > > BTW: Michael proposes a death penalty for *companies* who act against
  > > humanity (to make this fully clear: NOT FOR PEOPLE) in a recent blog
  > > entry. I don't think we're at a point to enforce this but it's a good
  > > idea:
  > > http://blog. mfr.cc/2009/ 10/27/pladoyer- fur-eine- einfache- losung-
  > > die- todesstrafe/
  > > (in german)
  > >
  > > >> > >One problem with this notion however is that someone has to
  > > regulate
  > > >> > >all those tokens. It also means that starting out in the
  > > system can
  > > >> > >be difficult. There isn't a mechanism for a producer of googly
  > > eyes,
  > > >> > >to exchange them for cabbage from a farmer, if for some reason
  > > >> > >neither party has any tokens. Both parties are reliant on some
  > > >> > >mediator to furnish them with tokens to make transactions.
  > > Thats a
  > > >> > >lot of control for a mediator to have.
  > >
  > > I think a decentralized system, where everybody can make money (by
  > > promising to deliver some good or service and using that promise as
  > > money thus bypassing the current credit monopoly) could work (and
  > > thats
  > > the sort of thing you find in Greco's book). Probably needs
  > > something to
  > > measure value. And nobody could be forced to accept such a promise at
  > > face value -- only the person originally making that promise must be
  > > prepared to fulfill it, others can accept the promise for less than
  > > face
  > > value. This introduces some sort of (market-based) competition among
  > > moneys. And doesn't need the current monopoly.
  > >
  > > > > So lets do away with the idea of the exchange process as an
  > > incidental
  > > > > thing out of the blue. Lets create a theory and practice of
  > > economic
  > > > > relations that are based in the organic reproduction process of a
  > > society.
  > >
  > > I don't think that money experiments will exlude that. We might even
  > > get
  > > there by making experiments with money(s).
  > >
  > > >> > >The idea that I've been kicking around but can't get to work
  > > is a way
  > > >> > >of giving every individual person the power to create Fiat
  > > money,
  > > >> > >which is similar to the idea of credit money. Its similar to how
  > > >> > >markets work now on the large scale. In theory computers could
  > > manage
  > > >> > >transactions and help evaluate the value of a persons credit.
  > > Money
  > > >> > >would fluctuate wildly but it would have a direct impact on the
  > > >> > >individual so hopefully would be self correcting.
  > >
  > > Yes, I think so, too. This could be a decentralized system (similar to
  > > file-sharing networks today).
  > >
  > > >> > >It is an interesting idea but I don't think it would work.
  > >
  > > > > Neither do I. Wow. Here it goes. We agree again ;-)
  > >
  > > Any evidence?
  > >
  > > There are people around the world who think this can work. A good blog
  > > is http://blog. newcurrencyfront iers.com
  > >
  > > Ralf
  > > -- Dr. Ralf Schlatterbeck Tel: +43/2243/26465- 16 Open Source
  > > Consulting
  > > Fax: +43/2243/26465- 23 Reichergasse 131 www: http://www.runtux. com
  > > A-3411 Weidling email: office@runtux. com osAlliance member email:
  > > rsc@osalliance. com
  > >
  > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
  > >
  > >
  >
  > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
  >
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