The root of money is a "promise to deliver value". Money is a human construct. Money originally was a form of bookkeeping to see who delivered on their promises (or who had outstanding undelivered promises). Sea shells worked in some locales. Until recently, paper money was a receipt for gold or silver stored on one's behalf. That promise was reneged upon in 1933 (domestically) and 1971 (internationally). So today, paper money is a "note" with nothing of value behind it. Where does the value derive? Contracts are denominated in dollars. Rent, salary, mortgage, contracts at the grocery store, etc. are all contracts denominated in dollars. That is where the value derives. In small communities, money was a temporary placeholder for one's promises to deliver value. However, today, the world cannot track who delivers. That is what "Promise Language" does. It is a standard format to describe transactions. The results can be stored on paper or in a computer so you know who delivers on their promises. Theoretically, wealth translators replace the need for currencies. However, that is an expensive process, so currencies will always likely remain due to their economies of scale in reducing transaction costs. What is money? Anything of value that is agreed upon by both parties in a transaction.
I think I went through all the relevant things above, but the origin of money was probably something along the lines of: Some guy had an orange and you wanted to trade him for a banana, but your banana was back at your hut. So you gave the guy a sea shell and promised to go get the banana and come back.
Hi FireWalker, Interesting topic. Nice name btw, did you do one of those firewalks that Tony Robbins talked about? What exactly is "Promise Language"? Are you referring to cryptocurrency? Or is this a totally different thing? The biggest problem that comes to mind is that you'd have to take the control (power) of money away from the banks and government. That is something the United States would go to war over in a heart beat. The gov would do it in the name of "national security". The other thing that comes to mind is, it's not money that is corrupt. It is men that are corrupt. And men will find a way to corrupt anything. I'm trying to get some ideas stirred so that we can have a thorough discussion. What are your thoughts?
FireWalker refers to walking through fire or walking fire from one place to another (similar to how the Olympic torch is carried). Promise Language is a standard format to describe monetary transactions. It is not a currency. It describes any transaction in any imaginable format to include all currencies and/or barter. Cryptocurrency is a currency. It is a store of value. It can also be used for a transactional currency. Promise Language is currency-agnostic and simply describes in detail the Initiating promise, the resulting promise, and remembers each delivery. So, it becomes a transactional history of all digital transactions. While the transaction history is public, it can be anonymous or known through an ID. You can have many IDs or one. You can attach that ID to your name or not. Or an ID for every transaction. I agree with the corrupt part. Money is a "promise to deliver value". The root of all evil is a promise that is intentionally reneged upon.
K. I kinda have a better idea of what you might be talking about. The first thing that comes to mind is that it can possibly speed up contractual processes and cut out transactional costs. If someone wanted to use this, how would they get started?
Exactly right on costs and efficiency. Two ways to start I suppose: 1. if you are a business who has electronic transactions, simply post the EDI format to convey the transaction from computer to computer. Example: [transaction] [promise] 1 banana [endpromise] [promise] 1 orange [endpromise] [endtransaction] Time stamps at each stage. 2. If you know the peer-to-peer stuff (which I don't), it needs a transactional history in the format described above. 3. Build your rep by keeping a list of your transactions publicly. Promise/deliver format works best.
Once upon a time, some guy had an orange and you wanted it. So you offered to trade a banana for his orange. But your banana was way back at your hut. So you picked up a seashell or something and handed it to him in exchange for his orange. You promised to go get your banana and deliver it later. That is the origin of money. The seashell was a symbol that represented a contract to deliver a banana. Alternatively, both people could have yelled out to the surrounding village that you owed that person a banana. Then you didn't need the seashell. Everyone knew you owed that person a banana. Then you go back to your hut the next day and get the banana. Then you yell out to the village that you paid back the banana. Let's hope that banana did not go bad overnight. Similarly, Promise Language is a standard way to yell to the global village who owes what. If placed into a peer-to-peer database, all promises would be tracked. Open promises and delivered promises. I was thinking today how to design that database: Promise table Type of entry (Initiating promise, promise, notification) Id (GUID for that promise or a GUID corresponding to the person) Description (describes what was promised) TimeStamp So.. it would work like this: [transaction] [promise] 1 banana [endpromise] [promise] 1 orange [endpromise] [endtransaction] One entry for the Initiating Promise: my Id, his Id, "1 banana", 12/21/2003 12:15:34 One entry for the Promise: his Id, my Id, "1 orange", 12/21/2003 12:15:45 One entry for the Delivery: his Id, my Id, "1 orange", 12/21/2003 12:15:48 One entry for the final Delivery: my Id, his Id, "1 banana", 12/22/2003 8:23:32 That's it. Now. That shows you made good on your promise. That's your rep. Now you can go anywhere in the world with the Promise App that shows your history of promises. It's free. No transaction fees. Works with any currency on earth.
Ok, now you lost me with the bananas and oranges. I know what you mean. But that's again slowing down the process via delivery and thus bound to cost something. If I have to have deliver 400,000 bananas to a guy in Asia to him, It's all of a sudden cost a whole lot more. What's wrong with PayPal? It has a great reputation I think.
The way it sounds to me, you would have to add this "promise" to crypto. Does a blockchain allow that? I own some bitcoin. But never sold any or traded.