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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   36474 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

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I also liked the review, but I feel like this is too pessimistic:

Jacobs’ outlook is quite grim, and the closest thing she gives to a solution is secession. I guess that beats the mass die-offs hypothesized by Turchin?

IIRC, the main issue was that there isn't a feedback mechanism for cities to realize when they aren't gaining from trade, since they don't have their own currency. Jacobs recommends secession because if there are a bunch of city states, they can all have their own currency, and the value of that currency compared to other cities will give them a very accurate and up to date feedback mechanism of their local surplus.

Now let me think... isn't there a bunch of stuff going on with some sort of... digital currency...? Could it be that this is actually a real problem solvable with crypto?!

Jokes aside, I really do believe that if you buy into Jacobs' import replacement hypothesis, city based or city + hinterland based cryptocurrencies are the solution. Many smaller countries and places like Miami have already experimented with it. While it hasn't exactly gone well, I think the better explanation to the failure of these projects is that the traditional finance system essentially tried to sabotage crypto for over a decade, before declaring outright war.

If we could bring in crypto protocols and clear, fast, transparent exchange rates to merge with the traditional finance system, I don't see why over time we couldn't build a state that gives each city its unique currency, without the risks and impossibilities of secession in the modern world.

What is the advantage of cryptocurrency here as compared to conventional digital currencies, or indeed conventional currencies?

Utah has a state level currency called the Goldback. No one uses it.

It seems like adoption issues are the main obstacle to local currencies.

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