Cryptology and Money

[Sapiens]

http://orlingrabbe.com/money1.htm

Late one night while sharing a pharmacological product with a spook I met in the northeastern part of the United States, I mentioned I was studying cryptology.

"Cryptology is the future," he responded emphatically. "It's what's going to protect us from Big Brother."

Since he worked for the National Security Agency (NSA), the thought did occur to me that many would have taken the position that he and his colleagues were Big Brother. But I had learned years ago not to demonize people on the basis of an accidental profession. After all, if an ex-CIA employee like Kerry Thornley could become a staunch libertarian, the creator of Zenarchy and implied co-author of the Erisian holy book Principia Discordia [1], then there was hope for all of us. I additionally believed that one of our best defenses against the national security state was the perennial proclivity of clandestine organizations to piss off their own employees

[Sapiens]

Re: Cryptology and Money

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/story/18.html

No one, least of all in the press — least of all in the business press — has seen the beginnings of what may be the greatest revolution in the history of commerce: the end of money, and with it the concept of the customer.

Until there was money, there was no such thing as a customer. It wasn't swapping tools for fish that turned a Polynesian islander from a trader into a customer. That's simply barter. The idea of "buyer" and "seller" emerged only when one party swapped something with a fixed use for something fungible. Often, the money received by the seller had a modest utilitarian purpose; gold, for instance, could be hammered into nose rings, false teeth or satellite solar arrays. But money became the foundation of economic life precisely because it had symbolic more than practical value.

Then God gave us lawyers and accountants to prevent underweighing and overcharging, to make sure that every exchange of tangible things for intangible money was perfectly balanced, perfectly reciprocal. But this is a conceit of economists, accountants and lawyers, as everyday commercial life reveals. Because it can be turned into anything, money represents dreams unfulfilled, and unrequited dreams, at any price, are worth more than dreams realized. We all realize this intuitively. A buyer asks a seller to give up a mere thing; a seller asks a buyer to give up hopes and possibilities. For the same reason, it's more costly for sellers to recruit buyers than for buyers to recruit sellers: Sellers can exchange their stuff for only one thing (money), while buyers can exchange their money for anything. That's why, in the real world of purportedly balanced transactions, sellers invariably defer to buyers — why we say "the customer is king" and "The customer is always right."

[Sapiens]

Re: Cryptology and Money

The End of Ordinary Money, Part II:
Money Laundering, Electronic Cash, and Cryptological Anonymity

http://www.aci.net/KALLISTE/money2.htm

Many of the basic features of electronic cash-- variously referred to as "ecash", "digital cash", "digital money", and so on--may sound novel to those unfamiliar with the financial markets. But much of the financial system is already on an electronic basis, and has been so for years.

[jk]

Re: Cryptology and Money

interesting stuff, sapiens. that's my first reaction. my second was, when on earth am i going to find time to read it along with all the other interesting stuff i've been bookmarking. but this is not to discourage your sharing these things. they are interesting.

[WDCRob]

Re: Cryptology and Money

A bit tangential, but if you like this sort of thing and are a reader of fiction check out Neal Stephenson's 'Cryptonomicon.' His massive Baroque trilogy also has as one theme the evolution of credit and fiat money in the late 17th and 18th centuries.