For those interested in my short story but not enough to search for it, I'm including my link to this ribald, intelligent look at a possible 2030. It's on my Amazon author's page. Enjoy.
Do Well and Be Well.

http://www.amazon.com/author/johnfrazier

An Interesting Development

Building upon the foundation of thought contained in these blogs, I have come to specific conclusions summed up in my new blogsite, Thinkerfeller.
Building upon the foundation of those blogs, I have written the first of a series of short stories, ribald and real, conserved under the series title, 'Making It'.
Since the Dark Net enjoys this blogsite, I thought I'd let all of you in on this new project. The story is titled 'The Buy: Making It' and is an examination of life in 2030, good and otherwise, with the changes I am advocating made.
It will be live on Amazon Kindle, device and app, on or about the 28th of January. Just search;
Erotica, Noir, Short Story, The Buy: Making It.
I obviously think you'll enjoy it. That's why I wrote it. Word of mouth will be appreciated.
Author: John Frazier
Do Well and Be Well.

A Change Has Been Wrought

My blog, complete with new format, has moved to a different location, Thinkerfeller, on Blogger. Thanks for the reads and comments.
John Frazier aka Basil Brylcreem

The Nature of Shifting Paradigms

Let me state clearly, everything in this blog is derivative of Thomas S Kuhn's landmark The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The reader, possessed of reasonable intellectual talent, would easily do as well or better reading it. I suggest you do so.
First, I wish to emphasize the point that paradigm shifts happen in an instrumentalist fashion. One creates a model of significant explanatory power in terms of natural phenomena, however fluid and idiosyncratic their perception, as a general case. In competition with other models, this model proves the better. It is then, over generations as is the human Way, adopted.
One cannot author a paradigm shift. Any attempt to do so will shortcut the proper role of reason and probably do neurological damage to the brain. That is the classic mistake of the pedagogical megalomaniac who believes that the mind is theirs to shape.
Do Well and Be Well.

Coinage versus Cash and Its Instruments

The intent of this blog is to examine the concept of money with an eye to reducing the current confusion about it by simplifying an analysis by making the taxonomy, historical and conceptual, more complex. And more conceptually difficult, be warned.
Coinage is the act of creating a standard value reference which is the essential act of arbitrage. Such a device allows a rough calculation that determines whether a good may be moved from point A to point B at a profit. Coinage makes trade possible and that's all it does.
Cash, on the other hand, and I am using the term as a taxon of the category, money, in order to separate and contrast the economies of coinage and cash, is an accounting device. It is a value reference of vastly more utility than hard money, coinage. It engenders sophisticated derivatives that make a general prosperity possible.
When the great Classical Liberal economist, Marshall speaks of Labor 'having' as the mark of a functioning economy, he is addressing the crux of the great and vicious arguments of the 20th century. He is of his age and speaking in terms of pounds sterling which were found woefully inadequate to the task of a general prosperity even as technology was taking the possibility of that concept to new heights.  Thus we have institutionalized an accounting device and its liquid instruments as the standard for value reference, a value calculus employed in market operations.
Coinage depends on the supply of precious metal for monetary policy. Cash depends on complex calculations made possible by sophisticated accounting procedures and powerful economic paradigms for its management. It is obvious by inspection that the former is doomed to failure while the latter has a real chance of success.
Where do cryptocurrencies fall in this scheme? They fall significantly into the category, coinage. They are avowedly  anti-bank and reject any notion of rational monetary policy. They are, like all coinage, doomed to failure. It is inherent in their conceptual base.
It is wise to remember that magpies are ridiculously attracted to shiny objects. Gold and silver are a priori valuable to the brain but they belong in beautiful adornments, not in coins of general use.
Do Well and Be Well

Moving and Shaking

If the reader has ever been in a learning environment where a class was graded on a curve, it soon becomes obvious that a handful of people set the curve to which everyone else is graded. They are, in my usage, the movers and shakers of that group.
I have found that usage to be valuable when generalized to macro socioeconomic situations. Essentially, when one examines a consensus mover and shaker, one notices, in today's innovation orgy, they are setting a learning curve in concepts and technology necessary to adoption, acculturation. And just as in school, they appear to be really smart. They would. They're setting the curve to their abilities. That is the whole trick to moving and shaking; setting a curve, learning or grading, to yourself.
This society comes up well short of Mandarin standards so it is easily possible for some fairly limited individuals to set a learning curve to themselves and be welcome to do so as it would be well within the average comfort zone. Of course, that would put society behind the adoption curve when such a person is a mover and shaker and that is not necessarily a bad thing given the onslaught of innovation and the plasticity limits of the human brain.
Moving and shaking as setting a curve to yourself, a useful concept in social analysis.
Do Well and Be Well.

Civilization; Some Thoughts

There are a number of attributes that go into making a human being human and even more that go into making that human a legal person, but the absolute sine qua non of humanity is that humans use technology to deal with reality. It is not just a role such as homo factorem, but an essential and defining attribute. Whether a hammer or a microscope, humans have a technological interface with all reality.
Civilization is no more than technological culture but it goes someplace. It moves humankind to the Light of health, sanity, and peace. What describes the wars of the last century better than a failure of culture to contain new and powerful technology? A failure of civilization? A consensus certainty. So, we build a better technological culture that can contain all our new machine friends and humans do consider technology friendly somewhere in their cells. We rebuild our civilization and continue to move to the Light which is always over our heads so we can read a book.
That is truly Man's Fate, to be a technologist, to be civilized, to move out of Darkness and into Light. It is our Way.
Do Well and Be Well.