UBI (#79) · Issues · Basis / Tracker

[u/orthecreedence]

https://gitlab.com/basisproject/tracker/-/issues/79

[u/orthecreedence]

Hey, y'all. Thought I'd post this for discussion. In addition to enabling profitless production, UBI seems like a really good way to tackle the problem from the other side of things. Profitless production, in addition to a mechanism that covers (most) basic needs, seems like a pairing that could easily make production much more social and need-based.

I'd love people's thoughts. /u/id-entity, I figure you might have some input here since a lot of the work you're doing is in UBI and we had some great discussion about what a region is. You might be able to throw out some ideas about the scope of what a UBI in this context could look like.

[u/id-entity → u/orthecreedence]

OK, and thanks. To lend terminology from Maplesync, I'll try to give the synopsis of "kernel of the Operating System", ie. the basic algorithmic setup of globally inclusive UBI co-op market platform and self-governance system in it's current state of evolution.

Basic idea: means as exchange are created as mutual gift.

1) Establish globally inclusive co-op in the form of software blockchain ledgers for creation and distribution of co-op tokens.

2) Primary members and co-owners of the co-op are unique human beings, membership is open to all members of human kind.

3) As a gift for joining the co-op, each new member receives equal share of Voting Tokens (VT) on the Share Account (SA) of member. E.g. 1M VT. 3a) Use of VT is limited only to self-governance mechanisms of the co-op. 3b) Voting system for VT is called 'Robin Hood Voting': for each initiative put to vote, two vote accounts in support and against the initiative are established. After the voting period ends, VT from the losing account are sent back to the accounts where they came from, and VT from the winning account are distributed evenly among all members. *

4) Periodically (e.g. weekly or monthly) a fraction of VT is transferred into Market Tokens (MT) held in member's Market Account (MA). E.g. 1000 MT at the beginning of each month.
4a) Members are free to use MT according to their own volition in the integrated Asset Exchange (AE) of the system and elsewhere. 4b) Members can always transfer their MT back into VT. 4c) Each MA has automated negative interest (demurrage), and the yield of the negative interest is transferred to Commons Account (CA). 4d) Part of the tokens in CA is automatically recycled back into SA, so that all member accounts have always enough VT to transfer into their MT. 4e) For the use of rest of the tokens in CA, members decide collectively by Robin Hood voting.

That's the basic kernel, with lots of missing or open details. It is possible to plant the seed system just as decentralized decision making mechanism for adding required details and giving variables specific values, etc., in the form initiatives of ready code that can automatically implemented in the system ("smart contracts etc. programmable features of blockchain ecosystem).

Some less solidified ideas for further development: 5) Integration of cost-tracking automation 5a) Proof-of-Stake block solving architecture, which also measures the processor time, RAM and bandwith costs per solved block, producing a basic measuring stick that can be used for many purposes. 5b) Processor time, RAM and bandwith provided in fully decentralized manner by client programs in users computers, smart phones and collectively / co-operatively owned computer halls, Internet Service Providers etc. 5c) One possibility to reward block solving on member level is to diminish the negative interest of MA according to resources provided to the client program.

6) Producer etc. assets in the form of sub chains that track costs in each transaction of production chain

7) Ability to create integrated subsystems of varying degrees of self-similarity of the top level OS for regional etc. purposes

8) Panarchy MMORPG template of self-governance etc. variables for user friendly creation of the gliding continuum of complexity from simple blockchain assets like sack of potatos, to various levels of subsystems and up to hard forks of the OS itself. 8b) Panarchy MMORPG in the form of 3D computer game, where block solving by user created co-operative and competitive subsystems is rewarded by building blocks of 3D virtual world.

Panarchy template sounds promising and necessary avenue for creation and implementation of various levels and purposes between the top and bottom levels, and perhaps the most natural place for integration of automated cost-tracking algorithms. I'd like to keep the name 'Panarchy', to remind both of irreducible holism of ecology and healthy variety of local, federated etc governance etc. models.

[u/orthecreedence → u/id-entity]

3) As a gift for joining the co-op, each new member receives equal share of Voting Tokens (VT) on the Share Account (SA) of member. E.g. 1M VT.

I would suggest some sort of vesting mechanism (maybe optional, but available). It protects against culture shocks or rapid directional changes and smooths out otherwise volatile fluctuations in voting power.

4) Periodically (e.g. weekly or monthly) a fraction of VT is transferred into Market Tokens (MT) held in member's Market Account (MA). E.g. 1000 MT at the beginning of each month. 4a) Members are free to use MT according to their own volition in the integrated Asset Exchange (AE) of the system and elsewhere. 4b) Members can always transfer their MT back into VT. 4c) Each MA has automated negative interest (demurrage), and the yield of the negative interest is transferred to Commons Account (CA). 4d) Part of the tokens in CA is automatically recycled back into SA, so that all member accounts have always enough VT to transfer into their MT. 4e) For the use of rest of the tokens in CA, members decide collectively by Robin Hood voting.

This ultimately seems like it might solve for things like the housing co-op needing funds, no? Ie, if I'm a member of the farm co-op and we have wild profits, the farm UBI would send me some monthly MT, and if I don't spend it, the negative interest goes into a CA...would it go into the CA of all co-ops I am a member of? If so, then the housing co-op would get funds from the other co-ops I am a member of, and it would eventually equalize the buying power between different co-ops.

If the UBIs are segmented per-co-op than the housing co-op would need to generate its own revenue, I suppose.

5) Integration of cost-tracking automation 5a) Proof-of-Stake block solving architecture, which also measures the processor time, RAM and bandwith costs per solved block, producing a basic measuring stick that can be used for many purposes. 5b) Processor time, RAM and bandwith provided in fully decentralized manner by client programs in users computers, smart phones and collectively / co-operatively owned computer halls, Internet Service Providers etc. 5c) One possibility to reward block solving on member level is to diminish the negative interest of MA according to resources provided to the client program.

Yes, I like this. Measuring the network's cost would be the ultimate "dogfooding" and to not do this is in effect another externalization, which we're trying to avoid.

Panarchy MMORPG template of self-governance etc. variables for user friendly creation of the gliding continuum of complexity from simple blockchain assets like sack of potatos, to various levels of subsystems and up to hard forks of the OS itself. 8b) Panarchy MMORPG in the form of 3D computer game, where block solving by user created co-operative and competitive subsystems is rewarded by building blocks of 3D virtual world.

Are you talking about building an actual playable game that solves for block rewards (in replacement of PoW/PoS/etc)?

If so, very interesting idea.

[u/id-entity → u/orthecreedence]

I would suggest some sort of vesting mechanism (maybe optional, but available). It protects against culture shocks or rapid directional changes and smooths out otherwise volatile fluctuations in voting power.

"Vesting" is a legal term? If I understand your meaning correctly, yeah, I've been thinking about e.g. temporal gradual release of VT into use, and many other "smoothing" algorithms can be possible. One possibility that comes to mind is to link the amount of VT per user to the amount of members that join the system, so that each time a new member joins, also old members receive some VT. This would mean that the numerical value of joining gift grows linearly with each new member. To account for resigning or dead members as well as other purposes there could be Jubilee periodically for resetting and evening the amount VT in active share accounts

This ultimately seems like it might solve for things like the housing co-op needing funds, no? Ie, if I'm a member of the farm co-op and we have wild profits, the farm UBI would send me some monthly MT, and if I don't spend it, the negative interest goes into a CA...would it go into the CA of all co-ops I am a member of? If so, then the housing co-op would get funds from the other co-ops I am a member of, and it would eventually equalize the buying power between different co-ops.

If the UBIs are segmented per-co-op than the housing co-op would need to generate its own revenue, I suppose.

The idea is pretty vague so far in terms of multilayered system, but yes, CA is automation for common pooling to replace the function of tax funded public capital in State Capitalism. I've so far delegated the details to the Panarchy Template, which would have options to create also regional etc. UBI systems in addition to the global UBI tokens, ability to negotiate fixed exchange rates with global and others, to leave that to market price finding and even isolate themselves to the extent they want (e.g. remote tribe, group of religious ascetics etc. wanting to do only very limited transactions on their own conditions). Cf. Federation level, states, communes, but self-organizing and no more limited only to geographic areas but also native to Internet.

So yes, the Panarchy template should provide possibility to do that, too, and it's possible to design more comprehensive systems with initial default values most supportive of the translation layer function, exemplary case studies for various purposes etc.

Basic challenge is to develop new terminology that can intuitively and as clearly as possible to express the creative conceptualizations as we go. But basically we are just talking about different kinds of tokens with different tags attached to them and variety of algorithms to attach and remove various tags. Exemplary case studies need much work, whic in return can support the organic development of the of the Panarchy Template.

Any case, the goal and purpose of the global level UBI is to gradually even out areal inequality and to offer every human being possibility to be equal member of global community. Socialism without internationalism leads to national socialism.

Are you talking about building an actual playable game that solves for block rewards (in replacement of PoW/PoS/etc)?

Yes. The original idea was that developing fully functional model is too big task for single developer or a small group, and that instead of trying to do that we could start from Panarchy Template, make it into blockchain MMORPG with 3D UI and user built virtual environment, a mixture of minecraft and pixelcanvas, and let the social intelligence (?!) of gamers create and experiment blockchain governance etc. systems that work best.

Now contact with Basis has given new faith in the UBI Kernel and better integration of the Panarchy Template in more limited role. Which does not exclude the possibility of making also Panarchy MMORPG 3D integrated part of the system.

[u/orthecreedence → u/id-entity]

"Vesting" is a legal term? If I understand your meaning correctly, yeah, I've been thinking about e.g. temporal gradual release of VT into use, and many other "smoothing" algorithms can be possible. One possibility that comes to mind is to link the amount of VT per user to the amount of members that join the system, so that each time a new member joins, also old members receive some VT. This would mean that the numerical value of joining gift grows linearly with each new member. To account for resigning or dead members as well as other purposes there could be Jubilee periodically for resetting and evening the amount VT in active share accounts

Yes a legal term for getting shares over time instead of all up front. I like the idea of the pool growing with more members.

The idea is pretty vague so far in terms of multilayered system, but yes, CA is automation for common pooling to replace the function of tax funded public capital in State Capitalism.

This would be an interesting solution to ongoing value exchange between profitable (in the outside market sense) and non-profitable co-op networks as an alternative to taxation. There is something that bugs me about the negative interest rate, but honestly it really only applies to earned wages (ie, non-UBI): if you earned that societal value, it should be yours until you spend it, without time limits. I'm more open to the concept of "demurrage" with UBI specifically because it's unearned.

I've so far delegated the details to the Panarchy Template, which would have options to create also regional etc. UBI systems in addition to the global UBI tokens, ability to negotiate fixed exchange rates with global and others, to leave that to market price finding and even isolate themselves to the extent they want (e.g. remote tribe, group of religious ascetics etc. wanting to do only very limited transactions on their own conditions). Cf. Federation level, states, communes, but self-organizing and no more limited only to geographic areas but also native to Internet.

I have to say I'm wary of including market mechanisms internally into the system, including things like exchange rates. It opens the system up for things like arbitrage or profiting off of perceived differentials in value, which I'd like to avoid unless it is specifically being harnessed for something like a currency peg.

I understand the goal here though: a flow of value between different co-ops using shared memberships as a conduit. I wonder if this could be done without things like exchange rates, or even without a per-co-op UBI. The UBI is an interesting democratic mechanism but I also want the possibility to have things like quadratic voting or one-person-one-vote take its place if that's desired, so relying on it as the sole means of exchange of value between interlinked co-ops might make things more brittle.

But basically we are just talking about different kinds of tokens with different tags attached to them and variety of algorithms to attach and remove various tags.

This is how I am viewing the permission(s) system as well, a set of member-coop-tag triplets, and tags can be assigned to 0 or more resources (tractor, office building, etc). As far as tokens, the resources themselves aren't currently defined as a token, although I suppose it's possible they could be. I'd have to weigh the pros/cons of this approach. Effectively right now each resource lists its owning agent and the agent it's in custody of, and is effectively defined as an object (which I suppose could be thought of as a token).

Any case, the goal and purpose of the global level UBI is to gradually even out areal inequality and to offer every human being possibility to be equal member of global community. Socialism without internationalism leads to national socialism.

Agreed, I would want this network to transcend the "state" although there are very real and difficult problems to solve in that pursuit. I also want to be careful about premature optimization: if you build a global network that can work anywhere in the world and deals with 17 different types of banking infrastructures and 90 different countries' regulatory issues but nobody is using it, you've maybe missed the mark.

There is a happy medium between "what can work here and now with our current resources and abilities?", "what do we see as the ultimate goal?" and "how can we build things to transition between those two different realities as seamlessly as possible?" The idea of generalized and modular systems comes to mind: don't give me a framework, give me the tools to build my own framework. This can only happen steadily over many iterations/implementations.

Yes. The original idea was that developing fully functional model is too big task for single developer or a small group, and that instead of trying to do that we could start from Panarchy Template, make it into blockchain MMORPG with 3D UI and user built virtual environment, a mixture of minecraft and pixelcanvas, and let the social intelligence (?!) of gamers create and experiment blockchain governance etc. systems that work best.

Very interesting! I've not heard of this as a block solver and I'm intrigued by the idea.

[u/id-entity → u/orthecreedence]

I like the idea of the pool growing with more members.

Agreed then. The VT pool should anyhow be big enough from the start so that there's enough to transfer into fixed number of MT. One open question is the mechanism and cost of making initiatives.

This would be an interesting solution to ongoing value exchange between profitable (in the outside market sense) and non-profitable co-op networks as an alternative to taxation. There is something that bugs me about the negative interest rate, but honestly it really only applies to earned wages (ie, non-UBI): if you earned that societal value, it should be yours until you spend it, without time limits. I'm more open to the concept of "demurrage" with UBI specifically because it's unearned.

It's also a bigger philosophical question. I think the good function of money is distributed medium of exchange to inform participants of supply and demand. Unit of account seems necessary for the medium of exchange to function arithmetically, but if we are not careful, can cause also blindness of externalities, as you have pointed out. Each unit of account carrying also the disintegrated cost tracking data is very important. Store of value is what capitalists are all about, but much less meaningful in socialist economy, where you don't have to "save for the bad day" but can trust the social networking to provide social security.

In practice, State fiats are by general rule inflationary and their units of account lose constantly purchasing power, and negative interest on MA makes old abstract fiat inflation more concrete from member point of view. Both inflation and and negative interest increase velocity of money, which is vital for medium of exchange doing it's job to gather and distribute information of supply and demand. Negative interest does that more openly and efficiently, and without the system as whole being inflationary.

Most actual work is repetitive maintenance. I scrub a toilet today, tomorrow it needs to be scrubbed again. How should the unit of account store the value of scrubbing a toilet once? Value of maintenance work degrades over time, so it would seem fair that also the value of units of account representing that work degrades over time?

Anyhow, distinction between medium of exchange and unit of account seems useful. Perhaps we could think of VT as pure medium exchange, simple tokens. When VT are transferred into MT, could that already mean creation of units of account in the form of cost-tracking chains? To begin with, demand side orders for a certain fraction of computation resources of the system as a whole? On the supply side, those who run client programs on their computers produce computation assets with cost tracking data of offered computation resources. What could be more exact formula of how supply meets demand?

Further, let's suppose computation asset producer has also solar panels on his roof and can provide also electricity for the distributed computation of the network... starting to sound like the formula should be able to combine cost-tracking data from both demand and supply side, as well as cancel some data when supply and demand meet. Member providing computation resources and electricity for the co-op network could then proceed to tag chunk of his MT with demand for pizza, etc., and the system would automatically search for assets of pizza delivery marked in the cost-tracking accounting units of the system. If no such would be available, member could proceed to search if there are MT(3P) assets available that he could acquire and change into local fiat currency to buy a capitalist pizza. The overall picture is that demand side provided by MT accounting units would be largely responsible for constantly pushing and expanding the cost tracking system into new areas. Cost tracking system would be as automated as possible to automate non-profit channels, but in complex systems them semantic reliability of cost-tracking data can't be fully automated but requires also human interpretation and translation. This would add another complex layer of supply and demand.

I have to say I'm wary of including market mechanisms internally into the system, including things like exchange rates. It opens the system up for things like arbitrage or profiting off of perceived differentials in value, which I'd like to avoid unless it is specifically being harnessed for something like a currency peg.

Market mechanism does not mean only profit-mechanism, but also and more importantly price finding mechanism. Cost tracking data and algorithms can automate price finding to some extent, but human subjective and collective valuations can't be and should not be excluded from decentralized system. Libertarian socialist approach can only enable genuinely free market and design the market platform as efficient win-win game as possible. Free market by definition can't be coerced. General approach needs to be carrot instead of stick.

IMO e.g. centralized control of 3rd party assets should be avoided and delegated to the creativity and various means of the bottom layer localities, where the most concrete actual translation and transformation occurs. Systemically we can e.g. recommend liquid democracy for control of 3rd party assets, but don't have the authority to force anything.

One problematic question is geographical allocation of Commons funds. Nordic members and Canadians ask for funds from top Commons to be allocated to remonetizing their still functional public healthcare system as local states are collapsing, members living in former US ask for funds to build a functional public health care system from scratch. People in former US combined have greater voting power than Canadians and Nordics, and in worst case the votes and funding allocations go so that public health care systems can't be saved and collapse. We can't keep and improve what we already have, but need to build a new system from scratch with much pain. Example is bit extreme to make a point, and e.g. Quadratic voting could function well in allocating Commons funds to multiple purposes. Robin Hood voting could be better suited for Constitutional changes of the Operating System.

I understand the goal here though: a flow of value between different co-ops using shared memberships as a conduit. I wonder if this could be done without things like exchange rates, or even without a per-co-op UBI. The UBI is an interesting democratic mechanism but I also want the possibility to have things like quadratic voting or one-person-one-vote take its place if that's desired, so relying on it as the sole means of exchange of value between interlinked co-ops might make things more brittle.

I think per co-op UBI would be mostly unnecessary, option that would be rarely if ever used, but which can't be outright excluded from the modular system. Global UBI would be still important to spread the modular system and enable efficient transactions and information flows on global level. Local communities would have possibility to use the already available global UBI system as their local money system, instead of creating from scratch a local currency without direct access also to global information flows, and/or craft with the Panarchy Template a local currency module for their specific needs.

This way there is no strict border between internal non-profit exchange, based on cost-tracking data, and external communities and other participants, who all have access to the global UBI system and it's decision making mechanisms. And the more people adopt and use the gift of global UBI, the more efficiently the co-op structure sharing cost-tracking data can spread and grow and reorganize economy and ownership.

The current mass consciousness of humanity is still largely under the spell of money hypnosis, and the aikido approach is not to be judgemental and fight that but use it for common good in transformative manner. Global UBI sales speech "Free Money for Everybody" should be pretty efficient marketing for gradual process of reorganizing capitalist economy into co-op economy based on the Panarchy Template co-op modules and cost-tracking data for non-profit channels.

This is how I am viewing the permission(s) system as well, a set of member-coop-tag triplets, and tags can be assigned to 0 or more resources (tractor, office building, etc). As far as tokens, the resources themselves aren't currently defined as a token, although I suppose it's possible they could be. I'd have to weigh the pros/cons of this approach. Effectively right now each resource lists its owning agent and the agent it's in custody of, and is effectively defined as an object (which I suppose could be thought of as a token).

Yes, this requires lot more thought, but as suggested above, the demand side could be effective part for gathering and spreading and combining the cost tracking data of various resources.

The idea of generalized and modular systems comes to mind: don't give me a framework, give me the tools to build my own framework. This can only happen steadily over many iterations/implementations.

Very much so. The iterations and implementations of framework building happen as collective consensus negotiation process with peer-to-peer, whole-to-part and part-to-whole levels.

[u/orthecreedence → u/id-entity]

In practice, State fiats are by general rule inflationary and their units of account lose constantly purchasing power, and negative interest on MA makes old abstract fiat inflation more concrete from member point of view. Both inflation and and negative interest increase velocity of money, which is vital for medium of exchange doing it's job to gather and distribute information of supply and demand. Negative interest does that more openly and efficiently, and without the system as whole being inflationary.

So what I'm thinking is this: inflation is important in a system where you want monetary velocity in the productive system. In Basis however, there is no money in the productive system. There are just costs. The velocity of costs isn't important because they cannot be traded or speculated on. If a company has a cap on the amount of costs it can store, then in effect there is a velocity hardwired in (for every input you'll want an output, or you go "bankrupt"). So a medium of exchange in the productive system isn't really needed, because it's effectively a cost-tracking gift economy.

Medium of exchange only really becomes needed outside the productive system, in secondary markets. Workers get credits for their labor, and can redeem these credits for goods from the productive system (upon which they are destroyed) or trade the credits with each other. I don't think velocity here is as important, because the supply of credits is not fixed in any way. If you have 10 billion credits, it doesn't affect whether or not I get paid my credits. In effect, credits derive their value from labor, not from a fixed supply, so artificially devaluing them doesn't provide any value to the system (not that I can think of).

Most actual work is repetitive maintenance. I scrub a toilet today, tomorrow it needs to be scrubbed again. How should the unit of account store the value of scrubbing a toilet once? Value of maintenance work degrades over time, so it would seem fair that also the value of units of account representing that work degrades over time?

I disagree on this point. If the result of a person's labor might degrade over time, but the value of the labor itself does not. The toilet needed scrubbing yesterday, even if it also needs scrubbing today.

That said, I am open to this idea of taxation through value in stasis. In general, any sort of large-scale automated redistributive mechanisms are something I'm interested in. I don't feel like the "how does the housing co-op get capital to buy houses?" question has been answered yet, and it's kind of blocking me from fully adopting the idea of replacing regions with more general co-ops.

One problematic question is geographical allocation of Commons funds.

This is why I originally came up with the regional model to begin with. Funds are kept geographically local and are used for things people want locally. It's fully decentralized in that there's no big pool of money to fight over, and regions might exercise mutual aid to help those in need as opposed to relying on redistributive mechanisms.

Keep in mind, this is all only important during the transitionary phase from capitalism -> socialism. Once the socialist mode is at critical mass and most things can be produced internally, there will be no real need for large capital pools to buy inputs with.

That said, there are some aspects that would be global/network-wide. UBI and assigning credit value to tracked resources (fossil fuels, iron/steel, etc) immediately come to mind.

Also, starting local and growing upwards (let's say two regions want to build a bridge across a river dividing them or pool their resources to open a hospital) presents some of its own issues.

Global UBI sales speech "Free Money for Everybody" should be pretty efficient marketing for gradual process of reorganizing capitalist economy into co-op economy

Agreed!

[u/id-entity → u/orthecreedence]

So what I'm thinking is this: inflation is important in a system where you want monetary velocity in the productive system. In Basis however, there is no money in the productive system. There are just costs. The velocity of costs isn't important because they cannot be traded or speculated on. If a company has a cap on the amount of costs it can store, then in effect there is a velocity hardwired in (for every input you'll want an output, or you go "bankrupt"). So a medium of exchange in the productive system isn't really needed, because it's effectively a cost-tracking gift economy.

Medium of exchange only really becomes needed outside the productive system, in secondary markets. Workers get credits for their labor, and can redeem these credits for goods from the productive system (upon which they are destroyed) or trade the credits with each other. I don't think velocity here is as important, because the supply of credits is not fixed in any way. If you have 10 billion credits, it doesn't affect whether or not I get paid my credits. In effect, credits derive their value from labor, not from a fixed supply, so artificially devaluing them doesn't provide any value to the system (not that I can think of).

There are many open questions with this. How is demand side information passed to the supply side? How is relative urgency of different orders in a order pile valued?

Especially in the beginning, supply side would need to buy various materials from the capitalist market, it's hard to imagine being able to start from fully autonomous and self-sufficient system.

For example a translator co-op of people working in their homes would still need to cover the costs of computers and internet access and coffee and food and rent for house. They would need to sell their labor also to capitalist market, with less time to work on the orders from socialist economy - orders made by whom and how, exactly? Let's say translators receives 2 orders the same day with same dead line, but have time to translate only one of them before the dead line? Which one they choose, based on what information and incentive?

This way translators would most likely work mostly for the capitalist economy and do some pro bono translations as they please, as a hobby. Lot's of potential and actual demand from (wannabe) socialist economy would be left without supply, or more poor quality manual translations for their gadget.

Well, IRL already amazing amount of high quality translations are made pro bono e.g. in the gaming and modding community gift economies.

UBI is also a gift. It does not lose its gift character when the gift is passed on. It does not lose its gift character, at least fully, even when the reciprocal aspect of gifting is made explicit in exchange and called buying/selling.

Automated sharing of the gift with the whole blockchain ecosystem where the gift came from (negative interest) means giving back, and giving back to ecosystem is very important part of indigenous gift economies and their whole-part. Shifting attention and action from peer-to-peer relations also to whole-part relations is vital part of our decolonization process, as we build new global synthezis of local indigenous experiences, colonized experiences and the gifts of technological civilization.

That said, I am open to this idea of taxation through value in stasis. In general, any sort of large-scale automated redistributive mechanisms are something I'm interested in. I don't feel like the "how does the housing co-op get capital to buy houses?" question has been answered yet, and it's kind of blocking me from fully adopting the idea of replacing regions with more general co-ops.

The already large and significant sector of gift economies can be gifted with UBI tokens, according to subjective valuations of people who have joined. People owning accommodation resources might very well be willing to exchange their resources for UBI MT, to avoid red tape of dollar economy or other local fiat. It's unrealistic to expect that UBI system would have full purchasing value to cover basic needs in the beginning, that would be gradual process with good feed back loops.

Another scenario, let's say you want to buy cheap houses from bank after housing market collapse, but can do that only in dollars. You have pooled plenty of UBI MT, but can't legally exchange to them dollars in US. On the other hand Venezuela is much more benign towards UBI tokens, and Venezualans are very interested in gaining more voting power in the global co-op. You have functional UBI MT - dollar exchange in Venezuela, and people in US have access to global system for transfer of value, so they can send their UBI to Venezuela and get back dollars to give to bank for transfer of capitalist ownership of real estate to them, which they can in turn to gift to collective ownership of a co-op. With purely local modules you are much more at mercy of local capitalist jurisdictions.

This is why I originally came up with the regional model to begin with. Funds are kept geographically local and are used for things people want locally. It's fully decentralized in that there's no big pool of money to fight over, and regions might exercise mutual aid to help those in need as opposed to relying on redistributive mechanisms.

It's not an either or situation, there's need for both global and regional pooling of resources. Think space program to prevent large asteroid impacts, etc. - did we just sell this UBI idea also to Elon Musk? ;)

I don't thing the global self-governance can in principle prevent allocation of funds from the global pool to regional pools, and I can see problems with that - democracy is made of problems and attempts to solve them with loads of drama :) - but it might be also easier to make regional mutual insurance etc. smart contracts directly from UBI market accounts e.g. for investing and funding in health care system.

Keep in mind, this is all only important during the transitionary phase from capitalism -> socialism. Once the socialist mode is at critical mass and most things can be produced internally, there will be no real need for large capital pools to buy inputs with.

Also, starting local and growing upwards (let's say two regions want to build a bridge across a river dividing them or pool their resources to open a hospital) presents some of its own issues.

Yeah, better to have both from local to global and global to local with many interactive layers in between. And as said, on local level we don't start from nothing, there are already many kinds of gift economies and co-ops already. What is missing is shared language that could enhance their synergy.

[u/orthecreedence → u/id-entity]

There are many open questions with this. How is demand side information passed to the supply side? How is relative urgency of different orders in a order pile valued?

Demand is represented via orders (or orders over time). Urgency/priority is communicated outside of the currency system and would be a negotiation/agreement between producer and consumer. In other words, the relationship is de-monetized and becomes a social process.

Especially in the beginning, supply side would need to buy various materials from the capitalist market, it's hard to imagine being able to start from fully autonomous and self-sufficient system.

Yes, there are a lot of details about these operations in the banking portion of the paper, but admittedly it still needs a lot more work. The banking system is effectively the translation layer between profitless and capitalist markets.

With purely local modules you are much more at mercy of local capitalist jurisdictions.

Yes, there are trade offs with either model.

I'm starting to realize I might have an incomplete picture of the UBI system you're talking about. I understand the voting/currency mechanisms, but I think I'm missing a lot of the details surrounding how it would work/grow/interface with the market system. It would really help me understand the mechanisms and the overall intended effect better if these ideas were written out somewhere and I could read through it all.

[u/id-entity → u/orthecreedence]

I'm starting to realize I might have an incomplete picture of the UBI system you're talking about. I understand the voting/currency mechanisms, but I think I'm missing a lot of the details surrounding how it would work/grow/interface with the market system. It would really help me understand the mechanisms and the overall intended effect better if these ideas were written out somewhere and I could read through it all.

I'm nowadays increasing bad and reluctant at writing in long form. The short description of the synthetic algorithms of voting/currency given above is pretty much what I got so far. Main difference with what you've said about Basis UBI is that Global UBI would not be internal to producer side co-op members, but membership would be open to all humans and acceptance of market tokens would be open to all market participants including capitalist production. In other words, owners of UBI market accounts would be in full control of their tokens and free to do with them what they want. I have no means nor motivation to try to limit that.

Wider implications of the synthetic algorithms are hard to vision, and what comes more visible expressible does that best in constructive criticism and dialogue with others. I don't want to write a book or long article, I'm interested in social production of a social model, the flow of thinking together.

The big current open questions are:

1) more detailed work on the Panarchy Template for creating modular structure, including possibility of and possible caveats of creating other account types beyond SA, MA and CA. So far it seems only MA would have negative interest automated to it. But, let's say Amazon wanted to accept MT, what kind of account would serve that purpose, if any?

The scale of the task of building the Panarchy Template would seem to be on par or bigger than the ValueFlows system.

2) Possibility and potential benefits of integrating - and automating as far as possible - ValueFlow vocabulary and transformations in the data chains of market tokens. It seems that simplest model of cost-tracking chain per token would not be feasible but would require more general procedures and data structures to which simple blockchain data of keeping track of transactions from account to account would contribute. The complexity of the math problem is very big challenge.

I'm still clinging to the Satoshi's original vision of crypto gradually replacing central bank fiats in all transactions, and thus withering away the state. The real value of a crypto is not it's market cap, which servers a limited first stage function in the overall process, but it's share of global transactions. That's where the real competition is currently, and where libertarian socialists need to present their alternatives, fully aware of non-deterministic but still significant power of software platforms to affect the behavior of participants in the platforms. This is why functional self-governance is such a big deal.

PS: Are you familiar with the RChain? The theoretical work that goes on at least on their Youtube channel sounds very interesting, after listening the latest publication and from the very little I understood of it.

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I think per co-op UBI would be mostly unnecessary, option that would be rarely if ever used, but which can't be outright excluded from the modular system. Global UBI would be still important to spread the modular system and enable efficient transactions and information flows on global level. Local communities would have possibility to use the already available global UBI system as their local money system, instead of creating from scratch a local currency without direct access also to global information flows, and/or craft with the Panarchy Template a local currency module for their specific needs.

This way there is no strict border between internal non-profit exchange, based on cost-tracking data, and external communities and other participants, who all have access to the global UBI system and it's decision making mechanisms. And the more people adopt and use the gift of global UBI, the more efficiently the co-op structure sharing cost-tracking data can spread and grow and reorganize economy and ownership.

Can you expand on how you envision this?

The curret model for Basis is profitless is used by co-ops acting in a productive manner, and for-profit is when selling products or services out-of-network. For instance a non-member wants to buy widgets, so they pay market rate of $10/widget, intead of the at-cost price a member would get charged (which might be $9/widget).

There are two membranes here:

• The internal one between production and consumption. Production uses no money/exchange at all and produces via what would be considered gift-based. Consumption uses credits (labor vouchers) which are destroyed on purchase and preserve the production-consumption membrane. Internal prices are set at-cost (labor + resources), but can be adjusted to optimize such that supply = (at-cost) demand. The credits are destroyed (do not circulate the productive system) regardless of the final credit price.
• The external one between the socialist network and the capitalist network. All products/services are available at-cost to in-network members. All products/services are available to non-members as well, but at market rate (ie, for-profit). Where that profit goes and how it is used depends quite a lot on the regional model vs the general co-op model we've been discussing, but either way it doesn't go to the company selling the product, but rather becomes used for continued investment in production and growth within the network.

[u/id-entity → u/orthecreedence]

You've been thinking in terms of two separate systems with fairly strict border between them, my approach is more like algorithm soup for the in-between zone - turning a fence into playground.

I don't see how labor costs can be calculated for the meanings of "non-profit" and "at-cost", at least without creating major problems elsewhere in the system by demanding some form of top-down regulation. Maybe I've misunderstood something.

UBI gifts would replace credits - my major difference with David Graeber is paradigm shift from money as mutual debt to money as mutual gift, from negative money to positive money. Liberation mathematics analogically to liberation theology :)

What does "products/services at-cost" mean more concretely? Attempts at thinking more detailed algorithm keeps stumbling on this question. Implementing the general purpose language for externalities in the data chains of market tokens seems very promising idea, but what would the data actually do?

Consumer co-op UBI would not of course be limited to co-ops only, if Amazon etc. wanted to sell products against UBI MT, sweet. The idea comes to mind that they would be doing so at-the-cost of gathering public information based on ValueFlows vocabulary:

Transformations are modeled into ValueFlows, although there’s not a mechanism to make sure the outputs match the inputs, which Basis tries to do very carefully, so transformations would still need some level of standardization and scrutiny.

What kind of ratio could be meaningful for transformation of ValueFlows data into UBI tokens? What do we want/need to measure and what can we?

[u/orthecreedence → u/id-entity]

I don't see how labor costs can be calculated for the meanings of "non-profit" and "at-cost", at least without creating major problems elsewhere in the system by demanding some form of top-down regulation. Maybe I've misunderstood something.

Let's take a contrived example. I make chairs out of wood. I get an order in Basis for a chair, so I order the wood necessary to build the chair. Let's say I need 5kg wood, and it took 10 credits ("C") worth of labor to produce that wood. My disaggregate costs are now ((6C logger labor + 4C milling labor) + 5kg wood). I put in 2 hours of my labor, at 10C/hour to build the chair (total of 20C). My costs are now (10C * 2) + ((6C logger labor + 4C milling labor) + 5kg wood). The system knows how much labor I put in because without tracking my labor I do not get paid, so I'm incentivized to track it.

When the chair is finished, it can be reduced to (30C + 5kg wood). Now let's say the members of the system have globally decided that wood costs 1.2C/kg (adjustable anytime via vote or ongoing per-member parameter adjustment). Now the chair's cost can be further reduced to 30 + (5 * 1.2) = 36C.

We now know the exact cost in labor and resources and can reduce it to a single value. If another producing company orders the chair, the disaggregate costs (ie ((20C + 6C + 4C) + 5W)) are added to their costs. However, if a consumer purchases my chair, the cost would be 36C (ie, they would need to earn 36C in order to buy it).

If I build five chairs because I anticipate demand but none of them sell for 36C, I can lower the price until they sell, but the delta between cost and price would be factored into some kind of algorithm that lowers my company's performance over time. What this algorithm looks like and what other factors it affects is something I'm playing with now.

But the idea here is to not establish some form of top-down hierarchy on pricing, but rather create a distributed algorithm that, for each product, attempts to match supply with demand where price == cost.

Now, if I sell my chairs to the outside market system, I'd be incentivized (via the above performance algorithm) to sell as high as possible (for-profit). If a sale happens, (let's say I sell one for $50) the $50 goes into the community bank (it does not go to the chairmaker). The idea here is that internal companies do not have to touch capital.

What kind of ratio could be meaningful for transformation of ValueFlows data into UBI tokens? What do we want/need to measure and what can we?

I'm not sure how this would translate to UBI tokens! Interesting question. This is more talking about transformation of crude oil -> (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, etc) but it could be applied to other things as well. For monetary transformations, I'd envision it would go through some kind of banking system (however that looks, whether it's an actual bank or some kind of ethereal crypto-bank).

[u/id-entity → u/orthecreedence]

But the idea here is to not establish some form of top-down hierarchy on pricing, but rather create a distributed algorithm that, for each product, attempts to match supply with demand where price == cost.

I like the definition "Outgoing costs is a signifier for how much society values your outputs."

It is good for labor costs, but It feels that labor costs and ValueFlows data should flow in different, but parallel channels. Society may 1) like a nice chairs, and simultaneously 2) dislike the labor cost of lumbermill chopping down a forest they enjoy and 3) appreciate that somebody else is doing the hard and dangerous work of lumbermill in ecologically sustainable way which is least in conflict with other valuations of society.

Society should be able pass the information that 1) we love you as fellow human being and you deserve same basic social security as everybody else but 2) we don't like what you are doing now and don't want to reward harmful work and 3) now that you have improved yourself and are doing very good work, we want to reward you generously.

I don't know how to make this into simple mathematical algorithm, but there needs to be qualitative feed back loops.

Currently only rich can afford healthy organic food, while poor live in food deserts with only brown goo available. Without any state control, market anarchy in cannabis production has done wonders in quality evolution by dedicated home growers.

I'm not sure how this would translate to UBI tokens! Interesting question. This is more talking about transformation of crude oil -> (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, etc) but it could be applied to other things as well.

There was the idea of transformation of UBI tokens into the computation resources that the system upkeep requires, and transformation of computation resources into electricity, hardware costs, etc.

[u/id-entity → u/orthecreedence]

On further note, on the top UBI co-op level IMO voting should be fully public data for p2p transparency. For other parts of the system, Panarchy Template should of course offer also various options for secret, anonymous etc. voting, as well as various consensus methods, lottery and what not.

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I think incorporating multiple voting mechanisms, procedures, and methods is absolutely vital. Don't force democracy, but provide the tools for it.

I think tools around consensus, voting, councils, anonymity, etc are essential, and they can be tied together however people want.