Today I look at the most valuable, and most scarce currency of all - time, and how the implicit value of our human life spans and attention is been made explicit by new "time banking" alternative currency networks and models.
From TimeRepublik, that allows network participants to bank, save and trade 15 minute blocks of time, though to ageing, de-growing China's "time banking" of social security acts of service, thunking of time as currency opens up new opportunities and more complexity to the way we think about trade, value and fairness.
Can "soul bound" time banks be a more fair alternative to globalist fiat dollar capitalism ? or are they straight out of a sci-fi cyberpunk dystopia where the rich and powerful can more literally take possession of the lives of the poor?
Is a time-based meritocracy more or less fair than the winner-takes-all talent "meritocracies" we have today?
Can pricing time more explicitly get us to value it (and each other) more? - Or less?
What other alternative and community currency alternatives have you spotted that could augment or challenge fiat hegemony?
Let me know!
Read more:
Time banks and bartering : https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65397192
Time banking against collapsing population pagodas: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202201/1246506.shtml
Dystopia utopia? We decide : https://thoughtleader.co.za/a-world-where-time-replaces-money-as-currency/
Selling yourself (explicitly) : https://whatthefuturenow.com/2020/03/06/trading-personal-futures-discounting-or-investing-in-the-future/
Circles UBI : https://epicenter.tv/episodes/365/
Time millionaires