Comments on: Tim Boucher Dollars?

By: Social Money: “Get Rich And Make Your Friends Rich” - To[p oBcultu]re

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:32:03 +0000

[...] An Indian website is offering the equivalent of what I was describing as Tim Boucher Dollars. Social Money program is an innovation by Indyarocks where the members will be rewarded for their day to day interaction with friends and family and it is also a way to reward user generated content (UGC). [...]

By: Julia

Julia — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:39:21 +0000

Instead of the technical considerations of a web site figure out the technical considerations of building a Light Saber. I thought the comment section was pretty close to an answer when that topic was current. Build it and they will come.

By: Tim Boucher

Tim Boucher — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 07:54:35 +0000

What the hell?

By: Julia

Julia — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 00:42:31 +0000

whatever for t-shirts or books or audio recordings or something[...]assload of technical considerations

Like how to built a Light Saber. I want a Light Saber. Remember a long time ago there were a lot of posts about building them? Something about red being green in another dimension and visa versa?

By: speedbird

speedbird — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:46:53 +0000

One of the big questions is: if you can print money, who do you give it to? As far as I can see, conventional paper currencies are intricately tied to stocks and shares: you turn a dollar into a share, increase the value tenfold, and that’s like printing nine dollars. But there are certainly other ways to do it.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:34:00 +0000

I think it’s a good idea. I would totally pay for a Pop Occulture t-shirt with real money, though. But it would have to be a cool one. The problem with your idea is that the money has to come from somewhere, and if this really is a community, then that shouldn’t be from your pocket. That would be stupid.

By: Tim Boucher

Tim Boucher — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 18:02:15 +0000

http://www.altruists.org/ideas/economics/altruistic/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LETS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_%28Slashdot%29#Moderation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egoboo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_capital
http://www.digital.udk-berlin.de/en/pr...mmer07/haupt/bodytech/googlering.html

By: Crystal

Crystal — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:52:05 +0000

This site looks promising, but the links only point to the person’s LiveJournal page.

By: Tim Boucher

Tim Boucher — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:50:36 +0000

Charlie Stross talks about similar in Accelerando, with sort of public trust ratings or something. I forget the term exactly.

Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_scarcity

Wasn’t David Bowie also publicly trading on his catalog or something for a while too? Is that still going on? Anybody know or can find more info on that?

By: Crystal

Crystal — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:46:26 +0000

Whuffie.

The usual economic incentives have disappeared from the book’s world. Whuffie has replaced money, providing a motivation for people to do useful and creative things. A person’s Whuffie is a general measurement of his or her overall reputation, and Whuffie is lost and gained according to a person’s favorable or unfavorable actions. The question is, who determines which actions are favorable or unfavorable? In Down and Out, the answer is public opinion. Rudely pushing past someone on the sidewalk will definitely lose you points from them (and possibly bystanders who saw you), while composing a much-loved symphony will earn you Whuffie from everyone who enjoyed it.

[...]

There are few details in the book about how this system actually worked; most of the explanations given are very general, like this one: “Whuffie recaptured the true essence of money: in the old days, if you were broke but respected, you wouldn’t starve; contrariwise, if you were rich and hated, no sum could buy you security and peace. By measuring the thing that money really represented â€” your personal capital with your friends and neighbors â€” you more accurately gauged your success”.

By: Samuel Bowles’ Local Scrip - Pop Occulture

Samuel Bowles’ Local Scrip - Pop Occulture — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:40:48 +0000

[...] Very interesting in relation to the Tim Boucher Dollars idea: FEDERAL currency was in short supply during the Great Depression, so local banks, stores, town governments and others with initiative issued their own scrip. In Springfield, Massachusetts, the publisher of the Springfield Union News, Samuel Bowles, began to pay his employees in scrip redeemable at local stores, which used it to pay for advertisements in the newspaper. Seeing Bowles regularly and knowing his character, locals developed more confidence in his dollars than federal money, which helped the Springfield economy stay relatively healthy during those hard times. [...]