1. Communities around the world issue their own currencies independent of the dollar (believe it or not, this is as important for financial stability as not just relying on Facebook’s server farms in California)
2. They give their members a UBI in the local currency that they can only spend locally
3. The amount of daily UBI to give out is determined by the vendors in the community voting on it (monetary policy)
4. Have each vendor tagged with “food”, “clothing” etc. and apply taxes to make negative externalities more costly and withdraw money from the economy (fiscal policy)
5. Calculate statistics on how money flows locally in the smart economy and have economists make recommendations about the fiscal and monetary policies, while the population continuously gets to adjust them up and down based on these recommendations
6. Hooking up all such communities to a decentralized exchange called Intercoin, where the central currency is only held by real KYCed communities and isn’t easily susceptible to pumps and dumps by speculators and banks like Goldman Sachs, and also encourages recurring and sustainable value exchanges between communities
7. Allowing tourists to buy the local currency, and allowing individuals around the world to donate to the community and see stats how the money is being used
What problem does this one solve, and how does it solve it? To me, this just looks like how a normal currency works, "but on a computer". Is the (claimed) advantage that you can narrow the scope of a currency? I just don't see the benefits in doing so.
Well, that sounds exactly like what people said about all the other technologies that were "on a computer". Watch this exchange, for instance, between Bill Gates and David Letterman... about "this internet thing"
Technology empowers individuals and smaller communities. That's what it does throughout history. Personal computers. Personal printers. Now you can send email instead of relying on a centralized post office. VOIP disrupted Ma Bell monopolies in our lifetimes, instead of $3 a minute phone calls you can now do full videoonferencing for free. The Web instead of gatekeepers at radio, TV, magazines, newspapers, etc.
In all of those cases, you could question why "on a computer" matters. Who needs email when there are phonecalls? Who needs the Web anyway when there is email? Who needs online dating sites when there are matchmakers?
Nathan Myrhvold at Microsoft told people at Excite that "search is not a business".
Economist Paul Krugman wrote that by 2005, it would become clear that the Internet's effect on the economy is no greater than the fax machine's.
Well, these smart contracts are programmable, and you program against one widespread platform, like JVM or in this case EVM. That's a huge benefit. You can have programmable money, programmable elections, without having to deal with thousands of APIs, or as you are saying "normal" physical currency. Governments in fact also want to phase out cash, and even bank credit, and create centrally controlled "CBDCs" so your "normal" money is also under attack by your governments. China and USA and Canada have already done it and they'd love to be able to freeze people's accounts, restrict them from getting on trains, etc. It may be preferable to incarcerating them later on for years, as we do in the USA.
1. Communities around the world issue their own currencies independent of the dollar (believe it or not, this is as important for financial stability as not just relying on Facebook’s server farms in California)
2. They give their members a UBI in the local currency that they can only spend locally
3. The amount of daily UBI to give out is determined by the vendors in the community voting on it (monetary policy)
4. Have each vendor tagged with “food”, “clothing” etc. and apply taxes to make negative externalities more costly and withdraw money from the economy (fiscal policy)
5. Calculate statistics on how money flows locally in the smart economy and have economists make recommendations about the fiscal and monetary policies, while the population continuously gets to adjust them up and down based on these recommendations
6. Hooking up all such communities to a decentralized exchange called Intercoin, where the central currency is only held by real KYCed communities and isn’t easily susceptible to pumps and dumps by speculators and banks like Goldman Sachs, and also encourages recurring and sustainable value exchanges between communities
7. Allowing tourists to buy the local currency, and allowing individuals around the world to donate to the community and see stats how the money is being used
More info here for instance:
https://intercoin.org/communities.pdf
If this is too vague here is a concrete example:
https://community.intercoin.app/t/fund-for-refugees/2688