Money
We -the human race- have indiscriminately consumed lots of resources from our beloved Planet Earth. At some point while studying at Texas A&M University, I came to realize that all the maladies that affect our Planet, our societies and ourselves were similar to clinical signs of a disease. In medicine, you do not focus on attacking the signs but make an effort to destroy the source of the signs. If not destroying the source of the clinical signs, these will likely come back. If you destroy the source, the clinical signs will vanish forever.
I am not writing this to convince you of anything in particular. The many problems of mankind are very complex and are due to multiple interrelated factors but I am convinced that there should be something that is causing all the mess. You may not agree with me but I soon realized that the way we use money in our societies was likely the source of the mess.
After reading here and there, I encountered many interesting facts about money and how it is often controlled by the governments to sustain their way of living. During this research, I found the work of Thomas Greco Jr. who is a leading player of a growing International Movemente to re-invent money and restore the commons (http://beyondmoney.net/). His book "The End of Money and the Future of Civilization" is a must-read for everyone.
This book is now available in Spanish: https://www.kaicron.es/tienda/el-fin-del-dinero-y-el-futuro-de-la-civilizacion/
A couple of years ago, Thomas asked me if I could translate the contents of a keynote lecture given in 2013 by Rafael Correa at the Technical University of Berlin. The whole document with the contents in Spanish and English is available upon request.
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Links of interest
Guerrilla Translation is a P2P translation collective and cooperative founded in Spain. The group is a small but international set of avid readers, content curators and social/environmental issue-focused people who love to translate and love to share. They claim not to be volunteers, but rather are building our own innovative cooperative business model which “walks the talk” of much contemporary writing on the new economy and its power to change.
The International Reciprocal Trade Association (IRTA) is a non-profit organization committed to promoting just and equitable standards of practice and operation within the Modern Trade and Barter and other Alternative Capital Systems Industry, by raising the awareness and value of these processes to the entire Global Community. Interestingly, up till today there seems to be only one member from Mexico, it is called Trade Exchange de Mexico and here is the link to their webiste: http://www.tradex.cc/index.html
Crypto currencies
Accordingly to Wikipedia, a crypto currency is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses strong cryptography to secure financial transactions, control the creation of additional units, and verify the transfer of assets. Cryptocurrencies use decentralized control as opposed to centralized digital currency and central banking systems. Here you can find some interesting examples of crypto currencies.
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
Paper published on May 24th 2009 by the enigmatic character of Satoshi Nakamoto.
A crypto ecosystem to create opportunities for young entrepreneus in Africa and beyond.
Very interesting story. You can't miss some of the great talks by Dan Larimer.
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