Here are some relevant quotes by Eliezer from a discord discussion on dath ilan currency: Note that i have skipped parts of the conversation between each paragraph
dath ilan does have an artificial currency used as a medium-of-exchange, meant to track the value of unskilled labor hours (note unskilled qualifier) as they’re regularly auctioned in Taskrabbit-like markets about that, and this currency also serves as the notional definition of a medium of account because it fluctuates less than unskilled labor prices.
Nobody is supposed to be holding currency; it’s strictly a medium of exchange to instantiate a unit of account, not at all a store of value. Value is held in investment accounts.
the unit of the account affects quite a lot because people do negotiate contracts about future delivery of milk, priced that way, and many small businesses prefer not to adjust all the prices on their Web Page on a daily basis.
there’s also a coordination problem when you have a complicated supply chain; everyone wants to be first in line to raise prices, but everyone wants to be last in line to lower prices
yep. dath ilan’s system is not meant to be superior to an NGDPLT-indexed inflationary unit of account, holding fixed the part about stores of value being held mainly in equities and the land taxes and so on. they’re just legit not at the optimum there and got to their current position via NGDPLT having not been invented by the time of the historical screen, and earlier generations being not quite that smart and being much more bullheaded about “downward nominal wage rigidity is a BIAS and we will TRAIN PEOPLE OUT OF IT and COORDINATE AROUND LOWERING PRICES SUCCESSFULLY so we can RETAIN OUR IDEALISTIC COMMITMENT to the unit of account being something that EVERYONE COULD PERSONALLY SELL”
Thanks for the info, I’m not active in the discord but will consider joining now, sounds interesting. As I understand it, the “NGDPLT-indexed inflationary unit of account” is not the “fraction system” I proposed, and in fact Eliezer thinks that using inflation-deflation is adequate because even utopian coordination and higher average intelligence are not enough for everyone in the economy to simply behave adequately. Now I wonder if the system can simply be so sane that deflation in particular will not have a negative effect and people will simply efficiently preserve jobs, set and accept prices, and market cap is stable and close to GDP, etc. If it is really possible to train people out of bias or create a system with lower structural bias so to say.
Here are some relevant quotes by Eliezer from a discord discussion on dath ilan currency:
Note that i have skipped parts of the conversation between each paragraph
Thanks for the info, I’m not active in the discord but will consider joining now, sounds interesting. As I understand it, the “NGDPLT-indexed inflationary unit of account” is not the “fraction system” I proposed, and in fact Eliezer thinks that using inflation-deflation is adequate because even utopian coordination and higher average intelligence are not enough for everyone in the economy to simply behave adequately. Now I wonder if the system can simply be so sane that deflation in particular will not have a negative effect and people will simply efficiently preserve jobs, set and accept prices, and market cap is stable and close to GDP, etc. If it is really possible to train people out of bias or create a system with lower structural bias so to say.