Society legitimately cannot function without debt. I agree giving people predatory “micro loans” for groceries is dystopian but every society that has discovered agriculture has also discovered the concept of debt because it’s a natural consequence of an economic order so tied to seasonal cycles. Interest is also not bad, and every society that has developed debt has also quickly developed interest. Societies that have religious prohibitions or taboos against interest find workarounds because it’s proven to be a critical part of how economics works. Personally I am glad that I was able to buy a house for hundreds of thousands of dollars I don’t have yet because I will be able to pay off that in time and I appreciate that the bank is willing to lend me that money for such a long time at a relatively low rate of return for them. The Soviet Union even had banks that offered loans with interest but they were run by the State. It’s kind of unavoidable.
Many societies also develop a system of redistribution or debt forgiveness. It’s known that too much debt accumulation in too few hands cause increasingly bigger issues or that circumstances change. But there are always those that need to learn the lesson again.
Not many societies developed a system of redistribution. We live in one of the extremely few that have, and it took a lot of smart people a lot of time (and infighting) to get into something that works.
Why was your house worth hundreds of thousands of dollars? Because we use debt. How do you think people lived for thousands of years? Home mortgages weren’t a normal thing until like 100 years ago
Societies without it found workarounds, because it’s easy. It’s tempting. It’s a money dupe glitch combined with gambling. If anyone uses it, they get an insurmountable advantage over all players who don’t. It’s moloch, it’s the demon of racing to the bottom
Yes. And FYI, micro and macro economics are bullshit. They’re easily digestible lies that don’t hold up to the real world. There’s real studies of economics going on at higher levels, but what gets boosted is essentially propaganda to justify political positions
Have you ever had a good history class, where instead of myths written by the winners they told the stories of people and how they interact? Where they break down the system into players, and go over the same event from many points of view? All the very human drives and politics, the infinite compromises that get grandfathered in, the true analysis of “how did we get here”?
The world is made up of systems. I build, analyze, and fix systems, it’s what I do. The only way to analyze a system or a change is to run it through, turning it over in your mind from one perspective after another, until you start to understand how it fits together
Know what every society in the past has done? Collapse. The ones with debt collapse after about 250 years, every time. It’s an inevitability… Some societies fail into the next iteration instead of going through a dark age, but they all collapse.
Debt creates a boom bust cycle that grows exponentially. It’s inherently unstable.
But some failed from external factors. From disease and colonization. There’s one empire that I find very interesting in that regard…the incas
Maybe they would’ve collapsed too, but their system seems a lot more stable to me. And I don’t think it had any idea of debt, of selling the future
Society legitimately cannot function without debt. I agree giving people predatory “micro loans” for groceries is dystopian but every society that has discovered agriculture has also discovered the concept of debt because it’s a natural consequence of an economic order so tied to seasonal cycles. Interest is also not bad, and every society that has developed debt has also quickly developed interest. Societies that have religious prohibitions or taboos against interest find workarounds because it’s proven to be a critical part of how economics works. Personally I am glad that I was able to buy a house for hundreds of thousands of dollars I don’t have yet because I will be able to pay off that in time and I appreciate that the bank is willing to lend me that money for such a long time at a relatively low rate of return for them. The Soviet Union even had banks that offered loans with interest but they were run by the State. It’s kind of unavoidable.
Many societies also develop a system of redistribution or debt forgiveness. It’s known that too much debt accumulation in too few hands cause increasingly bigger issues or that circumstances change. But there are always those that need to learn the lesson again.
Not many societies developed a system of redistribution. We live in one of the extremely few that have, and it took a lot of smart people a lot of time (and infighting) to get into something that works.
We just need to apply it.
Why was your house worth hundreds of thousands of dollars? Because we use debt. How do you think people lived for thousands of years? Home mortgages weren’t a normal thing until like 100 years ago
Societies without it found workarounds, because it’s easy. It’s tempting. It’s a money dupe glitch combined with gambling. If anyone uses it, they get an insurmountable advantage over all players who don’t. It’s moloch, it’s the demon of racing to the bottom
You should not be able to spend your future
People didn’t own their houses for the most part. Have you ever taken even a freshman level economics class, by the way?
Yes. And FYI, micro and macro economics are bullshit. They’re easily digestible lies that don’t hold up to the real world. There’s real studies of economics going on at higher levels, but what gets boosted is essentially propaganda to justify political positions
Have you ever had a good history class, where instead of myths written by the winners they told the stories of people and how they interact? Where they break down the system into players, and go over the same event from many points of view? All the very human drives and politics, the infinite compromises that get grandfathered in, the true analysis of “how did we get here”?
The world is made up of systems. I build, analyze, and fix systems, it’s what I do. The only way to analyze a system or a change is to run it through, turning it over in your mind from one perspective after another, until you start to understand how it fits together
Know what every society in the past has done? Collapse. The ones with debt collapse after about 250 years, every time. It’s an inevitability… Some societies fail into the next iteration instead of going through a dark age, but they all collapse.
Debt creates a boom bust cycle that grows exponentially. It’s inherently unstable.
But some failed from external factors. From disease and colonization. There’s one empire that I find very interesting in that regard…the incas
Maybe they would’ve collapsed too, but their system seems a lot more stable to me. And I don’t think it had any idea of debt, of selling the future