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1. Embed this notice
   Paul SomeoneElse (pkw@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 06:08:29 JST Paul SomeoneElse

   Wipe all debts.

   • Embed this notice
     kel (kel@mastodon.online)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 06:15:40 JST kel

     in reply to

     @pkw

     And pay back those of us who have cleared ours through sheer hard graft and relentless determination even when we were sick and had no choice but to carry on working to make the monthly payments?

   • Embed this notice
     screwlisp (screwtape@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 06:15:40 JST screwlisp

     in reply to

     • kel

     @kel
     I worry that while what was done to us was a scam, if the bad people can get their claws into Special Exemptions, the bad people will get all the Special Exemptions and stuff. So we just play it once, cleanly, forgive all debt. Since it's the worst people who are debt owners, this simple move will have huge knock-on benefits for humanity. What's it worth to live in a world in which collection agencies and debt consolidators are suddenly penniless?
     @pkw

   • Embed this notice
     screwlisp (screwtape@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 06:24:57 JST screwlisp

     in reply to

     • kel

     @kel
     No. I identify that similarly to loansharks (ie trying to loanshark the loanshark). I think we should continue living like we do, but that all the money privately and nationally going to servicing debt should be suddenly and permanently halted by fiat, and we just let the sun rise without trying to own it somehow.
     @pkw

   • Embed this notice
     kel (kel@mastodon.online)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 06:24:58 JST kel

     in reply to

     • screwlisp

     @screwtape @pkw

     So what you are saying is, I should actually just finally give up entirely, get as much into debt as I possibly can, do whatever the hell I want. screw working for a living and paying my dues and just pray what you are hoping for comes off?

   • Embed this notice
     kel (kel@mastodon.online)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 06:47:48 JST kel

     in reply to

     • screwlisp

     @screwtape

     I am struggling with this so much.

     So if I loan my friend £100 I am one of the worst people in the world?

     Or if my friend loans me some cash, literally as has just happened today, he is now one of the worst people in the world?

     Is it the loaning, or the interest charging that's the problem?

     Why not just outlaw loans or charging interest?

   • Embed this notice
     screwlisp (screwtape@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 06:47:48 JST screwlisp

     in reply to

     • kel

     @kel
     Yesterday I was just reading open letter https://www.clubofrome.org/cop-reform-2024/ .

     Basically the worst people took advantage of legal loopholes in the small global effort to address the climate crisis to get others into worse debt situations to them.

     I don't think your description of giving a friend-in-need $100, with some expectation that they return the favour if the situations reverse, resembles that at all.

   • Embed this notice
     kel (kel@mastodon.online)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 06:47:49 JST kel

     in reply to

     • screwlisp

     @screwtape

     Nope, never going to happen. The only way this would work is that if you never let anyone have another loan ever again!

     It would set a precedent that people would expect loads to be paid off at some point in the future, no one would work, everyone would just get into debt.

   • Embed this notice
     kel (kel@mastodon.online)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 07:05:35 JST kel

     in reply to

     • screwlisp

     @screwtape

     I don't disagree.

     But I am still struggling of the idea of just cancelling debt like that. Where do you draw the line? Are you going to wipe out all national debt? Wipe out all currency debt and return to a gold standard? Let people with new mortgages just have their property? What about people who rent, do they qualify and just take the property from the owner? Would I be banned from repaying my friend?

     And as I say, can we ever have loans again if you do this?

   • Embed this notice
     screwlisp (screwtape@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 07:05:35 JST screwlisp

     in reply to

     • kel

     @kel
     which people on your street will be proximally hurt by debt vanishing? I understand the feeling of not-being-one-getting-your-money-back-from-a-pyramid-scam when the scam is caught. I think that pointing at the people, one by one, whose lives are changed by across-the-board debt cancellation would help you understand my intuition here. Pointing out that this would discourage making money as a loanshark in the future seems like a latent benefit.

   • Embed this notice
     screwlisp (screwtape@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 07:07:56 JST screwlisp

     in reply to

     • kel

     @kel
     We might have read different things. For example, (Ucal?) my thinking is influenced by that recent paper on how on its inspection it's impossible to save-your-way-out-of-poverty and so forth.

   • Embed this notice
     screwlisp (screwtape@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 07:13:46 JST screwlisp

     in reply to

     • kel
     • Settolino Tonami 𓁣 probably

     @kel
     Well, I know a bit of the applied mathematics sought for finance, for example (I was tricked! No-one told me this subject "was finance"!). Let's retire to our own pondering for now. (Well, I will).
     @setto
     Good pondering though

   • Embed this notice
     Settolino Tonami 𓁣 probably (setto@s.basspistol.org)'s status on Tuesday, 19-Nov-2024 07:13:48 JST Settolino Tonami 𓁣 probably

     in reply to

     • screwlisp
     • kel

     @screwtape@mastodon.sdf.org @kel@mastodon.online The french revolution is taught in history classes all over the world. Yet about 10 years after, napoleon became an emperor and everything the people had put in motion was co-opted. What is not so commonly discussed is that the revolution and napoleons empire settled the metric system. This was a formidable change as it simplified so many trade processes and data exchanges between scientist. It had an interesting side effect though: interest on loans were outlawed by the catholic church. In a world where every other region is going from base 6, to 12 via 20 and what not, calculating interest was close to whichcraft. But the metric system simplified this to an extend where even the pope could understand it. Well, understand the math and the potential profit, and thus interest on loans became legal.
     
     i often think about this annecdote when i hear about the US student loan system. And when i do, my tinfoil cats start singing. Imagine a nation where interest on a loan is permitted, but only the rocket scientists and intelectuals get to be accustomed to interest's fundamental mathematical pattern.