Humane Money 4

Part 3: When and how to start:

The when is easy to answer: now. There is nothing preventing the immediate opening of the HMA nor the immediate crediting of Hours to each account holder whoever they are, wherever they live.

The how is a bit more difficult. It will require some seed funding of old-school commodity money for equipment and personnel, but in contrast, will require firm resistance to using old-school organizational models so that BSHTRS are kept at bay. Naturally, the more seed money and the more dynamic the leadership, the quicker things can be accomplished (and the greater the risk of BSHTRS influence). As soon as the expanding use of Hours allows, the HMA will operate entirely using Hours to cover expenses.

Initially, other than seed funding and leadership, the biggest two hurdles will be in reaching a broad enough base of account holders to create confidence that Hours are a safe medium for economic conversations, aka, transactions - this might occur most readily in otherwise impoverished, commodity money poor areas. The other major hurdle will be developing the methods for ensuring that each person participating has one, and only one, HMA account so that each account holder is properly assessed the EEF commensurate with the demands each places on the community's productive capacity. In other words, strong fraud and corruption prevention protocols. At the same time, transactions must not be so difficult that use is discouraged.

There is still much detail left untouched in this brief pitch that needs to be fleshed out. In particular, the process of selecting and retaining the governor of the HMA needs to leap-frog past all customary models to help ensure the exclusion of BSHTRS and reduce gamesmanship to a minimum. And the foundational rules constraining the HMA need to be clearly written. These are the points where the innovative democracy part comes in.

I think any perceived barriers are surmountable and I think there's no reason to wait or solicit the buy-in of unwilling governments or unwilling BSHTRS. Assuming an initial core of enthusiasts who have a committed preference for the peace, love, and happiness concept, i.e., for equality, we can immediately initiate a UHM system which helps to approach the preferred end of the continuum.

Plan A

Ideally, the HMA will be set up as a fully independent agency under the auspices of a legitimate branch of Earth government, e.g., the United Nations. However, I cannot imagine any of the current Earth Government branches accepting such a humane, forward thinking policy: too many sacred cows and traditions, too many BSHTRS hovering around the honey wagon. And, even if there was interest, the process of establishing the HMA would take years at best; it's the herding humans problem. Tougher than herding cats – much tougher.

It could perhaps be more quickly done by a governmental unit at a higher, more local level, but since the HMA is plainly non-territorial, that would require the local government to consciously and firmly acknowledge the HMA's world government status. It would also require the local government to accept that it would eventually give up its local tax revenue monopoly, a pill that most such governments would be loath to swallow. (Historically, governments have clung to monopoly with all the eager enthusiasm observed among private sector power players.) And the herding problem still remains.

Plan B:

It may well be that formal support from any formal government will never be expressed. Consequently, a political party, philanthropist, business person, social celebrity, or similar voice might be a more likely route to facilitate getting over the initial hump, assuming one could be found that had no BSHTRS expectations. There's also building from the grassroots, perhaps through a secure, non-exploitive game-like app which would softly ease people into UHM and the HMA. Honest support from a strong organization would go a long way toward overcoming the perhaps inevitable resistence of established political-economic institutions.

Plan C:

Promote and eventually implement one of the current, commodity money proposals for a universal basic income (UBI), or some form of guaranteed minimum income (GMI), with some form of 'baby bond' provision as well. The chief problem here is that from the outset it would likely not make a clear correlation between humans, communication, time, and money, thus leaving the concept of money stuck in the primitive, neolithic model. Also, because funding under commodity money models would be difficult, it fails the KISS standard. Plus, once such an old-school UBI or GMI was initiated, it would be very difficult to move away from the money-is-a-product-of-The-Economy concept, under which money must be somehow first extracted from The Economy before it can be distributed. That, essentially, would still be a first-the-work-then-the-money slavery model.

Plan D:

Some weird and tricky combination of UHM and UBI, or some partial implementation for means tested populations, or some other micro-management demanding structure. This seems the most complicated of approaches, likely to cause confusion and also be the most vulnerable to BSHTRS shenanigans. I rate it bonkers.

Overall, Plan B seems the most likely. Plan A requires a formal government to take a risk and to commit to equality. The only advantage in Plan C I can immediately see (I see none for Plan D) is that a UBI or GMI is more familiar and is more vulnerable to BSHTRS. Thus it might be more likely to gain traction and therefore might be more readily supported by a formal government. But those advantages are compromised by the inherent complexity involved, the inherent retention of first-the-work-then-the-money, and by the difficulty of effecting improvements once a framework has been established.

In any case, it is paramount to clearly and steadfastly affirm that money is absolutely nothing other than a form of communication and therefore a human right, and that any taint of first-the-work-then-the-money is absolutely nothing other than an iteration of slavery.