Altered States of Monetary Consciousness $8 / month

Altered States of Monetary Consciousness delves into the evolving nature of money and economic systems, critically examining the shift towards cashless societies, the role of technology in our financial lives, and the implications of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). It explores how these changes impact society, privacy, and economic inclusion, promoting a balanced approach to understanding modern capitalism and the monetary landscape.

Economic Systems Cashless Society Technology and Finance Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) Capitalism and Corporate Influence Financial Privacy and Surveillance Money and Society Digital vs Physical Currency

The hottest Substack posts of Altered States of Monetary Consciousness

And their main takeaways

Detachment Theory

1105 implied HN points • 14 Feb 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Libertarianism Neoliberalism Individualism
  1. Attachment Theory shows that humans are naturally social and need connections with others. It's common to see different ways people connect or avoid connecting with each other.
  2. The idea of being a self-reliant individual is a myth; we are all interconnected. Our economy is built on the work of countless others that we may never meet.
  3. In today's market society, people often feel anxious and detached. It's important to understand these feelings and seek support from each other rather than just striving for individual success.

Robots don't take your job. Bosses do

821 implied HN points • 04 Feb 25
💼 Business Corporate strategy Labor Economics Technological Change Workplace dynamics
  1. Jobs are created not by robots but by the need for workers to operate businesses. Companies like Amazon rely heavily on their workers to exist.
  2. When companies automate or replace jobs with machines, it's really about the bosses choosing to spend money on technology instead of their employees. This often means fewer jobs.
  3. Economic growth doesn't necessarily mean better lives for workers. As technology advances, the pressure to keep up increases, leaving employees stressed and wanting.

How to Defend Cash in under 5 Minutes

637 implied HN points • 31 Jan 25
💰 Finance Currency Economics Digital Payments Monetary Policy
  1. Cash is important to protect against digital payment surveillance and control. Transitioning to a fully cashless society can lead to loss of personal freedom and privacy.
  2. Instead of arguing against the convenience of digital payments, it might be better to present a new perspective on why cash is valuable. Analogies can help get the message across more easily.
  3. Educating others about the risks of a cashless society takes practice. Finding quick, relatable ways to share your views can be more effective than trying to challenge established beliefs directly.

Against the Factory Farming of Creativity

1544 implied HN points • 14 Jan 25
🎭️ Culture Art Creativity Technology Society Economics
  1. The rise of AI in creativity can make it hard to trust what's real. Many people now question if an artwork or a piece of writing is made by a human or a machine.
  2. Generative AI systems often simply copy styles instead of creating unique works. This can dilute the personal stories and emotions behind the art, making it feel less authentic.
  3. There’s a growing push for an 'AI-Free' label, similar to fair trade, to signify work that comes from genuine human creativity instead of machine-generated content.

Surveillance Capitalism 2024, Wrapped

1587 implied HN points • 23 Dec 24
🕹 Technology Surveillance Data Privacy Social media Corporate Influence Digital Culture
  1. Big Tech companies are constantly watching and tracking us online to influence our choices. Unlike birdwatching, which doesn’t affect the birds, their surveillance has a real impact on our lives and decisions.
  2. Many tech companies try to make us feel comfortable with their data collection by presenting it as a personal service. They package our surveillance data in a fun way, like Spotify's yearly 'Wrapped' feature, making it seem like something we actually want.
  3. This 'wrapping' makes us expect and accept surveillance as normal. It's similar to being trained to respond to signals, and it can change how we behave, often without us realizing it.
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The Art of Crypto Kayfabe

1076 implied HN points • 11 Dec 24
💰 Finance Investing Cryptocurrency Markets Economy Monetary Policy
  1. The investment world can be likened to a wrestling league where different assets compete for your money. Each asset has its own story or gimmick to attract investors, just like wrestlers have unique personas.
  2. Bitcoin is often seen as a rebellious fighter trying to challenge the dominance of the US dollar, but it also plays a tricky game of pretending to be both a currency and an investment asset. This duality creates confusion about its true value and purpose.
  3. Like wrestling matches, the market can be influenced by emotions and narratives. The way assets are portrayed and the stories built around them affect how people perceive their worth and make investment decisions.

The Stone Soup Theory of Billionaires

1743 implied HN points • 14 Nov 24
💼 Business Economics Wealth Entrepreneurship Capitalism Industry
  1. Billionaires aren't the only ones who create big companies; they often stand out as focal points, while many workers and contributors help build the actual business. It's like the Stone Soup story, where one person starts a project, but it takes many others to make it successful.
  2. The economy works as a collective where everyone contributes and receives based on their input. Just like making soup, if you bring ingredients, you get to enjoy the final product, and if many people pitch in, the result is better for everyone.
  3. Billionaires often claim credit for creating jobs, but in reality, their wealth relies on the hard work of countless others. The billionaire benefits from workers who do the real labor, much like the Stone Souper who needs villagers to make the soup.

The Inner Civil War

1034 implied HN points • 04 Dec 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Economy Class Struggle Labor Unions Wealth Inequality Capitalism
  1. The economy has different classes like shareholders, managers, workers, and consumers, each playing a role in a complex system. Understanding these roles helps explain where money and power flow.
  2. Money acts like 'soup vouchers' that represent our claims on resources. The wealthy often accumulate a vast amount of these vouchers, leading to significant inequality.
  3. Workers often feel pressure from their bosses and compete against each other for jobs. This creates tension and can make collective action difficult to achieve.

The ASOMOCO Top 10 (2024 Edition)

226 implied HN points • 31 Dec 24
💼 Business Economics Finance Corporate Innovation Monetary Policy
  1. Corporations use simplified interfaces to interact with people, making it easier for us to deal with their complex structures. This can give them a more relatable personality, changing how we perceive them.
  2. Billionaires are often seen as uniquely gifted individuals, but this view overlooks the collaborative efforts of many people that contribute to their success. It's important to understand the collective work behind big achievements.
  3. Surveillance is becoming normalized as companies find new, clever ways to collect our data. They often spin this as a fun experience, making people look forward to sharing their information.

Money as Addiction

864 implied HN points • 15 Mar 24
💰 Finance Monetary Systems Economic History Currency
  1. Addiction can distort our sense of agency, making us act out of instinct rather than choice.
  2. Solutionism creates a narrative that presents our dependencies as voluntary choices, leading to a cycle of justification for those dependencies.
  3. Monetary systems, like addiction, can create a state of involuntary dependence presented as a state of voluntary choice, reshaping our societies and individual lives.

Intro to Economic Life 101

680 implied HN points • 19 Feb 24
💼 Business Economics Capitalism Global Markets Financial Sector
  1. Economic life can be confusing, especially for teenagers and in different societal contexts.
  2. There are common misconceptions about 'the economy' that many people unquestioningly accept.
  3. The interconnectedness of different economic scales and systems can lead to confusion and speculation in financial markets.

The Deposit Myth

481 implied HN points • 08 Mar 24
💼 Business Banking Economics Finance Education
  1. When it comes to 'bank deposits', the traditional verb-noun pairing can be misleading. The term 'deposit' typically implies something being put in, but with banks, it refers to something issued out by the bank like digital casino chips.
  2. Comparing banks to casinos can help understand the concept better. When you 'deposit' cash in a bank, it becomes their asset, and you receive digital chips as a liability. This is opposite to the usual understanding that a deposit is something put in the bank.
  3. The language around 'bank deposits' can create misunderstandings, especially in economics. An update in how we define and understand 'bank deposits' can help clear up these misconceptions and align with the actual operations involved.

Intro to Economic Life 1: Creatures on a Planet

410 implied HN points • 22 Feb 24
🚌 Education Economics Philosophy History Environment Political
  1. The economy is not separate from the planet, but rather a part of it, with everything deriving from the ecological systems of Earth. This interconnectedness should be a foundational element of economic analysis.
  2. Products we see as separate entities are actually collections of human labor and resources from the planet, with objects being made up of multiple acts of labor combined with natural elements like sunlight, air, water, and food.
  3. The illusion of separation in the economy can hide exploitative practices and hinder our ability to make informed decisions, leading to disconnection, confusion, and alienation. Understanding these interconnected processes is crucial to developing a holistic view of the economy.

The Cashless Storm

311 implied HN points • 29 Nov 23
💰 Finance Financial system Digital Payments
  1. The war on cash is driven by capitalism, not conspiracy theories.
  2. The push towards a cashless society is not a natural inevitability, but rather a narrative constructed by powerful entities.
  3. Advocacy for physical currency protection is essential for combatting the digital takeover by big finance and tech.

Zen and the Art of CBDC Analysis (Part 2)

240 implied HN points • 07 Dec 23
💰 Finance Digital Currency Monetary System Central Banking Financial Technology Global Economy
  1. Innovation trends are often blindly followed in mainstream scenes, driven by systemic forces.
  2. The CBDC debate is influenced by the inertia of the global capitalist system and the push towards automation.
  3. CBDC discussions involve various justifications like financial inclusion, cross-border payments, and adapting to the 'spirit of the times.'

5D Money (Part 1)

226 implied HN points • 16 Oct 23
💰 Finance Money Economics Philosophy
  1. The world is primarily driven by emotions, politics, and economic situations rather than just intellectual ideas.
  2. Under large-scale capitalism, some assumptions about money are presented as self-evident and unquestioned.
  3. Money is ingrained in our minds from a young age, leading to dissociation and acceptance of certain monetary models.

Tech doesn’t make our lives easier. It makes them faster

160 HN points • 04 Oct 23
🕹 Technology Impact Automation Ethics Innovation Digitalization
  1. Tech is not designed to make our lives easier, but to make them faster and more packed with tasks.
  2. Our use of technology often leads to systemic acceleration, where we do more in the same amount of time, instead of enjoying leisure.
  3. To break free from the cycle of constantly speeding up, we need to value balance, build power structures that protect us, and question the illusion that more technology equals easier lives.

The Great Migration

85 implied HN points • 01 Feb 24
🚌 Education Courses Subscribers Money Work Capitalism
  1. A new course called Economic Life 101 will be released soon in 8 installments for premium subscribers.
  2. The course is designed to cover various aspects of money and corporate surveillance capitalism.
  3. Paid subscribers will have access to the beta version of the course.

The War on Informality

59 HN points • 19 Dec 23
🎭️ Culture Society Identity Economy Technology History
  1. London's environment is becoming increasingly surveilled and formalized, with corporate and technology influences dominating the city.
  2. The push towards cashless transactions and automation in London is gradually eroding the informal economy and individual freedoms.
  3. The struggle between formal, commercialized spaces and informal, community-driven areas in London reflects broader societal shifts towards conformity and consumerism.

Zero is the Future of Money

5 HN points • 26 Jun 23
💰 Finance Crypto Decentralization Monetary Systems
  1. Mainstream money system is hierarchical and dynamic, with layers of players issuing, transferring, and redeeming money.
  2. Crypto tokens offer a rigid decentralization approach and fixed supply, but struggle to compete with the flexibility and dynamism of fiat money.
  3. A synthesis could involve blending the dynamism of credit money systems with the decentralized approach of crypto to create a more dynamic and liquid decentralization.

The Luddite's Guide to Defending Cash (Part 1)

2 HN points • 08 May 23
💰 Finance Digital Payments Resilience Privacy
  1. Cash plays a crucial role in balancing the power dynamics of digital money.
  2. The narrative of a cashless society being a 'progressive upgrade' overlooks essential aspects of financial resilience and inclusion.
  3. Digital payment systems can lead to excessive centralization, loss of autonomy, and potential privacy concerns, highlighting the importance of maintaining a balance between cash and digital options.

Designing the Moneyverse

1 HN point • 23 Nov 23
💼 Business Monetary System Monetary Policy
  1. Money is like the nervous system of the economy, influencing our actions and decisions.
  2. The monetary system can disconnect us from our actions and relationships, reducing them to numerical values.
  3. Designing an alternative monetary system requires considering purpose, paradigm, parameters, and participants.

Paymentspotting

1 HN point • 31 Aug 23
💰 Finance
  1. Money is not just a singular entity - it comes in different layers, forms, and issuers.
  2. Understanding the different types of payments can help break through common misconceptions like the One Type Of Money Illusion.
  3. Different payments, such as government money creation, loans, and cash transactions, have impacts on the overall money supply and the power dynamics between money issuers.

Zen and the Art of CBDC Analysis (Part 1)

1 HN point • 13 Feb 23
💰 Finance Central Bank Digital Currency Banking Sector Stablecoins
  1. Economies are supported by layers of money from the government, banking sector, and corporations, providing choices to citizens.
  2. The concept of a cashless society has evolved with the emergence of central bank digital currency (CBDC), sparking increasing interest and discussion.
  3. The development of CBDCs highlights a complex interplay between private sector interests, potential threats to financial stability, and the evolving role of central banks in the modern financial landscape.