thank you for writing your thoughts out like this... you've given me a lot to explore and some reading recommendations... i have to say that even though we dont agree 100% on everything per say, I think your logic is very sound and maybe I was painting way to grim of a picture with my observations.
Regarding surplus... thinking about it some more, i believe you to be correct, it surely did exist before currency, it was just not commercialized o commoditized and that would have been more accurate to say of my part.
Sure thing. I've been wanting to write about the topic of the ethics of money for some time, but i do much better logically in dialogue i think. So thank you!
I may have made some mistakes in logic in my article as well, or mistakes in some of the "facts" i've reasoned from. Also, i leaned heavily toward the side of the "pros" of there being no symbolic currency within a culture, but of course there may be some negatives as well. But i've suspected that the pros of symbolic currency as usually taught to us, such as the the ease of liquidity, are overstated at best and perhaps complete myths at worst end. Something just doesn't sit right about it intuitively to me. I think that our articles combined give a good sense of the scope of the intellectual territory we're both investigating, and it'd be fascinating to continue our dialogue and illuminate that territory further. So, if anything i've said gives you a further foothold to grapple with i'd like to suggest we continue with a series of back and forth articles on the topic.
In your last paragraph you ask how people can be made aware of logical inconsistencies in their own thinking, and i know of only two ways (though there may be others) one is to incentivize it, or at the very least "decriminalize" it, the other is to demonstrate recognition of inconsistencies in "real time" while simultaneously engaging in systematic thought. That is what i've tried to do in my articles response to yours, and i'm quite pleased that you read it in the spirit intended. It's fresh air to my blacked lungs.
I remember the first time i realized that there was something one could do with their mind which i now often call "systematic thought". I was on a construction site, and there was a problem with lifting some metal panels, since we had no heavy equipment, and i watched an older friend of mine silently stare at the problem and come up with a solution. We proceeded with it, and it worked beautifully. So let me know your thoughts on my proposal, and bat back an article if you're interested in further collaboration.
All my best,
The Million Things