How Post-C-mates Revived Original Meaning of Money

(#3 from the Horizons Visible from My Balcony)

The shift of mental paradigm and behavioral patterns in the Post-Civilization was a consequence of a deep revision of both material and spiritual values. That shift has also inspired the rethinking of many traditional constants and concepts of the social life. As the Post-C-mates were wedded to the idea of Changes at the level of mania, they have revised, transformed and upgraded those pillars of mentality that remained unshakable in the Civilization and Gray Zone societies. For example, they have redesigned the post-truth trend on the post-fake environment (how they succeeded it was described in post #2).

One of such revised fundamental phenomena was money along with the processes and events it regulated. The Post-C-mates started from recollecting for what people invented money originally. Basing on common sense, they came to a simple conclusion that money was a conventional substitute of the values that could not be exchanged or delivered directly for various reasons. Hence, money has lost the bigger part of its significance for the Post-C-mates as the main Post-C values have shifted from the material world to the spiritual and virtual spaces. For instance, money can not act as an equivalent representing empathy as the main Post-C value.

Because of the total automatization of manufacturing and, as a consequence, reducing the cost of consumables along with the universal basic income covering all Post-C-mates, they are provided with the essential commodities unconditionally and beyond monetization at all. Being dominating values of the Post-C, the creativity, empathy, tolerance, and reputation have changed people’s attitude to consumption significantly. The consumerism became irrevocably archaic giving place to the sustainable consumption and minimalism.

Moreover, the minimalism itself has evolved to a new form in the Post-C. To be a minimalist is not about how few you own, but rather how easily you can give up owning of your possessions, how non-obsessive you are towards the material and virtual things.

The one, who owns a rare expensive car of the 1960s, can remain nonetheless a minimalist because just the aesthetics is the reason of owning this car, which is practically useless in the era of self-driven electro vehicles. This person appreciates the design and the durability of materials of this car along with its human-made nature (however, this feature will be addressed more precisely hereinafter).

Such a Post-C-mate does not demonstrate the car to other people for the snobbish or elitist reasons bragging about wealth. The one can share the car with other Post-C-mates once the shared economy has exposed everyone to taking the material objects with a light heart. Thus, the Post-C-mates appreciate any possession as a thing in itself without reference to its monetary value in most cases.

In general, any material object cannot be appreciated more than human relations in the Post-C. Money as a surrogate of material benefits became much less attractive for the Post-C mentality remaining at a time the main business driver for the C and GZ members who were kept money-obsessive.

The Post-C-mates have not refused money completely as many aspects of their social cohabitation required some different conventional regulator besides legislation. As the very perception of money has changed, no one of the Post-C-mates could even imagine how it was possible to work only for money.

Not money but other different motivating factors and business drivers push people to work in the Post-C. It just so happened that the high level of passionarity on the one hand and the unconditional income, on the other hand, changed the inspiring forces of the Post-C-mates. Focusing on spiritual and humanitarian values resulted in a deep understanding of two components of the human life. Both time and vital energy were combined in a very specific type of currency used only in the Post-C — the Attention. The Attention determines how much time and efforts someone can devote to something.

Would it be worthwhile for a community? Could it align with the “think global” mindset? How could it help to save the Planet? Which value could it bring to the humanity in general? How well does it resonate with sustainable consumption? Such questions identify the goal and motivation of any activity to be conducted in the Post-C. This is clear that the lion share of things and actions of the C and GZ can hardly meet the requirements obligatory for the Post-C.

The empathy and reputation cannot be bought for money anyhow. That’s why money has taken its initial place moved away from being idée fixe in the Post-C. Like any other convention, money is perceived in a sober and calm manner now. Despite their high-minded aspirations, the Post-C-mates are far from being muddle-headed moralists and sentimental romantics. They are pragmatic enough to understand the mere unprofitability of money domination in human relations.

Money has to leave the stage providing space for further evolution of social interactions in the Post-C. Making money at any cost became unprofitable and blatantly vulgar. The wealth and luxury became inconsistent with the main values of the Post-C-mates and therefore money run counter to the feasible modus operandi of the effective society.

Of course, money remained the main (and oftentimes the only) method of interaction between the Post-C and the rest less-developed societies. However, all financial transactions are made with cryptocurrencies based on the blockchain technology. Banks have almost disappeared from the Post-C once the mere background of their existence and activity such as financial speculations, lending, and hoarding became meaningless. The Government intervention share dropped to 5% in the Post-C. The national currencies have ceased to exist as such because the geographical locations of the States became quite blurred (the peculiarities of the physical geography in the Post-C will be described in the upcoming posts).

Being a conglomerate of the real and virtual communities the Post-C applies different cryptocurrencies for financial operations while those same communities emit the currencies. As a specific mode of payment, the real off-line cash in the forms of paper banknotes or even gold and silver coins is used in particular cases. The banknotes and coins, by the way, are issued upon request of a certain community, organization, or even startup.

The off-line cash is appreciated a lot during the so-called “meetings without lenses”, the purely off-line retreats where the Post-C-mates immerse themselves in a deep communication without any devices of the Mixed Reality (VR+AR technology). At such meetings, they use cash to sell and buy the special valuables respected very much for their origin. The above-mentioned car of 1960th is one of those valuables because it was produced in the so-called “proto-robotics era”. The human-made things and especially hand-made ones are expensive and sold for cash.

It may sound odd, but the value of things does not depend on their customization. The hyper-personalization based on the Big Data analytics has been practicing for years. The consumer-centric strategy empowered by the AI, Big Data, Internet of Everything, and robotization provided the development and manufacturing with the super-customized products and services that brought trade and marketing to the level of “industry — individual consumer”. The strategy is old enough to be practiced widely even in the C and GZ societies. That is why the hyper-personalized things produced with robotics are valued less than the ones produced by people for people in general.

The revised attitude to money allowed the Post-C-mates to nullify criminality almost completely. The traditional criminal activities have simply lost their financial background in the Post-C. The crime as such was shifted into the sphere of psychopathology. However, the cases of psychopathic behavior are rare and very unlikely to happen. The hyper-tolerance practiced by the Post-C-mates along with the new philosophy provides them with the healthy mental state. Basically, they rejected both the guilty conscience and habit of blaming (the explanation regarding the physical and mental health of the Post-C-mates will be given in one of the next posts).

So, money is neither evil nor good by itself for the Post-C-mates. They use money as one of the conventional social tools. In comparison with other forms of compensation such as the Attention (time + vital energy), or reputation the role of money is far from being critical.

Many consumables and almost all social services are delivered and distributed with no regards to monetization in the Post-C. The work and labor as the expression of the Post-C-mates’ creativity and passionarity are compensated mostly by means of other rewards than money.

Thus, money has become just… money, the pure convention a demand in which occurs not too often in the Post-C.

In the next post, we will explain how the Post-C-mates made the State Authority keep its place.