A currency for the Anthropocene: de-ponzi-fying the future

Homo Sapiens has used stories and myths to progress. Throughout history, we have rallied around a singular cause that we believe is worth something and spontaneously managed to live in larger groups than 150 people[1]. As far as we know, only Homo Sapiens can talk about things it has never seen, touched, or smelled: religions, myths, legends, and fantasies. Language and the ability to share myths and stories allow Homo sapiens to collaborate in large numbers in extremely flexible ways. This separates Homo Sapiens from all other animals and since this Cognitive Revolution, humans have been living in a dual reality: the physical reality and the imagined reality. The way people cooperate can be changed by changing the stories we tell.

One of the most successful stories to date has been the story of money. Money has replaced religion as the rallying cry of our age. It unifies groups of people beyond countries and religions, and shapes our planet. It motivates people, it depresses them, liberates them and is fought over. It is how we measure success, its is the tool we use to establish a communication on a consensual value. It is the heart of every economic system: how items are accounted for and who controls how things are valued drives every transaction and shapes the social structure within which they take place.

However, as the money story is currently told, it is also a story that has maneuvered us into a hell of our own making, a cul de sac of cosmic proportions. The cul de sac is the…