last edited 2013/12/28 13:38 (
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Money, a means for exchange and abstraction of value, has been issued by leaders, kings & queens, and images of their heads were put on the coins; it was the belief into the leaders which was the core, the reliability and trust derived from. The tallest buildings were churches and temples, and you could buy yourself into heaven even as it was promised.
Then came nations and unions of nations and issued more common currencies reaching beyond small regions, helping to bring politically fragmented conglomerates closer to each other, through commerce and trading. The tallest buildings were used by banks and insurances, the belief to a supreme deity shifted to more physical and materialistic aspect of life, not a believed deity took care of you, the insurance policy you bought, not to get into heaven, but be taken care of while being alive.
Now we stand at the edge were crypto-currencies test the waters, to complement state and nation issued money and perhaps replace it later altogether, and we begin to believe into mathematics and algorithms, not leaders, not banks, but sole numbers and their relations to each other, like public and private key encryption and hashing. The tall buildings are still hosting banks and insurances, yet, new massive buildings are raised to host data centers, less appealing, less impressive, and mostly neglected by the public eye, but there are the machines for the required calculations we eventually gonna believe in.
Even though it looks as if we become more and more rational, we still believe, e.g. in an abstraction as money or a currency to handle resources and distribute the responsibilities and fine tune efficiency by putting a price-tag on things - and thereby optimize the supply and demand.
Belief can move mountains it is said, well it certainly can make each one of us do things due the shared belief in something. Belief isn't something foolish, it is the glue to do something we cannot see and use immediately - ground bases to reach out for transcendence: churches, temples, banks, insurances, and now data centers.
2010: India
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2008: Zug - Bern - Zug
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2004: USA: Denver - Sedona
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