Bruce Sterling on Mon, 4 Mar 2002 01:44:02 +0100 (CET)


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[Nettime-bold] FW: MIT Scientist Discovers 'Anti-Money'



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From: "futurefeedforward" <fff@futurefeedforward.com>
Date: Sun, 03 Mar 2002 13:06:13 -0800
To: <bruces@well.com>
Subject: MIT Scientist Discovers 'Anti-Money'



September 16, 2103

MIT Scientist Discovers 'Anti-Money'

BOSTON--In a paper published recently in the journal Science, MIT Professor
Marguerite Fury reports establishing experimentally the existence of
'anti-money', a bizarre economic phenomena linked by Professor Fury to a
host of hypothesized 'quantum economic' processes underlying all matter.
"Experimental confirmation of at least one of my theoretical predictions
tells me I'm on to something," notes Professor Fury.  "This result will feed
my thinking for some time."

    Described by Professor Fury as nearly indistinguishable, co-consuming
packets of 'quantum monies', anti-money is not the absence of money, but its
opposite.  Professor Fury explains:  "At the scale of everyday economic
phenomena, we tend to think of money and debt as complementary opposites,
but their opposition is, in fact, quite weak.  They actually work in balance
to permit the construction of large-scale economic entities.  Anti-money is,
in contrast, opposed to conventional money at a more fundamental level;
whenever money and anti-money come in contact, the two are annihilated,
leaving only a consumer residue."

    Because anti-money is annihilated in the presence of its opposite,
observation of anti-money required Professor Fury to construct a monetary
vacuum.  This vacuum, entirely devoid of money, lacked also all traces of
debt, because of debt's close association with 'positive monetary phenomena'
like interest accrual and periodic payments.  And, because of the possible
influence of economic processes attached to the observer, Professor Fury
herself had to occupy the center of the financial vacuum.

    "It's really quite difficult to rid yourself of all vestiges of economic
activity," notes Fury.  "I had to not only discharge all of my own assets
and liabilities, but also to disclaim any social benefits my new economic
status might entitle me too.  Try convincing a government bureaucrat that
you don't want any benefits.  It's not easy.  And, on top of that, I had to
quit my job.  I was almost up for tenure."

    After a number of days spent "wandering in the woods, naked and alone,"
Professor Fury returned to the lab and activated a 'program trading
accelerator' generating within moments billions of 'wash sales', or
transactions in which offsetting assets are both bought and sold.  Though
wash sales have little or no positive economic consequence, assets moving at
high transaction-velocity generate infrequent 'friction collisions' and
'asset-inversions' thought to throw off infintesimal packets of monies and
anti-monies.

    Though indistinguishable from conventional money, anti-money would,
Professor Fury predicted, be observable because of the consumer residue that
would remain after the money and anti-money generated by her program trading
met and was annihilated.

    "It was a moment of the most profound sublimity," recalls Professor
Fury.  "There I stood, naked, filthy, shivering in the lab, waiting by the
trading console, fearing for the worst.  Then, there it was, the consumer
residue, forming like a dew upon the table.  Just a few droplets that I
tasted before I could think:  Coca-Cola, the footprints of my long-sought
anti-money."

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