Broken Stuff 0 – 3D Printing 1

Recently, I got a package with broken stuff in it. It was actually some shelves with doors, and the broken part was that plastic part that contains magnets which hold the doors closed. Here is a picture of what I received:What generally happens in this kind of circumstance is that people will complain and return the package, then get another brand new article. That’s a lot of wasted transport and energy for such a little missing piece.

So I decided to 3D print the part. In the process, I decided to make it more ergonomic. Those white plastic parts are generally a little sharp and can even scratch your hand if you’re not careful. So I designed a round one. I also had some round magnets around and I decided to use those rather than the stock ones which are rectangular.

As the shelves were made of wood, I also printed that part with wood PLA. Here is the resulting piece with the original near it:

Then I glued the magnets in place:

And here is the final result:

Isn’t that much cooler than the original? I love 3D printing!

Planned Obsolescence, 0 – 3D Printer, 1

It is not the first time that I fix something with 3D printing. But this one was an interesting one!

The problem

A few years ago, I bought two stands for my microphones. Okay, they were inexpensive, and maybe it was a bad long-term choice. Maybe I should have opted for more expensive ones. But I have noticed that higher prices don’t always mean better quality. These days, they often mean higher reseller margins.

Anyway, both stands were poorly designed. Even though they did last several years, they finally broke recently, roughly at the same time. Unsurprisingly, the faulty piece is a part made of plastic. It sustains high pressure on a very small surface. And after a while, it just gave in. I believe that, without me noticing, cracks developed over time, until they became big enough to break the piece completely:

As you can see, it is pretty bad. Of course, I couldn’t find spare pieces, especially as these are already “old” (anything beyond a year is “old” nowadays). And without this piece, the stands are totally unusable.

Reflexes…

The first reflex was: it’s cheap stuff, I can buy new stands! Why bother for 20 euros?

But apart from this broken piece, those stands are in perfect condition and they could serve their purpose for many more years. Why pay? Why extract more metals from the Earth, build more plastic pieces mostly from petroleum, more rubber from trees or worse from petroleom again, use energy to forge, heat, assemble, then use again more energy to ship those new stands to me or go and fetch them from a local store – where they would have been shipped from somewhere anyway? And dispose from transport boxes that kill trees? As well of course as disposing from the broken stands. And as a result buy new stands in a few years when those new ones will break?

I didn’t actually want any of that, especially as I have the “Planned Obsolescence Killer” at home : a 3D printer!

Compared to all the waste of buying brand new stands, printing a piece is quite environment-friendly: it does use some electricity (not much), and I mainly print using PLA, which is basically made of… corn. This material does have its pros and cons, but it is certainly better than petroleum-based plastic.

Designing a solution

I spent some time designing a solution. This piece allows the axis to be rotated to the desired angle, and it is a functionality that is really needed for this kind of object! So even though there were many alternative ways of fixing that stand, I wanted to stick with the original design as much as possible.

On the other hand, printing this kind of piece with PLA was going to get me in the exact same trouble in a few years: the plastic would certainly not resist the pressure. I could also print with nylon, but I try to avoid it as much as possible due to environmental concerns. Besides, given the pressure on that piece, I wouldn’t be so sure that even nylon would resist for a long time.

I first thought of adding washers to maximize the surface in contact, but I finally came up with using nuts with a ring base.

3D modelling and printing

Here is one part of the final model:

I heated the printer and printed the pieces:

Results

That piece has two other pieces which hold the nuts in place and stop them from turning, even if the pressure actually isn’t a rotating one but a pulling one.

Mounting the nuts in place and putting one of the pieces in its socket:

The socket for the second piece is clearly visible. The final mounted piece:

And now it was just a matter of putting it instead of the old piece:

Et voilà ! Both stands are fixed with just a few grams of PLA. I think they will last some more years. In fact, I believe this kind of thing should last at least for a lifetime. But then, how would we sustain “economic growth” to pay for growing banking interests?

Une page web pour le système majeur de mémorisation des nombres

Cher lecteur, si tu connais déjà tout sur le système majeur, tu peux sauter directement à la solution. Pour les autres, vous apprendrez quelque chose en lisant l’article en entier ! Et pour les plus impatients, la page web est là : https://jytou.fr/majeur/?n=15

Pour la plupart des gens, mémoriser des grands nombres est un défi qui s’arrête très vite. À grand peine, on arrive avec le temps à mémoriser des grands nombres par la répétition, année après année, comme le numéro de sécurité sociale ou les numéros de téléphone, qu’on arrive généralement à mémoriser seulement le jour où on en change.

Le système majeur

Et pourtant, nous avons à notre disposition des méthodes qui permettent de mémoriser des grands nombres, dont une très populaire qui fonctionne par associations de sons : le système majeur, parfois aussi appelé « Grand Système » en français. Nous devrions tous apprendre cette méthode à l’école ! Cette méthode peut être utilisée dans beaucoup de langues avec quelques modifications basiques. Et pourtant, quel pourcentage de la population connaît cette méthode ? Combien l’utilisent vraiment ? Le pourcentage doit se compter sur les doigts d’une main.

Pour résumer, il s’agit juste de trouver des mots dont les consonnes prononcées correspondent aux chiffres à retenir. Par exemple, pour le chiffre « 0 » on cherchera un mot avec un son « s » ou un « z », pour un chiffre « 1 » on aura un « t » ou un « d », etc.

Voilà le tableau des correspondances généralement utilisées pour la langue française :

Nombre	Lettre	Associations visuelles
0	s, z	Le chiffre 0, zéro, produit un son sifflant.
1	t, d	Un seul trait vertical
2	n	Deux traits verticaux
3	m	Trois traits verticaux
4	r	La lettre r se retrouve dans quatre en français, four en anglais, vier en allemand, etc.
5	l	La lettre L ressemble au chiffre romain L (50)
6	j, ch, sh	La lettre j manuscrite ressemble à un 6 inversé
7	k, c, g	La lettre K ressemble à deux 7 accolés. G est phonétiquement proche de k.
8	f, v, ph	Deux lettres f ressemblent à un 8. V est phonétiquement proche de f et de ph.
9	p, b	La lettre P ressemble à un 9 inversé. P et b sont phonétiquement proches.

Bien évidemment, il ne s’agit que de conventions et comme l’apprentissage est très personnel, chacun peut faire des choix différents quant aux correspondances. En revanche, chaque changement nécessite de se poser de nombreuses questions : en choisissant telle correspondance, ne vais-je pas me retrouver dans des situations difficiles parce que je n’avais pas prévu que telle lettre n’est pas très présente dans la langue, par exemple ? Dans tous les cas, chaque changement doit être mûrement réfléchi et résister à l’épreuve de la pratique.

Une fois les conventions adoptées, il s’agit de les tester avec des cas concrets et des chiffres à retenir. L’un des défis est de trouver rapidement des mots correspondant aux chiffres puis de les assembler en une suite de mots qui veut dire quelque chose, même si c’est un peu loufoque. D’ailleurs, plus c’est loufoque, plus ce sera facile à retenir. Nous mémorisons ce qui fait appel à l’émotion et à l’imagination. Si c’est trop « plat », on oublie tout de suite.

Tables apprises par cœur

Pour gagner du temps, une technique courante consiste à mémoriser des mots déjà tout prêts pour des combinaisons de deux chiffres, comme 10=tasse, etc. Voici un exemple d’un tel tableau, qu’on appelle « table de rappel » :

	0 s, z	1 t, d	2 n	3 m	4 r	5 l	6 j, ch	7 k, g	8 f, v	9 p, b
0 s, z	0 as	10 tasse	20 nasse	30 masse	40 race	50 lasso	60 chasse	70 casse	80 face	90 passe
1 t, d	1 tas	11 tata	21 natte	31 maths	41 rate	51 latte	61 château	71 cata	81 fête	91 patte
2 n	2 nez	12 tanin	22 nana	32 manne	42 reine	52 laine	62 chaîne	72 canne	82 fan	92 panne
3 m	3 mât	13 tamis	23 nem	33 maman	43 rame	53 lame	63 chameau	73 came	83 femme	93 pomme
4 r	4 rat	14 tare	24 nerf	34 mare	44 rare	54 lard	64 char	74 car	84 phare	94 part
5 l	5 la	15 talus	25 nylon	35 mâle	45 râle	55 lolo	65 châle	75 cale	85 fil	95 pelle
6 j, ch	6 chat	16 tache	26 niche	36 machin	46 ruche	56 lâche	66 chéchia	76 cache	86 facho	96 pacha
7 k, g	7 cas	17 taquin	27 nuque	37 mac	47 rack	57 laque	67 chèque	77 caca	87 fac	97 pack
8 f, v	8 feu	18 tif	28 nef	38 mafia	48 raffut	58 louve	68 chef	78 café	88 fief	98 pif
9 p, b	9 pas	19 tape	29 nappe	39 myope	49 râpe	59 lapin	69 chapeau	79 cape	89 fip	99 papa

Certains vont même jusqu’à mémoriser 3 chiffres, soit 1000 mots à associer aux 1000 premiers nombres. Bien sûr, c’est très utile pour ceux qui en font un grand usage comme les champions des concours de mémorisation. En revanche, pour les autres, c’est beaucoup de sport cérébral qui finalement risque de ne pas servir à grand-chose, à part peut-être pour briller occasionnellement en société. De manière générale, le tableau ci-dessus suffit pour un usage occasionnel. Pour ma part, je préfère mémoriser trois mots au lieu d’un pour chaque paire de chiffres : un nom, un adjectif et un verbe. Cela permet de faire des phrases qui se retiennent beaucoup plus facilement. L’inconvénient est une petite perte de temps à choisir le mot pour chaque paire afin de former une phrase.

Voyons comment ça se passe dans la pratique avec un exemple.

Défis

Tentons de mémoriser 15807020 avec la table présentée au-dessus :

15	80	70	20
talus	face	casse	nasse

Avec ces mots, on peut facilement faire une phrase qui utilise tous ces mots dans l’ordre, en se rappelant que seuls les noms, adjectifs et verbes sont importants et que le reste compte pour du beurre : « Un talus en face, tu casses ta nasse ». Pour retrouver le nombre, il suffit de se rappeler de cette phrase puis reprendre les noms et les codes de chaque lettre. C’est une technique simple, mais il reste encore à mémoriser cette phrase, ce qui n’est pas toujours évident. Surtout que, dans certains cas, c’est beaucoup moins évident de faire une phrase avec : chameau, lame, panne, mâle. Pas de verbe, pas d’adjectif. Un bon petit casse-tête.

Aller plus loin

Dans le cas d’une mémorisation rapide, il est préférable d’utiliser une table comme celle qui vient d’être présentée. En revanche, pour des mémorisations où on a tout notre temps pour élaborer une technique, il est préférable d’optimiser un peu. Plutôt que d’utiliser des « mots tout prêts », on va chercher des mots plus longs, une phrase facile à retenir et qui fait sens plutôt que des mots imposés.

L’un des défis avec ce système est de trouver rapidement des mots « mémorables » et qui se combinent bien pour une certaine combinaison de chiffres. Or, lorsqu’on se retrouve face à 15807020, il n’est pas toujours évident de trouver des mots assez longs pour rivaliser avec la simple mémorisation des mots à 2 chiffres. Sans entraînement, on peut y passer beaucoup de temps. Et même avec de l’entraînement, la combinaison que l’on trouve est souvent loin d’être optimale.

Parfois, il peut aussi être intéressant de former une suite de mots directement à partir du nombre à mémoriser avec des mots de taille variable. Par exemple, pour mémoriser 15807020, on pourrait se rappeler de suite de mots suivante :

Télé visqueuse et niaise
tele visk ø z  e  njɛ z
1 5  8 07   0     2   0

Facile de se faire une image mentale de cette phrase, il suffit d’avoir un peu d’humour.

Sans aucun doute, il est plus facile de mémoriser moins de mots choisis dans le vocabulaire courant plutôt qu’une grille fixe. Par ailleurs, leur longueur n’a aucune importance car, dans la tête, un mot est une entité mémorisable directement quelle que soit sa longueur, comme on l’a fait plus haut avec la télé visqueuse et niaise.

Il existe déjà un excellent logiciel nommé 2know qui permet de trouver tous les mots correspondant à une suite de chiffres donnée. Malheureusement, je trouve cette application un peu trop limitée car on ne peut chercher qu’un seul mot à la fois. Il faut alors tester toutes les combinaisons pour trouver des mots adéquats. Par ailleurs, ce logiciel ne fonctionne que sous Windows, même s’il est utilisable sous linux et wine, c’est loin d’être idéal.

La solution

Par conséquent, j’ai développé une page internet qui permet de donner toutes les combinaisons de mots qui peuvent se rapporter à une suite de chiffres. L’avantage est que l’on ne dépend pas de la plateforme, elle peut être visitée et utilisée à partir de n’importe quel terminal informatique pour peu qu’il dispose d’un navigateur.

Lorsqu’on lui présente un nombre, elle calcule toutes les possibilités de mots qui peuvent être trouvés avec la suite de chiffres en question. Ainsi, elle affiche les possibilités dans un tableau. Les mots les plus longs sont placés en haut du tableau puisque ce sont eux qu’on va choisir préférentiellement, chaque ligne est ensuite complétée avec les mots plus petits. On peut ainsi voir les possibilités intéressantes de combinaisons de mots. Par ailleurs, la page affiche également les mots par type grammatical, car il peut être pratique d’enchaîner un nom, un adjectif, un verbe puis finalement un nom pour former une phrase syntaxiquement correcte.

Il suffit de naviguer là pour voir comment cela fonctionne : https://jytou.fr/majeur/?n=15807020

On retrouve facilement la télé visqueuse et niaise, mais on peut également inventer d’autres combinaisons très rapidement.

Quelques petits réglages peuvent être paramétrés comme le style plutôt noir sur fond blanc ou l’inverse et le tri des mots. La page reste très simple et épurée de toute distraction.

Et après ?

À l’origine, je visais un peu plus compliqué. J’envisageais que la page fasse également des suggestions de phrases, en utilisant des règles simples permettant de prendre des mots à la suite ayant de fortes chances de faire des phrases correctes. On peut imaginer par exemple : interjection, article/démonstratif…, nom, adjectif, verbe, nom, adjectif. Et ainsi de suite. Pour l’instant, la page telle qu’elle est me suffit – le rasoir d’Okham a encore frappé ! N’hésite pas à commenter si la page plus élaborée t’intéresse et si celle-ci te sert déjà à quelque chose !

Pour les techniciens…

Pour ceux qui se posent la question du développement de cette page, j’ai récupéré le dictionnaire du français avec classification grammaticale et phonétique ici : https://github.com/WhiteFangs/lexique.sql

Ce lexique est issu du projet suivant : http://www.lexique.org/

Il contient 150.000 mots, du pain bénit ! J’ai fait un petit peu de ménage dans la classification et gardé seulement le strict nécessaire dans la table SQL, c’est-à-dire l’orthographe, la phonétique, la correspondance en système majeur, la classification grammaticale ainsi que le masculin/pluriel et la fréquence du mot pour afficher les mots les plus courants en premier. En effet, il est d’autant plus facile de mémoriser un mot dans une suite qu’il est utilisé couramment.

Ensuite, il m’a fallu faire un petit programme java pour calculer et stocker en base de données la correspondance entre prononciation et équivalent en système majeur.

Enfin, une page en PHP permet de faire la recherche des mots qui correspondent au nombre recherché et les affiche dans un tableau, simple comme bonjour !

The Relative Theory of Money – English Translation of the Leibnitz Module

This is the translation of the Leibnitz Module of the RTM, which follows the Bresson Module.

Leibnitz Module

(a) Thoughts on the Relativity of Prices (N)

Let’s assume that for a short time compared to life expectancy (a few years), the prices of some known values are relatively stable in the M/N frame of reference. Given this hypothesis, simulate:

create the spreadsheet of a Libre Currency in both Quantitative and Relative (UD) frames while the population is composed of N individuals
including I1, I2 and I3 ; N is a variable represented in a column, during 80 years, one line per month (80×12 lines) as well as a newcomer I4 who enters when N varies,
on a short period of time, express the relative price in the frame M/N during a few years of an economic value V ; translate the quantitative price in UD,
express during the same period the price of V compared to the accounts of every individual,
simulate cases where “N increases strongly” and “N decreases strongly” in a few years, create the charts of the prices of V (which remains quite stable in the quantitative frame), in the 3 units as well as relative to the 4 individuals,
Compare and interpret the results.

(b) Reflections on the formula of the UD when N is unstable

In the same spreadsheet, simulate two strong local variations of N (10 times growth/reduction) during a small period of time (2 years), N remains stable otherwise,
add I4 who is a newcomer during the variation of N,
express for the 4 individuals the variations of the price of V (which we will assume is still stable in the quantitative frame) in the 3 units (quantitative, UD, M/N) and relative to the accounts of each individual, during a period of 20 years around the variations of N (before and after),
try to find a possible range for the UD’s formula between minimal and maximal values by studying the case of the 4 individuals,
Compare and interpret.

(c) Studying different UD formulas

In the same spreadsheet, simulate two strong local variations of N (x 10) on a short period (2 years), N remains stable otherwise,
Simulate for the 4 individuals different formulas for the UD that can be studied in a 20 year interval before and after the variation of N,
simulate the same formulas when N is stable in another spreadsheet,
compare each formula graphically by comparing it to M/N when N is stable,
calculate for each of these formulas the standard deviation with the stable case,
Compare and interpret the results.

(d) General interpretation on relativity

(e) Conclude the publication

My Yolland Bresson Module – Part 2

Welcome to the second part of my version of the Yolland Bresson Module, started in Part 1.

(d) Exchanging values during 50 years in a Libre currency

In this part, we’ll see what happens when individuals do some exchanges, since it is actually what money is here for! So we’ll have generations of 10 people which replace each other over time and watch the impacts on the accounts of these exchanges over time.

Simple exchanges

To begin with, the sample given in the Module is to have exchanges at 5, 15 and 30 years. Besides, in my sample, I’ve given a very unfair distribution to my individuals with the oldest having a lot of money while the youngest has 0. I also chose to use the relative scale for the exchanges so that we can actually compare the relative amounts which don’t change over time, with an average of 10 UDs for all individuals. Finally, the amounts that are exchanged are quite big, making the individuals’ accounts switch from “rich” to “poor” and vice-versa at every exchange:

Year	I1	I4	I5	I7	I11
5	-10 UD		10 UD
15		-8 UD		8 UD
30				-10 UD	10 UD

Just for the record, this corresponds in the absolute scale to the following exchanges:

Year	I1	I4	I5	I7	I11
5	-72.47		72.47
15		-150.4		150.4
30				-785.2	785.2

As expected, the same amounts in UD correspond to exponentially growing numbers in the absolute scale.

Visualizing the impacts of simple exchanges

Unfortunately, the absolute graph doesn’t show anything because of the exponential curve, so we’ll directly switch to the log view:

While we do see the exchanges, they seem to have extremely little impact on the overall curves. Consequently, let’s switch to the relative scale:

What happened is pretty obvious now: although they have exchanged very big amounts of money, in the end the result is that when they die their accounts converge toward 0 and new generations (after a few decades) are not impacted by what has been done by the previous generations. Therefore, these new generations can choose their own path and their own values, regardless of what their parents have done and valued.

Focusing on one individual

We can also have a look at the account of one of them only, for instance I7 who has done two transactions:

Obviously, because he has gained quite a bit at year 15, his account has inevitably decreased in relative terms after that compared to other accounts so that all of them reach the mean of all accounts. But then as he becomes “poor” at year 30, his account starts tending toward the mean again, this time by “growing”. And of course, as death takes him away, his account tends toward 0, as everyone else (except for vampires of course).

Double accounting

Until now, we have only considered transactions between humans, who generally exchange money to compensate another exchange in real life: buying some object or service. However, we could express that in a “double-entry” table for each individual where we don’t consider only monetary exchanges:

Year	I1 – Credit	I1 – Debit
5	+motorcycle	-10 UD

With that in mind, we can actually fill the previous table with the double accounting for each event and each individual:

Year	I1	I4	I5	I7	I11
5	-10 UD +motorcycle		10 UD -motorcycle
15		-8 UD +boat		8 UD -boat
30				-10 UD received coaching	10 UD spent time coaching

Obviously, every monetary exchange has its own counterpart in the “real world”, either by transferring the property of something from someone to someone else, either by giving one’s time/expertise/work, whatever you call it, to someone else.

Double accounting – including the UD

In the meantime, there is really something missing in this table. In the balance of every individual’s account, a Universal Dividend is created every year. For everyone of them. So if we forget about their exchanges, the balance sheet is somehow missing something:

Year	I1	I4	I5	I7	I11
5	+1 UD	+1 UD	+1 UD	+1 UD	+1 UD
15	+1 UD	+1 UD	+1 UD	+1 UD	+1 UD
30	+1 UD	+1 UD	+1 UD	+1 UD	+1 UD

Think about it, isn’t there something missing? We have UDs that are added, but nothing is subtracted to make the sheet balanced.

Year	I1 – Credit	I1 – Debit
5	+1 UD	???

Or is it really so?

The counterpart of the UD

Well, it isn’t. Every one of us is alive and is somehow always doing “something”. During our life, we give our time and energy to things that are meaningful to us. In addition, sometimes without even noticing it we create value in society, even in the smallest acts of our lives.

For instance, say you watched a football match yesterday while drinking beer and eating junk food. That doesn’t seem much of a contribution to society. I actually don’t like football, if you ask me, you’ve wasted your evening, and wasted yourself with the alcohol as well!… 😀 the fact is that my opinion here is not relevant since here we’re interested about you.

Due to the match you watched, maybe the next day at work you’ll have a nice chat with your colleagues and somehow, with that simple chat and some jokes about the match, you’ll have created a relaxed atmosphere at work that will make everyone positive for the next few hours. Isn’t that a contribution after all? Frankly, do you really think that brightening the day of someone else is a waste of your time?

Furthermore, it gets even more interesting if you produce some “things” that are not recognized by your peers (or even by yourself!) but that may be recognized as great achievements in the future, such as Mozart’s compositions or Vincent van Gogh’s paintings. As we’ve already seen in the Galileo module, we can call these ğvalues. We may not all be geniuses, but we all make contributions that are not recognized today as full “values”, and which have the potential of becoming values in the future.

Furthermore, other people in another part of the Earth might also be interested in your creations because the cultural biases of another society will be able to recognize them as values, while the society you live in don’t recognize them as values – think for instance metaphysical, meditation-related discoveries that would be considered utter b**lshit in the West but greatly valued in the East.

Let’s fill the blanks

With that in mind, let’s get back to our table. We can now fill it with the appropriate negative accounts of your time that you spend being alive and contributing to society as a whole by focusing on your own values and creating ğvalues:

Year	I1	I4	I5	I7	I11
5	+1 UD -ğvalues	+1 UD -ğvalues	+1 UD -ğvalues	+1 UD -ğvalues	+1 UD -ğvalues
15	+1 UD -ğvalues	+1 UD -ğvalues	+1 UD -ğvalues	+1 UD -ğvalues	+1 UD -ğvalues
30	+1 UD -ğvalues	+1 UD -ğvalues	+1 UD -ğvalues	+1 UD -ğvalues	+1 UD -ğvalues

Hurray, we do have a balanced double-accounting sheet now.

In conclusion, we have filled the double-entry table and everything is balanced now, thanks to the notion of ğvalue, which is the counterpart of the UD.

Multiplying exchanges

I have also played a little with more exchanges.

Here is the graph of many exchanges made by the exact same individuals:

Ok, I’ll have to agree that it’s quite messy. However the first thing we can notice is that, although they did make a lot of very unbalanced exchanges, the conclusion is always the same: whatever they did, their accounts never became excessively high (up to 2.5 times the average of all accounts) and they always go back to 0 after their death.

Nevertheless, these exchanges are not random – let’s detail what happened here in more detail.

Hoarding “things”

There are many questions that arise about Libre Currencies. One of them is the fact that people would be tempted to get away from their money and buy “something” that would be a store of value for them (think “gold”, for instance). Then later, by selling those things back, they would have an advantage since they wouldn’t have lost their purchasing power, unlike storing libre units of value which statistically lose value exponentially in time.

I have simulated exactly that with one individual, I10. During the first part of his life, he systematically spends his money to buy things. After that, as he reaches his 59th birthday, he sells those things back. Note here that I have considered that the price of those “things” he bought have not changed in the relative scale. For instance, that could be true for something like gold, but you could also imagine many other things. I have isolated the graph for this individual and the people he exchanged with:

It is apparent here that he seems to be “cheating” during the first part of his life. Obviously, he refuses to go to the mean of all accounts so his account gets always filled with money, while other people’s accounts get higher.

Conversely, toward the end of his life, by selling what he has been hoarding during his whole life, he suddenly becomes very rich compared to the others, while everyone else is getting poorer.

Thoughts on I10

Obviously, this technique could be used to “optimize” your account in Libre Currency. I have seen people do that during Ğeconomicus games. However, this technique did not seem to be as fruitful as it could appear at first sight. That is because as the person is “buying” things he is actually not using, he is depriving himself of a very important tool: money itself. In other words, instead of using money for what it is, a means of exchange, he is using it for hoarding things, therefore giving himself a penalty because he cannot exchange with money much anymore.

Furthermore, he takes a great risk. Who knows if the “things” he bought will be considered as having any “value” at all in 30 years when he plans to sell them back? Nobody can guarantee that. Therefore, he’s taking a big chance, and may find himself with no money in his account and be surrounded with useless objects that nobody wants to buy. Certainly, that was not a very smart move! Besides, he could be having problems if he bought a lot of similar things: as he is selling them back, their price will inevitably get lower.

Additionally, we can also wonder how much of those “things that are stores of value” he will be able to buy, as everyone else will also value those things as such. So there will inevitably be a balance to be found on the prices of those objects, while money is circulating around, which is exactly what it was invented for!

Finally, although I10 did manage to get richer somehow toward the end of his life, he did not get “insanely” rich. So such a scheme is not a huge problem overall as he has paid a strong penalty for the rest of his life.

Inheritance

Another interesting question is the one of inheritance. Therefore, I have simulated a family that would try to transmit its monetary riches to its descendance in the hopes of getting richer and richer, as it happens with today’s monetary system. Indeed, despite all inheritance taxes and efforts by the State to grab whatever it can, the rich manage to get richer, generation after generation.

Without further ado, here is the graph of the “inheritance scheme” family who pass on the wealth to the spouse then to the children when one of their member dies:Indeed, they do manage to get a little richer than the average, thanks to the inheritance. Let’s say maybe twice as rich on average. Undoubtedly, that’s absolutely ridiculous compared to the rich today who are millions of times richer than the average population. Besides, everyone else will probably do the same thing, so there is no inequality here. The main point here being that even if trying to pass on great wealth, nobody can get hundreds of times richer than the others.

(e) General interpretation on Relativity

As a conclusion, we have first seen that in a Libre Money system, everything has its own counterpart: the UD is balancing the ğvalues created by humans.

Besides, this balance ensures that no minority manages to tip the scale in their favor since everyone’s contribution is always pushing the global scale to be symmetrically balanced in space and in time as well.

My Yolland Bresson Module – Part 1

Here is my version of the Yolland Bresson Module which follows the Galileo Module.

As the data has already been gathered in the last part of the Galileo Module, we can switch directly to part (b) and create the charts. Note that I based most of my data on the spreadsheet by Inso. I’ve added to it most of the data since 2014 until 2019.

(b) Create Relative Charts

In the Galileo module, I have already discussed the price of gold over time especially compared to different currencies and even compared to real estate prices in Paris.

The Gold Standard effect

One very interesting graph is the long term one which compares the USD to gold:

This is an unusual graph in which we observe the purchasing power of the USD compared to gold. The two steps of the gold standard, before and after 1929, are clearly visible. Then in 1971 as Nixon breaks the gold standard, the fall of the dollar compared to gold. One could say that, by forcing the gold standard, officials have tried the impossible: forcing one value to be equal to another one, although those values were appreciated quite differently in people’s minds.

The point here is that we can always compare any value to any other value, and no value stays equivalent to another one over time.

Looking from another perspective

We always look at prices “in euros” or “in dollars” but we never compare random values together, such as real estate and welfare.

So let’s do this just now and draw the chart of real estate prices expressed in units of welfare!

We’ve seen in the Galileo module that if you own gold, then the price of a flat is actually going down since the 1990s. But if you’re on welfare, the price has more than doubled in the same period of time.

(c) Charts

The point of this part is to look at prices not only over time, but also across geographical regions. Cuckooland has done a tremendous job which allows to see the prices of real estate change over time as the raise in price clearly starts in the center of the Capital, and diffuses first to the West (the richest suburbs) then to the rest of the area. Play with it, it is excellent! He has also rewritten some of it into a new app which he even translated to English. It is also available as a block. Enjoy!

Real Estate around the World

This is all about Paris. But what about the rest of the world? Are real estate prices all going up? You can download the spreadsheet real-estate-world.

Here is a chart of real estate prices worldwide since the early nineties, gathered from the IMF.

Obviously, some prices are going up, but some others are going down!

The geographical changes are also not uniform at all. For instance, in the UK, the prices between the London area and the rest of the UK are absolutely not following the same trend:

While London prices are skyrocketing, doubling between 2005 and 2019, prices elsewhere are not that crazy.

Wheat prices in the US

There are many other interesting values to be considered when it comes to geographical differences.

You may think that prices of wheat, for instance, are pretty much the same everywhere. Well, they are definitely not. The spreadsheet for this is available for download wheat-us. Here is a chart of wheat prices in the US over time:

From Denver to Portland, there has been a point in 2017 when you would pay double the price of wheat in Portland compared to Denver. I’m no expert in wheat crops in the US, but obviously Denver is a big producing area while Portland is not as big.

One other apparent trend here is that prices have diverged during mid 2016 and are getting closer again at the beginning of 2018. Many factors can explain this, such as a bad harvest which is actually confirmed for 2016. When the area already produces very little, a bad harvest means you may even need to import some wheat from elsewhere. But for a big producer, it has less impact. Although it may affect your exports, you still have more than enough locally.

Now that we know that we can actually compare any value with any other, we can actually compare the wheat price in Portland to the Denver price and create the corresponding chart:

We see here that Portland paid an immediate toll for the bad harvest in 2016 and only recovered in mid 2018, 2 years later.

Conclusion

Every value evolves with time, but also in space, always relative to other values. Many factors drive these changes: geography, climate, natural resources, social bias and trends of values in society, individual preferences, etc.

That’s it for Part 1, I will continue in part 2.

The Relative Theory of Money – Yoland Bresson Module Translated to English

Following the Galileo Module, the Yoland Bresson Module is the second module proposed to go deeper in the RTM. Here is a translation of the module in English.

The Yoland Bresson Module

(a) Get some data in a spreadsheet

The data has already been gathered during the last part of the Galileo Module:

price of silver in $ (1975 – 2016)
price of gold in $ (1975 – 2016)
euro / $ exchange rate (1990 – 2016)
money mass in euros from creationmonetaire.info or the original source (2000 – 2016)
JSA/Welfare for France (1988 – 2016)
real estate prices in Paris (1991 – 2016)

(b) Create charts

Long term graphs of: Gold/$, Silver/$, Silver/Gold, Gold/€, Silver/€, Gold/M3€ , Silver/M3€, Gold/JSI-Welfare, Silver/JSI-Welfare.

Create the reverse graphs ($/Gold, $/Silver, etc.).

(c) Charts on Real Estate

Real Estate prices in Paris vs €, Gold, Silver, JSA/Welfare, M3€.

Same charts with real estate prices in another location, preferably a low density populated area.

Animate the results on a map with time. Change the reference frame (rather than €, use Gold, Silver, or any other reference frame).

Compare and discuss the results.

(d) Exchanging values during 50 years in a Libre currency

Create spreadsheets in absolute and relative frames for 30 individuals I1-I30 during 160 years.
Simulate large exchanges at t1=5 years, t2=15 years and t3=30 years,
Discuss numerical values as well as graphically, using double-entry accounting (think about Ğ(x) – eg. values that are not monetized because they are not recognized as values),
Summarize your thoughts about how humans, values and money, flow with time.

(e) General interpretation on Relativity

The next module is the Leibnitz Module.

My Galileo Module – Part 5

Here comes the last part of the Galileo Module: the relativity of values.

The aim of this module is to understand that no value is absolute, and that all values are relative to one another.

(e) Establish long term relative variations of different values

Metals

First I will study the price of gold, which we all now for sure is one very stable reference, right?

Let’s have a look at this very stable value:

Hmm, it doesn’t look as stable as we thought. Someone in the US who would buy gold in early 1980 thinking that this thing is definitely going up would absolutely be astounded to see he has lost half of the value 2 years later compared to the USD. Of course, the one who bought gold in 1975 with USD would probably have been very happy to sell his gold to get back some USD in 2012 (x10!).

But enough of the Gold. Silver must be probably better than gold, and reassure us on the fact that those metals are very stable in value:

Oh, it seems silver is even more unstable than gold compared to the USD. What about this rare metal called Palladium?

Well, it’s not so different. Okay, maybe it’s the dollar that is not stable?

Holly Gold

Let’s have a look at Holly Gold compared to different currencies:

What a Christmas Tree! This is total nonsense! Especially in July 2018, are we supposed to think that gold is “going up” or “going down”???

The truth is that nothing is going up or down by itself. Values are always “going up” and “going down” compared to another value. So these variations are totally normal, as nothing has such a thing as “intrinsic value”. Objects have “properties” that are then valued by humans to be “better”, “similar”, “worse”, than other properties of other objects. Gold is rarer than silver? Maybe that’s a reason why it’s valued more. But isn’t it also “better” because it doesn’t get oxydized while silver does? On the other hand, gold is “soft” and can barely be used in its pure state. Silver, on the other hand, is a hard metal, isn’t it better then? See, there are many things that drive the “value” in our minds of one thing, even if it seems simple. But it is always “relative to something else”. A hunter-gatherer tribe will have no business with you if you try to give them a golden bar, they can’t eat it! But for sure, they absolutely could use that big axe you have in your hand to hunt game, so they will value that axe much more than your gold bar.

XDR

Next, let’s see the value of gold compared to something that is a worldwide reference: the SDR (code XDR), Special Drawing Rights. Never heard about it? It’s a world currency, a basket of different currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, and more recently CNY). Here is the chart:

Unsurprisingly, it bears a resemblance with the charts involving the USD and EUR. But still not stable, which we know now is quite normal.

Real-Estate in Paris

We all know (especially French people) that the prices of houses and flats in Paris is surging for the last decades. Unfortunately, it may be true when counting in units of euros, but if we compare the prices to the total number of euros in circulation, let’s see what happens:

In fact, the price of a Parisian flat seems to be quite stable compared to M3, which is the total amount of euros in circulation. Surprisingly enough, it is even plummeting since 2011!

Last but not least, let’s compare the price of a Parisian flat if we were to buy it with Gold:

That’s not cool, the price of a Parisian flat lost almost 20% since the 1990s compared to gold. Surprised? I’m not.

Conclusion on the Galileo Module

Nothing is absolute. Everything is relative. In other words, every “value” you measure is actually measured “in a specific frame of reference”.

In everyday life, we tend to forget that fact about some values and tend to allow ourselves to think that “things have intrinsic value”. Objects and services never have an intrinsic value.

On the other hand, in everyday life, we are also more precise when it comes to other things. What if I tell you that my house is 50 away? 50 what? Meters? Kilometers? Yards? Nautical Miles? Minutes if you walk fast? We always use a “unit”, which is in fact a frame of reference.

We should not forget that every single value is, in itself, a frame of reference that can be used to compare it to other values.

Depending on the frame of reference we choose, we can conclude on very different results, as we have seen when we discussed monetary accounts in “absolute monetary units” and in “relative UD”.

My Galileo Module – Part 4

In part 3, we have simulated unbalanced exchanges between three individuals in a Libre currency. Now it is time to look what happens when new generations replace old ones. You can download the file for this part here.

(c) Changing frames of reference in time: replacement of generations

As humans do not live forever and new humans also come to this world, we will study what happens when new generations replace old ones.

First let’s have a look a the absolute amounts in the accounts of 20 individuals with only 10 of them present in the economic zone at all times. Every 8 years, one individual dies while another one is born. Here is what it looks like for 80 years:

We see that every account grows when a new individual is born, and then stays at the same value when he dies – these are the horizontal lines on the right of the graph. Let’s extend that to 160 years:

No surprise, as we have an exponential curve, things get “compressed” in the graph.

As it is a little messy to mix all accounts, let’s isolate one, for instance I12:

It is very clear that he starts at 0, then his presence creates money exponentially, finally the monetary creation stops when he dies.

The absolute graphs are not so interesting so let’s have a look at the logarithmic version (which is actually log(x+1) to be able to see the 0 values):

Given that graph, we now see the newcomers who start at 0 and who catch up quickly during their lifetime with the previous individuals, until they die and their account gets as flat as their heartbeats…

While absolute values are interesting, the relative values in the UD scale are even more interesting. Here is the graph on 80 years:

It is already obvious that when an individual dies, his relative account tends toward 0, while when a new individual enters the economic space, his account tends toward a common fixed value. Let’s observe the same over 160 years:

Indeed, all individuals follow the same scheme, let’s isolate I12 as we already did in the absolute scale, but this time in the relative scale:

In the relative scale, we see how I12 catches up very fast with the others during the first half of his life, then plateaus, and finally goes back very fast to 0 after his death. In the relative scale, it becomes clear that dead people’s economic doings “fade” over time, giving space to the new generations.

See you in Part 5, the last part of my Galileo Module.

My Galileo Module – Part 3

In Part 1, we have studied how accounts of 3 individuals evolve in time, without considering any exchanges at all. But a currency without exchanges is a dead one.

You can download the spreadsheet for this part here.

Note on exchanges

Note that “not considering exchanges” doesn’t necessarily mean that the individuals don’t exchange at all, it only means that they have zero-sum exchanges. For instance, let’s consider that we have this situation every day:

	I1 – Baker	I2 – Butcher	I3 – Grocer
Bread and cake	+50 UD	-50 UD
Steak and sausage		+50 UD	-50 UD
Veggies and fruit	-50 UD		+50 UD
Balance	0	0	0

They all exchange but numerically it looks exactly as if they didn’t exchange at all. Besides, we can note that those exchanges are very big compared to monetary creation: the GDP of this population is 300 UD per day! Yet everything looks as if they weren’t exchanging at all when considering the totals.

We see here the importance of considering economic flux and monetary creation separately.

(b) Simulate exchanges between I1 and I3

In this part, we will begin to examine what happens when the individuals perform non balanced monetary exchanges.

Some unbalanced exchanges in the absolute scale

So let’s consider that our 3 individuals perform mostly balanced exchanges in their lives, but that I1 and I3 do some unbalanced exchanges from time to time. Following is the relevant years when they exchange extra stuff along with the balance of their accounts at these years after the exchange:

Year	I1 account	I2 account	I3 account	I1 exchange	I3 exchange
12	128	88	128	50	-50
21	535	245	35	250	-250
31	67	677	1367	-900	900
49	276	3886	7576	-3000	3000

Unfortunately, the absolute scale doesn’t allow us to really see anything because of the exponential growth. Therefore we can switch to a logarithmic scale which allows to “flatten” things a little:

All accounts always converge toward the same value and that most exchanges are “forgotten” after a few decades, even the biggest ones.

In the relative scale

Now let’s switch to the relative scale and compute the same table of the exchanges expressed in UDs instead of absolute units:

Year	I1 account	I2 account	I3 account	I1 exchange	I3 exchange
12	11.2	7.7	11.2	4.3	-4.3
21	19.7	9.0	1.3	9.2	-9.2
31	1.0	9.6	19.4	-12.8	12.8
49	0.7	9.9	19.4	-7.7	7.7

At first sight, all accounts are roughly revolving around a mean value of 10 and thus the exchanges are expressed in values that don’t grow over time, unlike in the absolute scale. Let’s have a look at the chart of the exchanges:

It is interesting to note that you can even spend almost the average of all accounts (here 10) twice in a lifetime and still end your life with a full account. Even if you “rob” someone of their money twice in your life, you also end up with an account that is not significantly fuller than other accounts.

Daily unbalanced exchanges

Does this mean that one cannot get richer in a Libre currency, whatever you do? That is not entirely true. For instance, suppose that I1 is a very lazy person, or a person who produces Ğvalues which are not recognized by his peers during his lifetime as “values” thus not very well monetized, let’s call him Vincent (Van Gogh). In the meantime, I2 is a “regular” citizen who exchanges in a balanced way, let’s call him (Average) Joe. Finally, I3 is an extremely focused person whose goal in life is to produce values that are recognized by his peers, let’s call him Bill (Gates).

Let’s assume that, through his dedicated and intensive work, Bill manages to “catch” at time t 90% of a UD_(t-1) per day from Vincent and 10% of a UD_(t-1) per day from Joe. We don’t actually know what you can buy with a UD and these are only totals – maybe Vincent gives 50 UDs to Bill and gets back 49.1 UDs. One thing we know for sure is that Vincent cannot spend more than a UD daily on the long run – he would run out of money! So here we go, every day, we have:

Vincent	Joe	Bill
-0.9 UD	-0.1 UD	+1 UD

The corresponding chart in the relative scale looks like this:

It is now obvious that Bill, who takes from his father not only the monetary heritage but also the trading drive, has an account that tends toward 67 UDs, while Vincent, who not only didn’t have anything at birth but who also chose to produce not strongly monetized values, has an account that tends toward 3.3 UDs. Consequently, we have a whooping ratio of 30 between Vincent and Bill’s accounts.

Who said you can’t get rich in Libre money?

Well, you can get “richer than the others” but the main difference with other types of money is that you can’t get “insanely richer” than the others.

Let’s change the story

I have told on purpose a story where things seems quite “fair”. However, if you change the story, you may get something that could be definitely considered abnormal with exactly the same numerical values.

Alternatively, imagine that Vincent is not a painter, he’s actually a very hard working fellow in a factory owned by Bill. Vincent’s salary is ridiculous compared to the profits Bill gets from selling the objects made by his factory and from Vincent’s hard work. Besides, Bill is also the owner of the apartment where Vincent lives, so Vincent must pay him a rent. The story might end up like this: Bill is an extremely lazy guy who owns many things he inherited from his parents and live off of them, while Vincent is an extremely hard worker who kills himself trying to earn his life through 10+ working hours a days in a factory, but because he’s paid very little and has to pay for his rent, he ends up giving away 90% of his UD every day to Bill.

Obviously, the numbers are exactly the same, but the situation is totally different. Definitely, a Libre money system cannot fix all of society’s problems. However, because with Libre money we know how money is created and where it goes and the reasons why it goes there, then many schemes will be exposed while they remain hidden in the system’s complexity today. Because of that complexity and obscurity, we can always end up blaming the wrong people and the wrong things for the wrong reasons.

Finally, why would Vincent go enslave himself in a factory 10+ hours a day if he can actually live exactly the same life when painting at home? As he knows he has his daily UD, it will get harder to enslave him.

See you in Part 4!