06 MAR 2010
What is the time dollars innovation?
Players will own their time dollars and can move them from one nonprofit bank to another, investing their time dollars wealth in their favorite causes. Funding will surely follow this signal.
In funny world, players will learn this pattern with funny money. They'll own their funny money, naturally, and they'll invest it in funny projects or proposals or fantasy elements, and build a funny world which is literally written on their funny money.
When the Inquisition seizes a serious proposal, the funny money is turned into time dollars, which are then earned by working, so the sense of ownership is carried over.
Nonprofits would generally prefer not to offer time dollars mobility, which is why this initiative has to come from the volunteers. They will want to keep what worked in funny world, and they'll want to keep their power in time dollars world.
6953
07 MAR 2010
Inquisition manual
The heretics are funny people who think they can build a funny world and escape the hegemony of serious world. They have their funny money, funny business, funny religion and so on. We are the Inquisition sent to arrest them and make them do time, or community service.
The normal thing is to play heretic and see how far you get. You won't see the Inquisition at all, since we play undercover as heretics building funny world. We catch heretics by their seriousness.
Why would we do that? Aren't we fighting funniness?
No. Funniness is beyond us. But we know a lot about seriousness. When we catch a serious heretic they have already fallen out of funny world, they have lost their funniness and are back in serious world. They have lost the game of heretics v. Inquisition and are in our power. They are ready for our message.
They have fallen suddenly, one moment free in funny world, no danger in sight, now captive in serious world. The message is we are the hegemony. Nobody escapes. We're all serious. We are all the Inquisition.
No, we're not asking you to join. You never left. We own you. And we run this game.
6955
08 MAR 2010
Funny money and time dollars
The game is building a funny fantasy world with funny money. This teaches us a lot about time dollars, and what kind of world we can build with them.
Funny world is defined by the rule "must be funny" and revolves around funny money. Funny people are heretics pursued by the Inquisition from serious world who want to bring them back. When they're caught their funny money is seized by the Inquisition and turned into time dollars. The failed heretics have to do time, or community service, until they've earned the time dollars.
TIMERAISING/FUNDRAISING PRODUCT: The game of heretics vs. Inquisition is part of an evening's entertainment, and players end up with a time dollars commitment to work a certain number of hours of volunteer service. If they prefer, they may pay off this commitment at the rate of $100/hour.
The funny money also converts to time dollars at 100 funny dollars per hour, and this provides a standard of value for funny money. Funny money follows the ancient definition: money we make ourselves with nothing behind it whatsoever. But it could cost us an hour for every hundred we create, so that tends to limit the funny money supply and make a funny economy possible.
Funny money and time dollars are linked in ways that strengthen them both. Funny money is a source of time dollars, and time dollars make a funny economy possible. That's just a start. Time dollars need an economy too. That's another product, and we can do our R&D playing with funny money.
6957
08 MAR 2010
Investment game
Funny world is literally the sum of our funny money: what's written on it and how much it's worth. Our personal wealth is our individual funny world, and when we join with others we make up a larger funny world.
We enrich ourselves by copying funnies from each other. Once a week we have a game party where a group builds funny world. There we may deal with major issues such as: What is the funny world holiday? Some will say April 1st, some Halloween, some say both. Players put up funny money with their choice, and the one with the higher investment wins. (We went with both April 1st and Halloween as funny world holidays.)
That little game is the engine of growth for both the funny economy and the time dollars economy. It's another product, and the previous product was create a time dollars economy, so this one goes a level deeper. If we run the engine we'll build an economy.
Let's call it the investment game, and put it to its first test: Can it play heretics vs. Inquisition?
We can all play both parts, playing heretic until someone makes a serious proposal. Ideally all the other players will unanimously turn Inquisition and pound it to death, dividing the meager spoils. But if it's close we play the investment game to decide. Serious or funny? Which side gets the higher investment?
6958
08 MAR 2010
Can the investment game play time dollars?
When heretics have to do time they see their funny money turned into time dollars, which they have to earn back. They may choose from a variety of nonprofit jobs, and if they're brain-dead they'll leave their time dollars where they earned them and forget about them. That's where volunteer hours are now, and only the nonprofits get benefits such as matching funds.
Funny world is designed to get players involved with their game currency. When they get to time dollars world they'll feel they own their time dollars, which used to be their funny money, especially after having to earn them back. They will then claim ownership of all time dollars they earn henceforward.
What does ownership of time dollars mean? It means if I work off my time dollars debt here and there I can gather my earnings in one place and spend them or invest them somewhere else. Normally time dollars are held wherever you earn them. Former heretics will want to move them.
This is a major conflict area. Nonprofits would like to continue to own all the volunteer hours, and have no interest in giving them up. The funny world project is like forming a union for volunteers, demanding ownership of the time dollars they've earned.
The nonprofits have a point, since they provided the facilities, materials and management. They can claim the volunteer hours, and so can the volunteers, win-win accounting. That should ease things a bit. The nonprofits earned their time dollars, and giving the volunteers their own time dollars doesn't cost anything extra.
Mobility of volunteer hours is a big hurdle to cross for each nonprofit. We will bring time dollars in as a new program that doesn't affect existing volunteer hours, but the time dollars must be moveable.
Volunteers will probably keep most of their time dollars where they work, and invest the rest in other causes. This is the investment game again, where you put your money into what you want in your world.
Will this work in time dollars world? When we played in funny world, some of the funny proposals needed matching funds and labor, like putting on a party or a play. In time dollars world, volunteer investment in each nonprofit or project is a metric that many donors will follow. Volunteers are in daily contact with these organizations, and where they put their time dollars is good information on the quality of the operations.
6959
09 MAR 2010
Funny world
It's built and run by the Inquisition to generate time dollars. The Inquisition is the prototype nonprofit that we do time in, call it time dollars lab. The work we do is to build and run funny world.
We'll immediately run into the funny shortage. Our heretic and Inquisition sides agree, we need more funny people, more funny ideas to build funny world. We need talent. Or booze. We do our best work at parties.
Funny stuff is the source that goes into funny money and then to time dollars. And it's scarce. Isn't that a problem?
Yes and no. Yes, we're all miserably serious. No, scarcity makes funny valuable. The power relationship is reversed. The Inquisition depends utterly upon our funny talent, however small. Heretics win. The Inquisition does all the work building funny world for us, while we party.
The Inquisition and heretics both win, both happy to make funny world grow.
6960
16 MAR 2010
Funny is scarce
That drives the game economy. Funny people are talent, which the Inquisition seeks out, values, nurtures and rewards. The Inquisition provides venues, hosts parties, provides food, drink and prizes.
Inquisition economists differ on what percentage of funny money to turn into time dollars. 10% is a good guide, providing some game drama while minimally dampening growth. This ratio suggests that the Inquisition would put 90% of its effort into building funny world and 10% (the easy part) harvesting time dollars.
This allies the Inquisition effort with the heretic cause, in exchange for a 10% time dollars tax, a kind of sin tax on the unfunny. Heretics may also support the Inquisition cause, and work to grow the time dollars economy.
As our view of the game expands, we find we're all buddies, and play both parts. The game battle of heretics v. Inquisition continues to make low-level decisions, and resolve conflicts at any level.
6972
23 MAR 2010
Game rule
When the Inquisition bust heretics and take their funny money they keep it. They've earned it not for being funny, but for removing seriousness from the game.
This gives the Inquisition a funny money income so they can be competitive in the game. It enables them to stand up in disputes where total investment decides whether an issue is serious or funny.
6985
01 APR 2010
Must be funny is seven
On April Fool's day, 2003, late in the day, I put together the Must be Funny manifesto and printed it before midnight. It's still good, a classic.
Today, even later in the day, I decided to repeat the exercise with Funny Money and Time Dollars, Judge for yourself.
7002