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Jubilee/final

20 Sep 2026 - 20 Sep 2026
Open in Logseq
    • Final final
      • Slide 5 exponential graph
        • Debt forgiveness
        • Individual rather than social
    • Official description
      • Title: Jubilee: meta-protocols against entrenchment
      • Money and other economic protocols are some of the oldest we have, but they have a problem: a tendency toward entrenchment, with accumulated effects that compound over time, producing extremes of wealth and poverty that threaten the legitimacy of the economy and society as a whole. The Biblical Jubilee, which mandated periodic cancellation of debts and return of land every fifty years, represents one of the oldest known attempts to solve this problem through what we might call a meta-protocol: a protocol designed to periodically suspend or reverse the lock-in effects of other protocols. This talk develops a general theory of anti-entrenchment protocols, using the Jubilee archetype to illuminate a class of mechanisms that recurs across ancient debt law, modern bankruptcy codes, antitrust enforcement, constitutional amendment rules, and blockchain governance — most recently in Ethereum's "difficulty bomb," a deliberately engineered protocol crisis. Biblical Jubilee has well-known agency problems; we'll take a look at how protocol mechanism design can address them.
    • Some topics (off head right now)
      • The economics of jubilee
      • Forgiveness protocols
      • Stochasitc Jubilee
      • Bankruptcy
      • The Carnivaleseque
    • Jubilee and forgiveness protocols
      • Intro
        • the biblical tradition (1)
        • what problem was being solved (2)
          • (Sketch out debt problem, hint at relevance for today). Entrenchment is not exactly the word, but its in the offical talk
          • debts which can't be paid won't be paid, and that the only real question is how they go unpaid.
        • was it practiced? (3)
        • seems impractical
      • history (terms)
        • Michael Hudson book
        • Liberty Bell
      • Generalization and Design Space
        • prosbul – another epicycle
        • Trigger taxonomy
        • Bankruptcy
        • Stochastic Jubilee
      • The Carnivalesque
        • TAZ, Feast of Fools
        • Another suspension of rules, but temporary
        • Also a relief valve
        • Protocol Design Pattern?
      • Forgiveness
        • in general
        • as Christian virtue
          • I'm not a Christian,
            • Jewish Yom Kippur also involves some debt resets
            • Shofar picture
          • Hudson story about how Jesus was in fact talking about monetary depts
        • as aspects of protocols
        • as exceptions to protocols
          • Hard to protocolize because of gaming, etc
      • Forgiveness as eigenvirtue
        • A kind of spiritual primitive.
        • I'm not here to preach, Everyone knows its good, and I'm not especially good at it
        • War is a protocol, peace can only be found through forgiveness.
      • OK not
        • Nonviolece (OK here I have no idea how to fit this in)
          • As forgiveness of sin, putting aside rage even when it has been earned.
        • Peacenik (a kind of idiot)
          • Maybe link protocols of protoest piece
    • Crypto and anti-fiat
      • For the provocation slide
      • Crypto is pro-market and anti-fiat
      • The history of jubilee is that fiat actions are required to keep markets working
    • Notes on slides
      • Not sure about 6 with the exponential graph
      • 8 Debt forgiveness in modern era, split into two