Yeah, even though many of these things are private in theory, it doesn't mean it'll be like that in practice. Overall, I think making a currency private is easier said than done.

I'm always is support of privacy and decentralization. But when it comes to crypto currencies, I just don't think its worth the effort. We're getting privacy at the expense of these environmental issues, and that too is only private in theory. Clearly, the consequences outweigh the benifits here.
@trom

This is what I initially said, most people are moving to crypto currencies for privacy reasons. They're not trying to remove the incentive behind currency or its destructive power. Maybe they don't understand the problem like we do, or maybe they don't care.

Either way, I wanted to speak from their perspective. Even though we say trade is the cause of most problems, we're not even close to ending trade. For now, I think its good to talk about environmental issues & reduce harm
@lps

By trade I mean this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade - it is inside of a context, that of the human world invented fantasy called "economic". I am deeply confused by what you are saying with "energy exchange". It is simply the economy we face today. In this worldwide society, if you want food, you need to give something in return. You can't just grab some food and eat. In most places you give yourself (like your skills, time, energy) and do something for someone else (carry stuff, punch some numbers in a computer, whatever). We call these "jobs". And we represent these trades between you who wants food, and the others who want you, with a currency. Today is mainly money. You then take this money and trade it for food to someone else. That's how this system works.

If you look more broadly you find multiple such trading systems in our society. For example youtube wants your attention (watch those ads!) because they can convert them later on into something else, like say money that then they convert into cars and houses and whatever. Others trade their computer power to "mine" bitcoin or other currencies, and in return they get some currency that then can be used to purchase real things. In the end these people do not trade for currency, but for what the currency can bring to them. You can't eat bitcoin or do anything with it. It is only relevant when you can do something useful with it, like accessing goods/services. Get a burger or a blowjob 😁.

Other forms of trades are between you and your tribe. Your tribe may say: "You want food? Then respect our laws and give us as much info about you as possible. And if we think you are worthy, we give you food." These are called "social programs". You trade your freedom/(¡dignity and such, in order to get food, or whatever.

So I am not, of course, talking in an abstract way about trade, but about our society specifically. Makes more sense now?

As this comment is lengthy, I'll offer first this concise version of what it covers and deals with (more thorough statement beginning at "LONG FORM COMMENT" below):
1. Why I equated "Economics" to both "Energy Exchange" AND "Trade" as synonymous terms
2. What I meant by "Energy" (and might as well call EVERYTHING "energy")
3. Nothing you're saying makes sense to me about "Trade" in and of itself and even your own citation of what "trade" is professed that what you were saying only made sense within the limited subset of possible "Trade" forms that are of a centrally controlled trade nature (of which "money" just happens to be a subset of). In the context of EXCLUDING economics like "bartering", "gifting", "agorism", etc. yes, I totally see what you're talking about and agree such systems are "Slave Economics" by the very nature of their Central Control and Command being applied to a congregant obeying mass that is denied the ability of setting and/or carrying any meaningful "value" set of their own.

Apologize for the length, but eh, such can often be the natural result of real inquiry and discussion.
Can't say I have any real disagreement or issue with anything you've thus far stated other than semantics and a suggestion that you might want to reconsider how you're defining "trade" and "economics" simply to avoid what you mean falling into contradictions with itself when one approaches "economic theory" or it's subset of "monetary theory".
Discussions of this sort are important and I HIGHLY commend your (and the TROM teams) work. I certainly don't have all the answers and I'm really not sure there's any real "freedom" EVER possible from ANY central entity that claims to. However, without discussions like these beginning to take place, truly addressing the issues inherent to "Where are we?", "How did we get here?", and "What might we do moving forward?" aren't likely to be addressed or acted on in any meaningful way.
As the old saying goes.....
"Free your mind and your ass will follow"
-Parliament Funkadelic

LONG FORM COMMENT:

"By trade I mean this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade - it is inside of a context, that of the human world invented fantasy called "economic". I am deeply confused by what you are saying with "energy exchange".

From your own offered definition:
"Trade involves the transfer of goods or services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market."
and
"An early form of trade, the Gift economy, saw the exchange of goods and services without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. A gift economy involves trading things without the use of money. Modern traders generally negotiate through a medium of exchange, such as money. As a result, buying can be separated from selling, or earning. The invention of money (and later of credit, paper money and non-physical money) greatly simplified and promoted trade. Trade between two traders is called bilateral trade, while trade involving more than two traders is called multilateral trade."

First, notice that your own citation notes that "Trade" is a "Superset" of "money". That is to say, "money"/"monetary economics" ALWAYS holds an emergent relation to trade but trade IS NOT emergent from or always in relation to "money". As per your own citations claim:
"Modern traders generally [BUT NOT ALWAYS] negotiate through a medium of exchange, such as money [MONEY BEING BUT ONE POSSIBLE MEDIUM OF TRADE]
and "traders generally negotiate through a medium of exchange [THIS IS ONLY GENERALLY], such as money [AGAIN, MONEY IS ONLY ONE POSSIBLE MEDIUM OF MEDIUMS]. As a result, buying can be separated from selling, or earning [THE ACTUAL REAL/TRUE ECONOMIC OCCURRENCE IS NEGOTIATED THROUGH ABSTRACTION, AN ACT OF PURE IMAGINATION]. The invention of money (and later of credit, paper money and non-physical money) greatly simplified and promoted trade. [SIMPLIFIED IN AS MUCH THAT "VALUE" IS ESTABLISHED VIA A CENTRAL ENTITY AS OPPOSED TO MULTIPLE ENTITIES; ENABLING A REFEREE/JUDGE FOR MORE STREAMLINED "PRICE DISCOVERY"]

*Bracketed items being editorial notes originating from myself as opposed to the original citation*

Moving on, take heed that per the standard physics model both a "good" itself as well as a "service" are inherently imbued with and constituted of "energy" as given by the Planck Constant.
"a fundamental physical constant denoted h, and is of fundamental importance in quantum mechanics. A photon's energy is equal to its frequency multiplied by the Planck constant. Due to mass–energy equivalence, the Planck constant also relates mass to frequency."

Going even more explicitly into the details of things, we then have "Energy"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy
"energy is the quantitative property that must be transferred to a body or physical system to perform work on the body, or to heat it. Energy is a conserved quantity; the law of conservation of energy states that energy can be converted in form, but not created or destroyed." [NOTE THAT SUCH MEANS THAT IN MORE TRUE/NON-ABSTRACTED ECONOMICS THIS MEANS SOMETHING MUCH CLOSER TO MULTILATERAL EXCHANGE ALWAYS UNDERLIES THE TRUTH OF ANY ABSTRACTED ECONOMICS.... THINGS ALWAYS SUM TO ZERO!]

So this is why I noted "money" as always being a centrally controlled abstract as applied to a mass for "energy exchange" (aka "economics"). The "money" is simply a "debt instrument" used for establishing that some "value" of "energy" is owed/obligated to the holder of "money".

For Nation State "money", the "Boss Level" as it were, became the central bank(s). The Central Bank of Central Banks, "The Boss" of the "Boss Level" being the BIS (Bank of International Settlements). Below the BIS is then the World Bank and IMF. Below the World Bank and IMF are then what people popularly think of when they hear the words "central bank", that being things like the U.S. Federal Reserve, the UK Bank of England, Japan's Bank of Japan, China's People's Bank Of China, etc. Finally one reaches the level of things like the "Member Bank(s)", which is the level at which the general public starts interacting with the CENTRALLY CONTROLLED system. These are banks like Bank Of America, Wells Fargo, BBVA (now PNC). Note that in light of all surface level appearances of "decentralization", the system itself does centralize; the appearance of "decentralization" being born of a result of mistaking different divisions of the same network as being unique and totally independent of each other when that simply NEVER was the case.
Of note, the BIS resides in Basel, Switzerland. There's the old saying of "Be like the Swiss" with underlying comment to how Switzerland was "neutral" in World War II. It's pretty easy to remain neutral when one is "The Boss (level)", 😉

As fore-noted, in lieu of the advent of HFT (High Frequency Trading) and the like, "value" management was (basically) handed over to "A.I.".

If anything, the only roll left to the CBs (Central Banks) is one of providing "liquidity" to and for the "A.I." Such "liquidity" is made manifest through acts like "Quantitative Easing" (aka "Q.E."), which in a simple, just means "Creating new money out of thin air".

The CBs have then (made clear) that they are, for whatever reason, removing themselves from the system and basically turning over their role as a facilitator of Liquidity to the general mass. Which, in a simple, is opened up by allowing just about any and all to both
1. create money
djangostars.com/blog/how-to-bu…
AND
2. Removing the human entity from (virtually) having anything to do with monetary management and exchange rates.
fsf.org/bulletin/2020/fall/fre…

As this process completes, the CBs have been rather blunt and clear, as per the Fed Chairman Jerome Powell last april...
"I'm in a position to guarantee that the Fed will do everything we can to support the economy for as long as it takes to complete the recovery."
*full interview here: cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-je… *

A sneaky way of basically saying "QE! QE FOREVER!" as that's literally about the only tool left in the CB bucket to "support the [monetary] economy". As any cessation of QE has been shown to both clearly and drastically manifest as (monetary) market shocks and downturns. Never mind "Melt Down", the (monetary) market "Melts Up" (destroying itself in the process).
In an absurd world, sometimes the largest truths are easily mistaken for comedy. Such said, President's Camacho's speech on modern economics is single handily one of the most clear and direct commentaries I've ever heard or seen.....

*amended video of Camacho to help illustrate the TRUTH that underlays what may at first appear mere comedy. Take heed to the recent trillions (and a trillion means a million billion) injected into markets, the eviction stays (aka "rent forgiveness"), the government sending out of "free" money to both businesses and to lesser extent general citizens, and of course the advent of public "get rich quick" through things like the "Robin Hood" app platform and of course cryptocurrencies falling from the sky. Then ask yourself if what's being delivered by Camacho really comedy, or is it just that the truth itself really is that absurd.*

Enter the PO(o)R [aka "Proof Of Resource"], the increased implementation of physically monitored human actions [ala physical action tangible "service" as opposed to a "good"] as mining mechanisms as opposed to the POW (Proof Of Work) method of resolving hashes (for more detail see Microsoft Patent WO2020060606), and similar related derivatives such as "Real Asset NFTs".

It's ALL not only "Energy Exchange" management (the "banks" simply guiding the "currency"; perhaps better said as "current see"), but more specifically CENTRALLY CONTROLLED "Energy Exchange". As fore noted, "Economics" being at it's root nothing more than "Energy Exchange".

The old (monetary) system abstraction is updated and simplified via
1. Automated Management ("A.I."; derived from the collectively emergent moral ethic)
2. Everything and EVERYONE under the system is rendered into little more than a direct commodity of the system. To quote Mr. Schwab of the World Economic Forum "You will own nothing, and you will be happy."

*"Valhalla Mr Beale" indeed*

Money, the game where even when you "win", you actually "lose".
YOU ARE THE PRODUCT (of the collectively emergent shadow) SELF
and
(CONGRATULATIONS, THE SYSTEM SAYS YOU HAVE VALUE!)
"In The Algos We Trust"
Finally, all the Keynesian nonsense resolves to a balanced Zero sum game.....
that is, a zero sum game of death (as all individualized independent thought and action dynamics are literally eliminated and killed off and converted into essentially a centrally controlled "Hive Mind".... Star Treks "Borg" comes to mind).
Capitalism reaches it's final stage monopoly, in doing so it realizes both the Corp State driven dream of Mussolini's Fascism, Hitler's National Socialism, AND (Marx/Engles) dream of Communism. All said things were little more than the same "monetary economics" and as such all carried the same "monetary economics" end place dressed in different clothes for different audiences for purposes of #AreYouNotEntertained (Please click subscribe, like, and stay engaged)

Again, Google and Apple themselves covered this (to little public fan fare) in the public open a couple years ago now and for whatever disagreements I may hold with such institutions, I commend them on their public clarity of statement.
archive.org/details/GooglesThe…

There's an (educational) game called Paper Clips.... it's a rather witty and fun expose on the workings of "monetary economics", I HIGHLY recommend checking out. I'll give a spoiler though on that one doesn't win the game until not just everyone, but literally everything, has been turned into a commodity.
decisionproblem.com/paperclips…

#BeExcellentToEachOther (because might as well)
#MoneyIsDead (Pandora's Box was opened and RoboCthulhu will devour all in it's path!)
and #OllieCthulu (because RoboCthulhu gives ZERO fuks who or what's in it's way and there's no more getting rid of RoboCthulhu then there is getting rid of your own shadow.... so just see and recognize Cthulhu, ollie Cthulhu, but probably no need to stress trying to overly engage Cthulhu in a fight because such is just an exercise in futility)

I think you are overly-complicating things. 😛 - My definition of trade is quite easy to grasp I'd say, as explained above. We also have a book explaining the "birth of trade" - see it here tromsite.com/books/#flipbook-d… - and another one all about trade, here tromsite.com/books/#flipbook-d… ;)

I appreciate your engagement, but I think you re taking the definition of trade to the stars and back, and that's not what we are talking about. 😀

@TROM
for as lengthy as my comment may have been; lets just say 1400 some odd pages is a whole other bracket of digestion. *he he* So, while started on the first book (which seems a considerably quicker tear through then the page number make it look), may be a bit before I'm in any position to question or offer any real thought on what's covered.

Such said, I will question (again) what exactly you mean with this word "trade".
As not only did your first citation on what "trade" was state that bartering AND gifting (among else) are in fact "trade", but the first book early on seems to fluctuate between referencing "trade" as something that extends beyond the bounds of mere centrally controlled methods as applied to a mass (i.e. "money") but then at times equates it to only centrally controlled means.

"To say that the act of trade began at one point in time is very unrealistic, as
people have likely exchanged goods and services for millennia. You have
sheep and I can take care of them, then you can give me some sheep meat, or
fur, for my service. You have cows and I make clothes, so I get some milk and
you get some shoes. You get the point. It’s important to mention though that
the notion of property varied greatly from one cluster of people to the next.
While we can’t exactly pinpoint any specific one, there were many tribes who
never thought of the land or animals that they farmed as theirs, but more as
them simply being there, and being farmed, and all tribes enjoyed the
advantages. If you were to ask them who owns the sheep, for example, they
would not be able to understand the question."

So o.k., right with you so far.... people have been exchanging since always (or at least specifically "millennia" as it's stated) and we're basically consistent with the whole notion of the conservative "law" (perhaps more like "theory") of energy so far.

But then right after that this is said:
"When american settlers got ‘bossy’ with indigenous indians and were
attempting to take their land, they were confused as to the borders of the
indian land, because the indians just grew their vegetables in open spaces,
or farmed in open spaces, not regarding the land as theirs or anyone else’s.
There are also people who some call ‘nomads’, who travel all the time, never
settling in one place. They view Earth as belonging to no one -it’s just thereand they take advantage of it to feed, clothe, and protect themselves. Even
today, there are tribes where the notion of property is foreign to them, and
trade (if it exist) is unrecognizable. So keep that in mind, as ‘trade’ is not a ‘naturally’ occurring thing that applies to all clusters of people (cultures)."

Notice how it's stated that seems "trade" has always (or at least for milu) been around AND how there's not only means of it other than centrally controlled abstracts (i.e. "money"), but that concepts of "property" need not even necessarily apply? Yet then it's equally equated to the issues that evolved out of centrally controlled mass exchange methods.

In any case, I'm still reading....
but will note that while "currencies" are one thing, over the course of my own studies into economics and monetary theory one thing I found (which is noted in the book) is that:
1. Currency itself often wasn't and isn't centrally controlled and nor does it inherently carry an intent that "this is basis of all exchange"
2. "Money", which is a specific type of currency that is always centrally controlled, far as I've been able to trace back hits out of Sumeria. It wasn't cash or coin as known, but it was assuredly "money". The earliest known coin form I was able to trace back stems back to Tyre (Greco-Roman Empire); earliest known paper cash some time later out of Asia/China. Something that may be found of interest is the earliest mention of "kings" and basically central control/orchestrated "civilization" I know of hits back to Sumeria and even "The Bible" that Rome would eventually come to flaunt features an Abraham that, among else, is clear on originally hailing out of Sumeria (Genesis 24). I note this mostly just to raise the question of if it's at all surprising that a place rooted in centralized control and basically "divine right" would hold (from what I could make out) the oldest historical reference to "money" (a centrally controlled abstract as applied to a mass for energy exchange) and even "law" (complete with arguing lawyers) as among the things it carried in implemented working?

Such said, just thought I'd note that for now, but otherwise I'm taking the bait and at least reading the entirety of the first work before commenting or questioning any further with a continued suggestion that just for better conveying intent and meaning, just might want to consider that you may not want to hold to so ardently using the word "trade".