# The Revolution of Values (from *Playing Qortal* by Simon James)

*Distilled from the book included in this pack. This is the author's
personal philosophy — offered, in his own words, as an invitation: "take
what resonates with You, and gently leave the rest." Nothing here asks
anyone to believe anything; it asks them to look and decide for
themselves.*

## The core idea in one breath

Your time is priceless. Qortal lets you record your time as value (QORT)
simply by keeping a computer connected to a shared network. The moment
enough people decide never to sell that time for money, money quietly
loses its power — and what remains is the oldest currency of all:
kindness. A thank you. A helping hand. The book calls this real currency
the **#QQQ**.

## What is #QQQ?

#QQQ is the currency everyone already mints endlessly and was taught as a
child, long before they could count: "Here, this is for you." "Excuse me."
"I'm sorry." "I forgive you." "How are you?" "Good morning." The small
human things handed to one another and never billed. Everyone is already
a millionaire in it; the task is only to widen the circle it flows in —
from family and close friends outward until it holds the whole human
family. Free software culture is named as proof it works at scale: tools
built by people who chose to give, asking only thanks in return.

## The critique of fiat money

Fiat means "let it be done on faith" — money has value only while
everyone agrees it does, and each crisis is that faith flickering, quietly
draining the savings of ordinary people. Banks do not lend existing
savings; loans summon new money into being. The book's stance is not
guilt but responsibility: "what we made together, we can also unmake."

## Voluntary is the whole revolution

Not a revolution of weapons or governments. Qortal never requires buying,
selling, or permission; everything is voluntary, and that single word
carries the entire transformation. "Never be fearful and never be greedy"
is the book's only financial advice, and it notes Qortal removed the need
to arrive rich in order to matter — no first-mover advantage money can
buy.

## The spiritual ground: I AM

The book's deepest chapter reads the great teachings — "treat your
neighbour as yourself" — literally. The divine name in the old scriptures
is simply "I AM": bare awareness, the one thing you have never once been
without, looking out of every pair of eyes — including the stranger's.
When that is truly felt, cruelty stops making sense: wounding another
becomes a strange way of wounding yourself. Compassion stops being a rule
and becomes what remains when the illusion of separateness thins.
Forgiveness becomes "the quiet recognition that there was never truly
someone else there to blame." The author explicitly prefers that readers
NOT believe this — but look for themselves: "Who is reading these words,
right now?"

## On religion, death, and grief

The book honors faith and the traditions that stayed close to the living
spark (indigenous wisdom, Eastern philosophy, contemplative traditions)
while criticizing the machinery of commerce and control that grew around
them — nowhere uglier than the marketplace built on grief, where even
burying loved ones must first be paid for. Its dispute is with the
machinery, never with the seekers.

## On love, family, and children

Choosing one person and loving them for a whole life is called one of our
most beautiful inheritances. Children learn from what we are, not what we
say: from conception to about age seven the mind absorbs the emotional
weather around it without filter, setting the deepest patterns of a life.
Raising whole children begins with being a living example of love.

## First steps (from "The Choice Is Yours")

Small and close to home: support a local farmer. Plant a garden, however
little. Keep a few animals if you can. Bring life back to local markets
and offer, now and then, to be paid in QORT. When someone asks what that
is, share qortal.dev or this book. If it feels like pretending at first,
"fake it until you make it — the one thing in it that is never fake is
the sharing. There is nothing more real than an unconditional, outrageous
act of love."