Resource Based Economy

[0blivious]

Ok,

to start off,

I'm from Belgium, am 27, have been watching hak 5 almost at the beginning of it, (though honestly, I have now quite a few episodes to catch up), studied Informatics and Industrial Product Design, work as an IT Engineer as second level support, development and deployment of technologies, I'm actually just a simple TechnoCurious person (with a lot of technolust) and a total n00b compared to most of you here.

I know most of you are comfortable at home, and might not be aware (conscious or unconsciously) of the problems we are facing in this social system.

There's a documentary I would like you guys to see (I've been on IRC about this a few months back and got the suggestion to post this here, finally I'm here :) ) and would like to hear your opinion about it.

You must be wondering why I am presenting this here.

I know, by experience, and logic, that the "kinds" of people open to this stuff are people in IT and art.

The logic behind it is that IT and art people (painting/music/..) always need to really think out of the box to come up with new technologies, solutions to problems, artistic creativity.

Though that might be true, there are a multitude of variables that could influence your opinion on this (subjective/objective prejudices) in a negative way, but I do try to keep positive and hope this open mindedness will manifest itself :)

One note I do need to mention before you are of on this two hour journey; please ignore all conspiracy related stuff and try to focus on the solutions proposed.

Thanks! And good luck!

Here it is:

[VaKo]

Before I watch your 2 hour movie, what's it about?

[h3%5kr3w]

I'm about 5 minutes in and it's interesting..

It's about inflation/where money comes from/what happens when money is deposited, and etc.

Pretty interesting stuff indeed...

[Zimmer]

Well sense we are on the topic of money and inflation a depressing blog (and link)

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archive...s-national-debt

[h3%5kr3w]

Just finished watching the movie... Wow.. I feel that it is definitely worth anyone's time.

[0blivious]

Before I watch your 2 hour movie, what's it about?

Might have something to do with what I mentioned in my post:

I know most of you are comfortable at home, and might not be aware (conscious or unconsciously) of the problems we are facing in this social system.

So something something about problems in this social system..

and this as well:

One note I do need to mention before you are of on this two hour journey; please ignore all conspiracy related stuff and try to focus on the solutions proposed.

And something about something something solutions to said problems :)

I'm sorry if this seems like a jerk reaction, I assure you, I really am not a jerk :)

Well sense we are on the topic of money and inflation a depressing blog (and link)

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archive...s-national-debt

If you're interested in that part of the movie then you should definitly check out:

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

or the lighter, live version:

http://www.chrismartenson.com/page/crash-c...ear-anniversary

Edited June 30, 2010 by 0blivious

[0blivious]

@h3%5kr3w: I know the feeling :) That's why I wanted to share it with this community.

You'll probably need some time now to let it all sink in and find out everything about it :)

Oh, btw, slightly on/off topic:

The Venus Project Design website has been hacked:

http://thevenusprojectdesign.com/

Do any of you know this hacker "ahmadso" ahmadso2007@hotmail.com ?

Why would he possibly want to do this? These guys do volunteer work for The Venus Project (2D and 3D stuff)

[h3%5kr3w]

Dunno.. Seems like were all getting hacked around here lately... If you see me post stuff about sniffing panties and selling viagra, well you know what probably happened :X

I definitely want to let this all sink in but there are a few fundamental flaws that I have caught just thinking about this Venus Project society.. I will elaborate later.

Edited June 30, 2010 by h3%5kr3w

[Norwat]

IMO a more down to earth idea to a better society, a better world etc ... can be found in the HUGE video library of TED, they have really good lectures and debates. Worth a look ;)

/edit

Forgot the link

http://www.ted.com/

Edited June 30, 2010 by Norwat

[VaKo]

So something something about problems in this social system..

Ok, your an artist, I also did a fine art degree. Think of it in the same terms as pitching a project to your audience. This is about x, and this 2 hour video will explain how x relates to y and z.

[0blivious]

I definitely want to let this all sink in but there are a few fundamental flaws that I have caught just thinking about this Venus Project society.. I will elaborate later.

Great :) I'm looking forward to what your thoughts are..

IMO a more down to earth idea to a better society, a better world etc ... can be found in the HUGE video library of TED, they have really good lectures and debates. Worth a look ;)

/edit

Forgot the link

http://www.ted.com/

I know TED very well :)

And let's say that most of the stuff shown there actually supports the technological aspects that this project relies upon. That and the social aspect.

I don't mean direct support, I mean the data/ideas/projects presented supports the claims that TVP makes.

Here's a few I think are relevant (sorry for the naming convention used, it's a copy paste of the files I have):

-197205 Viktor Frankl - Why To Believe In Others

-200202 Richard Dawkins - Militant Atheism

-200402 Al Seckel - Our Brains Are Mis-Wired

-200402 Dan Gilbert - Why Are We Happy¿

-200402 Woody Norris - Inventing Amazing Things

-200507 Alex Steffen - Seeing A Sustainable Future

-200507 Barry Schwartz - The Paradox Of Choice

-200507 Clay Shirky - Institutions VS. Collaboration

-200602 Michael Shermer - Strange Beliefs

-200602 Sir Ken Robinson - Schools Kill Creativity

-2007 Philipe Starck thinks deep on design

-200702 James Randi - Fiery Takedown Of Psychic Fraud

-200709 Juan Enriquez Want To Grow Energy

-2008 Dan Ariely asks, Are we in control of our own decisions¿

-2009 Dan Ariely on our buggy moral code

-2009 Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity

-200902 Juan Enriquez shares mindboggling science

-200907 Daniel Pink - The Surprising Science Of Motivation

-200907 Rob Hopkins - Transition To A World Without Oil

-200907 Steven Cowley - Fusion is energy's future

-201002 Derek Sivers - How To Start A Movement

-201002 George Whitesides - Toward A Science Of Simplicity

-201002 Jane McGonigal - Gaming Can Make A Better World

-201002 Kevin Bales - How To Combat Modern Slavery

-201002 Michael Shermer - The Pattern Behind Self-Deception

-201002 Michael Specter - The Danger Of Science Denial

-201002 Sam Harris - Science Can Answer Moral Questions

I could go on, but this list has grown much larger than what I anticipated.

Not all are super relevant, you sometimes have to find the relevance in there, but before you can do that you must understand what TVP is about.

Most of these persons are serious scientist and I take their talks at least as serious :)

/edit: my favorites in bold :)

Ok, your an artist, I also did a fine art degree. Think of it in the same terms as pitching a project to your audience. This is about x, and this 2 hour video will explain how x relates to y and z.

Idd. But different artists, different approaches.. (for the record, I don't consider myself an artist! but thanks for that :))

I always like to think that sparking interest yields better results when presenting ideas.

Yours might be a better approach for this particular audience, I don't know, can't turn back time and do it over differently to see what works best :)

But in support of my theory, people are curious of nature and will thus, if the correct amount and bits of information are presented, want to go investigate. It's a delicate balance that can't be predetermined I'm afraid, or maybe it could, I don't know, maybe it just isn't within my capabilities right now...

Also.. as this discussion moves along, some great questions will come up, I'm sure, and these will the 'genuine' key informative points for people seeing this topic for the first time, I think.

I do like the suggestion and will keep it in mind for future reference, thanks :)

What do you guys think about this approach style "of mine"?

Edited June 30, 2010 by 0blivious

[VaKo]

A few things that are important to remember:

In the 1st world, we have the highest standard of life the human species has ever seen.

The 1st world is expanding to places like China, India, Brazil, etc.

The technology the average person can purchase or access today is beyond anything a goverment could purchase when I was born. (a $500 GPU is more powerful than the fastest super computer from 1998, and faster than the top 500 in 1993)

We have access to more information than every ancestor we have combined.

My cell phone is more powerful than the desktop computer I owned a decade a go.

We can talk to far more people than ever before, with real time global communication systems, giving rise to new ways of thinking (FOSS anyone?), collaboration and decision making.

(But this video says "technology is constantly paralysed")

None of the corpratocracy stuff mentioned is new, just look at the East India Company or any of the old world monarchs. Its tired and played out. We're just nicer about it then we used to be, and where we once would sack a city, kill every male and rape every female, then salt the fields, we just move numbers around. The biggest problem we faces as a species is that we have technology beyond our resources, we can make iPhones, but it would be impossible to make enough of them to give everyone on the planet an iPhone. Same goes for cars, life support machines, advanced drugs, and most importantly food (people wanting the same level of meat in there diet as 1st world nations is already a problem in). This is the burden of a scarcity based society. If everyone was granted resources equally our quality of life would be shit. Until then, money acts as a complicated way of rationing resources, nothing more. All these systems of running our societies rise and fall, and capitalism will do to.

And neither is anyone controlling us, they might try. But anyone who has worked in a large organization will understand that planning is 1/10th, reacting to plans that didn't work is 9/10ths.

But, there is hope. The human species marches on, progress ever beckoning. If we want to get to the promised land, we're going to have to endure the harsh reality of scarcity. The free market, with people trying to out do each other, is the fastest way we have to encourage this growth.

[Zimmer]

A few things that are important to remember:

In the 1st world, we have the highest standard of life the human species has ever seen.

The 1st world is expanding to places like China, India, Brazil, etc.

The technology the average person can purchase or access today is beyond anything a goverment could purchase when I was born. (a $500 GPU is more powerful than the fastest super computer from 1998, and faster than the top 500 in 1993)

We have access to more information than every ancestor we have combined.

My cell phone is more powerful than the desktop computer I owned a decade a go.

We can talk to far more people than ever before, with real time global communication systems, giving rise to new ways of thinking (FOSS anyone?), collaboration and decision making.

(But this video says "technology is constantly paralysed")

None of the corpratocracy stuff mentioned is new, just look at the East India Company or any of the old world monarchs. Its tired and played out. We're just nicer about it then we used to be, and where we once would sack a city, kill every male and rape every female, then salt the fields, we just move numbers around. The biggest problem we faces as a species is that we have technology beyond our resources, we can make iPhones, but it would be impossible to make enough of them to give everyone on the planet an iPhone. Same goes for cars, life support machines, advanced drugs, and most importantly food (people wanting the same level of meat in there diet as 1st world nations is already a problem in). This is the burden of a scarcity based society. If everyone was granted resources equally our quality of life would be shit. Until then, money acts as a complicated way of rationing resources, nothing more. All these systems of running our societies rise and fall, and capitalism will do to.

And neither is anyone controlling us, they might try. But anyone who has worked in a large organization will understand that planning is 1/10th, reacting to plans that didn't work is 9/10ths.

But, there is hope. The human species marches on, progress ever beckoning. If we want to get to the promised land, we're going to have to endure the harsh reality of scarcity. The free market, with people trying to out do each other, is the fastest way we have to encourage this growth.

Agreed yet with all this technology we seem to have the same problems and same debates. With all this technology it still seems humans make the same mistakes.

We still fight wars over religion.

We still fight wars over money.

We try the same things and expect different results

We trust the government, private companies, lobbyist, unions, etc etc to help us and look out for are best interests and then realize they have their own agenda (just think of the last 4 presidents (the 2 Bushes, Clinton, and Obama) )

---------

will add more later, battery dying though.

Edited July 1, 2010 by Zimmer

[0blivious]

Sorry for the huge post:

A few things that are important to remember:

...

(But this video says "technology is constantly paralysed")

Nobody can deny what you are saying, these are facts.

But consider this:

Even though what you are saying may be a proof that technology is indeed not paralyzed, the point really is that today we could've been much further than where we are.

You can't deny that the advances in technology are based on how much money there is.

And science budgets aren't really that big -> http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/brian_co..._explorers.html

Another thing to consider are patents.

Those advances in technology or medical science are being restricted from use or further exploration by others and thus paralyzes the potential advances that could've been done.

In the same line as patents, we have the private corporations that need to keep their research and data safe so no one else can use it, else they would loose their competitive edge.

--> A closer to my bed show example could be this: (I'm not sure if companies are still doing this today, but I remember they once were) How technology is paralyzed for a person: When you buy a GFX card (or cpu), but you don't have the money to buy the latest and best one, you buy a model that is cheaper and thus does not have the same performance. What you actually bought is in fact the best one but crippled so you can only have the performance you have the money for. It's cheaper to use the same assembly lines and just modify 1 thing at the end of it to make that difference (by lasercutting bridges, modified firmware, removing a chip).

...

We're just nicer about it then we used to be, and where we once would sack a city,

Then you should watch this:

The bigger the explosion, the more people have died.

...

we have technology beyond our resources, we can make iPhones, but it would be impossible to make enough of them to give everyone on the planet an iPhone. Same goes for cars, life support machines, advanced drugs, and most importantly food (people wanting the same level of meat in there diet as 1st world nations is already a problem in). This is the burden of a scarcity based society. If everyone was granted resources equally our quality of life would be shit. Until then, money acts as a complicated way of rationing resources, nothing more. All these systems of running our societies rise and fall, and capitalism will do to.

I don't really think that we have technology beyond our resources, I think we have the technology to intelligently manage our resources, but it cost too much money to take this into consideration.

I'm curious as to how much energy and pollution it "needs" to create 1 iPhone, I possible wouldn't even want an iPhone if I knew this.

We could create an iPhone that is made in such a way that it is easier to recycle, or could be upgraded easily, but none of this is done because the profit per phone needs to be kept at a maximum and iPhones will aways need to be obsolete every x amount of time so a new one can be sold.

Industry as you know it today can't afford to care about the ecological of ethical aspects. With the profit motive, you need to find ways to keep loses at a minimum.

Even if it is illegal; if the profit margin is higher than the penalty fee for dumping waste water, then it would make sense to just keep dumping. I would too with this state of mind.

About meat: we have the technology to grow it, not by killing and pollution (did you know that cows actually have a heavy impact on our ecological footprint? a huge impact even).

http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_gro...ing_tissue.html

If only we had the money to further this development.

Imagine if an alien would come down to earth and ask:

Alien:Hello human, I have one question for you. It seems we both exist 2000 years (say..) but why are you not as advanced as us?

Human:We don't have the money.

Alien:Sorry, I actually have a second question: What is money?

Human:Money is something we need to pay for researchers, buy resources, so we can make those advances.

Alien:I don't understand, why wouldn't your advanced state be dependent on the resources you have on this planet?

Human:Because it is owned by someone or some company, and if you want a piece, you need to pay for it.

Alien:Why you would do this to yourselves, I don't understand.

And neither is anyone controlling us, they might try.

...

If you're not controlled, then you should be truly free.

I wonder how many people would agree with your statement :)

But, there is hope. The human species marches on, progress ever beckoning. If we want to get to the promised land, we're going to have to endure the harsh reality of scarcity. The free market, with people trying to out do each other, is the fastest way we have to encourage this growth.

Yes, there is hope, of course, like the ideas proposed =)

This is human empathy at it's best.

...

I completely agree with your statement, well done :)

Edited July 1, 2010 by 0blivious

[0blivious]

BTW;

I'm not here to convince you guys, just to ask your opinion on this, provide answers where possible and give my different view to help understand the ideas (which I hope to have understood myself :) )

The only person that can convince you is yourself :)

[VaKo]

But consider this:

Even though what you are saying may be a proof that technology is indeed not paralyzed, the point really is that today we could've been much further than where we are.

You can't deny that the advances in technology are based on how much money there is.

And science budgets aren't really that big -> http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/brian_co..._explorers.html

Another thing to consider are patents.

Those advances in technology or medical science are being restricted from use or further exploration by others and thus paralyzes the potential advances that could've been done.

In the same line as patents, we have the private corporations that need to keep their research and data safe so no one else can use it, else they would loose their competitive edge.

Patents are in dispute at the moment, its obvious to most people that the system needs to be reformed, and it will be. Simply because people are starting to ignore patents.

It is also worth considering that the human races most prolific rate of creation has been in the last century. And claims that we could have been much further ahead are complicated to prove.

--> A closer to my bed show example could be this: (I'm not sure if companies are still doing this today, but I remember they once were) How technology is paralyzed for a person: When you buy a GFX card (or cpu), but you don't have the money to buy the latest and best one, you buy a model that is cheaper and thus does not have the same performance. What you actually bought is in fact the best one but crippled so you can only have the performance you have the money for. It's cheaper to use the same assembly lines and just modify 1 thing at the end of it to make that difference (by lasercutting bridges, modified firmware, removing a chip).

Usually its more complicated that this, a lot of the time a chip that passes QA at 50% can't be sold as the 9000 series, but with a little firmware magic you can sell what would otherwise be a defective product as a lower spec'd product.

Then you should watch this:

The bigger the explosion, the more people have died.

Yes, and the European Civil War had the most deaths. But otherwise we've been ok since then war wise. However, as we start seriously competing for resources (because the planet doesn't have enough), we'll see some more big wars in the next century. It will be interesting to see if the current aversion to collateral damage continues (yes, there is one. Where previously we'd have used carpet bombing or burnt a city to the ground (Dresden) we now prefer to use smart munitions.

I don't really think that we have technology beyond our resources, I think we have the technology to intelligently manage our resources, but it cost too much money to take this into consideration.

I'm curious as to how much energy and pollution it "needs" to create 1 iPhone, I possible wouldn't even want an iPhone if I knew this.

We could create an iPhone that is made in such a way that it is easier to recycle, or could be upgraded easily, but none of this is done because the profit per phone needs to be kept at a maximum and iPhones will aways need to be obsolete every x amount of time so a new one can be sold.

We don't have enough resources. Full stop. This isn't a case of management, its a lack of resources. We have 6.5 billion people on the planet, and that number isn't getting any smaller. Unless we have a major war its going to double by 2050. We can't feed that many people. And there is no hope in hell of being able to provide everyone with an iPhone, even if we recycle (which requires energy, another thing we don't have enough of currently).

Industry as you know it today can't afford to care about the ecological of ethical aspects. With the profit motive, you need to find ways to keep loses at a minimum.

Even if it is illegal; if the profit margin is higher than the penalty fee for dumping waste water, then it would make sense to just keep dumping. I would too with this state of mind.

This is competing with food, and hungry people will win this argument. Even China, who traditionally have disagreed with nature, are starting to realize that a profitable lead smelting plant is worth less than the cost of dealing with contaminated food.

About meat: we have the technology to grow it, not by killing and pollution (did you know that cows actually have a heavy impact on our ecological footprint? a huge impact even).

http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_gro...ing_tissue.html

Yeah, they have been trying to make that work for years now, its still not comerically viable and isn't as good as the real stuff. I hope they figure it out soon though.

If only we had the money to further this development.

Imagine if an alien would come down to earth and ask:

Alien:Hello human, I have one question for you. It seems we both exist 2000 years (say..) but why are you not as advanced as us?

Human:We don't have the money.

Alien:Sorry, I actually have a second question: What is money?

Human:Money is something we need to pay for researchers, buy resources, so we can make those advances.

Alien:I don't understand, why wouldn't your advanced state be dependent on the resources you have on this planet?

Human:Because it is owned by someone or some company, and if you want a piece, you need to pay for it.

Alien:Why you would do this to yourselves, I don't understand.

This is very naive, and your making the exact same mistake as the bankers made recently, by thinking that money is something in it own right. Money is just a rationing system, nothing more, nothing less. Unless your money is invested in growth, or used to buy resources its just numbers in a HDD.

And it would probally go down like this:

Alien: Hello human, I have one question for you. It seems we both exist 2000 years (say..) but why are you not as advanced as us?

Human: We would need to examine the differences in geopolitics, resource distribution, population dynamics and neuro-psychology to answer that question, but fuck that for the moment, tell us about that star drive of yours? What can we give you so we can build our own?

Alien: Umm... water is something we need, and foreign art always sells well back home.

Human: OK, how much water do you want? And here is a list of galleries we can take a look at.

Alien: More than we can carry... a say 50 Million litres?

Human: OK, here is a bit of paper saying IOU 50 million litres, and in exchange we want free access to your technical data banks.

<years pass>

Alien 2: Hi, we have a bit of paper here that says we can collect 10 Million litres of water and 5 arts, we got it off the first aliens you met in exchange for a power plant design.

Until we can create as many resources as we need (i.e. post-scarcity) we going to need to rely on a resource management system, i.e. a form of money.

If you're not controlled, then you should be truly free.

I wonder how many people would agree with your statement :)

Anyone who has worked in a large organization understands exactly how much control there is.

Yes, there is hope, of course, like the ideas proposed =)

TBH, in the first video posted, the ideas proposed by that strange man towards the end are crap. Maglev systems are cool, but building one from the US to China would be a project many orders of magnitude more complicated and expensive (in terms of resources) than the Manhattan project. Running it would be even more expensive. We just don't have the materials technology or power generation systems required to do it yet. What we can do is design more fuel efficient planes which pollute far less and fly them around at half the cost of the current planes.

[VaKo]

Agreed yet with all this technology we seem to have the same problems and same debates. With all this technology it still seems humans make the same mistakes.

We still fight wars over religion.

We still fight wars over money.

We try the same things and expect different results

We trust the government, private companies, lobbyist, unions, etc etc to help us and look out for are best interests and then realize they have their own agenda (just think of the last 4 presidents (the 2 Bushes, Clinton, and Obama) )

Because our technology is evolving faster than we are currently. People act like the Great War was a long time ago, but there are still people alive today who lived through it. We are still essentially the same animals who were impressed by indoor plumbing, and we've had that for 2000 years.

[0blivious]

Because our technology is evolving faster than we are currently. People act like the Great War was a long time ago, but there are still people alive today who lived through it. We are still essentially the same animals who were impressed by indoor plumbing, and we've had that for 2000 years.

Do you really think it's this human animal that needs evolution?

Or maybe it's just what shapes this animal's behavior; the social system; that needs to evolve :)

Like Jacque Fresco (of TVP) likes to say: We are not civilized yet.

This social system (and it's inhabitants) isn't aware of the current state of technology and doesn't have the money to incorporate it so these animals living in the system can adjust to it.

Do you agree with me that money paralyzes crucial components that make up our system and way of life?

What are your thoughts on this?

[VaKo]

Do you really think it's this human animal that needs evolution?

Or maybe it's just what shapes this animal's behavior; the social system; that needs to evolve :)

As far as humans are concerned, it is simply the lack of resources we have that causes a lot of wars. Even Native American tribes, who are considered to be pure and simple in romantic terms, had loads of wars over resources. As soon as we reach a point where our supply of resources doesn't match our demand, we start looking around for someone to trade with, or if we are strong enough, someone to take it from. This might be done with guns, or it might be done with financial methods to coerce trade in our advantage. You can't evolve out of that, other than to reach and enforce an equilibrium with our environment, but that basically stunts development massively as most if not all of our technology is developed to improve our lives by increasing available resources, or to make processes easier and freeing up time & the workforce for other tasks (like art or science). If everyone is just focused on providing enough to survive, no one desires more or better.

Like Jacque Fresco (of TVP) likes to say: We are not civilized yet.

Bullshit, the mere fact that your neighbours haven't smashed your skull in to take your stuff is evidence this is wrong.

This social system (and it's inhabitants) isn't aware of the current state of technology and doesn't have the money to incorporate it so these animals living in the system can adjust to it.

I'm not sure what your trying to say here. We've incorporated the current state of technology into our lives quite well, and continue to do so year on year. But as I've said, you couldn't provide the same quality of life to everyone on the planet without some areas having a massive reduction in quality of life. We can't feed everyone with the technology we have, we can't even provide drinking water. Are you ready to give up your computer, your TV, your non-essential stuff and eat a more restricted diet?

Do you agree with me that money paralyzes crucial components that make up our system and way of life?

No, As I've said previously, your thinking like a banker, you think money is actually something. Its not, its a way of rationing resources, ideally based upon merit i.e. you work harder than your brother, train to do a more complicated job, so you should probably get more for your effort than he does. Same extends to a moneyless tribal situation, if you gather more berrys than your neighbours, your going to have more to eat. Your neighbours could try to gather the same amount, but if you have an extra daughter your always going to win. However, if they are better at hunting than you (2 sons vs 1 son and 2 daughters), then they might say, we'll catch the deer, and trade you for the berrys. And you have the basis for a monetary system forming. The only way to avoid this is to mandate that everyone pools everything in the tribe, and its equally divided between everyone. But this only works if everyone puts in the same level of effort as they did previously, but without the reward of extra stuff for there hard work. So people will put in a minimal level of effort and thus the tribe as a whole suffers.

The problem at the moment is that people think money is the end goal, and this is why we're having problems. We need to focus capitalism back onto society and use the money/resources to do things, rather than sticking it in a pile and looking at it.

[Zimmer]

Money is nothing, its just the promise that is can be something. Money itself is just cotton (or some other material) that carries with it a promise that people will take that and give you something else. But if that promise is undermined (e.g in WWII Hitler was going to drop counterfeit pounds over Britain causing their money to be nothing after all you can just get it out of the sky and so the promise that this piece of paper has value is gone).

Example (I can't find where I read this but I am paraphrasing)

'''

One day a person was in Mexico on vacation and saw a fisherman came in and asked him how good the catch was, he said that it was good, the person then asked why the fisherman hadn't stayed out longer and got more fish and make more money. The fisherman replied that he had enough for his family and to sell why catch more, when he could instead play with his kids, drink with his friends and take a siesta the person replied so that you can make more money and expand (the actual story continues with how etc) until you are a ceo and have fishing trawlers and are rich and wealthy and the person continues you can then retire and the fisherman asked then what.

the person said in reply, you can then

play with your kids, drink with your friends and take a siesta

'''

Also there is not enough resources for everyone to live fairly AND not be dirt poor, there just isn't and so there will always be a unfairness, but then again whoever promised you a fair life.

Also Vako did your account get hacked your talking like a capitalist :P

Edited July 2, 2010 by Zimmer

[VaKo]

LOL

No, I'm just someone who believes that you need to be fiscally conservative, socially progressive and above all pragmatic. The free market and capitalism can be good, if you invest the profits back into progressive social and economic polices, education, infrastructure and development. I want a world where hard work gets you something, where thinking "I can do it better" is encouraged, but not one where your next thought is "I deserve a Vertu phone and an infinity pool". Greed is good, but only if your end goal is something more than sitting on a pile of money paying poor people to roll in the mud for your own amusement. We need to encourage philanthropy, be less "individual" and short term-ist.

And yes, I know the elites of the world are fucking over the poorer nations, but I also realize that I'm one of them. My attitude is just that we should use our privilege and power to further the species as a whole, because a post scarcity society isn't going to arise from anywhere else.

[Zimmer]

Well damn Vako you summed up a lot of my thoughts to (well that and I think any philanthropy should be from the people not the government (because then it is hard to stop, and very corrupt (e.g what I think what will happen with government healthcare ) ).

[VaKo]

I'm afraid I'm all for the government providing healthcare for all, paid for by all (a la National Insurance paying for the NHS in the UK). But I have no issue with paying for private healthcare in addition to this if you want (I have private dental, because although I have access to NHS dental, I like the service the private sector offers). What I don't do is bitch about paying for both, because someone who can't afford private dental could probally use my unused funding.

As for government philanthropy, no, but government planning and funding for things like telecomms, power, water, public transport infra and welfare, education and healthcare. Yes. These are essential services that shouldn't be profit driven, Governments should use tax money to build nations that have efficient infrastructure that is run for the benefit of the nation (day-to-day operational stuff can be outsourced though). That way the private sector has a high quality work force, with high quality infrastructure to build upon. Business thrives, effort is rewarded, people who need help get help, not handouts.

[0blivious]

As far as humans are concerned, it is simply the lack of resources we have that causes a lot of wars.

I'm convinced otherwise :)

It's not the lack of resources, it's the lack of control over resources that causes some of those wars.

Even Native American tribes, who are considered to be pure and simple in romantic terms, had loads of wars over resources.

So there isn't a lack of resources just lack of control over those resources.

As soon as we reach a point where our supply of resources doesn't match our demand

...

What do you think is the cause of that demand?

we start looking around for someone to trade with, or if we are strong enough, someone to take it from. This might be done with guns, or it might be done with financial methods to coerce trade in our advantage. You can't evolve out of that, other than to reach and enforce an equilibrium with our environment, but that basically stunts development massively as most if not all of our technology is developed to improve our lives by increasing available resources, or to make processes easier and freeing up time & the workforce for other tasks (like art or science). If everyone is just focused on providing enough to survive, no one desires more or better.

I think that fundamentally we think alike but we're just not really in sync :)

It's difficult to see the new system proposed by The Venus Project in a new perspective and step out of your current frame of reference, which is the current system.

The goal is indeed an equilibrium with our environment, not forced, but logically attained through rational thinking.

I don't see this would stun development. It would definitely stun development of technology used for irrelevant stuff, but this frees up those resources to develop the things that improve our lives.

There will always be problems and ways to do things in a more efficient way and to require less resources.

I think that it could be the other way around. With all resources available, development of anything and everything could take a huge leap forward.

You talk about scarcity (real or artificial), but with technology we can overcome most of those (leaving the irrelevant stuff out).

What do you think would happen to the Linux OS if the developers community (and everyone that joins it) would have all resources available for the development of that OS? Wouldn't it take a huge leap forward?

Bullshit, the mere fact that your neighbours haven't smashed your skull in to take your stuff is evidence this is wrong.

I think they would if they could do it guilt and problem free.

Here's something relevant:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...oryId=124838091

I'm not sure what your trying to say here. We've incorporated the current state of technology into our lives quite well, and continue to do so year on year. But as I've said, you couldn't provide the same quality of life to everyone on the planet without some areas having a massive reduction in quality of life. We can't feed everyone with the technology we have, we can't even provide drinking water. Are you ready to give up your computer, your TV, your non-essential stuff and eat a more restricted diet?

It's not what I'm saying; it's what I think to have understood about that project.

To answer your question: If giving up my computer, tv, non essential stuff and eat a more restricted diet would guaranty me that there would be no more war, famine, decease, then yes I would. I'm not selfish, I would give up the things I love for that, yes.

Wouldn't you?

No, As I've said previously, your thinking like a banker, you think money is actually something.

I purposefully didn't reply to that statement because I thought you would understand my point of view, because it's clear that I think money does not hold any real value. You can't eat money or fuel your car with it.

[0blivious]

Its not, its a way of rationing resources, ideally based upon merit i.e. you work harder than your brother, train to do a more complicated job, so you should probably get more for your effort than he does.

Rationing<>merit.

Rationing is dividing a certain resource equally and fairly.

Merit is getting more because you need it out of the extra energy you used for a certain effort.

Where's the merit in me not working because I have 1million dollars on my bank account, and the yearly percentage I get from the bank for depositing it there generates even more money (in Belgium that would be about 30 thousand dollars, which would be more than enough for a western family of 4; I earn 21k $)?

Merit comes from effort and the way you can make money from money has nothing to do with fairness, rationing or even merit.

You're using this system as your frame of reference when judging TVP and that will never work.

If you train to do a more complicated job, you wouldn't do it because it would pay less. You would do it because it would pay more, because money=surviving.

Do you think profit is a good motivation for career choices?

Would you rather have a doctor doing heart surgery on you that has chosen this profession with profit in mind or one that does it because it's a passion of his/hers?

In a society like TVP proposes, I would do a job with the proper motivation, because I either love doing it or because I can solve a problem that would better my life with it. I wouldn't expect to be payed more or less, I would expect that what I did for myself, will be applied to everyone for free. Even without being recognized for it, doing good for others feels great.

Just look at the open source community, most of them do it out of love for it, not because of profit.

Same extends to a moneyless tribal situation, if you gather more berrys than your neighbours, your going to have more to eat. Your neighbours could try to gather the same amount, but if you have an extra daughter your always going to win. However, if they are better at hunting than you (2 sons vs 1 son and 2 daughters), then they might say, we'll catch the deer, and trade you for the berrys. And you have the basis for a monetary system forming.

Try to see it without the greed:

Other money-less tribes would do it differently: if you gather more berries than you need, you could give the surplus to your neighbors instead of hoarding or consuming the surplus. It would feel good to help your neighbors.

Same for the reverse situation.

But the result wouldn't be a monetary system, it would be a system of social coherence.

The only way to avoid this is to mandate that everyone pools everything in the tribe, and its equally divided between everyone. But this only works if everyone puts in the same level of effort as they did previously, but without the reward of extra stuff for there hard work. So people will put in a minimal level of effort and thus the tribe as a whole suffers.

This is essentially rationing. Making sure everything is divided fairly.

But you're putting a price tag on effort. It's not the individual effort that really counts, it's the general effort. As if the more effort you put in, the more you should receive.

This is what I consider to be a dangerous way of thinking if everybody thought like that. Luckily, not everybody does.

Do you think this system pays you more if you put more effort in?

The problem at the moment is that people think money is the end goal, and this is why we're having problems.

I completely agree, it's a big part of our problems.

We need to focus capitalism back onto society and use the money/resources to do things, rather than sticking it in a pile and looking at it.

The way this system works, there will never be enough money for this idea.

I'm not even mentioning that corruption is a monetary invention.

There is no pile, and there is certainly nobody looking at it.

If you look at our GDP's VS debt, you'll understand what I'm saying:

http://www.visualeconomics.com/gdp-vs-nati...ebt-by-country/

Money is nothing, its just the promise that is can be something. Money itself is just cotton (or some other material) that carries with it a promise that people will take that and give you something else. But if that promise is undermined (e.g in WWII Hitler was going to drop counterfeit pounds over Britain causing their money to be nothing after all you can just get it out of the sky and so the promise that this piece of paper has value is gone).

Example (I can't find where I read this but I am paraphrasing)

Let's try and get past the money is nothing thing and look at what money actually does.

You will never hear anyone say that money didn't server it's purpose, yes, it's a much more efficient way of barthering, and it did get us this far. But like most things, the monetary system-thing is obsolete and it's time for something better. Unless you believe in Utopia and think the money system will never need to change.

BTW your example is nice, it shows that fundamentally the purposes in life is to be happy and be surround by happy people.

I like George Carlin's quote:

"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity."

Yea, I know it's not relevant to what you said, but it popped up in my mind and it's an example of the complete reverse way we today look at things.

Also there is not enough resources for everyone to live fairly AND not be dirt poor, there just isn't and so there will always be a unfairness, but then again whoever promised you a fair life.

Yes, there are enough resources if we manage it intelligently.

If we look at the amount of food thrown away everyday, this could feed all the starving people in the world, today.