try to invent a 'world model' where ther is no...
MONEY.
Ok, here's a topic where we shouldn't have a reason to attack eachother personally.
perhaps we can all contribute to describe a model of the world, where there is no money. Everything is free. Now the first thing that springs to mind, is cool, I won't have to go to work. Wrong. Everyone stops work, there is nothing to eat. You're dead within a month.
Lets try to create this so that everything is sustaining, someone can put forward an argument, and we can discuss its merits/downfall and ultimatley whether the sub-idea works, and hopefully this will generate other sub-ideas that will continue this thread.
As I've already mentioned the need to work. Lets start this off with a model of framework where we still have to go to work, but we dont earn money, and our company obviously doesn't make a profit or loss.
Ok, here's a topic where we shouldn't have a reason to attack eachother personally.
perhaps we can all contribute to describe a model of the world, where there is no money. Everything is free. Now the first thing that springs to mind, is cool, I won't have to go to work. Wrong. Everyone stops work, there is nothing to eat. You're dead within a month.
Lets try to create this so that everything is sustaining, someone can put forward an argument, and we can discuss its merits/downfall and ultimatley whether the sub-idea works, and hopefully this will generate other sub-ideas that will continue this thread.
As I've already mentioned the need to work. Lets start this off with a model of framework where we still have to go to work, but we dont earn money, and our company obviously doesn't make a profit or loss.
Comments
<strong>MONEY.
Ok, here's a topic where we shouldn't have a reason to attack eachother personally.
perhaps we can all contribute to describe a model of the world, where there is no money. Everything is free. Now the first thing that springs to mind, is cool, I won't have to go to work. Wrong. Everyone stops work, there is nothing to eat. You're dead within a month.
Lets try to create this so that everything is sustaining, someone can put forward an argument, and we can discuss its merits/downfall and ultimatley whether the sub-idea works, and hopefully this will generate other sub-ideas that will continue this thread.
As I've already mentioned the need to work. Lets start this off with a model of framework where we still have to go to work, but we dont earn money, and our company obviously doesn't make a profit or loss.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You mean communism? Sorry, it contradicts human nature.
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Sorry, it contradicts human nature.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No it doesn't.
Hmm. Communism. Requisites: NO PERSONAL PROPERTY. This stinks.
NO INHEIRITANCE. In case you didn't implement the first one right, you need this one, or classes develop.
DON't ENTER ARMS RACES. This is the reason the Soviets failed. If they had focused on academia and imrpoving their technology rather than building more and more expensive nukes, they would be the Superpower today.
OVERPRODUCE EVERYTHING. Always have stores of extras. If you don't, people will go hungry, poepl will go cold, people will not have shoes.
PROVIDE NATIONAL UNITY. Through propagana (USA and other Allies did this), genetic "superiority" (Nazis), military superiority (Soviets or China),
Hmm... It's possible to have a democratic communism. Indeed, in perfect communism, EVERYONE has the same class. All adults have exactly one vote in every election pertaining to them. But individuals still manage to take mor ethan their share of power. Oh well.
big communism doesn't work.
Or perhaps you mean a world like Star Trek? As proven by 2002 technology, science does not cure all ills. There's enough food produced by modern agriculture to feed 10 billion, but poor people still go ghungry.
Even nanotech will not solve all teh world's problems without someone solcving social problems. Either kill all the poor and be done with them or give them the status they deserve as citizens.
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No it doesn't.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes, it does. Humans are naturally greedy. Humans want recognition. Humans want power. Communism requires that all of those don't exist. Sorry, it doesn't work.
<strong>
Yes, it does. Humans are naturally greedy. Humans want recognition. Humans want power. Communism requires that all of those don't exist. Sorry, it doesn't work.</strong><hr></blockquote>
suppose humans are naturally all these things merely from conditioning...I personally wouldn't call these things natural. generations of humans living in dog-eat-dog conditions surviving with darwinistic principles would surely create a lasting impression on modern day people. I'm not sure if I would call these things _natural_ ailments. but who am I to argue thousands of years of development.
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suppose humans are naturally all these things merely from conditioning...I personally wouldn't call these things natural. generations of humans living in dog-eat-dog conditions surviving with darwinistic principles would surely create a lasting impression on modern day people. I'm not sure if I would call these things _natural_ ailments. but who am I to argue thousands of years of development.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, you agree with me. These are naturally occurring impulses that have been sculpted through thousands of years of evolution. Until there comes a day where it is no longer a dog-eat-dog world and that utopia survives more than a few generations, maybe then we will lose those impulses. Until then, I'm right, that other guy is wrong, go home.
and yet there is an aspect of human social interactions which are communistic: its just that when the chaos and organic flow of human life is forced to opperate under ideaological definitions and social structures organized according to these definitions then human energies are constricted.
Money is not in itself bad: it is merely the place holder for consensus value based on translation of exchange equivalance as well as grounded in the labour of production: so much work=so much mone=equals so much possible exchange.
Money can be seen as blood, if it flows and and is generally active it can be seen as vitalizing: if it stps and congeals it can be seen as debilitating in its absence. The important thing to realize is that it is an extension of ourselves: money is organic, and like humanity and is not simply definable: especially these days when money is increasingly becoming information and vica-versa.
A civilization w/out money would still need some way to have exchange: barter is unwieldy; propertyless sharing would genuinly leave the impetus for better goods and services behind, there would be now reason to have something work better than another of its kind because there would be nothing to gain in the effort.
and besides people are often greedy and its not just social conditioning that makes them so: that's like saying it was the chicken before the egg for sure . . .
in other words: what made the social conditioning?
I just think that its not so simplistic: and that's the rub: communism is simplistic but human energies are not.
[ 05-05-2002: Message edited by: pfflam ]</p>
Money is not the "root of all evil." It's just a means. If you think trade is "the root of all evil," then you're a bit nuts.
Envisioning a society without trade is like envisioning a car without an engine.
I need this, you need that, I got that, you got this, let's trade! I need this to be done, you need to eat, I got food, you got the skill to do this, let's make a deal!
That's the basic of trading and making a deal.
It's a proven concept that have been done for years.
As for the existence of money.
Actually, if you're talking about the paper kind, its originial purpose is kinda like an IOU (I owed you) note.
Let say that person A wanted to done some trading with person B, person B has a home in area C and wanted some D stuff.
Person A then said, ?Hey, I got a deposit of those D stuff at area C. Here... Let me make a note so that when you're at area C, you can give this note to the person I assigned to handle my D stuff. He will give some of my D stuff there to you.?
Person A then gived the note to person B, and then person B give person A the stuff and/or the service person A want.
It's a trade of goods, only one of the items is represent by a piece of paper.
Money don't act that way now though. And that's the reason on why now people are complaining about money. You no longer get D stuff by presenting a piece of paper, you just get a piece of paper that HOPEFULLY someone is willing to trade some stuff with it, and there's no guarrante that you will get any stuff at all with that paper or anyone.
The current state of the U.S. Dollar bank note:
<a href="http://www.barefootsworld.net/prophesy.html"; target="_blank">http://www.barefootsworld.net/prophesy.html</a>;
As for work?
Of course people need to work.
5 days a week (in a week that consist of 7 days)?
Heck no! 7 days a week (in a week that consist of 7 days)!
In short... EVERYDAY!
People need to work everyday! Everytime! 24 hours a day (in a 24 hours day)!
Of course the definition of ?work? can be loossely defined.
Anyway. I think that the fact that people don't like work is that they think that it took much of their time and their resources.
Let see. If an office worker work in a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. office hours.
That's 8 hours per day.
And that's office hours only! Not counting on the time it takes to travel from home to the office and vice versa. Things could added up into around 12 hours per day. That's around half a day (in a 24 hours day).
People worked long hours, get little pay, live in uncertainity, no wonder they feel upset.
That kind of thing is just too stressful.
Of course, the owner of a general store, that also functioned as his house, that's in a nice neighboorhood that need a general store for constant supply. He probably has a much less stressful life than an office worker.
<strong>Humans aren't necessarily greedy, just self-conscious. The fact that human are aware of their surroundings, of who they are relative to everyone else means that social hierarchies become established -- inherently. With social hierarchy comes material means of differentiating yourself, which means good, which means bartering, which means money and equity.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think a lot of people would disagree with this. I want good and services for myself, more so than to impress. I guess this is selfishness. I don't think a social hierarchy had a lot to do with the development of trade and money. Social hierarchy is present in dumb animals, thus it greatly predates money, and is a more primitive way of evaluating a person's worth than is wealth. Trade and money, I argue, developed because people don't live forever, and thus can't do everything single handedly.