P A N

ok. i'll explain it. again.

first and foremost, to tackle your accusation toward me about not understanding fiat currency. fiat currency is essentially what we think is money but is actually a derivative of debt. roughly 3% of the money in circulation can be accounted for in gold, which doesn't really matter, because gold is no longer relevant. this is the problem. the idea behind fiat currency is that essentially a government can go to a (private) bank and say "we need a million dollars". the bank then gives that government a note saying that the government now owes that bank a million dollars plus whatever rate of interest. the government will then go to yet ANOTHER (private) bank and deposit the money there on the pretense that the bank use the money to generate more money via more loans with more interest. the bank is legally obliged to only keep 10% as a reserve, basically proving that indeed the money in circulation has some sort of basis, and no, we at the bank are not just printing money and giving it away. so the bank can lend out the other 90% in whatever manner they wish, and the real MONEY CREATION happens when the public returns their loans to the bank with interest.

i've just realized that i don't need to explain anymore, because what i've written indicates not only my understanding of fiat currency, but also that all money (save about 3%) is based on debt and there is no logical way that it can ever be paid off... which might have something to do with technology being an intrinsic part of our evolution which means it relieves us of mundane tasks while also making it harder for the general populace to make money to spend on stuff.

i agree with you that money has worked for a long time. and i also agree with you that i speak as though it's obsolescence should be self-evident.

OccultHawk

Does every post here get graded by a wannabe sociology professor? Here's my reasoning based on first hand personal observation: I have to things I don't like (like go to my crappy job) in order to get money. Everytime I run out of money completely my life gets more difficult. Sound familiar?

cardboard adolescent

It feels like every nation is economically/politically/socially jumping onto the world stage with nothing to offer. That's why it's all based on debt--oh crap, here I am, nothing to give, so I have to take something. A country that grows all its own foods, a country in which every community feeds itself, a country with a mass surplus of food, that country has something to offer on the world stage. It can enter the international arena and say: "hey, want some food?"

How do you get there? Fuck if I know. I figure if it happens, it just kind of happens.

In the meantime, we have this crazy monetary system. IT'S ALL BASED ON DEBT! Yeah, but that's how it's always been. Judgment is based in debt. You owe me something, that's why I can judge you. What do you owe me? I have no idea. I just know it's something. Something good. Not that bullshit. Something more like that. Yeah, that's good! Alright, thank you friend, here's a loan and a pat on the back.

Anyway, this conversation will probably be obsolete in a few years when we program reality to be perfect and just and pretty with nano-bots.

GuitarBizarre

I think he'd be more offended to hear someone try and use a twisted reading of his work, taken out of context and embellished, to try and imply Pratchetts support of a cause he's never made an official or even implied statement endorsing. I've read every Pratchett book, and he frequently makes comments like that. They are humorous and tongue in cheek and he's never attempted in any way to purvey a belief system through them.


OccultHawk - Theres nothing in that statement that in any way backs up your assertion. Oppression is actively putting down others, whereas money is providing an easily counted and apportioned recompense for acts beneficial to others that in turn provides the person doing those tasks or providing those services to not only feed and clothe themselves but also to make rational decisions based on their ideals in terms of further distributing that wealth to others in the form of charity and recompense for services rendered.

As for your crappy job, nobody forces you to stay at that job, nobody prevents you from starting up a business (and no, you don't need a loan to do so. Mark Zuckerberg didn't need a loan, and there are places like Etsy and Ebay that allow you do so entirely out of your own pocket and according to your own rules providing you agree with their terms). As far as running out of money, that isn't moneys fault, its your own. Anyone with investments will tell you that you can make money work for you. If you're good at that, then you're a successful businessman, stockbroker, etc.

If you can't do that, then you can still ask after better pay, or you can develop skills and talents with which you can provide others with a service for which you will recieve recompense.

As for sociology professors, no. The type of professor you'd consult for matters regarding fiat currency would be a professor of law who had studied in areas related to economics and trade. Sociology is to do with determining the impetus and reasoning behind behaviours exhibited commonly by a group. Its remit is more to do with societal ills in the form of racism, sexism, bigotry, etc. in addition to simple explanations of group behaviour such as analyses of cultural practices and how they influence human relations. Nothing to do with currency at all, unless the culture itself, independent of its economic system, had an existing imbalance of wealth.

Now, of course, the US does have an astonishing imbalance of wealth, with 90% of its total wealth controlled or owned by 10% of the population, but the monetary systems that allowed that were in place and functional long before that fact came to be, seeing as the american system of currency grew out of that of western europe, and the only reason America moved away from the european model was because the british attempted to tax its colonies, which were raking in vast amounts of cash by virtue of being essentially subsidised by the Crown. That lead to the war of independence. The existing disparancy between wealth and status came to be because of SLAVERY, and also the subsidy of colonies in the 'new land' by european governments, in order to obtain greater physical resources (A goal that ultimate failed as the United states in its current form came to be as an independent nation), which has nothing to do with currency whatsoever, and everything to do with opportunistic enterprising for personal gain, and would have taken place in much the same manner had americas system of trade been simple bartering, as cotton and the promise of physical labour with minimal recompense would have become tools with which to trade with others and subjugation of the black peoples would have still had more than adequate percieved benefit for those doing the enslaving.

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OccultHawk

I find it process of starting a business oppressive. I want everything for free. I consider having to work a form of oppression. I don't want to provide services for others.

GuitarBizarre

Then you're looking for a world that will never exist. Its all well and good to say that once basic needs are taken care of nobody will ever have to work again, but thats not how the human mind works. There are very real emotional needs that go along with creating, buying, using, or even destroying something of value, whether that value is percieved, enhanced, or utterly insignificant. People will always demand recompense for their work in some capacity or they simply won't do that work. If they don't do that work, they become a drain on everyone elses resources and are shunned, cast out, etc. THere will always be work to do as we will re-evaluate what value is and how a thing comes to posses it, no matter how far things get taken in terms of becoming a post-scarcity society.

Your entire philosophy is laughably idealistic, it assumes that humans are something they're not. It assumes that competition doesn't have value for people. It assumes there are more resources available on earth than there actually are. It assumes technological freedom we don't have, and most of all it assumes that even if we did have all of those impossible things, people wouldn't just find new ways of giving a thing, object, even CONCEPT, value.

Your ideas work just fine if your idea of utopia is "Technologically advanced human sustenance center, mathematically designed in order to provide the longest lives to the most people in a purely physical sense"

It falls apart if you consider anything beyond eating breathing sleeping and reproducing to have any value whatsoever.

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Listening to: Arc System Works - [Guilty Gear X (Heavy Rock Tracks) #06] Writhe in Pain [foobar2000 v1.1.2 beta 4]

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P A N

it doesn't assume people don't value competition. it just says their competition is misdirected. put so by a system which conditions from birth the notion in all of us that this is the only way the world can work.

it doesn't assume there are more resources. it says we can make more efficient the means by which we procure them.

the only reason we don't have technological freedom is that money stands in the way. if money were not there, technological advancements would be made in a open-source framework.

people don't need things to value. they'll figure this out when they learn to value themselves.

EDIT: and one other thing, Mark Zuckerberg ripped off his friends to start facebook.

GuitarBizarre

Thanks for glossing over every element of what I said and coming out the other end with exactly the kind of response I'd expect from someone who seems to be a borderline cultist, barely able to tie his own shoes without the help of some ridiculous platitudes delivered by a man whose sole purpose is to try and tell the world he knows what's going one without ever having once researched it properly nor even considered the idea of simple human difference totally ****ing up his plans.

You're an idiot. Your ideas are overly idealistic, socially, technologically, and economically entirely non-viable. Good day to you sir.

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P A N

ok guitar bizarre. i can't stop you from thinking the way you seem so attached to thinking. all i can do is talk on the internet about a hypothetical something which is of great interest to me. i am sorry the world works in such a way that i am free to do this.

as far as glossing over the things you'd brought up, i apologize for getting straight to what i see as the point, for it is my personal belief that a lot of the things many people are so willing to call human nature are in fact quite nurtured. the motives behind the 'nuturers' or 'the men behind the curtain' aside, YOU believe that competition is necessary for happiness and survival while I DO NOT. i hardly see any reason for you to call me an idiot for simply not seeing things as you do, particularly being that you seem to be the one so notably knowledgeable on the differences of men.

you can go on and on about research and making your assumptions about who i may be, but the reality is that you have no f*cking clue. so given that everyone is allowed to voice their opinions, it is the respectful thing to do to keep in mind that although you may really believe that you are right and i am not, there is no need to assault me for having a different perspective than you.


and my main point here, is that i don't think you've read enough of this thread to really be participating. you say that i gloss over your points, but in my mind, i'm just lightly touching on things because they've already been covered. and i doubt you've watched the documentaries - of which there are now three.

so all in all, quit being a d*ck dude.

Mrd00d

I grew up hating the concept of competition while my other friends were always trying to compete over mundane everythings. I held/hold no interest in participating in sports or watching them, etc. Best example is when I'd be participating in some childhood game and realized my buddy wanted to 'win' and I was just having fun playing. I was already a little behind, so I took a major dive and let him win by a landslide. Every time we did something and it started turning into a competition, I'd throw it.

The more I lost by, oh the less fun it was. For them.

I agree that the competition factor has been nurtured into us. I think everyone has been programmed to acknowledge it, but not everyone holds value in it.

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Mrd00d's Last.fm