Money: The worst idea since murder.

[RooftopAssassin]

The only problem with money these days is when it's fake.

Hence the current economic crisis in the United States. We print billions and billions of dollars that have no tangible backing.

I think the thousands of nuclear missiles and our large navy are enough backing [/sarcasm]

As for this whole tender thing, I think we have gone as far as we need to, right now of course. To much change in one place could throw the whole system into chaos.

Plus the U.S. isn't the only place, you ever wonder why Somalia has so many pirates?

 

[notabadger]

that's a fair point well made but saying that there's a problem with a system doesn't necessarily mean that the system doesn't work. a free trade utopia would be great if it were possible, but it isn't.

the way we use money reflects our nature as animals, we're too pragmatic to suspend the system we have in favour of socialist unification. socialism has never worked because it's human beings that are trying to make it work, and we're too competitive to ever truly embrace equality. we're inherently capitalist in nature, and it's that attitude that will make sure the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor, whatever we do to try and change things.

our modern approach to economics is the best compromise we'll be able to find until we fundamentally change our attitude as a species. we suck.

this is in reply to Housebroken Lunatic. i don't think the quote thing worked

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

Can you elaborate on that? No one is going to be able to give you an answer if you don't clearly explain what you think the problem is.

I can volunteer a little!

The fact that a certain monetary value is placed on certain goods (like crude oil) because those goods are used in a variety of ways (running combustion engines, creating plastic wares etc.) it can contribute to limiting technological advancements, mainly because many corporations who jhave specialised in extracting and processing these goods would lose a significant amount of their wealth if technological advancements could provide better alternatives.

For instance, if I said that I had built an engine which ran on nothing but water and the rst products was harmless gasess, you can be damn sure that many of the worlds oil companies wouldn't be glad to hear that.

In fact there are many incriminating facts which suggests that oil companies have invested huge amounts of money in order to keep technological advancements which could provide better alternatives from ever seeing frutition.

The same has also happened before during the industrial revolution, mainly concerning cannabis.

If you thought that cannabis has been illegal and looked down upon for all these years due to possible health issues then you are sorely mistaken. The real issue with cannabis once it became common knowledge was the fact that you could make fabrics out of hemp (cannabis is a form of hemp). Fabrics which were a lot more durable than fabrics made from cotton.

Cotton during these times was a huge product with many magnates, who had invested a lot of time and money into the cotton industry. They earned much profit due to the fact that cotton fabrics tore and broke eaisly making the people buying more clothes made of the material. If hemp fabrics ever caught on on a massive scale, these people would have lost their entire wealth rather quickly.

Suffice to say that these people had good connections with the law makers and rulers of most societies, and as soon as they heard that cannabis could be used as a form of narcotic, they sprung into action, making sure that many laws were passed which actively kept down hemp production.

So the real reason why cannabis is illegal, isn't because it could possibly cause health problems (which is as big a myth as any since it's actually even healthier than smoking tobacco), but pure and simple greed.

Just think: if they hadn't done that we could've had clothes that almost never got torn or broke today, made of hemp rather than cotton. But, as always, progress was surpressed because of a few greedy people. Although this is a highly unofficial story of course which you won't read much about in history books. But as you might know, history is the story of the victor to decide, it isn't what actually happened. : )

These are only a few examples of course, but there are several others which show that money and human greed has kept progress (both technological and scientific) surpressed. If a scientific or technological breakthrough would cause some rich people to lose money, you can be damn sure that they'll try to keep these breakthroughs from ever seeing the light of day.

Quite simply: Capitalism hinders progress...

 

[captainwillies]

can't keep up with technological advncements, and is thus slowing down the pursuit of knowledge.

Can you elaborate on that? No one is going to be able to give you an answer if you don't clearly explain what you think the problem is.

i would say its more like its forcefully holding us down insteas of slowing us. ever seen the documentory "who killed the electric car"?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489037/

As a matter of fact I have, and am in fact a great believer in the philosophies presented therein. However, I would not say that a monetary system in and of itself cause any of the problems presented in that movie. I would say that there is nothing wrong with the system, that was caused by corruption, which is not inherent to the monetary system but rather a result of weak-willed short sighted people coupled with insufficient government regulation. I support a monetary system, but I do not support big business. The rights of the consumer, and the general population should always take precedence.

i agree with what you say. but would like to argue that capitalism plays on the major flaws of man which continually and perpetually helps creating if not aiding in the creation of weak-willed short sighted men.

 

[Dalisclock]

Money cause it's issues. The problem is, the only other alternative is barter.

And frankly, I don't want to try to trade half an IPOD for 3/8th of a dog.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

What socialist crap is this? We need legal tender, our economy revolves around it, and any proposed economic changes would be based around money-systems. The only other option is going back to the barter system and the dark age economies.

That was a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the Corporations.

The problem is that we're caught in the technology trap at the moment. To extricate ourselves we'd have to either : Globalise Money (which includes everywhere) or Reverse "Planned Obsolesnce", Computerisation and most things back to the Gutenberg Bible before coming forward with the new method of barter-exchange.

The smart thing would be to make the First World items as strong as they could be (I.E. Stop the race for new tech) and sell to the Third World, but that doesn't bring the same level of profit, despite being far more sustainable.

Unfortunately money, and especially credit, has become both our saviour (In providing rapid transactions) and our damnation (In providing unfair and uncheckale transactions).

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Close. But remember, money is a representation of value.

Problem being that there is more representation of value out there than there is value due to the obsolescence race.

How much would you pay for a Commodore 64 now? $199...$19...$9? Because it's "value" was set at $199 when the banks first represented it.

 

[Hexenwolf]

can't keep up with technological advncements, and is thus slowing down the pursuit of knowledge.

Can you elaborate on that? No one is going to be able to give you an answer if you don't clearly explain what you think the problem is.

i would say its more like its forcefully holding us down insteas of slowing us. ever seen the documentory "who killed the electric car"?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489037/

As a matter of fact I have, and am in fact a great believer in the philosophies presented therein. However, I would not say that a monetary system in and of itself cause any of the problems presented in that movie. I would say that there is nothing wrong with the system, that was caused by corruption, which is not inherent to the monetary system but rather a result of weak-willed short sighted people coupled with insufficient government regulation. I support a monetary system, but I do not support big business. The rights of the consumer, and the general population should always take precedence.

i agree with what you say. but would like to argue that capitalism plays on the major flaws of man which continually and perpetually helps creating if not aiding in the creation of weak-willed short sighted men.

I can agree with that, but I don't see any other workable system. The monetary system was created as an improvement to the barter system, so that's out, and I already explained my reasoning for why a resource economy wouldn't work in my earlier post.

So this is the best we got, we just need to make better regulations to minimize corruption.

 

[thiosk]

snip for length!

i'm not making value judgments (hee!) about whether the system is good or bad, so to speak, I'm just trying to illustrate my own problem with our system. On the subject of value, it only has value because we believe it has value. If anything happened to shake that faith-- no value.

I as a result prefer to keep a quantity of my own wealth in tangibles-- so that 100% of my personal value does not evaporate the next time a "world economic crisis" occurs. A lot more people than bernie maddoff scammed lost everything when the world came to the realization that a large quantity of the debt on the books had no value.

It is for these reasons that I always give the same investment advice: 5-10% in gold or gold related stocks, depending on your age. Gold has a much better track record than any paper money, by definition-- its been synonymous with money for a lot longer than credit has existed as a concept.

My cat just meowed the cutest meow. That is all.

 

[The Great Zegrool]

A Resource-Based Economy is a system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter or any other system of debt or servitude. All resources become the common heritage of all of the inhabitants, not just a select few. The premise upon which this system is based is that the Earth is abundant with plentiful resource; our practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counter productive to our survival.

Um, one problem, our Earth is not abundant with resources, and if everyone gets as much as they want, we will be screwed.

While the current system is not perfect, it's not a good idea to have a doctor or scientist have as much money as a janitor.

 

[Hexenwolf]

Can you elaborate on that? No one is going to be able to give you an answer if you don't clearly explain what you think the problem is.

I can volunteer a little!

The fact that a certain monetary value is placed on certain goods (like crude oil) because those goods are used in a variety of ways (running combustion engines, creating plastic wares etc.) it can contribute to limiting technological advancements, mainly because many corporations who jhave specialised in extracting and processing these goods would lose a significant amount of their wealth if technological advancements could provide better alternatives.

For instance, if I said that I had built an engine which ran on nothing but water and the rst products was harmless gasess, you can be damn sure that many of the worlds oil companies wouldn't be glad to hear that.

In fact there are many incriminating facts which suggests that oil companies have invested huge amounts of money in order to keep technological advancements which could provide better alternatives from ever seeing frutition.

The same has also happened before during the industrial revolution, mainly concerning cannabis.

If you thought that cannabis has been illegal and looked down upon for all these years due to possible health issues then you are sorely mistaken. The real issue with cannabis once it became common knowledge was the fact that you could make fabrics out of hemp (cannabis is a form of hemp). Fabrics which were a lot more durable than fabrics made from cotton.

Cotton during these times was a huge product with many magnates, who had invested a lot of time and money into the cotton industry. They earned much profit due to the fact that cotton fabrics tore and broke eaisly making the people buying more clothes made of the material. If hemp fabrics ever caught on on a massive scale, these people would have lost their entire wealth rather quickly.

Suffice to say that these people had good connections with the law makers and rulers of most societies, and as soon as they heard that cannabis could be used as a form of narcotic, they sprung into action, making sure that many laws were passed which actively kept down hemp production.

So the real reason why cannabis is illegal, isn't because it could possibly cause health problems (which is as big a myth as any since it's actually even healthier than smoking tobacco), but pure and simple greed.

Just think: if they hadn't done that we could've had clothes that almost never got torn or broke today, made of hemp rather than cotton. But, as always, progress was surpressed because of a few greedy people. Although this is a highly unofficial story of course which you won't read much about in history books. But as you might know, history is the story of the victor to decide, it isn't what actually happened. : )

These are only a few examples of course, but there are several others which show that money and human greed has kept progress (both technological and scientific) surpressed. If a scientific or technological breakthrough would cause some rich people to lose money, you can be damn sure that they'll try to keep these breakthroughs from ever seeing the light of day.

Quite simply: Capitalism hinders progress...

Sorry, it's not money that does that. That would happen under a barter system as well.. only instead of using money they'd use.. I don't know.. a lifetime supply of blue-jeans or something. Money doesn't keep progress supressed. What keeps progress suppressed in these examples is simply humanities desire for more resources. That's a biological trait created by natural selection that has nothing to do with money.. so.. uh.. good luck changing it.

Pretty much what Kwil said, that is not inherent to money, rather it has to do with greed, it is more than possible to be influential and wealthy, and have that wealth based on a particular product that you produce without having any money involved.

On a side note, weed does have negative health repercussions. Most notably short term memory damage and minor lung damage. Yes I am aware that tobacco is worse, but that doesn't mean that weed isn't bad. That's like saying "margerine is less fatty than butter, therefore it's healthy to eat lots of margerine." Just because it's less bad does not mean it's not bad. For the record I am neither for nor against the banning of canabis, I am impartial to it, I'm just tired of hearing people claim that it has no health repercussions when that is simply not true.

And actually, yes, I was aware of the whole "canabis was banned by big cotton" thing before, it's not nearly as underground a tale as you'd think. And quite frankly I think it'd be great if we had hemp clothes and all, but despite the durability, would it be as comfortable as cotton? I think perhaps it would end up a competitor to cotton rather than a complete monoply.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

Sorry, it's not money that does that. That would happen under a barter system as well.. only instead of using money they'd use.. I don't know.. a lifetime supply of blue-jeans or something. Money doesn't keep progress supressed. What keeps progress suppressed in these examples is simply humanities desire for more resources. That's a biological trait created by natural selection that has nothing to do with money.. so.. uh.. good luck changing it.

Wrong!

Is has a lot to do with money. Basically bacause money offer the means to "faceless wealth". What I mean by this is the fact that money can buy you pretty much anything. It works as a currency no matter where you go and no matter how you got the money.

Now if money were somehow context sensitive and/or restriction laden instead, then corporations would have a lot more difficulties in keeping progress surpressed. : )

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

Heres what we need: Socialism.

Everyones so against socialism for uninformed reasons but its a great thing in the right hands. For example, why does a man who lugs around heavy boxs all day, works all day, and comes home tired make less money than a man who sits at a desk all day? Socialism would make it so all men were truly equal. Capitalism give false equality, socialism gives real equality.

Did I not once before pound socialism for the false notion of logic that is actually is? Not to sound arrogant however socialism is an idealistic fantasy that cannot function in its purest state, which is why it has net to be implicated. We are not all equals, we have the potential to reach for the stars and yet so few actually do, citing it is not even worth the effect; that only people born rich are rich.

Outside my mother; who is a truly inspirational person and the reason I am able to dream of a future success for myself, my family has for the most part panned the very thought I could reach the goals I have set for myself. I am an aspiring entrepreneur and aim to reach one million in net worth before my twenty fifth birthday, which will come June 14th 2013.

Why? Because to them it is impossible, you just cannot do it. I have the availability to prove that wrong and do you know the work involved to solidify this goal? It is no easy task, yet I am positive I am capable of achieving it.

Socialism eliminates this passion, this drive to success that any human being is able to grasp because there no longer is a reason. We need people to run specific technological advancements in our society, such as even the basic. The problem is no one would be willing to work harder because pay would be identical to a person who worked less.

Why would I bother to shoot for the aforementioned success I mentioned if I am prevented by the government to gain any significant value because some schmuck who worked less than I ever did, won't earn the same amount?

We as human beings are not equal, we have the potential to be equal. Look at some of the most successful people in the world today such as Vince McMahon, Donald Trump, Bill Gates. They started with exceptionally little, hell Trump was on the edge of bankruptcy at one time. 95% of the population does not have the drive to be successful and will give up far sooner. I admit some people are dealt a better hand however that is how life is.

Capitalism allows people to better themselves through their own work and ideas; capitalism is what created the world we live in now. Socialism cannot exist without the entire human conscious being altered, which is beyond comprehension.

Heres what we need: Socialism.

Everyones so against socialism for uninformed reasons but its a great thing in the right hands. For example, why does a man who lugs around heavy boxs all day, works all day, and comes home tired make less money than a man who sits at a desk all day? Socialism would make it so all men were truly equal. Capitalism give false equality, socialism gives real equality.

Because if those men traded places, the man who originally had the desk job would be able to carry boxes just as well as the other man, and the other man would likely have no fucking clue how to do whatever it is that the man with the desk job did.

Socialism and communism are fundamentally flawed in the way that they look at human beings. All men are not equal. All men have equal potential, but ultimately their worth is up to their choices and actions. That's the beauty of capitalism; you have the opportunity and incentive to better yourself.

Bull. The man at the desk would struggle under the weight of those boxes and the man with the boxes would struggle with the computer. Not all men are created equal, but we all deserve an equal share because what we do is equally important.

You are incorrect, I am perfectly capable of doing manual labor, I dislike it with a passion but I am able. I know because I have moved myself and my mother twice, if not three times with only her and another friend helping.

You want a fair shot to better yourself? Go and earn it your opportunity instead of complaining. The Internet is an enormous resource in the avenue of discovery, ready and able to teach you whatever your heart desires. If that is not enough there are courses for specific fields, many of which are online and cheap to boot. Why should those who have already established themselves have to pay your way? Go and do it yourself.

Now hopefully we can drop the socialism argument before it gets out of hand like that last topic.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

On a side note, weed does have negative health repercussions. Most notably short term memory damage and minor lung damage. Yes I am aware that tobacco is worse, but that doesn't mean that weed isn't bad. That's like saying "margerine is less fatty than butter, therefore it's healthy to eat lots of margerine." Just because it's less bad does not mean it's not bad. For the record I am neither for nor against the banning of canabis, I am impartial to it, I'm just tired of hearing people claim that it has no health repercussions when that is simply not true.

I never said it had NO repercussions. Im just saying that many supposed repercussions which kids are force fed with in school are nothing more than lies and scare tactics.

Alcohol can also cause short term memory damage (hence "blackouts" which many of us who have gotten drunk might have experienced). What's interesting to note is the fact that alcohol can kill you through overdosage, while cannabis can not. (it's nearly physically impossible to overdose cannabis. while alcohol is much more simple to overdose on)

Another interesting fact is that both tobacco and alcohol can actually cause a physical addiction to the substance in question (meaning that the body becomes addicted to it, otherwise it goes through withdrawal). Cannabis on the other hand doesn't cause physical addiction. The only addictive element to it is the psychological addiction. Sort of like the way that if you eat one Pringles potato chip, you want to eat more. Not because your body is physically telling you to, but the simple fact that you want another taste.

Im not saying that it isn't bad for you, but what I think people should ask themselves is whether it's reasonable to outlaw things that are just "bad" for you. Especially since many other drugs (I count tobacco and alcohol to drugs, because... Well they are) and foodproducts are also bad for you to a certain extent (like cannabis smoking), and the fact that cannabis often end up on a much lower grade when you compare it with other products in terms of health risk.

If we outlaw all things that are bad for our health, we will not only give rise to more allergic people (evidence suggest that because some people live such a clean lifstyle their immune system get's f*cked up and can't differentiate between a harmful substance and a non harmful one), but the world will turn into what the future in the movie Demolition Man looks like.

(which means, no eating meat, no salt or pepper, no sex, no booze, no smoking, no swearing etc. etc.)

By then you'd have to wonder, will life really be worth living if we can't indulge in anything by the simple motivation that it's bad to your health to a certain extent?

Personally, I don't think so. In fact, I don't think anyone think so. So it's quite ridiculous why weed is still illegal in many countries...