World Without Money - Page 2

mental104 · 08-09-2008, 11:28 PM

i have thought of a world without money before and i thought it would be rationing or something, like 1 console per family and 1 handheld console per person or something like that, but if there was no money why would nintendo, sony etc. want to make these products, NO CONSOLES!!! AH!

Beelzebubbles · 08-10-2008, 01:16 AM

Yep, I think a world without money would be a great place to live. I don't know if there are any Cory Doctorow fans here, but his first novel - Down & Out In The Magic Kingdom - is set in a world without money. Nanotechnology has taken off so the basics of life - food, housing, clothing, Playstations... - are free to everybody. Instead of being judged by material wealth people are judged by 'wuffie' which is basically their reputation. In the book everybody is connected to a kind of internet and can look up anybody's wuffie as soon as they meet them - rather like looking at the green bars beneath somebody's name on this forum. So doing great deeds for people gets you incresed reputation, which means that people like you more when they first meet you.

Most of Cory's books are free to read online so I'll post some links in the freebies section in a minute.

Anyway, he gets his ideas from things which are around here and now. For instance, I'm currently using Windows, but I'm more used to Linux. I much prefer Linux, in fact, especially Ubuntu. The thing about Linux is that the people who invented it did it because they thought it would be something cool to do. They didn't try to get any money from it, and in fact they deliberately released it under a form of copyright which meant that anybody could copy it and distribute it for free.

Even today, when there are companies making a lot of money out of Linux, anybody can download it free of charge. And there are thousands of people developing it without getting paid. I don't think Linus (the guy who invented Linux, and still oversees kernel development) even gets paid for it now; he has a full-time job and Linux remains his hobby.

So why do so many programmers put so much time into developing something they'll never get paid for? Well, I'm sure a few of them are using it to build up a 'portfolio' so that they can get decent jobs with software companies. But many of them are doing it for the challenge and for the reputation.

People sometimes say that if we didn't have money then there would be no innovation, everybody would just be lazy, but I think that's bullshit. People have a need to do something with their lives. Sitting around smoking weed and watching Countdown may be fun for a while, but after a couple of weeks you start itching to do something more.

Whether it's growing tomatoes, programming computer games, sculpting, writing novels, making music, whatever, there are millions of people around the world doing things with no expectation of ever getting paid for it. In many cases they share their work for free - from the guy who gives bags full of tomatoes to all of his neighbours every time a crop ripens to the author who distributes all of his books free of charge on-line - and are just happy if people like them.

Quote:

Many of the benefits of civilisation now credited to the government or market sector (eg schools, libraries, hospitals, theatres) were originally created by the independent,
voluntary, non-profit sector - communities of people pursuing common goals, without ulterior motives of quick profit.
Brian Dean, Everything They Told You Is Wrong

A world without money would have to solve a couple of problems, admittedly. Nobody's just going to volunteer to work in a factory making shoes all day. So until all manual labour is completely mechanised (it probably could be today if there was the will to do it, but forcing people to spend a third of their lives in crappy exhausting jobs is a great way of keeping people under control) we'd need to figure out how to get it done.

It wouldn't be that hard. Most jobs could simply be scrapped. Do we really need thirty-six different kinds of novelty toothbrush? Of course not. Nor do we need thirty-six different marketing campaigns trying to persuade people that this one particular toothbrush is so much better than all of the others. A world without money would be a world without so much pointless competition and waste.

And the jobs which couldn't be scrapped could be made a damn sight more enjoyable. Sweeping the streets wouldn't be such a bad job if you only did it for a couple of hours a week, and if you did it with a bunch of friends, and you had a portable boombox (boombox? Damn, who uses that word?) with you. Most jobs can be made quite enjoyable as soon as you get rid of the exploitation, the one guy profiting from the labour of a hundred.

Do I think a world without money would be a better place? Yes, definitely. Books such as Down & Out In The Magic Kingdom, Island (by Aldous Huxley), and The End of Work (a non-fiction book by Jeremy Rifkin) as well as my own thoughts have convinced me of that.

Do I think a world without money will ever happen? Probably not. Because it benefits the tiny minority of people who control most of it. And they're not going to give it up anytime soon. And unfortunately they're clever buggers and have got most of humanity well under their thumb.

People are far more concerned about Pop Idol and immigrants than about the Duke of Westminster receiving £20 an hour (24 hours a day, 365 days a week) of taxpayer's money, despite already having a £3.6billion fortune. The media constantly reports on 'lazy bums' claiming job seeker's allowance, which costs the country around £2.3billion a year, while never mentioning corporate tax avoidance, which costs the country around £85billion a year. Why is that? Is it because the media is owned by incredibly rich people, perhaps? Is it possible they have an agenda? Don't believe a single word they tell you. As Thomas Jefferson said a couple of hundred years ago:

Quote:

Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.

If he were still around he would certainly say the same about the TV, and even the Internet although places like Indymedia do at least allow dissenting voices to be heard.

I've ranted for far too long now so I'm going to shut up, just after I agree that Tesla was a genius. Has everybody seen The Prestige? A very cool film which features Tesla, albeit briefly. David Bowie plays him, and does a pretty good job.

Paper_Chaser · 08-10-2008, 12:54 PM

I read all of that, took it all in and all i want now is to burn my toothbrush........

Really good post Beezle, have you been spying on the memoirs in my mind. That was so flippin uncanny to a convo i had about a day ago it is scary. Some of that is almost word for word lol. I could talk all day about this,but i dont want to bore the members lol. If anyone can take the time to research Nikola Tesla, please do, that guy is a sheer genius, i cant believe he had all the blueprint stored in his memory, he never once wrote one down. Peace

Beelzebubbles · 08-10-2008, 05:39 PM

I've just posted Tesla's autobiography. It's a very interesting read. It's amazing that more people don't know about this guy. He pretty much invented modern life. I think people sometimes over-exaggerate his free energy machines, but even his uncontroversial accomplishments are incredible. As his Wikipedia article points out:

Quote:

Contemporary biographers of Tesla have regarded him as "The Father of Physics", "The man who invented the twentieth century" and "the patron saint of modern electricity."

Paper_Chaser · 08-10-2008, 06:04 PM

I think its the other way round, i think we under-estimate the complexity and brilliance of his energy machines. Some never made it out of the lab, but with no actuall legit documents, nothing can ever be prooved. I love the way the goverment smashed up his lab, stole everything he ever made, and kept, reversed engineered or burnt, destroyed, locked up etc it all. Peace

28iGHT · 08-22-2008, 09:35 PM

Wow Beelzebubble, wikid post! Damn that's got me thinking long and hard about life in general. Yup, sure material things mean nothing, you can't take it with you when you die and rot in hell! But in life, whilst were still breathing and walking, we all want the comfortable lifestyle, we want to be able to treat ourselves and our loved ones from time to time. Its just some people take things to extreme, like all the rich/famous. Money doesn't make anyone happy, happiness comes freely and doesn't cost anything, well except love and some hardwork but not money. Money doesn't give us a reason to live, a reason to keep going, on the other hand family and friends do.

BTW whos this Tesla genius your all talking about, never heard of him/her, will read the autobiography when i get the time to though

Oh another thing, if everything was free on this earth, then i guess we wouldn't need money

maybe they should get rid of cash, make some kinda card with a chip in it and give them out, people would take that with them to work everyday and have it swiped, so when they go to GET not BUY something, the person would need to take that card with them.. Have it swiped on a diff machine to tell that person serving you your goods/groceries/clothing, that you work.. And they'd hand the goods over to you.. Lol that doesn't make sense huh yup i know, well amma still put this up

think am having a blonde moment, makes sense to me, may not to others

Ok amma shut up now

Beelzebubbles · 08-23-2008, 02:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 28iGHT

BTW whos this Tesla genius your all talking about,

That quote 'The man who invented the twentieth century' is very accurate. He came up with AC electricity, and radio (Marconi falsely got the credit, and the US supreme court recently (well, a few decades ago) awarded the original patent back to Tesla in recognition of this). He demonstrated radio-controlled boats to the US military in 1897. Radio-controlled vehicles almost two decades before WWI!

He was a crazy genius. He used to visualise a machine, picturing every last wire and cog in his mind, then build it. No plans, no models, just designed it in his mind and then built it from that. And they always worked.

He could have been the world's first billionaire but instead died in poverty because he was crap with money and was far more interested in improving humanity by inventing a free energy machine. He also worked a lot on a 'death ray' which would be so powerful that it would end all wars. The US government seized all of his papers when he died.

chames · 08-23-2008, 02:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gecko_Uk

I have to agree with fazzy here and say no,

i'ts not that we need it for happiness, it's needed to provide some sense of unity and reward for those who work hard to earn it I think you've highlighted a good point and i think it's sort of sad but...it's just the way it is

A lot of people growing up with no money and no prospects take it upon themselves to learn new skills and methods of making money from scratch (illegally or legally) -

the bottom line is they work hard to gain cash to have a more comfortable existence- This doesn't mean that they're values or morals change and they still have had a lot of experience in life, having grown up without it they know you don't need it to be happy- but it gives them a chance to have a better quality of life

If there was a world without money there will still be people who would want more dan the other man...

Paper_Chaser · 08-23-2008, 12:50 PM

Quote:

He also worked a lot on a 'death ray' which would be so powerful that it would end all wars. The US government seized all of his papers when he died.

lol, which means they will win all wars, swines. They nicked so many of his inventions and that, that nothing of his stuff was left. Peace

neverpay · 08-23-2008, 01:10 PM

NO, without money we would have to become a community, humans are selfish, always strive for more, thats why rich ppl arnt happy being rich they need to be richer, a unreachable task, they cannot reach the unreachable goal, but id rather be missrable and rich than misarble and poor.

Cavemen live without money, Yes but exchanged stuff, its the same princapal, give to recive etc.

The likes of ethiopia worries me, I dont understand why "we" give them just enough to keep them starving, it sounds horrid, but we know its not a place to live, so why not let it die out (sorry), insted of keeping it alive with a horrid lifstyle, i guess there is a hidden motive, again sorry.