From: Joel 'Twisty' Nye (me@twisty.org)
Date: Mon Dec 09 1996 - 12:26:22 MST
Eric Watt Forste replies:
>Joel "Twisty" Nye wrote:
>>It has got to be possible for us to create a system which more
>>accurately models supply and demand on our planet. Just as our old
>>"have / need" society has changed to a "see / want" culture, we
>>have even greater need to revise our monetary system.
>Sure it's possible. But you may be jumping the gun. Much of the planet
>is still organized on a precapitalistic basis where the person who
>controls the most armed men gets the resources. And this military-based
>(note that I do not strongly distinguish between military and police)
>command-and-control system still disposes with about 50% of the
>production in, for instance, the United States. (That's a mix of
>confiscation and mandate... if you think the number is less than
>50%, perhaps you are failing to take mandates into account.)
>If the market-based monetary short-hand for value were actually
>the medium through which 80% or 90% of the world economy flowed,
>I'd be a lot more interested in the line of thought you are
>drawing out. But I think it's premature to worry too much about
>how to improve on monetary-based trade when we still have so much
>room in which to improve on coercion-based mandate and confiscation.
That's an excellent point. Although it's been said (probably not here)
that 'Money is the root of all kinds of evil,' it's not as evil as many
other 'Stabilizing Systems' in our society. Granted, money's use of
mismodelling or misrepresentation gives us diminishing returns, its
returns aren't as diminishing as in our Litigation Industry, or
our Let's-Repay-Evil-for-Evil Law Enforcement.
One of the most stabilizing forces in Life is the system of Ownership.
Life depends on certain resources, and if those resources are private,
then our efforts in obtaining them aren't invalidated by those who would
steal our rewards without the work. Later, more abstract ideas have
come to our benefit, like the ideas of Private and Public.
I think that exploring the possibility of a Zer0-Cost-of-Living would
be a noble, extropian pursuit. We are truly free when we can live
without being taxed for living. Requirements imposed needlessly
are not productive, so we ought to make sure that these costs are
indeed necessary to treat the Sources of perishing, and not just the
symptoms. (i.e. scarcity of resources)
Joel 'Twisty' Nye
me@twisty.org
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