# what would the world be like without money?



## *LukeMayn* (Feb 13, 2009)

opinions?

I was just wondering 

BTW if currency wasn't created


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## Ethan Rosen (Feb 13, 2009)

There would be no incentive to work, we would face mass starvation, all governments would crumble to militia rule, and life as we know it would end.


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## Gparker (Feb 13, 2009)

no cubing..........


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## pcharles93 (Feb 13, 2009)

Are you asking if all the money in the world disappeared right now or are you asking what the world would be like if the idea of currency was never accepted?


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## *LukeMayn* (Feb 13, 2009)

if currency wasn't created


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## Sir E Brum (Feb 13, 2009)

Currency is just a universal bartering tool. You would still be able to trade one item for another based on its assumed value. I see currency just as a medium.


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## watermelon (Feb 13, 2009)

*LukeMayn* said:


> if currency was created





*LukeMayn* said:


> if currency wasn't created


Perhaps you should change one of your posts to reflect what you're actually trying to say?


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## *LukeMayn* (Feb 13, 2009)

lol ops XD

My bad... 

*IF IT WASN'T*


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## hypercube (Feb 13, 2009)

a better place?


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## Kian (Feb 13, 2009)

currency is a natural medium for trade. it standardizes things in a way nothing else can. it has certainly brought the world from where it's been to where it is. 

without the invention of a standardized monetary unit with which to trade we would live in a stagnant, unimaginative world.

in short, we'd probably still be waiting on sewer systems, traveling by horse and not living past 40.

not a world i want to be any part of, for sure.


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## mcciff2112 (Feb 13, 2009)

the world would be a complete wasteland with people fighting over everything.

we would be living in the wilderness like cavemen because there would be no advancements made in the world because there would be nothing to strive for. 

also the rubiks cube would never have been thought about :O


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## EmersonHerrmann (Feb 13, 2009)

We would trade and eventually begin to develop a new kind of currency (salt, for example, was as valuable as gold [Romans?] because it preserved food, or clothes with the Mayans)...so I don't think we can continue without eventually creating a new currency, but without the idea in all, people would just start killing each other and animals because they could not purchase anything because there is no currency.

Also, what Mccliff said.


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## Sir E Brum (Feb 13, 2009)

These responses seem a tad drastic.


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## qqwref (Feb 13, 2009)

I'm going to agree with Emerson here, I don't think a society that wants to be civilized could go for very long (i.e. << 1 generation) before developing a system of currency. Whenever you have enough technology you get specialization (i.e. the things that need to be created are too complicated for everyone to learn, so one person gets really good at making/fixing one thing, another person gets good at another, etc. for the good of the group) people have to trade what they have with each other, so barter naturally develops. But then you have the problem of deciding what things are 'worth' - if I want a watch and I make shoes, how do I know how many shoes make a fair trade for a watch? It's just too complicated - everyone will have to keep track of how much of one object every other object is worth.

The obvious solution (and the one that I think people will very quickly use) is to give everything a value in terms of one specific good. Then THAT becomes the new currency, whatever it is (salt, gold, big rocks, a specific type of farm animal, etc.). So I think a group of reasonably intelligent and somewhat technologically advanced people would very quickly invent a system of currency on their own, if there was not one already.


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## TurbulentTurtle (Feb 13, 2009)

See I've always had it in my mind that the world would be much better if there was no form of currency, like if all money were to just disappear tomorrow. People would get stuff for free and it would all be fine. People will work, because if they don't, they will suffer dire consequences. The world won't explode, and will exist exactly the same as it does now, but better, because we have one really awesome person in charge and they will be amazing at making decisions and making the world better.

"But then no one would work and everyone will just get what they want! The world won't function and nothing would get produced! And this, and that!" 
Yeah well I thought of that too. See I would be in charge of everything because I am obviously the smartest person I know, and I would be awesome at ruling the world. I would force people to make stuff to give to people for free, and in return they are granted with the fortune of being able to live for one extra day, also they get to have however many of whatever it is they make. Yeah that's right, if they decide not to work, I will make them go away, permanently, and replace them with someone else, or just a robot would do.

You always get the type of people who love volunteering and doing stuff for the good of the people without expecting anything in return. Well, those people can work to their heart's content and essentially serve the rest of humanity without seeing any returns. Since they love it so much, they won't complain, in fact they would be extremely happy. It's a win-win situation.
So essentially, they would be our slaves, but obviously we wouldn't call them that. We could treat them that way if we really wanted to, but I think a pat on the head and a word of appreciation every once in a while will be more than enough.

"Oh no, there would be anarchy everywhere and people would go crazy in the streets and kill people!" No there won't, because I am the ruler of the world, and I take away the life of anyone who decides that they are brave enough to go against my new set of rules:
1. I am awesome, so I get first pick of everything. If you have something I like, it's mine. Including abilities and talents. Oh yeah, in my world I am also blessed with superpowers and I get to have whatever power I want.
2. Don't muck around, if I see you mucking, let's just say you won't be mucking anymore.
3. Don't be an idiot, do your job. Coz otherwise, not only will you no longer possess a life, neither will your loved ones. Yeah, I'm a hardass.
4. I can make up whatever other rule I want on the spot.

How will I monitor all the crap that goes on? I have superpowers.

Now when I say they will suffer consequences and no longer possess a life, I don't mean that I will kill them, that's just wrong...
I am a just and fair ruler, and I will hand out punishments to those that disobey my ruling. You get to do whatever it is that I want you to do at that point in time, probably my personal servant, which would pretty much mean that you have no life.

"But isn't this a dictatorship? We all know that doesn't work!" Well that's cause they weren't carried out properly. You can't threaten people with death, some people aren't afraid of dying and in fact, welcome it with open arms (see: Emos). See I don't kill them, I just use my superpowers and read their minds to see what it is that they hate doing the most. And I will force them to do that until they've learned their lesson. Sort of like prison, only worst cause they have to do stuff that they hate.
So if a guy like, threw a rock at some other dude, and he doesn't like dogs or whatever. Then his punishment will be to wash and walk dogs for 3 years, straight. add on an additional 3 years for every gram above 1 gram the rock is. 
"Oooh, I see a flaw in that example already!" What if I accidentally kicked some dust at a guy and I apologized right afterwards and didn't mean to do so?"
Well, I have an answer for you. I hope you hate something that you can do realistically for many years.

So all in all, I am awesome. We don't need money/currency, and without it, we will be a proper functional world.
No problems.


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## julesv (Feb 13, 2009)

Money is just one form of trading. Without money, we would be trading other stuff which is basically the idea of money right?


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## dChan (Feb 13, 2009)

"How about two Type A's for twenty pounds of rice, eh?" - Customer
"How about ten pounds of rice for two Type A's, instead?" - Rice Man
"I'll give you one Type C4Y for ten pounds..." - Customer
"Mmm... No, how about you give me five Type C's instead?" - Rice Man
"Deal!" - Customer

The answer is that everyone would use cubes to barter for other stuff.


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## royzabeast (Jul 7, 2009)

\\


TurbulentTurtle said:


> See I've always had it in my mind that the world would be much better if there was no form of currency, like if all money were to just disappear tomorrow. People would get stuff for free and it would all be fine. People will work, because if they don't, they will suffer dire consequences. The world won't explode, and will exist exactly the same as it does now, but better, because we have one really awesome person in charge and they will be amazing at making decisions and making the world better.
> 
> "But then no one would work and everyone will just get what they want! The world won't function and nothing would get produced! And this, and that!"
> Yeah well I thought of that too. See I would be in charge of everything because I am obviously the smartest person I know, and I would be awesome at ruling the world. I would force people to make stuff to give to people for free, and in return they are granted with the fortune of being able to live for one extra day, also they get to have however many of whatever it is they make. Yeah that's right, if they decide not to work, I will make them go away, permanently, and replace them with someone else, or just a robot would do.
> ...



Communism, anybody?


Also, we as humans would barter, which is really just another idea of currency. Like back in the old days, I would trade you my three goats for one V-Cube and a bucket of milk.


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## PhillipEspinoza (Jul 7, 2009)

I see a lot of people are Hobbes advocates here as they equate the State of Nature with the State of War. I for one don't think that the end of the world would ensue from the removal or non-existence of money.

There's one thing for sure if money never existed; People wouldn't be as physically pathetic and lazy as they are today. Why do something if you can PAY someone else to do it? The idea of specialization has made us mentally and physically dependent on the abilities of others. There's a quote that comes to mind from a CNN video where a pastor Rick Warren admits, "You don't have to know how your car works to benefit from it". Wow. Really now? With that kind of mentality, why learn about how anything works if you can just pay for somebody else to worry about that stuff? It's gotten to the point now that if we were to cut off all ties from other people and go into the wilderness, we would find it very hard to survive on our own. Are our lives really that much better with the invention of currency, or have we just "bought" convenience at the cost of our own self-reliance?

Also, these things that have supposedly enhanced our lives as a result of currency or other manifestations of "civilization", are of course not really necessary. We are conditioned to think we can't live without these things like our Ikea furniture, cell phones, the internet, and cars. Lack of the internet or a cell phone is not an inherent problem but a relative problem as it is only an issue if everyone else can make use of it besides you. Society has only produced solutions for illnesses it itself has created: "The extreme inequality in our lifestyle: excessive idleness among some, excessive labor among others...[are] the fatal proofs that most of our ills are of our own making" (_The Origin of Inequality_, Rousseau). Everyone who's convinced otherwise should read Rousseau's _Origin of Inequality_.

I get this argument a lot from people who try to justify the genocide of Native Americans by Europeans. They say, "Well, it's a good thing white men came over here and civilized you guys because if they hadn't, your life would suck living in teepees, wearing loin cloths, and not living past the age of 40. And all without an Ipod!". As I said before, the only reason why we think our lives are better is because we are convinced that money has solved problems that in actuality arise as a result of society.

Ultimately I think our lives would (have) be(en) much better without money. As far as I'm concerned, money may not necessarily be the root of all evil but it's the water that helps the tree grow. The world without money would not collapse on itself, nor would humans automatically attack each other. Instead, people would learn to become more self-reliant and we would actually be forced to interact with each other on a daily basis (instead of staying confined to our bubbles in the shape of a car, an apartment, a home, or cubicle) and the world would be a better place.


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## ThePizzaGuy92 (Jul 8, 2009)

it would be a commune


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## ~PromiscuousCuber~ (Jul 8, 2009)

PhillipEspinoza said:


> Ultimately I think our lives would (have) be(en) much better without money. *As far as I'm concerned, money may not necessarily be the root of all evil but it's the water that helps the tree grow.* The world without money would not collapse on itself, nor would humans automatically attack each other. Instead, people would learn to become more self-reliant and we would actually be forced to interact with each other on a daily basis (instead of staying confined to our bubbles in the shape of a car, an apartment, a home, or cubicle) and the world would be a better place.


 tl;dr But my thoughts exactly. Money is merely a means and excuse of sin, filth, and degradation. However, materialistic thoughts would come down the road, making money an almost necessity. Eventually, someone would want something in return for something, starting up the hate machine at full force and brining us where we are today.


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## qqwref (Jul 8, 2009)

PhillipEspinoza said:


> There's one thing for sure if money never existed; People wouldn't be as physically pathetic and lazy as they are today. Why do something if you can PAY someone else to do it? The idea of specialization has made us mentally and physically dependent on the abilities of others. There's a quote that comes to mind from a CNN video where a pastor Rick Warren admits, "You don't have to know how your car works to benefit from it". Wow. Really now? With that kind of mentality, why learn about how anything works if you can just pay for somebody else to worry about that stuff?


Specialization is a necessary and important part of societal advancement. If you expected everyone to know everything, you couldn't progress beyond a very simple global educational/technological level. There would be no way to let the entire society take advantage of a complex advancement except by expecting everyone to learn enough to understand it; and when you have enough technology it becomes impossible for a normal person to learn everything in one lifetime. Just imagine how much worse our society and culture would be if we could only enter houses we had personally constructed, or read books we had personally written. How much shorter of a life expectancy would we have if only those who had been fully trained as doctors were allowed to be healed? Besides, economics teaches that people can benefit from trade. If there are only two people, and one is better at fishing and the other is better at cooking, they can produce more cooked fish if the first person primarily fishes and the second person primarily cooks than if you force each person to cook only the fish they personally caught. On a society-wide level, specialization helps everyone by giving them access to extremely complex devices and techniques without requiring them to spend years of learning before they can use them. Furthermore, as you probably noticed, the existence of money is not in any way necessary for trade to be invented or take place. Money merely serves as a universal agent of trade - those who have more money can benefit from trading it for other things, whereas those who have more of other things can benefit from trading those for money (and then from trading money for other things they are less efficient at producing).



PhillipEspinoza said:


> We are conditioned to think we can't live without these things like our Ikea furniture, cell phones, the internet, and cars.


Are we, or is this just a strawman? I think many people believe that we cannot really be a part of society without some of these things, or that we can have a better life with some of these things, and those are arguably true. However, I doubt anyone believes that any of those are *necessary* for life or the enjoyment thereof... hence camping exists.



PhillipEspinoza said:


> Society has only produced solutions for illnesses it itself has created:


It seems like you're implying that society itself has created the following problems: (a) every disease which we have a vaccine for; (b) people not consistently having plentiful food; (c) lack of education; (d) inability to travel great distances in a day; (e) not being able to live more than 70 years on average; and so on. You may say that some of these things were not problems at all before society, or else were not noticed; however, ignorance of a problem does not necessarily mean it never existed in the first place.



PhillipEspinoza said:


> I get this argument a lot from people who try to justify the genocide of Native Americans by Europeans. They say, "Well, it's a good thing white men came over here and civilized you guys because if they hadn't, your life would suck living in teepees, wearing loin cloths, and not living past the age of 40. And all without an Ipod!". As I said before, the only reason why we think our lives are better is because we are convinced that money has solved problems that in actuality arise as a result of society.


Again this sounds like a strawman argument. I find it difficult to believe that there are people so stupid and naive that they think it would be better to be killed than to be a member of another culture. And even if such people exist, you are not arguing against them...



PhillipEspinoza said:


> Ultimately I think our lives would (have) be(en) much better without money. As far as I'm concerned, money may not necessarily be the root of all evil but it's the water that helps the tree grow. The world without money would not collapse on itself, nor would humans automatically attack each other. Instead, people would learn to become more self-reliant and we would actually be forced to interact with each other on a daily basis (instead of staying confined to our bubbles in the shape of a car, an apartment, a home, or cubicle) and the world would be a better place.


You sound unbelievably pessimistic, and equally sure that the people who disagree with you have ridiculous ideas. Nobody (except perhaps a few extremists) believes that without money the world would collapse, or that we would have anarchy. People are somewhat self-reliant and they *do* interact with each other, even if some people do not - but remember that many of the people who rarely interact with others are often doing this by choice, because society allows it rather than because society forces them to. You say "the world would be a better place"... by what metric?

Finally I'm going to argue against your statement that "money [is]... the water that helps the tree [of evil] grow". Many of the evils that people believe are caused by money - greed, exploitation, robbery, laziness, arrogance, jealousy - are instead predicated on power. Money is just an proxy for power: those who have more money, in a capitalist society, have more power to do things and obtain goods and services. These problems still exist in societies without money, as long as the society allows one person or group of people to have power over another. For instance, in a communist dictatorship, there is typically no real form of money, but it is undeniable that the dictator often ends up perpetrating acts of extreme cruelty and evil against his own people. The fact is that evil is a part of human nature, and that any kind of power will bring it out. Eliminate money, and another type of power will spring up to take its place.


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## fanwuq (Jul 8, 2009)

+1 for qqwref.
Comparative advantage. Enough said.


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## Bryan (Jul 8, 2009)

qqwref said:


> How much shorter of a life expectancy would we have if only those who had been fully trained as doctors were allowed to be healed?



I don't even think that would be the issue. The issue is that you'd have no one taking the time to learn being a doctor because they need to spend their time learning how to farm and be a mechanic. And no one would even bother to do research. Why spend all your energy on something that may not even pan out?


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## royzabeast (Jul 8, 2009)

PhillipEspinoza said:


> I see a lot of people are Hobbes advocates here as they equate the State of Nature with the State of War. I for one don't think that the end of the world would ensue from the removal or non-existence of money.
> *
> There's one thing for sure if money never existed; People wouldn't be as physically pathetic and lazy as they are today. Why do something if you can PAY someone else to do it? * The idea of specialization has made us mentally and physically dependent on the abilities of others. There's a quote that comes to mind from a CNN video where a pastor Rick Warren admits, "You don't have to know how your car works to benefit from it". Wow. Really now? With that kind of mentality, why learn about how anything works if you can just pay for somebody else to worry about that stuff? It's gotten to the point now that if we were to cut off all ties from other people and go into the wilderness, we would find it very hard to survive on our own. Are our lives really that much better with the invention of currency, or have we just "bought" convenience at the cost of our own self-reliance?
> 
> ...



I can't say I agree with you. You say people have become more lazy because of the ability to pay somebody else to do a job for them, but where do they get the money to pay that person? We all have our special abilities that we contribute to our community, whether you are quite the land decorator, or maybe you are a local baker. "It takes a village to raise a child" is a quote that comes to mind. Currency doesn't create lazy people. Lazy people are lazy because that's who they are. 

The idea that we are raised with thoughts that we can't live with our current technology actually holds some truth also. I think of it like a dog that was born in a household. The animal has been raised around a clock that he gets food at this time, this time and this time throughout the day. He gets walked every other day. But if you were to suddenly release him into his natural habitat, would he know what to do? I'm not sure if he would, but I can see this as an analogy for us and our nice technology.

Edit: Also a +1 for qqwref. +1 means agreeing with, right? Not so great on forum speech.


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## teller (Jul 8, 2009)

+1 for qqwref

I read the same drivel, but I already know how Internet debates end (they don't) so I didn't bother to reply. But I'm glad someone else felt motivated.


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## panyan (Jul 8, 2009)

Kian said:


> without the invention of a standardized monetary unit with which to trade we would live in a stagnant, unimaginative world.



ancient civilizations did not use standardized currency for most of its transactions and can be argued that these civilizations are as complex as todays civilizations.


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## Novriil (Jul 8, 2009)

aah  I've thought about such things since I was a baby. What if... stories own.

I have many opinions:
1) If we could make peace and don't argue about everything. Then we might live. But that brings many changes. Nobody is rich and nobody is not. Everybody just.. ARE! All the people have same rights and how will be working?? Will we be working for things? But from that would come money after so just leave it out. Workers. The government or something decides when you born. He/She gives you a job. Everybody just work and why even should they worry about money. There isn't any. Nobody even ask questions like: what if there's money?? Because there's none. But then How can we get things?? Maybe we have a number of stuff we can just get. Every month you get a number and it doesn't matter if you take one bottle of milk or you get a aston martin DB9 or a palace with 99 bathrooms. Let's say you get like 20 things. There are warehouses, where you can get everything. With few exceptions.. such as not a child, plane and so on. But what if we don't get any paycheck?? We just work. But what for then?? government? Then there would be wars I guess. and the world would collapse because people don't have weapons what with to fight and they are just killed. Then comes rebels and so on goes the "witchcircle" what stops with our destruction. But how do you get things then?? food, furniture, place to sleep and rubik's cubes - those are the things you need to survive.

2) If we can't make peace and we will fight.. Then it would be a total ****! If everybody fights to everybody, then there can only be one survival and everybody else will die. This means that we are going to disappear like dinosaurs did.

I would write here a novel but sorrily I have to go now.


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## ChrisBird (Jul 8, 2009)

I think we are missing a major point here.

MONEY or CURRENCY is a way to allow EVERYONE access to almost ANYTHING. It gives a good, and necessary, comparison between making and spending money. 

For example, without money, when you worked you might make a bag of rice, and then to buy a sheep, you would give 2 chickens. 

WITH money, you know, when working you make lets say 200$, and then to buy that sheep, is 45$, this shows that you can work for 200, then go and buy sheep with the money you made. You dont need to convert the payout from working a million times before you can go buy your sheep.

Money is not a root of all evil at all (IMO) its the people who think money is necessary for happiness that make it evil for themselves.


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## qqwref (Jul 9, 2009)

Novriil said:


> I have many opinions:
> 1) If we could make peace and don't argue about everything. Then we might live. But that brings many changes. Nobody is rich and nobody is not. Everybody just.. ARE! All the people have same rights and how will be working?? [stuff about communism]


What you are suggesting is essentially communism - a communist society is one where (to simplify things a bit) everyone has equal rights and equal resources. There are a few problems that pop up though:
a) You still need a government to control technology, organize the society, and provide things like roads, public transportation, schools, a legal system, and so on. But then the people in the government have more power/responsibility than other people, so eventually they might want more resources as compensation for that.
b) Nothing useful gets done in any large organization without some kind of hierarchy. For instance in a factory it is not enough to have workers; you also need people to manage the workers. In the government you can't just have clerks doing work; you also need bosses who know what work needs to be done and how to assign it. There is much more productivity when you have hierarchies, but then you run into the same problem as in (a) - people who are in higher positions of power want higher resources because they believe they are doing more important work. And of course, power corrupts 
c) If you are one person out of millions in your society, and the society's resources get divided up among anyone, what incentive do you have to work harder? You won't get 'paid' any more if you do, and because there are so many people in the society, producing more stuff won't give you any direct benefit, because the difference will effectively be split among everyone. While there will probably be people who work hard for the good of the society, there will be less motivation for others, so the productivity will decrease compared to a society where people are paid for how much they produce.


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## Kian (Jul 9, 2009)

panyan said:


> Kian said:
> 
> 
> > without the invention of a standardized monetary unit with which to trade we would live in a stagnant, unimaginative world.
> ...



No, they are not nearly as complex, that's patently false.

Mostly what I was saying (quite a long time ago), is that we would be without many, many benefits of modern society without the development of currency. Currency was a necessity for innovation in many societies, and has brought us what we have today. It is part of the infrastructure (along with many other things) that took us from bands of wandering clans who died at 35 to the world we live in today.

And yes, qqwref is right. Essentially you're suggesting a communist state. Moreover you're suggesting a communist state with a great deal of naivete. It doesn't work because *people aren't equal.* People have different goals, talents, cares, and motivations. People are also naturally inclined towards looking out for themselves and their bloodlines, it's an evolutionary characteristic that does us well. We are able to live in relatively harmony within our societies (i.e. I don't have an ongoing war with my neighbor for the right to the land between our homes) because that peace and security benefits us.

We're in it for ourselves and our families, and there is nothing wrong with that.


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## PhillipEspinoza (Jul 9, 2009)

qqwref said:


> Specialization is a necessary and important part of societal advancement.



I agree with you to a certain extent that specialization is necessary for progress. After all, what's the point of working individually when you can get so much more done collaboratively. HOWEVER, technological progress is being prevented because of the "need" for an income/job that requires people to serve as cheap automata in their minimum wage 9-5 job. I mean, if robots could do the same things as some of these people, why don't they? Because if robots were used for these purposes, just think about how many people would be out of a job. Therefore, if the need of money were taken out of the picture, we wouldn't have a problem with robots taken over the monotonous jobs and technological progress would ensue. 

And it would a different situation if we traded equally. But we live in a profit-based system where people are constantly exploited by people like mechanics. For those that say "how did they get that money in the first place?". Not everybody works equally as hard for the money they get. How did Paris Hilton get her money?



PhillipEspinoza said:


> Society has only produced solutions for illnesses it itself has created:


It seems like you're implying that society itself has created the following problems: (a) every disease which we have a vaccine for; (b) people not consistently having plentiful food; (c) lack of education; (d) inability to travel great distances in a day; (e) not being able to live more than 70 years on average; and so on. You may say that some of these things were not problems at all before society, or else were not noticed; however, ignorance of a problem does not necessarily mean it never existed in the first place.[/QUOTE]

My mistake, I should not have put *only*. Perhaps I should have posted the rest of the quote. "...the ease with which we arouse and satisfy our appetites and our sensuality; the overly refined foods of the wealthy, which nourish them with irritating juices and overwhelm them with indigestion; the bad food of the poor, who most of the time do not have even that, and who, for want of food, are inclined to stuff their stomachs greedily whenever possible; staying up until all hours, excesses of all kinds, immoderate outbursts of every passion, bouts of fatigue and mental exhaustion; countless sorrows and afflictions which are felt in all levels of society and which perpetually gnaw away at souls: these are fatal proofs that most of our ills are of our own making". 

(a) Have you ever heard of diseases that are made up for the sole purpose making money? It may not be every vaccine but take a look a Fibromyalgia and other Hopeless Diseases that you didn't know you already had. Remember, "ignorance of a problem does not necessarily mean it never existed in the first place". 
(b) How do you get food in today's society? Money. If you don't have it, you don't have food. Who controls the money, and thereby the food?
(c) Doesn't it cost money to go to good private schools to get a good education? Oh yeah, and college costs money too. Again, who controls the money?
(d) This is not a problem in and of itself. It is not a problem of mine if I cannot travel great distances. It is only necessary because I might need a job that requires me to travel great distances. And a job is necessary because money is necessary. And money is necessary because that's a way to get food in this society and so on and so forth.
(e) With stuff like McDonalds (which is cheap accessible food, and therefore made desirable) and other man made toxins entering our body and atmosphere, I'd be surprised if we didn't see the life expectancy of Americans decline in years to come.

My main point is that excessive consumerism is embraced in today's society and perpetuated by creating new diseases to sell more pills and new weight loss products and gastric bypass surgery to combat morbid obesity which are all caused by the same people who create the problem. 



qqwref said:


> I find it difficult to believe that there are people so stupid...



I find it difficult to believe that you find it difficult to believe that there are people who are really stupid, especially given frequent posts by you about the lowered intelligence of the cubing community today. 




qqwref said:


> Finally I'm going to argue against your statement that "money [is]... the water that helps the tree [of evil] grow". Many of the evils that people believe are caused by money... Money is just an proxy for power.



I don't think the "evils" of people are _caused_ by money. That was my point. I agree with you completely. Money is just a proxy for power. Money brings out the worst in people (meaning that what was bad was already in them in the first place. Though I don't think it is necessarily innate.)



qqwref said:


> You sound unbelievably pessimistic...





qqwref said:


> The fact is that evil is a part of human nature...



Wait, I'm the pessimistic one?


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## Johannes91 (Jul 9, 2009)

PhillipEspinoza said:


> HOWEVER, technological progress is being prevented because of the "need" for an income/job that requires people to serve as cheap automata in their minimum wage 9-5 job. I mean, if robots could do the same things as some of these people, why don't they? Because if robots were used for these purposes, just think about how many people would be out of a job.


Is this some weird conspiracy theory or can you give sources? I see it happening everywhere. Machines are replacing people where it's profitable to do so.



PhillipEspinoza said:


> (c) Doesn't it cost money to go to good private schools to get a good education? Oh yeah, and college costs money too.


The topic title said "world", not "America", so I'll just point out that there are countries where getting a good education is free.


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## fanwuq (Jul 9, 2009)

PhillipEspinoza said:


> qqwref said:
> 
> 
> > I find it difficult to believe that there are people so stupid...
> ...



HAHAHA! Nice.

Phillip, you do raise some interesting points. I do think that people are greedy by nature. Even without money, people will still fight over some sort of product/resource. Even animals fight over food.
There are people who work hard and get little in return and people who do nothing and are very rich. The people who work hard and get little in return will probably revolt sooner or later. The people who are rich without doing much will probably be punished by the revolutionaries. This is probably a never ending cycle. You address very many different fields of study and try to solve problems, if they can truly be called problems that could not be solved. Survival of the fittest?

I was just reading about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine
It's interesting how the rich people became so lazy that they actually become food for the poor people after about a million years. I never thought that there isn't that much difference between employee: employer and farmer: livestock. Now look at that in reverse. You are actually an employee of your pets. They boss you around, but at the end of the day, you can actually kill and eat them unless the law prohibits it. Then you are really screwed. Perhaps that's how humanity will end? It's actually quite ambiguous who is in control-- the boss or the union that threatens to burn down his house?
The only way that life without money can work is in a monastery. Are there Atheist Monks living in a community in some rural area?
Also notice that people seem to be more friendly in a small community where everyone know each other. Perhaps cities and overpopulation is the root of evils?


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## qqwref (Jul 9, 2009)

PhillipEspinoza said:


> I agree with you to a certain extent that specialization is necessary for progress. After all, what's the point of working individually when you can get so much more done collaboratively. HOWEVER, technological progress is being prevented because of the "need" for an income/job that requires people to serve as cheap automata in their minimum wage 9-5 job. I mean, if robots could do the same things as some of these people, why don't they? Because if robots were used for these purposes, just think about how many people would be out of a job. Therefore, if the need of money were taken out of the picture, we wouldn't have a problem with robots taken over the monotonous jobs and technological progress would ensue.


I think you're being naive if you think that most people would be able to help with technological progress. Apart from the rare clever idea, most technology can only be developed by smart people who have gone through an extremely in-depth education in their field. Most people simply don't have the motivation to do this. And as for robots, they often do, but it is usually cheaper to hire a human than to build a robot. If you're putting together toys, for instance, it's far cheaper to hire cheap human labor and teach the people how to construct the toys than to commission a robot which is programmed to understand exactly what to do.

And you can't just take the "need of money" out of the picture... if we lived in the wild, we'd need to spend many hours of the day educating children, getting food, and so on. I'm sure you are also familiar with the fact that technological progress was *extremely* slow before modern society. If we have a society, the only way we could eliminate the need for money is to somehow feed/clothe/house millions of people for free, which is impossible.



PhillipEspinoza said:


> the ease with which we arouse and satisfy our appetites and our sensuality [...] indigestion [...]excesses of all kinds, immoderate outbursts of every passion, bouts of fatigue and mental exhaustion



Pre-society life was not a Puritan utopia... some problems are simply endemic to humankind.



PhillipEspinoza said:


> (a) Have you ever heard of diseases that are made up for the sole purpose making money? It may not be every vaccine but take a look a Fibromyalgia and other Hopeless Diseases that you didn't know you already had.


I don't understand what you're talking about (PS: fibromyalgia is an actual condition, even though it is one of the ones with an unexplained cause... if you had "chronic widespread pain and a heightened and painful response to gentle touch" you would probably not say that anyone who thinks you have a disease is just trying to profit off you). Anyway, while it may be true that certain conditions are caused or exacerbated by societal problems, they are obviously not all caused by society. I'm not going to disagree that there are SOME problems that society creates and then tries to fix, but I think the number is far less than you imagine. At least society is attempting to take responsibility for its own mistakes - would you rather it not try to fix the problems at all?



PhillipEspinoza said:


> (d) This is not a problem in and of itself. It is not a problem of mine if I cannot travel great distances. It is only necessary because I might need a job that requires me to travel great distances.


Of course not being able to travel long distances quickly is a problem. What if you wished to explore the world, or travel to a place with a different climate, or visit people who don't live nearby? Just because you personally don't have any reason to want to go somewhere else does not mean that the inability to do so is fine for everyone. People in developing countries may not have any reason to worry about dieting, but that doesn't mean obesity is not a problem at all. It's simply a problem that they do not want to bother fixing.



PhillipEspinoza said:


> My main point is that excessive consumerism is embraced in today's society and perpetuated by creating new diseases to sell more pills and new weight loss products and gastric bypass surgery to combat morbid obesity which are all caused by the same people who create the problem.


I'd like some evidence on this "creating new diseases" thing. Anyway, I don't agree that society has caused obesity to become prevalent on purpose so that people could profit from treating it. It's true that obesity is more prevalent in American society than in, say, developing countries, but remember that not all industrialized nations have this problem (at least not to nearly the extent the USA has it).



PhillipEspinoza said:


> qqwref said:
> 
> 
> > I find it difficult to believe that there are people so stupid...
> ...


From my perspective what you "quoted" is as unintelligent as the very worst posts I've seen here, and definitely much worse than the average. You probably do have a point about there being extremely stupid people out there.



PhillipEspinoza said:


> qqwref said:
> 
> 
> > You sound unbelievably pessimistic...
> ...


Saying that people are "confined to our bubbles in the shape of a car, an apartment, a home, or cubicle" sounds pretty pessimistic to me. On the other hand, when I say that evil is a part of human nature, I am being realistic - humans are clearly not naturally all good or all evil, but instead they have a mixture of both. If you consider believing that humans are not by nature perfectly good beings at all times to be pessimism, I don't want to be an optimist...




fanwuq said:


> Atheist Monks


???


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## rahulkadukar (Jul 9, 2009)

There would be no rich and no poor and we would get our cubes for free


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## Ton (Jul 9, 2009)

Good questions, my thoughts. No money means to me everybody would work for the state, the income of the state is our labor. 
You will get what you need, not what you want. 
Can only work if the hole world would do this esle for a single country it would mean that only the state can trade with other countries. 

The risks is dictatorship , everybody must acknowledge the state , hence no democracy (needed) 

No money, my conclusion:
will only work if everybody trust and honor the state/ruler/king for ever. Democracy is not needed the rules and laws are clear and fair and fixed for ever

Well I know where I can find this kingdom


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## ChrisBird (Jul 9, 2009)

Ton said:


> Good questions, my thoughts. No money means to me everybody would work for the state, the income of the state is our labor.
> You will get what you need, not what you want.
> Can only work if the hole world would do this esle for a single country it would mean that only the state can trade with other countries.
> 
> ...



Germany back in the 1940s and those whereabouts?


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## royzabeast (Jul 9, 2009)

Nobody likes my ideas of bartering 


rahulkadukar said:


> There would be no rich and no poor and we would get our cubes for free



Or those Chinese manufacturers would request a 1/50th of an ounce of gold and half an oxen.


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