[Still Standing]

Financial security and freedom here too. I would like to be financially independent some day and work because I want to, not because there are bills to be paid. I'm a very frugal person and only own the stuff I truly need. As things are right now, I could spend the next 10 years or so without having to work.

[BrooklynBoy]

It was obviously my post that upset you. Evidently you did not see my statement that money is a necessity. When a person makes the statement that money cannot buy happiness they are not saying that they wish to be without it. Are you saying that you believe that you can buy happiness? I do know some rich people. Some of them are happy but some of them are not. So the conclusion that I personally have come to is that money, or maybe I should say, an abundance of money does not guarantee happiness. I personally believe that happiness is an inside job. You
make yourself happy. Nobody else. Neither does your happiness depend on money or possessions.

[Syntax]

	Originally Posted by BrooklynBoy To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	...Neither does your happiness depend on money or possessions.

To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


wrong.




...though I believe I can bridge the gap between our two opinions; A lack of money is a sufficient condition to make you miserable, but there is no amount of money sufficient to make you "truly" happy, although it is necessary. Money per se won't make you happy, but if you're happy chances are you've got some.

[Wicked Gleam]

Originally Posted by Four To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

"There is a sucker born every minute." P.T. Barnum. I'm not a dirtbag and can't justify robbing people on the basis of every 1 in 30 or so will fall for the trap or whatever it is. This is a sad life to me. I've thought about this kind of nonsense like creating a fake raffle to raise money for a fake charity. How easy would it be to buy a roll of raffle tickets, wear a shirt of a local radio station, create a prerecording. Stage it all. It's just dirtbag. I've studied the tactics of some of the more gifted street hustlers. If I see through them, I'm sure others do. The other day I gave 5 bucks to a con artist just to watch his reaction. My point is people see through you, they always do. I paid to confirm his actions, to be right. He and his friend had like a 1980 something Ford Escort double parked(what a laugh). He comes up to me and says they are going to get gas. So I gave him some bucks and watched them drive off, started to think about following them since I was right behind them. It would of been comical to ram the bumper off that car if I was in some car with a steal bumper.

It is immoral to convince another human to see an alternative perspective simply because their profit will be more in the mind, if they've the care to analyze, and gain of an object other than currency?

Your story, though unfortunate, is not applicable to the situation I had attempted to convey, whereby following a discussion about the nature of the value or usage of money, an agreement is made to replace one object of value with another.

	I really don't think you can convince anyone to take something besides money unless you are dealing in jewelry or something of that nature. I still wouldn't do it if I knew I couldn't tell a folex from a rolex or real jewels. But, if you are using objects of greater value to barter for something, you are the sucker.

Objects of greater /perceived/ value, apologies for the lack of clarification. Perspectives can be molded, as well.

If this post is incoherent, I apologise, as I'm highly distracted.

[jonnyb]

	Originally Posted by Four To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I really don't think you can convince anyone to take something besides money unless you are dealing in jewelry or something of that nature. I still wouldn't do it if I knew I couldn't tell a folex from a rolex or real jewels. But, if you are using objects of greater value to barter for something, you are the sucker. I think more to the tune of, "money talks; bullshit walks."

Don't know about that dude. I am able to get more 'free' help and cooperation from guys on my framing projects by having a couple 12 packs of beer than if I merely gave them all the 30$ it took to buy said beer. There are things in this world far more valuable than money.

[rufsketch1]

	Originally Posted by Grimstad To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Money is no more the creator of "imoral situations" than rocks are to blame for broken windows. Personally I prefer stuffing some paper in my pocket to stuffing chickens in my pocket.

No. Money is not the *sole* creator of immoral situations. The concept of "ownership" is at the heart of the problems it creates. As money is a way to help keep track of the level of control one has over his environment and peers it can generally tend to lead to entirely new immoral situations.

---------- Post added 02-21-2010 at 01:34 PM ----------

	Originally Posted by BrooklynBoy To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	money is a necessity.

Necessity for what exactly? Humanity seemed to have gotten along without it well enough prior to 4,000 years ago.

If you mean necessity for living in a large society of varying interests, then I have to say that you're wrong in that regard as well. It seems you're just saying things before you truly consider their validity. It is not especially difficult to see that money is in fact not a necessity.

[rufsketch1]

	Originally Posted by Syntax To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	A lack of money is a sufficient condition to make you miserable, but there is no amount of money sufficient to make you "truly" happy, although it is necessary. Money per se won't make you happy, but if you're happy chances are you've got some.

In the current socioeconomic system you are correct. A lack of money will make you miserable. But this isn't a praise of money, it is a critique of the sort of societies that have become the norm. Their hallmark is wasted labor towards the mass creation of useless objects, and wasted leisure-time spent toward that wasted labor.

[Grimstad]

	Money creates highly immoral situations

	Money is not the creator of personal situations

????????????????????????????

	Originally Posted by rufsketch1 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	In the current socioeconomic system you are correct. A lack of money will make you miserable. But this isn't a praise of money, it is a critique of the sort of societies that have become the norm. Their hallmark is wasted labor towards the mass creation of useless objects, and wasted leisure-time spent toward that wasted labor.

And in the socioeconomic system of 4000 years ago it would have been a lack of chickens, or goats or some similar form of food stuffs that made you miserable.. Now that kid in that picture, he could probably use a chicken. If for no other reason than to keep that vulture busy. But in this society, money is a practical necessity.

Wasted labor, wasted leisure time and more wasted labor. Okay. Ya got me there. Exactly what the hell are you talking about?

[alphawolf]

Money? It's a tool. Nothing more, nothing less.

[BrooklynBoy]

Originally Posted by rufsketch1 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

No. Money is not the creator of personal situations. The concept of "ownership" is. Money is just a way to help keep track of the level of control one has over his environment and peers. ---------- Post added 02-21-2010 at 01:34 PM ---------- Necessity for what exactly? Humanity seemed to have gotten along without it well enough prior to 4,000 years ago. If you mean necessity for living in a large society of varying interests, then I have to say that you're wrong in that regard as well. It seems you're just saying things before you truly consider their validity. It is not especially difficult to see that money is in fact not a necessity.

By you saying that money is not a necessity I take it that you are implying that you have found some way to live without it. So, can you please give me some example of how it would be possible to live without money in the current socioeconomic system we are living in the midst of.

[Moxie1]

I view money in two ways:
1) A practical barometer of my value to society
2) A means to acquire items/positions I desire (ex: money provides power that a lack of money does not provide)

[rufsketch1]

	Originally Posted by Grimstad To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	And in the socioeconomic system of 4000 years ago it would have been a lack of chickens, or goats or some similar form of food stuffs that made you miserable.. Now that kid in that picture, he could probably use a chicken. If for no other reason than to keep that vulture busy. But in this society, money is a practical necessity.

Sorry, I was distracted with IRL conversation and other peoples words went through my fingers. I edited the posts to make sense.

I never claimed that the socioeconomic system of 4,000 years ago would solve the child's problem. Just that it got along without money. It was a rebuttal to the implication that money was a necessity.

	Wasted labor, wasted leisure time and more wasted labor. Okay. Ya got me there. Exactly what the hell are you talking about?

I'm talking about a restructuring of society so that people are free to make use of whatever resources they personally need from a collected pool in return for a few hours a day/week/-whatever the logistics come out to for the certain area- contributing to that pool. Free super markets, housing, energy, etc. The minimums of life are met in an efficient manner through group efforts so no one is forced to do more work than truly needed to survive. Money would be inherently antithetical to this sort of system, because it allows for corruption in anyone who has been allowed the responsibility of organizing the tasks. Because everyone is assured food and housing in return for their efforts assuring the same for everyone else, subjugation of people for unfair levels of labor is greatly minimized.

---------- Post added 02-21-2010 at 07:15 PM ----------

	Originally Posted by BrooklynBoy To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	By you saying that money is not a necessity I take it that you are implying that you have found some way to live without it. So, can you please give me some example of how it would be possible to live without money in the current socioeconomic system we are living in the midst of.

Who said anything about doing it in the current socioeconomic system?

But to humor you; dumpster diving is a much richer means of sustenance than one would be lead to believe.

And though it is becoming less and less possible to live independently as a farmer (due to so much farm-able land being already owned) this is still a possibility if you can find a large field from which no one bothers to evict you.

	Originally Posted by alphawolf To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Money? It's a tool. Nothing more, nothing less.

So is a gun. And a bomb.

[crow]

	Originally Posted by WaeV To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Money makes a good slave but a bad master. One is truly wealthy when one is no longer a slave to money. I wish for the power to live where I like, eat what I choose, and provide for those whom I care for.

I spend nearly all my life being exceptionally poor.
For a few months, nobody in history was more poor than I was.
Now I am not poor.
And I can report that it is very pleasant.

But I am very grateful indeed, for all those years of learning to live without it.

[gecko]

Money is a tool for those who have it. Money is an obstacle for those who don't.

"Having money isn't everything, not having it is" - Kanye West

[JanusthePhoenix]

Just to address the happiness issue for a moment...
Empirical studies (as empirical as they can get due to the nature of the subject) have indicated that it isn't having money or wealth that makes you happy in the sense that more money=more happiness, generally it is having more money or wealth than your peers that makes for happiness. It's an evolutionary psychology thing: we evolved into people that want to achieve more than everyone else because it is an evolutionary advantage.

Source: Clark, A Farewell to Alms

[Autoptic]

Fiat currency's basically an IOU albeit created and enforced by coercion of the State mostly to set up more the same. A common medium for exchange just makes sense, barring convenient happenstance allowing for incidents of useful, efficient direct barter.

Originally Posted by rufsketch1 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I'm talking about a restructuring of society so that people are free to make use of whatever resources they personally need from a collected pool in return for a few hours a day/week/-whatever the logistics come out to for the certain area- contributing to that pool. Free super markets, housing, energy, etc. The minimums of life are met in an efficient manner through group efforts so no one is forced to do more work than truly needed to survive. Money would be inherently antithetical to this sort of system, because it allows for corruption in anyone who has been allowed the responsibility of organizing the tasks. Because everyone is assured food and housing in return for their efforts assuring the same for everyone else, subjugation of people for unfair levels of labor is greatly minimized.

Who gets to define need, work, and fair? Value's solely defined by the individual. A thing's worth only what one will give or take for it. This'd just be subjugation of individuals with reifications and other lies with politics replacing open trade and obfuscating the real economics with purely arbitrary and insanely intrusive debt continuously being redefined by those who had the clout.

	But to humor you; dumpster diving is a much richer means of sustenance than one would be lead to believe. And though it is becoming less and less possible to live independently as a farmer (due to so much farm-able land being already owned) this is still a possibility if you can find a large field from which no one bothers to evict you.

Unsanitary and unpleasant don't mean a thing to you? They do to some. Farms aren't self-sustaining.

[rufsketch1]

	Originally Posted by Autoptic To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Who gets to define need, work, and fair? Value's solely defined by the individual. A thing's worth only what one will give or take for it.

The work needed is defined by the things needed. If the group is low on tomatoes, more people are put on tomato harvesting duty. If houses are in need of repair, relevant people are put on repair duty.

Fair is defined for the most part objectively. You should be putting into the system at least as much as you're taking out of it. Granted, the only truly feasible requirement would be that the community values your existence within it.

	This'd just be subjugation of individuals with reifications and other lies with politics replacing open trade and obfuscating the real economics with purely arbitrary and insanely intrusive debt continuously being redefined by those who had the clout.

I'm not sure I understand. Politics would exist at a bear minimum because there aren't any possessions for people to make legal issues of. So a "politician" would just be someone who has shown they're good at keeping an eye on what's running low and not running well and has a good track record at coming up with efficient solutions.

Why do you assume things would be purely arbitrary, and why do you assume there can debt in a system with no possessions? The only "debt" one can be seen as having is one to the community as a whole. Or more abstractly, to the community stores.

If they do not wish to help contribute to the community, then they are banned from it and sent to fend for themselves. The community has no obligation to support someone who is not doing their own part to support it (though they may choose to in situations involving handicap/old age).

	Unsanitary and unpleasant don't mean a thing to you? They do to some. Farms aren't self-sustaining.

In regards to dumpsters, the question was survival. Not convenience.

In regards to Farms, they can be self sustaining. For decades Irish farmers lived on a diet consisting solely of potatoes and cows milk. This supplied them with all the nutrients necessary for a healthy diet. Their only mistake was growing just one type of potato (we all know how that story goes).

[Autoptic]

Survival's a means not an end, and what you're describing would be a kind a hell to most people. The only way any community won't become political is if everyone's rendered too stupid to live. Public property's an oxymoron. If it's all "public" property, it'll all belong to the most popular or most powerful subgroup and its leaders, who likewise will be dictating its use and the entire lives of everyone unfortunate enough to be stuck with them.

---------- Post added 02-21-2010 at 08:40 PM ----------

	Originally Posted by rufsketch1 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	In regards to Farms, they can be self sustaining. For decades Irish farmers lived on a diet consisting solely of potatoes and cows milk. This supplied them with all the nutrients necessary for a healthy diet. Their only mistake was growing just one type of potato (we all know how that story goes).

Where'd they get their tools, clothes, and every-bloody-thing else they were using? That's not nutritionally adequate either.

[elsdfr]

A necessary evil. While it does make some things easier it also complicates them just as much (if that makes sense). It'd be nice to have enough when I'm old and useless though.

[rufsketch1]

	Originally Posted by Autoptic To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Survival's a means not an end, and what you're describing would be a kind a hell to most people. The only way any community won't become political is if everyone's rendered too stupid to live. Public property's an oxymoron. If it's all "public" property, it'll all belong to the most popular or most powerful subgroup and its leaders, who likewise will be dictating its use.

In future replies, it may be prudent to approach the debate by providing reasons before their conclusion. I have had this conversation quite a few times and have found that its misconceptions and misunderstanding are much more efficiently corrected when the reasons behind each idea are given. Though I've been through it before, and the concerns tend to be more or less the same, the number of logical steps required to get to any conclusion at this level of abstraction is large enough that it's better not to make assumptions about what the other is saying. This is just a suggestion. Feel free to continue being vague if you believe I'm addressing your concerns to your standard of relevancy. And I understand that my initial comments on the matter weren't especially detailed either.

That said I will address your concerns as best I can based on the limited information you have provided regarding their nature.

	Survival's a means not an end, and what you're describing would be a kind a hell to most people.

The goal of the system is not mere survival. The goal is the assurance of survival for the minimum level of work required. This means more free time the individual may explore their own interests and personal development (more overall freedom).There is nothing hellish about having more time on your hands. If you would like to spend that time working anyway, no one would stop you.

	The only way any community won't become political is if everyone's rendered too stupid to live.

Again, due to vagueness, I hesitate especially to address this, but I will make an assumption about what you mean and attempt as best I can to address it anyway.
Politics arise for two reasons. Minimizing social disorder and improving social order. Because there is nothing to steal, no people unemployed, and no one going hungry; crime (and therefore social disorder) would already be at a bare minimum.
The only reason for politics then would be to make sure that things are going well. Keep on eye on the store shelves, check the rate at which goods are consumed, anticipate and address shortages, sift through engineer's applications for raw materials, petition the community for things to assign to engineers, provide incentive for people to voluntarily choose the less popular chores, etc.

Because there is no money or possession, there would be no real way for a politician to use his power in a corrupt manner.

	Public property's an oxymoron. If it's all "public" property, it'll all belong to the most popular or most powerful subgroup and its leaders, who likewise will be dictating its use.

Why would there be leaders with this sort of power?[see above] And what would they have to gain from dictating its use in a manner which is non-beneficial to the community? And why would the community not impeach - or even exile (after all, he's not doing his part)- a leader who is so detrimental to the sort of standards they had come to expect?

[Autoptic]

	Originally Posted by rufsketch1 To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	The goal of the system is not mere survival. The goal is the assurance of survival for the minimum level of work required. This means more free time the individual may explore their own interests and personal development (more overall freedom).There is nothing hellish about having more time on your hands. If you would like to spend that time working anyway, no one would stop you.

My interests are to not being in such a system. I want stuff to do stuff with and minimal contact with or intrusion from with the "community". I lose all this permanently and gain absolutely nothing.

	Politics arise for two reasons. Minimizing social disorder and improving social order. ... Because there is no money or possession, there would be no real way for a politician to use his power in a corrupt manner.

Bullshit, you know nothing of politics or humanity do you? Politics is about power. Power always exists. There's no social intelligence or purpose just individuals. Sociological concepts are just useful fictions.

	Why would there be leaders with this sort of power?[see above] And what would they have to gain from dictating its use in a manner which is non-beneficial to the community? And why would the community not impeach - or even exile (after all, he's not doing his part)- a leader who is so detrimental to the sort of standards they had come to expect?

Socialites will charm and manipulate. People will groupthink and clique. Blocs will always arise. Benefit is a value judgment, and community is always separately defined by the blocs and its members, usually emphasizing themselves but always their interests.

[rufsketch1]

Originally Posted by Syntax To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I really hate statements like "money can't buy happiness". They're passively thrown into conversation without any thought and usually not argued against. Try being happy without it. In any case, I feel this sums up my thoughts on money pretty well; [HIDE="As told by Francisco dAnconia"]"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil? "When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil? "Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth. "But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.' "To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil? "But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality--the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind. "Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil? "Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil? "Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money? "Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money? "Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money--and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it. "Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. "Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun. "But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich--will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt--and of his life, as he deserves. "Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard--the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money--the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law--men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims--then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter. "Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot. "Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, 'Account overdrawn.' "When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world? You are. "You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves--slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers--as industrialists. "To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money--and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist. "If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality. "Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide-- as, I think, he will. "Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out." [/HIDE]

Ayn Rand has a wonderful penchant for taking atrocious things and wording them romantically. That is all I can say about her.

Well, all I can say without directly calling her a bitch, anyway.

[Tyrant Soup]

Money is a convenient way to provide credit for work done. But it enables certain privileged members to be awarded credits without having to do any work for it.

[rufsketch1]

	Originally Posted by Autoptic To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I want stuff to do stuff with and minimal contact with or intrusion from with the "community". I lose all this permanently and gain absolutely nothing.

Why do you assume you would lose your ability to minimize social contact? Why do you assume you would have nothing to do? I am telling you in advance that both are false, but I'm curious as to why you assume their truth.

	Bullshit, you know nothing of politics or humanity do you? Politics is about power. Power always exists. There's no social intelligence or purpose just individuals. Sociological concepts are just useful fictions.

I am not making any claim about what motivates someone to seek political office. It is surely power for the most part. I am making claims as to what a political position would be, and why those who simply seek power would be uninterested. If a political office does not grant power, then those who seek power will not be seeking a political office.

	Socialites will charm and manipulate.

To what end?

	People will groupthink and clique. Blocs will always arise.

So? These groups may form, but would generally not be detrimental. They are too heavily reliant upon one another to cause each other harm. You'll have to be more specific if you want me to address this more specifically.

	Benefit is a value judgment, and community is always separately defined by the blocs and its members, usually emphasizing themselves but always their interests.

Yes, this is a huge problem of current society and most of the societies in history. There are far too many competing interests in a capitalist system and far too many motives and chances for arbitrary oppression of arbitrary people. This is primarily what prompted me to think of a possible solution (the solution you are currently refuting). Know that this isn't a system formed in ignorance of human nature. It is a system formed as a direct answer to the problems I felt it presented. The very problems generally cited by people initially trying to disprove the utility of such a system.

The system I proposed seeks to minimize oppression in two ways. First, by eliminating its origins (us and them mentalities largely arise when "their" interests are in some way conflicting with "our's").

And, by minimizing the chance spread of any one oppressive meme by keeping communities generally small and numerous. Members being oppressed in one community may decide to simply move to another. And if this is not possible for some unimagined reason, then at least the oppression occurs only on a small scale.

The first reason should be enough, the second is a safety net.

Though I really do wish you'd refrain from making sweeping generalizations about human nature. Regardless of their genetic predispositions, people behave in different ways depending upon what their surroundings call for. I don't mean this to say that people behave differently depending on how they are raised (though to a degree, they do), just to say that no one throws punches when they're alone amidst rocks.

[Grimstad]

	Though I really do wish you'd refrain from making sweeping generalizations about human nature.

But human nature is exactly what would keep your proposal from working. Your proposal makes absolutely NO consideration for people. They are merely assets. An engine to drive this perfect society. What do we do when someone doesn’t conform? Banish them. He doesn’t fit so lets throw him out. He is malfunctioning. What if he doesn’t want to go? How do we enforce banishment? Kill him? And why should we make any consideration for the old and infirm? They can no longer contribute. What do they have to offer in this society? The goal is after all to meet our essential needs. Do we allow people to work extra to save up for retirement? Well there goes your leisure time. What about the artists? The musicians? Is there any accommodation for them? Is their “production” of their “goods” of any benefit to society? Or should they only be allowed to do it in their off time. Do they have to give their creations away or are they allowed to keep it for themselves? Or do we simply banish art all together?

And what about God? Do we do away with religion? I know I’d like to see it get out of politics but personally I don’t care what another believes as long as it doesn’t infringe on how I live my life.

Human nature. Yes, that is exactly what is missing from your equation. Humans. We are not Borg.