http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/23/news/ec ... ?hpt=hp_t2 (http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/23/news/economy/cyprus-endgame-eurozone/?hpt=hp_t2)
I cannot imagine if that would happen in the US.
Would happen? It already did, in the 1930s.
"Turn in your gold for notes. Trade rate is $20/oz. Good, all traded? Trade rate is $35/oz."
Quote from: "http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/23/news/economy/cyprus-endgame-eurozone/?hpt=hp_t2"Unable to restore trust in its banks and with an economy locked in a downward spiral, social and political unrest would escalate quickly. At that point, Cyprus may decide it has no option but to abandon the euro and start printing its own currency.
When will people realize that money isn't the solution?
Quote from: "Sal1981"Quote from: "http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/23/news/economy/cyprus-endgame-eurozone/?hpt=hp_t2"Unable to restore trust in its banks and with an economy locked in a downward spiral, social and political unrest would escalate quickly. At that point, Cyprus may decide it has no option but to abandon the euro and start printing its own currency.
When will people realize that money isn't the solution?
Probably when stuff stops costing money.
Maybe they'll stop being the Russian mafia's defacto money laundry..
Quote from: "dawiw"I cannot imagine if that would happen in the US.
In the US they'd probably tax the crap out of you and then just hand the money over to the banks and the auto industry.
So, what has Miley gotten herself into this time?
Quote from: "NitzWalsh"Quote from: "Sal1981"Quote from: "http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/23/news/economy/cyprus-endgame-eurozone/?hpt=hp_t2"Unable to restore trust in its banks and with an economy locked in a downward spiral, social and political unrest would escalate quickly. At that point, Cyprus may decide it has no option but to abandon the euro and start printing its own currency.
When will people realize that money isn't the solution?
Probably when stuff stops costing money.
Good then, replace money with energy certificates, and take it from there.
Quote from: "Sal1981"Good then, replace money with energy certificates, and take it from there.
You've just given money a fancy name.
QuoteWhen will people realize that money isn't the solution?
Probably some point after the collapse of society.
QuoteYou've just given money a fancy name.
I think there's more behind it than a renaming, at least from the last time I saw him post about it. There are many ways to implement a management of resources. Our current one stems from ancient time. It's not all that bizarre to imagine it might be outdated by now. Hell; it's older than the bible and look how wrong
that is.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"Quote from: "Sal1981"Good then, replace money with energy certificates, and take it from there.
You've just given money a fancy name.
It's an aspect of Technocracy. Energy certificates (or credits) is based on a calculation of net energy available divided by the number of people; and each person is given this amount of credits equally (or could be less socialistic, and instead be divided by energy expenditure, such that a couch potato would get less than, say, an electrical engineer, but whatever).
Basically it has 2 main features; the first feature is that energy certificates come with an expiration date, so hoarding of energy certificates (analogous to hoarding of money) becomes pointless, could be annual, such that after being issued your share in the available energy, you have to spend it before it expires a year later, since energy isn't some tangible thing, but just what we use (water, food, electricity, etc.) and produce(work, power plants, crop yields, etc.). 2nd feature is that is assigned to a specific person, so stealing credits (barring identity theft or whatever) becomes difficult.
It's not a perfect system, but it's damn more viable than having 1% of the population owning more than half the wealth, leaving the majority fighting over scraps.
Quote from: "Sal1981"Quote from: "DunkleSeele"Quote from: "Sal1981"Good then, replace money with energy certificates, and take it from there.
You've just given money a fancy name.
It's an aspect of Technocracy. Energy certificates (or credits) is based on a calculation of net energy available divided by the number of people; and each person is given this amount of credits equally (or could be less socialistic, and instead be divided by energy expenditure, such that a couch potato would get less than, say, an electrical engineer, but whatever).
What do you mean by "net energy"? And why would an electrical engineer automatically spend more energy than a couch potato?
QuoteBasically it has 2 main features; the first feature is that energy certificates come with an expiration date, so hoarding of energy certificates (analogous to hoarding of money) becomes pointless, could be annual, such that after being issued your share in the available energy, you have to spend it before it expires a year later, since energy isn't some tangible thing, but just what we use (water, food, electricity, etc.) and produce(work, power plants, crop yields, etc.).
But it could cause hoarding of goods. Same thing as hoarding money, really, apart from the amount of space taken.
Quote2nd feature is that is assigned to a specific person, so stealing credits (barring identity theft or whatever) becomes difficult.
Ah, but once you spend your credit it must be transferred to someone, right? Just like money.
QuoteIt's not a perfect system, but it's damn more viable than having 1% of the population owning more than half the wealth, leaving the majority fighting over scraps.
Not only it's not a perfect system, it's even worse than another completely idiotic system like the "Venus project", with which your pipedream shares some concepts.
Hint: the problem isn't "money", it's "greed" and "power".
Quote from: "Plu"QuoteWhen will people realize that money isn't the solution?
Probably some point after the collapse of society.
QuoteYou've just given money a fancy name.
I think there's more behind it than a renaming, at least from the last time I saw him post about it. There are many ways to implement a management of resources. Our current one stems from ancient time. It's not all that bizarre to imagine it might be outdated by now. Hell; it's older than the bible and look how wrong that is.
Mangement of resources and money are two completely different topics.
QuoteMangement of resources and money are two completely different topics.
Well yes, but originally money was supposed to be a measure of resource. They aren't anymore, which is kinda the problem.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"Quote from: "Sal1981"Quote from: "DunkleSeele"You've just given money a fancy name.
It's an aspect of Technocracy. Energy certificates (or credits) is based on a calculation of net energy available divided by the number of people; and each person is given this amount of credits equally (or could be less socialistic, and instead be divided by energy expenditure, such that a couch potato would get less than, say, an electrical engineer, but whatever).
What do you mean by "net energy"? And why would an electrical engineer automatically spend more energy than a couch potato?
Net energy is merely gross energy minus energy used; better to call it surplus energy. And it's not strictly about spending, but expenditure, i.e. a couch potato has done less to deserve their share in of the energy available than an electrical engineer. That was just an example for "each to his needs; each to his input". But I think the energy should be socialistically divided up.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"QuoteBasically it has 2 main features; the first feature is that energy certificates come with an expiration date, so hoarding of energy certificates (analogous to hoarding of money) becomes pointless, could be annual, such that after being issued your share in the available energy, you have to spend it before it expires a year later, since energy isn't some tangible thing, but just what we use (water, food, electricity, etc.) and produce(work, power plants, crop yields, etc.).
But it could cause hoarding of goods. Same thing as hoarding money, really, apart from the amount of space taken.
That's an imperfection, which Technocracy answers: You don't own anything at all, neither does the State except calculate and manage the energy necessary. It's about the principles about ownership and how those are applied, it would basically be about energy necessary for you to sustain yourself, which would be covered by the energy certificate. No ownership necessary, not even land or borders (except towards those nations who would want to recognize political borders).
If you're thinking of the classical meaning, basically the State would own everything, shared with its entire populace, but this isn't strictly analogous with Technocracy's vision of ownership. You would still have possessions like a car or computer, those are just possessions. It would do away with the whole idea of one person owning agricultural land and building a golf course because he would be like "fuck all of ya'll, I'll do whatever I want", it would elevate such petty squabbles of ownership and rights to ownership to who used the land most efficiently in terms of energy, evaluated by the State.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"Quote2nd feature is that is assigned to a specific person, so stealing credits (barring identity theft or whatever) becomes difficult.
Ah, but once you spend your credit it must be transferred to someone, right? Just like money.
You're still thinking in terms of money; money just changes hands, energy certificates is about genuinely using energy, be it the energy necessary to light a light-bulb, the energy necessary to transport a goods from a field or factory to your house, and so on.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"QuoteIt's not a perfect system, but it's damn more viable than having 1% of the population owning more than half the wealth, leaving the majority fighting over scraps.
Not only it's not a perfect system, it's even worse than another completely idiotic system like the "Venus project", with which your pipedream shares some concepts.
Hint: the problem isn't "money", it's "greed" and "power".
"Greed" and "power" are scapegoats. They are surmountable.
Money only works for small out-dated system of bartering and savings, it doesn't work for a global economy. We have an energy-dependent economy now driven by resources available. It's like using one hammer for building a skyscraper.
Quote from: "Plu"QuoteMangement of resources and money are two completely different topics.
Well yes, but originally money was supposed to be a measure of resource. They aren't anymore, which is kinda the problem.
Uhm, no. Money is/was supposed to be a measure of
the value of goods/services/resources at a certain place and at a certain point in time. Still, this is all academic. Replace money with something else and the logic behind it still applies. As well as the problems caused by greed.
Interesting take on the Cyprus debacle and why capital flow especially across borders needs reigned in. More from Prof. Krugman..
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article;jsess ... =Columnist (http://mobile.nytimes.com/article;jsessionid=12F8573596A688A428B6CE8F70127D1D?a=1041673&f=28&sub=Columnist)
Quote from: "Sal1981"Net energy is merely gross energy minus energy used; better to call it surplus energy. And it's not strictly about spending, but expenditure, i.e. a couch potato has done less to deserve their share in of the energy available than an electrical engineer. That was just an example for "each to his needs; each to his input". But I think the energy should be socialistically divided up.
I know what "net" means. My question is: how do you define the "energy used" to be substracted from the total amount of energy produced? Is it the energy used to give people a roof and just enough food to survive? Is it something different? How do you define "needs"?
QuoteThat's an imperfection, which Technocracy answers: You don't own anything at all, neither does the State except calculate and manage the energy necessary. It's about the principles about ownership and how those are applied, it would basically be about energy necessary for you to sustain yourself, which would be covered by the energy certificate. No ownership necessary, not even land or borders (except towards those nations who would want to recognize political borders).
If the energy to sustain yourself is covered by your "credits" you run into a major problem: given that those credits are issued based on the "net energy" left, you have to make sure that this "net energy" is at least as much as the energy spent to produce it, otherwise people would not be able to sustain themselves. Good luck with that.
QuoteIf you're thinking of the classical meaning, basically the State would own everything, shared with its entire populace, but this isn't strictly analogous with Technocracy's vision of ownership. You would still have possessions like a car or computer, those are just possessions. It would do away with the whole idea of one person owning agricultural land and building a golf course because he would be like "fuck all of ya'll, I'll do whatever I want", it would elevate such petty squabbles of ownership and rights to ownership to who used the land most efficiently in terms of energy, evaluated by the State.
And here you run into another major problem: state-owned economies have been shown time and again to not work. You may put it as you want, but this would still be a strictly state-controlled system.
QuoteYou're still thinking in terms of money; money just changes hands, energy certificates is about genuinely using energy, be it the energy necessary to light a light-bulb, the energy necessary to transport a goods from a field or factory to your house, and so on.
Irrelevant. Someone, be it an individual, a group thereof or the state, will still have to provide those services. Therefore, your credits will still be used exactly as money is used now.
Quote"Greed" and "power" are scapegoats. They are surmountable.
No, greed is a basic human feature.
QuoteMoney only works for small out-dated system of bartering and savings, it doesn't work for a global economy. We have an energy-dependent economy now driven by resources available. It's like using one hammer for building a skyscraper.
Wrong. Money, in its various forms throughout history, it's what has allowed our economy to shift from a highly localised, barter-based one to a more global one.
TL;DR: You can put it as you want, but goods, services and resources have a value which is highly dependant on both their availability and our personal needs/wants. Your "credit" system is just another way of quantifying that value, just like money. It doesn't solve at all our current, and very real, problems.
Quote from: "Plu"originally money was supposed to be a measure of resource. They aren't anymore, which is kinda the problem.
I've often thought not so much that it's "kinda the problem", but that it's EXACTLY THE PROBLEM. I don't understand how the cost of a thing reflects its actual worth. When we used to barter, people depended on a sense of value to determine worth. Money seems to alter our basic understanding of worth:
"I'll give you 10 of these slips of paper with a picture of this old dead guy printed on it. What's that you say? You want 10 slips of paper with a picture of a different dead guy printed on them? Sure no problem."
We've come to value money, even covet money, because we've become conditioned to value it. We've been around it all our lives, but what is it really? It's just paper and ink printed by our government. It used to be backed by actual gold and silver in federal vaults, but once we became conditioned to think that the money had value of it's own, the government just sold off the gold and silver and kept printing more money, while telling us it's worth just as much as the old stuff.
I can't wrap my head around the sense in this! Let's take it even further. Six years ago, banks would give you enough of this ink and paper to buy a house that cost more than the value of the materials and labor in the house. Then the banks would print another piece of paper claiming it was worth all the value of the worthless paper given to others to buy the over priced houses. And people were dumb enough to buy these new pieces of paper, and claim they were real smart because the paper would supposedly be worth even more in a few years.
Then some alert citizens realized the new pieces of paper printed by the banks weren't worth anything because the houses that started the whole thing weren't actually worth the paper that the banks originally gave to people so they could sort of "own" the over priced houses. Then everyone started asking each other, "What the fuck just happened?" And as far as I can tell, no one seems to know, or at least collectively, no one can agree on what the fuck just happened.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"Quote from: "Plu"QuoteMangement of resources and money are two completely different topics.
Well yes, but originally money was supposed to be a measure of resource. They aren't anymore, which is kinda the problem.
Uhm, no. Money is/was supposed to be a measure of the value of goods/services/resources at a certain place and at a certain point in time. Still, this is all academic. Replace money with something else and the logic behind it still applies. As well as the problems caused by greed.
Then change the game of greed. Social engineering, sorry, education, could very well do away with greed; hell, find the gene sequence that causes the proficiency for greed and switch it off.
On its most basic level, money represents the value of an object. But when you factor in economy, money means nothing. It's just some sort of void entity that can be used to barter stuff with, that appears out of thin air, vanishes into thin air again, and that people pretend is really important and permanent.
And it'll continue to work as long as people believe it's still a real thing.
QuoteThen change the game of greed. Social engineering, sorry, education, could very well do away with greed; hell, find the gene sequence that causes the proficiency for greed and switch it off.
Don't switch it off. Greed is really important to progress. It's the thing that makes us want to do more with less.
What is needed is a way to switch it so the object coveted is something that will benefit society if you collect more of it. Right now, piling up money doesn't help anyone. We love people who are so greedy they design a car that does a hundred miles to the gallon. We need them. Now lets give them something that will make them come up with something even better, instead of something that will make them stop working or motivate them to make something worse because they get a better reward from that.
(The whole concept of "sell crappy shit so we make more money off of support" model.)
To get back to Cyprus, part of the problem was that Cyprus banks bought pieces of paper printed by the Greeks. But the paper turned out to be just paper.
Quote from: "Sal1981"Then change the game of greed. Social engineering, sorry, education, could very well do away with greed; hell, find the gene sequence that causes the proficiency for greed and switch it off.
Social engineering was already tried in some places. Look up Soviet Union. It failed.
You really don't want to see the basic problem, do you? All these experiments you mention ("credit" system, social engineering, genetic engineering, etc.) must be imposed by someone on the rest of the population. Now, who controls those who are in power?
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"Quote from: "Sal1981"Net energy is merely gross energy minus energy used; better to call it surplus energy. And it's not strictly about spending, but expenditure, i.e. a couch potato has done less to deserve their share in of the energy available than an electrical engineer. That was just an example for "each to his needs; each to his input". But I think the energy should be socialistically divided up.
I know what "net" means. My question is: how do you define the "energy used" to be substracted from the total amount of energy produced? Is it the energy used to give people a roof and just enough food to survive? Is it something different? How do you define "needs"?
It's an engineering calculation, and quite a complex one. Do you want me to account for all the energy that is produced and used by a nation? I can do that, just would take some time. IOW; it's an engineering issue, technological.
As for needs, it would be the surplus energy, divided evenly to the nations population.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"QuoteThat's an imperfection, which Technocracy answers: You don't own anything at all, neither does the State except calculate and manage the energy necessary. It's about the principles about ownership and how those are applied, it would basically be about energy necessary for you to sustain yourself, which would be covered by the energy certificate. No ownership necessary, not even land or borders (except towards those nations who would want to recognize political borders).
If the energy to sustain yourself is covered by your "credits" you run into a major problem: given that those credits are issued based on the "net energy" left, you have to make sure that this "net energy" is at least as much as the energy spent to produce it, otherwise people would not be able to sustain themselves. Good luck with that.
Why, thank you.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"QuoteIf you're thinking of the classical meaning, basically the State would own everything, shared with its entire populace, but this isn't strictly analogous with Technocracy's vision of ownership. You would still have possessions like a car or computer, those are just possessions. It would do away with the whole idea of one person owning agricultural land and building a golf course because he would be like "fuck all of ya'll, I'll do whatever I want", it would elevate such petty squabbles of ownership and rights to ownership to who used the land most efficiently in terms of energy, evaluated by the State.
And here you run into another major problem: state-owned economies have been shown time and again to not work. You may put it as you want, but this would still be a strictly state-controlled system.
The conditions aren't the same. Besides, only the energy calculation of how much everyone gets to use, is calculated. How people spend those goods and what they wish to produce is entirely up to them.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"QuoteYou're still thinking in terms of money; money just changes hands, energy certificates is about genuinely using energy, be it the energy necessary to light a light-bulb, the energy necessary to transport a goods from a field or factory to your house, and so on.
Irrelevant. Someone, be it an individual, a group thereof or the state, will still have to provide those services. Therefore, your credits will still be used exactly as money is used now.
The producers would be in large part be a workforce necessary to surpass sustainable energy. Basically production-side. They would not get anything for their work (because there's no money) except for an energy certificate, that is evenly distributed from surplus energy from the overhead energy calculation.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"Quote"Greed" and "power" are scapegoats. They are surmountable.
No, greed is a basic human feature.
Then we change it.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"QuoteMoney only works for small out-dated system of bartering and savings, it doesn't work for a global economy. We have an energy-dependent economy now driven by resources available. It's like using one hammer for building a skyscraper.
Wrong. Money, in its various forms throughout history, it's what has allowed our economy to shift from a highly localised, barter-based one to a more global one.
And it has time and again resulted in economic disparities, boom & bust, and what have you, in a global economy. It doesn't work currently.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"TL;DR: You can put it as you want, but goods, services and resources have a value which is highly dependant on both their availability and our personal needs/wants. Your "credit" system is just another way of quantifying that value, just like money. It doesn't solve at all our current, and very real, problems.
You're half-right. It's re-quantifying value itself on what it really is based on; Joules.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"Quote from: "Sal1981"Then change the game of greed. Social engineering, sorry, education, could very well do away with greed; hell, find the gene sequence that causes the proficiency for greed and switch it off.
Social engineering was already tried in some places. Look up Soviet Union. It failed.
You really don't want to see the basic problem, do you? All these experiments you mention ("credit" system, social engineering, genetic engineering, etc.) must be imposed by someone on the rest of the population. Now, who controls those who are in power?
The people of course.
Quote from: "Plu"On its most basic level, money represents the value of an object. But when you factor in economy, money means nothing. It's just some sort of void entity that can be used to barter stuff with, that appears out of thin air, vanishes into thin air again, and that people pretend is really important and permanent.
And it'll continue to work as long as people believe it's still a real thing.
I don't disagree with this. The problem is, replace money with something else and you can run into exactly the same problems. Even a basic barter economy will succumb to greed and deception. Ask the ancient priests who were accumulating goods and resources in exchange for other "services" (a supposed link to the gods of the day), impoverishing the rest of the population.
QuoteQuoteThen change the game of greed. Social engineering, sorry, education, could very well do away with greed; hell, find the gene sequence that causes the proficiency for greed and switch it off.
Don't switch it off. Greed is really important to progress. It's the thing that makes us want to do more with less.
What is needed is a way to switch it so the object coveted is something that will benefit society if you collect more of it. Right now, piling up money doesn't help anyone. We love people who are so greedy they design a car that does a hundred miles to the gallon. We need them. Now lets give them something that will make them come up with something even better, instead of something that will make them stop working or motivate them to make something worse because they get a better reward from that.
(The whole concept of "sell crappy shit so we make more money off of support" model.)
Excellent, in theory. Now, who will decide what benefits society?
EDIT: Fuck yeah, I'm Satan! :-D
Quote from: "Plu"On its most basic level, money represents the value of an object. But when you factor in economy, money means nothing. It's just some sort of void entity that can be used to barter stuff with, that appears out of thin air, vanishes into thin air again, and that people pretend is really important and permanent.
And it'll continue to work as long as people believe it's still a real thing.
QuoteThen change the game of greed. Social engineering, sorry, education, could very well do away with greed; hell, find the gene sequence that causes the proficiency for greed and switch it off.
Don't switch it off. Greed is really important to progress. It's the thing that makes us want to do more with less.
What is needed is a way to switch it so the object coveted is something that will benefit society if you collect more of it. Right now, piling up money doesn't help anyone. We love people who are so greedy they design a car that does a hundred miles to the gallon. We need them. Now lets give them something that will make them come up with something even better, instead of something that will make them stop working or motivate them to make something worse because they get a better reward from that.
(The whole concept of "sell crappy shit so we make more money off of support" model.)
I was being facetious.
Greed isn't the only game in town. Education is, in my mind,
the cornerstone of our civilization. Without education and the spread & search for knowledge, we'd be impulse driven greedy, short and malnutritioned cavemen. Somewhere along the line we figured shit out and improved our lives, by just figuring out stuff, like, it was a bad idea to shit where we eat.
QuoteExcellent, in theory. Now, who will decide what benefits society?
It's not just "a decision", just a different approach to wealth. People have some sort of intrinsic reason to do what they do. If you don't have a lot of money; getting money is a good motivator. But if you have a billion dollars, "getting more money" seems an unlikely final goal. There must be something else behind it that is really triggering them to spend time obtaining even more money. (Could be something as simple as power, really. Or maybe attention.)
Now we need to figure out a way to give that to people who do something truly beneficial. If we rated artists by who was the most charitable instead of who we'd prefer to bone the most (or, heaven forbid, the art they put out!) then we'd see completely different artists.
In the end, money is just some digital construct that we pass around. But it's not the final motivator for people who already have a bunch of it. They're getting something else, and we should aim to change who we give that to. It might motivate them to use their resources differently to obtain it.
I hope I'm still making sense, I shouldn't be thinking philosophically while I'm also at work :P
Quote from: "Sal1981"Quote from: "DunkleSeele"I know what "net" means. My question is: how do you define the "energy used" to be substracted from the total amount of energy produced? Is it the energy used to give people a roof and just enough food to survive? Is it something different? How do you define "needs"?
It's an engineering calculation, and quite a complex one. Do you want me to account for all the energy that is produced and used by a nation? I can do that, just would take some time. IOW; it's an engineering issue, technological.
Wrong, it's a social issue. Calculating energy is easy, defining people's needs isn't. You didn't answer my question.
QuoteAs for needs, it would be the surplus energy, divided evenly to the nations population.
No, that's what you'd give them, not necessarily what they need. Again, you didn't answer my question.
QuoteQuote from: "DunkleSeele"If the energy to sustain yourself is covered by your "credits" you run into a major problem: given that those credits are issued based on the "net energy" left, you have to make sure that this "net energy" is at least as much as the energy spent to produce it, otherwise people would not be able to sustain themselves. Good luck with that.
Why, thank you.
I see that your "ideal system" isn't well thought out. No, schratch that, it isn' thought out at all.
QuoteQuote from: "DunkleSeele"And here you run into another major problem: state-owned economies have been shown time and again to not work. You may put it as you want, but this would still be a strictly state-controlled system.
The conditions aren't the same. Besides, only the energy calculation of how much everyone gets to use, is calculated. How people spend those goods and what they wish to produce is entirely up to them.
"Besides, only the value in dollars of how much everyone gets to use, is calculated. How people spend those dollars and what they wish to produce is entirely up to them". Yup, sounds exactly the same!
QuoteQuote from: "DunkleSeele"Irrelevant. Someone, be it an individual, a group thereof or the state, will still have to provide those services. Therefore, your credits will still be used exactly as money is used now.
The producers would be in large part be a workforce necessary to surpass sustainable energy. Basically production-side. They would not get anything for their work (because there's no money) except for an energy certificate, that is evenly distributed from surplus energy from the overhead energy calculation.
Yup, sounds like Soviet Union. Ask those people how it worked out.
QuoteQuote from: "DunkleSeele"No, greed is a basic human feature.
Then we change it.
How? With genetic engineering? "Social engineering" (aka indoctrination)? "Education" (which can again turn into indoctrination)? It was tried, it failed. And it failed because those in power of "engineering" the society had full control on it. Your "Technocracy" bears exactly the same risks.
QuoteQuote from: "DunkleSeele"Wrong. Money, in its various forms throughout history, it's what has allowed our economy to shift from a highly localised, barter-based one to a more global one.
And it has time and again resulted in economic disparities, boom & bust, and what have you, in a global economy. It doesn't work currently.
Each and every economic system mankind has tried has resulted in disparities, impoverishment of many and enrichment of a few, etc. It's human nature, unfortunately.
QuoteQuote from: "DunkleSeele"TL;DR: You can put it as you want, but goods, services and resources have a value which is highly dependant on both their availability and our personal needs/wants. Your "credit" system is just another way of quantifying that value, just like money. It doesn't solve at all our current, and very real, problems.
You're half-right. It's re-quantifying value itself on what it really is based on; Joules.
I may be half-right, but you're completely wrong. You can't objectively quantify the value of goods, services and resources, be it in dollars, joules or chickens. Each of us places different values on the same thing, and you cannot excape that unless you turn the whole world population into mindless robots. No thanks.
Quote from: "Sal1981"Quote from: "DunkleSeele"Quote from: "Sal1981"Then change the game of greed. Social engineering, sorry, education, could very well do away with greed; hell, find the gene sequence that causes the proficiency for greed and switch it off.
Social engineering was already tried in some places. Look up Soviet Union. It failed.
You really don't want to see the basic problem, do you? All these experiments you mention ("credit" system, social engineering, genetic engineering, etc.) must be imposed by someone on the rest of the population. Now, who controls those who are in power?
The people of course.
Yeah, just like people in Soviet Union had full control over those in power. Don't make me laugh.
Quote from: "Sal1981"Quote from: "Plu"On its most basic level, money represents the value of an object. But when you factor in economy, money means nothing. It's just some sort of void entity that can be used to barter stuff with, that appears out of thin air, vanishes into thin air again, and that people pretend is really important and permanent.
And it'll continue to work as long as people believe it's still a real thing.
QuoteThen change the game of greed. Social engineering, sorry, education, could very well do away with greed; hell, find the gene sequence that causes the proficiency for greed and switch it off.
Don't switch it off. Greed is really important to progress. It's the thing that makes us want to do more with less.
What is needed is a way to switch it so the object coveted is something that will benefit society if you collect more of it. Right now, piling up money doesn't help anyone. We love people who are so greedy they design a car that does a hundred miles to the gallon. We need them. Now lets give them something that will make them come up with something even better, instead of something that will make them stop working or motivate them to make something worse because they get a better reward from that.
(The whole concept of "sell crappy shit so we make more money off of support" model.)
I was being facetious.
Greed isn't the only game in town. Education is, in my mind, the cornerstone of our civilization. Without education and the spread & search for knowledge, we'd be impulse driven greedy, short and malnutritioned cavemen. Somewhere along the line we figured shit out and improved our lives, by just figuring out stuff, like, it was a bad idea to shit where we eat.
Yes, and in Soviet Union and similar societies people were "educated" to think that their system was the best. Look how it turned out.
Quote from: "Plu"QuoteExcellent, in theory. Now, who will decide what benefits society?
It's not just "a decision", just a different approach to wealth. People have some sort of intrinsic reason to do what they do. If you don't have a lot of money; getting money is a good motivator. But if you have a billion dollars, "getting more money" seems an unlikely final goal. There must be something else behind it that is really triggering them to spend time obtaining even more money. (Could be something as simple as power, really. Or maybe attention.)
Now we need to figure out a way to give that to people who do something truly beneficial. If we rated artists by who was the most charitable instead of who we'd prefer to bone the most (or, heaven forbid, the art they put out!) then we'd see completely different artists.
In the end, money is just some digital construct that we pass around. But it's not the final motivator for people who already have a bunch of it. They're getting something else, and we should aim to change who we give that to. It might motivate them to use their resources differently to obtain it.
I hope I'm still making sense, I shouldn't be thinking philosophically while I'm also at work :P
I see what you mean, but we're running again into the same issue: who decides what's really beneficial to society, and who decides who are the ones doing something beneficial?
You see, if the most boneable "artist" get the money instead of the most charitable or the most talented ones it's because there's people out there who find it more beneficial to themselves to look at scantily clad bimbos instead to listen to good music. And then there's those like me who favour Tchaikovskij or Pink Floyd over Shakira (I'd still bone her, though...).
Ultimately, society as a whole. Which is why we should push as many people as possible to a higher level.
(And yes, I'm going there by claiming people who prefer to spend their time watching Jersey Shore and listening to Nicky Minaj are on a lower level)
Quote from: "Plu"Ultimately, society as a whole. Which is why we should push as many people as possible to a higher level.
(And yes, I'm going there by claiming people who prefer to spend their time watching Jersey Shore and listening to Nicky Minaj are on a lower level)
And again, how's this "higher level" defined?
My point is: you can't escape the fact that humans are extremely heterogeneous in space and time. This concept of "society as a whole" where all members, or its majority, share the same goals and ideals is utopian (or dystopian, even).
QuoteAnd again, how's this "higher level" defined?
Amount of effort expended in making your own, your family and everyone's life better.
That should align, at least roughly, to what I consider lower and higher level.
Quote from: "Plu"QuoteAnd again, how's this "higher level" defined?
Amount of effort expended in making your own, your family and everyone's life better.
That should align, at least roughly, to what I consider lower and higher level.
First let me say that, in principle, I agree with your definition.
Now, we just have to define "better"... 8-)
I was typing something about better :P But then I remembered that I'm supposed to be working because otherwise I won't have enough money to buy internet so I should probably get back to that.
I'll comment again later :P
Quote from: "Plu"I was typing something about better :P But then I remembered that I'm supposed to be working because otherwise I won't have enough money to buy internet so I should probably get back to that.
I'll comment again later :P
Can I infer that, without internet, you'd consider your life worse, even slightly so?
Still, there's plenty of people out there who don't have internet, don't want it or even don't know what it is and still don't consider their life "worse" than ours.
I wouldn't miss "the internet", but I'd miss the ability to socialize with some of my friends, and the easy access to information. I would hope that the desire to socialize with friends and the ability to have access to information you want would at least be more or less universal.
The internet is just the best tool for the job at this moment. Other people have their friends close and get their information from a different source. They probably wouldn't miss the internet, and I don't blame them.
What about hermits? :wink:
Are they really a part of society? ;)
Quote from: "Plu"Are they really a part of society? ;)
Well, I still consider them as such. At least to the extent that they're human beings just like you and me.
And besides hermits, there's plenty of people out there who may not be socialising much or caring much about information but they're still part of the society in the sense that they have their jobs, their families and so on. And may be very happy with their lives as they are.
If they have a family, they're probably socialising with it. If they have a job, they probably have access to the information needed to do it. They might need access to enough information to be able to fix their car. Or enough information to be able to find the phone number of someone who will. These are pretty low-level requirements. Not everyone needs the same level of socialising, or the same level of information, but anyone has a certain need for it that needs to be met for them to be happy.
My desire for information just happens to be really high, which is why the internet is really important to me. If someone else has a very low desire for information, they probably don't need the same tools to obtain it. But at a bottom level, there's a few things that everyone needs at least a basic level of. Information (whether it be science journals or town gossip), socialising (whether it be just with your partner, or with hundreds of people all around the world), sustenance (whether it's macdonalds or haute cuisine), safety, etc.
I'm spending too much time thinking about this xD Back to work.
And that's exactly my point: we all define our needs differently, therefore there's no way to univocally say what's "better" for the community as a whole. We may all agree on some very "basic" concepts which are anyway given for granted nowadays, but from that point on opinons will diverge.
Quote from: "Sal1981"Quote from: "DunkleSeele"Quote from: "Sal1981"Then change the game of greed. Social engineering, sorry, education, could very well do away with greed; hell, find the gene sequence that causes the proficiency for greed and switch it off.
Social engineering was already tried in some places. Look up Soviet Union. It failed.
You really don't want to see the basic problem, do you? All these experiments you mention ("credit" system, social engineering, genetic engineering, etc.) must be imposed by someone on the rest of the population. Now, who controls those who are in power?
The people of course.
Have you met the people? I have. They are not fit to control themselves, much less the government.
The world went right along fine for thousands of years without the internet. I lived the first 30 years of my life without it and remember life as bearable.
That said it is a handy tool for some of us while for many others it's nothing but a distracting toy to gossip and post jesus slogans on facebook.
That and 'social engineering' has little to do with Cyprus. The simple fact is it's a political power game. Cyprus attracted filthy rich to stash vast sums of money TAX FREE which took billions of dollars, rubles and so on OUT of circulation leaving nations tax starved and on the hook for worthless paper.
It's not unique to cyprus.. Plenty of places are defacto money launderers for the oligarchy who are now legally robbing governments blind, the US included.
Quote from: "Shiranu"Quote from: "Sal1981"Quote from: "DunkleSeele"Social engineering was already tried in some places. Look up Soviet Union. It failed.
You really don't want to see the basic problem, do you? All these experiments you mention ("credit" system, social engineering, genetic engineering, etc.) must be imposed by someone on the rest of the population. Now, who controls those who are in power?
The people of course.
Have you met the people? I have. They are not fit to control themselves, much less the government.
We seem to manage in democracies, and the most of the people elected also seem to be educated on it (at least here) in management and political theory. And this is with the fact that democracy is basically majority rule.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"Quote from: "Sal1981"I was being facetious.
Greed isn't the only game in town. Education is, in my mind, the cornerstone of our civilization. Without education and the spread & search for knowledge, we'd be impulse driven greedy, short and malnutritioned cavemen. Somewhere along the line we figured shit out and improved our lives, by just figuring out stuff, like, it was a bad idea to shit where we eat.
Yes, and in Soviet Union and similar societies people were "educated" to think that their system was the best. Look how it turned out.
I don't consider ideology worship (in this case Communism) being educated in anything. I mean specifically in the sciences, even social 'science'.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"Quote from: "Sal1981"Quote from: "DunkleSeele"Social engineering was already tried in some places. Look up Soviet Union. It failed.
You really don't want to see the basic problem, do you? All these experiments you mention ("credit" system, social engineering, genetic engineering, etc.) must be imposed by someone on the rest of the population. Now, who controls those who are in power?
The people of course.
Yeah, just like people in Soviet Union had full control over those in power. Don't make me laugh.
That was a Communist state, the "people" there were very much just connections from nepotism, and anyone that wasn't friend or family was ignored - clearly not a check for power.
Besides, I think government should not be elected, but by proving that you're competent enough to rule mixed with some sort of element of disparaging power, such as democratic councils, so it doesn't get centralized.
Who should decide who rules? Well initially it would be a democratic council, engineering a competency test or whatever and the people would vote on if the test was valid or not. I guess some quasi-democratic technocratic republic, you could call it.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"Quote from: "Sal1981"It's an engineering calculation, and quite a complex one. Do you want me to account for all the energy that is produced and used by a nation? I can do that, just would take some time. IOW; it's an engineering issue, technological.
Wrong, it's a social issue. Calculating energy is easy, defining people's needs isn't. You didn't answer my question.
My mistake. I forgot about 'needs'. The people in their daily routine would have a say what they need or not, exercised by their expenditure.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"QuoteAs for needs, it would be the surplus energy, divided evenly to the nations population.
No, that's what you'd give them, not necessarily what they need. Again, you didn't answer my question.
'Needs' seems hard to pin down for me, because the way I see it, it would be what they'd want, and what of those wants could be achievable from what's available. It would depend on what people spend their credits on.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"QuoteQuote from: "DunkleSeele"If the energy to sustain yourself is covered by your "credits" you run into a major problem: given that those credits are issued based on the "net energy" left, you have to make sure that this "net energy" is at least as much as the energy spent to produce it, otherwise people would not be able to sustain themselves. Good luck with that.
Why, thank you.
I see that your "ideal system" isn't well thought out. No, schratch that, it isn' thought out at all.
I've just played with the idea of how a nation would look like that wasn't entirely democratic, but based on competency instead of votes. Also, there's always surplus energy, the Sun gives plenty (and what we can dig out of the ground).
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"QuoteQuote from: "DunkleSeele"And here you run into another major problem: state-owned economies have been shown time and again to not work. You may put it as you want, but this would still be a strictly state-controlled system.
The conditions aren't the same. Besides, only the energy calculation of how much everyone gets to use, is calculated. How people spend those goods and what they wish to produce is entirely up to them.
"Besides, only the value in dollars of how much everyone gets to use, is calculated. How people spend those dollars and what they wish to produce is entirely up to them". Yup, sounds exactly the same!
Except it's based on something real. Money, currently, is just paper and whatever value we think stuff has, but not the value stuff itself really is. Using the energy needed to produce something is a start, to approach what value something has, instead of some arbitrary value.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"QuoteQuote from: "DunkleSeele"Irrelevant. Someone, be it an individual, a group thereof or the state, will still have to provide those services. Therefore, your credits will still be used exactly as money is used now.
The producers would be in large part be a workforce necessary to surpass sustainable energy. Basically production-side. They would not get anything for their work (because there's no money) except for an energy certificate, that is evenly distributed from surplus energy from the overhead energy calculation.
Yup, sounds like Soviet Union. Ask those people how it worked out.
It had systematic flaw(s) in theory itself. Human nature for one. But Communism is another discussion.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"QuoteQuote from: "DunkleSeele"No, greed is a basic human feature.
Then we change it.
How? With genetic engineering? "Social engineering" (aka indoctrination)? "Education" (which can again turn into indoctrination)? It was tried, it failed. And it failed because those in power of "engineering" the society had full control on it. Your "Technocracy" bears exactly the same risks.
It does bear the same risks, which is why there should be stop-gaps from centralization of anything, not just power, but also who decides what's correct in a knowledge sense. What exactly these stopping mechanisms would be is debatable.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"QuoteQuote from: "DunkleSeele"Wrong. Money, in its various forms throughout history, it's what has allowed our economy to shift from a highly localised, barter-based one to a more global one.
And it has time and again resulted in economic disparities, boom & bust, and what have you, in a global economy. It doesn't work currently.
Each and every economic system mankind has tried has resulted in disparities, impoverishment of many and enrichment of a few, etc. It's human nature, unfortunately.
I'm just playing with the idea for an alternative to current economic system of money. Also, I'm not quite sure how trade would work in Technocracy.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"QuoteQuote from: "DunkleSeele"TL;DR: You can put it as you want, but goods, services and resources have a value which is highly dependant on both their availability and our personal needs/wants. Your "credit" system is just another way of quantifying that value, just like money. It doesn't solve at all our current, and very real, problems.
You're half-right. It's re-quantifying value itself on what it really is based on; Joules.
I may be half-right, but you're completely wrong. You can't objectively quantify the value of goods, services and resources, be it in dollars, joules or chickens. Each of us places different values on the same thing, and you cannot excape that unless you turn the whole world population into mindless robots. No thanks.
People may disagree on value of things from a monetary perspective, but how much Joules went into a goods or anything for that matter
is something we can calculate. People just have to accept maths and physics, despite what they think.
What people value, when there's not enough information on what it constitutes, becomes arbitrary.
Quote from: "DunkleSeele"And that's exactly my point: we all define our needs differently, therefore there's no way to univocally say what's "better" for the community as a whole. We may all agree on some very "basic" concepts which are anyway given for granted nowadays, but from that point on opinons will diverge.
You could start with a definition of "making sure everyone has access to the basic needs". Food, shelter, access to information and the ability to socialize.
Hell, if we could give everyone that, we're already at like 90% of fixing shit by then. Many problems arise from people having even less than the most basic needs and nobody willing to give them an option to get out of it.