How soon will a moneyless society change the way we percieve each other?

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

I have even outlined the plan, and yet you never mention this when you submit a reply.

Unfortunately, its not my fault that the "plan" you keep referring to is entirely content-free!

Fortunately you've reiterated it in this post, so I can use it as an example:

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

Briefly, the plan is to convince people that our lives would be much better without money, by analysing the current situation and looking at it's flaws.

What is the convincing part? What are the flaws you see? Why does money have anything to do with it? How do you address these flaws? Where is the part where you explain the how the flaws in your argument that we've all been pointing out are addressed?

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

We then look at the potential benefits of removing those flaws from our future. We, as a race, are then guaranteed that we can have a war free, famine free, crime free, tax free world, without the existence of money and property ownership.

Why? Sure a bunch of us can agree to get along, but what do we do about the others?

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

We encourage people to stop viewing strangers with suspicion, and to realise that we, as humans, are all one family. Historically separated by geography, philosophy, and language.

How do we "encourage?" How do we "convince?" How do we all end up removing that "separation" that divides us? Are we all going to speak the same language? How are our cultural backgrounds going to be harmonized? Will everyone have to comply with *your* view? How are the conflicts going to be resolved? Majority rule? Your say so?

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

Once we have a majority of people in agreement that things could be better by making this small change, we take the mental leap, and prove that it is all possible.

Is this change really "small?" You think so, but obviously a lot of other people don't agree! What is it that this "small change" really is?

If its so easy, why hasn't it been done already? Just because you were the only one smart enough to think of it?

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

We ensure that it is a minimal leap by using all the existing technology and equipment to start making things better immediately, using global planning.

How? What technology applies? What equipment? Guns to shoot all the people that don't agree with you? Global planning of what? What resources? What is it possible to make better immediately? What might we have to wait for?

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

We re-train people who have been employed in the monetary system for work where they feel they can be happiest and most productive.

What work? Who's going to do all those jobs that even Mike Rowe wouldn't do if the Discovery Channel didn't pay him a pile of cash?

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

The day after this mental leap, the world will look exactly the same as it did the day before. The only thing that will have changed is our mental outlook. For the better.

Why? No one has to do anything but have fun! Partay! Infinite Margaritas! I'm heading for the beach!

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

Therefore we set in train a series of small events which will change the way that we, as human beings interact. We will automatically create universal equality, because without money or property, using the laws that I have formulated, no-one can be more equal than anyone else.

What do we need events or laws for? I thought everyone was already convinced?

And "laws that I have formulated?" You? Alone? Nobody else has anything worthwhile to contribute?

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

We then build the nearest thing we can imagine to heaven on earth, using existing technology, and we do this by working together and project managing every task, so that we achieve maximum effect for minimum effort.

How? What technology? What's the plan that you're going to project manage? What are the milestones? What are the dependencies? What are the critical paths?

Heck, what are the attributes of "Heaven on Earth" so that we even know whether we've achieved the milestones?

Are you sure you know what project management is?

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

This is my plan in broad brush strokes. This is my vision for our future.

And there you have it: all you do is keep repeating the "broad brush strokes" when everyone is asking you for the "fine detail."

By the fact that you never talk about any of these details you show not only contempt for them but for those that ask for them.

That is not a quality of a successful leader of people who will change the world. In fact its quite the opposite.

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

What's YOURS Buffy?

Guess what? All of my "broad brush strokes" are exactly the same as yours, no matter how much you'd like to imply that anyone who has the temerity to ask you for any details is a "hater" who just wants things to be horrible.

I'm a realist who looks at the problems, and tries to find solutions that are actually quite popular like "spreading the wealth" and getting people with differing opinions into the same room so that they can discuss and work out their differences.

These are practical, small solutions. Will they bring "Heaven on Earth" like you promise? No, but they will make the world a better place.

That's a lot different than just saying "if everyone would just think like I do, then everything will be perfect and we won't need money."

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

Oh, and I see that you too have jumped on the 'lack of scarcity' bandwagon. If you look it up in the Wikipedia you'll find that it means exactly what I have been espousing throughout this thread, except that in a monetary society it is impossible to achieve, because scarcity imparts financial value, so big business would never pursue lack of scarcity as a philosophy. So as a workable plan to gradually end the use of money on this planet, it's a non-starter.

That's right, "scarcity imparts financial value." What many people have said in this thread many times is that unless you do away with scarcity, there will continue to be financial value.

Simply because you remove money does not remove scarcity.

Not even if everyone agrees to cooperate.

Is there any way to refute that simple statement?

If you have it, you could clue us in, but otherwise we're left with thinking that you dismiss this as a mere implementation detail.

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

It also has connotations of absolute automation of everything. This is not something I would agree with. Mankind needs the nobility of work in order that it doesn't descend into a general state of mental and physical torpor and decadence. A little hard, physical work ensures that we feel we deserve the benefits we will have, and give us a pride in what we will achieve.

Scarcity has nothing to do with automation, and in spite of me saying I want to go to the beach and drink margaritas, I'll also have my laptop with me (which will never need recharging because we've got that scarcity thing resolved) where I'll be writing my novel which everyone will read because its free!

You may have to automate septic tank cleaning, pot wash duty at the dorm, reject mail sorting, or software technical support (unless that lack of scarcity thing means that the code I write magically has no bugs in it!), and the technology that does not exist today to do those things will probably be fun to invent!

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

...but maybe it will help convince other readers that my view of the future is more positive and beneficial to mankind than yours, or anyone else's, currently is.

"...or anyone else's?" Hey, I never said I had the total solution to everything, but "your view" is better than *anyone's*?

Wow.

The bottom line is stringing together a bunch of glittering generalities is easy. But you won't get anywhere unless you answer the hard questions!

And that would be General James Mattoon Scott, would it?
Buffy

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Peacemaker

I like your idea better than most Craig, but who's gonna pay for it?
…
In a capitalistic society, big business would never allow the cost of all goods to decrease so much that money was no longer useful. it would be financial suicide, and who's going to invest in that?

If history is any indication, people wanting to make a lot of money will.

A characteristic of businesses is that many of them will commit great resources toward short term profit. The computer microelectronics industry is a case in point. Early computer manufacturers didn’t plan to reduce the cost per transistor of computer chips to the extent that per-unit revenue was reduced from 1960s millions of US dollars to 2000s hundreds. They did it because they, and their competitors, could, resulting in short term gains in market share, but the eventual near collapse of profitability and exporting to other nations of an entire industry. As a result, electronic devices equivalent to ones costing more than a hundred dollars 30 years ago are in many cases now actually free.

In much in-depth speculation about post-scarcity – nearly all of which, in my experience, is in the domain of speculative fiction – the disappearance of present day economic system and instruments occurs not due to a peaceful or violent revolution, but because they can no longer win customers from their moneyless competition. We see something of this in such modern industries as software, where support service-based free software such as Linux operating systems and open-source applications are increasingly gaining market vs. their proprietary commercial competition. Although software, and to a lesser extent microelectronics, are an unusually dramatic example of reduction in cost and price, they show that such dramatic reductions are in principle possible.

In short, arguments, albeit very speculative ones, exist suggesting that the same psychological and sociological tendencies that invented money – tendencies including competition and greed – may also create conditions rendering it obsolete. I find this cause for optimism, because I think that changes in means of production, distribution, and trade are more likely than changes in psychological and sociological tendencies.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by CraigD

We see something of this in such modern industries as software, where support service-based free software such as Linux operating systems and open-source applications are increasingly gaining market vs. their proprietary commercial competition. Although software, and to a lesser extent microelectronics, are an unusually dramatic example of reduction in cost and price, they show that such dramatic reductions are in principle possible.

The dramatic reductions in microelectronics however is due solely to unbelievably rapid technological innovation (entirely underwritten by large profit margins!), in combination with a consequent enormous cost reduction through economies of scale. None of it is ever going to be free because there are still manufacturing costs. This is no different than any other phase of technological innovation throughout the history of man.

The "free software movement" however has been incredibly misrepresented. Software is highly unusual as a commodity, because although R&D costs are high, manufacturing has been reduced to virtually zero, making it possible to deliver it for "free" to those who probably would not buy it in the first place, because for the vast majority it is "inferior to" the dominant market leader (Alex: "inferior" here meaning "lack of broad market support and functionality" not "technologically inferior" which the majority of the market does not care about!).

Except for Linux, open-source has not been a raging success precisely because people have a hard time figuring out how to make money off of it. Service/support based economic models simply move the costs over from one General Ledger entry to another in most software organizations, and its considered a "Loss Leader" for most of them. Linux support companies benefit from the fact that the operating system represents such a huge part of the overall software market (in units) that the incremental cost of service is low, thus becoming marginally profitable even given that the "perceived value" of services and support has always been quite low. In fact a long-term trend in the software business has been to shift to subscription pricing which muddles together the cost of R&D and Services, making it possible to call the effect of "free software" much broader than it really is in practice. Because of the cost of R&D and decent services though, there is a limit to the ability of otherwise unsubsidized organizations to actually innovate based on the free-software model.

As an example of this, while Sugar CRM has had some success, and they have exerted a downward pressure on prices (not surprising given how overpriced products are in the ERP/CRM/BPA space!), they are having increasing trouble competing technologically and support-wise vis-a-vis Salesforce.com and even more stodgy firms like Oracle and SAP.

Even Mozilla gets a lot of its money from advertising Google and handouts from various places. As anyone who had fun raising money in the dotcom boom knows, that's a great racket, but only a very few can get a big enough base and strong enough brand to pull it off, which they were able to do because they were funded for so long by Netscape's initial cha-ching payday and later, AOL's loss-leader support.

Down market from there, I've got horror stories about fun with niche "free" solutions like Filezilla....

Bottom line is that shifting what you charge for to different buckets--whether to "services" or simply having "loss leader product lines"--is not the same as "making it free," and with microelectronics, in software there's still lots of "fat" being trimmed due to technological innovation making it look like there's a trend to zero.

To see this as an example of market forces bringing about "post-scarcity" is, I think, a bit misleading....

In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic,...can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long,
Buffy

[charles brough]

I cannot agree with the Peacemaker's original premises and she asked only for those who agree with her to respond.

So, I'll direct this to the others: we have had money and the growth of civilization---both---for thousands of years. They have gone together with us. In prehistory, we had barter.

As evolved primates, we are like the chimp in that we have a reciprocity instinct in that we expect someone who we do a favor for to reciprocate. That is the basis of our economic system.

The author seems to have an ideal utopia or heaven in mind. Most of us would go insane in such a society. We need the bad and evil in order to appreciate what is good. We get tired of cloying sentiment, platitudes and pollyanna. We are happiest when we are struggling to achieve goals.

[Symbology]

Originally Posted by charles brough

I cannot agree with the Peacemaker's original premises and she asked only for those who agree with her to respond.

So, I'll direct this to the others: we have had money and the growth of civilization---both---for thousands of years. They have gone together with us. In prehistory, we had barter.

As evolved primates, we are like the chimp in that we have a reciprocity instinct in that we expect someone who we do a favor for to reciprocate. That is the basis of our economic system.

The author seems to have an ideal utopia or heaven in mind. Most of us would go insane in such a society. We need the bad and evil in order to appreciate what is good. We get tired of cloying sentiment, platitudes and pollyanna. We are happiest when we are struggling to achieve goals.

Not me. I'm happiest when I am fat and lazy The reason why I enjoy a challenge is that I might as well enjoy whatever I am doing, and do the best I can at it. And either way I am going to be challenged. So I might as well make the best of it it.

If I had the choice between choice A of a fully funded challenging situation, or choice B a fully funded non-challenging situation, I would happily explore my true Type B personality.

Maybe when I was in my early 20s I might have chosen differently. But I am tired of it at this point. I've met my challenge quota and I am ready for greener pastures. But for now back to the traces

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by Symbology

Not me. I'm happiest when I am fat and lazy The reason why I enjoy a challenge is that I might as well enjoy whatever I am doing, and do the best I can at it. And either way I am going to be challenged. So I might as well make the best of it it.

If I had the choice between choice A of a fully funded challenging situation, or choice B a fully funded non-challenging situation, I would happily explore my true Type B personality.

Maybe when I was in my early 20s I might have chosen differently. But I am tired of it at this point. I've met my challenge quota and I am ready for greener pastures. But for now back to the traces

I don't believe your statements Sym.

I *know* what you are saying, but we must never submit to delinquency. It is unbecoming of scholarly folk.

[Overdog]

Originally Posted by freeztar

I don't believe your statements Sym.

I *know* what you are saying, but we must never submit to delinquency. It is unbecoming of scholarly folk.

But it is how people behave.

[Symbology]

Originally Posted by freeztar

I don't believe your statements Sym.

I *know* what you are saying, but we must never submit to delinquency. It is unbecoming of scholarly folk.

Well, I will have to admit that I come to this site to intentionally find some challenges. And nobody pays me to be here. But it is relatively little effort to spout my opinion.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
~Oscar Wilde