Skeptic Project

From what I've heard... it'll be easier to get laid.

Neither I think, it just can't work.

Either way money would be replaced by some other form of barter, some form of credit system maybe (I love sci-fi), but its still technically money I would have thought.

To have no money at all as Fresco is talking about is saying there would be no bartering and as I said before no matter how many Star Trek style replicators, no matter how well adjusted people were educated to be, humans being humans would still want to barter in some way for something, sometime, somewhere, somehow... and it is there where the whole of Frescos moneyless society theory really fails. And really, if it fails that badly even when you add hypothetical Star Trek replicators somethings really wrong.

So essentially the only way a money-less society could function better than a society with money is if every resource was infinite and freely available to all.

I don't want to say better, but there's an inherent fatal flaw even if you add that hypothetical condition it still can't work because its impossible to take away that want to barter for something. And as soon as one person wants to do it, its all over.

A monetary system may not be perfect but at least it doesn't have such a fatal flaw with no backup plan in case it happened (which it would)

This certainly only makes sense to discuss in a Western perspective. There were many flourishing, money-less societies in the Pacific where material goods transcended any notion of "monetary" value or worth. Societies have existed where goods represented either power relationships or divine influence. These are societies where "money" would be inconcievable and so it is not difficult to say that society without money can indeed exist and flourish. The problem was that these societies did not drive technological innovation in order to seek out resources and trade as European society did.

Now for us, I don't forsee our culture abandoning the monetary conditioning we have been brought up with, nor do I think we should. we are a culture that sees things in terms of value- even the most radical members of our culture do so. In our society, a moneyless culture would be utterly impossible for us to set up and create given that we have a great deal to overcome in terms of cultural norms in place.

<NERD>

Picard was still obsessed with authentic archaeological artifacts despite being able to replicate anything he wished.

</NERD>

I think the money-less societies were more advanced socially than we are. Money has been extraordinarily useful, and the need to barter and buy and sell has brought our world so much closer together than it has ever been. Money has certainly done us a lot of good.

As of right now, it seems like the concept of ownership is more of a threat than the money itself. People do bad things because they want things - you don't get rid of that just by getting rid of money.

I'd love to see it happen, though, if we could all take that desire out of consciousness.

>> Even their judicial system?

Touché.

That is true, but there's a definite correlation between poverty and crime. I should have said "want OR NEED."

"That is true, but there's a definite correlation between poverty and crime."

Correlation is not causation.

I wonder what % of serious crimes are committed by sociopaths.

I think many crimes can be prevented by providing access to essential resources (water, food, shelter, sluts)

The key here is that an RBE likely would not put an end to all crimes, which is necessary for a lawless society to function.

As I've said before, I don't understand why pedophilia would vanish. If anything, the immense love and peace around the world thanks to RBE could make it more common.

>>If L&O SVU has taught me one thing, it's that (for example) rape is usually about power, not about getting laid or anything. So even with infinite resources and ladies for everyone, there would most likely still be rapists. Infinite resources would certainly reduce or even eliminate crimes that revolve around theft and the like... but I see no indication or reasoning for why crime would just stop in a fully functioning lawless RBE.<<

Agreed, but that's just because of free will and natural bad traits.

>>Money has been extraordinarily useful, and the need to barter and buy and sell has brought our world so much closer together than it has ever been. Money has certainly done us a lot of good.<<

It's part of our evolution. Convenience, and getting things done faster. The same way a car gets us to work, and a plane takes us around the world.

Ultimately we will evolve past money/the monetary system just as we did with those that have come before it. For the time being, money is the best we have until/or something else better comes along. It's all perception on what we value. You can argue that money is good, but at the same time we thrived for thousands of years before it's invention, and probably will thrive thousands more after. You have to ask yourself are we better people today then we were as cavemen? Technologically you can say yes, but presence of mind and true happiness? Are we happier as a people? Again, perception. Ultimately it comes down to what's best for us as individuals and for our species.

The only currency that will never go away and holds the most value is contained in our brains: Knowledge. Between that, our children and the future of our kind, it's really silly to value anything else. Take it for what you will, but that's the current society we're stuck in. And it sucks.

>>Prove it.<<

Logic?

Where was I wrong? Enlighten me.

Only the last part on values.

My statement above clearly identified logic.

Evolution. We are moving forward, not backwards.