A resource Based Economy and the Obsolescence of Money

[Harold]

Danno, Now you don't have to feel like the lonely voice in the wilderness.

[Danno]

Harold Wrote:Dear Danno, It still comes down to this; Who would be the referee that decides which technologies to pursue; who would decide who would be a referee; would their decisions be based on sound, profitable business plans; government mandated business plans never end up serving anyone but those at the head of the table, rightly or wrongly.

As I see it, one of the main problems of this concept is that we are currently encumbered by our present conditioning and way of thinking; we are prisoners of our indoctrination to such a high degree that it can be very hard for us to imagine such foreign concepts as a society that does not use money or barter.
Everyone would have input. The concept of government would become obsolete. A lot of decisions would be arrived at empirically. The current technology available to solve problems and the carrying capacity of the planet would be guiding forces. The concepts of having enough food for everyone on the planet or medical care for everyone are not a liberal or conservative concepts.

Individual freedom would become greater than humans have ever experienced. A person could pursue whatever activity they wanted to.
For the last hundred or so years people have said such freedom would not be possible because of something called "human nature". This is based in ignorance. If human nature were truly a limiting factor in human progress we would not be where we are today. Humans are very flexible. Human nature does exist. It is human nature to want to procreate. It is not human nature to club someone over the head in order to accomplish it.
Just your last sentence: "government mandated business plans never end up serving anyone but those at the head of the table, rightly or wrongly" can serve as an example of the difficulty of escaping our indoctrination. It, in an all encompassing way, assumes that, corruption, greed for money and power, the negative aspects of "human nature" and of government are inescapable. That is not true. The truth is that if we, for once in the course of human existence, put our efforts toward making the best of this life, instead of perpetuating a system that is inherently corrupt, the possibilities for human progress are mind boggling. The negative aspects of our society have been holding us back for eons and will continue to do so in perpetuity unless we change. Now is the time for that change. We have the knowledge and technology to do it. Science and technology unencumbered by greed, profit and corruption are the answers to human advancement.

[Danno]

JazminH Wrote:http://www.popsci.com/technology/article...s-obsolete

A musician has harnessed the power of two Nintendo Wiimotes to become a cyborg percussionist with the robo-band Jazari. His playing of one drum machine can evoke an automated response from another, so that he can go around the drum circle in a beautiful display of human-robot improvisation.

The man behind the machine, Patrick Flanagan, is a composer who cites music theory, music cognition, and machine learning as the three "chin-stroking disciplines" that influence his work. He created Jazari with a nod to Al-Jazari, a polymath of the Arab world in the 13th century who supposedly created the world's first robot band.

Cool... music is the best. Al-Jazari? I wonder if that's where the term Jazz comes from?

[Harold]

Dear Danno, I suspect, in your new society, your place would be that of a "social manager/engineer," with all the "benefits" that "essential" position would require for a man of your visionary leadership, at the top of utopia's pyramid. Ok, you got me; I fell for it; Ha Ha; You are just having fun, right?

[Danno]

Harold Wrote:Dear Danno, I suspect, in your new society, your place would be that of a "social manager/engineer," with all the "benefits" that "essential" position would require for a man of your visionary leadership, at the top of utopia's pyramid. Ok, you got me; I fell for it; Ha Ha; You are just having fun, right?

Actually I wouldn't fit in such a society very well. I don't think any of us would in the transition period. I'm a product of this society. From the very beginning I have been bombarded and indocrinated with materialism and how to be a good drone... how to be an insatiable consumer, how to appreciate my fairly fortunate position in a very stratfied society. In other words, I like stuff, even status symbol stuff, because I have been conditioned to like stuff and I will most likely always like stuff because of that relentless conditioning. It is the future inhabitants of this new society who would mainly be the beneficiaries of our decision to escape this crap.