What determined the amount of fighter planes the US produced in WW2. Was it money? Definitely not, we made tens of thousands every year. Was it gold? Nope. What we had, was resources.

Our limits should be defined by resources. Not useless trading objects.

I'll admit that's not something we can just pick up on, but I think it should be a goal aimed at by humanity.

I dunno maybe you're right. Maybe we are so low of a species we can't do things for the better of all, and feel personal gain in a broad sense like that. I'm optimistic, I guess.

Post edited at 8:35 am on July 10, 2009 by Aimforthehead

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From up here, you can't see any borders.
All you can see is the Earth.
In a sane society, decisions are not made but arrived at.

A person does not have the time of day nor the skills to both hunt, farm, make clothing, pottery, tools, and collect salt or dig out larders in order to survive the food shortages of winter.

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Without trade of any kind all human society would collapse.

A person does not have the time of day nor the skills to both hunt, farm, make clothing, pottery, tools, and collect salt or dig out larders in order to survive the food shortages of winter.

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Tell me how you plan on surviving.

And then a trade just occurred by accident.

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O` tru apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick.
Thus with a kiss I die.

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If we eliminated trade the problem would be some guy would come to my door wanting something and I'd be like "Dude that's totally cool by any chance do you have this (something I want), I've been looking everywhere for that shit."

And then a trade just occurred by accident.

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It's important to understand personal ownership is a HUGE burden, why keep objects, maintain them, keep track of where they are, etc. when you can have them readily available where they are needed?

That's why trade isn't necessary. Not because we're trying to avoid it, but because it's very impractical to trade in a RBE.

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From up here, you can't see any borders.
All you can see is the Earth.
In a sane society, decisions are not made but arrived at.

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Ok you right now cannot trade money or anything you own or can do for anything else.  

Tell me how you plan on surviving.

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Unfortunately, this is a step for humanity as a whole. I cannot decide I don't want to trade, and would rather open resources for all. It would be a collective change.

Post edited at 12:58 pm on July 10, 2009 by Aimforthehead

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From up here, you can't see any borders.
All you can see is the Earth.
In a sane society, decisions are not made but arrived at.

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The assumption is that if people were not motivated by their need to obtain money nothing would be invented and little social progress would be achieved. First of all, the most powerful contributions to society did not come from people seeking profit; Louis Pasteur, Charles Darwin, The Reich Brothers(SP?), Albert Einstein, and Isaac Newton did not make their massive contributions to society because of material self-interest.

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Maybe not monetary profit per say, but surely they did it for intellectual profit. The pragmatically verified premise is that have some kind of profit (not necessarily monetary) is vastly superior than none at all for when it comes to social progress.

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And a simple glance at the cancer causing preservatives in our foods, planned obsolescence in nearly everything manufactured, along with a healthcare industry that charges $300 for a single anti-biotic pill, will indicate that the profit incentive is actually a detriment.

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Yes, go ahead and blame the free market for the evils of the state. The reason that the price of medicine is so high is because of government interventions, not because of the internal workings of the free market. If you have statist assaults on the free market such as health care programs or subsidization, then you are going to get a sky rocket increase in prices because private companies cannot complete with public companies since the state is artificially reducing the cost of care. If I start handing out free bread, bread which costs other companies big money to produce, do you think that these companies will make a profit selling their products? No. What changes do they need to do to survive? Raise prices of course.

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Problems in a monetary based society will only have a resolution, if money can be made from solving those problems.

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What is a non-monetary society? If you remove money, people will just use other products as payments like they did before the introduction of coins and bills. You would have to enforce a brutal authoritarianism beyond anything we have seen so far in the history of humanity to eliminate voluntary trade.

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"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

Do you believe in the principle of non-aggression? That I have the right to not have my body violated by others? If so, how can you not believe in property rights? They are two sides of the same coin. If non-aggression is valid, then i own my body and vice versa.

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"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

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So, I'd like to hear an argument against this, if anyone will.

Incentive: The need for profit provides a person or organization with motivation to work on new ideas and products that might sell in the market.

The assumption is that if people were not motivated by their need to obtain money nothing would be invented and little social progress would be achieved. First of all, the most powerful contributions to society did not come from people seeking profit; Louis Pasteur, Charles Darwin, The Reich Brothers(SP?), Albert Einstein, and Isaac Newton did not make their massive contributions to society because of material self-interest. While it is true useful inventions and methods do come from the motivation for personal gain, the intent behind those creations typically had nothing to do with human or social concerns, and everything to do with detached, self-interest, and blind personal gain.

The pursuit of profit almost always comes before human concern. And a simple glance at the cancer causing preservatives in our foods, planned obsolescence in nearly everything manufactured, along with a healthcare industry that charges $300 for a single anti-biotic pill, will indicate that the profit incentive is actually a detriment.

Problems in a monetary based society will only have a resolution, if money can be made from solving those problems.

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So? A fundamental human right is to be able to work, own, and protect their own possessions. A person's possession is theirs, and they may choose how they wish to use or disperse them among society.

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The lights always on here. ;)

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You don't have to store shit in your house...  

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Aimforthehead, do you believe in property rights? Do you believe in self-ownership? If you believe in self-ownership (you do, otherwise you could not use your vocal cords to talk back to me, or in this case, your fingers to type a response), then you must believe that I have the right to the fruits of my labor too, that is, property rights?

Do you believe in the principle of non-aggression? That I have the right to not have my body violated by others? If so, how can you not believe in property rights? They are two sides of the same coin. If non-aggression is valid, then i own my body and vice versa.

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Quote: from Aimforthehead at 2:55 pm on July 10, 2009

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You don't have to store shit in your house...

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Wait a second, whose house? Don't you just move in and out depending on where you are? And why would there be houses? In your utopia, wouldn't it just be some kind of shelter, shared with everyone else who wanted to get out of the rain?

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