A country without Money how it's work?

[T'Girl]

Deks wrote:

---

Ominous?

So, by suggesting to expand the awareness of the global population to include the latest scientific knowledge (among other things) and relevant information that would expand people's horizons is ominous?

Ominous because you seem to be connecting this "relevant general education" with the general public accepting this TVP idea. And yes that does sound like you are advocating a form of mass indoctrination. the populace will be told what to think, and what to accept. That being the culture that accompanies (and compliments) TVP.

The good thing is this likely wouldn't work on more than a small sized population group. People don't like being told what to think and do, especially if it's clearly a overt action on some agencies part. How could you switch over to this "special education" without it being obvious to just about everyone that you're pushing a small group's private agenda?

If American politicians and the school boards tried this stunt with the schools, they'd be out of office with the next election (or next special election). On the upside for your idea, it might have a measure of success in some of the totalitarian political states. But even there the chances of it working over time is slim.

Like at Russia under the communists (and I'm not saying you idea is communist), for decades the small controlling group attempted to eliminate religion in Russia. The communist would gather villagers at safe distance and literally dynamited the local churches while the villagers were made to watch. Religious leaders and teachers were sent to labor camps. But it didn't work, no matter how much oppression was applied. Religion went underground, continued to minister to the populace and they waited. In time the communists were gone, and the religion was still there.

The point isn't specifically about religion, it's about being between hard to impossible to get the majority of people to accept some silly idea that makes little sense.

This "relevant general education" you advocate, who's going to make the decision to start this?

*****
Another one (of the many) problems with what you advocating is that not everyone want to be unemployed, and then be taken care of. And no Deks, it actually is not that they've been schooled to think that.

You're using that particular cliché way too often.

People naturally take pleasure and satisfaction in their own labors. People reach fulfillment in their occupations, they expend effort and experience a sense of accomplishment at the finished results. They did that, built that, produced that.

People obtain tremendous satisfaction and pride from what they do. Just within my own family in America, there are machinists who work for Boeing Aircraft, when a plane flies over, they can identify the type they personally worked on, and feel pride. My family in Brazil has been working the same farm land since the mid nineteenth century, wheat, corn, sugar and forage. Producing thousands of tonnes of food through the years. My uncle now owns three commercial fishing boas, hard work, but he loves working the sea.

These aren't meaningless hobbies that they undertake because they have too much time on their hands, it's an honest days work.

*****

You also seem to have turned a blind eye to the fact that Human Beings are not socially and culturally homogeneous. Our histories and heritages have produced hundred of major, and thousands of minor, ethic groups. All of whom have slightly different views on what composes a well thought out society, community and nation.

Unless your "education system" is going to eliminate that.

*****

The idea of a circular community plan reminds me of the story of the Brazilian city of Goiânia. The plan was for a city with the shape of a circle, multiple concentric radius's with streets in the form of spokes, the seats of the state and municipal government in the center. The design was for about 50,000 people. The planned city was founded in 1933.

Problem with "planning" is this, the city grew to be 1.3 million people, and "the plan" grew with the city. At a certain point the populace began to disagree with "the plan," and in typical Brazilian fashion began to build however they saw fit. Growth was pure laissez-faire. People purchased the industrial section and put up high rises. People wanted neighborhood clinics, not giant central hospitals. People built houses where they weren't supposed to, so they could walk to work. Public transit is nice, but the city has one of the highest ratios of cars to people in all of Brazil.

Nothing automatically wrong with a planned community, as long as you can adapt (i.e. junk) the plan for the people who will actually live there.

[KamenRiderBlade]

The thing with "Relevant General Knowledge"

with the latest scientific knowledge
Scientific Methodology
etc.

Who gets to determine what falls into that loaded term?
Jacques Fresco has his ideas.

I'm sure many educators around the world along with parents have other ideas of what should be taught.
Including religious folk for propagating religion.

I'm going to be honest.
I grew up in a Buddhist family.
I myself don't believe in any religion.
As far as I'm concerned, religion is just a tool for mass control of people in terms of behavior / beliefs /etc.
I believe that logic / facts / scientific methodology / objective reasoning / etc is the key to making humanity better, but that's my PoV.

The scientific method is taught at most schools to my understanding.

Scientific knowledge is available for all to consume thanks to the internet.

Whether you choose to learn it and apply the scientific method to your life / thinking is a matter of choice.

Forcing people to think a certain way has never gone down well in history.

People never like to be coerced or brain washed into anything.

Especially with a very cynical society, a person needs to individually analyze and understand your proposals / ideas, then figure out if it's worth it for them as a person to accept your said proposals / ideas.

Personally I like some aspects of TVP, not all of it.

I have plenty of complaints that I don't agree with.

But if TVP & Jacques Fresco can be flexible with his concepts / ideals, then it stands some chance of succeeding, not a large one mind you, but some chance.

I still think my earlier post about how he can succeed is far more realistic than every group on earth suddenly giving up and revolting against their government.

But that's me and my opinions.

[TheGoodNews]

Read this:

“In most anarchist collectives money was abolished. ‘Here in Fraga,’ the local paper proclaimed in blazing pride, ‘you can throw bank notes into the street and no one will take any notice. Rockefeller, if you were to Fraga with your entire bank account you would not be able to buy a cup of coffee. Money, your God and your servant has been abolished and the people are happy.” The Spanish Civil War by A. Beevor

“Foreigners who gave a tip had it returned politely with an explanation of why the practice corrupted both the giver and the receiver.” Beevor

"Doctors, barbers, carpenters and cobblers usually gave their services free and in return were maintained by the community." Beevor

“Some collectives did in fact abolish money. They had no system of exchange, not even coupons. For example, a resident of Magdalena de Pulpis, when asked, ‘How do you organize without money? Do you use barter, a coupon book, or anything else?,’ replied, ‘Nothing. Everyone works and everyone has the right to what he needs free of charge. He simply goes to the store where provisions and all other necessities are supplied. Everything is distributed free with only a notation of what he took.” The Anarchist Collectives by Sam Dolgoff

“Medical care and medicines are free. Even postage stamps are free. There is no rent. Housing, building repairs, water, gas, electricity-all are supplied gratis, not only to the collectivists but also to the ‘individualists.’” Dolgoff

"Money has been abolished. Neither the standard currency of Spain (the peseta) nor local money is used in transactions within or between any of the collectives of the county or district." Dolgoff

“Many of the normal motives of civilized life-snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc.-had simply ceased to exist.” Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

“Tipping had been forbidden by law since the time of Primo de Rivera; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift boy.” Orwell

“There was no unemployment, and the price of living was still extremely low; you saw very few conspicuously destitute people, and no beggars except the gypsies. Above all there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine. In the barbers’s shops were Anarchist notices (the barbers were mostly Anarchists) solemnly exclaiming that barbers were no longer slaves. In the streets were coloured posters appealing to prostitutes to stop being prostitutes.” Orwell

Below is documentary called Living Utopia on Spanish anarchism. Scroll 56min 34seconds into it they begin describing the abolition of money:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPl_Y3Qdb7Y

Another doc where they interview three Spaniards who recall the time the Anarchists abolished money in their town at 21min 45 seconds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QRd7tBqQdw

"Enjoy it." Capt. Picard.

[T'Girl]

In the streets were coloured posters appealing to prostitutes to stop being prostitutes.

Everyone else worked for free, why not the whores?

[TheGoodNews]

Scoll to about 15:10 on the bottom video. According to the narrator it wasn't easy to change old habits.

[T'Girl]

KamenRiderBlade wrote:

---

I believe that logic / facts / scientific methodology / objective reasoning / etc is the key to making humanity better, but that's my PoV.

The hi-lighted one, yeah there going to be trouble right there, you just know it.

[KamenRiderBlade]

Merry Christmas wrote:

---

The hi-lighted one, yeah there going to be trouble right there, you just know it.

Nothing wrong with facts

[T'Girl]

KamenRiderBlade wrote:

---

Nothing wrong with facts

Yeah, but whose? Yours, mine, someone else, maybe a compilation of some sort?

Nothing wrong with going with the facts of a disinterested third party.

[KamenRiderBlade]

Merry Christmas wrote:

---

Yeah, but whose? Yours, mine, someone else, maybe a compilation of some sort?

Nothing wrong with going with the facts of a disinterested third party.

All facts, as many as I can get my hands on till I make my own judgement of things.

[T'Girl]

And that's the way it should be, a good general education, resulting in a population that decided (for better or for worst) their society's own present and future. Not a special educational program to steer the population towards a future that involve switching over to a economic system that has never been tried on a large scale before, and has never been shown to work over a protracted period of time.

And certainly not a education system (where's this thing supposed to come from?) that indoctrinates the populace to surrender many of their personal possession, because "The Plan" dictates that they shouldn't want them. To leave their homes for a newly built city where the building are the same, there are no cars (too much individuality), they'll never be paid for their efforts.

Oh, and they'll have no say in their government, because "The Plan" will eventually take that away too. Can't have the People making decisions can we? they might choose to take another path, and anyone who doesn't agree with "The Plan" is stupid and has been educated to be stupid. Otherwise they would all agree with "the Plan."

The small group who controls the computers will be making the "correct" decisions for them.

*****

People might occassionly make bad choices, but those choices are their's to make. The market economy we have today is just as imperfect as we are, but it works under a wide variety of situations, in bad times never has completely collapsed, has always recovered in time, and has worked for centuries.

*****

[JirinPanthosa]

(Responding to OP not reading rest of thread first)

Sounds to me you don't accept the basic premise of the show. Yes, whenever they tried to abolish money and private property in the real world people got lazy and things went to crap. But in the future, nobody is lazy and everybody wants to improve themselves. Realistic? Maybe not, but that's the premise of the show.

I do think having no economy makes a little more sense in a world of abundance where scarcity of resources has been eliminated due to replicators. On Earth in Star Trek there is literally enough so that everybody can have everything they need.

[R. Star]

Jake and Nog discuss this in In the Cards:

NOG It's my money, Jake. If you want to bid at this
auction, use your own money.

JAKE I'm Human, I don't have any money.

NOG It's not my fault that your species decided to
abandon currency-based economics in favor
of some philosophy of self-enhancement.

JAKE (defensive) Hey, watch it. There's nothing wrong with our philosophy.
(with pride) We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity.

NOG (confused) What does that mean exactly?

JAKE It means... (reaching) ... it means we don't need money.

NOG Well if you don't need money, then you certainly don't need mine.

[T'Girl]

JirinPanthosa wrote:

---

Realistic? Maybe not, but that's the premise of the show.

It is necessary once and a while to put back and remember that Star Trek exists in a fictional future. One that is more fantasy, than reality.

Star Grinch wrote:

---

Jake and Nog discuss this in In the Cards:

And in the episode Progress, Jake, Nog and a trader named Ch'ano have this discussion ...

JAKE: He doesn't have any latinum. Let's exchange for something.
NOG: I don't want something. I want latinum.
CH'ANO: I can't hear you. Can I interest you in a piece of land?
JAKE: Land is good.
NOG: For what? It's nothing but dirt.
JAKE: How much land?
CH'ANO: I can let you have seven tessipates.
JAKE: Seven sounds good.
NOG: First yamok sauce, then stem bolts, now tessipates, and still no profit.
JAKE: We're getting closer. I can feel it.
NOG: You can?
JAKE: I think so.
CH'ANO: Do we have a deal?
JAKE: We'd have to see proof that you own the land.

Jake's denouncement of money, and his avocation of "I don't need money," is paper thin. Jake has obtained money in the past when it suited his needs. And even in the episode In The Cards, Jake was trying to lay his hands on gold-pressed latinum, even through he had supposedly adopted a no money philosophy.

So is Jake that much different than Riker when Riker said "we don't eat meat," but later we see him cooking real eggs for his friends?

[JirinPanthosa]

I also think that more minds have been changed for the better just by exposing them to people from different backgrounds and allowing them to pursue education on their own than ever have by trying to reeducate people by force.

In Star Trek's mythology, people simply realized that we'd have more success working together and taking care of each other than we would trying to kill each other, due to the third World War. Endless pursuit of money was considered to be one of the causes of that war, and it is true post-war that trying to take more for one's self would have raised the odds of the human race being wiped out by nuclear fallout. So it makes sense to me that Earth would have come out of that with a moral edict against money.

In reality, once Earth got back on its feet they probably would have gone right back to capitalism of course, only being more careful about the obviously destructive side of it. Maybe the discovery of other planets with wealth far greater than their own might have encouraged to keep moving in the direction of globalization (A view that greater wealth for the planet means greater wealth for everyone on the planet), as Vulcan probably was only interested in dealing with one unified planet.

Then when replicators came out I can't imagine anyone still working a job they don't love.

[T'Girl]

JirinPanthosa wrote:

---

Then when replicators came out I can't imagine anyone still working a job they don't love.

That would depend on how much it cost to operate your replicator. The water that comes out of my kitchen faucet might seem to be free, but I do pay for it once a month.