Truly. It seems to me the time, energy, and natural resources we spend and/or waste everyday to accumulate money could be put to far better, more productive, meaningful use. Am I the only one who's ever had this thought?

[Edited 2/23/12 22:20pm]

yeah. money who needs it!!!

back in the old time that's how it was, your basic existence was merely to provide for yourself and your offspring by building yourself a shelter, killing something or growing something to eat, guarding against predators and inclement weather or whatevs. It was a fulltime job! No time or effort to spare for follies such as pastimes or art or collectibles. You basically stayed put your whole life, not that you would have know much about anywhere else being nobody else went anywhere either. Ahhhhh, those were the days, such bliss

Yeah...building your own home, hunting and growing your own food...what a waste of time. Let's spend all day throwing shit at eat other like caged monkeys.

[Edited 2/23/12 20:30pm]

I'm pretty sure that ever since we have had organised civilisation we have bartered goods. Money is just a tidy way of bartering goods, it gives you greater reach to be able able access everything not just being able to swap what you have for something you want which is very limiting..

Organization and civility are two things I've see and experienced far too infrequently during my time here on Earth.

The irony is that you are posting your thread by typing on a machine that uses electricity for a website...and all of that would not exist without the concept of money.

There are still places in this world where you can lead a life of subsistence farming/fishing/hunting.

Do you have what it takes to give up your modern ammenities?

Money is certainly a defense.

Electricity isn't made from pieces of green paper with pictures of dead men.

I remember life before typing on this machine every day. It wasn't unbearable.

[Edited 2/23/12 20:56pm]

art

science

research

innovation

technology

all impossible if your daily existence was tied up in your own subsistence

yanowha said:

Deadcake said:

art

science

research

innovation

technology

all impossible if your daily existence was tied up in your own subsistence

How is the creation of art impossible without money?

what's the point of working for money??

overworked and underpayed......prices are rising and not the paychecks!

What's one more meaningless thread in the larger scheme of things.

G3000 said:

what's the point of working for money??

overworked and underpayed......prices are rising and not the paychecks!

That's not the question I asked. Everybody wants to be fairly compensated for the work they do. It's the work I often call into question. We do and say a lot of meaningless, destructive, hateful, soul-deadening, inconsiderate, uncaring things that are detrimental to one other and our environment for no other reason than money. Have you not done something today you wouldn't have done if a dollar wasn't promised to you at some point in the near future?

[Edited 2/23/12 21:36pm]

the point of money is to put a divider between

those who have and those who don't.

in the beginnin it was to use as a replacement

for not havin anything to barter, that's acceptable.

but then it became this thing it is today.

why would it take millions to posses something

it took a few dollars to create, other than to say

i can and you never will be able to OWN THIS.

why is the thing that is best for the world to have

to exspensive for the world to own, and so forth.

KingBAD said:

the point of money is to put a divider between

those who have and those who don't.

And there you have it.

yanowha said:

Deadcake said:

art

science

research

innovation

technology

all impossible if your daily existence was tied up in your own subsistence

How is the creation of art impossible without money?

you're keeping yourself and your family alive, you don't have time for that!

hey guess what's being googled a hell of a lot these days, Marx's The Communist Manifesto.

^^

yanowha said:

^^

It's true!!!! All these Occupy protests and the googling for the manifesto they go hand in hand. When folks have a gutful of capitalism, they turn to other theories and thinkings.

What's the point of money?

Let me give you an example:

Let's say I have a goal: I want to live in a place that improves my happiness, health and well-being. I've concluded that the best way to do this is to build a house. In order to reach my goal, I need the help of others. E.g. I need wood and bricks from someone who is in possession of them, and I need people to help me build the house too.

Now, it's unlikely these people (herein referred to as the 'builders') will have any incentive to help me unless I can offer them something in return. The builders love chocolate and request chocolate as the "payment" for building the house. But I do not have any, and don't particularly care for it. So what am I to do?

And this is where money steps in.

Although I might not have any chocolate to offer the builders, my friend who makes chocolate does owe me a favor - Let's say I'm a music teacher and have been giving him a few guitar lessons, and these lessons have been taking up time that I could have been using to build my house.

So I say to the workers: "Hey, I don't have any chocolate to offer you, but my chocolate-making friend does owe me a favor for all the guitar lessons I've been giving him. Take this token to him as a sign that if he can give you some chocolate, he no longer has to owe me my favor".

That token is essentially what money is. It's a symbol of trust. A recognised symbol of the exchange of favors from one party to the next. It only works when the people within the society "trust" that others will maintain it's "value". (All three parties have to follow the agreement of course, otherwise the system falls. Recessions and whatnot happen when people lose that "trust" that they will be able to get the "value" (favors) they expected from their tokens)

And what's the most likely outcome of this basic scenario? Well I get my house, the chocolate-maker no longer owes me a favor, and the builders get the chocolate they wanted. It's a Win-Win-Win situation, provided everyone follows the agreement. If one party chooses not follow the rules, then it becomes a Win-Loss-Loss situation. But it's highly unlikely those who lost out will "deal" with the cheaters again. So really, it's at the cheater's expense in the long run.

But anyway...

Money has helped society in so many ways for the simple reason that it allows more people to achieve their goals than otherwise without it. To suggest that we don't need money is naive, ignorant, and somewhat un-thought-through IMO. If you'd prefer to live in the caveman days where power was based solely on individual physical strength, then so be it. I'd rather live in a world where people participate in the act of helping each other for mutual benefit, which is essentially what money allows us to do on a grander scale than just our close friends and family.

Now having said that, I'm not suggesting that our current economic systems are perfect, nor that all the current "rich" and "poor" deserve the situation they find themselves in. But it's a fallacy also to think we could ever come up with a "perfect" system. We can only try our best with what we know at any given time, and always strive to improve. It's the how we accomplish this improvement that is the difficult question.

.

[Edited 2/24/12 4:05am]

Money: the great deception

Every creature on this planet survives everyday without it..............except humans.

That should tell u something.

[Edited 2/24/12 7:58am]

Oh, gee - let me guess. You're one of those people who think everything should be "free."

people are evil, money would be worthless without people doing any and everything to obtain more of it.

Graycap23 said:

Money: the great deception

Every creature on this planet survives everyday without it..............except humans.

That should tell u something.

[Edited 2/24/12 7:58am]

very good point!

i hereby volunteer to relieve you guys of that nasty, burdensome stuff. ORGnote your money to me today!!!!

XxAxX said:

i hereby volunteer to relieve you guys of that nasty, burdensome stuff. ORGnote your money to me today!!!!

Well played.

Although, in general, I find that it's people who don't have any, who think money is evil. They aren't willing to do what it takes to get it (ie, work), so they think nobody else should have it, either.

Genesia said:

XxAxX said:

i hereby volunteer to relieve you guys of that nasty, burdensome stuff. ORGnote your money to me today!!!!

Well played.

Although, in general, I find that it's people who don't have any, who think money is evil. They aren't willing to do what it takes to get it (ie, work), so they think nobody else should have it, either.

You're such a right-wing extremist.

Do you seriously believe that in general, the reason that some people don't have money is that they aren't willing to work?

Genesia said:

XxAxX said:

i hereby volunteer to relieve you guys of that nasty, burdensome stuff. ORGnote your money to me today!!!!

Well played.

Although, in general, I find that it's people who don't have any, who think money is evil. They aren't willing to do what it takes to get it (ie, work), so they think nobody else should have it, either.

i just print more in my basement