Dear Doktor Howl:

[Doktor Howl]

So you end up trading a pot of beans for some dried beans so you can make more beans?

Well, the guy in the article paid what he needed by doing some electrical work.  This is where we run into Henry David Thoreau's error.

The parts he used to make the repairs had to be manufactured.  The resins, wire, molded parts, etc, that go into a simple relay all take a manufacturing base that cannot be managed on barter, simply because of the necessary complexity of the manufacturing processes.

So you can coast for a while, using a barter system...Until the parts to repair the machines run out.  Then, overnight, you are back in the middle ages.

You know I don't think that anyone anywhere ['cept maybe a few weirdo idealists who really, really, haven't thought it through properly] is suggesting that it would be a really cool thing to just power down the grid and walk off into some hippy dippy sunset. But like it or not we need to be looking for new and innovative ways to maintain ourselves as a species.

Running back 700 years or so isn't "new and innovative".

And it's not like anyone would "Power down & walk away from the grid".  They'd stare helplessly as it fails from things like worn out contactors and relays.

Thing is, you honestly CAN'T run an industrialized nation without some universally accepted means of exchange.

And, as I said, money isn't the problem today.  Money has worked since Croessus stamped the first coin.  The problem is that we aren't regulating the people that handle the money.

[Freeky]

Plus there's the people who just like to fuck with everything and get their slice of the pie (ie, the whole pie).

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I'm trying to imagine what would happen if a very large chunk of the population just STOPPED accepting US dollars as "a universally accepted means of exchange" and just printed up something else.

It would still be money.

But somehow I don't think it ends well.

[Freeky]

Probably not.  I recall this coming up here before, and there were attempts before, but they failed or something happened.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Yeah, I remember some guy with silver dollar type alternative currency a few years ago. It never got off the ground.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

This page looks a little flakey, but it says they got arrested. 
http://www.kevinalfredstrom.com/2009/06/alternative-currency-now-a-crime/

[MMIX]

Running back 700 years or so isn't "new and innovative". And it's not like anyone would "Power down & walk away from the grid".  They'd stare helplessly as it fails from things like worn out contactors and relays.

So since the current model of production [both human and technological] is generally regarded to be unsustainable for the planet and our species in the medium to long term now would be a good time to start assessing "new and innovative" production techniques and exchange systems before we run out of time to do anything but run forward 700 years into extinction.

Thing is, you honestly CAN'T run an industrialized nation without some universally accepted means of exchange.

Yes, you are absolutely right but I would question whether that exchange medium needs to be hard currency in the traditional sense.

And, as I said, money isn't the problem today.  Money has worked since Croessus stamped the first coin.  The problem is that we aren't regulating the people that handle the money.

However this I totally disagree with. Money in its conventional contemporary sense has long since changed from being an exchange medium into being something more akin to gambling chips. You can deal in "futures" you can access huge varieties of "products" which banks and other financial institutions are willing to sell you. Just think of it for a minute - they are willing to sell you money and to monetize "risk". Keep thinking about it. Where did the 1% get their money from. Was it from making things that people want and selling them to the people who wanted them? Well for some of them that may have been part of the picture. But extreme wealth, and also extreme poverty, come from the manipulation of the system by those who can afford it to the detriment of those who are priced out of the game. Currency speculation, insider trading, property bubbles. Its no good bitching about the way the world wags and then refusing to look at areas which patently need attention.


Posted by: The Freeky of SCIENCE! « on: Today at 07:47:29 PM »

Plus there's the people who just like to fuck with everything and get their slice of the pie (ie, the whole pie).

So wouldn't the long term development of a system which actually made reciprocal trade a key part of the financial system be at least worth thinking about?

Posted by: Anna Mae Bollocks « on: Today at 07:54:52 PM »

I'm trying to imagine what would happen if a very large chunk of the population just STOPPED accepting US dollars as "a universally accepted means of exchange" and just printed up something else.

It would still be money.

But somehow I don't think it ends well.

Well it wouldn't just happen like that you know. I think that your statement really begs the question of what "money" actually is. Why would an exchange system which actually values real things, washers, hammers, services which people are prepared to exchange their own things for not be preferable, or end well?

Posted by: The Freeky of SCIENCE! « on: Today at 07:57:44 PM » Insert Quote

Probably not.  I recall this coming up here before, and there were attempts before, but they failed or something happened.

Yeah there's a thread somewhere about who owns money or something.

And since currently it is a state monopoly it is hardly surprising that they get pissy when someone else tries to muscle in on their scam. 

[Doktor Howl]

Running back 700 years or so isn't "new and innovative". And it's not like anyone would "Power down & walk away from the grid".  They'd stare helplessly as it fails from things like worn out contactors and relays.

So since the current model of production [both human and technological] is generally regarded to be unsustainable for the planet and our species in the medium to long term now would be a good time to start assessing "new and innovative" production techniques and exchange systems before we run out of time to do anything but run forward 700 years into extinction.

Barter tends to run MORE wasteful than the current system.  And hell, for that matter, pollution today is NOTHING compared to where it was 100 years ago.

[MMIX]

Barter tends to run MORE wasteful than the current system.  And hell, for that matter, pollution today is NOTHING compared to where it was 100 years ago.

Unless you specify the parameters of what you actually mean by "barter system" then there is no way of assessing your claim. And 100 years ago we didn't have a barter system, we had pretty much an unrestrained capitalist production system. We still do except that now increasing amounts of the production is done in the far east without benefit of boring old labour laws to protect the workforce and western standards of pollution control to protect the planet. But then we have Exxon and BP and Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and industrial strength radioactivity was not a real big problem 100 years ago.

[Doktor Howl]

Barter tends to run MORE wasteful than the current system.  And hell, for that matter, pollution today is NOTHING compared to where it was 100 years ago.

Unless you specify the parameters of what you actually mean by "barter system" then there is no way of assessing your claim. And 100 years ago we didn't have a barter system, we had pretty much an unrestrained capitalist production system. We still do except that now increasing amounts of the production is done in the far east without benefit of boring old labour laws to protect the workforce and western standards of pollution control to protect the planet. But then we have Exxon and BP and Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and industrial strength radioactivity was not a real big problem 100 years ago.

Two unrelated things, my bad:

1.  Barter system:  I do for you, you do for me.  I fix your wiring, you do my taxes.

2.  No, what we had was a horribly polluting coal/wood industrial base.  In New York in the late 19th century, at Hunter's Point, people would get off the train and then fall over dead, from clouds of toxic gasses coming off the mills.  We also managed to kill a great lake.  And oil pollution is nothing new:  It happens occasionally with ships and rigs.  It happened as the normal way of doing business in American waterways from 1910-1930.  As far as radiation goes, radon was EVERYWHERE.  We're still dealing with that, a century later.

3.  I'm 100% on board with you about labor & pollution standards in reference to "offshoring".  Slave labor and insane pollution in China made your Iphone.  And my plasma screen.  But we can pretend we're all eco-friendly, because it's not in our immediate back yard.  This is yet another pitfall of unrestrained capitalism.

[navkat]

I have managed to decongest my hate glands. Only problem now is that all the backed-up hate-pus has festered and is coming out in a long stream of incomprehensible howling that looks like I've been smashing slugs with a salt-mallet onto my keyboard. All I can manage is a few sentences of GO FUCK YOURSELVES before I find myself curled up in the fetal position in a pile of used tissues.

[Doktor Howl]

I have managed to decongest my hate glands. Only problem now is that all the backed-up hate-pus has festered and is coming out in a long stream of incomprehensible howling that looks like I've been smashing slugs with a salt-mallet onto my keyboard. All I can manage is a few sentences of GO FUCK YOURSELVES before I find myself curled up in the fetal position in a pile of used tissues.

Sounds like you need to kick somebody's ass.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Posted by: Anna Mae Bollocks « on: Today at 07:54:52 PM »

I'm trying to imagine what would happen if a very large chunk of the population just STOPPED accepting US dollars as "a universally accepted means of exchange" and just printed up something else.

It would still be money.

But somehow I don't think it ends well.

Well it wouldn't just happen like that you know. I think that your statement really begs the question of what "money" actually is. Why would an exchange system which actually values real things, washers, hammers, services which people are prepared to exchange their own things for not be preferable, or end well?

Of course it wouldn't happen just like that. As far as what "money" is, it's whatever people collectively accept as currency. And you've ansered why it wouldn't end well yourself:

Posted by: The Freeky of SCIENCE! « on: Today at 07:57:44 PM » Insert Quote

Probably not.  I recall this coming up here before, and there were attempts before, but they failed or something happened.

Yeah there's a thread somewhere about who owns money or something.

And since currently it is a state monopoly it is hardly surprising that they get pissy when someone else tries to muscle in on their scam.