Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Technology => Topic started by: the5thforce on 16/02/2016 11:15:15
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technocratic-communism
greed=inefficiency:
if money is the blood flow of society, the rich are like blood clots. fundamentally unused wealth is inefficiency- it means someone kept more money than they needed.
all jobs improve our world in some way and the potential for improvement is endless, capitalism has become stagnant because technology has eliminated livable waged jobs faster than the wealthy are creating jobs, at the same time the rich are now competing to outsource jobs using technology which causes their home country to eventually implode worse than the country theyre exploiting- national debt being the first stage.
capitalism can only improve the efficiency of society until communism becomes viable via the technology society invested in thus helped to create, we are now approaching the technological/energy efficiency threshold where technocratic-communism is possible if we use mass communication to leverage against all forms of inefficiency, most importantly: unused wealth/greed.
communication is the most basic power of any society, and communication is the basis of efficient communism. we can use the internet to promote companies that pay livable wages and have the lowest paid ceo’s/least wealthy owners so the top is competing to be less greedy rather than the poor competing to be poorer.
transparency is the key to efficient communication, which is why we need to pressure all governments to maintain transparency as its first priority and most important duty in serving its citizens.
first step:
http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/
study this list and try to always buy from any company owned by someone below the absolute top of any particular industry, doing this will literally be putting a cap on greed by forcing whoever’s at the top to compete to give away more of their wealth which creates more jobs and eventually better wages for everyone.
the further down the list you invest in when buying a product or service, the further youre distributing your wealth from the absolute top and thus the lower youre setting the absolute wealth cap.
there are many ways to increase the flow of wealth to improve the efficiency of society without using the ‘government’ as an inefficient and potentially corrupt middle man, all it takes is researching who youre buying from to ultimately maximize what they return to YOU.
2/16/2016
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The biggest problem with Communism, is culture becomes divided into two classes; the power structure of the government and the minions, with no checks and balances on the power structure.
If you are a student, ask your teacher, professor or anyone who preaches this, which of the two classes they see themselves belonging too, if we had communism? None will say the minions, because the minions are the slaves who do all the work, like drones but can never leave. The minions will be 90% of the population. All who preach Communism see themselves through the eyes of self importance and the ruling class. Nobody who teaches this, wants to be in the minion class. Communism only works if most of the people are lured to be minions. The sales pitch is intoxicating, but once you sober up, you are a slave.
Capitalism and Republic forms of government provides a third and fourth option in terms of classes. There is a middle class, between ruling class and minions, that have enough self sufficiency to be buffered from the quotas of the ruling class. If the ruling class decides everyone has to eat beans for the next month, because powers decided on beans, or because those in power got a better kickback from beans, the middle class can buy corn in the open market. The minions are stuck with beans. The middle class is a thorn in the side of the power structure since it can influence the minions to want more.
If you look on America, food stamps used to be connected to government distributed food products kept in government warehouses; 1950-60's. The food was good and was healthy, but very limited in variety; 5 pound blocks of cheese. The new approach for food stamps is closer to the middle class, with EBT credit cards that allow the poor to shop in the free market and enjoy the much wider variety. Food stamp implementation, went away from a closer to Communism model to choice in the free market. Ask the poor if they would like to back to full government control? Government does not know how to scale up in a cost effective way, because too much of the resources becomes skimmed by the power class; huge overhead.
There is also a fourth class within open societies connected to the independently wealthy, who can influence the power structure from above. Those who seek power are greedy for money, to buy an election, so they can gain power. They will lie to everyone to get elected, with all types of promises. The rich can't directly make laws, but they can influence this process in back room deals with more leverage over the lying.
The rich are rich, not because they control the army, like in Communism. They like, Bill Gates, are a billionaire because of talent and competition in the free market. Communist Castro is a billionaire because he makes the laws and controls the police and army and can seize wealth. That is how the Communist greedy make money. A greedy person will not change their nature in a new form of government. Some forms of government make greed easier to practice.
If America went Communism, many of the political leaders will become part of the ruling class. Whether they are Democrat or Republican, they owe rich and greedy friends, who helped get them elected in the past. These people will get to tag along and be part of the ruling class. The ruling class knows it needs their talent, or the economy will tank. But now as part of the ruling class, they can practice greed without the checks and balances of the free market. If President Obama liked solar and was leader of Communist America, his former capitalism solar people will be retained to help promote the industry. Now they will be give a power monopoly in the marketplace, with them gaining great wealth, as long as they pay Obama a sizable tribute. The minions will get to ration the overpriced power. It is trickle down economics that gets funneled by the top.
Young people, are often seduced into Communism. It promises that they can be a child forever, where the power structure and ruling class becomes mom and dad, providing for you and settling arguments among the children. Mom and Dad have the final say. But in practice, the child will someday want to be an adult. However, there is no room for them in the power structure, even with talent, since the two class system means you do not belong.
Look at China. As pure Communism it looked like a billion average people barely scratching a living from the earth. Once a freer economy appeared, there is now a middle class, I am amazed at how much human potential suddenly appeared. It was repressed in two class Communism, but appears in a four class free system.
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Let's talk simple economics, since economists can't cope with anything complicated.
We live in a capitalistic world with only one consumable. You make a lousy, expensive version of it and I make a superb, cheap product. In time I get all the money and you go broke. Greed or sensible customer choice?
We live in a communistic world with only one consumable. We both make a lousy, expensive version of it because the government mandates it thus and in the absence of competition there's no point in spending money on research. We share the money equally and the customer gets crap. In what way is this preferable, other than to the manufacturers of crap?
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The biggest problem with Communism, is culture becomes divided into two classes; the power structure of the government and the minions, with no checks and balances on the power structure.
If you are a student, ask your teacher, professor or anyone who preaches this, which of the two classes they see themselves belonging too, if we had communism? None will say the minions, because the minions are the slaves who do all the work, like drones but can never leave. The minions will be 90% of the population. All who preach Communism see themselves through the eyes of self importance and the ruling class. Nobody who teaches this, wants to be in the minion class. Communism only works if most of the people are lured to be minions. The sales pitch is intoxicating, but once you sober up, you are a slave.
Capitalism and Republic forms of government provides a third and fourth option in terms of classes. There is a middle class, between ruling class and minions, that have enough self sufficiency to be buffered from the quotas of the ruling class. If the ruling class decides everyone has to eat beans for the next month, because powers decided on beans, or because those in power got a better kickback from beans, the middle class can buy corn in the open market. The minions are stuck with beans. The middle class is a thorn in the side of the power structure since it can influence the minions to want more.
If you look on America, food stamps used to be connected to government distributed food products kept in government warehouses; 1950-60's. The food was good and was healthy, but very limited in variety; 5 pound blocks of cheese. The new approach for food stamps is closer to the middle class, with EBT credit cards that allow the poor to shop in the free market and enjoy the much wider variety. Food stamp implementation, went away from a closer to Communism model to choice in the free market. Ask the poor if they would like to back to full government control? Government does not know how to scale up in a cost effective way, because too much of the resources becomes skimmed by the power class; huge overhead.
There is also a fourth class within open societies connected to the independently wealthy, who can influence the power structure from above. Those who seek power are greedy for money, to buy an election, so they can gain power. They will lie to everyone to get elected, with all types of promises. The rich can't directly make laws, but they can influence this process in back room deals with more leverage over the lying.
The rich are rich, not because they control the army, like in Communism. They like, Bill Gates, are a billionaire because of talent and competition in the free market. Communist Castro is a billionaire because he makes the laws and controls the police and army and can seize wealth. That is how the Communist greedy make money. A greedy person will not change their nature in a new form of government. Some forms of government make greed easier to practice.
If America went Communism, many of the political leaders will become part of the ruling class. Whether they are Democrat or Republican, they owe rich and greedy friends, who helped get them elected in the past. These people will get to tag along and be part of the ruling class. The ruling class knows it needs their talent, or the economy will tank. But now as part of the ruling class, they can practice greed without the checks and balances of the free market. If President Obama liked solar and was leader of Communist America, his former capitalism solar people will be retained to help promote the industry. Now they will be give a power monopoly in the marketplace, with them gaining great wealth, as long as they pay Obama a sizable tribute. The minions will get to ration the overpriced power. It is trickle down economics that gets funneled by the top.
Young people, are often seduced into Communism. It promises that they can be a child forever, where the power structure and ruling class becomes mom and dad, providing for you and settling arguments among the children. Mom and Dad have the final say. But in practice, the child will someday want to be an adult. However, there is no room for them in the power structure, even with talent, since the two class system means you do not belong.
Look at China. As pure Communism it looked like a billion average people barely scratching a living from the earth. Once a freer economy appeared, there is now a middle class, I am amazed at how much human potential suddenly appeared. It was repressed in two class Communism, but appears in a four class free system.
i dont think you read my whole post or it went way over your head, probably a generational thing.
technocratic-communism is such a pure form of capitalism it could theoretically replace government entirely with pure technology-enabled mass communication- an absolute autonomous democracy. present day 'government' is essentially a company itself only it forces you to buy its services in the form of taxes while colluding with other 'private' companies
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Let's talk simple economics, since economists can't cope with anything complicated.
We live in a capitalistic world with only one consumable. You make a lousy, expensive version of it and I make a superb, cheap product. In time I get all the money and you go broke. Greed or sensible customer choice?
We live in a communistic world with only one consumable. We both make a lousy, expensive version of it because the government mandates it thus and in the absence of competition there's no point in spending money on research. We share the money equally and the customer gets crap. In what way is this preferable, other than to the manufacturers of crap?
i prefer game theory.
consumers vs sellers economics-game theory:
fundamentally in order to maximize return on investment in any product or service- you never want to buy a product/service from the person who needs your money the least because they are the least likely to spend your money once they have it, the richest person is the worst possible consumer of your money, similar to giving matter to a hypermassive black hole.
as a consumer you can never expect to see the true value of the work you spent earning your money returned to you unless you give your money to the best possible consumer which is the person selling the product/service who is most likely to re-spend your money.
consumers feeding consumers is the ideal transfer of work in order to attain economic equilibrium, sellers who do not re-consume the profit of their sales are essentially wasting human energy- similar to killing a bird and only eating the wings.
like any game in life, the consumer can gain an advantage over greedy sellers by simply becoming more informed, particularly about who is the least likely to re-spend their money:
http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/
if you study this list and try to always buy from companies owned by someone below the absolute top of any particular industry, you will in effect force the greediest seller in the industry to become a consumer again by literally capping their wealth, eventually this creates more consumers which creates more jobs which creates better wages for the consumers which is the optimal transfer of energy, rather than the poor competing to be poorer youre forcing the greedy to compete to be less greedy.
the further down the list you invest in when buying a product or service the further you’ll be distributing your wealth away from the absolute greediest seller. consumers always have the power to cap the greed of the seller.
there are many ways to increase the flow of wealth to improve the efficiency of society without using the ‘government’ as an inefficient and potentially corrupt middle man, all it takes is researching who youre buying from to ultimately maximize what they return to YOU.
naturally greed surpasses talent in almost every game where chance is involved, and there will always be more combined talent in all the companies below the absolute greediest sellers company than there will be in the greediest seller himself.
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if money is the blood flow of society, the rich are like blood clots. fundamentally unused wealth is inefficiency- it means someone kept more money than they needed
I disagree in one respect - those wealthy individuals on this list did not get onto this list by sitting on their wealth. They got it by making their wealth work - investing their money, time and talent into something which eventually became something big.
And where you see a family dynasty (and there are a few on the Forbes list), these people probably inherited their wealth. But if this generation makes dumb investment decisions, or don't employ a good manager to make their wealth continue working, they could end up bankrupt in a generation.
someone kept more money than they needed
I think that this is inaccurate in another respect - many of those top names do not have billions of dollars in money (cash). That would be a useless, non-working way to hold money, which will be whittled down by inflation.
They hold much of their wealth in shares and other investments. Often the shares are in a company that they created, and where they can see their money is still working well.
Unlike cash which will be whittled away by inflation, shares are more volatile. A few bad decisions by a company, or a crash in that industry, and these people who are today wealthy (on paper) could see their investments plummet in value.
Mathematical Model: I tried this some years ago on the Forbes list, and it worked fairly well. I haven't tried it on today's list.
If you order people by wealth, and then graph the logarithm of their wealth against the logarithm of their ranking (1..n), you end up with a (roughly) straight line.
And this trend carries a fair way through a society. If you have a computer, you are somewhere on this line.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution#Applications
Different societies have a different slope to this line. This is often compared via the Gini Coefficient (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient).
Note that income inequality actually increases in a country with an aging population (many people have retired) or a baby boom (many people too young to earn an income). A good government will prevent children and grandparents from starving.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_distribution#Trends
capitalism can only improve the efficiency of society until communism becomes viable via the technology society
I think that information technology is something that Marx missed. High society has always lived on the backs of the workers; but today, the workers are often computers controlling machines (even if they have people tending them).
Watch out when the workers revolt!
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Just a thought
"The biggest problem with Communism, is culture becomes divided into two classes; the power structure of the government and the minions, with no checks and balances on the power structure."
Just like capitalism then.
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i prefer game theory.
Maybe, but you haven't answered my question. Which is preferable, disgusting capitalist Mini or honorable proletarian Trabant?
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in short, brand loyalty and buying from the top seller is bad for the economy.
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In a communist state, there is only one product, so the economy is bound to fail.
In a capitalist state, the market eliminates weak sellers, so the economy is bound to fail.
So, assuming a non-failing economy is a Good Thing, it seems that you are advocating a capitalist state in which the government props up inefficient manufacturers in order to prevent the economy collapsing.
I think you have just invented the European Union, just a few years too late to prevent the UK wasting money on it.
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If money is the blood flow of society, are the rich like blood clots?
This may be true of old money, where less than competent people inherit money, and then sit on it. But first generation wealth accumulation has to have good blood flow, since, this is only way one can multiply money in the free market; need to expand the business or investments. Credit is also important and is like a blood transfusion, so you have can even more blood flow. The athletes call this blood doping. It is a performance enhancement.
If banks just sit on money, this can be a blood clot. If they invest to gain returns, the blood flows better. When Government imposed Dodd-Frank onto banks, banks were afraid to provide mortgages due to higher restrictions. This created a blood clot at the bank. The consumer formed a larger blood clot, had to a save higher percent money; instead of invest, before they could get a mortgage investment.
The government can often become a clotting agent that induces blood clots. For example, there is a lot of American money in off shore accounts; blood clots, because of the taxes imposed by the government. If businesses attempted to break this blood clot, and return the money for investment into the main blood circulation; America, they will loose a high percent of money due to tax penalties; a cut appears in the skin for blood loss. The clot remains untreated, since it is safer then bleeding out with an aneurism.
Say there is all forms of red tape, regulation and paper work imposed by government, onto any business, then a money/blood clot appears, dealing with the infection. It is not flowing freely in the free market circulation, but is clotting to seal up the wound that is dripping blood. Obama Care has caused a blood clot to stop the bleeding on the cut it created. The body has less blood so the organs get less; hours of employment are cut.
Say money is collected as taxes, and the government overhead is too large, this is like a clogged artery due to cholesterol; too much fat. For example, the Dept. of Education gives block grants to the states for education. The quip pro quo for this money is a higher state overhead to deal with government paperwork for compliance. The result is about 50% of the money reaches the students. The other 50% is needed to a clot to stop the bleeding. This is like a blood transfusion that contains fiberglass slivers. It does have a blood doping affect, but cause punctures and blood loss at the same time. A lot of the blood leaks and clots so you don't get the full affect. They would be better off filtering the fiberglass slivers; cut out the government middleman and allow the states to keep these taxes instead of being siphoned through fiberglass.
If you assume the free market is driven by greed, then the greedy can never has too much money. In a free market, there is always competition, with other people who also feel the greed. One has to get better at making products and one has to constantly learn to create new products to create demand or else the others greedy will do this. This is good for the consumer, who is the source of the life blood; money.
If you add government picking winners and losers; tax code, there is no need to compete in the free market to satisfy greed, since the game is fixed. In this case, the greedy will invest in lobbying and kick backs, so they can be part of the stacked deck. In this system, you are able to undermine your competition and give yourself an edge, not by being better in the eyes of consumers, but by being better in the eyes of the power structure, which only sees $$$.
If the free market is driven by greed (for wealth) then power in government is driven by lust (for power). Greed is sort of linear or 1-D of money, but lust (for power) sleeps around; creates many cuts and blood clots.
Instead of money, say we consider thoughts as a form of wealth. Say government can tell you what you can say or not say and can pick winners; party line, and pick losers; anyone else. There will be blood clots in the flow of ideas and information. In a free society, all ideas can flow, but they will need to compete through a natural selection process. PC is a blood clotting factor in this analogy, that picks winners and losers.
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the current system has the potential for varying degrees of success seeing as its gotten us this far- paid for by 19 trillion debt(in the u.s.), im pointing out the fact that if every consumer made a coordinated effort to cap the wealth of the top seller of any industry by choosing the 2nd best seller(or lower) they would infact increase the flow of wealth which stimulates the economy and minimizes wealth inequality
the argument that consumers would be buying an inferior product is largely nonsense- its mostly just brand loyalty as a previous user stated, infact there would be even more competition between the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th best sellers to develop the best product using the money that wouldve been funneled into one company before (the top seller)
eventually the government wouldnt even need to print money, we would be in a constant state of minimal deflation but rapid growth with hundreds of new companies developing new products to circumvent copyrights/patents which most economists agree stagnates the economy, eventually growth would be so rapid we wouldnt even bother with copyrights/patents anymore because a better product would replace it as soon as technologically viable
ultimately fiat money wont even have a use anymore after nuclear fusion becomes sustainable, electric current itself will become the only currency when fusion powers the grid in 15-30 years, at that point billionares will be sitting on piles of worthless cash and they'll wish they had spent it while they had the chance, ironically if they did spend it now the economy would be in much better shape... but as i said, greed almost always surpasses talent
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Brand loyalty is the result of choice, with the implication that you think the consumer has made a bad choice. But why is your opnion (which is not backed by money) more valid than his, which is?
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Brand loyalty is the result of choice, with the implication that you think the consumer has made a bad choice. But why is your opnion (which is not backed by money) more valid than his, which is?
even brand loyalty isnt a problem as long as its not loyalty to the richest seller, actually even loyalty to the top seller isnt necessarily loyalty to the richest seller if infact the top seller is also the least greedy seller(which is very rare)
the only real advice here is if you the consumer want to eliminate wealth inequality which benefits you, you the consumer must distribute your own wealth away from the richest/greediest sellers, you can still buy from the top seller if hes not the richest seller and you can still be loyal to brands below the richest/greediest seller
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Let's talk simple economics, since economists can't cope with anything complicated.
We live in a capitalistic world with only one consumable. You make a lousy, expensive version of it and I make a superb, cheap product. In time I get all the money and you go broke. Greed or sensible customer choice?
We live in a communistic world with only one consumable. We both make a lousy, expensive version of it because the government mandates it thus and in the absence of competition there's no point in spending money on research. We share the money equally and the customer gets crap. In what way is this preferable, other than to the manufacturers of crap?
Given that 100% of the people in your fictional society make a living producing said "crap", it seems like you just said that it's preferable to everyone.
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we wouldn't even bother with copyrights/patents anymore because a better product would replace it as soon as technologically viable
This assumes that people would bother to develop new technologies if they knew that anyone could copy or reverse-engineer it, and sell it at a cheaper price because they didn't have to recoup the (sometimes massive) development costs. Repeat this a few times, and this would send innovators broke.
You are sitting in an economy which offers some limited protection to Intellectual Property in the form of Patents, Copyright and Trademarks, and imagining that the same rate of development would continue unabated if you removed these protections.
I agree that there is a balance between the costs of IP protection (temporary monopoly/licencing) vs its benefits (development of new technologies, publication of the best known method and eventual mass manufacture by multiple vendors). But arbitrarily extending the copyright on Mickey Mouse's ears to 90 years after the cartoonist's death is well out of balance.
I have no doubt that significant developments have occurred in the "Open Source", "Freeware" and "Crowdfunding" communities, whether that has been Phd theses, LINUX operating system, user groups, 3D printers, posting Youtube videos, etc.
But when it comes to massive investments like $10B getting a new pharmaceutical developed, manufactured and approved through the FDA, I think you are kidding yourself.
after nuclear fusion becomes sustainable ...when fusion powers the grid in 15-30 years
I think a lot of people are hanging out for that day. But that day has been 30 years away for more than 30 years.
ultimately fiat money wont even have a use anymore
In a utopian world, where everyone has an excess of everything, everyone would produce everything for free (because its fun and fulfilling for them), and everyone would consume it for free.
But in the real world:
- Virtual goods like photos, movies, software and music could be produced and distributed for the fun of it, for the price of the electricity
- People want to experience nature too; that means there will be scarcity if we don't want to denude the entire planet.
- Real goods are consumed, wear out, or become obsolete due to technological advance.
- Real goods like food and clothes are rarely produced where they are to be consumed, so there are transport costs
- Someone producing buttons (for example) cannot eat the buttons; nor are they likely to find a lettuce-grower who wants lots of buttons (even with the help of the internet!)
- Some some form of virtual currency will still be required in the future to allow people to gain access to the individual variety of goods that they prefer and desire
- This provides a signal of what (real or virtual) goods people value, as a hint to (real or potential) producers
- And also to be an incentive for skilled people to produce more than just what they want for themselves - to produce for others too.
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we wouldn't even bother with copyrights/patents anymore because a better product would replace it as soon as technologically viable
This assumes that people would bother to develop new technologies if they knew that anyone could copy or reverse-engineer it, and sell it at a cheaper price because they didn't have to recoup the (sometimes massive) development costs. Repeat this a few times, and this would send innovators broke.
You are sitting in an economy which offers some limited protection to Intellectual Property in the form of Patents, Copyright and Trademarks, and imagining that the same rate of development would continue unabated if you removed these protections.
I agree that there is a balance between the costs of IP protection (temporary monopoly/licencing) vs its benefits (development of new technologies, publication of the best known method and eventual mass manufacture by multiple vendors). But arbitrarily extending the copyright on Mickey Mouse's ears to 90 years after the cartoonist's death is well out of balance.
I have no doubt that significant developments have occurred in the "Open Source", "Freeware" and "Crowdfunding" communities, whether that has been Phd theses, LINUX operating system, user groups, 3D printers, posting Youtube videos, etc.
But when it comes to massive investments like $10B getting a new pharmaceutical developed, manufactured and approved through the FDA, I think you are kidding yourself.
after nuclear fusion becomes sustainable ...when fusion powers the grid in 15-30 years
I think a lot of people are hanging out for that day. But that day has been 30 years away for more than 30 years.
ultimately fiat money wont even have a use anymore
In a utopian world, where everyone has an excess of everything, everyone would produce everything for free (because its fun and fulfilling for them), and everyone would consume it for free.
But in the real world:
- Virtual goods like photos, movies, software and music could be produced and distributed for the fun of it, for the price of the electricity
- People want to experience nature too; that means there will be scarcity if we don't want to denude the entire planet.
- Real goods are consumed, wear out, or become obsolete due to technological advance.
- Real goods like food and clothes are rarely produced where they are to be consumed, so there are transport costs
- Someone producing buttons (for example) cannot eat the buttons; nor are they likely to find a lettuce-grower who wants lots of buttons (even with the help of the internet!)
- Some some form of virtual currency will still be required in the future to allow people to gain access to the individual variety of goods that they prefer and desire
- This provides a signal of what (real or virtual) goods people value, as a hint to (real or potential) producers
- And also to be an incentive for skilled people to produce more than just what they want for themselves - to produce for others too.
-entire companies are already devoted to improving products enough to issue a new patent
-big pharma is the greediest bloodiest industry the world has ever known, as soon as cannabis is fully legalized big pharma will collapse at which point pharma will no longer be able to prevent opium or any other drugs decriminalization/legalization (its essentially a drug monopoly)
-people will pay eachother using pure electricity whether its via an energy bank, batteries, virtual currency, cryptocurrency, its all electricity which will be exceedingly cheaper as technology progresses
-3d printing will eventually replace the vast majorty of manufacturing, 3d printers can already print organic material/food, while there may always be a premium on designer hand made products/gourmet food/media/art/entertainment that doesnt mean inefficient physical cash will pay for them(we already use credit cards for which the currency represents human energy)
-farming will be automated, transportation/delivery will be automated
-environmental protection/development, and artificial land expansion(like what china is doing) will continue to become a top priority for everyone
-the government cannot prevent any of this from occuring(in a civilized way, atleast)