Re: A Resource Based Economy

Pricing attached opinionated value metrics to materials, goods or services based on perceived relative worth, desirability or necessity. It is usually easier to do this when there is an agreed upon currency scale that can be used across distance, culture and time. This system hinges on the currency in which it is valued in and the entity who enforces its use, and therefor subject to abuse, waste and increasingly negative consequences.

Specifically "and the entity who enforces its use"

OK, previously you agreed money was emergent. If I wasn't clear, let me clarify I meant, money existed in a stable form before governments began enforcing it, do you agree?

Also do you agree that the opinion of whether I want a $5 latte even when a cheaper alternative is available, it is still my right to expend my resources on an overpriced item if I so choose?

Cult or no cult, the issue of the pricing mechanism is absolutely key to this whole issue. If pricing is truly the appendix of societal behaviour then the RBE view is correct.

So again;
*Is the money naturally emergent or only due to enforcement? (Question to follow on this one)
*Do I have the right to misspend my own resources on what someone else deems irrational expenditures?

As I said earlier, money was emergent as was societal structures that developed enforcement mechanisms also. Barter had been dominant due to the simple and local nature of trading and it did not require a third party to enforce arbitrary values. Money can only exist when the dominant culture enforces arbitrary and opinion based values on others. But as with many emergent behaviors and technologies, they give way to newer and better ones.

There are no "rights". You behave and act in accordance with the dominant culture and society that you have developed in. Your ability to cause positive or negative outcomes depend on what is tolerated, incentivised and punished by your environment. Your choice to be wasteful is predicated on what your environment allows for.