Quote from: anu on March 04, 2014, 09:20:30 AM

Quote from: giantdragon on March 03, 2014, 08:50:16 PM

Of course technological progress will slow down if no fiat money injected, but nevertheless won't completely stop. Moreover, without fiat money any government in the developed world will collapse within months, turning quality of the life to medieval level.

It surprises me to read such praise of fiat money on this board. The 19th century largely got along without fiat money, particularly in the US and Germany went pretty much with metals. That posed a problem for banks because companies developed a tendency to invest from revenue, not from loans.

I believe the problem discussed here would largely go away if we'd use money that isn't someone else's liability. So far, the reason for unemployment is not AI (though that may change), it's the huge cost of using money. Our tax load is actually somewhere between 75% and 90% because of inflation and interest. It is hard to be profitable if you can keep less 20% of your income.

+ many!!!!

From the founding of the American experiment until 1913, the US dollar was based on gold, directly. While there were a couple of failed experiments in fiat along the way, that standard remained in place, fixed at 1 oz pure gold being 20 dollars. During that period, prices tended to go DOWN over time, even prior to industrialization, because the rate of inflation was ONLY the minting of new coins, which came to the market only via mining.

And since the basis was gold, it could not be readily counterfeited. Sure, you could make a brass coin and fool the unwary, but the term "acid test" comes from mercantile trade in gold. A rather simple test, on a touchstone with a specific acid solution will verify real gold in seconds.

Also, a metal based currency limits the ability of banks or other actors in that the gold MUST exist for the transaction to exist.

Satoshi based his protocol on this idea, making a digital analog of gold mining. The currency only inflates till there are twenty one million coins, then that pool is the totality of the money supply, at least in bitcoin.

As to the idea of "technological unemployment", I maintain that we will find ways to occupy ourselves. The same arguments were used in the late 19th century, again railing against capitalism. Yet here we are, with 7 times as many humans living, in developed nations, better than Medieval kings.

As I stated earlier, before some cockmonkey points it out as a refutation, it is rare indeed that things are spread equally. I am fully aware that much of the world lives in abject poverty, and I do indeed feel it's a problem worthy of addressing. It's primarily a political/religious problem, though, as with modern farming techniques , even absent GMO's, the world can be fed relatively easy at a much higher population density.

Becoming the Borg would indeed solve the problem, but I don't fancy giving up my identity to become part of a machine. It substitutes a workable problem for complete sublimation and elimination of the current human species. So long as free will exists, capitalism will trump all other economic systems for one reason and one reason alone: It is the ONLY demonstrated system that works in the absence of belief.

There is no "one solution" for the many perils humanity faces. The old ways are indeed dying, but they aren't going to die fast. Centralization has risen and fallen many times over our history, with today probably being it's pinnacle. In it's heights and glories it has already sewn the seeds of it's eventual failure. The internet is a major facet of this, and it's an evolutionary change taking place rather than revolutionary. We are able to talk amongst ourselves without regard to borders. Every day I talk to people from all over the world on just this forum. Both the internet and bitcoin are bringing about an exchange of ideas and commerce in a capitalistic fashion far beyond the wildest dreams of people just a few decades ago. I know, because I was one of those dreamers.

Like many of my generation, I did not like the way the dream manifested. Unlike most of the hackers of that bygone era, I have come to embrace it. Because while the internet is often gaudy, highly commercial, and fraught with stupidity, misinformation, and downright fraud, it IS a nearly free global communications network. And that's what we were all working for back in the 70's and 80's while being blamed for all the ills of modern youth. The future is not written in the past. The past is a guide, and often a warning. But the future belongs to those who can envision it, and make it their own. I won't be replaced by a robot. My job might be, and they're welcome to it. I'll move on to something else. Unless robots become so advanced and inventive that they can out-invent us, then they are no long term danger. If we build such machines, well, that's our own fault. Even then, I don't think they will displace us, because frankly I can't see machines having either the imagination or the will to treachery of humans.

Further, and this is something I have been hammering on since I was a child, why the FUCK are we limiting ourselves to Earth? We have the resources, we have had the technology since the late sixties, and I guarantee you I could PERSONALLY round up the volunteers to colonize near space. The cost would be less than a couple weeks of the United States Killing Apparatus Budget, and that would build a self sustaining and viable community on mars in less than a decade. All we lack is the will amongst the people who have the money. A rich man or a group of them with vision could pull this off, and once there?" There IS NO LIMIT.

As population continues to rise, medicine continues to improve, and yes, automation continues apace, this will become a more and more attractive course of action for those who are not content to simply draw a salary but would rather DO something with their lives. Malthus and his mythical friend Ludd were just plain wrong, and history just keeps bearing this out. Every technological advance leads to new fields of endeavor, rather than limiting them. This has been going on since the first protohuman made a tool. My sig is my belief. Technology is the DOOM and SALVATION of humanity. For those raised in the United States or who's language is not English (yes that is a jab at the alleged school system here), Doom does not mean certain death, but rather an inescapable fate. Our inescapable fate due to our base nature is to invent things, improve things, bust shit, make tools and then refine them. We are the dominant species on this planet because of it. I do not see our technology and it's advances as a weakness, but our greatest strength. I reject utterly the underlying axioms of this thread, and have for longer than the internet has existed. This is a solution looking for a problem, not the other way 'round. We will adapt, and we will prevail.