A Future Without Money?

[@TheCowardRobertFord]

I don't fear a future in which I don't have any money. I fear a PRESENT in which I don't have any money, because I'm living it.

[@Trollificusv2]

Ah. So you are "acquiring expertise" in negotiating survival in a currency-free environment! Nice. And you probably don't even have to pay for it! Of course, the corps are going to have get their piece of "how to live without money" eventually. I'm guessing they'll lobby for some kind of fee you'll have to pay for not having enough money, or a tax on the penniless, with some of it going back to the corporations as a subsidy. I can't believe I could write that without puking. Been on the Intarwebs too long...

[@stuffhappensdownsouth9899]

stop pickin the donkey then... which side gains power by gathering followers that are poor and and convinced this is impossible to change which side gains power from followers that commit to work charity and social duty?

[@ivoryas1696]

"Your own fault" - Some American, probably.

[@Arkantos117]

"It's easy to be a saint in paradise"

[@kayseek1248]

“But the Marquis do not live in paradise”

[@michaelpettersson4919]

@@kayseek1248 Indeed they do not and a massive empire may be "paradise" at at it's core. Not so much the fringe . The core worlds may even be blind to events at the frontiers and unwilling to send help to them when asked to do so.

[@Santiago-sh3cq]

Alright, edge lord

[@Arkantos117]

@@Santiago-sh3cq It's a reference numbnuts.

[@TheJarric]

@@michaelpettersson4919 exatly what maquis and separitist crisis were

[@UrdnotChuckles]

I've seen a few sci-fi worlds take the approach that has the individual citizen not needing to worry about money, but still has *some* kind of currency system that exists at the level of the nation state or empire. Like the Federation Credit in Star Trek. A medium of exchange to pay other nation states for trade and the like, rather than something you'd use at the local Starbucks.

[@n.g.s1mple29]

This seems practical

[@coolioso808]

As far as I see it the only universal currency we can give is our time. But it has to be (or should be) freely ours to give as we want to whatever projects or activities we want. Our basic needs should not be contingent on how much specific time we give to certain things. Like the Star Trek community, no one has to worry about their basic needs, but they all have the opportunity to spend on different pursuits whether it be reading, exploring, fixing, creating, discussing, teaching or leading. Not to say there isn't obligation and social contracts. Like you agree to work for someone else and help them out, they expect you to help a certain amount of hours and at certain times. Yes, that's fine. But, the idea that there are hard labor jobs that are dehumanizing and people can't leave them or they lose their life, that's what society should rapidly get away from. Labor-for-income is more harmful than it is good. At this point, money and profit are disconnected from sustainability and technical efficiency. We need a new system that emphasizes technical efficiency to meet the needs of all humans in a sustainable way, like a Natural Law Resource Based Economy. Then "money" can be your time you spend. Nobody owns your time but you. Social behaviour expectations will, however, influence what people feel is appropriate to do. If someone goes around hurting people, rightfully so, society should shame that behaviour and send mediators and social workers to help resolve that negative behaviour. But the VAST majority of crime and violence would be gone if money and profit didn't dictate our economy.

[@VulpineCortex]

That's the issue with complete decommodification - it's hard to do when not everyone's on the same page hence they still use currency for trade. Access to resources, then, isn't decided by the need but at least in part by how much they can be sold for. You can balance that (as Zapatistas do) but the ideal solution would be to create a confederation that would manage the resources without a need for currency. Money is for when you don't trust the other party; you can facilitate trust in a myriad of ways. A well connected and informed society should see no need for distrust down the line, provided it's managed well.

[@AlecMuller]

"Every bit of technology or entertainment from a century ago would be in the public domain." Disney Lawyers: "LOL, @#% no."

[@calvingreene90]

Disney is going to be out of business because of their woke bullcookie.

[@spiffygonzales5160]

Legends > Canon

[@Voidapparate]

@@calvingreene90 Ha you wish boomer.

[@stcredzero]

Perhaps Disney will become a William Gibson-esque corporate AI, taking on Walt's persona. It would be immortal and therefore could hold those copyrights forever! Pulpy Sci-fi scenario: In fact, Disney might perpetuate a hoax of such a sentient AI, developed from scans of Walt's frozen brain (this is an urban legend, I know) to maintain the legal fiction for such copyrights, only to find that an actual sentient AI had later invaded its corporate computer systems and taken on the persona. (Basically the plot of an early Venture Bros. cartoon, but with an AI derived from a frozen head, not the biological one.)

[@spiffygonzales5160]

@@stcredzero I disagree. Because Walt Disney wouldn't allow modern Disney to pull their B.S.

[@hithere5553]

Ferengi rules of acquisition #75: Home is where the heart is, but the stars are made of latinum.

[@loganvurklemeyer1957]

that's actually really nice

[@theJellyjoker]

Ferengi rules of acquisition #1: Once you have their money, never give it back.

@@theJellyjoker Rule #10: Greed is eternal.

[@batskink533]

I cant remember the rule right now, but isnt there one about selling your siblings into slavery as a virtue? XD

[@batskink533]

"Treat people in debt like your family, exploit them" not it but thats my favorite i can remember

[@anomalocaris540]

future without money?? I'm living in the future then

[@yaldabaoth2]

You will always live in the present. Future is an illusion.

[@samchen9951]

First two replies, woosh. But don't worry, I caught your joke ;)

[@chriscubbernuss3288]

I'm kind of confused by the discussion of how many ball bearings and chain links are going to be produced in the next year. Isn't the correct answer zero, since all that would do is take away resources from paperclip production?

[@Medicus_Asur]

You jest but we would probably need a lot of ball bearings somewhere in the production chain of paperclips.

[@QT5656]

Well played 👏 😂

[@123-p1n4i]

marvelous move intensifies

[@Cuckoorus]

Isaac doesn't know that management accounting is a thing and has been used to allocate resources long before sofistacated algorithms existed. He seems to have fallen into the propoganda mythology of markets with no examination of how businesses actually function.

[@thekingofcardboard]

Whenever I get into discussions about what the future will be like I always get responses like "we'll never be able to gene edit to that extent." Or "we'll never be able to put the human mind into a machine body." This channel says let's assume the things we can't do today because it's too difficult become possible, then go from there. The only limits are the laws of physics, but it's still grounded and realistic discussions.

[@mitchellslate1249]

Except there do become certain fundamental limits, and a lot do get ignored by scientists, while other lies, called theories, and limits are created that do not exist. Which is why Futurism is a Blind Art, and however it succeeds it may also fail quite heavily. Although I note heavy success in one way or another, it may not be exactly as you think it is. We cannot gene edit that heavily. A certain gene limit will be hit where incompatible and broken code sequences become used and too dangerous. The human mind cannot be put into a machine because then it would not be human, and it does not have a route for us to do so, especially when we cannot define the human mind. That is why FAI, False AI, as used today is not real intelligence, just new processing methods and techniques, and AI experts immediately admitted and fought the fact their definition of Intelligence for Google AI and other forms of processing was incorrect and not consistent with even good definitions of Human Intelligence. The way the machine is coded and programmed is too visible and clear to be lied to about, and human brain power is too obscure and mystical for us to ever understand what makes us a Human Intelligence or what it would look like if we could recreate or replicate it.

[@moonandstars1677]

People don't realize that it will be gene editing plus cybernetics. We're going to be biomachines. Why settle for machines that require high maintenance because they can't self repair? Build the ones that do.

[@chibiromano5631]

​@@moonandstars1677 or virtual bio machines.. we kinda saw something similar in 2020 with virtual conecrts and VR Chat. we kinda aer already there. biggest indicator is the whole 'meta'verse thing an. But I could see the retail industry being the first to make this trend. lowers transportation cost, lowers unkeep. Why travel to Paris.. and harm the planet with CO2 emmisions for a flight w/ 1 million other tourists..when you enjoy Paris from the comfort of your home and save $2000 and get the experience.. meet up w/ virtual Locals and other virtually tourists too! The coming Energy crisis will also amplify this. Then after that we will get gene editing and cybernetics.

[@mrhaze9450]

17:56 "Do you know what the trouble is? The trouble is Earth-on Earth there is no poverty, no crime, no war. You look out the window of Starfleet Headquarters and you see paradise. It's easy to be a saint in paradise, but the Maquis do not live in paradise. Out there in the demilitarized zone all the problems haven't been solved yet. Out there, there are no saints, just people-angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to survive, whether it meets with Federation approval or not." - Sisko ds9

[@joaogabreil2]

The Best Captain.

[@squirlmy]

That makes no sense except as an allegory. Because there's no place that has no poverty, crime nor war. That's all of Earth. So the eloquence of it impresses my ears, but in fact our real, present-day problem might be the opposite. Poverty crime and war are everywhere, and yet those who could change it are acting exactly like they are in a fictional "Federation" that does. The lines have an "Alice in Wonderland" quality. What Sisko says would be a really nice problem to have, in comparison to where we really are.

[@joaogabreil2]

@@squirlmy I think Jean-Paul Sartre said best in: "Hell is The Others, for we put in them ours expectations to act upon." Evil only exists when one observes it, when they see the clash between moral and imoral or ethical and unethical. If there is no clashes, there is no Saints or no Demons. If you are alone, truly alone... You are the Saint and the Demon.

[@Trollificusv2]

@@squirlmy You are aware that DS9 took place in the future, right?

[@squirlmy]

@@Trollificusv2 of course it's fiction, but the OP posted it in the context of the video, not DS9. And I don't think it's realistic even for a far-off future. Even in places of relative prosperity, ie the royal courts of Europe, we've seen deception, infidelity, disloyalty, corruption, etc. I guess that's my point. I don't think it is "easy to be a saint" anywhere, even in hypothetical "post-scarcity". Perhaps in childhood. But just add sex into the equation, good-bye sainthood.

[@anthonylipke7754]

I think it's optimistic to imagine that copyright holders are going to give up extensions

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Probably, though there is a renewal fee, but I'm mostly talking about technology and patent limits there, the entertainment was more the notion that folks would have easy access to thousands of years worth of entertainment. I think I probably should have stated that clearer.

[@andrewh2645]

Well copyright and intellectual property require leveraging the state/government power. That’s pretty hard to keep up between separate countries on earth. Adding light lag and the millions of new state entities we can expect in the future means that is gonna be really hard to enforce them in the future.

[@anthonylipke7754]

@@andrewh2645 I can imagine ways it could perpetuate it would certainly increase the likelihood if there's a cultural hegemony limiting diversification.

[@davemarx7856]

"In perpetuity" is my favorite contract term

[@DJRonnieG]

From 'Hyperion' in 2852 AD: “Who was Hitler?” I said. Tyrena smiled slightly. “An Old Earth politician who did some writing. Mein Kampf is still in print…*Transline renews the copyright every hundred and thirty-eight years.*” I could at least imagine select copyrights being renewed by decendant corporations such as Transline, a fictional future publisher headquartered in Tau Ceti Center.

[@billbadson7598]

2:57 Point-buy children is the most dystopic and terrifying social engineering system I can imagine.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Yeah, scary as heck but also, I suspect, a fairly likely scenario. I really do need to do an episode on Designer Babies and what it means for society in terms of new challenges but I figure it would generate a lot flame wars, even compared to today's topic.

[@adarian]

Point buy children in a post scarcity society would likely end up being the same or at least very similar build. You have high levels of technology so Str and Dex would not be highly desired as you just have machines do the heavy lifting and dexterity based tasks. Constitution would also be easily augmented with tech and medical advancements so not that desired. Wisdom Intelligence and Charisma would be the only stats people would want to increase. In D&D point buy terms you would have a bunch of 8 8 8 15 15 15 people at birth.

[@SirTorcharite]

@@adarian that sounds great to me personally

[@veejayroth]

I don't see the problem, tbh.

[@billbadson7598]

@@veejayroth Traits would have to be standardized to make "trait x" always worth "y points." We would have templates. It would lead to "builds" which is just a gamified way of saying "hard-coded genetic castes." We would find ideal builds for certain roles in society, which were mathematically most efficient, and lock ourselves into these builds. It would make us more and more like interchangeable parts in the machine of a superorganism. Problem 2: Nobody gets to choose their own traits. It's already sort of that way because you don't choose your parents, but imagine if your parents decided they were going to trade away YOUR good looks so you could get a job in engineering? Problem 3: Point-buy implies a point-limit. We would artificially limit the potential capability of Man by forcing us all to stay within a designated range of aptitude. You could theoretically raise the point-limit, but would it be fair after limiting the previous generation through some kind of government fiat/force?

[@rhuiah]

Great episode. So long as money is only good for things you 'want' rather than 'need' (i.e. food, medicine, education, etc. are 'too cheap to meter') then it removes much of the anxiety/etc. driving the hoarding of wealth, greatly diminishing its power and influence over society regardless what its called.

[@TrippLilley]

In my mind, the biggest flaw is that we use money, a single-dimensional metric, to measure and compare complex, multidimensional systems.

[@sidpomy]

I would argue that's one of its greatest strengths. It's flexible and dynamic enough to be applied to any system. Coupling a complex system with a complex multi-dimensional currency does not necessarily make it better. In the same way abstraction is used to facilitate computer programming, I see money as a way of abstracting the value of something in a way that's readily apparent and quantifiable.

[@lorenrealname1326]

@@sidpomy and then someone invents an alchemy/housing machine and all the gold/housing is worthless... which it always was, when it was in the imaginary realm outside of its utility context. Valuation has literally as many avenues as we can think of, but we're stuck in whichever ones are most conducive to establishment interests. The sale of beef has nothing to do with its cost, but it is much simpler to calculate.

[@sidpomy]

@@lorenrealname1326 I mean no offense, but I’m struggling to understand your point. The cost of producing something is never equivalent to its value to a consumer. Something may cost very little to produce, but require years of R&D to design. Likewise, it may not cost very much but the demand is so high that it outstrips the materials supply. This would self-correct by increasing the price, reducing demand to account for a now constrained resource.

[@hughmungusbungusfungus4618]

@@lorenrealname1326 Then the new valuation becomes the time required to produce something with the machine. It doesn't matter what token you use, since resources are scarce and human wants infinite, there has to be a way to balance one against the other and that is money. The establishment has no power over this process, as we've seen with the rise of crypto in the last 10 years. All that matters is that you have something I want and I have something you want. Money just makes that process easier.

[@onepangaean3018]

Using a scalar variable like money is preferable because it makes recourse allocation more efficient. A good explanation of this can be found in the last Chapter of Paul Cockshott's Towards A New Socialism where he argues for Labour Vouchers (which is scalar like regular money) against other Socialists that wanted to use rations which would be a multidimensional vector, as in the amount of Meat, Alcohol, Coffee beans etc each person gets are each their own vectors with their own dimensions, Kilos of Meat Centi Litres of alcohol, Grams of Coffee Beans etc.

[@alexgroot2508]

Given that the Star Trek Federation is written as a stand-in for a socialist system of economics, I reckon that the 'accumulation of things' Picard refers to is not necessarily money as such, but accumulating it for the sake of prestige, survival or to invest. Money seems to be just an administrative tool. If you can't invest it into buying land, private property or other such things, I reckon it'd be useless as anything else for that matter. This alone would likely be sufficient to change people's mindsets on money. If your paycheck covers all your living expenses and needs and you literally can't do much else with it, why bother accumulating for the sake of it? Duly note: Private property is anything that society needs that is privately owned. Everything you own that you yourself need is 'personal property.' Your house is personal property and would still be so under a socialist economy. Having a second home that you rent out as a landlord would be private property, and that would not be allowed under socialism and presumably not under the Federation either.

[@GrimSleepy]

I've said for years, our most valuable resources are: 1) Personal time. 2) Social interrelations. 3) Survival/comfort necessities.

[@matthewsteele5229]

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is basically this in reverse order.

[@GrimSleepy]

@@matthewsteele5229 I can see that being equally or more viable. I don't recall hearing of Maslow previously, thank you.

[@AgentForest]

I think what Picard meant was that people, when they are no longer at each others' throats competing for their very survival, no longer covet each other's things. If I want a beer, I wouldn't have to simp for some rich guy long enough for him to give me the resources to buy one, I wouldn't have to steal one, I wouldn't have to even MAKE one unless I wanted to as a hobby. I could just materialize one. It's not that human beings were artificially augmented at the brain level to make them not covet. They simply had no need for such feelings. Culturally, greed just sort of fell out of favor. It's not that mankind's brains had been altered to make us not greedy. We just had no survival need for continuing to be greedy. Capitalism requires and incentivizes us to live greedily. Post-scarcity society does not.

[@brianfallstrom2887]

I think it's more that, while you can have things you cherish and accumulate them over your lifetime, there's no more need to obsess over the accumulation *itself*. Since you can count on the Federation to provide for survival needs if you have misfortune, you do not have the need to stockpile resources against such misfortune, that can easily develop into hoarding behavior. If having a comfortable lifestyle is no longer dependent on amassing the wealth to continue that lifestyle for your expected lifespan, regardless of catastrophes that befall others, then there is no need to amass that wealth--only the things you specifically desire. (And getting rid of money is then necessary to keep people from developing a desire just to have more of the money itself--cf. Scrooge McDuck)

[@icaropereira3218]

Also people would not fight to be a billionaire on the Forbes list.

[@d0lph1n63]

I think what he means is that barriers like race, gender, health, age, or religious/martial preferences no longer dictates who is allowed access to what. Taking the segregation of neighborhoods in the US as a prime example predominantly minority neighborhoods are mostly devoid of the resources found in predominantly white to make them thrive by default as a result the people who live there have to struggle with things such as affordable housing or healthcare or access to clean drinking water or food; same with those in section 8 housing or on SNAP. What Picard is basically saying is all those means to discriminate has gone out the window. Look at what’s happening now housing and even rent is starting to become unaffordable to almost half the US population while the parties responsible are not only reporting record profits but not even contributing one cent towards their fellow Americans’ well-being. There are tons of people wanting to work but lack the funds or the means to get the education/training required to get hired. Plus discrimination is again part of the equation as certain groups get priority over others due to certain “things” beyond anyone’s ability to actually control. If I could shave 30 years of my life off and look the same way I did at age 21 I would do it in a heartbeat but I can’t!

[@coolioso808]

Well said, well put. Humans are system bound. We feed off the system incentives. If our system today incentivizes competitive self-interest, profit maximizing and cyclical consumption we will often feel pressured to act that way. If our system created a sustainable abundance of basic needs through technical efficiency we shouldn't have such strong 'greedy' tendencies. We would live more peacefully and sustainably. Doesn't mean we would eliminate conflict or tragedy. Accidents and problems would still occur. But we wouldn't have billions of people struggling to meet basic needs unnecessarily.

[@BI-11y_TheStormTrooper]

The federation did use money in several varities as in ; technology , rare metals and starship fuel also status . It's kinda like advanced bartering .

[@hithere5553]

Yes but the point was that no individual needed to do that to survive. Everyone could pursue their passions without financial pressures.

[@BI-11y_TheStormTrooper]

Voyager did and so did next generation and the og as well , as in technology for starship fuel ( which saved them ), or rare metals to get info out of ferengis that saved lives so yes it's just a different system . In their own economy it's status , with other races they primarily bartered .

[@jaythekid4728]

@@BI-11y_TheStormTrooper I think if you live within the federation money was not needed outside of really exclusive things. Think of it like the coins in John Wick where they represent a social contract than actual monetary value. Showing that you’re “in with the club” so to speak. But the federation uses money whenever they interact with a society that still uses money as a medium of exchange

[@TheScourge007]

This brings up an important point. The federation didn't use bartering or exchanges for most interactions or most needs. Those were limited circumstances that were the exception not the rule. And that's important when also talking about barter historically (one brief point this video falls into common and incorrect myths about the economic past). Barter is and has always been a specific and economically marginal transaction used when it's convenient and has never been the primary way in which resources in a society are distributed for all the obvious reasons (coincidence of wants, inconvenience of transport, etc). Most of human history, including large empires such as the Inca, Egypt, Rome, etc, whether folks had money or not, met most needs by a combination of subsistence production or centralized accumulation and distribution. For some examples: you need food to survive so most people are food producers in humanity's history due to the relatively low amounts of surplus produced per person. AKA they're feeding themselves by their own effort (typically in concert with the rest of the clan or village). Better run states would also take surplus and store it for the (inevitable) famines and redistribute it all without either barter or money. This two fold personal production/centralized distribution also went beyond food in many empires such as clothing, home building materials, tools, etc. Centrally planned economies were the primary way resources were accumulated then distributed in Egypt, Sumer, and the Inca empire with taxation primarily being a labor obligation. Exchange was only used for rarer luxuries and with people outside the polity. This is also true of most non-state based societies were exchange typically doesn't influence the majority of economic production but is sometimes used ritualistically in encounters with outsiders. All that being said, some state based societies were the originators of money as we know it (aka both a medium of exchange and a medium of accounts in economic terminology) and commodity based money that was sometimes (but not always) used didn't arise because of the inherent value and universality of the commodity, but because it was backed by military power and was used to help support that military. How it works is money (in whatever form) is produced by the state and given to soldiers. Those soldiers give the money to people they are taking good and services from noting that later they'll come back to reclaim the money in taxes. Thus money acts as a token to say you've already given up real resources to the armed men who came through, and after the taxes are collected the cycle can begin again. But of course if you manage to get money from other people you can pay your taxes without actually having given the state resources. This increases the importance of exchange in an economy from purely marginal with strangers to something you do even with fellow villagers. And producing for exchange rather than subsistence of community needs is one way (though not the only one) of encouraging more production, which states like because it means they have a larger surplus to draw on to field bigger and better armies and live more luxuriously. Plus the expanded exchange integrates different people across the territory in ways that raise the division of labor. And even people outside those states get in on the act since they begin to notice they can easily get resources from people within the state by just having then giving up these otherwise useless tokens. Why bother going through the risky business of raiding when trade is expanding? However for most states the natural resistance most people have to having exchange dominate their entire life means things like needing grain doles, highly controlled food prices, or secure land tenrue that kept most economic life for most people at the level of subsistence, gift economies (which is quite distinct from barter since it doesn't involve the coincidence of wants), or centralized planning. Merchants and cities saw increasing trends towards exchange but the true modern obsession with exchange doesn't really begin until you start seeing 1) polities with most people not being involved in food production and 2) states with few-to-no centralized distribution mechanisms. The Netherlands and even moreso England being the places this became a fixed part of life first. All of this comes down to a couple of cautionary points when thinking about money and exchange in the future. First, that things like indoctrination and mind control aren't really necessary to change people away from money driven societies. Really history shows all you need is a change in the social/economic context in which people live. The money-centered society is a recent invention on the scale of human history. Second, there is a spectrum of how important exchange/money is to a society not merely a binary yes/no. And that spectrum doesn't easily map on to more vs less productive societies. There are low-to-no money societies that outproduced their higher money use peers in many areas and this is even true in limited areas today. We see a global domination of money-using societies in our modern world today, but it's important to remember we have a sample size at the species level of 1 and a much more complex picture than "money is just human nature" when viewing history. For a start to further reading I'd highly recommend David Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years as a good intro to thinking about the complexities of money and it's relation to human societies.

[@yaldabaoth2]

@@hithere5553 Sure, if it's painting or writing novels. What if your passion is building space ships and you need a warp core? At some point, you WILL run into material limitations and then you either have a command economy or a capitalist economy. The Federation is a national socialist society. You either join them or you won't get anything from them and even IF you join, you need to assimilate your entire society to their standards and technology level before they start seeing you as equal. If you try to leave the Federation like the Maquis, you are an enemy of the state and will be hunted down. There is that famous quote from Quark, comparing the Federation to root beer. Look it up.

[@MatthewCampbell765]

2:25 For what it's worth, I'd argue you actually can blame a tool sometimes: Namely, the tool caused a problem by being poorly or unsafely designed. For example, a car with terrible breaks or poor steering controls can actually be blamed for causing a crash. Similarly, while there's the saying "guns don't kill people" you could probably (theoretically) design a gun that was unsafe to use and it might kill somebody

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Depends a bit on what we mean by 'blame', as we said, citing that extreme case with addictive drugs, the object certainly can heavily influence us.

[@matejlieskovsky9625]

I am certain our rules of the road include "a driver must adjust his driving to the conditions". Yes, if suddenly your breaks fail on a well maintained car you should not be blamed, but "poor steering controls" is no excuse.

[@iraholden3606]

@@matejlieskovsky9625 or a better example perhaps is aircraft design

[@Kamakiri711]

That is my problems with guns in a nutshell. Every tool, your body included, can be used to kill. Spears, axes, bows and arrows where also used in warfare, but in a nonviolent society they still have semi nonviolent uses, like in hunting for food. But the sword, oh the sword is designed and used only for people killing people. And guns (not counting hunting rifles, they are just better bows) are the modern equivalent of swords. Their only purpose is to kill people. So the argument that guns don't kill people, people do, and if there where no guns you would uses knifes etc. just rings utterly hollow to me. Kinda off topic...but, oh well...

[@onepangaean3018]

@@isaacarthurSFIA Late comment but just thought it be important enough that I'd hope you'd read it. At 6:33 you point out flaws with direct allocation / rationing and at 8:30 you say sometimes when people say without money you think they've just renamed money something else that is less flexible. If you search "Statistical Mechanics of Money Victor Yakovenko" you should see the laws of thermodynamics applied to money. Because of mathematical laws of exchange a certain distribution emerges, and so if you do not like that distribution you would have to not have those laws of exchange. So say people use vouchers instead of money, someone is payed in vouchers and then they use one of their vouchers to buy say an apple After that transaction that voucher expires so the laws of exchange are different and the earliest distribution would not emerge by itself. That's one reason why you may want something that is less flexible from one point of view, because then you are no longer bound to a certain thermodynamic distribution of wealth.

[@themanfromerf]

I like how Iain Banks handles this concept in his Culture series. Before the widespread adoption of money, your own personal capabilities and your reputation among your peers were the only currency that mattered. I think it's perfectly reasonable to speculate that we might return to such an economy of reputation and demonstrated competency, once energy and material are no longer scarce resources.

[@nabo1871]

It's hard to imagine an advanced moneyless society without letting go primitive institutions like the state, capital, classes and commodity production.

[@stellarrevolt3389]

Tru

[@horrificpleasantry9474]

Those aren't primitive, lol, they're inherent

[@nabo1871]

@@horrificpleasantry9474 Yeah, as well as royalty and slavery.

[@horrificpleasantry9474]

Yes. You'll never have society without those things. Only question is the form they take. That's why both commies and Anarcho capitalists are misguided and naive

[@stellarrevolt3389]

@@horrificpleasantry9474 we have had and can have society without things like state, capital, classes and commodity production. But people get mixed up on the definitions of these things. “Misguided and naive” is assuming a lot.

[@Chefkhev]

Achieving a post scarcity world society must include the devastation of competitive economic systems.

[@LoraxChannel]

Lol, eliminating money creates massive scarcity and near impossible limits on exchange, production, and distribution.

[@dymaxion3988]

I don’t disagree; but i don’t think the end of capitalism will lead to post scarcity, rather i think that post scarcity will lead to the end of capitalism. And actually, i don’t think it’ll be so clear cut of a division; people will carry on as normal as change continuously accumulates, and one day they’ll wake up and realize they haven’t had to pay for anything in a long time. And i think that process has already started: think of all the online services that you don’t have to directly pay for (youtube) or even involve any money changing hands in the name of profit at all (wikipedia). Lately some billboards in my area haven’t been occupied with ads all of the time, and rather than saying “your ad here” they put up literal pieces of artwork. Weird tangent, but seeing an abstract painting where i expect an ad always makes me think of the march towards post scarcity.

[@_KRYMZN_]

@@dymaxion3988I genuinely don’t think it’s possible to achieve post scarcity though capitalism. What’s the point in making sure everyone has access to everything they need when operating under a system that benefits me for providing it? I’m incentivised not to ensure that access, but to prolong and maintain your repeated need for access to it, thus sustaining myself. Post-scarcity can’t come while artificial scarcity remains profitable; the latter is just better long-term

[@KerbalFacile]

Even in the Culture, we can see characters making things of their own and valuing them, as well as the various entities of the society trading notoriety / fame and information for various opportunities, relationships and accesses.

[@MD-zm6sn]

The "Culture," huh?

[@neoquietus]

@@MD-zm6sn The Culture Series by Iain M Banks is mostly about a highly advanced, utopian, post scarcity society named "The Culture".

[@philipcollier4883]

I'm alway curious how "money" would work on a generation ship: resources are effectively finite if not dwindling. After hundreds if not thousands of years what kind of internal economy would evolve and would it persist after the ship got to its destination?

[@gender_nihilism]

in the Wayfarers series, many humans piled into a series of huge generation ships and set out into the stars where they happened to make first contact. more than 100 years later when most of the stories take place, the people of the Exodan fleet do not have money. most of them don't understand the concept. resources are controlled via a per-ship bureaucracy, and standard galactic credits aren't even minted on board any of the ships. their internal economy is based on trade, and value is largely subjective. in one instance, a child scared of the ship breaking apart gathers all her things to get enough trade to go to Mars. in another, a human descended from Exodans who left the fleet comes to them and attempts to pay for a meal in credits, and is simply given the meal for free. everyone has to work one rotation every few years cleaning the sewers, or they're not eligible for any other jobs. and payment for jobs is also done through trade: a common scheme is a shopkeeper gets an apprentice who works for two decades or so before being given the business as trade for their labor. I think there's a bit of idealism there, but it's hard to be a pessimist all the time.

[@UFBMusic]

I like how the subscribe and like bit came up when you were talking about living under the thumb of an all powerful AI.

[@shawnlinnell7547]

As a professional Christian theologian, thank you for your contextual reading of Paul's admonishment about the "love of money."

[@craigthebrute3262]

Who incited David to count the fighting men of Israel? (a) God did (2 Samuel 24: 1) (b) Satan did (I Chronicles 2 1:1) In that count how many fighting men were found in Israel? (a) Eight hundred thousand (2 Samuel 24:9) (b) One million, one hundred thousand (IChronicles 21:5) How many fighting men were found in Judah? (a) Five hundred thousand (2 Samuel 24:9) (b) Four hundred and seventy thousand (I Chronicles 21:5) God sent his prophet to threaten David with how many years of famine? (a) Seven (2 Samuel 24:13) (b) Three (I Chronicles 21:12) How old was Ahaziah when he began to rule over Jerusalem? (a) Twenty-two (2 Kings 8:26) (b) Forty-two (2 Chronicles 22:2) How old was Jehoiachin when he became king of Jerusalem? (a) Eighteen (2 Kings 24:8) (b) Eight (2 Chronicles 36:9) How long did he rule over Jerusalem? (a) Three months (2 Kings 24:8) (b) Three months and ten days (2 Chronicles 36:9) The chief of the mighty men of David lifted up his spear and killed how many men at one time? (a) Eight hundred (2 Samuel 23:8) (b) Three hundred (I Chronicles 11: 11) When did David bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem? Before defeating the Philistines or after? (a) After (2 Samuel 5 and 6) (b) Before (I Chronicles 13 and 14) How many pairs of clean animals did God tell Noah to take into the Ark? (a) Two (Genesis 6:19, 20) (b) Seven (Genesis 7:2). But despite this last instruction only two pairs went into the ark (Genesis 7:8-9) When David defeated the King of Zobah, how many horsemen did he capture? (a) One thousand and seven hundred (2 Samuel 8:4) (b) Seven thousand (I Chronicles 18:4) How many stalls for horses did Solomon have? (a) Forty thousand (I Kings 4:26) (b) Four thousand (2 chronicles 9:25) In what year of King Asa’s reign did Baasha, King of Israel die? (a) Twenty-sixth year (I Kings 15:33 - 16:8) (b) Still alive in the thirty-sixth year (2 Chronicles 16:1) How many overseers did Solomon appoint for the work of building the temple? (a) Three thousand six hundred (2 Chronicles 2:2) (b) Three thousand three hundred (I Kings 5:16) Solomon built a facility containing how many baths? (a) Two thousand (1 Kings 7:26) (b) Over three thousand (2 Chronicles 4:5) Of the Israelites who were freed from the Babylonian captivity, how many were the children of Pahrath-Moab? (a) Two thousand eight hundred and twelve (Ezra 2:6) (b) Two thousand eight hundred and eighteen (Nehemiah 7:11) How many were the children of Zattu? (a) Nine hundred and forty-five (Ezra 2:8) (b) Eight hundred and forty-five (Nehemiah 7:13) How many were the children of Azgad? (a) One thousand two hundred and twenty-two (Ezra 2:12) (b) Two thousand three hundred and twenty-two (Nehemiah 7:17) How many were the children of Adin? (a) Four hundred and fifty-four (Ezra 2:15) (b) Six hundred and fifty-five (Nehemiah 7:20) How many were the children of Hashum? (a) Two hundred and twenty-three (Ezra 2:19) (b) Three hundred and twenty-eight (Nehemiah 7:22) How many were the children of Bethel and Ai? (a) Two hundred and twenty-three (Ezra 2:28) (b) One hundred and twenty-three (Nehemiah 7:32) Ezra 2:64 and Nehemiah 7:66 agree that the total number of the whole assembly was 42,360. Yet the numbers do not add up to anything close. The totals obtained from each book is as follows: (a) 29,818 (Ezra) (b) 31,089 (Nehemiah)

[@DFPercush]

@@craigthebrute3262 And yet with all our technology we can't agree on how many people voted last year. Wonder how many versions of history there will be for that one. Although your first example is rather foundational, that's quite an important detail. The rest are certainly significant clerical disagreements, but I don't think the exact number of children somebody had fundamentally changes the overall message.

[@shawnlinnell7547]

@@craigthebrute3262 this is a long post, and a proper answer would literally be a book. Let me take the first two and address them in a very cursory way. 1st of all you are quoting from two different books. Those books are talking about the same events, but they are not written with the same purpose. As such, they highlight certain perspectives and without acknowledging their different functions it is easy to claim disagreement. When I say this I do not mean that they are in any way allegorical or figurative. The insistence that two accounts covering the same events do so in an identical way is a very Western mindset...but these are not Western European authors. Now to the question: In Samuel the focus of the story is God's relationship with David. It is a historical account, but it's not a history book, it's a relationship book. Satan is not a theme and the point of "God incited David" is to highlight that from David's perspective he was responding to the LORD'S anger. David's motivation had nothing to do with Satan, and the LORD'S "incitement" was not a purpose driven thing. The LORD was not anger for the purpose of incitement, but David responded to the LORD'S anger in this way. In Chronicles the perspective is different. It's a book written in hindsight. In hindsight we can see that David's response was really the Devil at work in his heart to purposefully incite David to respond to the LORD'S anger in this way. Those two accounts are consistent with each other. Relationships and motivations are complicated. The LORD was angry, to which David responded poorly, and in hindsight we see Satan at work to drive a wedge in that relationship. As to the difference in Count? That's actually explicitly accounted for in the text. 2 Chron. 21:6 states that Joab did not count the Levites or those from the tribe of Benjamin because he knew it was wrong and didn't want them to get caught up in it. So, the larger count is the total number of men, the small number is the count he gave to David.

[@craigthebrute3262]

@@DFPercush it is curious that the biblical God makes quite so many clerical disagreements

[@DFPercush]

@@craigthebrute3262 The only thing God wrote with His own hand was the original ten commandments that Moses threw on the ground.

[@Janoha17]

For people like Picard, an objects' value is placed in what it means to the owner emotionally, rather than how expensive it is. A lot like the Doctor Who episode "The Rings of Akhaten", where trade was being conducted through items with sentimental value.

[@MrEN0046]

I’ve known people rapidly heading towards a future without money. Usually there’s drugs and mental illness involved. Despite my best efforts they press boldly on. The future is now.

[@mbaxter22]

Great video - I had never considered how critical money is simply for organizing the allocation of resources. That’s not the main purpose of money, but it’s arguably the most important function it serves. We think of money as simply a way to facilitate transactions but it’s actually so much more.

[@ClassicMagicMan]

The concept of debt is extremely integral to most definitions of money, and I was surprised it was not touched on much here.

[@Cuckoorus]

I'm surprised all round at how badly this video is researched and the considerations given. This is right in my wheelhouse and its shocking how bad it is. I hope Isaacs other videos aren't this bad. They seem good from my lack of knowledge. But working in my wheelhouse on this vid, damn, he's way off of giving correct consideration.

[@ClassicMagicMan]

@@Cuckoorus Oh, I think Isaac's videos are invaluable, but even a genius isn't a genius on every topic. And "money" is a nebulous term, to be fair. @Cuckoorus would you, by chance, have a video in mind that would cover this topic in more adequate detail, and would you link that below, if you please?

[@bjornarsimonsen7592]

The Star Trek authors clearly hadn't thought very deeply about living in a moneyless society though and could be forgiven for making many mistakes, projecting their own experience and culture onto a vision of the future. Besides they also had to make things easier for the viewers who for the most part would have thought even less about it. Also, changing how people act isn't just a matter making them think differently through things like altering their genetics or indoctrinating them. Believing those are the only options is being ignorant of psychology, sociology and structuralism. Culture is humanity's replacement for animal instinct in that it tends to reflect the environment's demands for survival and ability to thrive. By changing the environment you alter the game and thus how the game is played. Experiments in game theory have shown that you can influence people's propensity for greed, sharing, cheating, trust and so on. You know, cause and effect, something people interested in physics should be aware of. That's not to imply human behavior is deterministic, but structures *do* influence things.

[@churblefurbles]

Culture reflects the genes, and games that don't propagate genes are worthless, which is the problem with fantasies like Trek.

[@bjornarsimonsen7592]

@@churblefurbles The thing about humans is our ability to adapt to environments (as well as changing them), which is what culture is so great for, as it is a dynamic, adaptable guide for navigating dynamic environments. So it's not genes-> culture but rather genes + environment -> culture -> environment + genes

[@andrewriker2192]

I agree. Parts of this video seem to ignore that modern society already features indoctrination. Though parenting, school, social pressure, and pop culture almost all humans on Earth have been pushed towards greed and selfishness. Especially in the US, but even abroad, our long history of greed exploiting greed in others has made the most greedy people the most powerful. It doesn’t have to be that way, enough people just have to stop believing that’s how the world works.

[@iraholden3606]

@@andrewriker2192 Yeah Isaac is unfortunately completely Fukuyama on these things

[@hughmungusbungusfungus4618]

@@andrewriker2192 Umm, no. Greed is the natural state of mankind. It is the natural feeling you get when you understand that resources are limited and your desires are unlimited. Most people find contentment with what they are capable of producing but that doesn't mean they stop wanting more. And this has been consistent with biological life on this planet since prehistory. To ignore this fact is naivety borne from your own lofty position in the world socioeconomic ladder.

[@live4twilight4ever]

Person: I want a solid gold house. Everyone else: Yeah that's not a great use of our gold. So no.

[@DFPercush]

Dubai has entered the chat.

[@LoraxChannel]

Your comment points out the massive problems in not having money - completly subjective opinions about use of resources, arbitrary and abusive asignment of ownership, and despotic political control over people's lives. Seems better to let people control the value they personally create and contribute, ie use money to asign value to people's contribution. Problem is, most people believe they contribute far more than they actually do, and even worse many believe the should have resources because giving them stuff for nothing is "fair". The last thing I want is to be a slave to morons who do nothing yet think they have value and should therefore take and assign the value I create because they believe stealing from me is "fair and right"

[@saladinbob]

The problem is people have forgotten what money is, what it was designed for. I need a table so I go to the carpenter and ask for a table to be made. But I don't have the resources necessary so I give him a token that can be used at the bakery to allow him to buy bread. The same token allows the baker to buy flour from the miller, which allows him to buy grain from the farmer, and so on and so forth. Unless a civilisation is comprised of omni-skilled labour no society can ever exist without money. Unfortunately Isaac is conflating economics with money.

[@dtphenom]

@ayy lmao What are the incentive for someone to be work in thankless jobs such as a landfill or sewer plant if they will receive the same amount as someone who works as a cashier?

[@AndrewManook]

@@dtphenom They don't need to work there, we can have robots do that.

[@ivoryas1696]

@saladinbob I thought the takeaway was that he didn't see it feasible to live without money, so if we had it, it would just not be needed to necessities. Was that not his takeaway here? Maybe I'm thinking of the post scarcity episode...

[@seanbrazell6147]

Oh how I wish there were many more Culture novels yet to be written and released! 😔

[@gerhardwasowski]

Well, I am working on an animated series about many futures that will probably happen (without greed, war and all that sh*t), but I am barely scratching the surface. Probably will take at least 2 years before releasing anything

[@FaustLimbusCompany]

@@gerhardwasowski Looking forward to it!

[@Trollificusv2]

I very seldom mourn, or feel much at all, when somebody dies and they were famous. Why am I supposed to care about them more because they were..."known"? Ian Banks was lost too early. A real loss, a tragedy. Mark Sandman. Ed Abbey. Zappa was only 53. I didn't care much for his "serious" compositions, but loved having such a straight thinker in the world. A small pantheon, with Banks prominent within it.

[@saxassoon]

AI overlords watching the deuterodollar collapse as everything converts to iron stars: 😐

[@larrybeckham6652]

I want you to know, @Isaac Arthur, that KZbin has notifying me of your new episdoes without fail . But when you go live, I get a notice just a bit too late to miss the beginning.

[@paulwilson269]

To be fair on Picard in star trek, he didn't say that nobody desired things, he said tha they weren't "obsessed" with it. So it does fit with the lore of star trek that people still wanted and desired things, they just weren't obsessed with acquiring them. And, you can think about the alien races as each having a failing of one of the sins. Klingons = Wrath, Ferengi = Greed, Cardassians = Pride, Romulans = Envy, Borg = Gluttony, Vulcans = Sloth. You might ask why vulcans are sloth. In the lore, the vulcans have stagnated as a society, they lack the drive that humans have. They are content to exist as they are. This is expressed in the lore that the vulcans are an old race that the humans have not just caught up with, but in the later series they actually surpass the vulcans dispute only being a warp capable species for a fraction of the time vulcans have. It can be seen that the vulcans are slothful in their technological and cultural development (and just look at how much value the vulcans out in their traditions).

[@soasertsus]

Really says a lot about modern neoliberal society that it's easier for some people to imagine literal interstellar empires, dyson spheres, and uploading their brains into a quantum computer to become immortal than it is to imagine a future without some form of capitalism. The ideological gaslighting we're constantly submerged in has clearly taken such a toll on the collective consciousness for so many people to be trapped in this mind prison. Mark Fisher continues to be proven correct about what he wrote in Capitalist Realism: "it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism."

[@djisolated4968]

It is worth imagining a post capitalist society. If our imagination stops at communism then we are truly creatively bankrupt.

[@aidanaldrich7795]

Whether or not capitalism ever dies depends on how you define "capitalism"

[@louiss.w1944]

Issac Arthur videos are perfect with a good snack and a couple bong rips

[@jhoughjr1]

upgrade to dab, less plant matter, more cannabinoids.

[@iLikeMyOwnPosts]

SBIA (Smoking Bongs with Isaac Arthur)

[@RhizometricReality]

Aayyyy lmfao 👽👽

[@louiss.w1944]

@@iLikeMyOwnPosts train by day Issac Arthur by night!

[@m.h.lockesteppe9834]

@@jhoughjr1 Less plant matter, more tar! Yay!

[@Kannot2023]

Soviet Union tried to abolish money, they couldn't. However in communist society it was hard to accumulate large sum of money legally. Because you couldn't flounder money, many people used university degrees to show off status. Many went to medical school because it was prestigious

[@thomaspalazzolo5902]

Congratulations to the new parents. Now before we sign the papers and get you home, would you like to re-roll your baby?

[@Willys-Wagon]

I think you did a great video on scarcity years ago. It is also touched upon here, where there is scarcity, there is a need for unit of exchange and accounting.

[@veejayroth]

There is an argument to be made that pre-money societies don't use barter, but exchange favours/debt instead. Barter as we know it is only used as a method of payment by groups of people that have at least some contact with standardised form of currency.

[@aidanaldrich7795]

How is barter "only used" by people with currency? Do you know what "barter" means?

[@alansun70]

It means. We'd lose a couple of things by getting rid or currency. There'd be no employment benefits or income without it.

[@TheNavalAviator]

From the preview I guess his conjecture is that in the future we'll be blowing flames over the counter to pay for the energy expenditure of the good or service in question.

[@jengleheimerschmitt7941]

You'll be blowing flamers under the Queensburo Bridge for $15 a man. Sorry, couldn't help it.

[@rupertgarcia]

@@jengleheimerschmitt7941, omfg! 😭🤣💀

[@atlas1173]

Happy SFIA day everyone! It appears this episode is about my own future lol

[@ianmcneely2446]

"Money is a sign of poverty." - Iain Banks

[@onepangaean3018]

Feel like The People's Republic of Walmart would be a relevant book on the topic from the proponent side

[@hithere5553]

Unfortunately Isaac seems to want to be non-political in an inherently political topic so it’s unlikely for him to ever bring up something like that.

[@spiffygonzales5160]

@@hithere5553 As he should. Let the comments section argue about that stuff. That being said I'd argue Walmart has enough money and power to be considered a political entity already xD

[@TheySchlendrian]

@@hithere5553 non-political meaning capitalist standard

[@kushluk777]

@@TheySchlendrian Yup, all the current scifi guys are cowards compared to bolder thinkers in the 50s and 60s.

[@Andrew-dx8sq]

To anyone who hasn't read it, the main idea is that the economic planning and personal data collection that Isaac warned us about is *literally what already happens*. This idea that we couldn't have, or wouldn't want something different ignores the fact that the current planning and data collection is completely un-democratic. I think a big part of the "cost" of shifting to democratically controlled planning and data collection, that isn't authoritarian, invasive, or micro-managing, is that either you have to over produce so much that you end up throwing a ton away (which also already happens), or that people have to start planning ahead with more of their consumption.

[@sebbychou]

I'm gonna have to admit I'm a little disappointed in the very first issue (the accounting problem) handwaving that money somehow solves the resource allocation conundrum without explaining how it somehow solves it better than de-centralizing the accounting would. "No money" doesn't mean "perfect allocation", it just means no money.

[@jacobklein8156]

There will always be a non infinite amount of desirable things, and therefore some method of allotting scarcity, whether private or communal, it does not matter.

[@S3dINS]

Finite.

[@aidanaldrich7795]

No. Human desire is infinite and inexhaustible unless we change the way our brains work

[@MarkusAldawn]

I'm glad you feel you can do topics that foray into slightly more touchy topics, like you said in the livestream. I imagine the comments won't be behaving perfectly, but it's nice to know that any dissgreeing going on is probably going on politely.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

:) I don't mind touchy topics, though I can't say I relish them either, my goal is to try to treat them fairly and encourage folks to be polite with each other, the livestream commentary is abridged, we don't like taking touchy questions live because it leaves more rooms for slip ups and misinterpretation, but it's shorthand for what the mods are told, "No questions that amount to 'Don't you think this political/religious group/idea is awesome/sucks?'" same as our Social Media Forums rules, we just abridge it down to "No politics/Religion" because they honestly are not encouraged topics because they almost always go flame war. However if someone asks "Do you think there's any special challenges to X in regard to technology/path Y?" I'm perfectly fine answering.

[@thedoruk6324]

I never noticed this is a *Star Trek* Week!

[@aurorathekitty7854]

The federation still use a credit system. If you watch ds9 sisko talks about using a month of transporter credits in his first week of star fleet academy going back home and having dinner with his dad. I don't know exact details on how it works.

[@thedoruk6324]

@@aurorathekitty7854 werent the so called federation credits only or exclusively used on outside their borders to trade with races and governments that still uses currency based economic systems thought

[@springbloom5940]

@@aurorathekitty7854 That has nothing to do with economy.

[@springbloom5940]

@@thedoruk6324 Correct

[@aurorathekitty7854]

@@thedoruk6324 Sisko father live in New Orleans and he went to the academy in San Francisco so idk how it worked. Plus alot of non federation species used ferengi currency gold pressed latium so idk how federation credits would work. My bess guess is the federation is a socialist democracy running in a post scarcity economy.

[@flamestoyershadowkill]

So we return to directly trading objects and having massive fetch quests

[@SangoProductions213]

See: How jellyfish became a universal exchange currency. Short story: You can't legally sell exotic / zoo animals for profit. So zoos just trade animals along with a relatively stable, small, and easy to upkeep animals like a particular jellyfish, in exchange for other animals. The need to exchange things is almost universal. Even something as simple as our time, for whatever purpose. We will need very extreme circumstances for there to be no need to exchange a thing. If, for example, literally no one needed anyone for anything else... that would be a very depressing civilization. But would not need trading, and thus, currency.

[@jonathanedwardgibson]

That is hardly a ‘universal’ currency as it is select resource essentially traded by cartels. I can’t ‘universally’ buy my groceries with the vital organs of endangered species. Money is a social lubricant.

[@SangoProductions213]

"See:" would imply there is something to see from searching the title. I did not say it was a universal currency.

[@adrikstepanov5307]

Actually, Federation is Star Trek (in the New Generation era) was explicitly against behavior motivated by profit. I.e. against what Ferengi did, and the Federation despised them for. Picard, angered because he had to talk with a "barbarian" that took him away from his duties, presented it as an "accumulation of things" while what he wanted to say is "we are not motivated by profit". Stockbroker obviously spoke about the profit he made from stocks he owned, which was explicitly against Federation beliefs. They even had money, the credits, which no one thought this way because they were offended by the concept of profit, not the concept of money. They clearly "accumulated things" and they did for some reason as Klingons, just like Worf owns a trophy that commemorates him as a great warrior, Picard has this book that also serves some purpose of a trophy just as well. This actually doesn't apply to the Picard TV series where everything changed and the Federation had present-day issues and mentality common for today, which includes greed and poverty.

[@Beamer1969]

So taxes and getting mugged are the same thing, sounds right to me.

[@DFPercush]

Mostly. A mugger doesn't typically go and buy something useless that you never asked for and try to give it back to you though. They also don't track you down if you fail to appear in their alley every two weeks. But they do spend your money in ways you probably wouldn't approve of.

[@dresdenstale2253]

Great episode. Love the way you avoid the discussion equating post-scarcity / socialism / and state run economy, but immediately accept it probably has to be that way. No judgement. I lean to socialism and I just wrapped up my own three part series on fantasy economics. As you said, it is a touch subject. Great thinking on the Seven Deadly Sins and trade offs that come with it. Going to have to give that some more thought.

[@grimreaper6557]

To use the Star Trek view once they developed the replicator capability money became unneeded as everything was avalible without the need for money

[@WiseOwl_1408]

Yes which is a fantasy and impossible

[@silent_stalker3687]

It does everything but prevents government eyes, or gets someone laid… unless they replicate six toys and bitcoins, or military power as people are needed for that.

[@fearoffema]

The whole Star Trek no money thing breaks down when you find out the officers get paid. Money just doesn't have the same influence or structure anymore

[@typehere6689]

Money? Sure. Materials, however....

[@jengleheimerschmitt7941]

Remodulating those dilithium crystals ain't free, buddy.

[@tomp6762]

Imagine an elo system for lawyers, and courts would randomly assign similarly ranked lawyers...

[@garethmartin6522]

This topic seems a bit outside of your bailiwick. It is not true that we cannot define money, in the absence of some anointed authority, because the question -presupposes the way the term has been used to describe actual structures in historical societies. It is not true that barter is the predecessor of money. Barter is something that is essentially a myth from colonialism, and has no real historical existence. The result of this is that you never really got to grips with what money is and does, and therefore how it could be replaced. Equally, appealing to supply and demand substitutes a slogan for analysis.

[@dale43211]

Here's my two cents: Money is not wealth. Money is an accounting system devised to keep track of who is entitled to how much wealth. Wealth is supply, money is about distribution. Whether you call it money or something else, I can't imagine a society that has no need for a system for distributing wealth.

[@horrificpleasantry9474]

I consider them the same category. Currency is simply how you're keeping track of who has the use of what. If you get rid of dollars, soon you'll be trading cigarettes and ammunition. Used to be cows. And whoever decides what to do with a thing is the one who owns it

[@vonwux]

It's hard not to imagine humans always having an inner Ferengi, at least to some extent. How else will we buy all that Kanar and Bloodwine I'm assured we will have in the future?

Rule #284: "Deep down, everyone's a Ferengi."

[@aaronmcdaniel7768]

20:24 Can you guess the political ideology of the person who made this graphic? You get one guess

[@HalNordmann]

There are always things people want to exchange with one another. And if you want to commence exchanges, some form of money is usually preferable over barter. QED

[@r3dp9]

1:32 Good on IA for emphasizing this often overlooked detail. 4:04 I would argue that one of the causes of modern societal woes is the opposite. A lack of gratitude for the mundane and average has resulted in a shortage of essential workers, and higher stress due to unrealistic expectations (which contributes to suicide.) 6:40 Sounds like a program that would wind up with a lot of bugs. 12:45 Militaries in wartime are a good example of 'moneyless' societies, where cash is uselessly unspendable. Even then, cigarettes and alcohol fill a very similar role as a trade good. 28:10 I should note that the most addictive institutions out there - gambling and video games - revolve around internal currencies. Even if a non-'monetary' system existed, people would still seek the accumulation of points, tokens, or a similar currency. To paraphrase the sci fi comic Schlock Mercenary: "I've seen society hit post-scarcity three times, and every time we found a new resource to fight over."

[@SenorGato237]

Yeah, Star Trek concept of the Federation civilization without money never really held water. That's why when they finally started cutting away from some of original directives for the show they made a more fleshed out universe that was able to reconcile things like "the Federation has no money" and "the Federation engages in trade with the Ferengi" to be more of "the citizens of the Federation have no internal money, and are post scarcity." I've wondered if it's the Federation as a whole, or only the richer, more prominent, worlds, like Earth, Vulcan, and Andor? I don't imagine the Tellurites giving up money as a concept. It's also not hard to imagine a post scarcity civilization where all needs are met, but there is still money. Deep Space Nine era Star Trek was the best at this fleshed out setting building.

[@alansun70]

There would be bad consequences to getting rid of currency. How would we have a job without it? How would people earn anything?

[@illudian]

This is why my favorite "money" is from a HFY story where their solar credit is locked to the amount of energy produced by a 1 m^2 of solar panel at a specific distance from a typical G type star. It makes sense in the fact that everything costs energy to make or do so you're basically paying for the energy to make it. It would work modern day too if we could get abundant power. A car takes a certain amount of energy to dig up the metals, refine them, transport them, build and so on so it would cost X amount of energy credits to purchase.

[@gnaskar]

You're making the classic error of ignoring externalities there. A lot of those processes produce waste matter (slag, Co2, etc). If your prices don't reflect the environmental cost of the thing produced, the system is going to underprice dirty processes.

[@illudian]

@@gnaskar we do that already. The only thing regulating that is laws in place that require them to reduce emissions. This in itself costs energy to clean up due to actual energy cost or materials.

[@Trepur349]

@@illudian He's not claiming our current system is perfect, he's pointing out that that system isn't actually any better than our current currency system

[@illudian]

@@Trepur349 in that terms no but it would be a universal currency who's value does not decrease and who's buying power is directly related to the energy needed to make said item plus some extra percent for profit. It also plays into human greed by incentivizing more energy efficient processes so you spend less to make more. With current policies that require them to maintain certain environmental constraints it would also incentivize cleaner processes as it would reduce their overhead by not having to pay for the energy requirements to clean up their pollutants. At least ideally

[@DFPercush]

I don't think energy as money would work. That would become a game of who's allowed to have the best real estate. Money is more of a measurement of human productivity. How many people were involved in making X and how long did it take. Automated processes are priced by levelized cost of the equipment over its lifetime, which at some point involved a human doing something to produce it. The other source of value is scarcity, in the case of raw materials, which also have some extraction and refining cost. Energy can be, and is currently, priced this way as well. If the only value is energy, what happens to janitors? Mops don't take batteries. Perhaps a bad example in a robotic future, but you can see how human effort doesn't necessarily equal thermodynamic energy throughput. I'm sure there will be low energy usage jobs and people wanting to be paid for them.

[@davidnelson7719]

In ST:DS9 Sisko's father "owns" a restaurant in New Orleans in the 24th century. So many parts of that scream, "there is still money."

[@HanakoSeishin]

How so? Money is not necessary for a restaurant to exist. Just in a post-scarcity economy a restaurant exists not as a means to making money, but because the owner enjoys running a restaurant.

[@willabyuberton818]

It goes back and forth. For what it's worth, I think the Federation does have a currency, most particularly for stuff that can't be replicated, but a lot of stuff is run by local community groups. If you want a building for your efforts, you'll do some scheduling and planning and talking and maybe some cajoling to get the old tenants out of the building. It also explains why so much of Earth is so conservative about old institutions... Not ideal, frankly, but also not terrible.

[@davidnelson7719]

@@HanakoSeishin You also need a supply chain, which means you need people that are fishing for free, or creating spices for free. Why not use a replicator? Because they have stated on multiple occasions on the show that replicated food does not taste as good as natural food. For that reason you would not want to use replicated ingredients. For the same reason, many people are going to still be in competition for natural ingredients. Currency is an accounting system for who needs what most urgently. Additionally, you still need to decide who gets to be in which building (location, size, etc.) Beyond that, there will be tons of competition for seats. Being able to beam yourself anywhere in the world is going to create a lot of competition to get seats at the best restaurants. Who gets to go? There will be people who want to run a restaurant for free... but that doesn't mean there will be enough to go around, and it doesn't mean that everyone who wants to run one for free will have the skills to provide said food. So again, what determines who gets space for a restaurant? Land isn't infinite, and yes, you could have a place in the middle of nowhere because of transporters, but who is operating the transporter hubs? People who have always had a love for beaming people? On ships there is always a specific tech (O'Brian) who does the job... seemingly because it isn't easy to automate. This problem balloons.

[@sobertillnoon]

You can just create a duplicate copy of Moby Dick with a transporter accident. Then you both have a first edition.

[@barryon8706]

What if one copy is evil? Where Ahab wins.

[@mcconkeyb]

Money is just the instrument of transfer in an economy of competition. Thus the only way to eliminate money is to eliminate competition. There have been numerous attempts at this and all have failed. But that doesn't mean that it can't be done, just that we haven't found a way to do it yet. :-)

[@bobsaggat]

I still wanna see "Alien Religions"

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I probably wouldn't do that episode since its even more likely to cause a flame war than today's topic, but out of curiosity, do you mean the topic of aliens who have religion or the topic of human religions based around aliens, e.g. Raelinism etc.

[@bobsaggat]

@@isaacarthurSFIA the former not the latter

[@DM_Curtis]

Without trading value for value, one is left with the political allocation of goods, and we know how well that goes.

[@I2yantheGreat]

They can't even stop trading it's a natural human instinct, even monkeys trade

[@lucidjar]

He touches on that briefly near the end, with the notion of an AI overlord that manages all such allocations.

[@scotteskridge7460]

Only 6 minutes in but your bringing up the intrinsic problem of centrally controlled economies like socialism vs capitalism. I have never figured out how people think the first is better than the second, without haveing a serious lack of understanding of history and economics.

[@bobologic6849]

You may or may not have noticed that in Star Trek: the next generation, That only Starfleet personnel have ‘unlimited’ Access to replicators. Even Federation colonists live a lot more primitive and limited existence is due to lack of materials and equipment. Take for example the colony where Dr. Beverly pressure grew up she lived in a friggin log cabin with stupid kerosene lamps. So even if they don’t have money there are still the haves and the have Nots and I suspect it has to do with the amount of military and or political power wielded by the individual

[@hithere5553]

Those are colonies though. Homesteading, if you will. The colonists accept the frontiersmen lifestyle before they ever leave their home world.

[@nick-hu1nx]

@@hithere5553 and seem to have some sort of idealism around it as well. there are likely many aesthetic decisions being made as much as practical ones.

[@churblefurbles]

The funny part about star trek is you see neither janitors or robots doing menial work. The primary problem with advanced economies is dysgenic fertility, the only thing that could possibly make it past the filter are space mormons.

[@shanelareau3907]

Jacque Fresco was a big proponent of a system such as this, a resource based economy. I love the idea.

[@AkhierDragonheart]

The whole idea of the economy of Gods and similar running on debts and favors is quite the popular one

[@velocityraptor7188]

I would love to see Issac and Peter interview each other. Topic: The "Science" of Markets vs. Systems Theory and NLRBE. Check out Natural Law Resource Based Economy and The New Human Rights Movement by Peter Joseph.

[@shubhashish7090]

please make a video on the future of social media both short term and long term

[@dansmith1661]

Never forget that enhanced humans are second class citizens in the Federation.

[@bobpeters61]

The argument that in a post-scarcity world virtue costs nothing might be seen to cheapen the virtuous behavior, but that can also be seen as a feature of post-scarcity rather than a drawback. If virtue costs one nothing, then there is less temptation to behave badly, leaving a net increase in virtue.

[@sayrebonifield4663]

Hard currency, redeemable for a fixed amount of electrical energy at specific facilities.

[@jonathanedwardgibson]

You can’t square this circle. Money is variable value depending on what we think and feel and not some nugget of core universal truth to pass around. It’s a social lubricant.

[@SebastianVik]

inflation? sure. Just make sure to adjust so that my food, electrical, medical and transportation costs the exact same percentage of my paycheck all the time. like the price of bread rising from 1 unit of currency to 2. if my paycheck is 100 and the price of bread goes up to 2, I now need to be paid 200. some system for relative value compared to all other essential wares must be in place of course. Oh and also, Fines should be relative to wealth, or not apply to people under a secific limit. A rich person today can "pay to break the law" with fines, while a poor person might as well be put in jail as fines for them are a punishment affecting their entire lives.

[@JulianDanzerHAL9001]

11:40 welcome back to obscure stock fotoage with isaac arthur

[@rickibristowe3458]

Money is a way to represent value. Its Abstract, Since all goods and services have a different value to people. Value of something might change with time, but it'll still have value. Without an abstract form of value. Trade and Exchange might be next to impossible. We were incredibly wise to create money. How we handle it is another issue all of itself.

[@jonathanedwardgibson]

Money allows too much abstraction. Granting distance between action and consequences … like pretending a new electric car saves the earth, when new vehicles poison hundreds of native communities and requires diesel at every stage of manufacture: hardly ‘saving the earth’. Better to stop driving, slow down and walk, stop pretending we are demigods. Money and my shiny iPhone has nothing to do with suicide rate and nets outside of factories to stop deaths. Allows all manner of actual, direct, torment and cruelty, for ‘abstract’ power far beyond physical need across history buy hiring middlemen desperate… for cash.

[@rickibristowe3458]

@@jonathanedwardgibson Way off topic

[@ThatCamel104]

Could we use human labor as a marker for value?

[@iraholden3606]

Might be worth looking into Value Form Theory as you are conflating multiple concepts with one undefined word... 'value' also claiming abstract value specifically (not the same thing as value or use value or exchange value) will always exist just makes your conception of value unfalsifiable so isn't scientific Then you say 'we' as if the average person or anybody does or should have control over the valuation of value. Current there is no 'we' in control of the function of value as we live in a mode of production called 'capitalism'. Which is a word coined by Anarchists Mutualist Proudhon to specify that the society is controlled by Capital (which is the valuation of value) not that that this non existing 'we' is in control of capital. Where you have capital dominant, it itself, not any humans, no states, no government institutions, no dictators, not even the billionaires themselves are in control of it, if they were it would be a planned economy but capitalism is instead always an unplanned economy, anarchy in production, not democracy or dictatorship over production

[@carsonprice5368]

Lol my future is already without money 🤙🏻😂

[@AnimeShinigami13]

Star Trek voyager managed to go the trading holodeck time and/or replicator rations route because they were a smaller community compared to a whole planet or a larger ship like the Enterprise, and electricity/power wasn't always plentiful enough.

[@andrewriker2192]

This definitely shows that citizens in the Federation understand what money is and how it works because when they’re in an environment of scarcity they can function using it.

[@AnimeShinigami13]

@@andrewriker2192 Not to mention they also swap favors and shifts!

[@dtphenom]

good episode! Really looking forward to the "Standing Out among Trillions" episode

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I just got done rendering it :)

[@CMacK1294]

If it's a tax, it's not voluntary. That would be governmental crowdfunding. Lmao

[@stephenw5628]

What a lot of people don't realise, is that money is not a by product of civilisation, rather that civilisation does not emerge until the advent of money

[@Dark_Jaguar]

I'd counter your argument that money can substitute an admission on what society wants more by just skipping that step and simply letting people vote on what projects they think are worth investing in. Turn industry into something mandate driven, and that mandate is selected by the voting base. We already do this in fact with a lot of things.

[@wedchidnaok1150]

19:45 subtitles: it's written "vices" where both the sound and the meaning is "virtues". ("and sloth< , > along with their polar opposite < virtues > is one example< ; > and we have many versions of that")

[@timogul]

I think if you had a post-money society, then it would just have to NEVER allow for "individual crazy requests." It would need to be based on "if we say it's ok for you to have this, then _everyone_ can have this." There would essentially be a list of items that anyone could have, and if they ask for it, they get it. If it's not on that list, then _no one_ can have it. There would be systems for new items to be added, and if you really wanted something not on the list, then you could make it yourself using other items, or you could petition for it to be added to the list, but you would need to convince whoever in charge that everyone should be able to get this thing, and that they can _afford_ to provide everyone this thing. Nobody could have a solid gold yacht unless it was determined that they could afford to give everyone such a yacht and that it made some sense to do so.

[@alansun70]

We'd have to revert back to bartering without it. What would be the motivation to work without it?

[@timogul]

@@alansun70 I think that a post-money society would only make sense if it was also a post-labor society, one in which nobody would _need_ you to work, because all the jobs were already being handled by machines. I agree that if you want to convince people to work, you would need to motivate them in some way. That wouldn't have to be "money" specifically, but money is certainly an efficient tool for that.

[@altargull]

sentient planets and world consciousness, makes me think of the Elemist's story

[@yokothespacewhale]

1:27 i think this is the first time I've heard you make biblical commentaries. of course it's about a mistranslation/misunderstanding.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

It's not common but not really rare either, I think I read the entire first chapter of Ecclesiastes off in one episode.

[@sidpomy]

I've seen probably 50% of Isaac's videos so far (working through them all) and I can say he has definitely made such references many times before. Usually as a comparison or supplemental allegory/metaphor - as I would expect from a great script writer.

[@mbaxter22]

You probably haven’t seen Isaac reference the Bible too often because this is a science and futurism channel. There simply isn’t much use for theological nonsense with this kind of content.

[@addisonmartin730]

All I want is a future without needing to pay for the basic things we need to live (home, water, food, clothing, communication, medicine).

[@jsgdk]

As long as we still have things to strive for that requires real competitiveness, talent and effort, else we end up with idiocracy. Messing with nature requires caution especially while we are all still stuck on this rock.

[@barryon8706]

Enough to keep everyone fed. And their children. And their children. And... Oh.

[@georgsgrants9925]

Everyone who desires to contribute to society should live a modestly comfortable life

[@MicahPotts]

Been saying this for years. No reason we should have to pay for items needed to SURVIVE

[@infanos3720]

@@MicahPotts then who is going to make the food if they don't get conpensated by their work?

[@zakleclaire1858]

I think you should have started out with the basic premise of what "money" is; a third good of exchange to simplify the trading of resources or commodities. Once specialization and diversification of labor came about, there has always been something that acted as durable "third good". For example, some Native American Nations utilized certain shells to denote certain values. If I was really good at making bows or arrows and another person was really good at making clothing or jewelry, we'd specialize and there would be a socially accepted value assigned to the each other those commodities. I could create X amount of arrows which would have the same value as a piece of jewelry or clothing but the person making those commodities I want may not want the commodities I produce. In that situation, I trade my produced commodity for X amount of shells which I then trade for the commodity I want. In essence, that is a "C" to "M" to "C" exchange, commodity to money to commodity. When we get into modern economic theory, the concept of "profit" is added, meaning if I had to exchange X shells to get the resources to produce my commodity, then I would exchange that commodity for more shells than I paid for the resources. That should be totally expected, the time and energy I put into the resource to turn it into a commodity is worth some amount of value. The problems come in when people realize that they don't actually have to produce their own commodity, all they have to do is use their shells to buy a commodity then turn around and resell that same commodity, without modification, for more shells. That is a M to C to M exchange and THAT is the fundamental problem with our moderm economic system and where the concept of a "moneyless society" comes from. Once money itself has become a commodity to be profited off of it is no longer serving its function as a durable third good of exchange. People making money by simply having money while not performing any societal beneficial labor is the problem and reason why there are calls for a "moneyless society".

[@Popeii1]

Star Trek S1 Ep25 "THE DEVIL IN THE DARK" Kirk told the miners they were going to be "Embarrassingly rich." Whatever the writer needs huh?

[@agalah408]

In the Jack Vance universe there was the SVU - The Standard Value Unit, used across multiple worlds. It was keyed to the amount of manual work one person can generally achieve in one hour.

[@RumoredAtmos]

So if you get upgrades to your body like cybernetics you get more money automatically because cause you can do more? Do you even have to work then?

[@the11382]

Congratulations! You just invented money.

[@agalah408]

@@RumoredAtmos I think that its complicated. To base a currency of exchange on an item that is plentiful in one land but scarce in another is always going to be fraught with problems. Yet even with human effort as a basis of currency, it would be difficult to equate a labour backed monetary value where one culture uses wheelbarrows and another uses front-end loaders. Despite the nice theories of monetisation in societies, lets face it, exchanges come down to supply and demand of commodities and who has the rights to manage and contain that supply. We only have to look at the shit-show surrounding the value and distribution of African diamonds to see that effect in action, where dealers lay a full title claim to any gems not yet unearthed. A citizen can dig up a diamond in their backyard and this is automatically deemed to be 'theft' by the merchant class.

[@AndrewManook]

@@the11382 Wrong, money is keyed towards how much value the manual work of one person was and that is subjective.

[@darkagerush3098]

I haven't finished the episode but I think the thing your enlightened civilization hypothetical is missing is the fact that you always have information from previous years. Computerized receipts for example for the vast majority of consumption are already present and expanding across commercial interactions. Depending on how much input and feedback the average person has planning could be directed to expand and adapt pretty dynamically. At this basic level the system would require successfully creating an ethic of avoiding needless consumption in the general population or at least a oversight system to cut down on casual waste but that is theoretically possible.

[@unintentionallydramatic]

I have waited for this episode since I subscribed back when this channel just had a couple thousand subscribers. Question: How about an episode: "Issac in the year 292x"?

[@TheDoorspook11c]

Post scarcity was the video that hooked me!

[@EliasMheart]

1mil sub video?^^ My start was the Upward Bound Playlist. Also informed my current choice of study (robotics). Really glad I found this channel :)

[@hithere5553]

If we get this whole aging nonsense fixed we’ll find out for ourselves.

[@unintentionallydramatic]

@@EliasMheart That's a really great idea!!

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

@@TheDoorspook11c That was the celebratory video for 10,000 subscribers, seems like forever ago :)

[@calvingreene90]

Money is a convenient reward that can go to whatever is needed but a well timed "Good job." Is often a greater reward than a month end bonus.

[@deathsyth8888]

I don't know about that. I'd take the bigger paycheck honestly. The bonus is the "good job" to me.

[@alansun70]

There are charities that use funds. How would we do fundraisers without currency?

[@ipyramid]

Going to make a prediction: The society with out money will still trade goods and services with a common value.

[@zohar9971]

That just money with minus steps

[@DailyFrankPeter]

Well you could theoretically imagine trade wouldn't need to exist if everyone was getting everything from the same provider, who was the most efficient at everything (for the sake of argument let's call it 'robot overlords' or 'Amazon' ;)).

[@RhizometricReality]

Value fetishization was a mistake

[@RhizometricReality]

@@DailyFrankPeter you should definitely read the book "People's Republic of Walmart"

[@keithedwards9953]

@@DailyFrankPeter yes, but it goes without saying that "overlords" of any kind is an incredibly dangerous thing. Cue the paperclip AI.