Money!
You know what money is, don’t you? It’s the grease in the machinery of economics. It’s not necessarily why you work, although it is that for most folks, but it is what you work for, especially if you want to eat and need shelter from the elements. In one form or another, it is not just the basic standard of exchange in past and present human societies, it is the distillation of modern achievement and success, large or small, (excluding winning the lottery) into a fluid, economically flowing medium. It takes on many forms and allows the exchange of an individual’s work and production for any other commodity or service; it fuels security, compassion, and charity, and concomitantly lights the fires of criminal and corrupt behavior. The concept of “money" is many thousands of years old and it originated along with the necessity of tools and food, debt and barter, and exchange of services and food in early hunter/gatherer and agrarian cultures. In whatever form it takes, it represents the accumulated debt of others and is the “currency" of wealth and comfort; and unfortunately, it’s also the greatest fake out that humanity has ever devised and swallowed, and the great debt that it (we) have created must soon be repaid.
Money is a “fake out" because it obscures, depreciates, and even renders insignificant the actual, basic source of human wealth. Our wealth is not in the vast expanses of our cities, nor in the accumulations of debt and treasure that our governments hoard in banks and vaults, nor in accumulated bits and bytes of computer language, nor in the libraries and internet of our informational resources, nor even in the comfort of our supernatural beliefs, No, our wealth of long ago and our wealth of today lies in the rocks and minerals that compose the bones of our Earth, in the daily portion of radiant energy provided by the sun, in the eons of biological activity that built the stores of organic matter and life that we mine and use; and all of this culminates in the natural resources and environmental treasures that our Earth provides. We do not ignore this bounty, but it is so great and so ubiquitous that long ago, and even now, we consider the wealth of the Earth as the birthright of humanity, ours to use and exploit forever… However, even “forever" comes to an end someday, and the someday of modern human civilization doesn’t seem very far off at this point. In monetary terms we have, and are, accumulating a great debt against the renewable and nonrenewable natural resources of our planet.
True, we need the concept and structure of money in our societies to maintain civilization. But now, as our Earth is preparing to collect the debt that humanity has incurred against it in just a few short years, we must recognize that our true wealth resides in the finite storehouse that the Earth has accumulated over great deep time. This is our real wealth that must be understood, conserved, and managed, at least as well as we have conserved the wealth of nations, and hopefully much better, if we really, truly, want what humanity has created to persist and grow. And not to grow into the dead end of human numbers, concrete infrastructure, and competitive exploitation, but in understanding, exploration, and a compassionate mandate for humanity to live within its means.
Money developed to augment and then nearly replace barter. Most of us receive money for the work we do for others and we give money to those who do work for us. With the concentration of power comes the ability to coordinate or dictate the labor of others and to take a portion of their earnings in the accumulation of wealth.
as our Earth is preparing to collect the debt that humanity has incurred against itThere is no "Earth debt". You are anthropomorphizing a non-human object, the Earth. Humans extract minerals from the Earth. That does not mean we somehow owe the Earth something in return. Although, we do eventually give it back, albeit in a different location and highly transformed. Humans do not consume water either, we borrow it, use it, and then return it to the water cycle. So you can stop worrying about some kind of Earth water debt because it's all even Steven in the end.
even steven, yeah from god’s eternal perspective. Big poop, you ain’t said nothing.
even steven, yeah from god’s eternal perspective.Human water "consumption" is just a short term diversion of a tiny percentage of the water cycle. Sometimes we add some benign substances to the water, or even some dangerous pollutants. But we don't make the water dissappear. Virtually all of it returns to the water cycle. I call that even Steven in terms of mass flow of water, irrespective of Yahweh, Gaia, or whatever spirits folks have dreamed up.
If you don’t mind let’s bring this thread back on point.
A World Without Money Money, in some form, has been part of human history for at least the last 3,000 years. Before that time, it is assumed that a system of bartering was likely used. Bartering is a direct trade of goods and services - I'll give you a stone axe if you help me kill a mammoth - but such arrangements take time. You have to find someone who thinks an axe is a fair trade for having to face the 12-foot tusks on a beast that doesn't take kindly to being hunted. If that didn't work, you would have to alter the deal until someone agreed to the terms. One of the great achievements of money was increasing the speed at which business, whether mammoth slaying or monument building, could be done. Slowly, a type of prehistoric currency involving easily traded goods like animal skins, salt and weapons developed over the centuries. These traded goods served as the medium of exchange even though the unit values were still negotiable. This system of barter and trade spread across the world, and it still survives today on some parts of the globe. Asian Cutlery ... Read more: The History Of Money: From Barter To Banknotes | Investopedia http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/roots_of_money.asp#ixzz4FLDFvS48It is what it is. Like it, hate it, can't do without it. The living is in the balancing of the contradictions.
If you don’t mind let’s bring this thread back on point.The OP raised the issue of money for the purpose of saying it is not our real wealth, rather, that the Earth is our real wealth, and there is somehow an Earth debt due to be paid, and that building things out of concrete apparently increases that debt in a dead end process. I do not think we are somehow in debt to the Earth, plus we do return much of what we use to the natural cycles of the Earth, and I like concrete infrastructure.
The main type of money mankind has used has been the cowry sea shell from the tip of India. Going back into pre-history. These shells have been found in the pyramids of Egypt and were the main currency of many countries and favored over gold in many areas until the seventeenth century. Last record use of the shells was in Africa in 1960.
Once the earth was domesticized, it is very possible that modern man was also domesticized. We do know that most of the animals that benefit us are domesticated. Along with all the fruit, nuts, grains and vegetables. Then the pre-history stories passed down say that the reason modern man was domesticated was to be able to work the earth.
Point being, like it or not, we may be here today because we were domesticized to take care of the earth. Money is just a form of power. We can use this power to eat, have fun and do good as well as bad things.
MikeYohe - Point being, like it or not, we may be here today because we were domesticized to take care of the earth.What? Somehow humans are here because we were domesticated like lower species and our purpose is to somehow take care of the Earth? Who domesticated us, space aliens? Why would the Earth need to be taken care of by us? Wasn't it doing just fine for about 4 billion years before humans showed up? Very strange...
Stardusty Psyche, interesting pseudonym,
“There is no “Earth debt". You are anthropomorphizing a non-human object, the Earth."
The “debt" we owe to the Earth is not like a human debt, it is a figurative debt. When you take something from a fellow human, it is either stolen, borrowed, bought, or a gift. A gift you do not have to pay back, it is “free" to you through the generosity of your fellow human being. When you take from the Earth, it may seem like a gift as there is no obvious payback required, and as you point out the Earth is not human so it can not arrest you or demand return or payment, but like the “gift" of milk and meat from a cow, there is a limit as to what the Earth can give. or if you prefer to avoid figurative speech, Earth will let us take and take until she can give no more, and then the husk that is left will hopefully still be able to regenerate life in our absence.
“Humans extract minerals from the Earth. That does not mean we somehow owe the Earth something in return. Although, we do eventually give it back, albeit in a different location and highly transformed."
The Earth supports the plants and animals, including humans, that have occupied its surface through ages of evolution, and every species of life takes something from the Earth and returns something back to the Earth. However, humans are vastly different than all other life. We don’t give it back, we sequester it in forms unavailable to life, and adding insult to injury, we extract substance, change it into forms not only unavailable to life but also dangerous and often lethal to ourselves and other life forms, and this does create a great “debt” to all life on Earth. To use analogous language we not only do not “pay" the Earth back for the loan of the substance we use, we also “steal" much more substance than we can biologically use, pull it out of the circle of life and discard it ways detrimental to ourselves and all other life as well. So do we “owe" the Earth, and the life on Earth something in return for our existence? You bet your bippy we do, and the Earth will extract “payment" from us, no question about that.
“Humans do not consume water either, we borrow it, use it, and then return it to the water cycle. So you can stop worrying about some kind of Earth water debt because it’s all even Steven in the end."
Yep, “Even Steven", waters is water, no harm done, that’s kind of like looking at the wreck of an airplane in a city and saying “it’s all still there, just changed a little, no problem". We do just use it and then recycled it and we could probably get away with that for quite some time. But we don’t return it unchanged, and a list of the added pollutants and the negative changes in the natural cycles of life on Earth that our use of water creates would take many pages, but our use of water is one of our greatest problems.
Yep, “Even Steven", waters is water, no harm done, that’s kind of like looking at the wreck of an airplane in a city and saying “it’s all still there, just changed a little, no problem". We do just use it and then recycled it and we could probably get away with that for quite some time. But we don’t return it unchanged, and a list of the added pollutants and the negative changes in the natural cycles of life on Earth that our use of water creates would take many pages, but our use of water is one of our greatest problems.Exactly. The number of people already suffering from water shortages is staggering. Water Scarcity | International Decade for Action]
Water scarcity already affects every continent. Around 1.2 billion people, or almost one-fifth of the world's population, live in areas of physical scarcity, and 500 million people are approaching this situation. Another 1.6 billion people, or almost one quarter of the world's population, face economic water shortage (where countries lack the necessary infrastructure to take water from rivers and aquifers). Water scarcity is among the main problems to be faced by many societies and the World in the XXIst century. Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century, and, although there is no global water scarcity as such, an increasing number of regions are chronically short of water. Water scarcity is both a natural and a human-made phenomenon. There is enough freshwater on the planet for seven billion people but it is distributed unevenly and too much of it is wasted, polluted and unsustainably managed.This is a growing problem.
Money developed to augment and then nearly replace barter. Most of us receive money for the work we do for others and we give money to those who do work for us. With the concentration of power comes the ability to coordinate or dictate the labor of others and to take a portion of their earnings in the accumulation of wealth.That's right, and because the earth and its atmosphere is a closed system, no water can ever be lost. The idea that we owe the earth for the minerals we have extracted from it is one of the most bizarre propositions I have ever heard. Loisas our Earth is preparing to collect the debt that humanity has incurred against itThere is no "Earth debt". You are anthropomorphizing a non-human object, the Earth. Humans extract minerals from the Earth. That does not mean we somehow owe the Earth something in return. Although, we do eventually give it back, albeit in a different location and highly transformed. Humans do not consume water either, we borrow it, use it, and then return it to the water cycle. So you can stop worrying about some kind of Earth water debt because it's all even Steven in the end.
Yep, “Even Steven", waters is water, no harm done, that’s kind of like looking at the wreck of an airplane in a city and saying “it’s all still there, just changed a little, no problem". We do just use it and then recycled it and we could probably get away with that for quite some time. But we don’t return it unchanged, and a list of the added pollutants and the negative changes in the natural cycles of life on Earth that our use of water creates would take many pages, but our use of water is one of our greatest problems.Exactly. The number of people already suffering from water shortages is staggering. Water Scarcity | International Decade for Action]
Water scarcity already affects every continent. Around 1.2 billion people, or almost one-fifth of the world's population, live in areas of physical scarcity, and 500 million people are approaching this situation. Another 1.6 billion people, or almost one quarter of the world's population, face economic water shortage (where countries lack the necessary infrastructure to take water from rivers and aquifers). Water scarcity is among the main problems to be faced by many societies and the World in the XXIst century. Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century, and, although there is no global water scarcity as such, an increasing number of regions are chronically short of water. Water scarcity is both a natural and a human-made phenomenon. There is enough freshwater on the planet for seven billion people but it is distributed unevenly and too much of it is wasted, polluted and unsustainably managed.This is a growing problem. It's a problem because there are too many people living on the earth at the same time. This means people will migrate to places with little water. The earth came into being with enough water to sustain certain levels of plant and animal life. It is overpopulation that is causing the problems. We cannot manufacture more water. We have as much water as we have ever had and that we are are ever going to have. That's all there is. We won't get any more. We can try to redistribute it but we can't increase it. Redistribution is only a temporary solution. The only thing that will save most humans on earth is a massive drop in population. Otherwise all animals, including humans, will face mass starvation. There is no way around this incontrovertible fact of life regarding the earth. If humans don't reduce their numbers by slowing their reproduction, mass starvation will do it instead. Which would be worse?
Dusty, nature verses domesticated. When the earth was all natural it was not a nice place for mankind. In the Age of Domestication the Gods (people of knowledge) created earth for mankind. For example 90% of the protein we eat today comes from items that were domesticated in the Age of Domestication. The potato and corn are exceptions. Take the chicken for example. A tree bird from Vietnam and look what domestication did? Cotton, same thing. Watermelon small melon from Africa until domestication. The Gods basically created earth for mankind. Now look at the animals, dogs, cows and horses just to name a few are different in a lot of ways from the wild stock they were domesticated from. Humans are animals too. So could they have been domesticated? It seems that items that were domesticated were done for a reason. Did the Gods have a reason to domestic man? According to pre-history stories passed down, mankind was not designed for farming in the natural state. It seemed that digging and maintaining the farming canals were hurting the backs of the workers. To solve the problem the people of knowledge (the Gods) set about creating workers for different tasks. The same thing that was done with dogs, cows and horses. Now are these pre-history stories facts. No, not at this time. Have the stories been disproven. No, not at all. But more and more opposition stories are not holding water. For example, white skin people. Formed from lack of vitamin D in Northern Europe. Now has been proven not true. The white skin people just appeared eight thousand years ago and not form Northern Europe. Same with the dogs, it was believed that half the breeds were domesticated in Europe. Turns out to be not true. So to answer your question, “Who domesticated us, space aliens?" the answer would be no. Who domesticated us was the same people who domesticated most of the other farm animals we know. “Why would the Earth need to be taken care of by us?" I would guess only the domesticated parts of the earth would need to be taken care of by us. But today that is most of the earth. “Wasn’t it doing just fine for about 4 billion years before humans showed up?" I totally agree. I have read that today’s humans would go extinct if they had to live in the world before domestication. We do not have what it takes to survive without modern technology. And I would have to agree.MikeYohe - Point being, like it or not, we may be here today because we were domesticized to take care of the earth.What? Somehow humans are here because we were domesticated like lower species and our purpose is to somehow take care of the Earth? Who domesticated us, space aliens? Why would the Earth need to be taken care of by us? Wasn't it doing just fine for about 4 billion years before humans showed up? Very strange...
Dusty, I forgot to answer part of your post.
Somehow humans are here because we were domesticated like lower species and our purpose is to somehow take care of the Earth?
Charles Darwin agreed that when animals were domesticated they were not as smart as the original animal in the wild. So do you think that would make us a lower species? I think that when mankind stopped moving, he had to take care of the earth where he was located.
In the Age of Domestication the Gods (people of knowledge) created earth for mankindThere goes Mike again, redefining words to fit his narrative. I learned in one of my astronomy classes that Earth formed out of a giant cloud of gas and dust long before there were any "people of knowledge" around.
That's right, and because the earth and its atmosphere is a closed system, no water can ever be lost. LoisThe Earth is not a closed system.