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The huge claim is the present tense, "has the ability". It's not a huge claim to say that humanity has the potential to one day transcend money, but that wasn't the claim. Humanity has a long road before that's possible, it does not presently have the ability to continue to function if we just snapped our fingers tomorrow and eliminated money.
An "ability" is not a vague notion bolstered by historical curiosities. An "ability" involves a detailed, immediately actionable plan that can be implemented in the modern economic landscape without destroying crucial productivity.
Resources have to be allocated. People need to accept the resource allocation method in order to contribute their labor to do things that must be done. Money is an imperfect solution. Eliminating money leads to reinventing it (e.g. "energy credits"), reverting to less efficient models (e.g. barter), developing a central planning body that replaces wealth corruption with administrative corruption, or widespread social loafing where nothing gets done.
Without an actual plan of implementation that gains the trust of the workers, there is no "ability", merely aspiration.
I disagree with a few points you bring up, but beyond those, it sounds like your biggest problem with my statement is in the semantics. I don't find that to be very useful when obviously the logistics of such a system are complicated enough to warrant a whole doctorate degree. Comments on social media between strangers with no verifiable education isn't really the place to harp on precise wording and definitions. I think it's possible for humanity to coordinate without money. Is that better? Or do you still disagree?
Semantics are how we communicate ideas. If you change the semantic content, you change the idea.
Depends on what you mean by possible. At some point in the remote future? Sure, I agree. At the present time? I disagree. We're not there yet, and you can't just snap your fingers and change the fundamental beliefs, and logistics administration, of 8 billion people overnight. Best case scenario that's a multi-generational endeavor.
We can get there one day, we can't outlaw money tomorrow.
Words are how we communicate ideas, and words are messy and can mean different things in different cultures and contexts (and a lot of times people use them incorrectly). Semantics matter in science and academia when you're trying to be precise for the historical record so things don't get misinterpreted by people who usually don't have the ability to ask you what you mean by "has the ability" or "humanity". A very broad statement I might add. Too broad of a statement for most academic literature.
An early step in the process of ending our reliance on money is broadly accepting that it isn't a necessity. I never claimed that that kind of global shift would happen overnight, and I don't find it useful to use that kind of prescription to undermine the concept unless your goal is solely to undermine the concept.
Semantics matter in every attempt at communicating information.
If I say humans "have the ability to fly", it is important to specify that I mean they have the potential to secure the means to fly, not that they can actually fly themselves. That difference in meaning is the difference between a person booking a flight, and jumping off a roof to their surprised death.
A much more important early step is securing an alternative to money. Money is not really the problem, it's just a framework for resource allocation. Any other framework is going to have its own vulnerabilities, like the administrative corruption in central planning, or the kludginess of barter, or the social loafing of spontaneous cooperation. And none of those alternative frameworks prevent unofficial currencies from popping up.
Ignoring these issues doesn't make them go away, and wanting to address them at the outset does not undermine the concept, any more than acknowledging that humans cannot naturally fly undermines the development of aircraft.
Again, context matters. If someone reads an internet comment that says "humans have the ability to fly" and proceeds to jump off a building, that's on them. Doesn't change the veracity of the statement. If you would like to question how the statement was true, hopefully the commenter would be willing to elaborate with some examples (like how I sent you a list of economic theories that don't involve money). The people who thought that humans could fly went to work inventing things to make it true. The people who didn't think that were eventually proven wrong.
Also again, a full economic theory is way too complicated to get into the details in this context. I can say that my favorite theory is a library economy, but I would rather those logistics be discussed in a time and place with people that were positioned to make it happen.
But yes, I do believe that money is the biggest problem. I think it leads to more corruption than most other frameworks for resource allocation.
And I responded by pointing out that all those systems which could be implemented today reduce to barter, central planning, incentiveless systems that result in social loafing, or reinventing money with extra steps (e.g. energy certificates, local currencies, etc.). The others require some significant material change to function (e.g. near universal automation).
The vast majority of them invented things that did not make it true, and many of them died testing those inventions. I'm not saying we can't develop a moneyless society, but I don't think that's something you can flippantly say we have "the ability" to do, when our current state of development is more like Icarus than the Wright Brothers.
That's exactly the source of my disagreement. Trivializing the work left to be done does nothing but encourage people to jump off buildings en masse with cardboard wings.
I disagree. Central planning is extremely vulnerable to corruption, mutualism is extremely vulnerable to corruption, barter is extremely vulnerable to corruption, none of the alternatives listed prevent black market currencies, which are extremely vulnerable to corruption. Yes, money has flaws, but if none of the available alternatives are less flawed, then disposing of money accomplishes nothing of importance.
The effort still required to make any alternative viable cannot be trivialized. The flaws of alternatives cannot be trivialized. It's not enough to have an idea, that idea actually has to work in the real world. I have the same goal as your, but trivializing the difficulties involved does not help.
We have to decide we want to do it before we can figure out how to do it. If we allow the current trend to continue, we'll never get the opportunity to try out any of those alternatives. There is a definitive plan to live in a stateless classless moneyless society, it's called socialism. It has an express goal of moving beyond a moneyed system. Focusing on how long and complicated the path could be is a great way to keep people disinterested in making any change whatsoever. I'm not saying you need to hide that part of it, but the way to inspire change is by keeping focus on what the goal is, and making it seem like it's possible because it is.
Also it's very easy to just say "____ is extremely vulnerable to corruption" to dismiss the whole idea, but you're also just doing the same generalization I did but in a negative direction. Well money is extremely vulnerable to corruption and we have more evidence of that than most any other system.
Agreed. But that's "should" language, not "can" language.
The last time something called socialism got widespread, it too succumbed to horrible corruption.
Ignoring how long and complicated the path to aircraft could be is a great way to get people jumping off buildings with cardboard wings.
The Incan economy isn't going to painlessly scale to a globalized society. Pretending that it's a rational alternative just makes you look foolish, which does more to hinder progress than soberly acknowledging the difficulty of the problem.
Yes. Every system of resource and labor allocation is vulnerable to corruption. Some people are greedy, and no matter what system you devise to allocate resources and labor duties, some people will figure out how to manipulate it for personal advantage.
You claim to want the same outcomes as me, but your method of naysaying and picking at every detail will mostly lead to people disengaging with the conversation entirely. That's actively harmful to the movement's progress.
Ignoring the most basic attention to detail is much worse than over-attention to detail. While they deserve consideration, optics are secondary to functionality. The most popular plan in the world is useless if it doesn't actually function.
Engagement is nothing without substance. You're putting the cart before the horse.
You are well beyond "most basic", and also I disagree. Over-attention to detail is a very easy way to make nothing happen at all, which is currently killing people. I'm not the person who's going to map out a detailed plan to get to that society, nor do I think an internet comment section is the place to do that. Especially when what we're talking about is global revolution which absolutely necessitates broad engagement with many many people who don't know all the details and really don't need to. This is a very appropriate context to be talking in broad strokes. And if you want to wait for some perfect plan with every detail in exactly the right place, you'll be waiting until the heat death of the universe.
No, I'm not. You've provided nothing except some vague allusions to libraries and the Incas. That is not even the most basic level of detail.
Under-attention is a very easy way to make things worse in your recklessness. You think people are dying now, what do you think of going to happen when the entire global economic system is plunged into chaos?
And who is disengaged when discussing details? You think someone like that it's going to be useful at all in a revolution? Under-attention will scare off practical detail oriented people in exchange for the vague approval of lazy dullards. Lazy dullards are not useful to the cause at this stage. Practical detail oriented people are. Under-attention hurts more than over-attention.
If a worldwide network of like-minded people of various specialties and expertise isn't the place, where is?
You're still putting the cart before the horse. Engagement isn't enough, you actually have to have the plan first before you worry about engagement. I see no plan. You can't have a successful global revolution without a plan, no matter how much engagement you have.
You're not taking in broad strokes, "Money bad" isn't useful engagement. You have to pair that with what's good, or you look like a foolish child with cardboard wings.
Again, not talking about a perfect plan, just a plan. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be practical. "Money bad" is not a plan, "the Incas" is not a plan. I'm not going to encourage jumping off the roof base on stitch vague notions, and I won't sit by while fools do.
Figure out what the replacement is before you dismantle the global economy.
We have to agree "money bad" before making a plan to move beyond it.
My talking about about the Incas and different non-monetary systems isn't me trying to make a plan, it's trying to show the possibility of the concept.
We're never going to pull off a revolution without numbers. And only giving air to the "practical detail oriented" people while name calling the rest is a great way to make sure you never get those numbers.
And yes, there is a plan that I did mention, socialism. But that's not how you phrased your initial engagement with my comment.
Yes, but that's not the thing you said that I disagree with:
Replace "ability" with "potential" and I agree with you, but as written this is misleading. It assumes the planning has concluded, and a new system is ready to be implemented. This is not the case.
Either "socialism" refers specifically to the USSR's plan, in which case we've seen that fall to corruption, or it refers to a more general concept, in which case that's more of an ideology than a plan. At best it's a general roadmap, but it's not policy by a mile.
Socialism is not immune to corruption. No matter what system you use, people will find the loopholes and vulnerabilities and blind spots. You're just trading billionaires for bureaucrats. Even in a direct democracy, they'll start podcasts to sway public opinion. They'll steal from library economies, they'll loaf in spontaneous mutualism.
You cannot eliminate this element, you can only change its form.
If you're asking what I think the best way forward is, please just ask that from the beginning. My answer might've been that I've been working with the PSL and think they have a pretty good idea of a socialist America. Instead we're bickering over the definition of "ability".
Otherwise, you're just arguing for the status quo that everyone hates.