NOTE: use Perl; is on undef hiatus. You can read content, but you can't post it. More info will be forthcoming forthcomingly.
All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report
--Larry Wall in <199911192358.PAA24109@kiev.wall.org>
Did I say I expect Perl to do the right thing? :-)
--Larry Wall in <199911200217.SAA24898@kiev.wall.org>
Stories, comments, journals, and other submissions on use Perl; are Copyright 1998-2006, their respective owners.
Money is not bad... (Score:1)
The availability of a fungible storage mechanism for effort and energy within a collective is a massive boon. It acts as a major influence on efficiency.
If it wasn't so useful, it wouldn't be reimplemented over and over and over again.
Even Star Trek has _something_ related to money. The small glimpses we get into the lives of the non-government sector in Star Trek suggests that the ordinary populace doesn't get to just travel around anywhere they want. I have vague memories of energy limits being mentioned once or twice.
Clearly, SOME of the population isn't important enough for the central government to allocate them resources.
It becomes a civilisation in which no matter how much you want to, there will be things you just aren't allowed to do...
I wouldn't suggest a label for the form of government, but clearly there isn't universal plenty, is the whole "no money" thing is just a pipe dream.
Reply to This
Re: (Score:2)
Even Star Trek has _something_ related to money. The small glimpses we get into the lives of the non-government sector in Star Trek suggests that the ordinary populace doesn't get to just travel around anywhere they want. I have vague memories of energy limits being mentioned once or twice.
To be fair, I think that's a bit of a retcon that originated around the time DS9 started, possibly a little bit earlier. The early TNG episodes are pretty clear that "scarcity has been eliminated" and "there is no such thing as money," both of which are pretty much economically ridiculous. As you said, money is invented over and over again. If whatever we use for money now were eliminated (or, equivalently, all held by one person), something else would emerge as money.
J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
Re: (Score:1)
Eliminating scarcity is not just ridiculous but in fact impossible. In a finite universe, creating an abundance of some resource inevitably creates a dearth of complementary other resources.
Re: (Score:1)
That's certainly true even in the Star Trek universe: creating an abundance of perfect, godlike humans created a dearth of interesting stories.