What would happen if every person in the world were given 250 million dollars tomorrow?

Nope, I would beat you out. I would buy acres and acres of land with water and mineral rights. Whatever is left out there-I would buy it. There is only so much land and no way of making more unless we rocket off to destroy another planet.

If everyone could buy everything they wanted or needed, what do you think would bring happiness? If having good healthcare, good water, good food, good shelter was just like breathing air- you could have what you needed for life- what would become valuable to you?

That sounds like a good idea. One could live just off the interest. I think we would all go for something we want that we have never had and to go for financial security so that we can pay bills and be able to access what we needed for a healthy life. So invest somehow to keep an income coming and then donate to better off our world and health.

A barter system does have its merrit

Money. We created it. We built a world upon its use. In doing so we became a slave to it. In doing so we completely devalued the earth and ourselves. It is destroying us. How can a system be created that values what is actually worth everything?

Nothing would change except for significant devaluation of the currency. There has to be a difference in value to stimulate economic principles.

If prices were not allowed to rise with decreased supply and the buying power of each individual remained the same? What would happen then? And we have significant devaluation of currency now. Where does it cap off? We are on a one way road headed for a cliff. Trillions of dollars here. Trillions of dollars there. Massive debt. Massive unrest. Massive unhappiness, pain, violence, starvation. Massive destruction of the earth.

What kind of economic principles would provide for a sustaining world, renewing resources, limited disease, prosperity and health? Money has become the currency of life while being the currency of our extinction.

Essentially money would be worthless, it's been going in that direction ever since we went off the gold standard and went onto the government honor standard.

Exactly. Right now the price of something increases every year. Things are 25 x more costly than 50 years ago. In another 50 years, things will be 50 x more costly. In another 50 years things will be 100 times more costly. (not exactly correct statistics- but examples to make a point)

So we have two choices:1) We can continue as we are now. The amount of money needed to buy the same item will continue to increase and increase to where? Where do we think we are going to go with this? How long can we sustain a world on money as we are now? Money is becoming more and more worthless while our environment is being destroyed, people are starving and dying. We are on a path which cannot be sustained. or 2) we can just give everyone all the money they need, prohibit cost increases, keep equal buying power. Money will become worthless then too with a major difference. No one will starve, no one will lack health care, no one will lack what they need. And we will have no reason any longer to destroy the earth. We will have no more reason for war. We will have no more reason for crime. We will start to value that which is really of value. We will regard, the earth, all life and all human life as extremely valuable. It is the skills of others and the bounty of the earth that keeps us alive. A world based on money cannot be sustained. It destroys itself.

There You Go Again

Then why should they bother doing anything that needs doing? Going to force them

All of your points have strong merit. It is you are thinking of a world still based on money. We teach our children what is important. And the reality is that in a world based on money, survival on money, and you cannot even make enough to exist- you are not free. You are a slave to those who have more money. Money is used as the measure of individual value. It isn't. The value lies within the talents of those around us. I know it sounds off and impossible won't work but that is because one is basing everything upon material wealth and the accumalation of stuff as the desire of life.

What I am trying to express too so urgently is that a world based upon money will go extinct. It will go extinct because the money is valued and getting it at any cost to others and the earth itself is valued. The very things we need to truly survive are not being valued. We don't really care. We want money. It is what we need to live. It is what is used to measure success. It is supposed to bring happiness. All that stuff we are told we want is there for only one reason: to make money for someone else. We have to stop this and it is so deeply entrenched in the world and cultures that people cannot even envision it. Happiness is money. Survival is money. I would bet if you asked the wealthiest such as Buffet what is important- they would not say money. They have all the money they need to live. Yet they still work. They still strive forward. Why? The answer is because it is not really the money that brings happiness and fullfillment: it is using your talents, having those talents appreciated and having those around you admire your talents. I think even Aristotle saw that as the true definition of happiness.

Zygor

History is littered with these burst Utopian dreams that do not take into account Human Nature. We are the way we are. Its instinct, and as depressing as that can be in some instances, wishing it away and wishing another set of values to take its place by magic wand waving is not going to happen - ever.

That is what everyone thinks. And you are very right. We have to look at what roles instinctual behaviors play still in human behavior. To ignore them is as you say completely foolish. However, think about it more.

All social animals living in populations have altruistic behaviors. Altruism becomes essential. Dominance hierarchies are prevalent also. So there is mixture of the two. Human populations are no different. In human populations we use also learning and culture to channel behavior. Religion is used to channel behavior down wanted paths. Look at monogamy. Biologically man is likely polygamous. Yet we squeeze that instinctual tendency down a monogamous path using religion, laws and social acceptance.

The only way I can describe it best is to look as man like a cell. Cells began grouping together for the inherent benefits. More and more groupings began. Specialization began. Interdependence became deeper. Now no cell of an organism can live on its own. It needs all the other cells which provide it with the materials to live. Each cell though is wired with the exact same genetic material as all the other cells. A great deal of altruism on a genetic basis instead of a behavioral basis has to exist for an organism to live.

We are no longer individual entities surviving on our own. We have become highly specialized and highly interdependent on everything and everyone else. Money literally has no value, no place and no meaning. If we keep trying to make it so, if we value the talents of one over the talents of another, we create an imbalance. It would be like the fingers wanting all the oxygen and trying to hoard it killing the hand. Or the foot cells telling the hand cells they were worthless and trying to dominate them. Each cell, each tissue, each organ has a role. All the roles are crucial. Without the proper functioning of a tissue or organ the whole body can sicken or die.

We are at the brink of a much needed step in behavioral evolution. If we don't make that step up, we will perish. It is not a wild doomsayers prediction. It is common sense. If it is our instinctual behaviors motivating, we have to redirect them. In an organism all the cells cannot be trying to get more than all the other cells. They cannot be trying to kill off all the other cells. An organism would die and all perish if so. Like it or not we have evolved into in essence an organism. If we want to survive, we have to work together, value what is really important and if necessary channel instinctual behavior which evolved in a different world thousands and thousands of years ago. It was adaptive then. It is not now.

We teach our children that money is valuable. We teach them that they must work to get it. We can teach them instead that it is their talent and who they are that is valuable. We can teach them to see success as using those talents, challenging those talents and making the world as best a place as possible for existence to continue by valuing it and living without harm. . It is also instinctual I think to want to use your gifts, to feel important and to have the gifts of yourself appreciated. It is not instinctual to appreciate or measure success by money.

We can do this. However, we will never do it- unless we let go of money, the need to feel superior or better and begin to value the earth and those around us as priceless. Because they are what is really of value.

Millions of people grow up in poverty and caught in poverty cycles. The talents or gifts these people have are completely wasted. We spend billions and billions of dollars trying to deal with the damage to society caused by wasting it. There is more advantage to nurturing, using and appreciating. And the ultimate advantage is not going extinct.

This kind of sentiment has been written ever since the human race became able to scratch legible marks on a cave wall. Its was as Utopian then as it is now.

So true. Perhaps it is being introduced over and over because in the end, it is the only system that will ever allow the human species to keep from going extinct. Right now we are spiralling down straight into total oblivion. We are destroying ourselves. To say that we cannot breach the barrier to the needed step up in behavioral evolution, is to say the human as a species is doomed. It is probably true. Because looking at the complete and total mess the world is in and our continued raping and destruction of everything we need to actually survive in order to gain money and more money and have all that stuff that we are told is important so someone else can make money we are headed to disaster sooner I think then people realize.

We cannot go on the way we are. It is a system that is destructive and worthless in the long term. We can make the changes we need to., We can look at our instinctual behaviors. We can use that understanding to make a system that will actually be sustaining and healthy. Or we can die.

Zydor

But money being the root of all economic, personal, governmental and ecological problems to the extent we magically make it all well by abolishing it ..... ?

You are right in that it is not the 'money'. Money is paper now or figures recorded in some sort of way. It is ourselves that is the problem. And unfortuntely looking at our world, we seem to have no ability to change ourselves. Or do we? We cannot change our genes yet, but we are certainly headed there. We can channel our behavior. We have been doing that for centuries. Some cultural channelling integrates itself so firmly within cultures that people can be so afraid of not doing it that way, that it takes years and years of education and understanding to change the behavior. Although we definitely still have more instinctual behaviors and tendancies then people especially those trying to deny evolution like to ever admit, we still are a species that has met change in their environment and changed their environment the most by learning and adjusting. So right now we have a world that will overpopulate itself quickly, that is destroying the land, air and water it needs just to survive and it is doing it all to get more of the medium of exchange because that medium of exchange brings more goods and ease of life. And you are very right I think, we won't change it. But I imagine you can see the finale of that route.

Most species of animals are limited by their environment in a very delicate and receptive balance. We aren't. And we manipulate things to where even though we are changing our environment and destroying it, we feel muted effects. But that only goes to a certain point. Once you cross a threshold, things begin to fall apart, go haywire and die. We cannot see the big picture. We cannot see that we are a speck of dust in relation to time. So we cannot see what we do. Take a species not endemic to a habitat with no natural enemies but that can survive well and out perform all other species there in getting resources. It does not take too long for the species to overpopulate, use all its resources, destroy its habitat and then die off even become completely extinct. We are like that introduced species. We might feel in control, but we are not. We are actually the ones that will end up extinct. It is just a different time scale. The results though are just reality and common sense. Ecology itself is just common sense. Our role in the world and environment should be just common sense. However like the better at getting food and resources introduced species, we go plundering through feeling quite superior and our populations grow and grow and grow. There is only one end to that unless we change the very fabric of our way of thought and life.

out of natural resource? At some point yes, inevitablyWill we run

Most of everything goes by thresholds. Things seem to stay exactly the same until a threshold is reached and then kabam. It is too that we are not dependent upon just one resource. Everything is connected. So one thing can reach a threshold and start disaster and then it affects everything else or multiple thresholds can be hit creating something even worse.

because the greediest ones whould still own the most of everything. UGH!

So true. However, they could not really be greedy. Everyone can buy what anyone else can. There would be no substitute for money though and nothing could be bought without money. So from month to month everyone has the same buying power. Supplies will start to run out. What would happen then? Still prices would not be allowed to rise and everyone would continue to receive all the money they needed as long as they contributed their job/skill every month as required.

just do not know where to shop.

Let me know where you shop. What would happen if every month as long as you did your job that you got another 250 million? What would become important to you? Would anything change for you?

Human nature already. And it has not even happened yet. :) :)