Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Stop money

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Stop money

    Considering the immense suffering capitalism and money have created i vote for the end of money at a world level...

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQpV_jvu-iM"]YouTube - Patti Smith "Free Money" CBGB October 15[/ame]

  • #2
    i'm all for a resource based economy. now how do we make it happen?
    ZhongwenMovies.com

    Comment


    • #3
      Personally i write to all my socialist friends. I m sure they could win the elections if they had this proposal. But i think i wont be listened, i dont know why...

      I ll also write to my basque friends on facebook, i think it will have more impact.

      If i was in France i would go to associations to promote this idea or create an association but being in China i cant do much>>>

      Can u explain me why nobody acts in favor of ending money? Is it a bad idea? A crazy idea?

      Comment


      • #4
        i don't know, liu. seems most people believe we couldn't exist without it. many also believe that you should be given more wealth for doing more work, or for having better ideas, in some cases, etc. and there are probably others who have so much of it that they could never imagine letting it go. it's their identity, family heritage, and so on.

        unfortunately i don't think the majority of people would be interested in having a resource based economy, less some major, earth shattering, situation arose that effected mankind as a whole. something which makes us look to things differently, something that teaches us about the real meaning of life. a global enlightenment of sorts.
        ZhongwenMovies.com

        Comment


        • #5
          If we don't have money, how do we buy lap dances?

          Oh, never mind...
          Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

          "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

          (more comments in my User Profile)
          russbo.com


          Comment


          • #6
            1, yes i wonder if people at world level would be interested to stop using money. Is it because they are just not familiar with the idea? In my eyes it seems such a simple way to solve many problems. I see all these finance guys talking about lending and credit and change rate, it seems so complicated to me and that they just under the influence of habit.

            I wonder though how it affects our contemplation of non violence to support a system that creates so much death (suicides, children without medicine), mental illness and suffering

            Doc, i m sure in a monkey world without money u will find monkey girls that would love even more to dance.


            Dog, my chinese family is absolute proletariate and farmers. I think if i give up mymoney that will lead us to suffering so that s not a good idea. What do u think? But i m ready to spend energy promoting the idea of not using money. Again it seems to me that the first budist paramita is dana, giving ( a paramita for which Nagarjuna went to see Jains to learn from) and that in some budists shcool the monks were not allowed to touch money.

            Peace and love

            Comment


            • #7
              It all depends on the ultimate goal of the ideal.

              What is the ultimate goal of capitalism? What is the ultimate goal of socialism? What is the ultimate goal of communism? etc.

              Im just a poor boy, nobody loves me. But in my totally unbiased opinion. Capitalism will probably have to evolve into something like socialism or communism. Why? In my opinion before any country can attempt world domination, they have to have a stable financial base, too much corporate power means less government control.
              "Life is a run. In attack we run, in defense we run. When you can no longer run, time to die" - Shichiroji "Seven samurai"

              Comment


              • #8
                Doc, i m sure in a monkey world without money u will find monkey girls that would love even more to dance.
                Liu, I know you love animals and all, but you might want to stop yourself before this gets out of hand...

                Comment


                • #9
                  also, another thing, liu, is that a lot of people seem to believe that it's the bankers who actually control this world, not the politicians. if that's true, the only thing that will help to establish a different economic system, like a resource based one, may be a fundamental change in global power. a revolution. i don't know many people who'd be willing to stand up and 'fight,' as it were, when the most important thing to them is where to find a good place to spend their dollars on strippers and lap dances..
                  ZhongwenMovies.com

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by onesp1ng View Post
                    also, another thing, liu, is that a lot of people seem to believe that it's the bankers who actually control this world, not the politicians. if that's true, the only thing that will help to establish a different economic system, like a resource based one, may be a fundamental change in global power. a revolution. i don't know many people who'd be willing to stand up and 'fight,' as it were, when the most important thing to them is where to find a good place to spend their dollars on strippers and lap dances..
                    I think you hit the nail on the head. This is the danger.
                    "Life is a run. In attack we run, in defense we run. When you can no longer run, time to die" - Shichiroji "Seven samurai"

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Don't worry Liu. Socialism is coming.

                      The new world order in Europe demands it, Obama is bringing it to the US.

                      It's happening.

                      Now where's a guy with a few bucks gonna get some strippers and a lap dance...
                      Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

                      "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

                      (more comments in my User Profile)
                      russbo.com


                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Splinter, i really dont know how it is gonna evolve. In my opinion capitalism in itself might not have any goal, it is an empty system. It could be perfect if the people were perfect. Unfortunatly what we see is children dying without medicine, suicides, mentals illness, child prostiution.

                        Socialism might have a more clear goal that is social equality.

                        Yet my idea now is neither capitalism or socialism but just a world where we could live on giving. U need a house? Someone gives u! U need to to take a boat to train shaolin? No problem it is free! Of course it will need organisation and people working but man wouldnt any job feel great in this condition? Just spend some time imagining this world and u will feel how relax u are and how a lot of suffering in the world has disappeared.

                        1, i m not a revolutionnary at least in the violent sense. Inspired by the imperfect Gandhian political work i do believe in political action but rather than of revolution a patient mind evolution. Talking, dialogue should be enough if an idea is good and non violent.

                        U say the bankers and coporation have a lot of power and i agree but i still believe in politics. In France we worked to set up a week of 35hours work and it worked pretty well creating many jobs. So i think it is possible to have social and political change.

                        And the bankers and corporate people are humans, they also dont want to suffer and create hapiness. If it is possible to show them how the actual system creates suffering and how this in turn might create their own suffering in this life or in a next, then maybe they would like to explore other possibilites?

                        Well maybe i m too much of a dreamer, but my feeling is one child dying without medicine, one child forced into prostitution, one high school kid committing suicide because of stress is already too much and that if i dont do something to stop it i cannot reach absolute non violence and will in turn might also suffer...

                        Peace and love

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          If it is possible to show them how the actual system creates suffering and how this in turn might create their own suffering in this life or in a next, then maybe they would like to explore other possibilites?
                          maybe. but see, there are many kinds of people in this world, and some don't care about equality, or even their own suffering, for that matter. they're in it for the power, control, and their own self-interests.
                          Well maybe i m too much of a dreamer, but my feeling is one child dying without medicine, one child forced into prostitution, one high school kid committing suicide because of stress is already too much and that if i dont do something to stop it i cannot reach absolute non violence and will in turn might also suffer...
                          i understand where you are coming from; i tend to agree. but it's kind of a catch 22 sitation. i mean, even you have a vested interest. you don't want to suffer yourself, either, so you yearn to help others, seek absolute non-violence, etc. you believe that will solve your problems and those of others. not only is it impossible to be sure, in a way, it almost seems the same argument can be made by those who pursue financial prosperity. like you, they want to help themselves, their families, and so on...

                          so, i guess my question is: how do you convince people that they're hurting others, as well as themselves, too? and how do you convince them that money is the ultimate problem? and getting rid of it is the solution?
                          ZhongwenMovies.com

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            might science be the solution?

                            Why money messes with your mind

                            Dough, wonga, greenbacks, cash. Just words, you might say, but they carry an eerie psychological force. Chew them over for a few moments, and you will become a different person. Simply thinking about words associated with money seems to makes us more self-reliant and less inclined to help others. And it gets weirder: just handling cash can take the sting out of social rejection and even diminish physical pain.

                            This is all the stranger when you consider what money is supposed to be. For economists, it is nothing more than a tool of exchange that makes economic life more efficient. Just as an axe allows us to chop down trees, money allows us to have markets that, traditional economists tell us, dispassionately set the price of anything from a loaf of bread to a painting by Picasso. Yet money stirs up more passion, stress and envy than any axe or hammer ever could. We just can't seem to deal with it rationally... but why?

                            Our relationship with money has many facets. Some people seem addicted to accumulating it, while others can't help maxing out their credit cards and find it impossible to save for a rainy day. As we come to understand more about money's effect on us, it is emerging that some people's brains can react to it as they would to a drug, while to others it is like a friend. Some studies even suggest that the desire for money gets cross-wired with our appetite for food. And, of course, because having a pile of money means that you can buy more things, it is virtually synonymous with status - so much so that losing it can lead to depression and even suicide. In these cash-strapped times, perhaps an insight into the psychology of money can improve the way we deal with it.

                            Relative values
                            Even as a simple medium of exchange, money can take a bewildering variety of forms, from the strips of bark and feathers of old, through gold coins, pound notes and dollar bills to data in a bank's computer - mostly cold, unemotional stuff. The value of £100 is supposed to lie in how much beer or fuel it can purchase and nothing else. You should care no more about being short-changed £5 at the supermarket checkout than losing the same amount when borrowing money to buy a £300,000 house. Similarly, you should value £10 in loose change the same as £10 in your bank account that you've mentally set aside for your niece's birthday.

                            In reality we are not that rational. Instead of treating cash simply as a tool to be wielded with objective precision, we allow money to reach inside our heads and tap into the ancient emotional parts of our brain, often with unpredictable results. To understand how this affects our behaviour, some economists are starting to think more like evolutionary anthropologists.

                            Daniel Ariely of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of them. He suggests that modern society presents us with two distinct sets of behavioural rules. There are the social norms, which are "warm and fuzzy" and designed to foster long-term relationships, trust and cooperation. Then there is a set of market norms, which revolve around money and competition, and encourage individuals to put their own interests first.

                            Economic exchange has been going on throughout human history, so it is possible that our ancestors evolved an instinctive capacity for recognising the difference between situations suited to social or market norms, and that this could have developed well before the invention of money. Alternatively, we may learn the distinction.

                            Either way, we appear immediately and subconsciously to recognise the cues associated with the realm of market norms. Experiments published in 2007 reveal that even a passing contact with concepts linked to money puts us into a market-oriented mentality, making us think and behave in characteristic ways.

                            Kathleen Vohs in the department of marketing at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and colleagues, first got student volunteers to complete a task in which they had to make sensible phrases either from a set of words that had nothing to do with money (such as "cold", "desk" or "outside") or from money-related words (including "salary", "cost" or "paying"). Then they asked individuals from the two groups to arrange a set of discs into a particular pattern.

                            The researchers found that the volunteers who had been primed with the money-related words worked on the task for longer before asking for help. In a related experiment, people in the money-word group were also significantly less likely to help a fellow student who asked for assistance than were people in the group primed with non-money words (Science, vol 314, p 1154).

                            Split personalities
                            Vohs suggests there is a simple dynamic at work here. "Money makes people feel self-sufficient," she says. "They are more likely to put forth effort to attain personal goals, and they also prefer to be separate from others." The touchy-feely social side of us may disapprove of such behaviour but it is useful for survival. This ability to assess which set of norms applies in a particular situation is important in guiding our behaviour, Ariely says. It allows you to avoid expecting too much trust in the midst of a competitive business negotiation, for example, or making the mistake of offering to pay your mother-in-law after she has cooked you a nice meal. "When we keep social norms and market norms on separate paths, life hums along pretty well," says Ariely. "But when they collide, trouble sets in."

                            The trick is to get the correct balance between these two mindsets. Numerous psychological studies have found a general trade-off between the pursuit of so-called extrinsic aspirations - such as wealth, but also fame and image - and intrinsic aspirations, such as building and maintaining strong personal relationships. People who report a focus on the former score low on indicators of mental health, and those strongly motivated by money are also more likely to find their marriage ending in divorce.

                            This is not to say that we shouldn't focus at all on extrinsic aspirations. Everyone needs money for those parts of their lives governed by market norms, and it's well known that financial strain can bring depression, perceived loss of control and reduced life expectancy (see "Buy into happiness").

                            Now that the days of easy credit and rampant consumerism appear to be over, for the time being at least, it would be nice to think that we might acquire a more balanced relationship with money. Unfortunately, it's unlikely to be that simple. One reason why is exposed by Vohs's latest findings, which reveal another peculiar aspect of our mental relationship with money.

                            In a study to be published soon in the journal Psychological Science, Vohs and psychologists Xinyue Zhou of Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China, and Roy Baumeister of Florida State University, Tallahassee, found that people who felt rejected by others, or were subjected to physical pain, were subsequently less likely to give a monetary gift in a game situation. The researchers then went on to show that just handling paper money could reduce the distress associated with social exclusion, and also diminish the physical pain caused by touching very hot water.

                            "Money seems to have symbolic power as a social resource," says Vohs. "It enables people to manipulate the social system to give them what they want, regardless of whether they are liked." Put bluntly, it looks as if money is acting as a surrogate friend. Could that explain why some people focus on extrinsic aspirations at the expense of real social relationships?

                            Psychologists Stephen Lea at the University of Exeter, UK, and Paul Webley at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, have suggested another reason for unhealthy and obsessive attitudes to money. They believe that it acts on our minds rather like an addictive drug, giving it the power to drive some of us to compulsive gambling, overwork or obsessive spending (Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol 29, p 161). "It is an interesting possibility that all these are manifestations of a broader addiction to money," says Lea. Compulsion appears to be a problem for people with several money-related disorders which are increasingly being identified by psychologists (see "Money problems").

                            Lea and Webley propose that money, like nicotine or cocaine, can activate the brain's pleasure centres, the neurological pathways that make biologically beneficial activities such as sex feel so rewarding. Of course, money does not physically enter the brain but it might work in a similar way to pornographic text, argue Lea and Webley, which can cause arousal not by giving any biochemical or physiological stimuli, but by acting through the mind and emotions.

                            Some evidence for the notion of "addiction" to money comes from brain imaging studies. In one experiment, for example, a team led by Samuel McClure, a psychologist at Princeton University, asked volunteers to choose between receiving a voucher for Amazon.com right then, or a higher-value one a few weeks later. Those who chose the instant reward showed brain activity in the areas linked with emotion, especially the limbic system, which is known to be involved in much impulsive behaviour and drug addiction. Those choosing the delayed reward showed activity in areas such as the prefrontal cortex known to be involved in rational planning (Science, vol 306, p 503).

                            The idea that money taps into brain circuits evolved to make biologically important activities rewarding is given a further boost by another strange discovery. In an attempt to provide an evolutionary explanation for our motivation to strive for money in present-day societies, Barbara Briers of the HEC business school in Paris, France, and colleagues decided to test whether our appetite for cash is directly related to our appetite for food.

                            They made three discoveries: hungry volunteers were less likely to donate to charity than those who were satiated; those primed to have a high desire for money, by having imagined winning a big lottery, went on to eat the most candy in a taste test; and people whose appetites had been piqued by sitting in a room with a delicious smell, gave less money in a game situation than those who played in a normal-smelling room (Psychological Science, vol 17, p 939). Briers reckons this indicates that our brain processes ideas about money using the same pathways evolved to think about food, so that in our minds the two are synonymous. If she is correct, it puts a whole new spin on the term "greedy bankers".
                            Psychologists studying how we think about money are revealing why many of us have such fraught relationships with our cash
                            ZhongwenMovies.com

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/SXsizrEeX_w&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/SXsizrEeX_w&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
                              "Life is a run. In attack we run, in defense we run. When you can no longer run, time to die" - Shichiroji "Seven samurai"

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X