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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
A bill recently introduced in Texas seeks to obliterate the Federal Reserve's much-maligned monopoly on currency by establishing gold and silver as legal tender — but the groundbreaking legislation, if passed, would also prohibit those precious metals from being seized by State authorities.
[...] Senator Bob Hall introduced the bill last month, which, the Tenth Amendment Center explains, "declares specifically that certain gold and silver coins are legal tender, and prohibits any tax, charge, assessment, fee, or penalty on any exchange of Federal Reserve notes (dollars) for gold or silver. The bill authorizes the payment of taxes and fees in gold & silver in certain circumstances. It would also prohibit the seizure of gold or silver by state authorities."
Would this matter in a nation where money is mostly plastic nowadays anyway?
Source: http://thefreethoughtproject.com/texas-bill-gold-silver-money-federal-reserve/
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:47AM (15 children)
You'd need free production as well as free energy for that. Nearly free energy may happen one of these centuries but free production will only happen when human creativity dies. Humans have been mechanizing away work for thousands of years and yet we still keep coming up with new ways to be useful and thus valuable.
tl;dr Probably never.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:02AM
The future will be just like the present except maybe spaceships. Babylon 5 saw construction workers who built the station end up homeless in Downbelow.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:53PM
Lest we forget, even Star Trek has gold-pressed latinum.
Even then, I think the idea that currency goes away is a bit fantastic. There will always be currency because as you point out resources will always be limited. A UBI makes the most sense for dividing society's limited resources, be they bountiful thanks to technology.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:55PM (4 children)
Free energy has existed for billions of years. It's called sunlight. And most life depends upon it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 16 2017, @06:30PM (2 children)
Right but it won't push my boat around the lake without further capital being invested.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @07:29PM (1 child)
That depends on whether or not your boat has a sail.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 17 2017, @05:12PM
Newp. Paddles and a motor. While the energy powering the paddles does ultimately come from the sun, it does so in an extremely roundabout and highly inefficient way. The battery powering the motor could be charged by solar panels but that would require uneconomic capital output on my part. Which is to say it's cheaper and more reliable to plug the battery charger in to the wall than to rely on the sun in the spring in Tennessee.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:15PM
And free production has been a long time to in the form of cells.
Be it cellulose cells or animal cells, they still manufacture very useful things from stuff that is almost useless.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:26PM (4 children)
No, creativity doe not depend on profit. Art is older than commerce, even if literature isn't. When robots can do almost everyone's jobs we will have to have a Star Trek economy. If there was no such thing as money, Niel DeFrasse Tyson would still be an astrophysicist. Scientists don't study science for money, they study science because they're curious.
Note that I and many other give books and music and films away for free. Creative people have no choice in the matter, it's a drive, just as Dr. Tyson was driven to learn.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 17 2017, @05:07PM (3 children)
Fact 1: If given the choice between being rewarded for their efforts and not, nearly every person on the planet will choose to be rewarded.
Fact 2: If your economic goals rest on fundamentally changing human nature, your goals are moronic.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by urza9814 on Monday April 17 2017, @06:22PM
But that choice doesn't exist.
Here in the real world, the choice is often between giving it away for free and getting minimal rewards for minimal additional effort, vs expending a much, much larger amount of effort possibly for a larger reward, but most likely nothing.
It takes work to get a book published. It takes work to advertise a book and get copies sold. And there's no guarantee of a publisher being interested, there's no guarantee of customers being interested. Give it away for free instead, takes almost zero effort, and while you won't get paid you'll probably get some feedback and/or appreciation pretty quick.
Like changing it so that people can be instantly rewarded for their work with no additional effort? :)
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday April 21 2017, @04:08PM (1 child)
There are rewards that have absolutely nothing to do with money. Scientists don't study science for the riches, they study science because they're curious. Musicians play music for the music. Writers write because they must, as do visual artists. The money is just icing on the cake, and today is necessary.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 21 2017, @08:27PM
Nothing you said contradicts what I said.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday April 17 2017, @01:35AM (2 children)
Valuable doesn't necessitate non-free production and nearly free production is certainly not inhibited by creativity. If anything, our current system probably kills a lot more genuine creativity than it fosters.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 17 2017, @05:04PM (1 child)
Yes, offering personal gain as a reward for creativity is killing us.
More to the point though, your utopian idea rests on the assumption that you can fundamentally change human nature. If your world plan would work perfectly if it weren't for having the wrong kinds of people, your plan is shit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday April 17 2017, @06:15PM
Who said anything about eliminating personal gain? Certainly not me.
I'm more concerned about creative people too busy asking "want fries with that" for less than enough to live on instead of producing the great creative work they are capable of.