Introduction To Resource-Based Economy - What Is Wrong With Our Socio-Economic System.
I have noticed that many Steemians have never heard of, or explored in more detail the concept of Resource-Based Economy (RBE), so I decided to start a series of articles that hopefully will help you to better understand this subject.
Introduction To Resource-Based Economy - What Is Wrong With Our Socio-Economic System
Moneyless system.
What is Resource-Based Economy. Simply, it is an application of Scientific Method for social and environmental concern. This economic system is based on intelligent, strategic management of Earth's resources as opposite to management through the movement of money (like in current, so-called "economic system"). It is the system which takes direct reference from the physical world in order to find ways and solutions that would be the most strategically efficient and sustainable for meeting the needs of humanity. It is a truly economic system, because it is designed around scientific understanding of natural laws.
Governance within the box.
In current social system the governance is imposed either by a single individual or a group of individuals through political or business mechanisms. The whole government is an actual political and business entity. The history has repeatedly proven that whenever there are any problems with with current governance, one group of people simply tries to blame the other. New government blames the previous one, democrats blame conservatives, liberals blame left, and so on. Seldom we ever hear any criticism of the social system itself. The existence of this system seems to be unconditionally taken for granted as presupposed entity, where business and politics are perceived as so something intrinsic to human nature.
What is wrong with the current "economic" system.
The degradation of natural world with global warming is intensifying. The poverty level and gap between the rich and poor are growing. The number of people with mental health disorders, including addictions, is on the rise. Violence is pervading the world and wars are ongoing. Earth's resources are being depleted and wasted. Myriads of people die every hour from preventable diseases. This is just to name few problems affecting humanity every day. There are many other social and environmental problems that don't seem to improve, while many new ones keep showing up.
Regardless all of these issues, almost no-one seems to admit that foundations of this socio-economic system may be questionable. There is complete lack of recognition that the structure of this system seems to reinforce or reward certain aberrant and unsustainable behaviour.
The only area that has not been affected by science.
Never ending increase of human knowledge, ingenuity and development of new technologies have been inseparable part of our species since its dawn. Humanity has experienced a dissolution of many different forms of superstition and detrimental social practices. This progress has brought us up to true age of enlightenment with its scientific understandings of the natural laws that directly govern all aspects of our life. The scientific evolution has brought us immense amount of technology that surrounds us every day. While we take advantage of the products arriving from these scientific discoveries, there is still one area that has not been affected by science - our socio-economic system.
We still apply outdated methods to govern social affairs that are blatantly inefficient and unsustainable. We rely on and empower politicians to solve our social problems that are clearly of technical not political nature. For example, finding ways of providing food and medical care to vast amounts of people living in poverty is a technical issue not political. Politicians, in general, lack scientific and technical knowledge to understand and solve social and environmental problems, which can be fixed by an intelligent and strategic management and allocation of resources and technology.
This is the end of the first part in the series.
Please follow me to future articles where I will explain other differences between RBE and current social system. Later, I will also focus on different, specific aspects of RBE such as city design, social engineering, automaton of production, etc.
If you would like to learn more right now, please check up The Venus Project.
-logic
What do you think about RBE in context of cryptocurrencies? I think it will turn out to be the solution that works from within all nations, because its borderless and not held by governments.
Good to know I'm not alone. ...or am I.
I think that cryptocurrency is a transformational technology between current monetary-based social system towards RBE.
I have similar opinion about other concepts such as universal basic income to deal with inevitable automation, for example.
Ever considered the advantages of creating a hybrid capitalist-communist economic system?
Universal Basic Income is not just a universally flat income, it would still contain the capitalist incentives that stimulate us to get off the sofa innovation.
The transition from 0% automation to 100% automation is not a binary event (0,1) .
0% automation = 40 hrs a week for everyone
50% automation = 20 hrs a week for everyone
100% automation = 0 hrs a week for everyone
This will create an added incentive for everyone to cooperate together to get to 100% faster
This also leads to no more poorVSrich, whiteVSblack , leftVSRight etc because there is no more need for pyramids schemes , humans can stop being slaves, robin hood become extinct because you don't need to take from the rich to give to the poor anymore (and vice versa lol)
because robots will be doing the work for us. take from the bots to give to the people...
They are still just machines without souls still. The day we put a soul in there we better make sure we don't enslave it...it might be our souls in there
and so automation is like a god sent we are sending our children
Yes, "transitional" is more accurate.
I agree with you :-)
I think you mean transitional technology
Hi dude!Great to see you active again. Very interesting article, thank you.
I hope you can come to Lisbon in October.
Hey, thanks. Nice to see you. I hope that I will make it too :-)
The greatest insights economists have arguably ever made is that economies and societies are self organizing systems with nobody in control, that humans aren't wise enough to plan a whole economy and that when top down economic systems are forced upon societies, you get nothing but oppression, starvation and murder. Both the Venus Project and Peter Joseph's Zeitgeist movement - while well intentioned - collapse under their own weight when considering the overwhelming evidence that planned economies have harmed vast numbers of real people, while self organizing ones have benefited the majority of the human population. You don't have to be an economist to intuit that given the imperfection of man, we are incapable of designing a perfect - or even near perfect - system to take care of all the world's ills and remain relatively free.
1st. Current so-called economic system us not economic. Monetary economics is pseudoscience. Monetary astrology.
2nd. No one has ever tried the system that has application of Scientific Method as its core principle. The previous attempts to create planned economy such as capitalism or communism revolve around pseudoscience and scientific ignorance where group of scientifically illiterate people tries to trickle down pseudo solutions based on pseudoscience of monetary economics. You seem nit to understand the difference between monetary economics and economy that is moneyless and focused on managing natural resources such as RBE. You either have not even read the above or failed to understand it.
3rd. If you familiarised yourself with TVP then you would know that emerging system such as RBE is the opposite of an attempt to try something perfect. Attempt to create something perfect is nit possible and unscientific. Emergent means constantly evolving and open to change when new information arrives. Opposite of rigid system such as utopia. It seems that you just repeat that common, ignorant opinion you heard about RBE somewhere.
4th No one is forcing anything on anyone in RBE as there is no authority or hierarchy. Please, first learn what RBE is, instead of repeating someone else ignorant opinions (I hope that it was not that scientifically illiterate, incapable if recognising logical fallacies, Stefan Molyneux).
I've watched much of what Jacque Fresco had to say and read as much as I could tolerate. Money evolved because it is EXTREMELY INCONVENIENT to operate in a barter system and you need a way of communicating subjective value over time and space between people who don't know each other. Money is a useful tool to solve these problems. Sure, other problems arise, but an extended, ordered economy can't exist without money.
Also, economists do scientific experiments all the time to try and decipher why humans and economies act the way they do, and they still largely don't know why economies and societies self organize. So to say that it's all just pseudoscience really does trivialize the good work actual economists do every day to try and understand.
My most serious critique of ideas like Fresco's is that they're arrogant. Anyone who thinks they've got the answer to saving humanity and drums up an ENTIRE ECONOMIC SYSTEM and says "this is the way" is proposing a solution to a problem he can't even name because he doesn't understand how real people operate. All he sees is his vision for others. He's not even asking any questions or proposing experiments. He's just got this amazing plan. Gimme a break.
I love dreamers and idealists, but we have to be willing to examine our ideas when the rubber meets the road, and his ideas are just amazing fantasies, unlike capitalism - read market economies - which actually work and work superbly well considering that billions of people who don't know each other help each other daily in ways they can't understand, peacefully.
Until the Star Trek replicator is up and running, money will always be a thing.
Money WAS useful tool. No one denies it.
It is no longer relevant, obsolete idea considering current scientific understandings and level of technological development.
You seem to be very attached to your monetary economics. That is probably why that was only that much you could tolerate....
Money will always be a thing for someone who cannot think beyond it...
This statement itself is highly ignorant and cognitively and creatively limited. An example of ultimate thinking . "The man will never build a flying machine", "The man will never travel to the moon", etc
So you're argument here is that I'm just highly ignorant and that my thinking is... ultimate? Did you mean limited?
Neither you - nor Mr. Fresco - have cogently articulated why or how money is obsolete, considering that humanity uses it every day to allocate resources. You also haven't demonstrated how we're nearing anything close to a post scarcity world, the precise world that is needed for RBE to function.
Please tell me the irony of using a social network that is essentially built atop cryptographic money isn't lost on you. The very same monetary economics that you haven't actually debunked operate here using similar price signals we experience in the real world. Are you seriously arguing that money is obsolete on a platform that utilizes money as it's very foundation?
On a side note, it reflects poorly on you and your arguments when you stoop to insult the intelligence of your opponents. If you find yourself doing that, perhaps you should rethink your position.
"So you're argument here is that I'm just highly ignorant".
Nowhere I made such generalisation. Do not use strawman fallacy and put words in my mouth I have never said. When I see someone using logical fallacies I find it pointless continuing having a conversation. There is no sense conversing with someone who has no basic understanding of fundamentals of logical discourse.
"Neither you - nor Mr. Fresco - have cogently articulated why or how money is obsolete, considering that humanity uses it every day to allocate resources. You also haven't demonstrated how we're nearing anything close to a post scarcity world, the precise world that is needed for RBE to function."
Most of people still also believe that there is invisible man in heaven or use coal to heat up their houses. It does not kean that these things or ideas are not obsolete.
It seems that you do not understand what "obsolete" means. It means "outdated". Just because something us commonly believed or used does not mean it cannot be obsolete.
"Please tell me the irony of using a social network that is essentially built atop cryptographic money isn't lost on you. The very same monetary economics that you haven't actually debunked operate here using similar price signals we experience in the real world. Are you seriously arguing that money is obsolete on a platform that utilizes money as it's very foundation?"
You have just used another logical fallacy called "appeal to hypocrisy".
Where I share certain information has nothing to do with the subject/message that this information includes.
Besides that you seem clueless about the difference between fiat currency used by the state and cryptocurrency that is not controlled by the state.
I find cryptocurrency to be great technology for transition between monetary system and moneyless RBE system.
That's it. I am done with this conversation. Like I wrote above. There is no sense conversing with someone who has no basic understanding of fundamentals of logical discourse and keep throwing logical fallacies.
''There is no sense conversing with someone who has no basic understanding of fundamentals of logical discourse.''
amen brother
Ha! Okay. You said "This statement itself is highly ignorant and cognitively and creatively limited. An example of ultimate thinking." I can infer from this that you are saying that I am highly ignorant and creatively limited. No normal person would read that sentence and think "oh, he's just talking about some abstract idea." No! You're just using a rhetorical trick to hide the fact that you're being rude. At least I have the gumption to say it straight. You are being rude.
Alas, you still haven't articulated anything. You have demonstrated absolutely nothing. But hats off to you to pointing out a couple of casual fallacies to obscure the fact that you haven't laid out any clear ideas nor actually rebutted any of my arguments. It's amazing.
You must DEMONSTRATE why money is obsolete. You can't just say things like that and expect to get away with it. Show me how money is obsolete. Show me how a RBE will work and why it's actually needed without the shallow rhetoric that usually amounts to the fallacy of an appeal to sympathy. See? I can do it to!
Good day, sir.
"Show me how money is obsolete".
Read about RBE beyond others opinions and you will get how.
"Ha! Okay. You said "This statement itself is highly ignorant and cognitively and creatively limited. An example of ultimate thinking." I can infer from this that you are saying that I am highly ignorant and creatively limited. No normal person would read that sentence and think "oh, he's just talking about some abstract idea." No! You're just using a rhetorical trick to hide the fact that you're being rude. At least I have the gumption to say it straight. You are being rude".
Please, don't cry.
https://steemit.com/life/@knozaki2015/why-we-should-stop-getting-offended-featuring-logic-as-author
You cannot argue with a zealot of scientism:
https://www.aaas.org/page/what-scientism
That is simply false. While the creation of food itself may be technical problem, the solution would require a reallocation of ressources and that is certainly political. Reallocation means taking away somewhere, be it by taxation, by inflation or unpaid/voluntary work.
While your view certainly sounds idealistic it is, sadly, also completely unrealistic.
Full automation can create abundance. Yes, it can. But someone needs to build those automatons and they wont do it for free, even if they wanted to. There's a cost to everything, monetary or time.
People always forget that someone needs to spend time implementing their ideas.
So untill robots are somehow self-producing, this will not work.
Also, the scientific method has never, ever actually created a product. It created the basis for products. Then the scientist - or more often someon else - turned it into a practical solution in form of a product. That is unfair, but it is what happens. Practical application requires a different mindset and it's not the scientific method.
Even if the robots make themselves, they have to get materials from somewhere.
Indeed, that is another point. I'll have to be mined from someones land. Or an asteroid, but that would require someones rocket...
1st. You missed the point. You premise is false. You give examples of political management in monetary based system built around pseudoscience of economics. I am not sure if you read carefully but RBE DOES NOT revolve around the movement of money. Resources are real, money is an idea based on belief. It only exist because people believe it does and has value. Relocation of resources does not require monetary medium to allocate resources. That is what RBE does - intelligently allocates resources without use of money.
2nd. Nowhere it is claimed that RBE would be introduced right away, immediately. It is impossible and unscientific. There has to be transitional period.
3rd. No everyone needs money to work. Vast amounts of people volunteer fir free for betterment of society or environment. Those who work for monetary reward, do it so they can exchange those notes for necessities of life. When you satisfy necessities of life through technological abundance, the concept of money does nit make sense.
4th. Who has said that Scientific Method created a product. It does nit make sense. It is a method of assessing natural phenomena. What creates products is technology. New technologies are often developed after scientific discoveries.
I recommend learning more what RBE actually is before projecting assumptions.
Although I agree with some of the shortcomings of the current social and economic systems as presented in the article, I find it difficult to take RBE ideas seriously when I'm confronted with vague statements such as the following, and I quote:
«This economic system is based on intelligent, strategic management of Earth's resources»; «solutions that would be the most strategically efficient and sustainable for meeting the needs of humanity»; «it is designed around scientific understanding of natural laws»; «which can be fixed by an intelligent and strategic management and allocation of resources and technology».
What does it really mean to have an intelligent, strategic management of resources? Who ascertains its quality? Is there a single, beyond doubt, most efficient system, anyway?
What does it mean that the system is designed around scientific understanding? Will scientists rule the world and decide what's best for everyone? Will it be a technocracy of sorts?
And what are humanity's needs, and who decides that? Are they merely physiological in nature? Does the freedom to pursue one's own goals fall into humanity's needs?
These questions are meant to illustrate how vague I find many of the descriptions of RBE to be. I haven't been able to find a clear and comprehensive article which lays out concrete proposals for dealing with these and other issues. In the end, I always get the sense that a RBE is just a sketchy and highly idealized social organization which will always remain utterly unattainable.
Just to be fair, I wouldn't expect an introductory article to be thorough. I hope I might be able to discuss these things further once you go into more details in the next articles.
"Who ascertains its quality"
Not who but what. Constant submission to scientific scrutiny and scientific method.
"Is there a single, beyond doubt, most efficient system, anyway?"
Nowhere it is claimed that it is the most efficient. It is simply likely to be much more efficient and sustainable than current system. It is about trying to be as efficient as possible. Complete efficiency is very difficult to obttain.
"What does it mean that the system is designed around scientific understanding? Will scientists rule the world and decide what's best for everyone? Will it be a technocracy of sorts"
No one rules. There is no hierarchy or allocation of social power.
"And what are humanity's needs, and who decides that? Are they merely physiological in nature? Does the freedom to pursue one's own goals fall into humanity's needs?"
Laws if nature decide what are basic human needs. Discoveries in human behavioral biology/evolution have taught us a lot about this subject.
"? Does the freedom to pursue one's own goals fall into humanity's needs?"
"As long as they are not detrimental to our environment which we all share.
These questions are meant to illustrate how vague I find many of the descriptions of RBE to be. I haven't been able to find a clear and comprehensive article which lays out concrete proposals for dealing with these and other issues. In the end, I always get the sense that a RBE is just a sketchy and highly idealized social organization which will always remain utterly unattainable."
https://www.thevenusproject.com/faqs/
https://www.thevenusproject.com/product/the-best-that-money-cant-buy-book/
I had browsed through the website of The Venus Project in the past, and I've never found definite proposals regarding resource management and governance. I also didn't find them now. Could you maybe point me to some peer reviewed scientific paper where a so-called "strategic and intelligent management" protocol is described and analyzed? Because those vague words are always as far as I've seen RBE proponents go. But that might be my fault as well; I'm not really involved in the project nor have I made deep research on it.
Regarding your assertion that no one would be ruling, I just don't buy it. Science is not written on stone; it is neither consensual nor static; and while scientific knowledge should, in principle, be objective, its applications are subject to ethical questions which are not answered within science. There is always a political aspect to social life, even if you start from a scientific perspective. I don't think RBE proponents realize that they too make political statements while arguing against the necessity of politics.
Finally, regarding humanity's needs, the basic human needs might be contingent upon basic natural laws. As for me, I like to regard myself as a bit more than a meat sack which eats and poops, and I brought up the freedom to pursue one's own goals because this is a very important matter to me. It might not be so to everyone, but it is to me, and it certainly is for many other people. What if my goal does have some spurious negative impact (almost everything does, in the end)? Would I be forbidden to pursue it? So would there be someone ruling after all, forbidding me to do so? Or what if my goal is just not akin to the efficiency standards? Would I be forced to abandon it? There you have it, politics again.
I just can't seem to form a coherent picture from the information I've been able to collect on RBE. But then again, that just might be my own fault. Thank you for your kind reply.
You cannot test social system in the single lab. Looking for peer reviews of social system tested on small scale dors not make sense. Same as you cannot test capitalism, feudal system or communism in the labs. It requires massive social change and transformation. First experimental city has to be build.
https://www.thevenusproject.com/faqs/
I've heard this argument before from a politician.
“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it ."
"It requires massive social change and transformation. First experimental city has to be built."
sigh
Your reasoning is logically fallacious.
Completely illogical comparison.
First sentence is about paper proclamation that is not transparent no one knows what it is going to be about until it is enforced on public.
Second sentence is about scientific experiment that is transparent with the data well known before it is conducted and everyone being able to observe it's process.
I am tired of correcting logical fallacies. This is the end of this conversation.
Since you are an ardent follower of scientism, it is hard to argue with you! But its always hard to argue with zealots. Cest la vie.
Yet another logical fallacy. Self evidently you don't understand the foundations of logical discourse.
I have tolerated your previous bullshit but won't tolerate ad hominem. I have given you the chance to show capacity for logical discourse but you have failed with each response adding more and more logical fallacies.
Go away or you will get blocked and flagged.
I don't know where to find the last science bulletin stating "these are what science currently considers to be basic human needs". The closest thing I know to this is Maslow's pyramid, which is an over-simplified and widely criticized attempt to hierarchically define a set of human needs. I do not know of any unanimous and neatly defined set of basic human needs provided by science. But again, science is not a consensus endeavor; it is the opposite of it. It is the constant attempt to discover the cracks in its models; it is the ever questioning attitude towards a deeper and more meaningful understanding of existence. And when it comes to social and behavioral sciences, I think it is fair to say that we are still in an infant stage of our understanding. Nonetheless, I would be glad if you could point me in some promising direction, if you know of one.
I agree that an empirical test of a social structure requires such a structure to be built. However, you need to have a blueprint of what you're building. That's more or less what I was asking you about: what are the scientifically studied management models that are to be attempted when building this first city? If RBE claims to be rooted in the scientific method, you need a clearly defined hypothesis to be put to test, not a vague promise to "do things scientifically" (whatever that means) once whatever it is that you want to build is built. That's usually what religious leaders ask of their followers.
Don't take me the wrong way; I sincerely appreciate this sharing of ideas and I am not simply disregarding any RBE ideas from scratch. I just believe that the best way to develop some good model is to attack it at its weakest points to see if it is able to stand. That is how I choose to eventually be of any use to the development of the ideas behind RBE or to their mutation into something more solid.
Thank you again for your kind answers.
You are right. Criticism is important. Your doubts have been asked before. Check up TVP FAQ, please.
https://www.thevenusproject.com/faqs/
About basic human needs. Maslov pyramid is moreless accurate although probably it should be modified about certain priorities. and what science currently understands about them and human behaviour, I learnt a lot from series of lectures from Stanford University called "Introduction To Human Behavioral Biology". I very much recommend it.
Thank you for your answer. Regarding TVP FAQ, I have browsed it more than once, but I haven't really found answers to the questions I am posing. As for the lectures, I'll certainly check them out, though it may take me a while. Thanks again!
Yes, the series is quite long. There is lots of research in this field. it is worth waching
great article! keep on posting!
Thanks.
Interesting how pretty much all the objections you get are based on misunderstandings of the proposal, isn't it? :) It's what I encounter all the time. So I'm curious about possibilities for communication that has less misunderstanding in it. Otherwise I find myself spending all the time on trying to "correct" other people's interpretations, and not being able to move forward from there.
You are right. It so tiring and time consuming. From now on I will focus on giving short and assertive answers refering to TVP FAQ. It is better, in case I am underinformed about something myself. I still need to learn and research a lot.
Hey @logic, it has been awhile since I last had an opportunity to comment on a post of yours. Looking forward to reading about your thoughts here. Politicians have really messed up their countries before. Usually I see it because changes were based off emotions and not logical thought processes.
Thanks, you are very right. They do not even have basic understanding of logical fallacies and science.
Very Good Post. With this emerging global economy and Rapid growth of industrialisation is good for everybody, but we have to more concious of about our nature and take necessary step to reduce all type of pollution and value of humanity. We have to increase used of renewable energy like solar energy, hydro power, wind energy and reused of waste .
Thanks. I agree. We need transitional period. It is impossible to introduce RBE right away.
Nice read @logic.. Keep it up!
Thank you!