Money, Money, Money

All economies are exquisitely sensitive to our modern day existential threats. Witness the near total collapse of the world-wide financial systems with the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Corporatism and social democracies have no mechanism to address long range threats such as pandemics, global warming and/or automation and the loss of jobs, and autocratic governments haven’t the will.

At the root of the problem, money. Money became obsolete the moment it interfered with the advancement of human knowledge – space travel, scientific endeavor, moral enlightenment – we just haven’t figured that out yet. Money guarantees unequal distribution of wealth, deep poverty, unnecessary human suffering. and human conflict. It is an exquisitely fragile system of resource distribution and our modern day global threats expose it’s inherent weaknesses. But take heart. Whether we realize it or not it is on its way out as we automate - it would be better to admit it now and plan aggressively for it  – or billions may die – but make no mistake it’s on its way out unless we set ourselves back to the stone age first.

Imagine a world where automation has expanded to include harvesting raw materials, processing them into refined materials, shaping, constructing and then distributing everything we need to live  – completely by machines. Overseen by artificial intelligence (AI) dedicated to maintaining and improving such a system with the aid of mobile repair and construction units and it is not hard to see how we evolve past money. Every material need provided for, for free, by machines.  Getting there intact is the hard part. 

Now imagine a SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Self-isolate while goods and services continue on without a hitch. Patients cared for in their homes with the latest in medical technology and resource instead of in highly resistant microbe factories that we call hospitals today – cost no longer a factor. Imagine a world devoid of poverty, famine, starvation, and much of the reasons for human conflict. Imagine what the people of this future studying our times will say – 'they spent their entire lives going to a job they hated, so that they could eat. No job, no money, no eating. They focused their entire lives on materialism and killed each other by the millions over resources and riches. Absolute barbarism!

As the world continues to get smaller and more interconnected we have absolutely no choice but to move to a world without money. This is not a utopian fantasy, it is fact. Do it or we perish as a species, of this I have little doubt.