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If you put an upper limit, you'll have people stop once they hit that limit. Why would you go after that billion dollar idea when you are hard capped at million

by rohit89 10y ago

If you put an upper limit, you'll have people stop once they hit that limit. Why would you go after that billion dollar idea when you are hard capped at millions? Nobody would ever go after moonshots. If we're talking about fantasy economies, IMO we should move to a system where we don't need money at all. Money is basically a way to partition access to limited resources among people. Except, outside of this planet, resources are near infinite. With complete automation and unlimited access to space, everything would be free with our only real cost being energy - which luckily, is also near infinite given the billions of stars in the universe. Something like Wall-E but less dystopian.

archagon 10y ago
Companies would still be able to accumulate money, and moonshots could still be pursued under corporate control. People would pursue billion dollar ideas in order to strengthen the companies they created rather than to enrich themselves.
- rohit89 10y ago
  They can already do it now and they aren't. If you have to convince the board, the shareholders etc to take on a risk that has a high chance of failure, it has even less chance of happening. If a person has enough control at a company so as to be able to unilaterally spend its money, its not much different than having the money yourself.
laughingman2 10y ago
>If you put an upper limit, you'll have people stop once they hit that limit. By that logic most scientists, philosophers and mathematicians from ancient times till now wouldn't have had the incentive to do anything. Einstein didn't discover relativity because he thought he would become a billionaire. Isn't that a "moonshot". But the people whose contribution is fractional compared to intellectual giants think their ability to sell, market etc should be awarded with insane amount of wealth. The rampant egotism is forgetting that we stand on shoulders of giants, on the contribution of entire society from the discovery of fire, invention of wheel, language etc till now. To ignore the casual chain of determinism, and claim "I" alone did it through my "efforts" is insane.
- rohit89 10y ago
  Different people are motivated by different things. While its true that scientists and engineers and everyone else have done a great deal in advancing things, the sad reality is that unless someone fronts the money, nothing will get done.
  - laughingman2 10y ago
    >the sad reality is that unless someone fronts the money, nothing will get done. Its not the natural law of universe which cannot be changed. We humans create the systems of economic organization. So if you agree that profit is not main motivation for many creative jobs, then perhaps the optimization function of the economy should not be to optimize for monetary profits. So perhaps other modes of economic organization be explored?
    - rohit89 10y ago
      Well, the natural law here is that we need access to resources to do anything. And money is basically a proxy for it. Until we solve the resource problem, I think other economic systems would eventually run into trouble as well. Its human nature to try to game the system.
      - laughingman2 10y ago
        > Its human nature to try to game the system Or is the system is designed to give wrong incentives? I don't think we have enough evidence for what you take as "human nature". On the contrary the anthropological studies in Debt: The First 5000 Years Book by David Graeber, we have evidence of many primitive societies behaving more communal fashion.The resources though scarce is shared with the commune.

by rohit89 10y ago

archagon 10y ago

Companies would still be able to accumulate money, and moonshots could still be pursued under corporate control. People would pursue billion dollar ideas in order to strengthen the companies they created rather than to enrich themselves.

rohit89 10y ago
They can already do it now and they aren't. If you have to convince the board, the shareholders etc to take on a risk that has a high chance of failure, it has even less chance of happening. If a person has enough control at a company so as to be able to unilaterally spend its money, its not much different than having the money yourself.

laughingman2 10y ago

>If you put an upper limit, you'll have people stop once they hit that limit. By that logic most scientists, philosophers and mathematicians from ancient times till now wouldn't have had the incentive to do anything. Einstein didn't discover relativity because he thought he would become a billionaire. Isn't that a "moonshot". But the people whose contribution is fractional compared to intellectual giants think their ability to sell, market etc should be awarded with insane amount of wealth. The rampant egotism is forgetting that we stand on shoulders of giants, on the contribution of entire society from the discovery of fire, invention of wheel, language etc till now. To ignore the casual chain of determinism, and claim "I" alone did it through my "efforts" is insane.

rohit89 10y ago
Different people are motivated by different things. While its true that scientists and engineers and everyone else have done a great deal in advancing things, the sad reality is that unless someone fronts the money, nothing will get done.
- laughingman2 10y ago
  >the sad reality is that unless someone fronts the money, nothing will get done. Its not the natural law of universe which cannot be changed. We humans create the systems of economic organization. So if you agree that profit is not main motivation for many creative jobs, then perhaps the optimization function of the economy should not be to optimize for monetary profits. So perhaps other modes of economic organization be explored?
  - rohit89 10y ago
    Well, the natural law here is that we need access to resources to do anything. And money is basically a proxy for it. Until we solve the resource problem, I think other economic systems would eventually run into trouble as well. Its human nature to try to game the system.
    - laughingman2 10y ago
      > Its human nature to try to game the system Or is the system is designed to give wrong incentives? I don't think we have enough evidence for what you take as "human nature". On the contrary the anthropological studies in Debt: The First 5000 Years Book by David Graeber, we have evidence of many primitive societies behaving more communal fashion.The resources though scarce is shared with the commune.