5 ms·
You actually can't imagine this? Even in today's world, there are many cultures where debt is a rare resort for the unfortunate, not an acceptable status quo.
by jnbiche 13y ago
You actually can't imagine this? Even in today's world, there are many cultures where debt is a rare resort for the unfortunate, not an acceptable status quo.
- pron 13y agoDo those cultures have iPads?
- fauigerzigerk 13y agoI imagined it and called it hand-to-mouth. It would be incredibly wasteful not to let others use resources you don't need at the moment in exchange for participating in their future proceeds. A large part of the resources in such a society would lie idle at all times. There would be no insurance either, so everyone would be forced to save tons of money to cover adverse events that don't happen to most of them most of the time. For instance, everyone would have to save up enough to rebuild their home in case it burns down. That amount would be thousands of times what is needed to rebuild the homes that actually do burn down.
- philbarr 13y agoWhy would there be no insurance? Surely we would just pool our money together in a big pot for when people have their houses burnt down? Kind of like we do now - except possibly without someone skimming a huge profit off the top.
- fauigerzigerk 13y agobecause that takes trust.
- pjc50 13y agophilbarr: this, of course, already exists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_society