The Immateriality of wealth

Discuss life, the universe, and everything with other members of this site. Get to know your fellow polywell enthusiasts.

Moderators: tonybarry, MSimon

Post Reply
Jccarlton
Posts: 1747
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2007 6:14 pm
Location: Southern Ct

The Immateriality of wealth

Post by Jccarlton »

Interesting article on the immateriality of wealth.:
http://www.american.com/archive/2011/ja ... -of-wealth

I must say that I have always felt the happiest when I successfully accomplished something significant and the most frustrated when people keep me from achieving my goals. I also have noticed how the progressive breakdown of the things required for wealth creation by Progressives has hurt creativity and suppressed the the idea that anyone can accomplish anything anymore. I find this very frustrating.

vernes
Posts: 135
Joined: Tue May 13, 2008 10:22 am
Location: The Netherlands

Post by vernes »

This weekend I'm heading to a good friend of mine to chat about a resource-based monetary system.
Coins represent joules.
And products get 3 prices, or one price and a RGB color.


The first price is the accumulation of invested energy to get the product to its current state and location.

The second price is the intrinsic value. This is where we just made the decision that this represent the energy you can extract from the product by setting it on fire. Rapid oxidation.

The last price is how much 'money' the seller wants to receive.
But again, in Joules.

The amount of Joules in circulation is based on the country's ability to generate actual energy. Anyway, going to flesh it out some more and taking in some critical problems the concept currently has.

Professor Science
Posts: 149
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:51 pm

Post by Professor Science »

I was thinking about the joule based economy awhile ago and found the issue of inflation somewhat tricky, but perhaps not so bad, as after all, after you make a terawatt reactor, you now have a terawatt reactor, as opposed to after you print off a trillion dollars, you have made the communal dungeons and dragons game a bit less plausible.
The pursuit of knowledge is in the best of interest of all mankind.

Tom Ligon
Posts: 1871
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:23 am
Location: Northern Virginia
Contact:

Post by Tom Ligon »

I sort of like the idea, although it does lend to very sudden changes in prices of other commodities as energy technology changes.

You will need a better unit of currency, though, as the joule will be nearly worthless.

Consider that one dietary Calorie (1000 calories in the more traditional lab units) is 4 186.8 joule, so a stick of gum would probably cost something like 50,000 joules just in equivalent energy. I think you would go for Megajoules as the basic unit, and even those would be small units

1 kilowatt hour = 3 600 000 joule. At the present electric meter valuation, that would be around $0.10 for 3.6 megajoules.

Professor Science
Posts: 149
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:51 pm

Post by Professor Science »

What's wrong with joules? you have nearly an arbitrarily fine grain of pricing option. Micro-payments for web functions would be built right in. Calories and food calories are just very large denominations of joules. why not just use kilo or mega joules as the base "dollar"?
The pursuit of knowledge is in the best of interest of all mankind.

vernes
Posts: 135
Joined: Tue May 13, 2008 10:22 am
Location: The Netherlands

Post by vernes »

And of course the price will be "what the seller believes he can get away with".
The rules of supply and demand still apply.

It's a step back to before we cut ourselves off from the gold-standard.
Only with a twist.

And MegaJoule is fine too, the joule is like the halfcents nobody really use.
Except concerning keeping track of the energy that was invested in the manufacturing and transportation of the product. That is an exact value.

Professor Science
Posts: 149
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:51 pm

Post by Professor Science »

I think the two tags that display accumulated joule pricing and sellers preference is interesting. I'm sure vendors would hate having to show customers how much they're marking up on the good.
The pursuit of knowledge is in the best of interest of all mankind.

Post Reply