Oh, and sorry if I'm prematurely framing you as a Keynesian, WFS!  Couldn't think of a better example in the forums off the top of my head. 

Some big problems:

1: From a leadership perspective, a nation like that would have very little in the way of a singular direction of policy.  Government's effectiveness lies in its ability to harness the collective resources of thousands, millions, or even billions of people toward a major world vision.  Under that system, leaders would be unable to implement major policy actions, except by petitioning a large percentage of the population to direct money toward that program.  As individuals, we all have our own little policies we would like to see propped up.  It's more likely that we would focus our resources on the policies we like.

2: I hope you're a die-hard, Flint Republican, because if you're not, that world would pretty much never reflect your ideal vision.  It's not just you who would be able to choose where your taxes go.  It's everyone.  That means in nations with a large income gap, the wealthy individuals would have a much larger voice than the lower and middle class.  Taxes in a democratic society are inherently a redistribution of wealth, in that poor people (voters) get discretion in determining how the income of rich individuals would be spent.  That redistribution wouldn't happen.

Sure, I'm guessing the rich may still want to fund education.  I'm doubtful about welfare programs, and I'm also positive that a CEO would fund programs which encouraged the purchasing of that CEO's products (Example: Boeing would almost definitely spend a large portion of its taxes toward the purchase of military aviation equipment from... Boeing!).

3: How would the government do emergency programs?  If there's a way to spend outside what is normally distributed from taxes, the program is meaningless.  Otherwise, you might as well close down the legislature because new programs can't be funded without public approval.

4: I'm picturing a tax form with a list of 2,000 different spending programs, asking individuals to sort through them to figure out where their money goes.  If I don't win any other argument, that's just going to be more hassle than many would want to conduct.

> Justinian I wrote:

> I wasn't even being serious about the land standard.

Not buyin' it! 

No, that was his dad. 

1: When the government does back currency with gold, the price of gold is much more stable because the flow of gold is controlled.  In addition, it creates an increased demand for gold, raising the price to where it could be competitive with land values.
2: As you said, gold just looks pretty.  It's always looked pretty, and it always will look pretty.  There's its value.
3: Land, in contrast, is highly unstable.  A hundred acres of land bordering a river would be very valuable.  What about if some guy upstream decides to build a factory or a cattle ranch, polluting the river?  How about a home
4: For an object to be an effective storage value unit for currency, it needs to be safeguarded.  Gold is simple in this regards, because it's simply a shiny brick.  We take our gold and stick it in a safe.  Land (especially in the amounts you're talking about) can't be secured.  Directly, land is susceptible to all sorts of risks, ranging from environmental concerns to something as simple as graffiti, all of which will hurt the land's value.
Indirectly, however, land use is a devaluing mechanism, depending on how it is used.  A factory, for example, will slowly damage the land surrounding it by decreasing vegetation.
If land used to back up currency is allowed to still be used, it is susceptible to these changes in the value.  If it's taken out of use, then you've just created a massive recession from private land being purchased en masse to just sit there (where I could argue that it would still be susceptible to problems, as per "problem of the commons" scenarios).
5: This is the part where I compare your proposal with xeno syndicated economics.  When the US currency was backed by gold and silver, that meant that you could go to a bank and literally exchange your money for gold and silver.  The very reason why backing worked was because, at any time, you could turn around and obtain a physical item.  How would you obtain land in this scenario, though?  You would get a document indicating that you own a square foot of land in Virginia?  Unlike gold, land is only usable in large quantities.  As a result, it's rare that an individual would even want to exchange their currency unless they were super-rich.  Two implications:
A: In effect, you didn't back the currency, because only a handful of the population can actually exchange the currency and benefit from it.
B: The ONLY currency fluctuations you would see, then, would be massive fluctuations of millions of dollars, since the only people that can possibly manipulate the currency are the few people with huge amounts of currency on hand.
6: I'd imagine that the very purchasing of land would be a massive social upheaval event.
7: If an individual wishes to exchange their currency for land, how do you value it?  How the hell do you value a small piece of land among a massive swath of land?  Land is solely valued by its utility.  As such, a square inch of land would be worth nothing, yet a square inch among a square mile of land would be worth infinitely more.  The system you propose would, in effect, create its own fluctuations in prices.

Gold is much better.  Once purified, gold is the same regardless of where it was mined, where it's currently located, etc.  You can find the value of your entire gold stockpile easily by simply looking at the price of gold, and multiplying.  Thus, it's an inherent value storage.  Your system would require land continual land value audits, based largely on speculation, in order to come up with a random guess.

Subject-verb agreement is overrated!

Is looking through my wall.

1: Why does that transcript actually hurt Trump?  I really don't get how that hurts him at all.
2: That seems like a simple personal attack game, which won't fly.  When serious issues which affect people at a personal level, such as the economy, are the primary driving forces behind voting, personal attack games hardly work, unless they operate to undercut that person's credibility on a particular issue (see Angle vs. Reid).

200 systetms
0 families
0 player per family

Wait for life to naturally evolve throughout the galaxy, and see who takes over. 

I should have some free time today.  All the other real life busy stuff's been done! 

Very simple theory from me: Before this election, the Democrats had a near-monopoly on power.  With the supermajority in the Senate (until the Massachusettes special election, that is) and control of the House, a unified party could have done whatever the hell it wanted on the domestic front, short of amending the Constitution.  When writing the Health Care bill, Democrats took a number of opportunities to tell Republicans that they didn't matter by drafting legislation that ignored 100% of GOP concerns (once the Democrats splintered on reform, individual Repubicans began to matter more).

With Republicans controlling both the House and enough senators to smash the supermajority to bits, Democrats now have to court Republicans (at least the more moderate Republicans) in order to pass legislation.  That means the system goes back to what makes it work: the fight for consensus-building and compromise among legislators.  Long story short, regardless of my politics, I like a divided government.