What about if an airborne virus began to circulate, causing women to spontaneously become pregnant with babies which would inevitably grow up to become serial killers?

> Chris_Balsz wrote:

> "So You Think You Can Box" -- amatuers get to spar in the ring before champs, past and present.  Really awful contestants have to spar with the host, Mike Tyson, who will dismiss them brutally in a Cowell-like manner.  In later weeks contestants are thrown off their mettle with changeups of style and content-- muy thai boxing, endless rounds ("ya gotta EARN that bell!") and visits from boxing greats like Tea Ali who suddenly box the contestants bare-knuckle in their street clothes.  The Winner gets a lifetime contract with Don King.

Wait a sec... so first Mike Tyson would beat the crap out of them, then he would spend 15 minutes telling them how much they sucked?

THAT'S AWESOME!

Question: If you state something which is untrue, yet you believe it is true, is it really a lie?  Under that circumstance, the speaker has absolutely no active intent to lie, nor do they even know they are "lying" (by your definition).

Question: What motivates me to excel if the government takes 100% of what I earn?

Everyone note this:

> [TI] Sitting Duck wrote:

> Another detail is that my current job isn't an option because I am on a fixed term contract which runs out in September, so I have to take a new job whichever it is.

If this is the case, why did you ask the question in the first place?  Is the choice now keep both jobs vs. quit one, or are you telling us that there's only one option, and you're just wasting our time?

> [TI] Sitting Duck wrote:

> Another detail is that my current job isn't an option because I am on a fixed term contract which runs out in September, so I have to take a new job whichever it is.

See, now THAT'S something you should have said at the start, lol

My response to that would require me seeing the rest of your response, so I wait...

See, now this is completely different than the original explanation...  X(

See, here's the thing: that world is definitely a possibility, and I would say an inevitability.  As technology advances, natural resources are becoming less and less important, simply because knowledge is allowing people to get around the need for the resources, either through finding alternatives or by finding ways to stretch out the resources that do exist.  As such, we're seeing in today's society that those who rely on natural resources as the key to their wealth are increasingly being marginalized.  Nations that were considered to have fairly good farmland now find that the application of technology has rendered nature's gifts obsolete.

If it is as you describe, that vision isn't calling for anything crazy.  Here's why:
As society advances further technologically, natural resources become less and less important, with technology either duplicating or stretching the use of formerly natural resources.  From an economic perspective, this means those resources will be increasing in supply, while demand remains relatively constant.

I think it may be terribly faulty to call this a "Resource-based economy."  "Resource-based" implies that resources play the central role in that economy.  The modern economy is based on acquisition of resources.  Or, if you don't want to believe that, ancient barter systems were "resource-based economies."  Currency is simply a tool in that end, and a tool which apparently has distracted you enough to miss it.  The economy you describe, however, works to mitigate the value of the resource by making physical objects as plentiful as possible.  It's anything but resource-based.  The only measure of wealth in a society would be through knowledge, and/or possibly a "favor" system of services to evolve later, since physical wealth is rendered obsolete.

As for the feasibility of said society, the only questions are as follows:

1: Is modern technology able to create said society?  If not, what would need to be developed?
2: What problems would exist in the interim.  No matter how such a society will evolve, the transition would involve a huge social upheaval of some sort.  The model I described would probably involve a huge global recession as businesses are completely reorganized, and actually has a possibility of falling into a dystopia if whatever technologies that promise said benefits are monopolized early on.

In short... coming up with utopian societies is the easy part.  Presenting a plan to get there... that's the hard part.

And... I just lost my post because I decided to make that reply.

Dear IC Community,

You Suck

-Zarf BeebleBrix

Paid a man who followed a man who ran 4 miles waited until he passed out and ate his leg