@Lame #67 For terms of reference, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barter I was particularly trying to allude to some of the Limitations of the Barter system, such as 'double coincidence of wants' - finding someone with a cup of coffee who _wants_ three chickens for it. - and 'Difficulty in storing wealth' - three chickens are a lot harder to store than a token that everyone agrees represents those three chickens.

'money-based' vs 'resource-based' economy is difficult to understand, as there's no difference between the two: money is merely a place holder for an agreed value of resources. If I want some more chickens, I don't have to find something the seller wants, I can give her money to the agreed value of those chickens. I have traded my money for her resources.

You add complicating factors when you talk about competition (if there's no competition, how do you determine the true value of a chicken?) and quality of manufacture/planned obsolescence/technological change (what are my chickens worth when someone invents an iChicken2.0?).

In and of themselves, they have nothing to do with barter. Their impact is in determining the value of an item. If your chicken is going to live twice as long as mine, it's probably going to be worth more.

This probably isn't the proper forum, and the chicken metaphor is getting painful. I would be happy to join you in another forum to discuss this - I'm particularly interested in your idea of money as a method of social control.

money or THREE CHICKENS hahhaha. THREE CHICKENS

I'm not sure if technology has advanced as much as I thought it would in the last 10 years. Computers and cellphones and their related communications technologies have advanced a lot. I actually think all this technology is getting us into a very large hole. If their is a large CME from the sun, it could destroy a significant portion of the electronics in the world, causing mass chaos, and possibly millions of deaths too, due to heating systems failing. I think we rely on electronic technology too much these days. (I highly recommend 'Death from the skies') in the last decade there has been significant progress in astronomy, like 400 or so exo-planets discovered, and Cassini. Also the CCD, which was developed for astronomy, and is used in most (not all) digital cameras these days.

@#65 Michael Birks

You could not be more mistaken. Money was never created to free people from outdated bartering systems it was to create something with no actual value and control the population. We need to change from a money based global economy to a resource based economy where goods aren't made in competition, products are manufactured to last not break or be outdated quickly and when improvements can be made that the products can be recycled easily.

Also the bartering system wasn't exactly flawed as inconvenient, if you were stuck on a deserted island would you rather have a wallet loaded with money and cards or three chickens??

@herne #56

Evolution since 1910? (to name only a very very few..)

Personal Computer Internet Mobile Phone InfraRed - Bluetooth - WiFi etc Space Exploration Digital Camera Portable Music Players Microwave Penicillin Self-Starting Automobile Atomic Bomb Color TV Communications Satelite Birth Control Pill Compact Disc

If in 1910 someone said to you:

"One day you will be able to send a high resolution colour photograph you just took from the top of the Great Wall of China to someone else on Safari in the middle of Africa within seconds"

Would you have thought it would be possible?

The development of Technology is almost always based around how we live our lives. There would be no point in creating something revolutionary that people wouldn't use day to day.

Although I do agree that Governments and some large corporations are holding us back all in the interest of making money.

The Monetary system holds us back as a species to develop truly revolutionary technology.

@Kruger #64 "Bartering system to replace requirement for money."

You do realise that money was invented to free people from the necessity of having to carry around three live chickens just in case they decided they wanted to have a cup of coffee, yes?

If you were meaning the demise of cash in favour of electronic payment systems, then I probably agree. Mostly.

But live chickens, no, I think the SPCA would have something to say about stuffing them into my wallet.

I would have hoped we were even more technologically advanced by now. Were being held back by the usual culprits big business and politicians.

In many ways were stagnating or going backwards.

I expected to be free of wires and power points for running self-powering appliances that seems so old fashion rather then dependent on obsolete electricity grid which clutter our landscape.

Cars hovering slightly above the air, eliminating the need for endless roads. Vehicles no longer running on fossil fuels replaced by cleaner and renewable technologies. Alternatives do exist except Big Oil companies and politicians are holding us back.

End of deforestation of Amazon and other such places made into world protected sites for all humanity. At the current rate, we will continue until cheap timber are exhausted and were forced to change our ways. Our country can harvest trees sustainably same goes with other natural resources, why not the world.

Bartering system to replace requirement for money.

Better distribution of economic wealth, worldwide charter on workers rights and wages reducing poverty. No more exploitation of low-paid workers and people in poorer nations to meet the greed of richer nations. What is happening in third world is equal to appalling working conditions of 19th Century Europe during industrial revolution from time of Charles Dickens.

I expected less interference from government in our daily lives, increasingly encroaching into our private lives from forcing ISPs to install spying equipment monitoring our internet activities to devices tracking cars we drive. More on par with a police state and spelling gradual end of personal liberties.

Having a colony on the moon and explored Mars. We could have gone to Mars five years ago, we have the technology as scientists tell us but lack funding and political support.

#47, Justice. Harnessing Sub-Atomic particles is illegal in NZ, I believe, under the anti-nuclear legislation.

@others. You say that we have 'robots' walking on 'other worlds'. I say prove it. NASA is alleged to have faked the so-called 'moon' landings and all we have is their word that they've done these other things.

Technology advances at funny rates sometimes. We humans have remotely controlled rovers exploring the surface of Mars, yet we can't even make a shopping trolley without a wheel that drags along. Go figure...

Even when technology has advanced so much, there are still suicide bombers and terrorists destroying lives and homes in the name of their gods.

I reckon we need a group, who can speak multiple languages, and is keen to disperse the hate and ignorance, to step up.

Or we can have a perfect speech in most of the major languages and deliver it worldwidely as a peacebringing message to the world.

OR we can have what kane#49 said.