I study a great many things in my off hours. I have two kids, a wife, and I'm constantly attempting to find time to read, or build. I live in a city ruled by manipulating others for money. In order to keep my family housed, and fed, I have to do what the company tells me to, which is most often against my own ethics, and sometimes the company core values themselves.

 The industrial revolution worked, but we are still working 2-3 jobs, and struggling to get overpriced education so that we may work in the field of our choice. I vehemently hate the economy. I stare at people on nearly every street corner begging for money feeling like less of a man because I can't help them. You should be concerned about everyone in your community in order to be a leader. I find myself in a society without a true leader, but greedy capitalistic liars.

 I Nahtahni G. Grillett want to live the life I choose. I want a real change. I want people to stop looking (or refusing to look) at each other with disgust. I am not poor because I don't know how to make money. I am poor because I refuse to accept gain at the expense of others.

The idea of ​​Mr. T Foster is full of successes and failures, which is fine because you are only beginning an idea, just like a sculpture must be carved little by little until the end to obtain a beautiful work of art.

I take the opportunity to congratulate everyone for being passionate about the subject.

However, the first thing we must take into account is that Dr. He had the initiative to found Afgardia in order to try to realize a Country of utopian governments and policies, in other words, if we have already seen the failure of humanity to Try with certain political tendencies, economic strategies we must ask ourselves the question: Will we get different results if we are always doing the same thing?

It is here that all of us must expand our minds, because as far as I understand the first people to be taken to the space station should be the best of the best in terms of thoughts and abilities. As for the economic issue, we must go back to the beginning of humanity and ask ourselves the following questions: who gave man the right to rule over man to the point of deciding that the land and its resources belonged to him and that if he wanted to use They should pay a price? For using the earth? Why inhabit it? By eating its fruits? It is interesting to analyze these issues, especially if we read stories about economic theories and the beginning of the use of money. Which according to a friend here says that he has been the cause of eliminating the taking of resources by force ... I do not agree with that!

Another aspect we must take into account are the great minds of Universal History: Einstein, Newton, Hawking, Gandi, Edison, among others, have had an invaluable treasure (the time) which they had to devote to their Investigations, this same item is the one that Mr. Foster poses to us. As it turns out that human beings today have been so dedicated to consumerism that we only work to satisfy our trivial needs, believe me that there will be no mind that can tell me that to be able to stay alive or give birth to a knowledge needs to consume caviar three times Day or take water collected directly from the Swiss Alps; In synthesis if we focus more on the use of free time to optimize medical, technological, administrative, mathematical, scientific processes, among others, we would be guaranteeing the survival and evolution of the human being, besides giving added value to future generations in short term . The birth of integral human beings interested in their brothers sincerely based on logic, is the future of Afgardía and the rest of humanity, the subject of robotics is something that goes hand in hand with the project, but it is not something so simple Like blowing and making bottles.

Greetings and sorry for my English, I depend on translators.

After reading the proposal and that lot of opinions, i have to remind you that in Star Trek: First Contact (i think), Picard tells -somebody- that in the future, money is no more, because humanity has changed their minds. There is no materialism. The only thing that people wants to do is to self-actualize, for the major effectiveness of their group. (It never explained how to buy personal things, but i supose that it will work nearly as a communist state).

Although it is science fiction, it is a cultural goal that seems logical and I would admit the idea of ​​TFoster. Of course, it seems too far away from the current reality, from the capitalist powers, to carry it out ...

Greetings!

the main defect of the modern financial system is the ability to "money earn money". If this opportunity is deleted, then all will be fine.

Why would I do something for the Red Hot Chilli Peppers just to get their music? And what could I give them that they don't already have?

The existence of Money makes my life exponentially easier.

As a social studies student majoring in Political Science, I agree 100% with this proposal. I believe that we have reasons to wish to be more than what the Earth is, and thinking, developing a country where money as we know is no more not only is important, but necessary to the maintenance of a Fairer Nation. Without the pressures of Capital, with people living as equals (with free education, healthcare and so on) there should be no reason to have money as we know. After all, technology has advanced (even to this day) to a point where food can be produced at ease, people can rest without many issues and so on. In adittion, the most brilliant people who produce are the ones who do it out of passion; eliminatting the need to do something out of survival (as it is now, at least in my country) things will grow and flourish at ease. I am sure people with skills in referred areas will pop up, and do things out of their hearts, and not because they have to in order to earn money and survive.

Without money as we know, in Asgardia we may be able to life. Not just survive.

Whether or not we could or should eliminate the monetary system, I think if we can evolve to a world where we can eliminate the need to do somthing out of survival, we already come a long way. I can really relate to the story Tfoster told: due to circumstances and probably also some of my own decicions, I'm living the life I live today. And having to go to work is more a burden than a blessing for me (and probably many more with me). But because I have to pay back a loan and feed the kids, there is no way I will quit my job and search for something I am really passionate about. My dream is not to have the money to do what I want to do; but to have the money to not do what I don't want to do. If everyone would have all their basic needs provided for (shelter, food, education, ...) will we become lazy? Maybe some of us would, but that is an indiviual choice everyone will have to make for himself/herself. But I think most people will search for ways to work on things they are really passionate about. And I think if this is the case the world would benifit much more than when people are just doing their 8 hours working day, not really caring whether or not the company is doing well.

Universal basic income ..already being trialed and a neccessity to curtail violent revolution of unemployed masses as Tech eliminates their jobs over the next 2-3 decades. It is here and will expand.

• Star trek economy in a post scarcity society excerpt from post in general " Could Bitcoin be our official currency? "

"What is needed is some sort of interim-, or proto-post scarcity economics.

More and more I find myself thinking we are, as a race, constrained by the economic models we have....... We have capitalism, of course, the proverbial worst model ,,,,,,,,except for every other one that dominates much of our planet right now.,,,,,,,,, It’s definitely a scarcity-based system. Then we have the centrally planned systems of Communism and Marxism, not particularly effective, as it turns out. We have European-style socialist capitalism, but that’s still capitalism, and scarcity-based, albeit with a much more robust safety net than we have here in the US."

https://medium.com/@RickWebb/the-economics-of-star-trek-29bab88d50#.iejbb3i9c

The solution has been largely found to a world without currency and it is probably to a large extent

"The Star Trek Economy: (Mostly) Post-Scarcity (Mostly) Socialism"

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/11/18/startrekeconomyfederationisonlymostlypostscarcity.html

but we need to work toward that over the next few decades and meanwhile we will have to use currency of some sort as a means of exchange and that currency has to be something that the entities we trade with ( goods and services) will accept and can use to trade with others ..quickly and efficiently and globaly."

The bottom line is a post scarcity society with a socialist distribution of wealth is probably where we are headed but in order to get there we have to conform to current economic realities when interacting with 3rd parties. We could /should create and trial an internal model for Asgardia which may include Time based economy for the interim period before time becomes very inexpensive due to AI and robotics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-based_currency and /or resource based economy if we ever get some tangible tradable resources :) and science innovation is one of the fields we could excel in but currently we are (far?) behind the curve in that area and it will take resources to catch up.

The elimination of monetary system is a nice ideal but it is more likely that some form will; still exist although it's importance will greatly diminish (absolutely remove fractional banking and usurios interest ....see posts "How ever we decide to make our economy can we just avoid fractional reserve banking?" ) and here is a nice post on issues/ inconsistencies of the star trek economy http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/economy.htm

To summarise 1 we are heading for post scarcity over the next few decades 2 UBI is an interim solution to help the transition from capitalist monetary based economics to largely socialist and post scarcity and the impact of Tech AI and robotics on employment 3 We will eventually end up with a star trek style economy with some adjustments to cater to issues we do not even know exist 4 Currently we need to conform to existing economic practices /systems if we wish to speed our advance but can trial alternative systems internally should we desire. 5 We need to create wealth (urgently) to further our goals ..which by the way still need to be clearly defined and expanded. 6 Addfitionally education and continuing education is a field that the US Govt states as one of the 3 cornerstones of their policy to deal with the loss of jobs due to tech and is definitely something Asgardia could focus on create , invest in and reap returns Dec 20 report https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/EMBARGOED%20AI%20Economy%20Report.pdf

I agree with total automation in as many fields as possible. We as humans have the trait of striving for more when we have "enough". It is our nature to expand. This if our needs are met we are free to enter a time of pure explorations. This will not produce the lazy, but the inspired. We can mandate a girdle law ensuring every citizen has propped exercise and diet and activity level.

I agree with total automation in as many fields as possible. We as humans have the trait of striving for more when we have "enough". It is our nature to expand. This if our needs are met we are free to enter a time of pure explorations. This will not produce the lazy, but the inspired. We can mandate a girdle law ensuring every citizen has propped exercise and diet and activity level.

I believe that money is the motivation and financing promotes the world develop faster. Without that, the industrial revolution may not happen. The key of industrial revolution is innovation of steam engine. However, only innovation is far from enough. We have to produce steam engine, which will cost a lot of resources and this can be realised by financing. So, eliminating the monetary system is unlikely to become true or we will lose our motivation to live. If robots can finish all the job, why human exist. May be eliminating the monetary system is hard to realise, but, eliminating the notes is easy based on current technology which makes transaction more convenient and will also save our limited resources.

Nothing motivates more than passion. Which requires more motivation, getting up for work in the morning or peaking everest? I'm sure a few would select the first option, but really the second is significantly more effort. Which one pays more? Save for a few, no-one gets paid to climb K2.. So why do they do it? Passion.

You look at anyone that really gets anything done, and they're just following their passions, in most cases the money - if there is any at all - is just a fringe benefit.

At best, money is just a corruption of the self to allow another to manipulate you by your own greed. That's why a lot of "society" is aimed squarely fueling this, it makes you easier to control. It doesn't promote development, it stifles it by restricting the ability to those with the funding. How many more paintings would Van Gough of done if he'd been given all the paint and canvas he could use?

Yes, in order to establish ourselves, we will require to utilise currency. This is an unfortunate consequence of the economic model we are currently operating in. To get anywhere in it - let alone out of it, and we definitely can do that - it's going to require money. But once we establish ourselves, there's infinite resources in the stars. Once we're tapping that and have more than we can, and even the Earth can consume - what use is there for money?

I don't think absent the requirement to obtain a fictional resource will result in a lack of motivation. Sure, some people will possibly do very little but I predict this to be the minority - how much staring at a wall will you take before you decide to do something? How long before you decide to persue your interests that you previously didn't have enough time for because you was wasting it all making someone else more money so you could live in relative poverty? When everyone can have anything the measure isn't what you have, because anyone can have that. It becomes what you do. How you spend you time and what you achieve. Eliminating the monetery system isn't difficult to realise, either. Just grab the infinite resources of the stars. They're just sat there, waiting... And I reckon we can get them for less than $15/head - then it's infinite payback(a significant wait too - but it's worth it).

The digitisation of money isn't clever, IMHO. It's already fictional, without a physical tangible asset then it's just numbers on a screen - and it's incredibly easy to turn a 0 into a 1. In the case of bitcoin alone look how much has been lost just in the last 5 years due to fraud... People selling coins they haven't got, exchanges being ransacked etc...

dear Tfoster and everyone,

What you a proposing by "eliminating" money in your proposal is that we create a fully autonomous society in which our future children will be part of a culture where everything will be provided for them just as long as they maintain the equipment. In this case a fully autonomous space station and or ship. I do believe that your ideas on 3d printing will be implemented and that we might be able to "barter" with other nations once mining opportunities & operations are created and the systems are functional. I do have concerns about the human the psychology of it. I don't believe we will ever have a moneyless society. The human mind, our "written code' if you will, for our operating system is fundamentally reward and accomplishment based. as you said in your proposal we are to the point of obsession in creating time saving and efficient ways to accomplish more in less time. it's part of what being human is and one of the reasons why I personally believe both Communisim and Socialism have failed for the most part (there are other variables as well that I will not get into here). to explain a bit further. Every time we do anything, our Jobs, Making Breakfast, making a table, designing a new engine, opening a door for ourselves or someone else we expect some kind of return on investment for our time spent (time being the key word here). that reward obviously varies from a thank you to What???. if your answer is well that person should just feel good that they accomplished the task then we have a problem cause history has proven that that doesn't work with Humans in the long run. My point is that we work because of incentive whether that be for money, notoriety, love, pride and a million other reasons. just look at the human history of money and remember it all starts with an exchange of value. starting with bartering and eventually it evolves into notes of value that can be exchanged for a commonly recognised object of value. it does not matter what that object is at one point in human history it was shells then is was a varying shift of different metals. and now it's nothing but our confidence in the ruling governments and banks that supposedly gives currency value. the exchange of value is a huge issue and one that can not be avoided or eliminated. money and currency are our answer to this so far. it's not our fault completely that the we have allowed our governments to defraud us and create a system with the banks where they have complete control of a monetary system that they have abused and will ultimately destroy but lets not forget what an exchange of value is and how important it is to us. I obviously don't have all the answers but I do believe that we need some kind of exchange of value. what that is I don't know but hopefully by adding to this conversation we might find it.

tfoster "Keep in mind all the other benefits of no monetary system. There would no longer be a lower, middle or upper class." "This too has the potential, if not more potential of breeding laziness because not only can they not find a job..."

I'd like to point out a couple of things from this post as well. yes there would be no more monetary based classes but let us not ignore the fact that there are always lazy people and that eliminating Money will not eliminate laziness, sloth, and parasitic behaviour. How do we deal with this on a space station and or ship? Will this create a whole other "class" of people and Prejudice? where do we draw the line? Asgardia is supposed to be an open society that excepts everyone, but once we're there, in space, what do we do about Parasites who look more like the humans from the pixar movie Wally and who might not effect our personal productivity to start with but are there. believe it or not these things matter as well. do we require in-depth psychological testing before allowing people on the station? who's in charge of the testing? human or computer? maybe over time these genetic lines and social attitudes might fade and die out. I don't believe they will and we need to be able to deal with it if they don't. do we put them in a different section of the ship/station? this brings up the question of how do we assign living spaces? this will not be a military installation obviously but there will have to be a crew of people that maintains and operates the ship/station. this will automatically create a social hierarchy whether you want it or not, so what do we do? even with all the potential of being able to learn practically anything on the internet today people would rather waste their time with games, porn and frivolous things like Facebook, twitter, and instagram, which all have uses for business but are an absolute waste of personal time. to get back to the subject though when you create a system where you erase the majority of peoples effort to make that system work there will always be those who are "disenfranchised" and become bored then restless then violent. it does not matter how much or how many opportunities you offer some people would rather just sit on their asses and eventually even though you might not believe it now those people will effect you, your family and your endeavours in some way. It's fine to live with them on earth cause you can just cut them out of your life. it's a different thing altogether on a space station/ship in the middle of a vacuum in one of the harshest environments that we currently know of. I guess and question that this brings up is how big is this station/ship going to be??? in the end this might not be a problem but it's better to get it on the table now then later.

I don't see it ever being fully automated - but a large percentage of automation should be possible, including most maintainence. As to "the psycology of it", then once people stop acting out of greed, or because they are required to do so to survive - primitive things, really - then it's possible to start acting because it needs doing, or you want to do it. The reward is the task itself, or the output of. People will design new engines because they are interested in mechanical application and can see a "better" way. The reward is both solving the problem and knowing it's used and appreciated. People will perform maintainence on the coolant systems because it's a subject that interests them and they want to play with it. The reward being the knowledge and experiences gained. People will t erebor mons just to be the first one to do so, or because they've done all the mountains on Earth, or they want to explore the moons of Jupiter - Or they like geology and want an interesting rock for the collection.. For a proof of concept, check out some open source projects... Linus didn't make linux to make money, he followed his passion and made an OS - enjoyed solving the problem and is happy that people use and appreciate it. He doesn't even want thanks. Noteriety, love, pride - these will still be driving forces. The fascination with shiny things isn't a natural thing, it's not something that you're born with or written in genetically, it's a defect implanted by society to make you easier to control. There was a time before money - and for thousands of years everything worked fine. Look at tribal cultures in remote parts - few have a form of currency and they do perfectly fine on a day-to-day.

 now it's nothing but our confidence in the ruling governments and banks that supposedly gives currency value.

The key word being "supposedly". If it has value, what's it worth? And, yes, it is your fault that you have allowed your governments to defraud you - By allowing it to happen, and then worse doing nothing about it, you've essentially encouraged it and there is unlikely much change planned for the future. If you'd executed them, and made the next lot watch then they'd think twice. There's a common trend to forget where the power is, with the numbers. You outnumber them, if only you'd work together... The massive flaw with this economic model is "inflation" which is intentionally flawed in order to keep popping itself but will inevitably continue to rise, and ultimately make producing the currency cost more than it's return - it's already past that costing about $1.50 to make $1 (the deficit is passed to the holder) - eventually to the point where it's "economically unfeasible" to continue down that path and digital isn't going to solve this for long, the machines cost to run.

As for an exchange value... Draw some supply/demand graphs for a few goods. Note the price when supply becomes infinite.... Money really will be of no use...