Money in the 21st century.

Lucid Lounge
1

Right now, generation of youths under 25, those who refuse to conform and have a tendency to be labeled as dysfunctional, rebellious, ADD, etc, “oppositional defiant” (sounds like a good thing!)

are faced with some interesting questions

we refuse to be slaves, and we are growing to maturity in the midst of radically different ideas, ideas that have been buried for all of American history, ideas known by ancient magical societies, ideas such as the law of attraction.

Ideas that we can do whatever we want, and do not have to do what others say, that we can follow our own rules.

Ideas that money is an energy, does not exist save for the consensual associative patterns attached to it by the minds of many, and that, as an energy, can be conjured and manipulated like any other energy.

Ideas that we can create. Ideas that we can be free.

What does someone who is not caught up in 4th and 5th grade reasoning and roles do, to attain financial freedom ?

4th grade,
i went to westpoint, my grandpa did, you will, you have no choice
this is the proper way to use a napkin
complete and total order and regulation,
mainly authoritarian
5th grade
more abstract, more about communication, more touchey feely
but still strongly linked to some form of rule, authoritative
6th grade
far out space cadet peoples, indigo children, etc

we can call it whatever grade we want.

The obvious answer is GET A JOB, but that is not the right answer.

I want to shift our understanding of what work is. Work is coming up with intelligent beautiful thoughts, and sharing them with others.

Work is meditating, and performing yoga. Work is going and spending time with someone and helping them feel happy.

Work is giving a child a cookie.

Work is whatever you feel is intrinsically honest, and gives to yourself and others, for to give yourself joy, gives you a stronger arsenal to give to others. To give others joy gives yourself, then, this joy.

if we understand working as the movement of energy, and pull money out of the equation, one could be a millionaire for making 5 thousand very helpful sincere honest posts on the internet. A billionaire for, giving freely, advice and love to thousands of “strangers” on the web,

one could be payed for each honest keystroke on the computer,

is this not intrinsically more honest than being dishonest?
Isn’t it dishonest to do what makes you stressed, fearful, angry, fatigued,
isn’t it honest to do what is uplifting?

It is possible to subsist without employment, to drift, hitchhike through nature, or to manifest miracles so that one may “work” unconventionally and attain necessary finances. We must shift our collective understandings of money, so that we are not imprisoned by it.

Essentially there are 25 people, and 4 of them are artists, and of the 4, only 1 will pursue art, the other two will work in a shoe factory, so that one of these people can sit and relax and have a lifetime’s supply of shoes, and cause the other’s to be his slaves by keeping them all to himself and charging them hundreds of times more for something he could give virtually freely.

Essentially,
large groups of souls conform out of who their true soul is, into the net of “safety” by doing things they find whollistically dishonest.

and essentially, everything is FREE.
Think, shetler, nature has caves.
Food. Nature has fruit, vegetables.
It is only when we developed the act of taking more than was needed, that we had more people than our greed could sustain, in which, then, instead of all human beings (say, 4000 people alive on all of Earth) having ENOUGh, there are 4,000 beings that have more than enough, and 1 million who are exploited by the 4,000 who are essentially starving. and about 100,000 or more who, are, truly, starving.

essentially when we violate the mathematical laws of nature by taking more than we need, there is an effect, always, and now, we have money, and it is not even based upon gold.

essentially,

what does one do, to manipulate the energy of money?

2

Wow, that was awe-inspiring and a tad confusing at the same time.

3

Join an isolated society made up entirely of people who share your views. :tongue:

The entire world has gravitated toward capitalism and the pursuit of the almighty dollar. There is little that can be done about that; I guess humankind is just too greedy by nature. And greed is really the only explanation for the giant gap of inequality.

It’s really unbelievable how large this gap is. While Americans eat gourmet food and drive luxury cars, people in Haiti eat dirt because they don’t have enough money for even the most basic food. I had a revelation while I was sitting on the toilet one day (a place where great ideas are born). I realized that I could wipe my ass with a dollar bill and it would hardly impact me at all. Some people LIVE on less than a dollar a day. Under the gravest circumstances, that dollar could be the difference between living another day or starving to death. I’m sure there are people that HAVE starved to death but might still be alive today if they had that dollar in their hour of need.

Really makes you feel like a monster, doesn’t it?

4

Yup. I want to leave this filthy society and build a cabin somewhere and become self-sufficient. A society fueled completely by greed is bound to cause nothing but problems and suffering.

If we could just focus on altruism it would satisfy everybody as opposed to 2% of the population. We don’t know shit about this existence, so why spend it working against one another? Money needs to be burned.

5

I would rather work at a job I hate just to donate that one dollar to someone in need than seclude myself in self-sufficiency. The latter might help the environment, possibly, but how can I help others if I’m only concerned about helping myself be a “better person?”

Money is better than the barter system. It’s accepted universally and you can’t get traded a “bad” dollar like you could get traded a bad fur or animal. (Counterfeiting aside) Money was intended to make things fairer, to appease our sense of fairness.

Example: You’re living in your little self-sufficient house/society. You need a knife to cut open fruit/ cut branches for your shelter/ defend yourself from animals. Say you lived in Florida like me, where there are no naturally occurring rocks (besides soft limestone) to make a knife from. When your first knife breaks, how do you get a new one? Your only options are to steal it from someone or trade for it.

1: In your pursuit of moral superiority, you refuse to steal.

2: You trade for it, but on a barter system, someone could easily trade you a flawed knife that falls apart in your hands the next time you’re attacked by a bear or something.

I suppose you could borrow it, but you never know when you will need it for self-defense.

I’m sorry if I sound like a basher it’s just… when anarchy and/or communism works, you give me a call. We can complain all we want but I’d rather work at a job I hate and donate a part of my salary to a worthy cause than be so selfish and lazy as to exclude myself from society.

Isn’t the ability to hold down a job you hate while still enjoying life a sign of maturity?

6

There’s a story, a man is a pearl diver, his wife has a child, they are rather poor.

One day the man finds the most amazing, beautiful, huge pearl he’s ever seen in his life, enough to make them rich, but its so huge that all the rich people that could give him tremendous money for it, only offer him ridiculously small amounts, and so, in paranoia, he hides it, and has to run in fear of his life, for those who wish to steal it.

one starving to death cannot eat paper, and probably does not have the energy to make their way to a place where paper can be exchanged for food.

have you ever been a human who has starved to death? I almost think I have. Because I almost think when I was born into America as a child I noticed 'wow, I always have food!"

some day I would hope to just have the right motivation to prove to myself and the world, that the eyes are capable of photosynthesis, so no one has to be hungry ever again.

Well, is taking a child’s toy away, beating it, and telling it to go work in the coal mines an act of love?

I agree with what you say except: when has the US GOVERNMENT ALLOWED COMMUNISM TO EXPLORE ITSELF WITHOUT VIOLENT INTERVENTION?

maybe this + human greed killed a great system ?

incidentally there are communist nations that work very well, we just don’t hear about them. I believe this was discussed on these very forums.

One says, what if I get a bad knife, its kind of the same as “what if …” so I should buy insurance or “what if…” so I should let them keep me in debt or “what if…” so I should pay income taxes

the biggest question is WHAT controls what if statements? God, or us, or other people, or all of the above, or none of the above?

Like say you own 15 assault rifles, you spend all your life learning to kill a man, and you believe in survival of the fittest, you believe in NWO conspriacies, and etc, and then one day you just slip on a bar of soap and break your neck, can you shoot your way into better health?

and what if you were wrong about owning weapons, but you thought you were right, and you believed you were right, and you were so delusional that you picked fights with people and got into violence all the time, that you wouldn’t have, if you were peaceful and non-confrontational?

have you ever been around someone that is so angry and/or passive-aggressive and/or depressed that they can get into a conflict every single day, even with people that normally would never want to fight like that ?

how much do the masters of our governments know, that we do not?

whatever the mind attaches itself to and beleives in, becomes true
however, the mind’s of most are taught to believe things are true by having information constantly embedded into them from television and radio and politrickians.

7

Wow… so the reference to a knife destroyed the entire analogy? Shame.

And yes, the US intervenes unnecessarily and messes up systems. But in the real world there is a US, there will always be a metaphorical US (be it Rome, Britain, the US, China, etc.) so systems that really want to shake things up will encounter resistance. This is what I mean by “call me when they work.” Call me when they work in the real world.

Aren’t all humans “created equal” or “capable of enlightenment?” Why are politicians such bad people, then? Everyone lies and a lot of people cheat. So making that into a job is horrendous? (If you’re already a morally corrupt human being, sounds like a good deal to me)

The system on the other hand is indeed flawed, but I can’t bring myself to blame the government. We live in a Republic, where the polititians we hate so much are voted on by the people. Things like the income tax are voted on by the representatives of the people so the government can actually DO something. They only try to appease the masses (because it gets them reelected, but can you see where I’m coming from?). The masses are an uneducated lot.

I wouldn’t take on the whole monetary system without first taking on the stupidity of the masses. That can’t be achieved by self-secluding yourself in some commune or a quiet mountain cabin. That comes from constant socialization and contact with the outside world.

OK, so we just want to stop the government’s control over money? Without government funding, school systems would crumble. Private schooling would take over. Like in the past, all but the richest will be excluded from an education, and society would go down-hill. Without government funding, we would be without space travel (be it German, American, or Soviet governments. And the Soviets were far from true commies).

The government prints money. Without their regulations, counterfeiting would be so horribly wide-spread and inflation would skyrocket that, once again, society would go down-hill.

These aren’t “What ifs.” This is exploring different options.

The problem with confronting the whole monetary system is that the entire world is based on money. Money isn’t inherently bad. People are. (Guns don’t kill, knifes don’t kill, people do.) Survival of the Fittest is an outmoded idea, but we are members of the Animal Kingdom, we live in a dangerous world, we have instincts to protect ourselves and our family above all others. Enlightenment is possible, new systems are possible, but for it to work on a global scale, or even a country-wide scale, requires something drastic.

If it takes another World War, Holocaust, economic disaster, natural disaster, plague, civil war, or Religious war to change public opinion, I’m not looking forward to it.

8

I thank you much for your ideas:

it does not take such things in my mind,

Yes, this is quite it. because the people are stupid, the elite (which are not politicians in and of themselves, most politicians are not “in the know”) engineer the equivolent of dark age “God is gonna get you so give me money and I’ll keep you safe, God loves you” circular reasoning, by inventing and creating threats that are not so, so as to keep people in order and the story of America (tremble with pride, hate the other Guys, proudly go to work, etc) can stay in operation.

On some levels this blatant lying and manipulation is good, becuase, yes, the people are stupid, really really, really really, really, in comparison to the Elite, stupid,

but ultimately instead of jerking us around with fear they could begin to enlighten us to the levels of itnellectualism that they ahve, and perhaps then we could become closer to a true democracy, wherein large numbers of citizens get together and have vivid deep intricate discussions about laws, as cacuses are, so that it is not just some dude who means well stroking a pen and starting a genocidal law in order (i.e. drug war, terror war, war war, space alien war)

///////////////

the only reason we discuss like this is because we want a better life for ourselves, in which case, we would like the freedom to either go into hermitage with our like-minded friends, be peaceful, and left alone ( easily enough done, very easy )

or we wish for certain freedoms, as in, freedom FROM money (from working in ways we find disagreeable) or, in some cases, freedom to use beneficial plants which the governtment hates, to make them illegal is a violation of Freedom of Religion, and this is the only truly tyrannical action I see, besides the whole tangling issue of national ID cards, barcode tatoos, SSN #s, driver’s licenses, etc… pesky ideas.

say we are shifting to a system of being tatooed and making money electric,

the opposite idea is to go back to a barter system,
or to keep money here, but money wants to evolve

and i don’t like that idea, the 666 idea, at all, even if its not “evil”
the whole “only the guilty have to fear” is false, you can be called guilty for taking a pee if they want to call you that.

frankly in this 21st century, some-time before 2012, I call for an official end to the drug war, complete and total decriminalizatoin,
with this >$6 billion a year we habitually throw upon bonfires, we can massively overhaul the public education system, which, actually, would greatly combat drug addiction more than putting people in prisons and etc etc ever could.

9

Hey make sure to drop me a line when capitalism works. If you claim it does, just wait a couple years and you will see that you are dead wrong. Take a peak at the economy. At the increasing polarity between left and right.

The revolution is coming…

And when it does come, the big ol’ Wall Street traders will be here> :hide:

Your talk about government funding sounds like you are a leftist yourself. It is in freemarket capitalism that the schools get no funding. People can’t afford medical treatment.

So really, you can choose capitalism, the system run 100% by greed. Or socialism/communism, a system run by people working as one.

For every rich person in this country, there is 5000 poor people. All the poor people who get minimum wage are actually slaves. The minimum wage is a mask to disguise it, but it is completely slave labor.

Think about it. The slaves were given food and shelter. What does minimum wage get you? Food and shelter. Nothing more. No luxury. So basically, instead of the corporations literally housing all the workers and providing food for them, they give them a tiny bit of cash so they can do it themselves.

It’s disguised slave labor, and people are figuring that out.

The revolution is coming…can you feel it?

Yeah, and you know what it will be? Terrorism. Our country then goes into martial law. The Bill of Rights is nonexistant during martial law. Riots and violence on every street corner.

Boom, lockdown. The National Guard becomes the police. This is the big step into tyranny. That is where your innocent little capitalistic beliefs are taking us. Yay for that.

Oh and democracy is a total lie. We don’t decide ■■■■ in this country. However they do still run the campaigns and all that so the sheeple think that we are in fact in control.

“Politics is the entertainment branch of industry” -Frank Zappa (I suggest you listen to some of his music)

[mod]Combined some posts here, triple-posting is a bit much :tongue: Thanks. :wnvoss:[/mod]

10

don’t be a pessimist Lizard King!

there are a few differences, any individual who accesses information has the potential of freeing himself from slavery and does not have to contribute against his Will

… th ere is enough intelligence in both the elite and the middle class to orchestrate a utopian society or make radically freeing changes and improvements in the areas of social welfare, and the current dystopic nature of our society serves as a breaking point to rebound us into sanity.

11

Don’t get me wrong, we do need major changes. But I’ve heard the revolution talk before. What’s the plan? Where does it start? I hope I don’t sound too critical. It’s just frustrating to hear the desire for change but not seeing it in action. If action is being taken… links anyone?

12

(Speaking only in terms of my own country, the US; I don’t know how bad things are elsewhere)

Action won’t be taken unless things get bad enough. And they’re not (yet). Those on minimum wage are content enough on what they have that they won’t risk a revolution. And that’s exactly the way the upper class is going to keep it. Let’s face it; in a country where gun ownership is prevalent among the lower classes, would the upper class REALLY want a revolution on their hands? No, so what do they do? They take as much as they can from the lower class while leaving just enough to keep them from revolting. Now, people have to get pretty desperate to revolt. Mass starvation and homelessness would do it, so the upper class gives them just one step above this. And one step above starvation is subsistence (i.e. minimum wage).

It’s the 21st century version of “Keep your slaves just happy enough that they won’t run away or kill you.”

13

there’s no revolution

how silly and absurd

not in that way, not with violence.

an intellectual revolution

and a great Leader.

14

Beautiful post, Eyelids! :content: This is what I’ve been thinking about for the past month!

Yep, I’ve been there. If I dig my heels in about something I’m instantly told by my mom, and others,) “you cut your nose off to spite your face”. “Pig-headed”…A few choice swears… All just because I didn’t want something that a ‘elder’ wanted?

You go, Eyelids! My journal has dark undertones suggesting this. “My will is of my own, and no one else will control me. I am who I am, and no one else decides this but me.”

We should be able to do what we want–money is nothing, just green paper that people want. Our rule are our rules, we should be the ones to decide what to do with our body, we should have the right to live where we want to live. We are the future, we are the now. Free will should not be watered down to freedom of speech.

Exactly, although I have a different way of thinking about it: Money does not exist. It only means what you allow it to mean, so it can be both everything and nothing, you just have to look for either.

We can be free, but our need for structure (What I see as the government, may be something else) is holding us back. We shouldn’t need others to decide what is right and what is wrong for us–we have our own will, our own thoughts to do this. Illegal and legal–what do they truly mean? One is “right” and the other is “wrong”?

Authority. How I hate the word. What gives one more authority over the other? What is authority if not only in our minds? Look past this so-called “authority”–we are all the same. If authority is only on our minds, then why waste time teaching it?

Authority again, the way I see the school system it’s not only to “teach us basic math and reading skills”, (Let me put this in my usual madwoman mind scenario here: You are lost in the woods, no food or water. Are you going to use your multiplication tables to get help, or use your basic human instinct of direction?) But also to “knock us in place” so we’re not as “rebellious” in later years.

What gets me is:

What is the point of a job, when all it does is bring in money, which you can then use for food, when you can always live out in the wilderness and get food there, without having a job? Just my two cents.

Thank you, Eyelids. :happy:

:eek:   All this time I was told I was insane for having this thought. I was told I was the only one that thought like this, because I was mad. But you hit [i]my thought pattern right on the nose.[/i]  You gain +100 Internets. You are truly awesome.

Eyelids,

You are the most enlightened person I have ever met.

15

Things are getting close to “bad enough”. Look at the fall of the economy. We are probably heading into the worst depression in all of history.

The revolution isn’t here yet, but it’s knockin on the door.

People need to throw away their TVs. Everyone. If that happens, it’ll be a HUGE step towards a greater society.

16

I agree. Either this is just a little hiccup (we’ll soon see) or this is The Big One. (imho)

I was just about to ask: what about the media on the internet? Won’t people just watch TV on their computers. But the internet requires basic reading skills, so that alone would be a big help. :tongue:

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi

17

you can’t control people if they don’t listen to you!

You know, true religion is empowering and frees one from guilt and pain

it doesn’t matter who you are, or who you were, they are going to make you feel better, immediately

and so when you have someone get on a podium, and he makes you feel bad, then offers a solution to take your pain away

DON’T TRUST HIM

he says THEY ARE GONNA KILL US
replace “they” with “I AM”
he’s just putting a puppet show on the wall.

WORLD PEACE REQUIRES THE LEADER OF OUR NATION TO NOT UNDERESTIMATE OUR INTELLIGENCE

'nor anyone elses. We have to be talked to like grown ups!