> Those are demands of the existing system, and they do exist. > However, your vision involves its own system with its own as-yet > vaguely defined demands, plus the demands involved in throwing > out 5,000 years of barter and commerce, plus the demands > involved in dismantling governments, plus, I gather from your > last post, the demands involved in curing everyone on the planet > of various purported ailments of the subconscious. Well, the ultimate is the demands simply going away. Actually, I'm going for LESS demands, removing demands. I'll put it this way: When you have a problem, you can either find a solution, or get rid of the cause of the problem. Dismantling governments is not the solution, but when nobody is interested in security and authority any more, there will be no need for them, and they will be no more. Also, what I am suggesting is NOT throwing out barter and commerce; what I am suggesting is REFINING barter and commerce. Commerce is a refinement of barter; you produce value, and then you trade it, but you trade it with anyone who has the money rather than only the people who have what YOU want, hence you increase the size of the cake because transactions that bring more value are possible. We have now reached the point where the cost and the possibility of abuse of the commercial system is getting higher than it's value, so a new system kicks in, and that's gift economy. In the interim this means that by giving something away you alter your psyche in a way that lets other people instinctively give you more, proportionate to what you have given, while in turn receiving stuff that kind of naturally makes you want to give more, and that's where we really have an upward spiral. > And then, a century from now, after it's all implemented and > we're all "free", I give it about 25 seconds before some guy > somewhere tells some girl that he'll fix her leaky roof if only > she'll spread her legs for him, instantly bringing barter -- and > from there, capitalism -- back into the world. Maybe you could > breed the orgasm out of us to prevent that from happening, as > long as you've brought up Orwell. That is an assumption you are making, based on the fact that the guy thinks sex is in scarce supply. I would theorize women hold sex in scarce supply because men tend to hold affection and care in scarce supply, so in the end there is some sort of collective belief in scarcity that is the product of 'neme inheritence' or something like that. The instant we STOP drawing our conclusions from 'what is' and START drawing our conclusions from 'what could be', we have the power to attain anything we like, like abundance in sex or pretty much anything. Since nobody is just going to give to you in a world of scarcity, the only way to create a world of abundance is to GIVE something. In my case, this'll be music, or spreading my ideas over web forums. I know plenty of people who write stuff like this and charge for it. > Anyway, it seems a bit much just to get free music. I think > Stallman's vision -- that bits are free and no one pretends > they're the same as atoms -- is a little more workable. You're simply not used to large-scale visions. I guess not to many of your grade-school teachers have introduced you to them, now haven't they? Well, the reason I wanted to expand on Stallman is that I would like to integrate it with everything society is doing and how everything works with us. I believe Atoms are free. People are free. Animals are free. Goods and services, for that matter, are free. Talent is free. Everything is free. Except if you chose otherwise, everyone has to make that decision for his or herself, but I want that freedom to be presented to everyone as an OPTION. And that's where you come in. Of course, you would have to make it your own first, so for this you would have to find some place that IS workable for you. You can have a big vision and work in a small place. I can't go out farming and building houses, but I can write songs about that. You see, I'm simply taking a very simple principle, and applying it to everything and all my choices. That brings me at odds with many established practices, but it does make for more satisfaction in my life. It's the classic deal between idealism and opportunism. What'll it be for you, given you know both are equally difficult or easy? Carlo