Money

[iceplosion]

Yes Money, the thing we created to allow a stable trading system in society, do we give it too much value? Is it too important to us?

The purpose of this topic is to discuss the money and people, which is worth more to you?

I created this topic due to reading a few opinons in another topic where I saw some users valued money more than people, I'll be honest I was shocked by this so now I want everyones opinion do you value money more than people?

If someone was a vegetable on life support and had little to no chance of recovery do you think they should just be taken off life support (effectively killing them and in my opinion murdering them) so we wouldn't be spending money keeping them alive?

Although the topic title is money this topic is really about money and people so please keep on topic.

 

[Despain]

Money is very important to me, it's a lot more important than most people. And I don't think there's anything wroth with that. In today's society, money is a necessity. I equate it with survival.

If someone was a vegetable on life support and had little to no chance of recovery do you think they should just be taken off life support (effectively killing them and in my opinion murdering them) so we wouldn't be spending money keeping them alive?

With little to no chance of recovery, pull the plug. If they're in a coma or something, I'd give them a few weeks. I for one would much rather be dead than put on any life support at all. Forcing your family to continue paying for that sort of thing is horrible, not to mention all the other added stress it puts on them.

Then again, I'm also the kind of person who doesn't want a funeral or anything. If I could, I'd want my body to just be dumped in the woods somewhere and forgotten about (don't forget about me as a person, but don't go crazy over where my physical body is). Funerals are disgustingly expensive and pretty much just an excuse for everyone to cry together. In my opinion they actually cause more grief than help it. But hey-- that's off topic!

 

[iceplosion]

Funerals are disgustingly expensive and pretty much just an excuse for everyone to cry together. In my opinion they actually cause more grief than help it. But hey-- that's off topic!

Yep, I say that because most things in the symposium go off topic somewhere and with this topic its very easy to do.

Money is very important to me, it's a lot more important than most people. And I don't think there's anything wroth with that. In today's society, money is a necessity. I equate it with survival.

You can live without it, not comfortably but you can live, could you live without people?

 

[Despain]

I might not be the best person to ask that question (I'm pretty much the definition of dissocial personality disorder).

 

[Venetia]

Money > People.

Of course, you're speaking to a libertarian hermit.

I hate people, and love money. I guess life'd suck to be alone 100% of the time, but I think it'd be WAAYYYY worse to be so destitute I couldn't even afford the food I need to survive.

 

[Valcrist]

Many guys prefer money than people because some of them had a social trauma for being rejected by community. And they think with the money, they can buy the people to follow them. Or maybe they are the 'cliche' rich kid that can't socialize and giving money for a temporary friendship.

For me, people are more important. Why? Because gaining a truce with people are more harder than buying them, but you will gain a long-lasting friendship, people will help you by sharing his / her shoulder to cry on with truthfully, or even help you in time where you're in the lowermost pits in life.

 

[Grathea]

Yeah, money is important in today's society. It is the basis of pretty much all trade (bartering is the only exception I can think of at the moment), and is a pretty good physical representation of power.
To me, money>people.
People aren't necessary to survive - you can live alone with little social contact, but have money, and do alright in today's world.
The other way around, not so much. There's only so far that charity will extend.

But then, I'm probably not the best person to ask that question to, as I'm fairly introverted and a touch sociopathic to boot.

 

[iceplosion]

Maybe its just because I am (by most peoples definition) very well off and money has never been an issue for me but I expected more of you to choose people.
With no people money would be useless paper, who would make things for you to buy?

 

[Valcrist]

I'm also an introvert 16 years old kid, with a fairly poor finance, which rarely speaks in busy times and sometimes get drowned in my own world of though.

But i'm began to know that we must get active to show the world what are we used to and get more respect by showing what could we do to show up yourself rather than spreading money so people will  only bow to get your falling money rather than respecting you.

 

[Grathea]

Maybe its just because I am (by most peoples definition) very well off and money has never been an issue for me but I expected more of you to choose people.
With no people money would be useless paper, who would make things for you to buy?

I'll try and explain my viewpoint.
Money is useful because in today's world, there are a set of ideas that make that piece of paper worth something. Should there be no people around to buy from, I would go back to a hunter-gatherer type lifestyle.
But that's academic, because in today's world, there are people - lots of them.
I tried to answer the question in terms of 'how do you feel right now?'.
Hope this helps.

 

[Dissonance]

I know full and well it was my comment that brought this topic up and I generally agree with the money > people ideas that people have talked about here so far.

But also look at it on a larger scale.

The cost of having the society we do now is directly measured in human lives.  We exploit people in other countries so we can increase our own standard of living.  Often this exploitation ends in death.  And every time a person from a developing nation gets richer, or comes to our nation, we (as a society) lose a little bit of our wealth to them.  The pot spreads out a little bit more.  It's actually in our own best interest to value money over people, ultimately.

 

[iceplosion]

I know full and well it was my comment that brought this topic up and I generally agree with the money > people ideas that people have talked about here so far.

But also look at it on a larger scale.

The cost of having the society we do now is directly measured in human lives.  We exploit people in other countries so we can increase our own standard of living.  Often this exploitation ends in death.  And every time a person from a developing nation gets richer, or comes to our nation, we (as a society) lose a little bit of our wealth to them.  The pot spreads out a little bit more.  It's actually in our own best interest to value money over people, ultimately.

Um...no, with society the way it is you could argue your point and its fine and valid enough but money is just a concept, if we wanted it enough we could change that concept the only problem is most people are too greedy to even try, exactly like you said we exploit people in other countries to increase our own standard of living.

Is nobody angry about this? Money is a resource that is quite literally unlimited (you may not be able to obtain as much as you like but it is impossible for the world to run out of money, if we wanted we could make grass the most valuable currency in the world) whereas for a person their life is everything they have and once it is gone it is gone forever, we should value human lives above all, these are our people, our species and still we seem to care more about pieces of paper than our fellow man, I'm not saying we should all be communists or something, money is a great idea but its not worth more than human life (at least it shouldn't be)

I'd have thought there would be more people>money responses.

 

[Astromech]

Is this in terms of survival or happiness? In terms of survival, money is important of course. You need money for food and shelter. You also need people to provide that food and shelter. I don't think we can completely say one or the other is unimportant.

Still, I know I would not be happy if I was on this world alone. I need my family and friends to be happy. Money helps me be happier obviously (what would I do without my computer  :tongue: ), but no amount of money would substitute for the people that are important to me.

In that light, I would say people > money. I would rather die than be unhappy.

 

[e]

Personally, I value people over money, if only for the morality of it. I see a lot of people here pride themselves as "realistic", near Marxist-materialists (no, Marxist != Communist by definition; more like extreme materialism). I'm surprised you haven't yet committed suicide.

If you truly value money over the lives of others, over the pleasure of meeting others, exchanging ideas and general promiscuity, then what the hell are you doing here? Why aren't you working harder for money? Why are you literally wasting your time typing meaningless posts, debating over some deeply ingrained factious notion that was forced down your throat by a ruthless, well-oiled economic machine, instead of making money?

Don't you realize that isolation would be far more terrible for the lot of you than the lack of money? What's left to you when you have no money? Others. What can't you buy? True love (either platonic or not). Trust. Consideration. Care.

Seriously, if money truly was more valued than people, there'd be no unions, no syndicates, no holidays, no forced education, no public health care system (which there isn't in the United States...speaks volume about your culture, eh?), and much, much less laws; Ayn Rand would be President with the late Robert Nozick has her Vice-President. The Rockafellers would still rule most of the country's economy, and the world would've long ago plunged into a 3rd World War.

So stop priding yourself for being a cool-headed realist, who doesn't listen to the "simpering" idealism of the left-wing "hippies" and recognizes the importance of money. Whatever you say, it's simply not true. If it were, you'd all be hit(wo)men.

On a side note, Viva John Rawls!

 

[iceplosion]

Actually in terms of survival its possible to live in a world without money, it's not possible without people, everything you know how to do, everything you use to survive is a result of people working, lets assume that you were transported to a world without people now (obviously not gonna say born in one since you'd just die with no one to take care of you)

You would be in a world with paper that means nothing because no one is there to accept it, you would need to learn to grow your own food, make your own home, find the raw materials for and make your own clothes, all just to survive with no one to help you and assuming you do all that without dying then you can sit around with paper that means nothng to nobody but you and live out a meaningless existance just trying to survive and trying to no go mad all by yourself.

It wouldn't be possible to live in a world without people, money wasn't always there and I'm glad that it is now but you can't value something that depends on people to be worth anything more than the people themselves.

 

[Dissonance]

Um...no, with society the way it is you could argue your point and its fine and valid enough but money is just a concept, if we wanted it enough we could change that concept the only problem is most people are too greedy to even try, exactly like you said we exploit people in other countries to increase our own standard of living.

Is nobody angry about this? Money is a resource that is quite literally unlimited (you may not be able to obtain as much as you like but it is impossible for the world to run out of money, if we wanted we could make grass the most valuable currency in the world) whereas for a person their life is everything they have and once it is gone it is gone forever, we should value human lives above all, these are our people, our species and still we seem to care more about pieces of paper than our fellow man, I'm not saying we should all be communists or something, money is a great idea but its not worth more than human life (at least it shouldn't be)

I'd have thought there would be more people>money responses.

You talk like money is actually arbitrarily defined.  Sure, the coin or the paper it's printed on is arbitrary - the designs on the money can literally be ANYTHING.  But a money is like a logo for a government.  The reason why one currency is worth more than others is because (basically) one country is worth more.  It has more shit in its coffers.  If you wanted to, you could go and exchange your money for various goods - historically, gold.  Money is just a placeholder used in a barter/trade system, rather than two physical objects being traded.

And yes, it's possible to live in a world without money, but you probably wouldn't have rpgmaker, the internet, computers, or other technologies.  All of the luxuries we have can be cheaply manufactured because we are in the position to exploit the 'money' system we have put in place on a worldwide scale.  Return humanity to a moneyless existence, and we lose basically everything we have but the absolute necessities to survive.

 

[iceplosion]

Um...no, with society the way it is you could argue your point and its fine and valid enough but money is just a concept, if we wanted it enough we could change that concept the only problem is most people are too greedy to even try, exactly like you said we exploit people in other countries to increase our own standard of living.

Is nobody angry about this? Money is a resource that is quite literally unlimited (you may not be able to obtain as much as you like but it is impossible for the world to run out of money, if we wanted we could make grass the most valuable currency in the world) whereas for a person their life is everything they have and once it is gone it is gone forever, we should value human lives above all, these are our people, our species and still we seem to care more about pieces of paper than our fellow man, I'm not saying we should all be communists or something, money is a great idea but its not worth more than human life (at least it shouldn't be)

I'd have thought there would be more people>money responses.

You talk like money is actually arbitrarily defined.  Sure, the coin or the paper it's printed on is arbitrary - the designs on the money can literally be ANYTHING.  But a money is like a logo for a government.  The reason why one currency is worth more than others is because (basically) one country is worth more.  It has more shit in its coffers.  If you wanted to, you could go and exchange your money for various goods - historically, gold.  Money is just a placeholder used in a barter/trade system, rather than two physical objects being traded.

And yes, it's possible to live in a world without money, but you probably wouldn't have rpgmaker, the internet, computers, or other technologies.  All of the luxuries we have can be cheaply manufactured because we are in the position to exploit the 'money' system we have put in place on a worldwide scale.  Return humanity to a moneyless existence, and we lose basically everything we have but the absolute necessities to survive.

Its clear you have no grasp of economics....there are literally hundreds of factors that define the value of currency, and trust me fecal matter inside coffers (unless it somehow ends up as a valuable export) is not one of those factors.

No we wouldn't, the world as a whole would be better of and those of us on the top end would just have slightly less, all of our resources (actually more resources since we wouldn't be cutting down trees to make money) all of our people and everything that made what we have, attitude is the only difference, not everyone is like you.

I can live without RPG Maker, but there are millions of people who can't live without the food they can't afford.

 

[Cruelty]

after 19 years of being dirt broke, always having my utilities turned off, damn near losing my house dozens of times, going days at a time without a damn thing to eat, never never NEVER having money in my entire life because my city's economy is black hole, i think money is important.


if money isn't important to you, then maybe its because you dont know what its like to not have it.

i'd trade my friendships with some really cool people for financial security any day.

i can easily meet new people. unfortunately, i cant just wake up one day  and have all them disconnection notices magically disappear. i know money may not equal happiness, but i know for damn sure that barely scraping by day-to-day in heavy debt, even with a handful of really cool friends, definitely doesn't equal happiness.

 

[Sonata]

I fucking love money.

 

[Despain]

Personally, I value people over money, if only for the morality of it. I see a lot of people here pride themselves as "realistic", near Marxist-materialists (no, Marxist != Communist by definition; more like extreme materialism). I'm surprised you haven't yet committed suicide.

If you truly value money over the lives of others, over the pleasure of meeting others, exchanging ideas and general promiscuity, then what the hell are you doing here? Why aren't you working harder for money? Why are you literally wasting your time typing meaningless posts, debating over some deeply ingrained factious notion that was forced down your throat by a ruthless, well-oiled economic machine, instead of making money?

Don't you realize that isolation would be far more terrible for the lot of you than the lack of money? What's left to you when you have no money? Others. What can't you buy? True love (either platonic or not). Trust. Consideration. Care.

Seriously, if money truly was more valued than people, there'd be no unions, no syndicates, no holidays, no forced education, no public health care system (which there isn't in the United States...speaks volume about your culture, eh?), and much, much less laws; Ayn Rand would be President with the late Robert Nozick has her Vice-President. The Rockafellers would still rule most of the country's economy, and the world would've long ago plunged into a 3rd World War.

So stop priding yourself for being a cool-headed realist, who doesn't listen to the "simpering" idealism of the left-wing "hippies" and recognizes the importance of money. Whatever you say, it's simply not true. If it were, you'd all be hit(wo)men.

Man, maybe you're interpreting the topic different than I am. I don't think that anybody (even me) is saying that people are absolutely useless. It's nor a matter of ONE OR THE OTHER, but a matter of which means more for you. Obviously life would suck if I was filthy rich but couldn't communicate, and at the same time life would suck if you had plenty of friends but were totally broke and homeless (saying "but your friends would give you money" doesn't factor into the nature of the debate).

In terms of the discussion, I look at it as a spectrum, and I fall on the "money" side of the spectrum. I obviously understand the value of basic human interaction, but I don't have a need for being social. I have one or two friends that are very close to me, but I don't really need much more than that. I value money infinitely more than the random person I meet on the street, which is how I interpret the topic.

Rather than money and people as complete opposites, I was thinking of the classic question of money vs. the life of people you don't know, or even money vs. life in general.

I remember a video survey where people asked people if they would kill a puppy for a million dollars. They had the puppy in their hands as they asked the questions, likely with the intention of showing how cute he is to dissuade people from wanting to kill him. Glad they didn't ask me, because I would have taken the puppy right then and there and snapped its neck. It sounds heartless, but for enough money, I'd do pretty much anything (so long as there were no repercussions).