Solution: Eliminate Money: Reduce Threats
Why does eliminating all money / all monetary systems reduce threats? What are the threats eliminated?
- Threat of war: As most wars are fought not for true divisions of idealism, but instead over wealth, having no ability to accumulate wealth in turn removes most incentives of war. In fact, some of the biggest 'winners' in recent wars have been arms manufacturers and private military firms. These large corporations would like nothing better than to keep filling their coffers with money at whatever 'true cost' to civilization - to society. Without their ability to profit, their incentive goes away. Imagine if ALL of these fellow citizens were using all of their energies (and all of those valuable natural resources) to help humanity? The effects would be truly astounding!
- Robbery: With nothing to gain robbery would become obsolete.
- Gangs: Likewise, street gang and organized crime syndicate societies, based on making money from various illegal activities, would have no reason to continue in these activities. There would be no monetary reward, no incentive.
- GMOs: Although there is much to debate about the usefulness of some GMOs, the fact is they overwhelmingly pose a serious threat to the wonderful natural biodiversity of our planet. They have been used extensively instead of the many native varieties, which have created resistance to local disease, environmental strains, or pests. This lack of biodiversity makes the potential threat to our food supply much greater.
- Climate crisis: Yes, this is the big one. No, eliminating money will not eliminate the threat of our current climate emergency, but without eliminating money, there will be little to no incentive for many of the largest polluters to stop. Oil wells, fracking, refineries, coal mining, coal burning plants, animal factory farms, industrialized intensive crop farming, and many more would all have no reason to keep polluting on such a massive scale if money were not a reward.
- Killing off main pollinators of our food: Money is driving the use of chemical herbicides like glyphosate instead of sustainable, natural and organic alternatives that would be safer on our environment. Bee colony collapse from glyphosate herbicide use alone threatens our existence as crops depend so heavily on bees for pollination. If our bees go extinct we will likely follow soon after.1 “If bees do not have enough to eat, we won't have enough to eat,” explains John Haltiwanger of Elite Daily, while others argue that “if honeybees did disappear for good, humans would probably not go extinct (at least not solely for that reason). But our diets would still suffer tremendously.”2 We would likely not have any (or an extremely scarce amount) of the following in our diets: almonds, apples, apricots, avocados, blueberries, cantaloupes, cashews, coffee, cranberries, cucumbers, eggplants, grapes, kiwis, mangoes, okra, peaches, pears, peppers, strawberries, tangerines, walnuts and watermelons, since they are all pollinated by bees.
- Starvation from embargoes, treaties, trade and war: Unfortunately, our current monetized society is ignoring the only true wealth we have – our environment, our planet. When we produce inferior products in order to increase monetary profits, the environment suffers twice as more raw material are ultimately used, and more garbage ends up in our landfills. But what about issues like global starvation? Drawing correlation between money’s existence and global starvation numbers is a bit more difficult. Why are so many of our fellow humans starving? Is there a shortage of food? No! We currently produce enough food to feed the entire population and then some. In fact, we currently produce enough food to feed 10 billion people, a full 33% more people than currently inhabit the earth.3
We not only produce an overabundance of food, but have resources to continue feeding our population growth for years to come. What we lack primarily is the necessary infrastructure, and in many cases the proper permission needed to get food to the large populations of starving humans.4 The worst humanitarian crisis that exists in late 2018 is likely the one in Yemen. “Widespread starvation threatens 13 million more. War and famine, along with economic collapse and the worst cholera outbreak in modern history, have driven the country to its knees.”5
- Artificial Intelligence: Assuming there is a 'horizon' in the near future, a point at which A.I. becomes not only self-aware, but able to act on its own to manage any facet of our existence. The threat is obvious: if humans exhibit the traits of private ownership, monetization, division, war, starvation and suffering while others do not - it could easily be the end of us. A.I. will realize rather quickly we are destroying the viability of the environment on the planet we live on, and will likely do what is 'right' and end our existence sooner rather than later. Will this come to pass? Will A.I. be in such a position of power? With the fast advances we have already seen, it is unlikely that this scenario will NOT come to pass. Therefor, to help save our very existence, we must all be working together, as a team, as one species, to conquer the threat of our current climate emergency. A.I. is and will continue to help with this, and will be one of our best allies assuming we are using it for the good of all!
- Threat of space debris: Without money there would be no reason for wars over money (land, resources, etc...). Without the needs of war, the constant drain on our best suited scientists and military personnel is removed, and instead the best suited scientists and former military personnel can work on a new space debris defense project. With all of these resources, we can make fast progress in our ability to locate and defend ourselves against satellites in disintegrating orbits, stray asteroids, comets, and even rogue planets from beyond our solar system that could threaten us.
- Overfishing is threatening the entire ecosystem: “Chinese super trawlers stripping the ocean bare. Subsidies might keep people in jobs, but overfishing is threatening the entire ecosystem”, according to a recent ABC Australia story.6 This is not a lesson in sustainability. “Every season is harder than the last. The fleet have to head deeper into the ocean and stay for longer for a decent catch.” We don't actually need to harvest so many fish from the oceans that it causes such disruption. There are, in fact, many alternatives, but money is driving the supply to feed the 'demand'.
- John Haltiwanger, "If All The Bees In The World Die, Humans Will Not Survive," Elite Daily, September 15 2014, https://www.elitedaily.com/news/world/humans-need-bees-to-survive/755737.
- Brian Palmer, "Would a World Without Bees Be a World Without Us? Assessing our chances of survival without the prodigious pollinator," Natural Resources Defense Council, May 18, 2015, https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/would-world-without-bees-be-world-without-us.
- Eric Holt-Gimenez, "We Already Grow Enough Food For 10 Billion People -- and Still Can't End Hunger: Hunger is caused by poverty and inequality, not scarcity. For the past two decades, the rate of global food production has increased faster than the rate of global population growth," Huffington Post, May 02, 2012, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/world-hunger_b_1463429.
- Mary Hoff, "Paul Matteucci: How to Feed 10 Billion," Ensia, January 9, 2013, https://ensia.com/interviews/paul-matteucci-how-to-feed-10-billion/.
- Sarah Aziza, "Yemen’s Human-Rights Defenders Are Fighting Increasingly Desperate Odds: ‘This war will never stop until the international community decides to take action.’" The Nation, November 28, 2018, https://www.thenation.com/article/yemens-human-rights-defenders-are-fighting-increasingly-desperate-odds/.
- Matthew Carney, "China's super trawlers are stripping the ocean bare as its hunger for seafood grows," The Australian Broadcasting Commission, October 2, 2018, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-30/china-super-trawlers-overfishing-world-oceans/10317394.