posted on May, 17 2010 @ 11:47 PM
But you also should keep in mind that money's perceived value lies at least partly in the tension of uneven distribution.
I am not saying it is right or wrong, just trying to keep the mechanics of the system in frame.
meandering into theory,
I suppose it is vitally important that the allure of a currency be kept high.
That dazzling displays, invariably extremely exclusive, are part of what keeps people eating the money dreams.
Money hungry people keep the money in high tension & probably sustains its excitement requirement.
A currency's strength may depend on people believing it will make them 'happy' if they only had more of it.
This is helped when you put a price tag on everything.
We begin to see it as a panacea.
The answer to all problems.
As if someone has created magic stuff, & we don't even have to use our minds/brains, we just have to mindlessly get more money.
The reason we usually want money is that it is a means of getting things from other people with their acquiescence.
Also there is pure egotism involved, where it is more about lording how much one has rather than even enjoying the things it can buy all that much.
It is all so loaded. Credit & debt to draw people in with how seeming easy it is at first, until the hammer may or may not drop.
I think a lot of people who perceive that they have been 'put upon' by the world/Universe/people/persons think they 'deserve' & need to have it.
Others born into it may believe they are entitled to it.
The other weird thing is that it registers in the human brain exactly in the place where the most primal drives do. Right where food, sex & drugs
excite the brain, money excites it in exactly that same primal place,
which seems weird if you think about it. There is probably some explanation. Maybe it fits some instinctual mystic/magic stuff niche that might be
sort of hard-wired into our brains. Probably the panacea niche?
What i believe it is technically is a means of exchange of value. To some degree it sort of communicates what is [at least] available for purchase &
what price it is valued at.
Another weird thing about the US & many industrialized countries is that we no longer haggle & barter for prices.
We are so programmed into fixed retail prices that we think/believe it is all very firm & fixed in valuation.
Things that are never offered up for sale are ambiguous in possibly being either priceless or worthless.
From an engineering standpoint it is like a pressure exchange surface/manifold. When buyer & seller arrive at an agreed price an exchange transpires
across the/some surface that is the 'market valuation'. Much like an osmotic cell membrane for manipulating & sustaining a steady saline
proportion.
What i personally find troubling about money is just how reductive it is.
I want to blame it for 'cheapening' things, but that only happens if we allow it to in our minds. I guess our minds have to be stronger than the
seductive characteristics of money. I don't mean morally or virtuously, but logically, factually, practically.
I guess the logical strategy is to try to structure one's life defensively so one is much less disturbed or damaged when the economic/monetary system
is going through spastic gyrations, which it seems to do with some random regularity.
If you have sorted out your priorities where you know there are many things all infinitely more important than money you are probably well ahead of
the game.
One, in the modern society, has to accept that money is a fundamental part of our lives but not let it be the dictator of our lives.
perhaps the less you use money, the less control it has over you.
[edit on 17-5-2010 by slank]