Matter/energy itself is discontinuous. And I am composed of it! So there seems to be a solid basis (LOL) for the accurate modelling of my self at least as being discontinuous. I make no claims as to how mind or matter seem to function for you.
If it helps you to feel more at ease, relax and share a drink with the Ilia probe
Beautiful! But whether anything exists or not, or is squishy, or solid, or mostly dark matter… there is still no discontinuity.
Popping back in to say that it’s consistent with the Standard Model to say that matter (or more accurately mass) is a property of energy under certain conditions, and that E=MC^2 describes not a conversion of mass to energy, but of one form of energy into another.
See, my problem is that I have a little of you in me and I will slide right into unproductivity if I let up the reigns too much 
There is no discontinuity.
You really saying there’s no problem with undefined things around here?
Am I doing this right?
That looks safe enough. Wouldn’t want to hurt yourself.
https://vandertramping.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/dsc01252.jpg
Hey, that’s not Doughnuts! But I like it.
I finally figured out what bugs me about this. If humanity collectively decided to get rid of chipmunks, I’m pretty sure we could accomplish that, but chipmunks still exist. The handy, “reality exists when I stop believing in it” doesn’t recognize the fact that ceasing to believe in things is work, and getting everyone to cease believing in something would be a tremendous amount of work, even if we all agreed it was a good idea, we’d still find ourselves believing in it sometimes. All in all, ending the reality of something like a major currency would be a lot more work than ending the reality of chipmunks. If we can agree that chipmunks exist, then I don’t see why currency is any different. Changing our minds isn’t easier than changing our physical surroundings, and in many cases is harder.
(yeah, I’m still waiting for an explanation…)
I think that people are making the distinctions between tangible and social realities far more difficult than they really are!
Chipmunks are organisms, which is probably not controversial. But currency is a technology, just like all human-devised systems are technologies, which it seems to me many people refuse to understand, because it suggests that people can have personal responsibility for them.
For example, humans could endeavor to exterminate chipmunks, but otherwise, they could do nothing and chipmunks will reproduce on their own. But one need not exterminate buggy-whips! Since they only exist if people create them, then they vanish once people cease making an effort to produce them.
I guess it can be, although I think this suggests a troublesome lack of self-discipline. Much of human social life seems to be based upon routine habits and ritual. So if human brains are pruned like bonsai trees to internalize the reality of money, it becomes a self-perpetuating problem, but one which is hardly insurmountable. And the reality of this is far from universal!
But, as usual, people continue to misunderstand my thoughts and practices with regards to both societal structures as human technologies, and money/currency generally. There isn’t anything wrong with imbuing value to a symbol, but it is best done voluntarily, deliberately. This involves democratizing the creation and use of money, rather than being controlled by a monopoly. It is a matter of getting over the mass delusion that the average person cannot implement such systems as needed, that somehow other people have special powers which enable them to do it for you.
When I say that “I don’t believe in money”, or that it has no place in my life - this does not mean that money does not exist. It means that I personally have not implemented any such system, nor have I negotiated using anyone elses. That’s why it isn’t “real”, because I have no direct involvement with it. Just like Mensa or the Roman Catholic Church aren’t “real” for me. Being social constructs, they are real, but only for those who participate, and I don’t participate in them. Even if I was told that I had to join or die, I would still not consider them “real”. But if I was born into them, I might find myself conditioned to accept them as real, and assuming them to be equally real for others.
What do you do instead of money? How do you acquire food, shelter, clothing and secure your survival? What about the popobawalings you are raising? What about when the tax man knocketh? What do you do?
These days, mostly deal with people directly. I usually just try to be generally helpful, so people help me a bit in return. If I take care of society, why wouldn’t they reciprocate? Well, they don’t always.
Either trade for services, or improvise. And scavenge, since people tend to be extremely wasteful. But I make a point to not concern myself with survival as a goal in itself. Food and shelter do literally grow on trees. Not everywhere of course, but it is much easier IMO than people make it out to be. Most people resent my implication that they are conditioned to depend upon money, and thus fitting into certain societal roles, but I find the evidence for this quite overwhelming.
I hadn’t always been raising them - their other parent kept them away from me for years, precisely because they - my ex - hated my views on life and society. Their reaction was to drill our offspring against my views. But eventually they gave up and moved away, leaving us in peace. We do alright.
What about? With no income, nor property, they have no business with me. When we had a house, I paid property tax. And on the rare occasions I use have and use US money to buy anything, I pay sales tax. I have read US and local tax codes, and it seems they aren’t owed anything else.
You know, as they say, if the common factor in all troubled interactions is you, the trouble might be…you.
Of course it might!
But I am being completely honest and sincere when I say that:
That is much of the whole underlying point of how and why people use money! Much of economics and finance depend upon it! It is the game of pretending that people can get something for nothing. And the way it works is to map concrete reality (commodities, resources) into symbols (money) - manipulate the symbols, and then convert them back to tangibility. In practice, the use of money is hardly ever limited to its nominally purported purposes of “measuring value”, or “facilitating exchange”. Most people seem to agree that the use of money is not meant to be accurate, but rather confer upon people some supposed advantage. This should not be news to most people here.
Where people seem to get antsy is when I point out that money is a technology - a symbolic technology devised by humans. In this regard, I think it functions much like religion does. Both are somewhat clever symbol systems which can be helpful to people. But if people are conditioned to the symbolism without being conscious of it, they end up being deluded fundamentalists. By which I mean that once individuals or groups become mostly unaware that they are using a symbolic technology, that they are easily distracted with nonsense and exploited.
So, I point out that use of money begins with some deliberate obfuscation, yet being sufficiently numerical as to afford a pretense of ratio-nality - and then becomes compounded in its obscurity by being denied as technology or symbolism at all. But even if I could explain it with great accuracy and clarity, this would not matter one whit to fundies. Just like I could explain to a Christian fundie that historically, the demon Astaroth was Jehova’s wife Asherah, and no amount of scholarship will ever, ever suffice to persuade them. It doesn’t matter how much jewelry I put on that pig, they aren’t going to like it.
Uhm, but they can…
People don’t “get antsy” because you say money is a technology. They “get antsy” because you pretend it doesn’t matter and people can just go make their own reality and things will all work out great, installed base and culture be damned.
I don’t really care about the “basis” of money. I care that I can use the money I receive for my work to purchase goods and services that I want or need to survive and for my family to do well in a predictable fashion, year after year.
