Ah! It's soapbox time! Let me step on top of mine! I suspect that if the prospects of robotics and LENR, or one of the LENR cousins, pans out in the near future the concept of what money represents to individuals, companies, and government circles will also have to evolve with the times. Perhaps dramatically so.
For thousands of years, as the concept of money and currency evolved in our world it has all too often been used (I'd say abused) in efforts to amass wealth along with the vestiges of power that go along with it by small elite groups of individuals who are more adept than the average person at amassing such artifacts. IMHO, the single most egregious problem "money" has created in our society is the fact that people attribute "wealth" and "power" to pieces of coins or paper currency. Because they perceive "wealth" and "power" as linked to pieces of coins and paper currency they have done a very good job of keeping these commodities scarce, artificially so, which in turn keeps such artifacts constantly in high demand. (Think of the monopoly De Beers has artificially created over the diamond trade.) I think most of us have gotten the concept of money turned half-assed backwards. Too many of us forget the fact that money in truth only represents potential wealth & power. We forget is the fact that money is only worth something when it is actively being used in transactions between interested parties in order to purchase and/or exchange artifacts of wealth & power among interested parties. When money is not actively being used in such a manner, when money is sitting around in a person's wallet, it has absolutely no value in itself. Granted, few of this belief that... considering the number of individuals that can a make a living as self-employed pickpockets in the world, but that is the truth. If something as disruptive as LENR were suddenly to come along and cause many of societies' products and services such as energy, food, the basic products associated with survival and a means to a decent living to become ubiquitous it will wreak havoc with a small group of individuals who have made a very good living at controlling the supply of coins and paper currency that historically had always been used to control the scarcity of these articles. Their "services" will no longer be needed. IMHO, LENR will not only be responsible for a huge paradigm shift in the redistribution of energy, it will also be largely responsible for the redistribution of political power back into the hands of individuals and their respective local communities. My virtual 2 cents. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
