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Socialist

16 (32%)

Green

8 (16%)

Peace and Freedom

2 (4%)

Democratic

1 (2%)

Transhumanist

11 (22%)

Libertarian

8 (16%)

Republican

2 (4%)

Constitution

2 (4%)

Total Members Voted: 49

[Nivim]

 I would provide all information on this thought experiment of the Wealth Redistribution Button to a group of people I know are much smarter (see as "understand economics and decision theory very well") than I am, and spend all my work catalyzing and organizing theirs. (Note that this requires I give them a lot more information than I currently have from MetalSlimeHunt.)
Then if and when they find an ideal use for the button with sufficient net gain, I would do my best to enact the plan using my resources and any that I can make available.
If they find no such use, I put the button and all the information/Gedankenexperiment-results in a metal lock box, put the lock box in styrofoam, then put the whole thing in a cement block and label it as a time capsule to be opened when I expect people to be able to reverse engineer the button.

[Lectorog]

I'd press the button. I'd press it in every single country. And I'd laugh when society collapsed because everything is based around worthless paper instead of actual valuable resources. Stupidity gets punished. Stupidity on a global scale gets punished on a global scale.

You should learn some more about the history of currency.

[frostshotgg]

You should learn some more about the history of currency.

My understanding of it right now is roughly as follows:

• Bartered goods for other goods
• Gold/shiny metals became more standard due to their scarcity and thus value
• Standardized pieces of valuable metal (coins) used
• Notes redeemable for a certain amount of valuable metal
• Notes worth only what people assign it to be

I've heard different explanations of what caused the redeemable notes to become common, either governments just holding onto the metal and saying "here you can turn these in for metal if you want" or banks taking the metal and saying "here's a note with the value of your account so you aren't carrying the metal with you," but it had the same net result. Please correct me if I'm missing a step somewhere or something, but from my point of view with my current knowledge, the first 4 are fine, the last is silly.

[Descan]

They're all silly, but it's a useful silly. Otherwise you'll have to bring a herd of cattle everytime you want to buy a car, assuming the car dealer WANTS the cattle (If we're in King of Dragon Pass, of course he does, cattle is cash. Otherwise, no guarantee.)

If anything, fiat currency makes more sense. Gold is valuable because... what? It's shiny? Okay, it's good for some things because of it's properties, but that shouldn't make it worth it's weight in... well, gold. Fiat currency is backed by the military and economic might of the nation. It has a lot more backing, in the sense of "If you don't accept this, I'll call the cops on you," kind of deal. I think that's more implied, though. Don't know if you can actually call the cops on them, but it's the same idea.

[Helgoland]

I believe that at least in the West businesses are legally required to accept the national currency.

And yeah, never quite understood why everyone thinks Gold is valuable in a 'metaphysical' way. It has market value, but so does fiat currency...

[Gervassen]

It seems like my participation in this thread is limited to reminding posters about the effect that women have on most men. If you've given that certain special woman (or women) jewelry, you know why gold has timeless appeal. When women want necklaces of dollars sewn around their necks purely for aesthetic reasons, then fiat money will also have innate value.

As for police enforcing the value of fiat money, that laughable farce never ends well. Check out Argentina for a case study in capital controls. If you're in a country that has enforced capital controls, you're usually hurting.

[misko27]

We like Gold because our father's loved gold, and because our great grandfathers, and everyone else accepts it and God Damn it's so shiny...

[Darvi]

I'm more of a silver person.

I mean, name one creature that is allergic to Gold. Cybermen don't count anymore.

[frostshotgg]

We like gold because A, it's shiny, and B, it's rare. That means you can't just get some paper and ink and magic into existence more money. It's useful as a currency in the same way bitcoins are.

[Darvi]

So you're saying gold is mostly just being used for laundering drug money?

[frostshotgg]

I said useful, not used.

[10ebbor10]

Does it also redistribute money owned by corporations, organizations, and others non people entities. Because if it's the case, then economy would crash. (For example, if state debts gets reshuffled.)

If it isn't, well, then it won't matter that much. Sure, the poor 'll be slightly better of, and the rich slightly worse. But that's all.

[Helgoland]

So you're saying gold is mostly just being used for laundering drug money?

Gold would actually be too bulky/heavy. (30.000$ a kilo, 12.5 kilos per bar.) They use gems for that sort of purpose.

[Descan]

If pressing the button redistributed money so that nobody had less than 10k in their bank and no more personal debts (student loans, credit cards, etc. maybe second mortgage and maybe first) then I'd press it.

[ed boy]

Such a button would effectively be a "return to barter system" button.

One of the fundamental reasons that people are able to use currency is because they know that things like this will not happen (or at least, only happen in minor and predictable ways).

The economy might be able to survive one push of the button, but it would be with enormous consequences. There would definitely be enormous chaos. You can expect large numbers of businesses to fold, including every bank. It would take decades for the system to rebuild to anything like what it is now.

Abusing it would be extremely hard to do. You might be able to take advantage of the first button press, but if it were to happen repeatedly, then nobody would ever sell you anything, so there would be no point.

Due to interconnectedness of global economies, the effects wouldn't be localized to one country, and every major economy would suffer.

The economic infrastructure would be sent back thousands of years, and if the button was pressed more than once, I can't imagine it would take long for governments to collapse and we'd see a reversion to essentially the feudal system.