Suppose that we suddenly lived in a world where technology came into existence that eliminated the need for all traditional financial functions, and that the technology was so robust that we were absolutely confident that humanity would never be at want for goods and services in the future due to the technology (who cares how this technology works), such that saving for future consumption is irrelevant. Further suppose that gold can be replicated at will, and therefore no longer has unique value storage properties. Money is no longer in use, and investments don’t exist since capital procurement is irrelevant (as inventors/entrepreneurs/producers can secure materials at will, and the massive technology infrastructure just described ensures the unlimited distribution of desired goods and most services to the populace).
Assume that all other professions and trades are necessary (medicine, law, engineering, etc., etc.), and that people are still required to work in order for them to procure goods and services from the technological provision-generation grid.
What would be your backup line of work in this sort of world?
Or, more gravely, suppose that you are permanently barred from practicing finance (in the real world of today). What kind of “Plan B” do you envision for yourselves?
Well, no, because I’m interested in what the responses would be for both. For instance, any avenues which might be available to the person in the first example might not be available to the person in the second example (i.e., a person gets kicked out of finance for fraud or whatever would not be able to become an attorney, etc.).
I thought it might be interesting to see both types of responses.
I actually really enjoy geology. I’ve done some formal and informal education there. It’s great. And engineering I think I’d enjoy, but can’t really say for sure obviously. Hell if I didn’t have a family to support, I’d probably head back to school and go down one of these paths now.
I’ve semi lookes at this and unfortunately since I don’t have any useful math or science credits I’d have to take just as much time doing levelling courses as a masters in geology/engineering would take.
Yeah, it’s a couple years even with some of the science and math I’ve done. And I’ve already put in 7 or 8 years of finance education at this point so I’m in a place now where I’m probably just going to accept this is my lot in life and make the most of it.
Ian M. Banks was an author of the ‘Culture’ series. He died recently, I was pissed off walking into a dying barnes and nobles, looking for his last works. The premise was about a civilization that no longer needed monetary or even economic theory to thrive, not just survive, but really, just to have a good time fcking around. There’s a lot of books starting from the 70’s up until 2012. And they were good people.
I like sci-fi a lot, but Banks was pretty cool with just story line and character. Dunno if any of you read some of his Culture series boooooooooooooooooooooks…
