All this "Trillion dollar debt", "money", "spending", "cant afford it" got me thinkin

[cupocity303]

one of us is looking at the ideals and the other is looking at it pragmatically


we cant just build the thing

Yes we can (hypothetically) BUT we can't (in reality), as it was just a hypothetical regarding the importance of money. Nothing to be pragmatic about. I wasn't gonna iron out the details for a fantasy proposal when it wasn't about that.

I purposely suggested a otherworldly thing rather than the typical domestic proposal everyone is fighting about. A thought experiment as my opening post says.

[Drunken Cat]

I got this thread immediately, but I think about this question of "what is money really?".

I think that this "thought experiment" sort of supports Karl Polayni's 'fictitious commodities' thesis with respect to the fictitious commodity of money. (The other two by the way are land and labor.)

I can't explain it at the moment (no time), but could do so later.

I'll just say: 'labor' is really the commodification of humans, 'land' of nature, and 'money' of the social institutions of exchange.

None of these things (man, nature or the institutions) are genuine commodities, so these concepts (labor, land, money) are in fact 'fictitious commodities'.

This has a lot of consequences, which is what I can't go into at the moment. But, first thing I thought of when I read the OP was this schema.

[spyvsspy]

We could always start a few wars/conflicts to fund the project...

[Cuauhtémoc1520]

What would happen is, the Chinese would steal the blue prints for it like they steal all of American technology and then build it only to have it explode and kill thousands.

Meanwhile the U.S would say they have no interest in building it all the while building it in secret with Japan like they did in the movie and find something out and never tell the rest of the world for another 100 years.

[-Kev-]

I love that movie, one of my favorite sci-fi films.

[Left Hook Tua]

the chicoms will build several and sell it at wal mart for $50.

just don't eat it. chinese lead paint you know.