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 So, I was discussing this with a friend of mine, (I don't think it was Tan though), and I felt discussing it with the site would be interesting. 

Everyone (should) know the Star Trek universe belief that in the future, with technology, money will be irrelevant. Basically, the idea is that using nuclear power, we could end up creating gold, silver, and all the worlds luxuries and make wealth irrelevant. This is sorta true today, with humanity able to change the composition of atoms. However, this process is ridiculously expensive for little gain (since making more of something lowers its price). 

But, let's assume this process ends up working well. What will happen after gold and everything else loses value? Will we end up going to a euphoric world where there is no price to anything, or will a new type of currency appear? 

Im a cynic, so I don't think the value of gold chaninging would do anything aside from destabilizing the government for a while. However, the question is WHAT would be our new currency? 

Doctor Who (i belive) offered an interesting alternative. The trade of memories. Assuming that is possible, people would be trading their own memories for sustenance and such. Obviously good memories will be valued to be sold, or bad memories would be traded in for something else (trying to pay for something with no good memories would have you take the bad memory of another). 

Does this sound feasible? And if not, what are the alternatives? Perhaps selling the mind or something? Perhaps we return to selling bodies? (like prostitution or servitude?)

Russian scientists (I think) managed to turn lead into gold accidentally, their nuclear reactors (or something like that) bombarded their lead containers with so much radiation that the lead lost two protons (Or around that, I don't exactly have a copy of the periodic table with me), and tuned it to gold.

Of course, the gold was un-usable due to the massive radiation it possessed, but hey, who needs a long life when you can spend your last few hours spreading your fatal radioactive genes onto the many women you'll buy with that nice, hard gold?

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That aside, I think we'd go to something like a favor or a trade and barter system. Or perhaps we would pay people in commodities, which are the only reasons we really get money in the first place after all.

Now, I would have to wonder how workers at corporations would be paid though, it's one thing to wonder about buying something, it's another to wonder how an office worker would get paid for working overtime, or something of the like. 

For commodities to work, a really strict government would be needed, and theft would probably be a huge problem.

Trade and barter is just too disorganized, wouldn't work well at all.

And favors wouldn't work for corporations, not even close, would only work in a very small society.

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That being said, I don't think we'll lose money, we have a good thing going with paper currency. It obviously has no inherent value, but it lets us decide how we'll buy other things. Gold may lose value, everything may lose value, but cash and the concept of it lets you decide what you want in life by giving you the freedom to procure anything if you have enough money. It works.

Oh, whoa, I completely misread your post. Yeah, apparently we can create everything in this future huh?

Nuclear chemistry and all that. You can turn lead to gold easy in a couple of decades.

No, not that, I mean, like those machines in that one star trek movie that create anything out of nothing, that right?

Not yet. But in this future we are assuming we could. 

Yeah, we'd all die if we ever discovered that technology.

Why? (Not debating, just want to know your logic)

Well, perhaps we wouldn't die off in the literal sense (At least, not right away) but honestly, what do you think would happen to the human race if you had something that gave you literally anything you want?

I see it as humanity just devolving into a lazy, bored race that would eventually die off, many either committing suicide out of sheer boredom or slowly dying off over multiple generations, as people became more and more spoiled and introverted and innane.

And what would happen in the case of a power outage, or the replicators breaking down? I mean, I doubt intellectuals would truly exist anymore, certainly no one with any practical knowledge would be left alive. 
I mean, you could probably make more replicators using a replicator, but those replicators would have to be significantly smaller in order to fit into the creation space of the orginal ones, and would not be as useful, eventually they'd all fail and humanity would die off from it's own greed and inability to do anything.

Unless, you know, you can create replicator repair instruction manuals using a replicator, but then the other two deaths would probably still happen. (Or maybe humanity would destroy itself with the powerful weapons people could use from the replicatorss, which can produce anything?"

Basically it's the "Spoiled and overwhelmed by technology" argument, one I believe would easily be possible if we reached the point that we could have literally every one of our needs satisfied by machinery.

See, that's why I think we'd end up trading good/bad memories. Perhaps memories of childhood. The poor would be endlessly traumatized by others horrible memories, and the rich would 'steal' the good memories of the poor. 

but we don't know, the question is Nil. There are so many things in space we don't have. Perhaps a certain asteroid rock will be the newest diamond? Where it isn't an atom that we ever knew about (whatever that means :P)

Haha, reminds me of Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clark (Another book that I showed Aman and he hated it)

Yes, Though it would take a long while (as in 2000 years or something)

The thing is that with space travel, we'd be finding so many amazing things.  Most people would be explorers, those left on Earth would be scientists, government officials, or just regular people testing the things found in space. We'd be populating Mars, exploring other world's, the universe is boundless, the final frontier indeed, but endless too. We'd be discovering, never stop advancing.

Seeing as we are talking about humanity and from what I can tell everybody has access to these things then there will be those "End of the World" guys no matter what, expect this time said some of these EotW-guys could gather together and escape on a space-ship(you can produce anything.) Said ship will carry them to a mostly habitable world and use it to produce the required stuff to make the planet fully habitable.

 Earth Life 2.0 will start as soon as the machine breaks down and leaves a huge population stranded on the planet.

Edit: Now that I think about it, if you can produce anything why not produce more humans?

Don't think you can make souls out of nothing :P (not insulting, but making humans out of nothing is impossible, even in the future, you'll need sperm and stuff) I think.

You shouldn't be able to make living organisms, that would require a few things a machine like this should be incapable of producing, like DNA, Proteins, memories for the brain, a completely functioning system that has all the experience and knowledge of an adult body (or even a baby body), and frankly, I find it completely implausible.

Now, cloning tanks could probably be made from replicators though...

(On a side note, if that was possible, then infinite hot identical strippers would be a reality, in which case I retract my end of the world due to sloth, because there will just be too much sex for the human race to die out)

Actually, supposedly nowadays they are working on making human clones in order to harvest healthy organs.

On your side note, the hot identical strippers would still have normal minds... Unless you literally made them mentally deficient. But yeah, if you do that you could also make them unable to have children, also. 

You discussed it with me briefly, a while ago though haha.

A lot of Memories and dreams on,y give pure satisfaction to the beholder. Most of my dreams have hidden messages that I often smile about, even if others wouldn't get it.

What will be useful, is experience. Physical Labor and computations can be put into a computer, but common sense isn't only in probability, it's in risks, hope, etc. Not computer like things.

I think everyone would have a great big "everything generator" and it would be like playing minecraft with the Too Many Items mod installed for everyone.

Depends on the type of future.

If things go wrong we may be using bottle caps as currency.

I think we would devote "time" in direct exchange for whatever it was we wanted. however if we got to the point where we had "replicators" which dont create from nothing but convert energy into other forms. if we possessed such technology then we would not die off but on the contrary would have all the time in the world to better ourselves whether it be physically, spiritually, skillfully or mentally. Those people who would be lazy would be no different then the people in our own time. lazy people are just inclined to being lazy when they could just as well choose to be active.

Actually, Endmaster's post makes sense.

We might end up having something really simple as currency, something that we have a lot of nowadays, take for granted, but is really useful. Wonder what it is though...

I didn't know bottle caps were so amazingly useful, I always thought the people in fallout supported that currency because of the water caravans backing it. >.>

Not bottle caps exactly haha. Maybe... Tabacco?

To easy to find and grow compared to post-war bottlecaps and pure water.

Wood? (Thinking here...)

I was thinking oxygen.

Maybe, but theoretically, We could breathe on Mars, so we could extract it from there.

Nevermind

Wait, if can make any element easy, theoretically you could take H20 and make it into 02 easy (well, in the far future)

Well, yeah you can do it now. But you have a lot of hydrogen left over. And it takes more energy than other things. 

So it would be like spaceballs, where you need a soda can filled with air....

I'd say oil, but nuclear energy would replace that anyways.

Yep, Nuclear Energy is unlimited. Once we refine that, costs for energy will be done, and we won't need to purchase energy cells aside From once in our lifetimes. 

What about fitness? How'd we sell that?

Sell bodies? Basically convert human mind and awareness between bodies? 

I think solar energy is more likely to make it as main power source. It doesn't have as much waste and once you have solar panels you won't have to replace them very often. 

Nah, not as useful as we'd think. Solar energy is hard to harvass, and doesn't generate enough. Nuclear is unlimited. Once we get around its screw ups, a single power cell could keep a house running. 

Solar is more "Now" Useable though, we just need a way to store it.

Also, scientist are trying to make artificial sunlight, which could be used in the next couple decades.

I'd think artificial sunlight would be redundant, no? I meant, you would be harvesting your own power.

Isn't having your very own power plant good?

You missed the point. He means the fact we would have to power the fake sunlight would basically make the whole thing a pointless loop.

Well, not really with artificial sunlight, as the energy you'd be putting into making the artificial sunlight would just be re-harvested by your solar panels, you'd be re-using the same energy time and time again, with no loss or gain.

Ah. I probably don't understand, but that means the power is unlimited. You use the artificial sunlight, fill your solar panel 'tank'. use it, fill it up again, without worrying about the suns Appearence.

But...

...

...

You... You're not actually gaining energy, you realize that right? You're just using energy, to make something, so that you regain that energy. 

Look at it like this:

I spend 1 point of energy on artificial sunlight.

That artificial sunlight gives me 1 point worth of energy in the tank before stopping.

I spend it again.

Now, correct me if i'm wrong, but this does not equal infinite energy.

Ah, I see, thanks.

If you could make it cheaper to make artificial sunlight then what you generate.

How would that work, exactly? You can't harvest more energy from something than there is energy in something, can you?

I think you could have something generate more energy then you put into it (perhaps with a chemical reaction, involving the air)

What about an artificial sun itself? (Though that would cause a whole bunch of problems, since it would keep expanding over.many years, and by sending it into space you could destroy the universe :P)

To be clear, you're talking about fusion here, right?

Yes. (a very specific part, where we harness the energy from that)

Then yeah, that's the perfect energy system, no argument, it would outdo anything else.

Problem is we are afraid of using it and trying to figure out ways to stop the wastes. 

Nuclear fusion doesn't exist yet though, i'm pretty sure that might also be a deciding factor...

We're avoiding researching it. ;P

Correction, we are. 

I'm fairly sure it's a ridiculously complex problem.

Well yeah. But I've been looking over it, and it seems we are avoiding use of it due to politics. We've managed to create it, (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility), but politics are forcing us away from it. (Nuclear Waste)

It's not actually working though, is it? All it says is that it's goal is to create nuclear fusion, not that it has achieved it.

Well, if there's a facility for it... I'd guess that at least in theory we could  do it, or we actually can do it, just in small amounts due to politics.

In theory, of course we can do it, and people have been tackling the problem for the past few decades, but it's hard to do.

But if we actually had an unlimited source of energy, I sincerely doubt that anyone would try to stop it. (Well, other than that asshat thomas edison)

And the government, ;P

Or anyone wanting money (An Edison type per se)

They've managed to make a fusion, but can't keep it up (making it not usable yet) problem is that funding was cut. (like all important investments)

What about during the winter/cloudy day? In some places, it can be dark and dreary for a long while. The thing is that we also don't have a good way to store things. Batteries are very limited. otherwise we'd be using solar energy on the moon, and ship the energy to Earth.

Solar energy can be stored. And I'm sure within a couple of years maybe a decade they will be able to get more energy from the same amount of sun we get now. 

Don't think we can in large amounts. But it is a problem that will be solved before we could use Nuclear energy.

Not easily. And moving it from place to place requires more then we can do now. We've been funding it for a while. 

Nuclear energy doesn't have the fear of not having power on cloudy days. Nuclear energy is unlimited, and could change life. Much better investment. 

But it would take much longer to perfect. Plus, in the event of an earthquake, the nuclear plant could spill (Like it did in Japan?), which would totally suck.

Solar Energy is a faster, albeit less efficient, way. Might be more worth it, seeing how we should run Arab countries out of business ASAP haha. They have everyone, including the US, by the balls if they stop importing the oil.

Keep it on a fake island or on the moon. ;P

Correct me if i'm wrong, but nuclear fusion wouldn't like that would it? I mean, i'm fairly sure it doesn't have "spills"

If the fusion reactors malfunction, they could "spill" the radioactivity into surrounding areas. 

.

Or Chernobyl. Which was way worse than anyplace else. 

I'm to lazy to read all this I read most but not all. This I've been discussing with a friend also I believe if such happens we would revert back to almost city states if we were to rely on trade and barter.

On a off topic someone could choose one focus and make a very interesting game.

I'm pretty sure that this will be a reality in our lifetimes. (The Unlimited Energy Scernerio at least)

Meh, we'll be in retirement homes by then.

Let's hope not. :P Good or bad, I'd like to live through a changing world. 

Sadly, we're living through an Information Age, changes were made a century ago, it built up to this, now it'll take awhile to make something revolutionary.

YOU'LL be in a retirement home, i'll be enjoying my entirely new body, with nice, fresh organs transplanted from clones, and a brain that is regularly downloaded and uploaded into a fresh undamaged brain for me, while me and my quintuplet stripper clones enjoy life in my diamond/gold palace...

Hey Aman? Does Judaism have anything against that? (Using clones for that shit?)

Not sure. I was talking to a rabbi about that, and he stated that by definition, clones don't go against god, since if they work, they are gods will. 

Real question if the clone needs a conversion. 

Well, probably quite a few activist groups against that, but i'm fairly sure there's no "Clone organs cannot be used for transplants" rule written in there.

I think Christians have a problem with that, but their reason makes sense. Since you're creating a human, by definition, making a test tube baby. It's alive, until you l et it grow and take all the organs.

Most likely, yes.

And with that, everything our world is based on crashes. It'll be wonderful. ^_^

Fusion doesn't have much radioactivity. A slight build up of radioactivity occurs but not much. http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99298.htm