Student Loan Debt: To Pay or Not To Pay

Transition Is Upon Us

Trying to maintain an increasingly obsolete monetary system is hamstringing society. Rapidly accelerating applications of technology are driving big changes. Traditional forms of labor are becoming obsolete, while the shifting dynamics created by technological innovations open new creative possibilities daily. Technological unemployment ensures that many jobs will continue to disappear. For instance, the Internet is creating the opportunity for basically free self-motivated and self-directed education where one great teacher can now teach many thousands of students simultaneously. Through technological innovation, we are able to provide more necessities without the need for traditional human labor. Factory workers whose jobs are now done by automated robots, postal workers whose mail delivery is now done effortlessly through the Internet, or teachers that are no longer needed can't meet their needs in a monetary system without jobs. These are only a few examples that are having widespread monetary impacts. They are fundamental shifts happening within the cultural and social dynamics of the way in which we interact and relate to one another. Multiply those innovations at an accelerating rate and you begin to get the bigger picture. The implications can be frightening.

The most profound realization is the need to shift away from a monetary-based, property-based value system already on the verge of collapse, to one of support, cooperation and access. We devote our lives to supporting ourselves, our families and our loved ones. Whether there are jobs and money makes no difference to that simple fact. It is of the utmost urgency that we redesign society so we can fill that fundamental drive without jobs and money. The sooner people have this realization and begin to relinquish the old value systems that maintain and reinforce the old monetary-based value system, the easier and less painful will be the transition.

The realities of a civilization driven by technological innovation demand that we grow into a new type of society if we are to survive. Access to the needed resources to participate in and contribute creatively and constructively to this new society can no longer be restricted by our monetary systems and their associated traditional value systems. The incarceration rate in America--the highest in the world--is only one indication of how this system is failing us. The greatest challenge of our emerging global civilization is to not squander our most precious resource: human creativity. The restriction of access created by a monetary system creates myriad problems, such as crime, poverty, hunger, starvation and war, not to mention the environmental degradation and resource depletion generated by an infinite-growth, profit-motivated monetary-based system. The streets and plazas of our cities are beginning to fill with many people, good people, creative people, who can no longer support themselves, their families and their loved ones.

Money, and all its attendant value systems, has to go. That is not as utterly impossible as it may seem. Imagine a society where everyone has access to the resources to meet their needs without money, barter or trade. Since that society is now providing for everyone, the drive that people have to support themselves, their families and their loved ones shifts from competing, sometimes violently, for jobs, money and resources to provide that support, to instead supporting the very society that provides their needs. That shift is profound, yet simple--almost too simple. It is very difficult for those who are deeply embedded in and conditioned by our present monetary-based value systems to comprehend this simple shift of values and its implications. But until we do, we are in for a very rough ride.

So educate yourself and those around you. When we devote ourselves to eliminating the need for unnecessary human labor, we benefit everyone. When there is no monetary gain to be made by protecting obsolete jobs, everyone will rejoice, for it will mean a better quality of life for everyone. When everyone is working with you to make a better life for you, your family and your loved ones, you have no enemies, only friends. These are profound changes that will not happen overnight, but imagine a world in which there are only friends. Imagine a world in which the imperative is to embrace everyone as your friend because that is the best way to provide for and protect yourself, your family and your loved ones. Imagine no more armies, no more borders, and no more wars. Teach everyone you know about how this world is possible. Begin now! Begin today! Because none of us will survive for much longer in a world with seven billion enemies. But imagine the wonders we can create with seven billion friends.