https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2003-05-09
Alt text
That and all the dead people, but they're not as vocal.
Bonus panel
this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2024
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Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
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Posts and discussion about the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal by Hugo Award-winning author Zach Weinersmith (and related works)
https://www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersmith
New comics posted whenever they get posted on the site, and old comics posted every day until we catch up in a decade or so
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The only straight answers I've ever received on the matter mostly ammount to wishful thinking.
A small community can definitely be communist, and it is possible to achieve inter-communal dependance with mutual trade relationships, but without a medium of exchange I suspect that it'd be far more difficult and other factors make the situation strike me as incredibly unstable, because the incentives to defect could easily outweigh those of cooperation.
The real answer is that I don't know, and we don't have enough data to say what would work.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5,000_Years
I really like this book, and I think it's relevant to this discussion. It talks about how the original currency in history was not money, but reputation and relationships.
Once you scale out to the point where personal relationships are unsustainable, societies and history transition to something more material. Be it transactional barter, or what we think of is money today.
I appreciate the recommendation! Tyvm.