Trinity of pain

[Questioner]

In my observations of the world, I realize that most tangible human problems can be traced to three key artificial institutions. They are the constructs of - organized economy (money); organized nation states (social power structures); and organized religion. The inspiration for this query actually stems from my jealousy that those of Ra apparently had a much more beneficent third density environment to evolve from; while those of us on earth have an exponentially difficult proposition. Is Ra's claim in session 60 - "In our naiveté in third-density we had not developed the interrelationships of your barter or money system and power" - a wistful reminder that humanity has needlessly complicated its evolution through the third density? Are the three artificial constructs indeed a 'Trinity of pain and retardation' with respect to our peaceful evolution in terms of STO? It however does offer a lot of fuel for the STS mode.

Hi Confused,

I believe you identified three key areas of problems. However, I see these three areas as symptoms of a single, unified deeper problem.

I've been thinking a lot about money lately, and this seems a perfect time to share my perspective. Perhaps it will be useful, and shed some light on the subject. Perhaps, I'll learn a more productive way to think as we explore these ideas together. Let's explore the nature of money.

Suppose we had no government or religion. Would we still want to use money? I believe that we would, in the absence of perfect communication. Without government interference, money would simply be another tool we could choose to use or not use, as we wish.

Imagine if we had a social memory complex, with the ability to immediately, perfectly understand every other person's thoughts and feelings, goals and intentions. We would then have no use for money. Money is a temporary measure of value that is only useful because we don't know who would like to a barter trade, accepting what we have to offer and in return, providing what we would like to receive.

If I would like to offer what you want, and you would like to trade it for what I want, we could just do a direct barter deal and not need to measure it with money. If we all knew each others' thoughts, we'd immediately know we have what each other want, and do the swap right now, wouldn't we? I would know that you have a poster you don't like, and would like to have a music album I don't enjoy but have in my collection.

We'd happily make the swap the same day, wouldn't we, as soon as we telepathically had this perfect understanding? No money needed.

Because we are blind to the inner life values, goals and preferences of other people, we are not able to set up a simple barter exchange whenever we would like.

Money is a social agreement about a way to represent an unfinished trade that is still in progress: I sell something I don't want any more, but you aren't yet available for me to get what I want from you. I might not even know, when I sell the album, who has the poster I would prefer. So I get money, and later on trade it for what I really want from you as soon as I discover that you have the poster. You can then turn around and use the money to get the album from whoever wound up with it, but doesn't want it either.

Isn't this convoluted? It is a workaround, a kluge, a good enough to get by alternative in the absence of perfect information about what each person really prefers.

Throughout history, every human society picks something that most people agree is a good enough symbolic representation of incomplete transactions (that is, money as a means of exchange). It could be rare metals, fish, shells, rocks, computer data files, or anything else, as long as most people are willing to accept it as they way to help finish unfinished business.

This much is not necessarily a tool of evil or manipulation. It's just one of many ideas that people have made up, along with having names or numbers to designate our streets. Street names give us a way to identify and measure values and locations in land use. Money gives us a way to measure values and exchanges for property rights and activities. The name of a street has nothing to do with whether the righteous or wicked live there today. The means of exchange has nothing to do with whether each side of the deal is loving and just. The tool itself is morally neutral. (Dollar, by the way, originally meant a certain amount of gold by weight.)

Some economists make a strong argument that if governments did not interfere, there would be several different types of money available for people to choose from... just as, without regulation, people often will offer any number of alternatives in anything else.

Once a government gets involved to create a central bank, the rulers can perpetrate a coercive requirement plus a coercive lie. The coercive requirement is that nothing else can be used for money, but only what the elite declare is money for everyone - even if they'd prefer a different type of money.

Without that coercion, some people could trade using gold, some could trade using seashells, some using both and some neither. With everything but seashells made illegal, people who'd rather use gold for money are now criminals. The coercive lie is that fractional reserves, and then no reserves at all, just a declaration by fiat, makes the government's official choice of money a good enough choice.

It's as though people were ready to offer a choice of tools - screwdrivers, hammers, bubble levels, tape measures - and then the government said, no matter whether you are working with a nail, a screw, a wire, or a pipe, you are only allowed to use a Phillips screwdriver. It would be possible to hammer a nail with a screwdriver, but not efficient. It might not be possible at all to strip a wire or solder a pipe weld using just a screwdriver.

But what if it was illegal to use any other tool? That is the problem with a government-declared monopoly on money. The monopoly-makers' friends in the central bank get rich, just as the screwdriver manufacturer would get rich in the silly hand tool example; while everyone else gets screwed. (No pun intended but I guess it works.)

If there was not government interference, people would not accept money that loses 95% of its value within a century. They would insist on a medium of exchange that is also a store of value. But this would prevent the banking oligarchy from having their manipulative, STS way to stealthily steal real values from the rest of society, through their shenanigans of manipulated interest and inflation, while any better options are illegal.

Once the state limits choices of money, they can get away with further lies about it. If a farmer loans a stud dog, they can get the same dog back plus one of the puppies from the new litter; and the borrower is still ahead. If a farmer borrows seed, the seed provider can get back the same amount of seed from the harvest, plus additional seed as a share of the harvest, without forcing the farmer to go hungry.

If you're loaned a Federal Reserve Note, what process of nature makes the nickels and dimes come up with baby pennies you can use to pay the interest on the loan? Only the sweat of your brow, used to gain something else that can be measured in FRN's. And in that way, you're a victim of a theft you don't even realize has occurred.

Thomas Jefferson warned about this. "I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." Of course, we now have both a central bank and standing armies, which would have appalled Tom to see happen in his country!

Interest went from a reasonable concept when money was an agricultural commodity, to an utterly ridiculous tool of power and manipulation we've been conditioned to think of as normal for arbitrary paper cloths and computer data files. The result is that the controllers of the money seize what does not grow by itself, taking away far more than they lent.

If we were free to choose our own favorite type of money per transaction, without that choice being criminalized, we could make sensible choices. If you loan me seeds, you get a share of the garden's produce. If you loan me Federal Reserve Notes to build a hotel, maybe you get a free night's stay... but not more FRN's than you provided. That kind of money don't grow on trees!

Central banking, coercive states, and soul-killing religion are just three tools manipulated by the same controlling cliques throughout history. The fundamental issue here is not one of money, nor of faith, but of power. When there is a hierarchy that can become abusive, STS abusers will use it to be abusive.

I love your term about the trinity of pain. But those are three branches, not three roots. They share a root of a same rotted tree that's dumped polluted fruit on the unwitting heads of humanity for many centuries. The trinity of pain is just three different ways that the masses suffer at the hands of those who set themselves up as false gods and unwelcome controllers.