We don’t live in a dystopian future yet, despite all these books and movies centered around that type of world happening. It seems like when the worlds fall apart, money seems to go by the wayside. The economy seems to shift to whatever resource happens to be more rare and whoever has the most of it. They who have the resource gets to make the rules.
I’ve always said that if somehow the earth lost the internet, the world would go into a tailspin the likes of which we have never seen before. You think The Purge is bad. The first people to go, would be these instagram stars, Youtube stars and well, me. I make fun of my kids when they freak out when the internet goes down, but deep down inside, I am just as bad. I don’t cry on the outside, but I bitterly cry on the inside.
Anyways, the economy always depends on something and whoever has the most seems to rule. I was wondering the other day if the economy was controlled by words and how many you use all the time, how the world would change. For instance, if the words you used equaled a certain amount of money, how would the world change?
First of all, I think the extraverts would naturally rise to the top. My son is constantly spouting words, whether someone is around to hear it or not. He is constantly jabbering on Xbox Live. He has dozens of friends on there, from our old house, to the place we lived for a couple of years and now in our new house, and he is almost always finding one of them to talk to while playing games.
Even if he isn’t on with someone, he is chattering to himself. I’ve heard that the way extraverts process information is to talk about it. I think for him, talking to himself is just a way that he stays sane when no one is around to talk to. I think the extraverts would pretty much be rich in this economy.
But there might be another angle to all of this. I spend a lot of time not talking and would therefore be vocally poor. On the other hand, I type lots of words a day. I blog most every day, I post on social media a lot, I blog for work, I type lots of comments on Facebook. Maybe the word economy doesn’t just depend on how much you verbally speak, but how much you type. And who knows, maybe they include words you think. If that is the case, I am thinking hundreds of bitter things per second, both day and night.
You think I type tons of bitter things on this blog? Just wait until you take a sneak peak inside this bitter cranium. You might never escape the bitter lake of fire built up in there.
The word economy would be a weird dystopian place, where people would constantly argue about what words are more valuable and you would probably have two rival factions. The introverts and the extraverts arguing in Congress over whose words were more valuable. Would the introverts get weaker because their wrists were always sore from typing/writing? Would the extraverts voices be scratchy all the time from talking all the time?
Lemme know your thoughts. What would a word economy be like?
ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH
Bitter Word Economy Ben
Would’nt the rich buy up all the words and imprison you for using them?
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Yeah, just like with all kinds of money, the corrupt would end up with all the words.
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In a word economy I’d prefer to be poor and live in the nice, peaceful, quiet slums.
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Then you wouldn’t have to talk to anyone.
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I would join you in insisting that the written word is many times more valuable than the spoken word. And I am ready to go back to handwriting my valuable words on the day the Internet disappears forever. J.
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Handwriting would be so hard. I wonder if maybe having the written words would be worth more than spoken words and then the writers would start making more money.
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I dread the day when data rates and bandwidth catch up to our brains – the current word output will increase a trillion-fold! I’ll move to a nice quiet planet on the outskirts of the Milky Way.
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As long as they have Milky Ways, that would be cool.
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I like the idea of using words for currency! I’ve written a few pieces of flash fiction about this. It also reminds me of a short piece by Bruce Holland Rogers about somebody trying to smuggle words over the border but the border guards keep finding them, etched under the cuff of his shirt or tucked under his tongue. In other news, I seem to be posting today under “Sparks,” a blog a friend and I are developing–but it’s not up yet. We will be posting writing prompts and offering a forum for writers to share their work and links to their own sites. My own site is Wild Imaginings: a Spiritual Journey at http://www.nancyschoellkopf.com
Thanks–n
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Sounds like a cool idea. I should have mentioned that extraverts waste so many of them, so there should be a way to weight the words we use so some of them are worth more.
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Externally I’d be broke.
Cranially, I’d be a quadrogazillionaire.
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I have a feeling if they counted words in your brain, I would be with you on the quadrogazillionaire thing too. I have a few choice words for a lot of people, especially other drivers.
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Damn, I’ll be wealthier than I ever thought possible. I’d rule the world! My mouth never stops moving (or so I’m told) and I’m constantly blogging…. so, yay me!
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Yeah, you would be the rich one. On the other hand, I would have to blog all the time just to pay the rent.
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There are worse ways to make rent. Fixing window cracks for HOA’s for example….
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I know people in my HOA that just sit around judging other people’s houses and all the violations they are making. Kind of unsettling.
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Pathetic, yes.
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They are the worst.
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Hysterical…they (the word police?) could probably not steal my words from me, I would be in jail spell blabbering. And the thought police? We all know how well that works! I love this, I should read more often. Except I’m too busy talking :-). Login. “Help me, [I’m talking and I can’t shut up!]” ( you have to have been watching television during a certain era to have caught my allusion to the commercial :-). I had special t-shirts with so-called Indian names that were funny employer for my family at one time. I have a small family :-). I told my sister recently I actually told my small group at church my nickname is talks too much. She is making a new shirt for me :-). See how long THIS was?
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Yes the word economy is looking good for you. I will again be poor.
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Too bad I couldn’t go I can correct that. I’m leaving it as it is. You can sound it out. As in phonetically. Thanks, speech-to-text!
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It’s okay. This blog is all about spelling errors and grammar. Do you really think I check for those things here?
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People already expel so many words without purpose. I couldn’t imagine a world where we all have monetary reason to expel nonsense.
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Maybe there should be an algorithm that charges give weight to words that people say that matter and less weight to ones that are just babbling for no reason.
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