Words preceding a <*> can be found in the Glossary page.

Abundance

A state where a nation possesses a high amount of natural resources, a high energy technological industrial complex, and sufficiently trained personnel to operate that technology to produce a high standard of living. To date only the continent of North America possesses all three of these. See Scarcity<*>.

Conspicuous Consumption

The need or desire of people with money to spend that money on items that will obviously display their wealth. Examples include expensive clothes, exotic cars, or generally any item that is priced high for the purpose of being expensive, rather than because of actual cost of the item. This leads to a race to expend reaources simply to see how much one can expend.

Distribution

A unidirectional method of providing goods and services to the public by producing the items, transporting them, and then finally consuming them. Currency is not transferrable and thus is nulled once spent. The only method to date to use this is Energy Accounting<*>.

Energy Accounting

A method of distribution that employs Energy Credits<*>, and accounts for the total energy created, transformed, and consumed to provide a stable, balanced load for maximum production of goods and services while minimizing waste of resources. See this page for more details.

Energy Credit

A form of currency used by Energy Accounting<*>. Energy Credits are non-transferable, and are only valid for the duration of the balanced load period. Energy Credits are replenished to full level for each citizen at the beginning of each balanced-load cycle.

Enforced Scarcity

Any High Energy Society<*> that uses a method of exchange<*> rather than one of distribution<*>. Since the base currency is scarce, but the products and services are not, economic instability occurs due to Technological Disemployment<*>.

Exchange

A method of providing goods and services to the public whereby goods and services are traded back and forth among individuals. Currency is transferrable and never terminates, thus creating a situation of continuous growth, occilatory cycles, instability, and leaving no central method of control. See this page for more details.

Extreaneous Energy

Any energy used to create or provide goods or services that does not originate from human power. Example include animals and self-powered machines.

High Energy Society

Any society whose citizens, on average, expend more extraneous energy<*> than human energy for their standard of living.

Politics

A means of social control by controlling people, whether democratically or autocratically. This differs from a Technocracy<*> in that a Technocracy controls technology, not people. See this page for more details.

Scarcity

A state where there is insufficent natural resources, technology, or trained personnel to create a High Energy Society<*>. See Abundance<*>, Enforced Scarcity<*>.

Sustainable Economy

Any economy that is based on cycles rather than growth. While most economies will have both of these, one will generally predominate. A sustainable economy may grow, but only when a society determines that it is desired, and safe. Non-sustainable economies require continuous growth in order to survive, which is inherently self-defeating, since no environment is unlimited.

Technate

A society or nation that employs a technocratic government.

Technocracy

Science applied to the social order. The use of machines to release citizens from work while increasing purchasing power. See this page to see how a Technocracy works.

Technological Disemployment

The rapid destruction of purchasing power by the rapid introduction of high-energy machines to replace human workers. On micro-economical terms, this makes sense, since machines work longer, harder, and cheaper than humans at most tasks. However, when this occurs at a fast rate all over a nation, production (and therefor supply) grows rapidly, while more disemployed workers no longer have purchasing power with which to buy the new abundance of products, thus demand falls. Both these conditions cause the price of products to fall, thus creating an economic crash. This is what occurred to cause the Great Depression of the 1930's. Thus it is shown that you cannot have a stable Enforced Scarity<*> in a state of Abundance<*>.

Urbanate

Living areas similar to cities but designed to provide maximum comfort in a High-Energy Society<*>. See this page for more details.