ShoesDontWearHorses

I would just like to add to what mr. Jonas said: There is also the question of specific passions and the need for resources to pursue them. And again, people actually are willing to go to great extents to follow their dreams. An activity can easilly become as important as eating to anyone. Don't YOU have a passion? Don't you have something you think you could not live with? And I do know our brain handles that by not tying us emotionaly to hopes of something we apparently can not achieve, but that does not solve much because small ambition will give birth to big ambition, and then cities are born once again. What about the space? A lot of people in the same space would tend to create rules, and paired with the above you would see how it would be essentially the same thing. It would be like starting society over... in the dark ages. Are you suggesting each "family" live by themselves? Then what when you children grow up and want to have children of their own? What about the people who live alone? There are also children. Would it be fair to prive them from 90% or more of the world as it is by exiling them to no man's land? Besides, what separates an isolated person from a dead one anyway? Why would you care if they are isolated? They sure can't hear your applause. They sure can't hear your words of encouragement. This whole thing just sounds about 10 times worst than what we have now, to be honest. I'm not saying the world cannot be improved, I'm saying that this is not the right thing to look at or for, when doing it. But yeah, mr. Jonas said it quite well, it becomes a question of resources you will not have available to you. Is neglecting 90% of what's beautiful in the world and our means of reaching those things anywhere really a solution to anything?

Ok, well, if you think so. Maybe you're right. But try this: play the evolution of a society in your head. I can assure you that if you do it conssidering the human condition you'll get to power forks in the road. Or maybe I'm wrong.

That's not the point. Again, it's a part of growing up, comming to peace with the fact that power will never go away for the reasons I've stated before. It's the human condition, and we all have to learn to live with it, even though it can be pretty hard to swallow. We all have to learn about death when the little goldfish drops to the bottom of the bowl, or when the hamster stops running in his wheel, this is the same thing, except it is not something learned that easily. We cannot all be happy.

But again, the point is not money. Ok, lets look at another scenario: Imagine a world like that. Every resource belongs to anyone. The first apparent problem is one of personal property. A computer chip is a resource right? If it isn't, then we are back at square one, only instead of money we're juggling around sticks and stones. You probably wouldn't want anyone to get in your house or use something that's yours without permition right? But lets say you don't mind. Lets say the concept of property isn't a thing. Resources are counted globaly, and there exists some kind of global repository of "unused" resources where anyone can order anything from Lil 'ol Joe is a citizen of the same city as you, and lil 'ol joe wants to carry on with a project that will take about 10% of the global copper, leaving very little to the other cities and societies around the world. Now, the materials are also his, so he can do whatever he wants with them. But turns out the people of a nearby town got a hold of his plans and need the copper, and they do not agree with his attitude. Now a third city voices itself, saying that they had a similar plan, and that theirs was much better studied and useful project than the one from your town. Let's say some kind of diplomacy is employed, and you vote for the other city, since their blueprints seem much more solid. Sure, this is a problem solved, but the people from the town who was complaining about excessive use of resources wont shut up. And there is still lil 'ol Joe, and I bet you he might not be too happy with the situation. You took away something that was for everyone from lil 'ol Joe, and gave away something that was for everyone to the other town, but that doesn't sound right, does it? There are so many little factors you can add to this. You can also stretch it to any scale you want. Again, it comes down to a tip on the balance of power. And no, the world doesn't have unlimited resources. And even if it had all kinds of unlimited resources (including space), there would still be a wish of power. Consider love, for instance. People kill and die for other people. People will always want other people. Money is the same as any other resource. You know why it exists? Because there are a lot of resources now-a-days, and because people need a lot of diferent resources. Imagine what would life be like, if I had to keep a stockpile of sticks, ores and other raw materials to trade into pencils, computers and staplers. We "invented" the resource we call money to facilitate trade, and of all the resources, money is perhaps the more inocent of them all. Of course, since it is money that always masks the other resources we often project the problem into it. Trading doesn't balance the power balance, but it makes it possible to control how much how much each side will dip or rise face certain situations.

Material is power, it's something you have absolute control over. Materials are your value to the people who do not know you. Call it money, baskets, fish, wine, a poem, a machine you designed, whatever. We need materials to survive, we eat materials. Now, lets say we have a small village where no trade happens. We have no possessions. We pick fruit from an orchard. I want to eat? I go to the orchard, grab the apple, eat the apple, done. We can only take so many apples from the orchard per day, to distribute the food evenly among all. Little 'ol Joe makes a knife that's great for cutting fruit. It will be great for grampa since his teeth are not what they used to be. But Joe is not an old air head, oh no sir, he knows winter is comming, and he knows the food will be scarce. He also knows gramps needs the knife to eat, so he makes a deal with gramps and his loved ones: he gives them the knife in exchange for 5 of their apples. It's not that he doesn't like gramps, but he doesn't want to starve. And 'ol Joe could've used his knife making skills in any other way. The point is, once you introduce power into a system, entities will tend to crave it. Why? Because that's how evolution works. Power is what separates the existing from the non existing or deceased. And when we consider that even the simpler thoughts are small sparks of power it is very unlikely that human society will ever be void of the concept of power. I bet you I can come up with a similar simplification of any phenomenon you may observe in society. Things happen for a reason. People want power, and power is relative, so no, we cannot all be powerful. That is an unreasonable way of looking at things because we are human. Is it sad? Maybe. I often say making peace with the human condition is a part of growing up, even if the reality is as dark as "we cannot all be happy", and society gives us the clearest reflection of our beings. Anything else is just built uppon that, really. It's much like learning to accept a friend despite their shortcomings or defects. Your picture and your post are also a pretty good symbol of this. A happy looking pony next to words discussing misery. Maybe I'm getting a little carried away... These are my visions on the subject. Sorry if this seems a bit too detached from what you were talking about, but be sure that I was aiming for the roots. Of course some lives can be improved by giving the "right" power to the "right" people, but I was mainly focussing on your statements about currency and (at least partial) anarchy. Hope it was coherent enough.

Just another reminder that nothing lasts forever, I guess... thanks for that dude.

Well, I personally didn't like the theme of the story very much. It is something I find a bit of overdone now-a-days, so I didn't find it all that interesting. Here are some sugestions I think are worth looking into: - Watch your grammar I'll talk about ponctuation because I'm not great at the rest. Generally, you can't go too wrong if you write sentences as you read them. Commas are short pauses, and periods are long pauses, try to treat them as that. For instance: "Yes, and you're awesome." and "No. But I do indend to find out, if you don't mind." Some people don't like "buts" after periods, but I use them as a long pause, so I sometimes do use them like that. Some of your wording is really weird and doesn't really come together very well. For instance, the first paragraph has some really strange series of sentences: Try to read these sentences aloud respecting the pauses imposed by the ponctuation. - Your sentences need to be more concrete There are three things that I find particularly troublesome when writing (I'm not great, so that might explain it): knowing how to start a sentence, knowing what to put in a sentence, and knowing how to end a sentence. Designing sentences to design a paragraph is really really hard for me. Since I'm not great at it I'll not talk much about it, but you should look at your sentences and always try to get the most out of them, since, being long pauses, periods stop the narrative. Often, many sentences (and periods), will make your story seem really stiff, and the flow will feel off. Of course, in dialogue you'll have to write dialogue that matches how the characters talk, but in narrations, you really should strive to flow (unless there's another specific reason not to of course). Something to think about. Writting is much like any other kind of designing: you'll often do more good erasing rather than creating. - Flesh out each part of the story more. This is really the bread and butter, since if you do not have a story worth telling, no amount of well designed sentences will help you. As it stands, it feels like three distinct stories are kind of just mashed together: In the first paragraph, you begin talking about your friend and how she was acting weird. Capitalize on that detail, tell us more about how you found that out. Did you try to ask her what was wrong? Were you worried about her? As it stands, you just make that passing mention of your friend which really doesn't tie in with the rest of the story at all. If we look at the story without the first paragraph, we would probably not even realize it was gone. Sure, I think it's pretty clear she was the one who sent the email, but any other person could've done it, and it wouldn't change the story much or at all. In the second and third paragraph things happen too fast once again. On one moment you're talking about the picture and what's happening on your screen and then, BAM! Demon apparently comes into the (proverbial) picture. Since you're trying to create something spooky scary, you could try to slow down things a bit. Talk more about how the main character feels as it all happens for instance. One thing I think about your story is that it just isnt spooky scary because there's no apparent danger. The danger comes from a computer screen, so you'll have to make it a bit more "real" for it to actually create an impression. For instance, more personal information about the main character revealed as he goes through the experience. That would cause real discomfort. Sure, it apparently knew his name, but that's "meh", I tell my name to anyone who asks me. The other alternative would be to have the main character experience something in real life as he goes through the experience. He could start getting cold or sick or something like that. A demon is not very believable. I'm not very good at spooky scary, sorry. But try to extrapolate from these ideas and maybe you can get something useful out of this. Also, for a story apparently about twilight (in some way, at least), it doesn't seem to have a lot to do with her. Try this the next time you write something: first write things out as they come to your mind. This is just a rough sketch. Next add the details you find appropriate in a rough fashion. Now that you have everything on paper it's a question of organizing the text. Delete sentences, merge ideas, and work on the flow of the text until it feels natural to read it. Read it outloud if you must. You can even try it on this text (it would be interesting if you did). There. Please keep in mind that these are just like, my oppinions man, of course. I'm very new to writing as well, but I feel some of these things are worth sharing. I hope you write more in the future, or at least come back to this one. By the way, I really like the name Twidie.