Money
No, money is a way of counting things, and comparing their value.
Thinking that we can spend an infinite amount of money wastes a lot of resources. Everything you or I do is trading some value (mostly our time and talents) for something someone else did. What we are doing is not making money something you don't have to worry about, it's really just changing the way we track it. (we have gone from valuable metals to paper and now to bits.) It doesn't change the reality of what we are tracking, however. If you want to say that it does, you are just making your money (and mine probably) become worthless.
It doesn't matter if you want to take the money spent on arms and use it to buy food. That doesn't change the amount of food there is, it also doesn't change the value of the unused metal. It does though, deprive the metal workers now producing tanks of a means of supplying their families with what they need. Ever try to eat a tank? It isn't very nutritious.
I do like the idea of settling space. I don't however delude myself that we can just spend without paying off or paying back the sources of the money.
Yes, the resources expended in a small war would be enough to pay for a colony on the Moon with a population similar to that of Wyoming. But it would still be an expense that would ultimately have to be either paid, or have the sponsoring society harmed to that amount.
Money may be 'imaginary', but it represents real work and real resources.
Don't be misled. Every Cent must be accounted for, or you are harming someone.
