Consumerism and the Shopocalypse

Could it be that consumerism and escapism destroy intelligent races before we can make contact with them? Is that why we haven't found any space aliens yet? If so, what can we do to avoid that fate?

Perhaps Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping will save us all. Maybe we'll need something a little more radical than that. At any rate, if Geoffrey Miller is right, something must be done.

Open source currency?

Also, I completely fail to understand what Douglas Rushkoff is suggesting here: open source currency.

Do I need to read his books or something for this concept to make sense? He seems to be suggesting that we need money that isn't controlled by the government, and that a model of money that is based on abundance rather than scarcity will enable an economy of collaboration rather than competition. What? Can someone point me to articles that will give me more specifics? (Naturally I will also be trying to Google this myself.) This article is just too vague for me to make sense of it.