7 ms·

Is it true post-scarcity like everyone has their own mostly automated Starship Enterprise / Battlestar / Star Destroyer? I always get kind of agitated at the n

Is it true post-scarcity like everyone has their own mostly automated Starship Enterprise / Battlestar / Star Destroyer? I always get kind of agitated at the notion of post resource scarcity because if you took someone from 1000 years ago and dropped them into today they'd be amazed at how much everyone has. If everyone had 11th century desires but 21st century technology we'd be there. But we're definitely not. I sincerely doubt we ever will be.

Florin_Andrei 10y ago
It's a battle between supply and demand. Or, to put it in more blunt terms, between production and greed. We always seem to want more "stuff" for some reason. Without some changes in the way we think and feel, we may never reach true post-scarcity.
- stale2002 10y ago
  This isnt true though. For example, air is currently a post scarcity good. You don't pay for the air you breath. But do spend your day trying to collect more and more air? No. Because you can have as much air as you want.
  - Florin_Andrei 10y ago
    I could not possibly think of a more poorly contrived "counterexample" than that. But perhaps it's sarcasm and the joke flew over my head - in which case have my apologies.
    - xyzzy123 10y ago
      Why is it a poor counter-example? I thought it was a pretty good observation. I suppose the only reason we don't usually experience air scarcity is because the ecosystem services of earth do a really good job providing it. It's easy to imagine this not being the case. There is clean air scarcity in polluted cities, and of course in some space environments, air might be considered quite valuable and "hoarded". Water scarcity and water use rights are totally a thing though.
      - stale2002 10y ago
        Exactly. I was giving an example of what post scarcity looks like. The "air market" is effectively post scarcity for most people (baring the exceptions that you mentioned). Other markets will become similar to the "air market" when we get really good at producing those things as well.
  - eric_h 10y ago
    If you go to places at high altitude, they literally sell compressed O2 in cans, at oxygen bars, etc. It is not a requirement per se for you to survive in those environments, but boy does it feel good to get some O2 if you don't have enough red blood cells in your veins to get the oxygen your body needs to feel comfortable. The same is true, IIRC, in Beijing, where clean air can be hard to come by.
bduerst 10y ago
Same here. It's a nice notion to think about, but even if we could produce everything at the moment it's demanded, there is still spatial scarcity for goods and services - i.e. there are only so many ocean front homes near where my extended family lives.
- SEJeff 10y ago
  Not true, think about a place where we are capable of building proper Dyson Spheres... Most "Culture series" humanoids (they're genetically modified for health reasons) live on very large artificial planets called Orbitals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_(The_Culture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_(The_Culture)
  - philipkglass 10y ago
    Positional goods scarcity exists in the Culture for e.g. a live concert featuring a famous composer. But there is no scarcity of anything desired for functional reasons. Nobody ever has to involuntarily go without clothing, companionship, food, shelter, medical services, beverages, life-saving or recreational drugs, games, recorded media, communications, information, or life. (People can be "backed up" as recorded information and molecularly re-manufactured later even if they were vaporized in an explosion.) The Culture is the much better society that the imaginary technology of Star Trek could enable if Trek's tech were unchained from stupidity and bioconservatism. (I'm sure you know all this; I'm just elaborating for those who haven't sampled the delights of Banks' novels.)
  - bduerst 10y ago
    So I have to move my entire extended family to an orbital? What if their demands aren't met there? You're missing the point about spatial scarcity and demand.
    - SEJeff 10y ago
      I'm guessing you've not read the series, because the context is seemingly entirely lost on you. Culture citizens are free to go anywhere they want and do literally whatever they want. Small orbitals are ~20x the size of earth whereas large ones are 200x the size of earth. Also, you can live on planets if you wish, but the idea is seen as very quaint and generally not a very "culture" thing to do. When you can move literally anywhere in the galaxy, amongst virtually any galaxy that hyperspace ships can take you to, there isn't a scarcity of space and machines can create literally anything in this world on demand, so demand is also never a problem. I think somehow we are misunderstanding eachother, but it makes it much harder to explain this VAST ecosystem when it does appear you might not have even read the series we're all discussing.
SEJeff 10y ago
It is true post scarcity in that Humans invented benevolent artificial intelligence they deemed sentient called "minds". Minds can build robots to go mine asteroids light years away and come back through (duh) hyperspace. I meant the original comment quite literally. Also, it is a really freaking good series if you like Sci-fi that tries to answer philosophy questions, which this series does a wonderful job of.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  I've found the series to be incredibly uplifting as in it makes me feel positive. Sort of like ST:TNG, though with less holes (ST never really explains why so much stuff is so limited, beyond hand-wavy "energy" concerns). It's a lovely picture of the future, assuming we have a really friendly AI explosion.
philipkglass 10y ago
The Culture is true post-scarcity in that basically unlimited matter and energy can be manufactured along with the objects made from matter and energy. By clever authorial fiat this doesn't lead to mega-terrorism from rare unhinged individuals, though. The real decision makers and guardians of the Culture are Minds, super-advanced AIs that can keep watch over millions of biological passengers and react to any problem a million times faster than biological entities can act. All manufactured objects in the Culture beyond a certain level of complexity have their own lesser AIs embedded in them. A space suit can advise or even argue with its user; a powerful handgun will refuse to fire if it thinks its user is misbehaving. (This is a minor plot point in one of the stories where somebody destroys a ship with a very old Culture gun from before the AI safeguards were built into objects.) As for the real world you can observe demand satiation right now among different ranks of the rich. Look at billionaires. They consume much more than the man who has only a few million in the bank, but sub-linearly more. From millionaires to billionaires you don't see a thousand-fold increase in consumption as measured by house size, food, beverages, clothing, medical care... Billionaires are three orders of magnitude separated from millionaires on the basis of control, not consumption; the richest will feel ill long before they consume all the champagne or caviar they could afford to buy.
- mccoyspace 10y ago
  "As for the real world you can observe demand satiation right now among different ranks of the rich. Look at billionaires. They consume much more than the man who has only a few million in the bank, but sub-linearly more." Which is why the growing wealth inequalities are bad for the overall economy. The rich can't spend their money with enough scale or velocity.
  - robotresearcher 10y ago
    But the money of the rich is in circulation in the form of investments. Why is retail spending better for the economy? I'm genuinely interested.
    - czinck 10y ago
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
Tyler Cowen's "The Complacent Class" seems to paint a picture of satiety. I haven't gotten my copy yet so perhaps I missed something. We may get stuck at 1990s desires, except for experience ( and consumption and experience don't share a lot of Venn diagram ).

Florin_Andrei 10y ago

It's a battle between supply and demand. Or, to put it in more blunt terms, between production and greed. We always seem to want more "stuff" for some reason. Without some changes in the way we think and feel, we may never reach true post-scarcity.

stale2002 10y ago
This isnt true though. For example, air is currently a post scarcity good. You don't pay for the air you breath. But do spend your day trying to collect more and more air? No. Because you can have as much air as you want.
- Florin_Andrei 10y ago
  I could not possibly think of a more poorly contrived "counterexample" than that. But perhaps it's sarcasm and the joke flew over my head - in which case have my apologies.
  - xyzzy123 10y ago
    Why is it a poor counter-example? I thought it was a pretty good observation. I suppose the only reason we don't usually experience air scarcity is because the ecosystem services of earth do a really good job providing it. It's easy to imagine this not being the case. There is clean air scarcity in polluted cities, and of course in some space environments, air might be considered quite valuable and "hoarded". Water scarcity and water use rights are totally a thing though.
    - stale2002 10y ago
      Exactly. I was giving an example of what post scarcity looks like. The "air market" is effectively post scarcity for most people (baring the exceptions that you mentioned). Other markets will become similar to the "air market" when we get really good at producing those things as well.
- eric_h 10y ago
  If you go to places at high altitude, they literally sell compressed O2 in cans, at oxygen bars, etc. It is not a requirement per se for you to survive in those environments, but boy does it feel good to get some O2 if you don't have enough red blood cells in your veins to get the oxygen your body needs to feel comfortable. The same is true, IIRC, in Beijing, where clean air can be hard to come by.

bduerst 10y ago

Same here. It's a nice notion to think about, but even if we could produce everything at the moment it's demanded, there is still spatial scarcity for goods and services - i.e. there are only so many ocean front homes near where my extended family lives.

SEJeff 10y ago
Not true, think about a place where we are capable of building proper Dyson Spheres... Most "Culture series" humanoids (they're genetically modified for health reasons) live on very large artificial planets called Orbitals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_(The_Culture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_(The_Culture)
- philipkglass 10y ago
  Positional goods scarcity exists in the Culture for e.g. a live concert featuring a famous composer. But there is no scarcity of anything desired for functional reasons. Nobody ever has to involuntarily go without clothing, companionship, food, shelter, medical services, beverages, life-saving or recreational drugs, games, recorded media, communications, information, or life. (People can be "backed up" as recorded information and molecularly re-manufactured later even if they were vaporized in an explosion.) The Culture is the much better society that the imaginary technology of Star Trek could enable if Trek's tech were unchained from stupidity and bioconservatism. (I'm sure you know all this; I'm just elaborating for those who haven't sampled the delights of Banks' novels.)
- bduerst 10y ago
  So I have to move my entire extended family to an orbital? What if their demands aren't met there? You're missing the point about spatial scarcity and demand.
  - SEJeff 10y ago
    I'm guessing you've not read the series, because the context is seemingly entirely lost on you. Culture citizens are free to go anywhere they want and do literally whatever they want. Small orbitals are ~20x the size of earth whereas large ones are 200x the size of earth. Also, you can live on planets if you wish, but the idea is seen as very quaint and generally not a very "culture" thing to do. When you can move literally anywhere in the galaxy, amongst virtually any galaxy that hyperspace ships can take you to, there isn't a scarcity of space and machines can create literally anything in this world on demand, so demand is also never a problem. I think somehow we are misunderstanding eachother, but it makes it much harder to explain this VAST ecosystem when it does appear you might not have even read the series we're all discussing.

SEJeff 10y ago

It is true post scarcity in that Humans invented benevolent artificial intelligence they deemed sentient called "minds". Minds can build robots to go mine asteroids light years away and come back through (duh) hyperspace. I meant the original comment quite literally. Also, it is a really freaking good series if you like Sci-fi that tries to answer philosophy questions, which this series does a wonderful job of.

MichaelGG 10y ago
I've found the series to be incredibly uplifting as in it makes me feel positive. Sort of like ST:TNG, though with less holes (ST never really explains why so much stuff is so limited, beyond hand-wavy "energy" concerns). It's a lovely picture of the future, assuming we have a really friendly AI explosion.

philipkglass 10y ago

The Culture is true post-scarcity in that basically unlimited matter and energy can be manufactured along with the objects made from matter and energy. By clever authorial fiat this doesn't lead to mega-terrorism from rare unhinged individuals, though. The real decision makers and guardians of the Culture are Minds, super-advanced AIs that can keep watch over millions of biological passengers and react to any problem a million times faster than biological entities can act. All manufactured objects in the Culture beyond a certain level of complexity have their own lesser AIs embedded in them. A space suit can advise or even argue with its user; a powerful handgun will refuse to fire if it thinks its user is misbehaving. (This is a minor plot point in one of the stories where somebody destroys a ship with a very old Culture gun from before the AI safeguards were built into objects.) As for the real world you can observe demand satiation right now among different ranks of the rich. Look at billionaires. They consume much more than the man who has only a few million in the bank, but sub-linearly more. From millionaires to billionaires you don't see a thousand-fold increase in consumption as measured by house size, food, beverages, clothing, medical care... Billionaires are three orders of magnitude separated from millionaires on the basis of control, not consumption; the richest will feel ill long before they consume all the champagne or caviar they could afford to buy.

mccoyspace 10y ago
"As for the real world you can observe demand satiation right now among different ranks of the rich. Look at billionaires. They consume much more than the man who has only a few million in the bank, but sub-linearly more." Which is why the growing wealth inequalities are bad for the overall economy. The rich can't spend their money with enough scale or velocity.
- robotresearcher 10y ago
  But the money of the rich is in circulation in the form of investments. Why is retail spending better for the economy? I'm genuinely interested.
  - czinck 10y ago

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

Tyler Cowen's "The Complacent Class" seems to paint a picture of satiety. I haven't gotten my copy yet so perhaps I missed something. We may get stuck at 1990s desires, except for experience ( and consumption and experience don't share a lot of Venn diagram ).