12 ms·

Post scarcity is one of those terms that just does not make sense. How much is enough for everybody? What if some people want more? Who decides exactly when so

Post scarcity is one of those terms that just does not make sense. How much is enough for everybody? What if some people want more? Who decides exactly when something isn’t scarce anymore? I’ve yet to see anything that convinced me that post scarcity is anything more that a recent buzzword because fundamentally...supply and demand can’t ever actually go away.

jstanley 9y ago
The way a post-scarcity society could come to exist is if we stop doing any activity in the physical world and everything moves online. We've actually gone quite a long way down that road already. I wouldn't be surprised if in 100 years or so, most physical-world activity has stopped. Once basic electricity, internet connectivity, food, etc. is provided automatically, and all work and leisure is conducted online, there's no barrier to stop anybody from having as much of any kind of information, software, leisure activity, etc. as they want. I refer to it as "retreating to the virtual realm". Obviously it's not a popular idea at the moment, but I think it'll just happen gradually like it's done so far. Nobody will be forced into moving out of the physical realm, they'll just find that there's increasingly nothing to do as everything has moved to the virtual realm.
- dougmwne 9y ago
  That's quite an insight. I've never connected those concepts together before. There's a staggeringly long list of things that are now post-scarcity because they're digital. Each item used to be a luxury available to few instead of a thing that scales to all. So here's a new way to ask an old question: What's something that should be post-scarcity, but currently isn't?
  - jpindar 9y ago
    Textbooks? There are many ebooks that are legitimately available for free, but textbooks are typically expensive.
  - baursak 9y ago
    Anything that costs $0 to make a copy of, but is sold at premium. Enterprise software like Oracle, etc. Digital Music. Streamed Movies and shows (Netflix). Also, anything that costs nearly $0 at scale, but is sold at premium. Internet service. Cellular service.
- misja111 9y ago
  Although electricity, food, etc. are not provided automatically yet, I don't think that in the developed world they are scarce anymore. People don't chase a promotion, work overhours or buy a lottery ticket in the hope of being able to obtain more food. It might not be a gourmet meal in a Michelin star restaurant, but you surely can buy as much food as you need to never be hungry. If you want a car, then at least in the Western world, you can buy one. It might not be a Ferrari, but when physical transportation is what you are after, it is definitely affordable. So why do many people still work so hard? Because they don't just want things that are sufficient, they desire to have luxury goods, food or leisure. And how do you define luxury? It is something better than you have now, or even better, something better than what your neighbours/ friends or colleagues have. This will not change, no matter how easily food and other basic goods become available. Because it is part of human nature to desire to have status, more than that, this is what is driving evolution for many other animals as well. So a true post-scarcity will never exist. People will just invent new goods or services to go after in the future when today's iphones and sportscars have become affordable. Not because they need them, but for the simple fact that they are difficult to obtain.
  - archevel 9y ago
    > So a true post-scarcity will never exist. People will just invent new goods or services to go after in the future when today's iphones and sportscars have become affordable. Not because they need them, but for the simple fact that they are difficult to obtain. This assumes material wealth remain a source of status. If all things are easily aquired, then there is no reason to hold people with certain possesion in high regard. Instead knowing social codes and ability might become even more important. Perhaps the exception would be historical artifacts abd handmade things, asuming those could not be perfectly copied...
  - marcosdumay 9y ago
    > So why do many people still work so hard? Let me make you a question. For how long will you still afford all that stuff if you simply quit working?
    - 9y ago
- francisofascii 9y ago
  I never thought of moving more to the online world a good thing, but this makes me question that. Let's consider a wealthy art collector. It would seem to be better for the collector to buy digital art, which is electronic and reproducible, than to buy up physical paintings, which means less paintings available for others.
  - krapp 9y ago
    > It would seem to be better for the collector to buy digital art, which is electronic and reproducible, than to buy up physical paintings, which means less paintings available for others. Except the experience of viewing physical artwork is better than viewing a digital representation, in the same way that physically traveling to another country to experience the culture and atmosphere is better than simply seeing it in the 3D view of Google maps. The map is not the destination, and a PNG of a painting isn't a painting. It's only in science fiction that the physical and virtual worlds are indistinguishable. Notwithstanding the value that also exists in the rarity of physical artwork itself, and in collecting it because it's not infinitely reproducible.
- immutable_ai 9y ago
  I would define "post-scarcity" as when you organize your economic system to constrain supply in order to prop up prices. For instance, the U.S. burns 30% of its corn crop to produce ethanol, which would never happen in a market system, but it happens because of a government mandate.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  That's my hope. Maybe the period where humans had an impact on the planet will be short lived and they will disappear again. When I look at my 50 year old body and its slow decline I wouldn't mind getting rid of it and live virtually.
- ralmidani 9y ago
  People also like to get married, have families, socialize, play sports, go to nice restaurants, attend shows, etc. Your vision also assumes every human wants to, or can, be a knowledge worker. A lot of people can only function as manual laborers.
  - jstanley 9y ago
    Those things are true now, but I don't think it'll take too many generations for what I described to be considered totally normal.
twoquestions 9y ago
Providing enough for everyone to exist is trivial, what's distinctly non-trivial is satisfying those needs in an economic system like ours. Right now our economy requires access to necessities to be precarious, to motivate people to sell their time and most of their freedom to Those In Charge to buy them. The alternative to this, where everyone has what they need to exist without submitting to one leader or another, is true Liberty, which rightly terrifies our ruling class. I know this is a bit abstract, but I hope it makes sense.
- aswanson 9y ago
  It is, but a good point of departure for discussion. Can you elaborate on how that alternative can evolve from the present way of doing things?
  - js8 9y ago
    I am not PP but I think a decent basic income is a good alternative. Effectively, it is splitting of fruits of economic production into two portions. One portion is redistributed to everybody, and the other is subject of free competition. So you can get the best of both worlds, capitalism and socialism. If you want to compete for the other portion, you can. If you don't want to compete (and be dominated by people who do compete), you live on the basic income.
  - twoquestions 9y ago
    Not easily, I'll admit. We've been working for so long at dealing with scarcity that when presented with abundance we don't know what to do. I'm at least glad that people are at least starting to understand that our economic system while better than it's predecessors by a mile, should be improved. This kind of question is better answered piecemeal, like how do we get the homeless into one of the 4-5 empty homes per homeless person, or how do we avoid throwing away 40+% of the food we grow? Correcting horrific market failures like this is a wonderful way to start.
- jules 9y ago
  The only reason we have enough is because of that economic system. Take a look at Venezuela. It ought to terrify everyone that so many take what we have for granted.
imgabe 9y ago
I think of it like oxygen. We don't pay for the air we breathe. You don't need an "air" utility to pipe breathable air into your house and have to pay them a monthly bill (yet anyway). You just breathe. You want to breathe harder? Go ahead. Everyone on Earth could run wind sprints all day and we wouldn't run out of air. It replenishes itself naturally. Once we can do the same with potable water, food, shelter, we'll be at a post-scarcity economy.
- vzcx 9y ago
  Once we can do the same for uranium, platinum, N-(4-Methoxybenzylidene)-4-butylaniline, polyisoprene, hydrogen fuel cells, lithium ion batteries, silicon wafers, liquid oxygen, nitrogen tetroxide, hydrazine... we'll be at a post-scarcity economy.
- brightball 9y ago
  That's really the question though: Who produces the food, water, shelter? What are the required incentives for them to continue dedicating their scarce time to continuing to produce it? What are the incentives or rewards for them to invest in the infrastructure, equipment, etc for them to create that? Who maintains it and how are they compensated for doing so? What benefit do they gain for committing their time to the endeavor while everyone else enjoys the fruits? Air is an example that actually fits this well. With air, distribution and production are handled by systems that don't require people to construct and maintain. All of those costs go away. I don't see a point where post-scarcity is realistic until scarcity of time can be addressed.
  - pault 9y ago
    I've always been convinced that a true post-scarcity economy requires some pretty sophisticated AI and automation for the reasons you specified. A potential solution for technological unemployment is UBI, and UBI is enabled by the technologies that cause the unemployment, which is appealingly tidy in my opinion.
  - protonfish 9y ago
    But staples like water, air, and land (source of food, shelter location and materials) are not about production, they are about claims of ownership and creating tollbooths.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
Fundamentally they can't, but that's not what the concept is aiming at. What we can do is to drop costs of things people need (or want) in their daily lives to the point that supply/demand basically stops working for them on an aggregate scale. If we do this to the point that any person can live a full life and participate in the society at large without having to exchange labour for resources or worrying about their wealth, then we achieve "post-scarcity". Even in Star Trek, there were scarce things that needed to be allocated. Not everyone got their own starship. But we consider this fictional economy a post-scarcity one, because food, clothing, shelter, healthcare and entertainment were basically free for everyone.
- vzcx 9y ago
  Ah, but what is a "full life?" Might someone believe that they need something more rare in order to attain it? Isn't "post-scarcity" just taking the limit as supply reaches infinity, and thus just another term for "asymptotically cheap?" Do we really need a "fresh new" economic theory to talk about this?
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    > Ah, but what is a "full life?" Might someone believe that they need something more rare in order to attain it? That's indeed a fuzzy term right here. Can't come up with a better one, though. I'm thinking here of a life of an average person, though, not about outliers. > Isn't "post-scarcity" just taking the limit as supply reaches infinity, and thus just another term for "asymptotically cheap?" Do we really need a "fresh new" economic theory to talk about this? Maybe? Whether you call it "post-scarcity" or "most stuff is asymptotically cheap now", our current economic theories (and practice) don't handle near-free things well.
- afarrell 9y ago
  > Healthcare We'd have to either normalize suicide or prevent aging in order to get to a world where the demand for healthcare is basically met for everyone. Before we even get there, we've still got a lot of people whose healthcare costs are infinite with current technology. The NHS is fantastic, it doesn't operate in a post-scarcity environment.

jstanley 9y ago

The way a post-scarcity society could come to exist is if we stop doing any activity in the physical world and everything moves online. We've actually gone quite a long way down that road already. I wouldn't be surprised if in 100 years or so, most physical-world activity has stopped. Once basic electricity, internet connectivity, food, etc. is provided automatically, and all work and leisure is conducted online, there's no barrier to stop anybody from having as much of any kind of information, software, leisure activity, etc. as they want. I refer to it as "retreating to the virtual realm". Obviously it's not a popular idea at the moment, but I think it'll just happen gradually like it's done so far. Nobody will be forced into moving out of the physical realm, they'll just find that there's increasingly nothing to do as everything has moved to the virtual realm.

dougmwne 9y ago
That's quite an insight. I've never connected those concepts together before. There's a staggeringly long list of things that are now post-scarcity because they're digital. Each item used to be a luxury available to few instead of a thing that scales to all. So here's a new way to ask an old question: What's something that should be post-scarcity, but currently isn't?
- jpindar 9y ago
  Textbooks? There are many ebooks that are legitimately available for free, but textbooks are typically expensive.
- baursak 9y ago
  Anything that costs $0 to make a copy of, but is sold at premium. Enterprise software like Oracle, etc. Digital Music. Streamed Movies and shows (Netflix). Also, anything that costs nearly $0 at scale, but is sold at premium. Internet service. Cellular service.
misja111 9y ago
Although electricity, food, etc. are not provided automatically yet, I don't think that in the developed world they are scarce anymore. People don't chase a promotion, work overhours or buy a lottery ticket in the hope of being able to obtain more food. It might not be a gourmet meal in a Michelin star restaurant, but you surely can buy as much food as you need to never be hungry. If you want a car, then at least in the Western world, you can buy one. It might not be a Ferrari, but when physical transportation is what you are after, it is definitely affordable. So why do many people still work so hard? Because they don't just want things that are sufficient, they desire to have luxury goods, food or leisure. And how do you define luxury? It is something better than you have now, or even better, something better than what your neighbours/ friends or colleagues have. This will not change, no matter how easily food and other basic goods become available. Because it is part of human nature to desire to have status, more than that, this is what is driving evolution for many other animals as well. So a true post-scarcity will never exist. People will just invent new goods or services to go after in the future when today's iphones and sportscars have become affordable. Not because they need them, but for the simple fact that they are difficult to obtain.
- archevel 9y ago
  > So a true post-scarcity will never exist. People will just invent new goods or services to go after in the future when today's iphones and sportscars have become affordable. Not because they need them, but for the simple fact that they are difficult to obtain. This assumes material wealth remain a source of status. If all things are easily aquired, then there is no reason to hold people with certain possesion in high regard. Instead knowing social codes and ability might become even more important. Perhaps the exception would be historical artifacts abd handmade things, asuming those could not be perfectly copied...
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  > So why do many people still work so hard? Let me make you a question. For how long will you still afford all that stuff if you simply quit working?
  - 9y ago
francisofascii 9y ago
I never thought of moving more to the online world a good thing, but this makes me question that. Let's consider a wealthy art collector. It would seem to be better for the collector to buy digital art, which is electronic and reproducible, than to buy up physical paintings, which means less paintings available for others.
- krapp 9y ago
  > It would seem to be better for the collector to buy digital art, which is electronic and reproducible, than to buy up physical paintings, which means less paintings available for others. Except the experience of viewing physical artwork is better than viewing a digital representation, in the same way that physically traveling to another country to experience the culture and atmosphere is better than simply seeing it in the 3D view of Google maps. The map is not the destination, and a PNG of a painting isn't a painting. It's only in science fiction that the physical and virtual worlds are indistinguishable. Notwithstanding the value that also exists in the rarity of physical artwork itself, and in collecting it because it's not infinitely reproducible.
immutable_ai 9y ago
I would define "post-scarcity" as when you organize your economic system to constrain supply in order to prop up prices. For instance, the U.S. burns 30% of its corn crop to produce ethanol, which would never happen in a market system, but it happens because of a government mandate.
maxxxxx 9y ago
That's my hope. Maybe the period where humans had an impact on the planet will be short lived and they will disappear again. When I look at my 50 year old body and its slow decline I wouldn't mind getting rid of it and live virtually.
ralmidani 9y ago
People also like to get married, have families, socialize, play sports, go to nice restaurants, attend shows, etc. Your vision also assumes every human wants to, or can, be a knowledge worker. A lot of people can only function as manual laborers.
- jstanley 9y ago
  Those things are true now, but I don't think it'll take too many generations for what I described to be considered totally normal.

twoquestions 9y ago

Providing enough for everyone to exist is trivial, what's distinctly non-trivial is satisfying those needs in an economic system like ours. Right now our economy requires access to necessities to be precarious, to motivate people to sell their time and most of their freedom to Those In Charge to buy them. The alternative to this, where everyone has what they need to exist without submitting to one leader or another, is true Liberty, which rightly terrifies our ruling class. I know this is a bit abstract, but I hope it makes sense.

aswanson 9y ago
It is, but a good point of departure for discussion. Can you elaborate on how that alternative can evolve from the present way of doing things?
- js8 9y ago
  I am not PP but I think a decent basic income is a good alternative. Effectively, it is splitting of fruits of economic production into two portions. One portion is redistributed to everybody, and the other is subject of free competition. So you can get the best of both worlds, capitalism and socialism. If you want to compete for the other portion, you can. If you don't want to compete (and be dominated by people who do compete), you live on the basic income.
- twoquestions 9y ago
  Not easily, I'll admit. We've been working for so long at dealing with scarcity that when presented with abundance we don't know what to do. I'm at least glad that people are at least starting to understand that our economic system while better than it's predecessors by a mile, should be improved. This kind of question is better answered piecemeal, like how do we get the homeless into one of the 4-5 empty homes per homeless person, or how do we avoid throwing away 40+% of the food we grow? Correcting horrific market failures like this is a wonderful way to start.
jules 9y ago
The only reason we have enough is because of that economic system. Take a look at Venezuela. It ought to terrify everyone that so many take what we have for granted.

imgabe 9y ago

I think of it like oxygen. We don't pay for the air we breathe. You don't need an "air" utility to pipe breathable air into your house and have to pay them a monthly bill (yet anyway). You just breathe. You want to breathe harder? Go ahead. Everyone on Earth could run wind sprints all day and we wouldn't run out of air. It replenishes itself naturally. Once we can do the same with potable water, food, shelter, we'll be at a post-scarcity economy.

vzcx 9y ago
Once we can do the same for uranium, platinum, N-(4-Methoxybenzylidene)-4-butylaniline, polyisoprene, hydrogen fuel cells, lithium ion batteries, silicon wafers, liquid oxygen, nitrogen tetroxide, hydrazine... we'll be at a post-scarcity economy.
brightball 9y ago
That's really the question though: Who produces the food, water, shelter? What are the required incentives for them to continue dedicating their scarce time to continuing to produce it? What are the incentives or rewards for them to invest in the infrastructure, equipment, etc for them to create that? Who maintains it and how are they compensated for doing so? What benefit do they gain for committing their time to the endeavor while everyone else enjoys the fruits? Air is an example that actually fits this well. With air, distribution and production are handled by systems that don't require people to construct and maintain. All of those costs go away. I don't see a point where post-scarcity is realistic until scarcity of time can be addressed.
- pault 9y ago
  I've always been convinced that a true post-scarcity economy requires some pretty sophisticated AI and automation for the reasons you specified. A potential solution for technological unemployment is UBI, and UBI is enabled by the technologies that cause the unemployment, which is appealingly tidy in my opinion.
- protonfish 9y ago
  But staples like water, air, and land (source of food, shelter location and materials) are not about production, they are about claims of ownership and creating tollbooths.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

Fundamentally they can't, but that's not what the concept is aiming at. What we can do is to drop costs of things people need (or want) in their daily lives to the point that supply/demand basically stops working for them on an aggregate scale. If we do this to the point that any person can live a full life and participate in the society at large without having to exchange labour for resources or worrying about their wealth, then we achieve "post-scarcity". Even in Star Trek, there were scarce things that needed to be allocated. Not everyone got their own starship. But we consider this fictional economy a post-scarcity one, because food, clothing, shelter, healthcare and entertainment were basically free for everyone.

vzcx 9y ago
Ah, but what is a "full life?" Might someone believe that they need something more rare in order to attain it? Isn't "post-scarcity" just taking the limit as supply reaches infinity, and thus just another term for "asymptotically cheap?" Do we really need a "fresh new" economic theory to talk about this?
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > Ah, but what is a "full life?" Might someone believe that they need something more rare in order to attain it? That's indeed a fuzzy term right here. Can't come up with a better one, though. I'm thinking here of a life of an average person, though, not about outliers. > Isn't "post-scarcity" just taking the limit as supply reaches infinity, and thus just another term for "asymptotically cheap?" Do we really need a "fresh new" economic theory to talk about this? Maybe? Whether you call it "post-scarcity" or "most stuff is asymptotically cheap now", our current economic theories (and practice) don't handle near-free things well.
afarrell 9y ago
> Healthcare We'd have to either normalize suicide or prevent aging in order to get to a world where the demand for healthcare is basically met for everyone. Before we even get there, we've still got a lot of people whose healthcare costs are infinite with current technology. The NHS is fantastic, it doesn't operate in a post-scarcity environment.