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Presumably, if you have unlimited resources, you can create most, if not all, of what makes that land in NYC valuable. You could create enough city districts to

Presumably, if you have unlimited resources, you can create most, if not all, of what makes that land in NYC valuable. You could create enough city districts to meet demand. There's lots of factors that go into the value of land. Available amenities, jobs, being near other people, quality of schools and other resources, transportation, etc. But those all seem to boil down to scarce resources being pooled in one area. If you could mass produce amenities, buildings, school supplies, etc, then NYC wouldn't have any inherent value, because its equal would exist everyone someone cared to plop one down where there was enough demand to fill it with people.

harimau777 8y ago
I think that the problem is that the time when technology causes dramatic unemployment is likely to happen long before the time when technology can provide unlimited resources. So the question is: what do we do in-between?
munk-a 8y ago
I don't know if post-scarcity must mean perpetual motion machine. I'm not certain if you're familiar with the societal concept of systems collapse but it may be that attempting to do that would result in a maintenance burden that's untenable... Also I think a large chunk of NYC's value is in its people and I believe there's always going to be advantageous positioning from rarity, maybe this eventual society still has a government that has a capitol building and people congregate specifically around that... or perhaps it's more artificial - if the whole world was a city perhaps it'd get less significant and value would come from living at exactly 0' 0' or 3'14" 15'92" and so on. I think there's a bit of innate petty jealousy in human beings so land value differentials will always exist. But, that angle is pretty thin, so maybe I'm just stretching the argument at this point. Quite interesting to ponder!

harimau777 8y ago

I think that the problem is that the time when technology causes dramatic unemployment is likely to happen long before the time when technology can provide unlimited resources. So the question is: what do we do in-between?

munk-a 8y ago

I don't know if post-scarcity must mean perpetual motion machine. I'm not certain if you're familiar with the societal concept of systems collapse but it may be that attempting to do that would result in a maintenance burden that's untenable... Also I think a large chunk of NYC's value is in its people and I believe there's always going to be advantageous positioning from rarity, maybe this eventual society still has a government that has a capitol building and people congregate specifically around that... or perhaps it's more artificial - if the whole world was a city perhaps it'd get less significant and value would come from living at exactly 0' 0' or 3'14" 15'92" and so on. I think there's a bit of innate petty jealousy in human beings so land value differentials will always exist. But, that angle is pretty thin, so maybe I'm just stretching the argument at this point. Quite interesting to ponder!