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Meaning, in my view, is not a switch; it's a dial. We can have some more than we have now. Overall I agree with you: I'm not naive, nor am I a utopianist. I'm
by maybelsyrup 5y ago
Meaning, in my view, is not a switch; it's a dial. We can have some more than we have now.
Overall I agree with you: I'm not naive, nor am I a utopianist. I'm fine with more equitable. But we're so entrenched in the status quo that it feels like you have to talk like a revolutionary to get even a shred of "a little more equitable".
Edit: wait though what's a "post-scarcity" economy, anyway, concretely? I've heard since I can remember that we grow enough food as a species to feed everyone (and yet we throw tons of food out) - is that not a decent marker of being post-scarcity? We seem to have enough wealth in the US to be in neverending proxy or non-proxy aggressive wars against various groups of poor and largely non-white people - that wealth, used slightly differently, has got to be some kind of dent in all sorts of scarcity, no? I'm not writing this to attack you whatsoever; I'm genuinely curious. Post-scarcity is a phrase I've heard smarter people than me utter every now and then, and it only just occurred to me that I've never actually figured out what it meant. (I'll Google it now of course but I'd love to hear your perspective all the same. Cheers.)
- BobbyJo 5y agoPost-scarcity just refers to a time after scarcity, which is defined as limited resources. In a world that is post-scarcity, everyone can have everything they want (materially) without infringing on anyone else's ability to have the same. The reason it gets brought up is because the moment one person's needs or wants infringe on another's, there needs to be a way to decide who gets what. Generally, this is what people are talking about when they talk about various economic systems. You come up with different mechanics that use the distribution of goods to incentivize the production of more goods. The only way we escape the economic games that need to be played, to keep people working and producing things society needs, is if we no longer need them to produce anything. Then you no longer need the incentives and feedback loops that tie consumption to production, and people are generally free to do whatever the hell they want.
- vaidhy 5y agoBy definition, this is impossible to achieve. Assume that some person says I want what everyone else has. There is no post scarcity. It is better to think of it as meeting a set of pre-defined needs. These needs can change over time. for e.g., internet access. But framing it as wanting everything I could possibly imagine is a straw-man.
- BobbyJo 5y agoHow is it a straw-man? Impossible or not, it means what it means.
- smolder 5y agoYeah, I've always maintained that there are too many people with unbounded greed for a "complete" post-scarcity to be achievable. There's a "greed is good" crowd, and then beyond that, there are those who aren't even concerned with whether it's good to be greedy, they just want to win at others' expense, spitefully. A world where they can't take from other people is not desirable. The first time I got to know someone with this attitude, I started out thinking it was a front, or a joke, but it wasn't. The idea of post-scarcity brushes over that dark part of human nature, and assumes we can figure out how to cooperate, even absent antisocial misanthropes. In Star Trek, they have "figured it out", but the transition to post-scarcity is understandably only vaguely described.
- BobbyJo 5y agoI couldn't agree more. The idea itself is grand, but it's not adaptable to chaos. So long as human personalities are scattered around a bell curve, the more competitive and materialistic of us (which includes those of us who want humanity to pursue scientific development since it is extremely capital intensive) will force the competition to continue.