4 ms·
The cost of making goods is extremely cheap and will only go down as the cost of energy decreases. This is not an ideological statement. ETA: HN says I am rep
by chillwaves 5y ago
The cost of making goods is extremely cheap and will only go down as the cost of energy decreases. This is not an ideological statement.
ETA: HN says I am replying too quickly.
here is my reply to the replies: argue against what I wrote. I said the cost of making goods is going down. Not that rare things will no longer exist. And I certainly did not speak to arbitrarily valued things like baseball cards (lol?) and "numbered art".
Who even cares? That's not remotely in the realm of discussion. No one said lowered energy costs will increase the existence of Kanye West signatures.
The point is the price of goods is going down. It means higher per capita production output. That is the only thing I said. That means cheaper houses. It means cheaper consumer goods. Not "nothing rare will ever exist again" or even "nothing will ever be scarce" -- it means the things we need to survive are no longer resource or labor gated, they are closed off as an act of political will.
If you want, make two different currencies. Some basic gov't scrip for necessities - housing, food, shelter, closing, and you can use BTC or whatever for your rich people shit and pay as much as you want for collectible shoes or whatever catches your fancy.
People will largely not care because they won't be literally starving and dying from lack of access to physiological necessities.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoHow's the supply of beach-front houses doing, relative to the demand? If the cost of energy decreases, are we going to have more of them? Some kinds of scarcity can be solved by cheap energy. Not all can. (I suppose that the kinds that are needs instead of wants are more likely to be solvable with cheap energy.)
- barbecue_sauce 5y ago"Post-scarcity" economics as a concept is specifically about needs and not wants.
- beerandt 5y agoBut when "needs" are satisfied "equally", "wants" become extremely relevant in the allocation of those resources.
- Chris2048 5y ago> are we going to have more of them? Dubai thinks so ;-)
- beerandt 5y agoGot a job offer one from one of those companies. The SEC public disclosures are hilariously blunt on how just one of a handful autonomous rulers could have a spontaneous change of heart that would effectively tank the company.
- beerandt 5y agoUnique items. Real estate. Numbered artwork. Baseball cards. Antique cars. Transferable automatic weapons. Anything anyone ever bought because of who the previous owner was.
- beerandt 5y ago>If you want, make two different currencies. Some basic gov't scrip for necessities - housing, food, shelter, closing, and you can use BTC or whatever for your rich people shit and pay as much as you want for collectible shoes or whatever catches your fancy. If everyone has equal or unlimited rent money, then the apartment goes to who ever pays asking price (or rent controlled price) plus gifts the cosplaying landlord the "collectable shoes". That "rich people shit" becomes the differentiating factor in otherwise equal cash prices/offers. It's inseparable. How does the "two forms of currencies" currently work out for things like EBT/SNAP benefits or section 8 housing? Scarcity doesn't disappear, it just gets shifted to other mechanisms besides cash. >People will largely not care because they won't be literally starving and dying from lack of access to physiological necessities. We've been beyond that in the US for a while now, to the point of obesity epidemic. Free education, free school meals, free home and weekend meals, free SNSP/EBT on top of free school meals, free health insurance, free housing vouchers, free phones/data, Any necessities not being met in the US today is due to neglegent parenting, not lack of resources.
- hakfoo 5y ago> Any necessities not being met in the US today is due to neglegent parenting, not lack of resources. The data doesn't lie: there is still childhood hunger and homelessness in the US. You can play the blame game and say the parents should do a better job of navigating a clunky and hostile bureaucracy, but while we're doing that, children are going without food and shelter. Is that an outcome we're willing to accept so we can point our fingers and say the parents were wrong?