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I think this is right. And this, plus unlimited power (coming soon) gives you the route to the Roddenberry economy where everyone works to improve themselves an

I think this is right. And this, plus unlimited power (coming soon) gives you the route to the Roddenberry economy where everyone works to improve themselves and society and there is no money. Think about it. If you put dirt in the replicator and you get a Rolex or a hamburger or a garment, you don't need money for anything: everyone is equal and they can go off and study or work on whatever they want. Wealth is a false proxy for social status anyway.

lippel82 5y ago
Real Estate! That'll be the only valuable thing in such an economy.
- White_Wolf 5y ago
  we'll all have a pocket universe to design as we wish :D
- monkeybutton 5y ago
  That's something that always bugged me. Why does Picard get to have an entire, private vineyard to himself?
  - layer8 5y ago
    Maybe when beaming down to earth they really beam down into a holodeck (or the Matrix).
  - CalRobert 5y ago
    Primogeniture, apparently. Great thread athttps://mobile.twitter.com/sarahtaber_bww/status/1200230627544649735 https://mobile.twitter.com/sarahtaber_bww/status/12002306275...
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      That's a great (and long) thread. Reminds me of a pet theory I have: that the post-scarcity utopia of the Federation is based on expansionism, and not sustainable. They've managed to turn Earth into a paradise and give (mostly) everyone great life quality, but they did this by doubling down on exponential growth, which manifests in the constant need to get more and more planets to join the Federation. You can see the expansionist vibes all over the show, and they've even been hinted at by various aliens in DS9 (although without any mention of economic implications).
      - swalsh 5y ago
        I really think this is right, it would be nice to have a Star Trek like sci fi series that actually tried to tackle the issues. As a series it's been a source of inspiration for decades. It's a shame modern Star Trek is just generic sci-fi drama.
    - choeger 5y ago
      That thread points out some interesting observations about typical Star Trek inconsistencies (another one would be to think about why someone should move to a colony in the first place or rather about why not everyone can simply travel between planets as they like). But the objection against desalination is pointless. We can manage that problem already today (e.g., by drying up the brine or by pumping it into old oil wells). There is absolutely no reason to assume water would be scarce in the 24th century of TNG.
  - elihu 5y ago
    They might have some sort of immigration quotas for the Earth, and if the population is approximately what it is now, then there's going to be a lot of open space, farmland, and wilderness still. That's assuming you have cities with a lot of people packed close together, and rural areas with sparse population. That seems much better than the alternative of turning the entire land-surface of the Earth into a uniform-density suburb.
- swalsh 5y ago
  There's plentiful space all over the universe if you're a multiplanetary species.
  - kamarg 5y ago
    There's a pretty big difference between being able to colonize the universe and being able to colonize planets near to you. As an example, the Federation wasn't even able to map out a single galaxy nevermind colonize it.
layer8 5y ago
> you don't need money for anything Except for intellectual property, and possibly information in general. Which probably means that protecting it would become even more of a focus than it is now.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Yup. The current intellectual property regime pretty much shuts down any dream of replicator-driven utopia, even if a 24th century starship suddenly showed up in orbit and beamed down working replicators along with full specs. It's not really a theoretical consideration - as we get better at turning information into matter, intellectual property laws literally centralize the means of production away from the people!
  - goohle 5y ago
    When replicator will be ready to use, you will be able to replicate iphone XXX freely, because copyright for iphone XXX will expire at that time.
    - layer8 5y ago
      Unless the legislators go the Disney route and effectively extend copyright and patents indefinitely.
  - nynx 5y ago
    If that happened, people would just break intellectual property laws left and right until they became unenforceable.
- aaron-santos 5y ago
  I'm not sure I follow. Private property exists right now to enable the accumulation of wealth. In a post-scarcity economy, what is the value of wealth accumulation?
  - layer8 5y ago
CalRobert 5y ago
We're already there, nearly. Calories are incredibly cheap and a modest dwelling can be produced very inexpensively as well. Humans will find scarcities to focus on, or barring that, make them. (Housing cartels come to mind). Access to healthcare remains genuinely scarce, admittedly, and Baumol's cost disease is a real problem when you need to buy someone else's time.
xwdv 5y ago
What do you mean you don’t need money? How will you pay for services where people must spend their time to serve you? Any time you start tracking who owes something to someone you have the beginnings of currency. The post-scarcity economy being free of money never really made sense.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  If everyone's needs and even all non-extravagant desires can be met for free (or "too cheap to meter" free; this is the "post-scarcity" part), then the need for accurate tracking of value flow vanishes. Everything else can be mostly handled on a pay-it-forward basis, perhaps with a bit of "reputation economy" sprinkled in, and the remaining exceptions don't warrant a society-wide currency.
  - allemagne 5y ago
    I would expect the remaining exceptions to be enraging examples of unfairness to any post-scarcity society, and for civilization to really test the boundaries of "too cheap to meter".
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      Perhaps, but then I would expect people in a post-scarcity society to be fine with the idea that life is not fair - that it's not possible for everyone to have equal access to everything at the same time. I'd expect them to not care that much, having a comfortable life all needs taken care of. I'd also expect post-scarcity people to not even stress the "too cheap to meter" boundaries that hard - when comparing with people of today, it's worth remembering that most consumption of non-essentials is driven by artificial needs created by advertising, and advertising is predicated on scarcity. Post-scarcity people wouldn't be brainwashed to consume so much.
      - xwdv 5y ago
        > Perhaps, but then I would expect people in a post-scarcity society to be fine with the idea that life is not fair - that it's not possible for everyone to have equal access to everything at the same time. Are you kidding??? Life today is better than it has been at any time in history with more opportunities and luxuries more accessible than ever and people still complain.
14 5y ago
I dream of a post scarcity world. Live long and prosper as they say.
swalsh 5y ago
> Wealth is a false proxy for social status anyway Wealth is just the current proxy. I suspect you'll never be able to fully eliminate a social hierarchy. Many animals compete physically, humans compete socially, and without money we'll find new ways to socially standout. The game just changes, it's not going to go away.
allemagne 5y ago
Maybe nobody has to starve, work, or even die from anything besides a freak accident ever again, but not all the 100 billion humans who want to can possibly live in Neo-Manhattan (at least until the Mega Dome is finished in 50 years, but then not everyone can live on the Upper Rim). Not everybody can meet the coolest celebrity in the metaverse, or all have the same clever instagram handle. Not everyone can control who is allowed to visit and build on holy sites or nature preserves. I think people can always invent or discover new things that are functionally finite, and their claims on these kinds of things and the way they decide to distribute it can always theoretically be quantized into something we can understand as currency or wealth. Even if it's not done explicitly, it will simply be done in something like an extremely advanced algorithm or even an opaque shadow economy of networks of favors and patronages.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  It's true that some things are naturally scarce (like land, or celebrity exposure, or attention), and that people can make things scarce on purpose. It probably isn't possible to work around this - but this doesn't mean we couldn't have a post-scarcity society in spite of it. The way I see it, if "nobody has to starve, work, or even die from anything besides a freak accident ever again", if everyone has free access to as much varied, healthy and tasty food as they want, if they can pursue almost arbitrary hobby[0], or do interesting and challenging service adjacent to their interests - then the bits that remain fundamentally scarce (like land or attention) won't be enough to justify having a money-based economy, and without it, people will lose the reason for creating artificial scarcity. Some people may end up trading IOUs over trivialities like clever Instagram handle - something that, on a global scale, nobody cares about. But there would be no need to e.g. DRM movies or games anymore - the producers aren't getting paid for it, they do it for fun/reputation/self-actualization - so what's the point of making infinitely-copyable good artificially scarce? Post-scarcity doesn't have to be absolute for it to be a money-less utopia - it's enough to make enough goods too cheap to meter that money becomes irrelevant for everyday life of average citizen. -- [0] - There will always be limits to what individuals can do - post-scarcity is a practical concept, not an absolute one. Even Star Trek societies wouldn't be able to afford people having a hobby of "detonating warp cores to use the gamma ray flash for interplanetary Morse code".

lippel82 5y ago

Real Estate! That'll be the only valuable thing in such an economy.

White_Wolf 5y ago
we'll all have a pocket universe to design as we wish :D
monkeybutton 5y ago
That's something that always bugged me. Why does Picard get to have an entire, private vineyard to himself?
- layer8 5y ago
  Maybe when beaming down to earth they really beam down into a holodeck (or the Matrix).
- CalRobert 5y ago
  Primogeniture, apparently. Great thread athttps://mobile.twitter.com/sarahtaber_bww/status/1200230627544649735 https://mobile.twitter.com/sarahtaber_bww/status/12002306275...
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    That's a great (and long) thread. Reminds me of a pet theory I have: that the post-scarcity utopia of the Federation is based on expansionism, and not sustainable. They've managed to turn Earth into a paradise and give (mostly) everyone great life quality, but they did this by doubling down on exponential growth, which manifests in the constant need to get more and more planets to join the Federation. You can see the expansionist vibes all over the show, and they've even been hinted at by various aliens in DS9 (although without any mention of economic implications).
    - swalsh 5y ago
      I really think this is right, it would be nice to have a Star Trek like sci fi series that actually tried to tackle the issues. As a series it's been a source of inspiration for decades. It's a shame modern Star Trek is just generic sci-fi drama.
  - choeger 5y ago
    That thread points out some interesting observations about typical Star Trek inconsistencies (another one would be to think about why someone should move to a colony in the first place or rather about why not everyone can simply travel between planets as they like). But the objection against desalination is pointless. We can manage that problem already today (e.g., by drying up the brine or by pumping it into old oil wells). There is absolutely no reason to assume water would be scarce in the 24th century of TNG.
- elihu 5y ago
  They might have some sort of immigration quotas for the Earth, and if the population is approximately what it is now, then there's going to be a lot of open space, farmland, and wilderness still. That's assuming you have cities with a lot of people packed close together, and rural areas with sparse population. That seems much better than the alternative of turning the entire land-surface of the Earth into a uniform-density suburb.
swalsh 5y ago
There's plentiful space all over the universe if you're a multiplanetary species.
- kamarg 5y ago
  There's a pretty big difference between being able to colonize the universe and being able to colonize planets near to you. As an example, the Federation wasn't even able to map out a single galaxy nevermind colonize it.

layer8 5y ago

> you don't need money for anything Except for intellectual property, and possibly information in general. Which probably means that protecting it would become even more of a focus than it is now.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
Yup. The current intellectual property regime pretty much shuts down any dream of replicator-driven utopia, even if a 24th century starship suddenly showed up in orbit and beamed down working replicators along with full specs. It's not really a theoretical consideration - as we get better at turning information into matter, intellectual property laws literally centralize the means of production away from the people!
- goohle 5y ago
  When replicator will be ready to use, you will be able to replicate iphone XXX freely, because copyright for iphone XXX will expire at that time.
  - layer8 5y ago
    Unless the legislators go the Disney route and effectively extend copyright and patents indefinitely.
- nynx 5y ago
  If that happened, people would just break intellectual property laws left and right until they became unenforceable.
aaron-santos 5y ago
I'm not sure I follow. Private property exists right now to enable the accumulation of wealth. In a post-scarcity economy, what is the value of wealth accumulation?
- layer8 5y ago

CalRobert 5y ago

We're already there, nearly. Calories are incredibly cheap and a modest dwelling can be produced very inexpensively as well. Humans will find scarcities to focus on, or barring that, make them. (Housing cartels come to mind). Access to healthcare remains genuinely scarce, admittedly, and Baumol's cost disease is a real problem when you need to buy someone else's time.

xwdv 5y ago

What do you mean you don’t need money? How will you pay for services where people must spend their time to serve you? Any time you start tracking who owes something to someone you have the beginnings of currency. The post-scarcity economy being free of money never really made sense.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
If everyone's needs and even all non-extravagant desires can be met for free (or "too cheap to meter" free; this is the "post-scarcity" part), then the need for accurate tracking of value flow vanishes. Everything else can be mostly handled on a pay-it-forward basis, perhaps with a bit of "reputation economy" sprinkled in, and the remaining exceptions don't warrant a society-wide currency.
- allemagne 5y ago
  I would expect the remaining exceptions to be enraging examples of unfairness to any post-scarcity society, and for civilization to really test the boundaries of "too cheap to meter".
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    Perhaps, but then I would expect people in a post-scarcity society to be fine with the idea that life is not fair - that it's not possible for everyone to have equal access to everything at the same time. I'd expect them to not care that much, having a comfortable life all needs taken care of. I'd also expect post-scarcity people to not even stress the "too cheap to meter" boundaries that hard - when comparing with people of today, it's worth remembering that most consumption of non-essentials is driven by artificial needs created by advertising, and advertising is predicated on scarcity. Post-scarcity people wouldn't be brainwashed to consume so much.
    - xwdv 5y ago
      > Perhaps, but then I would expect people in a post-scarcity society to be fine with the idea that life is not fair - that it's not possible for everyone to have equal access to everything at the same time. Are you kidding??? Life today is better than it has been at any time in history with more opportunities and luxuries more accessible than ever and people still complain.

14 5y ago

I dream of a post scarcity world. Live long and prosper as they say.

swalsh 5y ago

> Wealth is a false proxy for social status anyway Wealth is just the current proxy. I suspect you'll never be able to fully eliminate a social hierarchy. Many animals compete physically, humans compete socially, and without money we'll find new ways to socially standout. The game just changes, it's not going to go away.

allemagne 5y ago

Maybe nobody has to starve, work, or even die from anything besides a freak accident ever again, but not all the 100 billion humans who want to can possibly live in Neo-Manhattan (at least until the Mega Dome is finished in 50 years, but then not everyone can live on the Upper Rim). Not everybody can meet the coolest celebrity in the metaverse, or all have the same clever instagram handle. Not everyone can control who is allowed to visit and build on holy sites or nature preserves. I think people can always invent or discover new things that are functionally finite, and their claims on these kinds of things and the way they decide to distribute it can always theoretically be quantized into something we can understand as currency or wealth. Even if it's not done explicitly, it will simply be done in something like an extremely advanced algorithm or even an opaque shadow economy of networks of favors and patronages.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
It's true that some things are naturally scarce (like land, or celebrity exposure, or attention), and that people can make things scarce on purpose. It probably isn't possible to work around this - but this doesn't mean we couldn't have a post-scarcity society in spite of it. The way I see it, if "nobody has to starve, work, or even die from anything besides a freak accident ever again", if everyone has free access to as much varied, healthy and tasty food as they want, if they can pursue almost arbitrary hobby[0], or do interesting and challenging service adjacent to their interests - then the bits that remain fundamentally scarce (like land or attention) won't be enough to justify having a money-based economy, and without it, people will lose the reason for creating artificial scarcity. Some people may end up trading IOUs over trivialities like clever Instagram handle - something that, on a global scale, nobody cares about. But there would be no need to e.g. DRM movies or games anymore - the producers aren't getting paid for it, they do it for fun/reputation/self-actualization - so what's the point of making infinitely-copyable good artificially scarce? Post-scarcity doesn't have to be absolute for it to be a money-less utopia - it's enough to make enough goods too cheap to meter that money becomes irrelevant for everyday life of average citizen. -- [0] - There will always be limits to what individuals can do - post-scarcity is a practical concept, not an absolute one. Even Star Trek societies wouldn't be able to afford people having a hobby of "detonating warp cores to use the gamma ray flash for interplanetary Morse code".