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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 accumulat

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
Power and status. People want something to bargain with, to show off, and to control other people. If money is not an option, information will do (and possibly cryptocurrency, which in some way is both).
- aaron-santos 5y ago
  Sorry, still struggling to understand here. Today power and status is derived from scarcity. What is an example of power or status not derived from scarcity?
  - ctdonath 5y ago
    Energy is not free. Humans can always find something desirable/influential that requires more energy than is cheaply available. Ex.: the Star Trek replicator requires staggering amount of energy. Owning one, and affording the fuel, would provide power and status. Were energy cheap enough to give everybody one would enable something next level scarce and desirable/influential.
    - aaron-santos 5y ago
      That's disappointing. I was more interested in deducing the implications of power assuming scarcity was eliminated.
      - ctdonath 5y ago
        I appreciate the interest, but see it as pure fantasy. Essence of supply is energy, and we can ALWAYS use however much energy we can get our hands on. Think of the casual interplanetary/interstellar travel depicted in sci-fi: huge energy use for petty purposes. Think of the huge energy use of median western lifestyle, relative to historical norm sustenance living. Hate to pop the bubble. You are promoting me to further analyze/quantify modern vs sustenance living, in terms of sheer energy consumption.
ctdonath 5y ago
“Post-scarcity” is a myth. There will always be some limited-supply thing humans will value. Consider how utterly dissatisfied people are with abundant cheap food, clothing, water, fuel, housing, etc. today vs not all that long ago, having integrated new norms into mundane sustenance making abundance seem unattainable. An hour’s minimum wage today buys medieval luxury but for regulations demanding even better.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  It's more complicated than that. People are dissatisfied with abundance today because they're being made dissatisfied, in several ways: - Creating fake dissatisfaction is literally the cornerstone of sales and marketing. To get someone to buy stuff where they otherwise wouldn't, you have to create in them the state of being dissatisfied with what they already have (e.g. make them desire something else, or make them afraid of something). I'm not sure we can blame regular folks for being whiny if the richest industry on the planet is making them whiny on purpose. - Value engineering means things that were good and cheap, like food and clothing, keep getting worse over time, as companies keep trying to squeeze extra margins. Besides competitive pressure, this is also driven by inflation. Overall result: things that were good before are barely usable today, despite being abundant. - Related, some people recognize this abundance is being turned into a play to chain and exploit people. The more things are becoming services instead of products, the more people become dependent on providers. It's becoming clearly visible in developed countries: to make use of abundance, you need to keep running the rat race to exhaustion. We're reaching a ridiculous point that, in order to have the good fruits of our civilization, you have to be busy working so hard you that don't have time to enjoy them. - We're barely few generations into a subset of population having some sort of decent life. Call it being biased by time and place of birth, but frankly, I consider the average quality of life before late 20th century West to be tragic and unacceptable, and current one to be barely scratching the surface of how people should live. I see no reason to assume that people wouldn't stop consuming obsessively in a post-scarcity economy, if said economy would be able to guarantee actual high-quality goods to meet everyone's needs, without bullshit strings attached (no "X as a Service"!), and without marketers constantly trying to ruin everyone's mood.

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

Power and status. People want something to bargain with, to show off, and to control other people. If money is not an option, information will do (and possibly cryptocurrency, which in some way is both).

aaron-santos 5y ago
Sorry, still struggling to understand here. Today power and status is derived from scarcity. What is an example of power or status not derived from scarcity?
- ctdonath 5y ago
  Energy is not free. Humans can always find something desirable/influential that requires more energy than is cheaply available. Ex.: the Star Trek replicator requires staggering amount of energy. Owning one, and affording the fuel, would provide power and status. Were energy cheap enough to give everybody one would enable something next level scarce and desirable/influential.
  - aaron-santos 5y ago
    That's disappointing. I was more interested in deducing the implications of power assuming scarcity was eliminated.
    - ctdonath 5y ago
      I appreciate the interest, but see it as pure fantasy. Essence of supply is energy, and we can ALWAYS use however much energy we can get our hands on. Think of the casual interplanetary/interstellar travel depicted in sci-fi: huge energy use for petty purposes. Think of the huge energy use of median western lifestyle, relative to historical norm sustenance living. Hate to pop the bubble. You are promoting me to further analyze/quantify modern vs sustenance living, in terms of sheer energy consumption.

ctdonath 5y ago

“Post-scarcity” is a myth. There will always be some limited-supply thing humans will value. Consider how utterly dissatisfied people are with abundant cheap food, clothing, water, fuel, housing, etc. today vs not all that long ago, having integrated new norms into mundane sustenance making abundance seem unattainable. An hour’s minimum wage today buys medieval luxury but for regulations demanding even better.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
It's more complicated than that. People are dissatisfied with abundance today because they're being made dissatisfied, in several ways: - Creating fake dissatisfaction is literally the cornerstone of sales and marketing. To get someone to buy stuff where they otherwise wouldn't, you have to create in them the state of being dissatisfied with what they already have (e.g. make them desire something else, or make them afraid of something). I'm not sure we can blame regular folks for being whiny if the richest industry on the planet is making them whiny on purpose. - Value engineering means things that were good and cheap, like food and clothing, keep getting worse over time, as companies keep trying to squeeze extra margins. Besides competitive pressure, this is also driven by inflation. Overall result: things that were good before are barely usable today, despite being abundant. - Related, some people recognize this abundance is being turned into a play to chain and exploit people. The more things are becoming services instead of products, the more people become dependent on providers. It's becoming clearly visible in developed countries: to make use of abundance, you need to keep running the rat race to exhaustion. We're reaching a ridiculous point that, in order to have the good fruits of our civilization, you have to be busy working so hard you that don't have time to enjoy them. - We're barely few generations into a subset of population having some sort of decent life. Call it being biased by time and place of birth, but frankly, I consider the average quality of life before late 20th century West to be tragic and unacceptable, and current one to be barely scratching the surface of how people should live. I see no reason to assume that people wouldn't stop consuming obsessively in a post-scarcity economy, if said economy would be able to guarantee actual high-quality goods to meet everyone's needs, without bullshit strings attached (no "X as a Service"!), and without marketers constantly trying to ruin everyone's mood.