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I'm not sure why digital scarcity would be considered a good thing. Mankind has spent its entire existence struggling with scarcity, hoping to one day find sal

I'm not sure why digital scarcity would be considered a good thing. Mankind has spent its entire existence struggling with scarcity, hoping to one day find salvation and move past scarcity. Now, thanks to all our technological advances, a post-scarcity world is finally within view, and people want to artificially reintroduce it? Why would we want to regress?

capableweb 4y ago
> post-scarcity world is finally within view Not against the entirely of your comment, but in what sense are we moving toward a post-scarcity world? There is a number of humans on the planet, with a limited number of resources, a limit which will be/has been reached at one point or another, as we cannot create new things from nothing. Scarcity is built-in in the fabrics of the universe, and I don't see how we could be moving towards something that doesn't have scarcity.
- kibwen 4y ago
  For many things, scarcity will always exist. But with the rise of the digital age, many things that were once scarce are now post-scarce. Our society is still coming to grips with this notion.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    What things have humanity historically struggled with in regards to scarcity that are now moving towards "post-scarcity"?
    - malermeister 4y ago
      Information, media, knowledge, art, culture, science.
kibwen 4y ago
> Why would we want to regress? Because of the allegory of the cave. We animals have spent a billion years struggling to survive in the face of cruel scarcity, we've built all our systems and societies around the notion of managing scarcity and allocating scarce resources, and now that we're faced with a legitimate instance of post-scarcity our animal brains reject it.
Barrin92 4y ago
because for many its impossible to conceive of value in any other sense than imposed by the market. As the saying goes, it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, even if that means doing to computation what is essentially the equivalent of driving around with the brakes pulled. just take the hexagonal twitter NFT profile pictures on twitter. Are hexagons in short supply? Pictures of monkeys? So why can't everyone have one? Because the entire value proposition is other people not having one for no rational reason.
- malermeister 4y ago
  That has been my perception too, but I wanted to avoid getting into a whole flamewar. It does seem like the only explanation that makes sense is ideological fervor. I'd prefer if our post-scarcity future didn't get messed up thanks to ideologues.

capableweb 4y ago

> post-scarcity world is finally within view Not against the entirely of your comment, but in what sense are we moving toward a post-scarcity world? There is a number of humans on the planet, with a limited number of resources, a limit which will be/has been reached at one point or another, as we cannot create new things from nothing. Scarcity is built-in in the fabrics of the universe, and I don't see how we could be moving towards something that doesn't have scarcity.

kibwen 4y ago
For many things, scarcity will always exist. But with the rise of the digital age, many things that were once scarce are now post-scarce. Our society is still coming to grips with this notion.
- capableweb 4y ago
  What things have humanity historically struggled with in regards to scarcity that are now moving towards "post-scarcity"?
  - malermeister 4y ago
    Information, media, knowledge, art, culture, science.

kibwen 4y ago

> Why would we want to regress? Because of the allegory of the cave. We animals have spent a billion years struggling to survive in the face of cruel scarcity, we've built all our systems and societies around the notion of managing scarcity and allocating scarce resources, and now that we're faced with a legitimate instance of post-scarcity our animal brains reject it.

Barrin92 4y ago

because for many its impossible to conceive of value in any other sense than imposed by the market. As the saying goes, it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, even if that means doing to computation what is essentially the equivalent of driving around with the brakes pulled. just take the hexagonal twitter NFT profile pictures on twitter. Are hexagons in short supply? Pictures of monkeys? So why can't everyone have one? Because the entire value proposition is other people not having one for no rational reason.

malermeister 4y ago
That has been my perception too, but I wanted to avoid getting into a whole flamewar. It does seem like the only explanation that makes sense is ideological fervor. I'd prefer if our post-scarcity future didn't get messed up thanks to ideologues.