Is a Post-Scarcity Society Possible? - aka Star Trek World

[Black Waltz]

no

 

[polonium]

The thing is, even Star Trek, where they could make stuff appear out of thin air using cheap/free power wasn't "post scarcity" completely. Scarcity means having to economise on something, and until we live forever in the singularity, there's one thing that will always be scarce: Time (and specifically, human use of time - labour) What the real world version of a Star Trek society would end up valuing is anything that relies on human labour. If you can have a suit of clothes appear out of a hole in the wall, that's one thing but to have a genuine hand-tailored suit made just for you would be something to covet. Generic IKEA-grade ornaments and prints of famours paintings around the house, or one-off hand made art that actually took someone effort to produce?

You can somewhat see this in history. Following the industrial Revolution there was some pushback against mass produced objects, and things like the Arts & Crafts movements were all about the value of human craftmanship

 

[WW 635]

no

Ok

 

[SwanDive]

The only way I could see post-scarcity ever being achieved would be through uploading human consciousness into some sort of VR, and leaving robots to cover the maintanence Matrix style.

 

[Un Platano]

For economic scarcity to completely go away there would have to be infinite everything to do it- infinite food, infinite raw resources, infinite labor, and so on, and that's obviously not possible, so in the most basic sense of the word it's impossible to elminate scarcity (except for air and seawater, those really are the only two resources where inifinite market availability is possible.)
In a less inclusive definition of scarcity it is possible for a certain sect of a population at a certain time to not experience scarcity to the effect that everyone has access to whatever they need within reasonable limits. This is the current state of the western world. This however requires either continuous expansion of production, which is unfeasible in the long run, or a constant input from other places, for example by taking coltan from third worlders who aren't using it themselves.
However, it's not sustainable in the long term for the entire world to eliminate scarcity forever for the sole issue of population growth. Food is adundant in the US because the technology behind food production and the area physically used to poduce it has been able to expand at a rate that outpaces the growth of the population. Technology may be able to advance indefinitely (which is probably a derp thoughts thread in its own right), but the fact of thr matter is that space is limited.
Even if algae culture was used to grow food across the entire surface of the Earth and the moon was used too, that doesn't do anything mord than increase the carrying capacity of Earth by a static number. Given how populations increase exponentially, the issue would only become more apparent as the population increases and inevitably outpaces the growth of development in food production, the only possible way for it to expand once all the space has been taken up.

 

[Caesare]

The kind of people ruthless enough to survive in Mad Max society, though, are called something else in times of civilization. They're called the "dregs of society" in civilization, and tend to end up ruling prison blocks.

That's not true. The dregs are just as worthless in prison as they are in civilized society. The people that thrive in prison are those who know how to adapt. Basically, if you are worthless and can't make it in regular civilized society, you will have an absolutely horrible time in prison. It's not all about being ruthless, you still need brains and what they call "the gift of gab" to back it up.

 

[Vex Overmind]

Short Answer: lol no

Long Answer:

In Star Trek, and other fictional post-scarcity societies, there was usually a major event of some kind (alien invasion, post-apocolyptic war, etc.) which not only killed 75%+ of the planet population, but ALL of the dregs of society as well (Roddenberry explained, explicitly, multiple times in TOS, the TOS movies, and early TNG, that the utopian future exemplified by the federation was the society that rose from the ashes of a humanity that engaged in nuclear war and widespread eugenics and genocide and spent the entirety of the 21st century and a bunch of the 22nd living more or less in Mad Max conditions.).

The only people who survived were the ones who were either ruthless enough to survive, or banded together with others and helped one another (as human tribes tend to do, really). Welfare Queens, Hobos, useless eaters, NEET's, Transgenderqueerkins? All dead as should be. Unless you find a way to deal with trash, you're gonna have nothing but a societal breakdown that will end up causing the Human species to stagnant and never move forward.

There's also the cycle in which civilized people get wiped out and get replaced by savages which has been documented and written about by sociologists since the Middle Ages starting with Ibn Khaldun. Can you imagine what a post-scarcity society of Salafists would look like?

And what do you think the Elite will do once the people they view as slaves, necessary parasites at worst, no longer benefit them? You think they will pool their resources in a post scarcity society that result in less power and resources for them, or will they just cull the beings they view as useless and maintain all the influence, power and resources with fewer people to question them?


Also we had an entire fucking series built around all the reasons why the ideal Star Trek society doesn't fucking work and isn't suited to handle all the tough problems of the galaxy... and it was the best series in the franchise.

Wasn't the reason why Stark Trek's Federation of Planets came to be was because of Humans in that verse engaged in genetic modification and started elevating themselves to some kind of god-hood and began conducting ruthless genocide against normal Humans? Khan I believe is one of them. Damn I should really get into Star Trek and I am getting off topic, so anyways.


In order for a Post-Scarcity Society would have to work is so that people are productive and have to work for something that is mutually beneficial for everyone in civilization. I don't imagine any of our supposed alien neighbors who have this system in place are just going to let members of their species sit on their fat-asses all day jerking it to porn along with playing video games and reading comics and manga all day. That would create a tremendous divide between the lazy and the workers and is one of the countless reasons why we Humans tend to have a penchant towards wiping out millions of our fellow species.

 

[ICametoLurk]

Wasn't the reason why Stark Trek's Federation of Planets came to be was because of Humans in that verse engaged in genetic modification and started elevating themselves to some kind of god-hood and began conducting ruthless genocide against normal Humans? Khan I believe is one of them. Damn I should really get into Star Trek and I am getting off topic, so anyways.


In order for a Post-Scarcity Society would have to work is so that people are productive and have to work for something that is mutually beneficial for everyone in civilization. I don't imagine any of our supposed alien neighbors who have this system in place are just going to let members of their species sit on their fat-asses all day jerking it to porn along with playing video games and reading comics and manga all day. That would create a tremendous divide between the lazy and the workers and is one of the countless reasons why we Humans tend to have a penchant towards wiping out millions of our fellow species.

Khan and his followers (known as Augments) were the product of Eugenics experiments. They developed into perfect humans in every way, and soon began to resent lesser humanity. This was the catalyst for the Eugenics War. During the war, the Augments nearly erased humanity as all of them (except Kahn) did massacres of everyone including their own people. Their regime started at what they believed to be the bottom of the gene pool, and eradicated mankind of everything that was lesser than them. The logic behind this was to eventually face a population worthy of of opposition, which they did. They were outsmarted and captured, then exiled from Earth on the Botany Bay for eternity.

After the first episode of TNG says that the World desperately tried to stop Races from killing each other by saying that you can't judge a person based upon what members of their race has done, telling someone to check their privilege was considered illegal. This did nothing as they had no authority. This had nothing to do with the Augments as the Augments were of every Race and Color and to boot their leader was a Poo in the Loo shitskin. These Race Wars ended up being full on World Wars. During these conflicts the troops were hooked on drugs and if they were disloyal they wouldn't get any drugs and suffer withdraws, this was done to maintain loyalty in an environment where all cities were nuked out of existence and a Dark Age appeared which consisted of everyone living Mad Max style which had Humanity reach a level all lawyers and attorneys were killed and anyone brought before a court was deemed guilty just by being there.

The most advanced place on Earth during this Dark Age, which caused the creation of the Warp engine, wasn't Area 51 or anything like that. It was a Militia compound in Montana and even then it was North Korean tier. This was made only possible when the World Wars ended as during the war Humanity reached such a low point during the World Wars that Militia compounds were considered viable military targets by a military alliances like that of the East Asians.

And after all this all the people who suffered Nuclear Illness or lived where there was Radiation was Holocausted out of existence by a Colonel Green. So all the Humans who lived in Star Trek had no mutations caused by radiation and were the fittest and best that Humanity had to offer.

Star Trek was made possible by everyone being Genocidal Manics who make Hitler look like a fucking Anarchist.

 

[AnOminous]

Wasn't the reason why Stark Trek's Federation of Planets came to be was because of Humans in that verse engaged in genetic modification and started elevating themselves to some kind of god-hood and began conducting ruthless genocide against normal Humans? Khan I believe is one of them. Damn I should really get into Star Trek and I am getting off topic, so anyways.

Khan was actually considered one of the more reasonable of that lot.

 

[Kiwi Jeff]

I found this thread because it was tagged chompsky honk

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

Get rid of democracy and bring back inherited monarchy.

When every living human has all the creature comforts they could want, eats whatever and plays in his personal holodeck all day, but only a certain class of the populace is trusted to govern, it might have a chance.

Think about it: if you don't have to fight for money or food or shelter or entertainment, what's left? The power to impose your will on other people. If democracy survives into that world it will only last until one guy is brutal enough to put chains on everyone else. (Just like communism today.) If rulers are treated like a different caste but unable to alter a core body of rights guaranteed to the citizenry - and if imposing your will on others is simply an unattainable goal to the average person - it might be stable.

To be the prevailing opinion gave you power and influence on how to govern.

And isn't this exactly what SJWs are banking on?

 

[Bassomatic]

Oh boy a thread I can econ sperg. Doing what I do every day, for money but I can use the word nigger here a lot more freely than my office.

Pure post scarcity is just not feasible, @Ruminous did a very good job spelling out why. On a macro scale, now on things like mirco scales yes. If I had my own personal nuclear power plant I am post scarcity I can run the heater and a/c in a death battle non stop and never see a .00000000001% use . If indeed my home was not to grow in needs, if indeed I was the only one able to use the power in this situation.

But then we get back into setting limits of what the model is, rules for use etc. If I had my own power plant, I would want to share it with my friends. So now we grow the load. If I had a lot of friends I may start seeing the limits of one power plant.

I do think we may see things become, past what we consider 1st world coming to the 2nd and 3rd world. Now the tech isn't right around the corner as many like to sell, but in 200 years maybe how you or I get a glass of tap water, not thinking of effort, cost, safety quality etc could be true for the poorest of the poor in bumfuck land.

Another problem, you can artificially build scarcity, it's a very common thing, hell people love scarcity, limited edition collectors ... slap those terms on a product you want to sell, feel free to jack the price up. So I think let's pretend hypothetically, there's a magic water machine that does the above situation. The engineers running it are scarce, and if they say fuck it, we want to charge or just want X to have it etc, we regrow a scarcity. So even in situations where we magic up a free lunch like star trek, if georgi leforge said, fuck you it's my day off your shit is broken. You are back to driving your own ass and buying Micky D's .

Now in the concept of controlled post scarcity, you'll have black markets quickly. Let's say we get 3 meals a day of what ever we want. But that's it. The AI over lords super government etc, ruled this. What fail safes do we have for the hustle? I'll skip lunch to sell to a fatty. Someone with an eating disorder getting a steak dinner selling to a weight lifter who wants to pack on... etc. This honestly, could be shown how fast it comes in from jails. Watch one of those documentaries those people gamble sell buy and make all sorts of shit. If you don't want to use the jail as it's the "character of those people" this stuff just as quickly and efficiently happens in a barracks. So it's a lot of nature of people.

With some tech that allows a good or service to be "worthless" we also have to assume, it would be a bubble of time, till the needs out grew the supply. For example, if I have 4 cell phones I cant use them all, is that post scarcity? It's probably a better analogy to use a perishable, like a hamburger. I can't eat all 4 but I will need to eat again at some point.

If we had the tech to feed every one on the planet now, it's very safe to assume two things one deaths drop and population increases. So when we hit 10 billion people are we 100% sure we will make a tech that allows us to feed that population vs current? So even using sci fi magic, we still aren't going to be post scarce we would just be a bubble of it.

I personally think more than you and I getting a holodeck, the closest will get to post scarcity is the poorest of the poor having just as little care of things the first world expects.

I tried to not get into the morality too much as I feel that's subjective, but if anyone likes I guess I can try to apply some more thought into that.

 

[Clownfish]

I don't think we re moving to a post scarcity future but a post human one.

 

[MaxKekkles]

People will be chasing status symbols once sustenance is no longer a problem. There will still be cheats, bullies, oppressors, strife and wars -- and their reasons will look extremely silly in our eyes.

Bingo. There are so many corporate ladder climbers out there who have more than enough. In a certain way it's funny to see them trip over their own dicks chasing things they absolutely don't need because they'll never be satisfied. On the other hand, it's infuriating because these are the same cultureless degenerates that shaped the current materialistic state of Western culture that is devoid of any spirituality whatsoever

 

[Dooly Tilly]

I would argue we're currently capable of post scarcity, ie technology exceeds the economic system.
For example vertical farming which could feed 30 trillion plus etc.

You can learn more about this by dling the free PDF called the Zeitgeist movement defined, and also check out the Venus project.

TZM dispenses with work, war, money, politicians, poverty and starvation.

 

[Bassomatic]

I would argue we're currently capable of post scarcity, ie technology exceeds the economic system.
For example vertical farming which could feed 30 trillion plus etc.

You can learn more about this by dling the free PDF called the Zeitgeist movement defined, and also check out the Venus project.

TZM dispenses with work, war, money, politicians, poverty and starvation.

No offense, but it's poor form in debate to say oh I have a point of view but you go read it. It's great you cited a thing to look at but what you should do is put your 2 cents in on it, then list the cite.

I touched on food, now ok vertical farming doesn't work with something I expanded on, water is a serious issue for that. Now let's pretend you have your water and food set where do we put 30 trillion people? If your reply is "well the same magic that let us feed and...." then we might as well talk about if every pebble on the ground was a diamond and some how were not effected by the supply.

This also places a lack of post scarcity not on simple economics, or human condition but a boogey man that's not really a fair thing to point a finger at since, there's no hard proof. Now this also makes the huge leap that all cultures want or could make this. Let's be real we live in a time where it's over all damned cheap to go to outerspace and there are people who get 1000s in aid and still do nothing but spread diseases and hack each other up with sharp things. I don't think people who can't figure how to plant seeds given to them and taught how to farm really care or think about uptoia.

 

[Dooly Tilly]

No offense, but it's poor form in debate to say oh I have a point of view but you go read it. It's great you cited a thing to look at but what you should do is put your 2 cents in on it, then list the cite.

I touched on food, now ok vertical farming doesn't work with something I expanded on, water is a serious issue for that. Now let's pretend you have your water and food set where do we put 30 trillion people? If your reply is "well the same magic that let us feed and...." then we might as well talk about if every pebble on the ground was a diamond and some how were not effected by the supply.

This also places a lack of post scarcity not on simple economics, or human condition but a boogey man that's not really a fair thing to point a finger at since, there's no hard proof. Now this also makes the huge leap that all cultures want or could make this. Let's be real we live in a time where it's over all damned cheap to go to outerspace and there are people who get 1000s in aid and still do nothing but spread diseases and hack each other up with sharp things. I don't think people who can't figure how to plant seeds given to them and taught how to farm really care or think about uptoia.

I gave vertical farming as an example of how we could have post scarcity for food, as for water, we can use desalination, however, if people are living in the wrong part of the planet, the logical solution would be to move to parts more productive.

I never suggested something relating to future population, only that we're beyond scarcity for food and quite frankly everything else given 7-10 billion.

The Venus project has blueprints for off the grid ecological cities on land and sea, TZM explains how we can accomodate these populations using ecologically friendly peak science/engineering.

You can certainly ask me more, but given this system is the only one that can provide mankind with everything it needs and most of what it wants, it might be a good idea to peruse the PDF.

 

[AnOminous]

I gave vertical farming as an example of how we could have post scarcity for food, as for water, we can use desalination, however, if people are living in the wrong part of the planet, the logical solution would be to move to parts more productive.

I never suggested something relating to future population, only that we're beyond scarcity for food and quite frankly everything else given 7-10 billion.

The Venus project has blueprints for off the grid ecological cities on land and sea, TZM explains how we can accomodate these populations using ecologically friendly peak science/engineering.

You can certainly ask me more, but given this system is the only one that can provide mankind with everything it needs and most of what it wants, it might be a good idea to peruse the PDF.

I bet you're a fat son of a bitch and that's why you want enough food to feed trillions of people.

 

[Dooly Tilly]

I bet you're a fat son of a bitch and that's why you want enough food to feed trillions of people.

Is this a joke?

 

[AnOminous]

Is this a joke?

Confirmed for fat.

I never joke. Ever.