Post-scarcity/The means for a post-scarcity society

Do we really have the resources for this kind of society?

Civilisation boils down to four fundamentals: material, energy, information and intelligence – none of which are in short supply. It is the current inefficient methods of use (and re-use) and perceived economic restrictions that make it appear that there are significant limitations to these resources.

Specifically, using currently existing technology...

• We can provide abundant clean water for everyone on Earth.
• We can produce enough food to feed at least 80 billion people without harming the environment
• We can meet our energy needs at least ten times over using clean, renewable energy
• We can build cheap, high-quality houses in a day or two, providing shelter for the billion people currently living in slums
• We can build technology of any complexity from free open-source designs and digitally fabricate them for the price of raw materials. (And these raw materials are themselves extremely abundant.) With every year that goes by, the methods of fabrication become more decentralized (see: Fab Labs) and the open-source designs become better, making this a more attractive option.
• We can spread cheap, mobile Internet access to everyone on Earth, allowing them to connect to the world's informational and educational resources. Through open collaboration, this can network vast amounts of human intelligence, which can greatly accelerate scientific and technological progress.
• We can make free educational materials available on the Internet, providing free education of unprecedented quality to everyone on Earth
• We can organize the World's medical knowledge, so that people have access to the highest-quality medical information and advice at all times.

How do we create an infrastructure advanced enough to provide all of this? See the open collaborative design and advanced automation pages.